Bitcoin sellers remorse.... how many people are kicking themselves for cashing out>?

[lxskllr]

When you turn in these bitcoins, where is the REAL money coming from?

I gets exchanged for other currency, and a fee is taken.

 

[ViviTheMage]

When you turn in these bitcoins, where is the REAL money coming from?

There are bitcoins bank setup that will convert to whatever currency you'd like via whatever method you'd like ...

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Let me just leave this here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0

At a glance which of those were exploits of bitcoin bugs vs. the digital equivalent of mail fraud, check kiting, etc?

You do get the difference right? Me writing bad checks vs. me scraping $.001 from every debit card transaction in north america

 

[Blackjack200]

well thats not true. You can't pay your mortgage with japanese yen either, you would need to convert it to dollars.

You're right, and that's why I have as much Japanese Yen as BitCoin. But if I lived in Japan I would have Yen.[/QUOTE]

Where as the chinese are trying as just about as hard as the USG to devalue the dollar by printing it(or counterfeiting it) 24/7

The Chinese don't want a weak dollar, they want a strong dollar so their exports will be cheaper here.

Full faith and credit of the USA? There is nothing but black markets(CASH) and its current status as a reserved currency keeping the dollar afloat. Take away one or both and come talk to me about the full faith and credit of the USA.

Actually the reason there is so much faith in the dollar is because our debt loads, while high, are still entirely managable, and our tax rates are comparitively low, so if more revenue needed to be raised to pay off debt, it could be done.

 

[Newbian]

At a glance which of those were exploits of bitcoin bugs vs. the digital equivalent of mail fraud, check kiting, etc?

You do get the difference right? Me writing bad checks vs. me scraping $.001 from every debit card transaction in north america

The problem is those can cause serious value shifts when you look at some compared to writing a bad check.

 

[dighn]

sounds like another bubble forming. bitcoins is just an endless cycle of volatile movements due to a high ratio of speculation to real use. are you a gambling man?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

When you turn in these bitcoins, where is the REAL money coming from?

Other people who want to buy the bitcoins from you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHJbSvidohg

 

[IceBergSLiM]

You're right, and that's why I have as much Japanese Yen as BitCoin. But if I lived in Japan I would have Yen.

The Chinese don't want a weak dollar, they want a strong dollar so their exports will be cheaper here.



Actually the reason there is so much faith in the dollar is because our debt loads, while high, are still entirely managable, and our tax rates are comparitively low, so if more revenue needed to be raised to pay off debt, it could be done.[/QUOTE]

Whatever the Chinese alledgely want all most all counterfeit bills come from china.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

The problem is those can cause serious value shifts when you look at some compared to writing a bad check.

Oh no doubt, just like when we had banks dissolving left and right a few years ago do to wide scale fraud, major fraud will in any system will cause major volatility

 

[Blackjack200]

Oh no doubt, just like when we had banks dissolving left and right a few years ago do to wide scale fraud, major fraud will in any system will cause major volatility

It did not cause major volatility to the value of the dollar, at least not like anything we're seeing with BitCoin.

 

[Aikouka]

I'm a bit bewildered as to why people are bewildered over Bitcoins. Excluding the way that they're generated, it's a very simple concept of a digital currency.

Here are a few basic parts behind it:
1) People "mine" bitcoins using programs called miners. These just accept the problem set and perform the calculations. If they perform the correct calculation, they "find" or solve the block. If you solve the block, you get the bitcoins.

2) Even back when I did it, people weren't solo-mining anymore. This meant that you operated in a Pool. Pools involved many people working to solve a specific block, and depending on how many calculations you did toward solving the block determines how many bitcoins you would receive when it was found.

3) This worked by having the pool accept the overall Bitcoins and then it sent them out to the individual. These would go into your "Bitcoin wallet", and some people used online wallets. Wallets are the most dangerous part of mining for most people as it's not much different from a real wallet. You store your coins in there, and online wallets were nice as they provided an always-on solution, but you were trusting someone else with your hard-earned "money." Bitcoins are traded by sending them to wallet locations. It's sort of like a private key, public key setup where you could generate a key to give to someone to use to send you money, but your private key was yours.

4) You could usually cash in with certain Bitcoin traders or places that accepted them as forms of payment. Bitcoin trading sites allowed you to submit a certain number of bitcoins and put them up for sale for a certain amount. Other people would place bids for a certain number of bitcoins for a certain amount. These sites would usually just match these up, and your bitcoins were sold.

I haven't mind in awhile, but I think that's about right. I'm not worried that I quit doing it, because I still have no faith in the Bitcoin currency. I'm not an economist, but I see very little value in a currency with that much volatility. I mean... would anyone trust the dollar if it had that much inflation/deflation over the past few years? Bitcoins have gone from $30 to below a dollar and are now above $70.

EDIT:

Oh, and if I remember correctly, Bitcoin transactions were sent in a sort of P2P stream fashion. You added your transaction to the chain, and it would be propagated.

 

[Newbian]

I think people are confused is because they don't understand why people would accept something like this when there is no backing for it like actual currency usually has.

Not to mention if someone can just up and make something like this in 2009 what's to say it's here for good or who decided that it actually has value.

 

[IAteYourMother]

I find it fascinating, especially because it forces you to think about what money/currency is in general and how we come to value and use it.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I am confused because I don't understand the drive behind it? Are people doing conglomerate computing (like folding@home) and occasionally they get rewarded with a bitcoin? What calculations are they running? Decoding alien transmissions?

The whole, you're just using your GPU to randomly solve meaningless blocks and get money for it, doesn't make sense. If bitcoins have a true value, then there's a worth behind them and a reason they are worth something. So far, I've never found anyone explain why they are worth anything or what process they are actually doing.

 

[purbeast0]

yeah i did not understand bitcoin as a currency, i thought it was something that people were paying for to actually use for something else, other than buying other stuff with it.

what i do not understand though is why it is actually valuable and why people want them. and who created these "problems" that are being solved, and why are there only a limited number of them, and why do you get "bitcoins" for solving them?

there are tons of rare things out there that aren't worth anything, and just because they are rare doesn't mean they are valuable. i've seen enough pawn stars to know this .

but i also guess it has to do with who is accepting these as currency and how many places accept them so you can actually get money/items for bitcoins.

 

[KeithTalent]

I think people are confused is because they don't understand why people would accept something like this when there is no backing for it like actual currency usually has.

Not to mention if someone can just up and make something like this in 2009 what's to say it's here for good or who decided that it actually has value.

Yeah, essentially this. It sounded like DC to me and I had no idea how something so ethereal could become a seemingly legitimate currency.

KT

 

[Anonemous]

I'll just leave this here as a possible explanation to the spike in bitcoin prices...

http://www.businessinsider.com/implications-of-the-cyprus-bailout-2013-3

 

[ultimatebob]

If you're bummed that you missed out on the Bitcoin craze while the currency was skyrocketing, you can always try mining Litecoins instead.

It's a similar process, except that Litecoins are much easier to "mine" with consumer grade hardware and they're still cheap at this point.

Oh, and I sold my Bitcoin for an Amazon.com giftcard when it was around $50. Only time will tell if that was a good idea or not...

 

[dighn]

I am confused because I don't understand the drive behind it? Are people doing conglomerate computing (like folding@home) and occasionally they get rewarded with a bitcoin? What calculations are they running? Decoding alien transmissions?

The whole, you're just using your GPU to randomly solve meaningless blocks and get money for it, doesn't make sense.

it's not doing "useful" computation. all it's doing is finding identifiers that cannot be duplicated within the consensus of the network (in greatly simplified terms), i.e. artificially scarce resources to which a monetary value can be assigned, based on consensus of the community. it's new, it's interesting, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I think people are confused is because they don't understand why people would accept something like this when there is no backing for it like actual currency usually has.

What's the dollar backed by? :biggrin:

Not to mention if someone can just up and make something like this in 2009 what's to say it's here for good or who decided that it actually has value.

I wouldn't have a hard time believing it was all one big avante garde art project, tbh.

 

[xj0hnx]

Yeah but why is a bitcoin worth money? Is it because you did something to cure cancer or something? I'm just confused as why someone would buy a block of number ran by a video card.

The only reason it has any worth whatsoever is because it is an "untraceable" currency, and pretty much it's only real use is in illegal transactions. I know, I know, "but you can buy computer parts, and other legal items/services". Yea, you can, but the only reason it lasted as long as it did was because people can buy drugs, and weapons with it, and it can be cashed in for real money without being able to be traced. If it weren't for the anonymity it wouldn't have caught on, much less lasted like it has.

 

[Newbian]

I wouldn't have a hard time believing it was all one big avante garde art project, tbh.

What I find funny is they don't even know who invented it as the guy credited for it, Satoshi Nakamoto, is not even a real person.

 

[Ns1]

What's the dollar backed by? :biggrin:

the mother fucking government of the united states.

 

[ImpulsE69]

The only reason it has any worth whatsoever is because it is an "untraceable" currency, and pretty much it's only real use is in illegal transactions. I know, I know, "but you can buy computer parts, and other legal items/services". Yea, you can, but the only reason it lasted as long as it did was because people can buy drugs, and weapons with it, and it can be cashed in for real money without being able to be traced. If it weren't for the anonymity it wouldn't have caught on, much less lasted like it has.

Everyone knows the government has the best hookers n blow.

it's not doing "useful" computation. all it's doing is finding identifiers that cannot be duplicated within the consensus of the network (in greatly simplified terms), i.e. artificially scarce resources to which a monetary value can be assigned, based on consensus of the community. it's new, it's interesting, but I wouldn't bet money on it.

And this is why I don't get it. It sounds like a pyramid scheme. If there is no useful computation, then someone could change/make up their own rules at some point. Or you could have 500 different bitcoin similar variaties. I just don't get it. I looked into it years ago, and just scratched my head at how it was valuable.

 

[Ns1]

I don't understand this spike AT ALL; if bitcoins are so expensive now, how can people buy bitcoins to buy drugs?

I mean, let's say FOR EXAMPLE an 8 ball of coke was 10 bitcoins, which a while ago was ~$200. That same 8ball is now $760? Or do the sellers have to reduce their ask to a more reasonable amount, like 4 bitcoins?