I have a lot more confidence in Bitcoins now



  • The biggest Bitcoin exchange is Mt. Gox. I always thought that was a strange name, especially since it is in Japan and that definitely doesn't seem like a Japanese name. Then I found this.

    Mt.Gox is a Bitcoin exchange based in Tokyo, Japan. Mt.Gox was established in 2009 as a trading card exchange. Its name was originally an initialism of Magic The Gathering Online eXchange when it was an exchange for Magic: The Gathering Online playing cards. However, the site abandoned Magic in 2010 and became a bitcoin exchange.



  • "Instead of selling imaginary cheesecake, we are now selling imaginary puppies."



  • Tandy started as a leatherworking company, and Nintendo started with playing cards.

    What's your point?



  • @spamcourt said:

    Tandy started as a leatherworking company, and Nintendo started with playing cards.

    What's your point?

    @Ben L. said:
    "Instead of selling imaginary cheesecake, we are now selling imaginary puppies."



  •  So if Bitcoin isn't money, what is it-- apart from a colossal pyramid scheme and waste of electricity? Can it be more seen as options, stocks or bonds.. or? I'm a dummy with respect to this.

    That is, concerning this.

    I do not respect bitcoin.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @dhromed said:

    So if Bitcoin isn't money, what is it-- apart from a colossal pyramid scheme and waste of electricity? Can it be more seen as options, stocks or bonds.. or? I'm a dummy with respect to this.

    That is, concerning this.

    I do not respect bitcoin.

    You can view it as currency speculation, which is a business that can make or lose you a lot of money, very quickly (especially as there's no central bank backing it — by design, of course — which means that the only big players in it are speculators). The only way to make it worse would be to start taking out futures on it. If you've got a huge appetite for risk, go for it. I haven't.

    The general concept of having a currency with cryptographically-secured transactions is reasonable (and the code/theory to make it work is quite interesting) but there's all sorts of problems with the implementation and the culture that's accreted around it.



  • The difference is that Nintendo still makes playing cards.



  • @El_Heffe said:

    The biggest Bitcoin exchange is Mt. Gox. I always thought that was a strange name, especially since it is in Japan and that definitely doesn't seem like a Japanese name. Then I found this.

    Mt.Gox is a Bitcoin exchange based in Tokyo, Japan. Mt.Gox was established in 2009 as a trading card exchange. Its name was originally an initialism of Magic The Gathering Online eXchange when it was an exchange for Magic: The Gathering Online playing cards. However, the site abandoned Magic in 2010 and became a bitcoin exchange.

    That 'Mt.' prefix is meant to look like the abbreviation for mountain, but I've always preferred to pronounce the two letters separately, so: M T Gox, to rhyme with "empty box", because odds are when you open it up you won't find anything in it.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

    @DaveK said:

    That 'Mt.' prefix is meant to look like the abbreviation for mountain, but I've always preferred to pronounce the two letters separately, so: M T Gox, to rhyme with "empty box", because odds are when you open it up you won't find anything in it.
     

    I've prononuced it like a mountain.  "Mount Gawk"-- as in let's gawk at this trainwreck.



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @DaveK said:

    That 'Mt.' prefix is meant to look like the abbreviation for mountain, but I've always preferred to pronounce the two letters separately, so: M T Gox, to rhyme with "empty box", because odds are when you open it up you won't find anything in it.
     

    I've prononuced it like a mountain.  "Mount Gawk"-- as in let's gawk at this trainwreck.

    mount and gawk are both commands on GNU/Linux.

    This pointless tidbit brought to you by the letter 7.



  • @dkf said:

    @dhromed said:
    So if Bitcoin isn't money, what is it-- apart from a colossal pyramid scheme and waste of electricity? Can it be more seen as options, stocks or bonds.. or? I'm a dummy with respect to this.

    That is, concerning this.

    I do not respect bitcoin.

    You can view it as currency speculation, which is a business that can make or lose you a lot of money, very quickly (especially as there's no central bank backing it — by design, of course — which means that the only big players in it are speculators). The only way to make it worse would be to start taking out futures on it. If you've got a huge appetite for risk, go for it. I haven't.

    The general concept of having a currency with cryptographically-secured transactions is reasonable (and the code/theory to make it work is quite interesting) but there's all sorts of problems with the implementation and the culture that's accreted around it.

     

    So, it's equal to any other currency in circulation, except it is not used by any government and has thus no standardized physical tokens.

    ...And has better controlled inflation and no sudden political devaluations.

     

    Is there a currency left that is bound in value to something physical, like gold? I live in europe and just had the sudden realization that the central bank has been digitally printing bills to keep the economy up for the last half a decade.

    Digressing a bit, when do you all think the system's going to come down? And how? Controlled de-valuation? Crash and burn?

     

     


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @OldCrow said:

    ...And has better controlled inflation and no sudden political devaluations.

    Actually, there was a major devaluation when China recently outlawed financial companies from using bitcoin.



  • @OldCrow said:

    Is there a currency left that is bound in value to something physical, like gold? I live in europe and just had the sudden realization that the central bank has been digitally printing bills to keep the economy up for the last half a decade.
    Yes. The currencies are bound to the national product, commodities, etc.

    Gold is very wrong thing to bind to a currency, because its natural cost times available volume is too low to match the required amount of money to sustain the economy.

    You guys may be unhappy at the thought of OPEC getting rich because of (allegedly) artificially high oil prices, but what would you say at the gold-mining third world countries that will reap 10000% profits from injecting gold into gold-sustained currency system?



  • @OldCrow said:

    Digressing a bit, when do you all think the system's going to come down? And how? Controlled de-valuation? Crash and burn?

    Quick! Buy gold!!! RON PAUL!!!!!



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @OldCrow said:
    Digressing a bit, when do you all think the system's going to come down? And how? Controlled de-valuation? Crash and burn?

    Quick! Buy gold!!! RON PAUL!!!!!

    ...and then Bond crashes it into the Golden Gate


  • @dhromed said:

    So if Bitcoin isn't money, what is it-- apart from a colossal pyramid scheme and waste of electricity? Can it be more seen as options, stocks or bonds.. or? I'm a dummy with respect to this.

    It is every bit the same as any other finite commodity: its price is determined by demand and supply. Supply is quite closely controlled (albeit automatically).

    Thus it isn't realy much like options/stock/bonds or another currency as those have more concrete value:

    • stocks provide a portion of future profits as dividend (this is why more profitable companies have higher stock price, at least in theory)
    • options are stock derivatives
    • bonds provide a promise of future payments from a government/business/entity (and a better/more solid/more believable promise is valued more by asking a lower interest from the promiser)
    • Currency is harder, but currency has at least a "promise" from the government to keep using it and trust that you can use it in its country (or zone like with the euro)

    Oil, fuel, food and other products have intrinsic value because we like to use them (and thus want them). Bitcoin is thus mostly like a finite commodity that has very little intrinsic value, like gold (which only intrinsic value is that it is pretty so you can make jewelery) or something like bones or seashells (which frequently was used as currency in islands). That does not make it a very bad currency per se, but it does make it a potentially volatile one (and right now it is, and a volatile currency isn't a very good currency)



  • @dtech said:

    It is every bit the same as any other finite commodity: its price is determined by demand and supply. Supply is quite closely controlled (albeit automatically).

    Thus it isn't realy much like options/stock/bonds or another currency as those have more concrete value:

    I realized I'm contradicting myself a bit here, I meant to say something like "In the basis it's the same as any other commodity: <snip>. But it differs significantly from <snip>"



  • @dtech said:

    like gold (which only intrinsic value is that it is pretty so you can make jewelery)
     

    There are a fair number of properties to gold that allow it to be used where other metals would no be appropriate...



  • @TheCPUWizard said:

    There are a fair number of properties to gold that allow it to be used where other metals would no be appropriate...
     

    Funny that... Seems Gold and *Coin both have some practical application beyond speculation. As you mentioned, Gold has a vast array of industrial applications where other materials would be unsitable, semiconducter manufacturing, etc. In a simmilar fashion, anonymous cryptocurrencies can be used where traditional currencies would be ineffective. Y'know, for buying drugs, ordering a hit, or simply laundering money. So aside from speculation. There are some practical uses. 



  • But can you wrap a slice of lemon around a BitCoin and then use it to smash your brains out?


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