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Professional Traders Show Interest in Bitcoin

101 points by mrb 15y ago

api 15y ago
Bitcoin's "demise" is greatly exaggerated. I still think it's a big thing.
- keen 15y ago
  Agreed. It will be interesting to see what happens at the end of this year when the block reward halves.
  - javert 15y ago
    What do you expect to happen? What are the possibilities?
    - stuhood 15y ago
      Since the block reward is the only source of 'new' bitcoin, the rate of bitcoin creation will be halving as well. So there will be two competing effects: 1) 'monetary' inflation will decrease, because the rate of bitcoin creation will drop from 7200BTC/day to 3600BTC/day 2) miners will be earning half as much when denominated in BTC If the decrease in inflation doesn't cause a large enough corresponding increase in price, mining would be less profitable, causing some fraction of miners to drop out, and meaning longer transaction confirmation times (for at most 2 weeks, while the network adjusts to the change in capacity). My guess is that the huge change in inflation will adequately compensate both miners and investors, and cause a significant enough increase in price to avoid lengthening confirmation time. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply EDIT: by inflation, I mean 'monetary' inflation, rather than price inflation.
      - herge 15y ago
        Inflation is not directly proportional to the supply of money. If a bitcoin's value versus the US$ drops (as it has since June), there is heavy inflation as the price of goods and services (measured in bitcoins) goes up.
      - maaku 15y ago
        > ...and meaning longer transaction confirmation times (for at most 2 weeks, while the network adjusts to the change in capacity) To be clear, it wouldn't be two weeks. The network adjusts every 2016 blocks, which under normal circumstances would be approx. 2 weeks. Typically it's a little less as new hash power comes online, but in the case of a drastic loss of hash power, it could be much much longer than two weeks. We saw that with namecoin where it took almost half a year between adjustments (or would have, if developers hadn't intervened with merge mining).
    - keen 15y ago
      I don't really have any expectations; there are so many variables to consider. My guess, however, is that the price will be more stable, given that the effect of any bad news won't be so amplified by the minting of new coins. Currently, the supply of coins is growing rapidly (just over 30% per annum). After the block reward halves, that rate will be below 13% per annum. As others have mentioned, I'm also curious to see how the halve will affect the network's hashing rate (and therefore, security).
ScottBurson 15y ago
There's a great punch line if you read all the way to the end. But I'll save you the trouble. The set up: Banking and payment expert Simon Lelieveldt believes [Bitcoin users] are living on borrowed time. "There is always a power base underlying a currency," he said, speaking at the Digital Money Forum in London in March. "Bitcoin is not going to fly because there is no central bank or power base. It's doomed to fail." And then, at the end: "To be clear, I would say the same about the euro," said payment expert Lelieveldt.
- otoburb 15y ago
  I thought this link was a Reuter's April Fool's joke.
  - stuhood 15y ago
    Dated April 2nd.
gfodor 15y ago
It would be interesting to hear a real quants take on the utility of having bitcoin as a (small) asset class in your portfolio. How much correlation does bitcoin have to any other asset class? I'd wager very, very little, making it a strong candidate for diversification. That said, it's overall volatility might offset the reduced expected volatility you'd see in your portfolio by holding some.
- dailyllama 15y ago
  Bitcoin is exceptionally illiquid. You can't buy or sell any meaningful quantity of them without moving the market. As such, it's not really a viable asset class unless your net worth is ridiculously insubstantial.
- nandemo 15y ago
  I'm not a quant, but you also have to consider the operational and regulatory risk of dealing in bitcoins. The people who are currently trading bitcoins don't necessarily have to follow the same regulations that banks and trading houses do. Also, consider that over 80% of the foreign exchange market is accounted by 6 currencies or so: US dollar, yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc and Australian dollar. Traders barely bother with the Brazilian real or Indian rupee, even though these currencies are much more likely than bitcoin to be around in 5 years.
  - jerguismi 15y ago
    > even though these currencies are much more likely than bitcoin to be around in 5 years. How so? As bitcoin is a p2p network, it is likely to be around whatever happens. The only thing that could happen would be that internet breaks down - pretty unlikely, I think. Even when internet breaks in several pieces, each "local internet" will just use their own bitcoin - the block chain will be split in to several. After the two "local internets merge", the blockchain which has more computation behind it, will win. In discussion, you should separate two things a) bitcoin's economic value/utility b) bitcoin network itself. I'm pretty sure that bitcoin itself will be here about forever, however it is pretty unclear if anyone will use it.
3pt14159 15y ago
Bitcoin is mathematically flawed. There are at least two attack vectors that someone with a million bucks or less could pull that would require manual overrides on the code, which, as nobody likes to talk about, is possible. edit: Disclosure: I made a bunch of money getting in on bitcoin early and then selling out at around $22. It was at that point where I looked at the whole system and determined the attack vector. Also the only way to get bitcoins securely is to buy and sell them for cash. And even then there are ways of figuring out who is who. The next thing will be the right thing, but this isn't it. The long term picture for bitcoin, unless completely overhauled, is bleak.
- sgornick 15y ago
  Care to describe further this attack vector? A 50% + 1 attack is about in the $10+ million range, but still doesn't "override the code".
  - 3pt14159 15y ago
    You don't need majority. And the attack isn't about stealing money, its about taking down the system and making people lose faith in it. Remember: to make money all you need is some unlikely put options and for knowledge of market instability.
    - keen 15y ago
      It sounds like you're talking about market manipulation. So, please enlighten us: how is Bitcoin "mathematically flawed"?
- mrb 15y ago
  You are off by an order of magnitude. It would take $9M of FPGAs to have a clear probability of performing a majority attack https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67969.msg821634#msg821634 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67969.msg821634#msg8... This is without even counting hosting costs: power, cooling, space.
  - 15y ago
sgornick 15y ago
"A spokeswoman for the German Bundesbank told Reuters it was not classifying Bitcoins as e-currency. She said EU law required only euros to be accepted as legal tender, but this was superseded by German law that allows those involved in a contract to determine its content. So Bitcoin is at least not illegal there." It wasn't even a year ago when the German organization BVDW (The Federal Association of Digital Economy) put out an alert: "We assume that, on substitute currencies' like Bitcoins sooner or later be banned by legislation," - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11061.msg158226#msg158226 http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11061.msg158226#msg15...
soup10 15y ago
Bitcoin has several huge flaws that make it just a toy. The first is that it is insecure. As seen by the constant incidents of stolen and lost bitcoin's. Physical currency is much more secure than a string of bits sitting on a hard drive, the solution to this is having bitcoin banks that assume responsibility for the bits, but that defeats the purpose. The second is that it's much less convenient than cash. The third is that the distribution system is set up as ponzi scheme where early adopters reap enormous amounts of wealth if they recruit more bitcoin users(which is why the bitcoin astroturfing is so persistent), people generally don't like participating in ponzi schemes. In addition to this the implementation is known to be technically flawed and vulnerable to attack. The system is easily disrupted by a sufficiently interested and funded party.
- ewillbefull 15y ago
  I don't know if this is a troll post, but I'll humor it anyway. > The first is that it is insecure. As seen by the constant incidents of stolen and lost bitcoin's. If this is the standard by which you deem a currency insecure, you may want to be more specific. Physical goods are also susceptible to theft. > Physical currency is much more secure than a string of bits sitting on a hard drive This isn't really substantiated by anything, and I implore you to read about paper wallets. But you're also ignoring another useful characteristic of bitcoin: coins cannot be counterfeited, unlike any other currency. They are crytographically ensured. The security of your funds is not inherently endangered by the network by any means. I can accept bitcoin donations anonymously and there is no way they can be targeted without additional context. With physical transactions, there is always location. > The second is that it's much less convenient than cash. Cash is much less convenient than digital transactions. Have you heard of a credit card? Cash is only useful for anonymity. > The third is that the distribution system is set up as ponzi scheme where early adopters reap enormous amounts of wealth if they recruit more bitcoin users(which is why the bitcoin astroturfing is so persistent), people generally don't like participating in ponzi schemes. The currency incentivizes its own operation, yes, but this is not even close to a ponzi scheme -- you should look that term up. The technology does not distinguish early adopters from other participants.
  - 15y ago
dsrguru 15y ago
"The Royal Canadian Mint ... said Bitcoin's biggest problem was that it is not backed by anything." I don't think that's why consumers would fear it being unstable. It's probably more that they're afraid most of the current users aren't using it for its intrinsic advantages over regular currencies, but are rather investing in it as speculators (and will, therefore, eventually pull out). Since it was designed in a way that made early adopters super rich, it lends the appearance of being the very kind of investment bubble that Bitcoin advocates criticize the banking industry for creating.
- kylebrown 15y ago
  > it lends the appearance of being the very kind of investment bubble that Bitcoin advocates criticize the banking industry for creating. The quote encoded in the genesis block by Satoshi (creator of bitcoin) was probably a criticism of fractional reserve banking rather than investment bubbles per se. "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" But there are plenty of bitcoin advocates who tirelessly criticize bitcoin speculators for causing its price volatility. Not that price volatility is unique to the bitcoin market (its the same with oil, stocks, gold/silver, commodities in general, real estate, bonds, etc. etc.).
adrianwaj 15y ago
I have a gut feeling that the bitcoin price will eventually explode. I don't know when, how or why, nor am I putting my money where my mouth is, so I don't say it. But unless some other substitute system is devised, I suppose the crash of fiat currencies would cause it. But in this case I think gold would be better.. or would it? add: I heard someone talk about India buying oil from Iran using gold now - if gold replaces the petrodollar, that might trigger something. The sanctions on Iran could ultimately affect bitcoin by way of new oil trade with Iran in gold that doesn't include the Western bloc of nations. Oil4bitcoin might make an interesting website.
Iv 15y ago
To be fair, everything that has a price vraying in time will interest traders.
jakejake 15y ago
I've read about Bitcoin various times and I'm confused about what "mining" is. Maybe somebody could set me straight? Are Bitcoins currently generated by anybody who wants by solving difficult math problems? If so, is this CPU power being used for something, or just a way to tie the value of the currency to something tangible?
- user0398 15y ago
  The CPU cycles are contributing to global warming, and are a means for controlling the rate at which new coins are mined. Unless you have a large dedication to hardware tuning and a decent amount of real money, attempting to mine is of no use unless of course your heater is broken and you need your computer to keep you warm.
- stevenwagner 15y ago
  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
- Animus7 15y ago
  Mining is peculiar in that is serves multiple goals. On the one hand, it solves the problem of seeding the network with coins. Otherwise, how could you kick this off in a fair way? Secondly, mining "solidifies" transaction blocks, which acts as transaction verification for the network. Mining basically acts as prevention of "double spending" of coins. Finally, mining keeps the money supply scarce (necessary for any currency) because despite everything just being bits, you can't just fake new coins without expending enormous amounts of computing power -- you need to prove you've done the work by solving hashes. The bitcoin wiki has pretty good technical explanations of all of this.
  - jakejake 15y ago
    thanks for the info, i guess i was wondering if all the computational power was being used for some purpose like the SETI project. It sounds like at least part of it is used for maintaining the bitcoin network itself.
user0398 15y ago
Bitcoin has already served it's purpose anyway. It already is a currency that people exchange for goods and other government issued currencies. It doesn't really metter what anyone thinks. Bitcoin has already succeeded. The only question that you need to ask is; Is it something you should invest in? My personal answer? No. But who cares what I think. It's simply non productive, and frankly non-scientific, to stand up and say "Here's why bitcion is going to fail..." because it doesn't matter, it has already served its purpose.
wisty 15y ago
That's great news, as they are sure to stabilize it, right?
patrickk 15y ago
A GitHub project for trading bitcoin: https://github.com/viorels/mtgox-trader https://github.com/viorels/mtgox-trader I've no interest in trading bitcoin, but I am interested in learning about making Python bots (in order to hack web games for fun and profit), which is how I found this project. A quick google search turned up this blog about bitcoin trading for those who are interested: http://btctrading.wordpress.com/ http://btctrading.wordpress.com/
_k 15y ago
Two questions: 1. When a country limits capital flow, it sometimes becomes impossible to move your money out of that country. Doesn't Bitcoin solve that problem? 2. I have very little knowledge about how it actually works and how secure it is. How secure is Bitcoin ? Are governments via ISPs able to recognize packets that contain Bitcoins ? Or do you need to use ssh ?
- wmf 15y ago
  OK, so you want to give cash to some guy who will give you Bitcoins in exchange. But then he's stuck with cash that he can't move out of the country, so he has to charge very high fees if he's willing to deal at all.
- stuhood 15y ago
  Bitcoin runs well over Tor: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tor https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tor

101 points by mrb 15y ago

api 15y ago

Bitcoin's "demise" is greatly exaggerated. I still think it's a big thing.

keen 15y ago
Agreed. It will be interesting to see what happens at the end of this year when the block reward halves.
- javert 15y ago
  What do you expect to happen? What are the possibilities?
  - stuhood 15y ago
    Since the block reward is the only source of 'new' bitcoin, the rate of bitcoin creation will be halving as well. So there will be two competing effects: 1) 'monetary' inflation will decrease, because the rate of bitcoin creation will drop from 7200BTC/day to 3600BTC/day 2) miners will be earning half as much when denominated in BTC If the decrease in inflation doesn't cause a large enough corresponding increase in price, mining would be less profitable, causing some fraction of miners to drop out, and meaning longer transaction confirmation times (for at most 2 weeks, while the network adjusts to the change in capacity). My guess is that the huge change in inflation will adequately compensate both miners and investors, and cause a significant enough increase in price to avoid lengthening confirmation time. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_Currency_Supply EDIT: by inflation, I mean 'monetary' inflation, rather than price inflation.
    - herge 15y ago
      Inflation is not directly proportional to the supply of money. If a bitcoin's value versus the US$ drops (as it has since June), there is heavy inflation as the price of goods and services (measured in bitcoins) goes up.
    - maaku 15y ago
      > ...and meaning longer transaction confirmation times (for at most 2 weeks, while the network adjusts to the change in capacity) To be clear, it wouldn't be two weeks. The network adjusts every 2016 blocks, which under normal circumstances would be approx. 2 weeks. Typically it's a little less as new hash power comes online, but in the case of a drastic loss of hash power, it could be much much longer than two weeks. We saw that with namecoin where it took almost half a year between adjustments (or would have, if developers hadn't intervened with merge mining).
  - keen 15y ago
    I don't really have any expectations; there are so many variables to consider. My guess, however, is that the price will be more stable, given that the effect of any bad news won't be so amplified by the minting of new coins. Currently, the supply of coins is growing rapidly (just over 30% per annum). After the block reward halves, that rate will be below 13% per annum. As others have mentioned, I'm also curious to see how the halve will affect the network's hashing rate (and therefore, security).

ScottBurson 15y ago

There's a great punch line if you read all the way to the end. But I'll save you the trouble. The set up: Banking and payment expert Simon Lelieveldt believes [Bitcoin users] are living on borrowed time. "There is always a power base underlying a currency," he said, speaking at the Digital Money Forum in London in March. "Bitcoin is not going to fly because there is no central bank or power base. It's doomed to fail." And then, at the end: "To be clear, I would say the same about the euro," said payment expert Lelieveldt.

otoburb 15y ago
I thought this link was a Reuter's April Fool's joke.
- stuhood 15y ago
  Dated April 2nd.

gfodor 15y ago

It would be interesting to hear a real quants take on the utility of having bitcoin as a (small) asset class in your portfolio. How much correlation does bitcoin have to any other asset class? I'd wager very, very little, making it a strong candidate for diversification. That said, it's overall volatility might offset the reduced expected volatility you'd see in your portfolio by holding some.

dailyllama 15y ago
Bitcoin is exceptionally illiquid. You can't buy or sell any meaningful quantity of them without moving the market. As such, it's not really a viable asset class unless your net worth is ridiculously insubstantial.
nandemo 15y ago
I'm not a quant, but you also have to consider the operational and regulatory risk of dealing in bitcoins. The people who are currently trading bitcoins don't necessarily have to follow the same regulations that banks and trading houses do. Also, consider that over 80% of the foreign exchange market is accounted by 6 currencies or so: US dollar, yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc and Australian dollar. Traders barely bother with the Brazilian real or Indian rupee, even though these currencies are much more likely than bitcoin to be around in 5 years.
- jerguismi 15y ago
  > even though these currencies are much more likely than bitcoin to be around in 5 years. How so? As bitcoin is a p2p network, it is likely to be around whatever happens. The only thing that could happen would be that internet breaks down - pretty unlikely, I think. Even when internet breaks in several pieces, each "local internet" will just use their own bitcoin - the block chain will be split in to several. After the two "local internets merge", the blockchain which has more computation behind it, will win. In discussion, you should separate two things a) bitcoin's economic value/utility b) bitcoin network itself. I'm pretty sure that bitcoin itself will be here about forever, however it is pretty unclear if anyone will use it.

3pt14159 15y ago

Bitcoin is mathematically flawed. There are at least two attack vectors that someone with a million bucks or less could pull that would require manual overrides on the code, which, as nobody likes to talk about, is possible. edit: Disclosure: I made a bunch of money getting in on bitcoin early and then selling out at around $22. It was at that point where I looked at the whole system and determined the attack vector. Also the only way to get bitcoins securely is to buy and sell them for cash. And even then there are ways of figuring out who is who. The next thing will be the right thing, but this isn't it. The long term picture for bitcoin, unless completely overhauled, is bleak.

sgornick 15y ago
Care to describe further this attack vector? A 50% + 1 attack is about in the $10+ million range, but still doesn't "override the code".
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  You don't need majority. And the attack isn't about stealing money, its about taking down the system and making people lose faith in it. Remember: to make money all you need is some unlikely put options and for knowledge of market instability.
  - keen 15y ago
    It sounds like you're talking about market manipulation. So, please enlighten us: how is Bitcoin "mathematically flawed"?
mrb 15y ago
You are off by an order of magnitude. It would take $9M of FPGAs to have a clear probability of performing a majority attack https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67969.msg821634#msg821634 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67969.msg821634#msg8... This is without even counting hosting costs: power, cooling, space.
- 15y ago

sgornick 15y ago

"A spokeswoman for the German Bundesbank told Reuters it was not classifying Bitcoins as e-currency. She said EU law required only euros to be accepted as legal tender, but this was superseded by German law that allows those involved in a contract to determine its content. So Bitcoin is at least not illegal there." It wasn't even a year ago when the German organization BVDW (The Federal Association of Digital Economy) put out an alert: "We assume that, on substitute currencies' like Bitcoins sooner or later be banned by legislation," - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11061.msg158226#msg158226 http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=11061.msg158226#msg15...

soup10 15y ago

Bitcoin has several huge flaws that make it just a toy. The first is that it is insecure. As seen by the constant incidents of stolen and lost bitcoin's. Physical currency is much more secure than a string of bits sitting on a hard drive, the solution to this is having bitcoin banks that assume responsibility for the bits, but that defeats the purpose. The second is that it's much less convenient than cash. The third is that the distribution system is set up as ponzi scheme where early adopters reap enormous amounts of wealth if they recruit more bitcoin users(which is why the bitcoin astroturfing is so persistent), people generally don't like participating in ponzi schemes. In addition to this the implementation is known to be technically flawed and vulnerable to attack. The system is easily disrupted by a sufficiently interested and funded party.

ewillbefull 15y ago
I don't know if this is a troll post, but I'll humor it anyway. > The first is that it is insecure. As seen by the constant incidents of stolen and lost bitcoin's. If this is the standard by which you deem a currency insecure, you may want to be more specific. Physical goods are also susceptible to theft. > Physical currency is much more secure than a string of bits sitting on a hard drive This isn't really substantiated by anything, and I implore you to read about paper wallets. But you're also ignoring another useful characteristic of bitcoin: coins cannot be counterfeited, unlike any other currency. They are crytographically ensured. The security of your funds is not inherently endangered by the network by any means. I can accept bitcoin donations anonymously and there is no way they can be targeted without additional context. With physical transactions, there is always location. > The second is that it's much less convenient than cash. Cash is much less convenient than digital transactions. Have you heard of a credit card? Cash is only useful for anonymity. > The third is that the distribution system is set up as ponzi scheme where early adopters reap enormous amounts of wealth if they recruit more bitcoin users(which is why the bitcoin astroturfing is so persistent), people generally don't like participating in ponzi schemes. The currency incentivizes its own operation, yes, but this is not even close to a ponzi scheme -- you should look that term up. The technology does not distinguish early adopters from other participants.
- 15y ago

dsrguru 15y ago

"The Royal Canadian Mint ... said Bitcoin's biggest problem was that it is not backed by anything." I don't think that's why consumers would fear it being unstable. It's probably more that they're afraid most of the current users aren't using it for its intrinsic advantages over regular currencies, but are rather investing in it as speculators (and will, therefore, eventually pull out). Since it was designed in a way that made early adopters super rich, it lends the appearance of being the very kind of investment bubble that Bitcoin advocates criticize the banking industry for creating.

kylebrown 15y ago
> it lends the appearance of being the very kind of investment bubble that Bitcoin advocates criticize the banking industry for creating. The quote encoded in the genesis block by Satoshi (creator of bitcoin) was probably a criticism of fractional reserve banking rather than investment bubbles per se. "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" But there are plenty of bitcoin advocates who tirelessly criticize bitcoin speculators for causing its price volatility. Not that price volatility is unique to the bitcoin market (its the same with oil, stocks, gold/silver, commodities in general, real estate, bonds, etc. etc.).

adrianwaj 15y ago

I have a gut feeling that the bitcoin price will eventually explode. I don't know when, how or why, nor am I putting my money where my mouth is, so I don't say it. But unless some other substitute system is devised, I suppose the crash of fiat currencies would cause it. But in this case I think gold would be better.. or would it? add: I heard someone talk about India buying oil from Iran using gold now - if gold replaces the petrodollar, that might trigger something. The sanctions on Iran could ultimately affect bitcoin by way of new oil trade with Iran in gold that doesn't include the Western bloc of nations. Oil4bitcoin might make an interesting website.

Iv 15y ago

To be fair, everything that has a price vraying in time will interest traders.

jakejake 15y ago

I've read about Bitcoin various times and I'm confused about what "mining" is. Maybe somebody could set me straight? Are Bitcoins currently generated by anybody who wants by solving difficult math problems? If so, is this CPU power being used for something, or just a way to tie the value of the currency to something tangible?

user0398 15y ago
The CPU cycles are contributing to global warming, and are a means for controlling the rate at which new coins are mined. Unless you have a large dedication to hardware tuning and a decent amount of real money, attempting to mine is of no use unless of course your heater is broken and you need your computer to keep you warm.
stevenwagner 15y ago
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
Animus7 15y ago
Mining is peculiar in that is serves multiple goals. On the one hand, it solves the problem of seeding the network with coins. Otherwise, how could you kick this off in a fair way? Secondly, mining "solidifies" transaction blocks, which acts as transaction verification for the network. Mining basically acts as prevention of "double spending" of coins. Finally, mining keeps the money supply scarce (necessary for any currency) because despite everything just being bits, you can't just fake new coins without expending enormous amounts of computing power -- you need to prove you've done the work by solving hashes. The bitcoin wiki has pretty good technical explanations of all of this.
- jakejake 15y ago
  thanks for the info, i guess i was wondering if all the computational power was being used for some purpose like the SETI project. It sounds like at least part of it is used for maintaining the bitcoin network itself.

user0398 15y ago

Bitcoin has already served it's purpose anyway. It already is a currency that people exchange for goods and other government issued currencies. It doesn't really metter what anyone thinks. Bitcoin has already succeeded. The only question that you need to ask is; Is it something you should invest in? My personal answer? No. But who cares what I think. It's simply non productive, and frankly non-scientific, to stand up and say "Here's why bitcion is going to fail..." because it doesn't matter, it has already served its purpose.

wisty 15y ago

That's great news, as they are sure to stabilize it, right?

patrickk 15y ago

A GitHub project for trading bitcoin: https://github.com/viorels/mtgox-trader https://github.com/viorels/mtgox-trader I've no interest in trading bitcoin, but I am interested in learning about making Python bots (in order to hack web games for fun and profit), which is how I found this project. A quick google search turned up this blog about bitcoin trading for those who are interested: http://btctrading.wordpress.com/ http://btctrading.wordpress.com/

_k 15y ago

Two questions: 1. When a country limits capital flow, it sometimes becomes impossible to move your money out of that country. Doesn't Bitcoin solve that problem? 2. I have very little knowledge about how it actually works and how secure it is. How secure is Bitcoin ? Are governments via ISPs able to recognize packets that contain Bitcoins ? Or do you need to use ssh ?

wmf 15y ago
OK, so you want to give cash to some guy who will give you Bitcoins in exchange. But then he's stuck with cash that he can't move out of the country, so he has to charge very high fees if he's willing to deal at all.
stuhood 15y ago
Bitcoin runs well over Tor: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tor https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tor