BitCoin

Quote: EvenBob

Dollar wise, yes. Any gambler knows that from painful
experience.

Now I understand about other people wanting the sarcasm detector.

I hope that EvenBob meant this as a joke.

If he did, it was pretty damn funny in the context of saying I don't know what money is.

If he didn't, I feel like a pretty evil person picking on him.

It's at $167 at this moment. Still more than a tenfold increase since January 1.

It is sort of inevitable that the value would fluctuate wildly. I mean you can't increase at this kind of exponential rate forever. Even if it stays between $100 and $200 for the rest of this year, the accomplishment would still be remarkable.

The Bitcoin forums are loaded with people who
bought for $90 10 days ago and sold for $250
today. Thats a hell of a profit in 10 days, I don't
blame them for bragging.

I just want to make one comment about Bitcoin: there is nothing wrong with using your "mad money" to speculate in bitcoin.
What is "mad money"? It's that 3% or less of income that is left over after you pay your bills and fund your savings and retirement (if you don't already have a retirement account at work).
Other uses for "mad money" include speculating on art, coins, stamps, and lending to relatives.

Bitcoin might be better than lending to some relatives.

Somebody on a Bitcoin forum just cut right to the bone.
He said nobody will ever trust a currency that can fluctuate
more than 50% in one day. The speculators have taken over
and they'll ruin it, just like they ruin everything.

I don't know that it's speculation that is causing the value to go up and down. The liquidity is sort of ill-defined when it's affected by DOS attacks.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/13/04/10/215227/bitcoin-value-collapses-possibly-due-to-ddos

I would chalk it up to potentially just growing pains.

If it gets more mature, this isn't going to happen forever.

If it dies completely, it will be worth zero.

All the other assumptions are that it continues to operate as it is. I find that even more unlikely than it dying.

It will mature is the most logical assumption for what will happen.

There may even come into existence a dedicated physical network to facilitate the liquidity needed for the currency to be more mature than it is now being built on top of the broader internet.

Nobody does DOS attacks on the NASDAQ. They could do a DOS on Ameritrade, but not on the NASDAQ itself.

Things can mature, I think, given time and understanding.

If anything this wild fluctuation is the signal that we are in the riskiest moments where the most opportunity to profit exists .. trading risk for profit is generally how things work.

This thing is really new still given the assumption that it continues to be the leading digital currency going forwards.

Quote: Ahigh

It will mature is the most logical assumption for what will happen.
.

Mature into what? Not a currency. Nobody wants or will accept
a currency that can fluctuate 50% in an afternoon. People freak
when the USD goes up or down at all. 50% fluctuation isn't
a currency, its a collectible. Thats what they do, fluctuate wildly.

Quote: Ahigh

Thank you so much for your valuable contribution to the forum.

You are welcome.

I believe Thomas Jefferson said that paper is only ghost of money. When have we gotten so disconnected with what is real, that we buy into something with zero intrinsic value.

Ahigh you are awarded 1 WOV coin.

The result of the panic doubled my number of bitcoins in 24 hours.

If I can do this 32 more times, I will have all the bitcoins.

I didn't research far enough along to understand, but I wasn't sure if mining bitcoins is easier when fewer people are doing it. IE: mine them when they are cheaper just like buy them when they are cheaper is the way to go.

I don't think so. The difficulty increases more slowly when fewer people are doing it, which was important in the early days, but it's at enough of a plateau now that that doesn't really matter. I think it's basically a slot machine on which your pool is making so many billions of pulls per second, and they pay you for the number of your near misses.