BitCoin

So I bought a couple of bitcoins today at the ridiculously high prices after all the news.

Just curious if anybody else has any stories of bitcoins.

Especially anybody who enjoyed the run-up on bitcoin values in the last few weeks. Curious who has had four figures or more in bitcoins that got a little boost lately from all the craziness.

When Bitcoins were 70 cents I had $4000 to invest specutively and I was gonna buy silver or bitcoin, flipped a coin and decided to buy silver instead of btc. I meant to buy at least $1000 of btc but never got around to it. If I had bought that 4000 in btc it would be worth 3/4 of a million bucks right now. I get so sick thinking about it that I could puke.

Oh and I lost 40% on the silver.

I know how you feel. I have more in Silver than in BitCoin and seeing that run up lately is crazy.

I think I might actually buy some lite coin specutively. There will be 4x as many lite coins as bit coins but they are only about 5 bucks, plus payments clear a lot quicker with lite coins as they use smaller blocks.

Quote: Ahigh

I know how you feel. I have more in Silver than in BitCoin and seeing that run up lately is crazy.

It looks a lot like a bubble but I honestly do not believe that it is. I think it is just starting to gain its footing.

Bitcoin thread at Diversity already.

Exchange is currently under a DDoS attack and price fell off to 120 from 140.

This is some weird stuff and I am uncomfortable with it. The value seems to tied to a permanently fixed supply. I think its a bubble. If investing short term, why not. Long term, no way, I'll keep mine in gold. How permanent is that fixed supply?

Well, I bought the coins for "research" just to learn more about how it works but putting some equity in the spot so I could stir it around and see what happens.

I got in a 134.99 earlier this morning for 2.06 units.

To me:

* It's simply the first viable platform for a currency outside of a fiat currency.
* It's the only electronic cash that is possible to use without paying any fees or overhead to anyone
* It's gives you speculative power to go in and out without worry for overhead and fees related to trading (or excessive trading if you like to gamble by trading)
* It's open and the author continues to be anonymous and the code is open and available
* It's decentralized

To everyone else:

* It's easily "hacked" -- (wrong really at least depending on how you define "hacked")
* It isn't really a "safe" place to put your money (So far at least it has been from my perspective!)
* It's too complicated to get coins (I had to dig a little bit, but I figured out how to get set up for $6.00 taking cash to a bank where I don't even have an account!)
* It can't possibly work long term

What I predict is that soon, more and more people will start telling the real story about bitcoin and as more people realize that technology is a better way to have a currency than a government or even gold, all money will go towards technology (maybe even ala Revelations in the Bible?)

Anyway, I may start putting more of my short-term free cash into BitCoin just for shits and giggles because it's sort of fun to do.

Right now, it seems like the media wants to write it off as sort of "hackable" .. but the prices will be more stable as the network gets more tolerant of attacks.

I'm not worried about the hacks. I think those that are just aren't that smart about the long term viability of bitcoin.

There are some interest analysis on the system here that are worth a read on the technical side of things. So much of the mass media has done a crappy job of explaining how it all works.



http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/04/03/1425292/the-problem-with-bitcoin/?

It's an interesting idea, the concept of a universal virtual currency. It essentially negates the impact of foreign exchange....sorta. Just like how the Euro unified currencies across so many countries in Europe, the bitcoin is an alternative mechanism that can unify countries across the globe.

But here's the problem. There's so real monetary institution that is backing the exchange of bitcoins. At least with the Euro, you have the ECB. And while it may be easier to counterfeit a dollar bill than it is to hack a computer code, the reality is some smart ass will be able to write a program that gives him a billion bitcoins (which is more than actually exists).

There was some chatter about bitcoins being pegged to a gold standard, but this is just as restrictive. I'm surprised at how quickly bitcoins are gaining adoption. However, the run-up is supply and demand driven. There's a lot of demand that will be released over time until you hit the max number of bit coins allowed.

Great idea at 70 cents. Is it really smart at $104 to a bitcoin now? No idea. You're trading a non-physical currency. There is only so high it can go. Won't be infinite. Remember there has to be some parity relationship internationally. Imagine the country of Bitcoin. A cheeseburger will cost x bitcoins which has a certain equivalent in dollars, pounds, yen, euro etc.

Bitcoins are like collector Elvis plates. There's a limited
number made and they go up in value till they hit a
plateau. They're only worth the price because the
demand sets the price. If collectors lose interest,
prices plummet.



Just think Beanie Babies. Remember those?