or stainless.
hey a business Idea for you..

Well, I haven't read any of the new replies below this, but there are a number of options. The easiest is probably something like coinbase. You can also check out localbitcoins.com and meet up with someone in person at a Starbucks or something and just pay in cash.



You would have to get a wallet first to get a new bitcoin address. Think of a digital wallet, but you can have unlimited credit card slots, and each slot is a new address where you can store coins. The wallet can be stored online through a website like coinbase if you trust them with your coins, or you can store them locally on your computer. You should do some reading up about the offline wallets though to make sure you're comfortable with that.
 

Yes.  Even worse, actually, since nobody else can use the bitcoins ever again.


Could be worse, he could've bought a pizza.

I'm going to throw another vote for Coinbase.  That's pretty much as easy as it gets.  You can buy coins directly from them and them move them about as you please.  Anyone who is starting out fresh should start there.

After going through all the motions of learning about Bitcoins, I'm sticking with Coinbase for purchasing and storing online and Paper Wallets in a fire safe for my offline storage.  That's it, end of list.  I'm not even going to bother with offline digital wallets.  I don't see the point.

If I'm storing coins, I don't want them on anything connected to the internet or subject to media failure (USB drive failure, HDD failure, CDRW scratching).  If I'm using coins, then an online wallet is much more flexible and universally accessible.

Thanks, guys.  I'll look into the sources you mentioned, especially Armory and Coinbase.

One of the problems with being an expat is the new FATCA regulations (I'm really wondering why they didn't just say what they meant, and put the 'T' on the end) which require disclosures of your banking information if you have more than US$10,000 or its equivalent in any account.  So far, I've kept mine below that by moving funds to the U.S. and by giving my landlord about a year's rent in advance at this point, but I really don't want to do either (and besides, my lease is up in another year and I don't think I'll renew -- they built another high-rise in front of my building, and my view is ruined).

It was far from my last Satoshi :)

Bitcoin now hits a record-breaking $500. It has risen over $100 from $400 in only 4 days.



The Chinese continue to put pressure on the price, surpassing Mt Gox in volume over the last 30 days.



When do you think the price will reach equilibrium? Or are we instead seeing a bubble pushed primarily from the asian markets?

the exhanges are fixing the price, the consumer is not.





its all rigged. Not to say you cant make money in a rigged game, just watch out.

 

It's just as rigged as the stock market.

Is it physically possible for you to make an actual point with facts and logic instead of just calling people names?

I know you think what you're writing is clever, but in truth you are actually embarrassing yourself.

Going to come cashing down next week after the new US coin validation scheme gets announced.

I've read your posts, I'll accept your displeasure at my ideas as evidence they are probably OK with people of average or better intelligence.

people make vast fortunes off of bubble markets

I know guys who retired in their 20s off of the stock market dot-com boom

during the time of the dot-com boom there were countless magazine articles assuring everyone that "the old rules don't apply anymore" because of the internet and that a PE ratio of infinity was normal because of this newfangled internet.

in other words, it wasn't a bubble market, paying $500 a share for an internet dogfood company with no employees and no product was the "new normal".


It appears that you guys think that:   bitcoin is good.

that's the only actual information presented in this thread so far

I am starting to get the idea that you don't have any clue at all

Honestly, that fact makes me want to buy these things, who knows how high that crack-pipe-style consumer excitement will drive these things?

bubble markets aren't driven by knowledge

See?

You actually think that trading internet bicker bullshit counts as "ideas" and is impressive.  Well, it's not.  It's garbage.

You've been challenged and you cannot form an opinion from facts and logic.

It's not a "challenge" when your opponent is handicapped.

I love intellectual discourse, I have no idea whether or not you do, I've simply never seen you, personally, engaged in any.

Hold up...





At no point have you asked us to explain anything to you in this thread. You came in dismissing and discounting everything there is to bitcoin while not presenting a humble interest to learn whatsoever.





You obviously have no interest in actually learning anything about how it works, coupled with the fact that you're so darn argumentative, it defeats the purpose of even trying to explain anything at all to you without having to suffer your wrath at the same time.





Now you say we don't know anything about it, regardless of the fact that those of us who have been claiming bitcoin's benefits have been following and studying it for at least months if not years.





At no point have any of us stated that bitcoin isn't volatile or that it would be a good idea to hold BTC long term ... or even that it's not artificially inflated.





If you are actually curious, then maybe you should learn to post with a little more humility and tact.





We put in the time to learn about it. Maybe you should watch a few tutorials on Youtube or do some reading first before questioning our intellect or knowledge on the subject.
 
 

Bubble pop. I think, at least.

I am reminded of historic things like the Hunt Bros and the silver market.

It's like everything else, if you hold it while it goes up, you're "smart". If you hold it when the bubble pops, you're "unlucky".

My opinion is that the old rules DO apply to Bitcoin but that's what makes me even more excited about it as a speculation opportunity.  The "real value" of a bitcoin depends on the liquidity needs of the cryptocurrency market.  There are several uses of Bitcoins that regular currency has trouble competing with, some illicit, some not.  The question that you need to wrap your head around is how big  those markets are and how much liquidity do they need to function.  Take that number and divided it by the number of bitcoins in circulation and you more or less have your answer.

Some of the big ones include:
1)  Online Gambling (Americans are playing online poker today by transfering funds in via Bitcoin)
2)  Drugs
3)  Peer 2 Peer Payment
4)  Internet Commerce (for those who do not, can not, or don't want to use credit cards)
5)  Getting around government controls (Bitcoin is popular in Iran at the moment)

So what are the cash needs of those markets combined?  The current market cap of Bitcoin is $5 Billion and much of that is being hoarded rather than transacted.  I can not say whether that market cap is ahead or behind it's actual current utility but I can picture a future where $50 Billion worth of liquidity is needed to serve those markets.  

That's not to say that I think this is a sure thing.  I'm prepared to to take a total loss if the protocol gets compromised, abandoned, or replaced by a superior cryptocurrency.  That said, as an "old rules guy" who survived the dotcom bust, I think Bitcoin is a pretty good risk / reward proposition.

Yeah, silver was headed to $100/oz by everyones claims not that long ago either.

Discounting the fast increase in price is a bit foolish by those in this thread. It is seeing bubble like tendencies at the moment.

When will it pop? Who knows.

How are they fixing the price?

Not a rhetorical question, I'm genuinely interested to hear it.

I'm not sure I would understand their motivation to do so since they make a pretty nice commission simply connecting buyers and sellers.

I got in before Mt. Gox.

The calls for $100/oz silver where based on predictions of massive inflation.  That hasn't materialized yet, so neither has $100/oz silver.

An interesting thing has happened as we can now see more than a decade down the road since the dot com bubble.  It turns out that the people leading the "growth now, profit later" charge weren't wrong, they were just misunderstood and their ideology was over subscribed.  There are several dot com holdovers like Amazon and Ebay which DID eventually realize their inflated valuations.  The people who paid 100x earnings and up for those companies back in 1999 weren't wrong at the end of the day.

The problem with the dot com bubble is that people took what was a rather insightful observation about the potential of the internet and applied it with a shotgun approach because nobody really knew how it was going to pan out and which ideas would stick.  It's 1999 for Cryptocurrency as we speak.  Nobody knows how it is going to pan out but people know that it's going to be big one way or another.  It may be Bitcoin that remains as a standard in 10 years or it may be some alternate form waiting in the wings or not yet even invented.  It's impossible to predict but that doesn't make it completely foolish.

I agree that there are bubble tendencies though.  Just like the dotcom bubble you had people who saw the potential of the internet and then the frothing masses who threw darts at ticker symbols that they didn't even know what companies they represented.  There will most certainly be some big booms and some big busts in this space before things finally shake out.

They can't...for now.

"A unique form of terrorism"

I'm probably going to show my ignorance here but, what do you actually get when you get a bitcoin?

Just some internet code?

And I cashed out in coinbase at $485 per coin, Mt.Gox is nicer at $520 but I've read how far backlogged they are in wiring money to American bank accounts that it's not worth the hassle.

Hopefully it will crash spectacularly so I can get back in for more, but I suspect the price will level off for a bit at $500ish and I'll just dollar cost average back in over time.

I decided to cash out so I can have some monies to plan for Christmas.

A number assigned to a bit coin address that you own.  The address is secured by a 256-bit private key which only you know.  If you disclose that private key to anyone, they can take your money with a key stroke.

Because bitcoins are assigned to addresses with private keys, you can actually print them out on paper, send bitcoins to that address, and then put them in your safe so that the private key doesn't exist anywhere online that can be hacked.  Lose the key and your money is gone.  It's basically just like having cash in your pocket.  Here is an example of a "paper wallet".



The address on the left is what you send the bit coins to in order to take them "offline".  The private key on the right is what someone would need to spend them (or steal them).  The fact that the paper wallet looks like money is really only for vanity purposes.  You could simply just print the two QR codes on a blank sheet of paper and call it a day or even write down the address and private key in your own handwriting on a napkin.

Someone correct me if I misspoke on any of those points.

The thing is, the market for silver was established at that time. No one was discovering silver as a currency, so the price movements were a direct result of market manipulation.

Bitcoin isn't established. It's not a stock, it's a currency - its value vs. the USD reflect the desire of people to own or use it.

When a commodity like silver suddenly skyrockets in price, it's obvious that eventually it has to crash; nothing fundamental about silver has changed. When Bitcoin takes off, it could be manipulation or it could be new, sustained demand in the market. It doesn't have to come back down to where it was, because the fundamental nature of what it is has changed.

I believe the current surge in price is mostly fueled by media and speculators. even so, I believe it was stabilize far above where it was when it began to increase, because the Chinese are coming on board during the runup.  Further, you're beginning to see Bitcoin in places where it never would have been seen a year ago (like on a Travelers' Box in Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey.

I firmly believe Bitcoin has reached the point where it is no longer a toy. The market cap of all Bitcoins in circulation is greater than Afghanistan's GDP. It's at least as viable as the majority of the world's national currencies.

The No Agenda podcast reports on bitcoin regularly.   I thought the most popular use was buying from silk road.  Now that they are government managed sales may be increasing.

What is government managed?

next week its going to crash! get out now..

its happening!

ETA wife bought 3 coins friday at 430. And she added a bitticker to her PC. Now I get to hear about what its at all the time now.

still waiting

you haven't typed anything into this thread except insults and you're calling people stupid

kudos on your big intellectual victory

and here we have a straw man presented in a sneering manner

Seems the only market that a certain crowd refuses to belief isn't a bubble, is that for Gold.

That crowd has been awful, awful quite lately.

the question I would have is - what would it take to make people sour on it and not accept it as payment?

If I'm reading this correctly you believe that it is presently too big to fail

Thanks, good explanation.

Is there anything to keep the creators from swiping your bits or is it just like government backed electronic funds?

Just curious, do you think everyone in this thread is unaware that you're playing the role of contrarian?

You've made no effort, whatsoever, to present yourself as educable and have made even less effort to educate yourself. You simply aren't worth teaching. Now shut up.

If someone *else* were to ask me a thoughtful question or make a stance that didn't chiefly consist of "hurr durr, bubble" I'd be happy to talk to *them.*

You? You're only worth making fun of.

people have been telling me that the end of the world was at hand and gold would be buying my survival food ration since I was a kid back in the 1970s.

so far Armageddon has failed to materialize but I have to admit that the debt situation is now so bad that I think the idea of hyperinflation is fairly realistic

don't forget that the USA bankrupted itself with the Vietnam war and then inflated its way out of it

If even a fraction of the hyperinflation crowd put their money where their mouth was, they would be leveraging the shit out of themselves buying hard assets on credit.  I'd probably have 4-5 mortgages right now, and max out all my credit cards withdrawing cash to buy gold.

Of course, its easier to spout off on the internet.

And there were others who suddenly had paper fortunes, the bubble popped, their dotcom crashed, their stock became worthless...and they were there in their 20s with no job and no money, but owing the IRS over a million dollars in capital gains taxes.

How could you owe capital gains taxes if you have net loss of capital?  If they had sold and realized such gains, they wouldn't have lost their money when the bubble popped.  Are you saying they sold a bunch of stock, sat on the cash for 6 months or more, then re-invested it?

The subject of whether or not bitcoin is a bubble is basically the main thing people discuss about it, all over the internet.  That includes really really smart people who actually know what they're talking about.

Apparently though, that idea is completely outrageous to you guys.

Some people wrote some thoughtful stuff into this thread but it's mostly just angry bbbbbbbrrrttttttttttttttt  (fart sound).

You cannot stomach people disagreeing or even questioning what you think.

I'm sorry I fucked up your day

what a waste of time

The ledger against which all transactions are recorded and confirmed is decentralized and distributed amongst all of the miners and electronic wallets participating in Bitcoin.  You can even download a copy of it yourself.  If a person tried to create or pass fraudulent Bitcoins, they would be rejected by the network.  Since no one person controls the ledger, it is very difficult to manipulate it.  

The analogy would be if there were 4 of us in a room (A, B, C and D), and we've all received IOUs from each other and we all know how much those IOUs are worth.  If A tried to lie to B about how much he owed A, C and D would chime in and call bullshit because they are up to speed on who owes who as well.  Now multiply that times thousands and you have the Bitcoin confirmation process.

The security of Bitcoin is that it's all laid out there on the table for all eyes to see.  Everybody knows what addresses have what quantity of coins so trying to fake a transaction would be extremely challenging.  I will never say never but it's a pretty good security scheme all things considered.  The fact that it has gotten this far is a testament to the design.  The biggest risks out there are theft due to carelessness like not protecting your private keys or doing business with shady exchanges.  If you keep them on your computer, just remember that hackers are going out of their way to infiltrate computers and sniff out private keys.  I'm a big fan of paper wallets for any significant sums as this basically gets your private keys and hence your coins "off the net".  I've also got a reasonable amount of confidence in Coinbase as an online wallet.  They keep the majority of customer funds in cold storage and then insure the rest with regular security audits.  I trust a band of nerds in San Francisco much more than I trust my own ability to secure my computer from hackers.

Never commit hubris by saving "never" though.  Make no mistake that Bitcoin is still the wild wild west so don't bet the farm on it.  As time goes on, security will improve as third party online wallets learn good procedures to protect against theft and insure against loss in the same that banks do today.  

Lol, holy fucking shit you're dramatic.  Wow!  You're worse than a 10 yr old girl who just got her Barbie taken away.

The funny thing is, you're the one who can't handle the opposite view.  That's why you say the things you just did.  Not a single person insulted anyone who disagreed with their view except you.

Oh and don't flatter yourself, the impact you've had on my day is the equivalent of that noise you made above.  No matter what you say you'll always be a fart in the wind.

im trying to understand  something about this, how is a bitcoin created and who creates it? with all the talk about fiat currencies, isnt this a nother currency backed up by nothing but full faith and credit of other currencies being used to pay for it? and should there be a internet crash of some sort emp and all that other stuff wouldnt this be worthless without a internet protocol? if a state is trying to get sales tax to be collected on internet sales why would it allow this to spread unless they can get their hands on some of it as well?

ive seen it going up but i dont understand it and dont trust it because i dont understand it. it seems like another version of the real estate market where everyone said it was always going up because there was a limited quantity so it had to increase in value but that only worked so long as there were buyers that were capable of paying. the govt shored up a fantasy real estate market for a while by allowing even those with no ability to pay to enter the market, that failed eventually because it was not possible for the loans to be paid. so why is there a inherent value to a bitcoin other than speculative value and who gains from the speculation? would the us govt or any govt for that matter sell a bond denominated in bitcoin? can i by a gun at a store counter using bitcoin? can i pay for a airline ticket using this currency and would it be at the prevailing value or at some discount for the merchant to redeem it? these are serious questions and from whatever reading i have done i cannot find a answe rto these questions

Might be doable, but people would really have to trust me.

So for mtgox I see they require physical verification of your identity. What's the point of the verification? Is this to prep for any future financial regulations and laws that will pertain to bitcoin?

Youse guys are nuts.....
I'm putting my money in Dutch Tulip Bulbs