18 ms·

I Bought a Bitcoin

110 points by benwoody 14y ago

IheartApplesDix 14y ago
~or~ how to bring in new investors to your bubble.
- lwat 14y ago
  The next crash is gonna be painful. My popcorn drawer is well stocked.
michaelochurch 14y ago
I bought BitCoin and I liked it Hope my wallet don't mind it... It felt so wrong, it felt so right, let's transact tonight
- reaclmbs 14y ago
  Hey, I know you hate Bitcoin and think it's a pyramid scheme and everything, but isn't it good for smart people, and wouldn't its success create fricture among the elites (like you are always advocating)?
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    It's a simplification to say that I hate it. The work is impressive. If there were a Bitcoin course on Coursera on how the thing works, I'd sign up and take it. I don't like the forced deflation. Deflation encourages hoarding and protects elites. With Magic: the Gathering (Mt. Gox has me connecting the two) the hoarding behavior is actually good because it keeps unbalanced cards out of play. With BitCoin, it's going to lock a lot of the stuff up with hoarders. That could destroy it, insofar as if no one's using it, the market becomes illiquid, compromising value and possibly causing panic sales. The thing certainly isn't ready for prime time as a currency. Also, there's a pretty easy (and legal) way one could destroy BitCoin. Right now, there are no reserve requirements, because it's not a real currency. Start a bank. Make sure it's a limited liability corporation, because this is a bit risky (bank runs). Let people deposit BTC and then lend them out. Now you've put a money multiplier on BTC, and without the reserve requirement, that's unbounded. Goodbye, scarcity. Goodbye, $147 BTC. At that point, it's unclear that BitCoin has any value, until regulations come in regarding reserve requirements.
    - dasmoth 14y ago
      A fractional-reserve BitBank will only be noticeably inflationary if it can take a substantial amount in deposits, then find some people to borrow them. Since most of the "convenience" arguments for keeping traditional currencies in a bank rather than under your mattress don't seem to apply here, the only reason anyone's going to make a deposit is if the interest on offer appears to justify the risk. Without the backing of a government deposit insurance scheme, I reckon that translates to both a high interest rate AND probably some degree of transparency to convince depositors it's not a complete scam. Could be an interesting project, but hard to see it causing a major shift in BTC values.
Mahn 14y ago
I keep wondering whether I should be buying bitcoins now, but I have mixed feelings about it. I'm pretty sure its value will continue going up for a while, but I guess I'm still skeptical.
- ihsw 14y ago
  Like any investment it requires careful analysis, personally I prefer to pay attention only to the 200-day simple-moving average. Granted in the past 200 days it has changed a lot, however recent interest in it indicates that it may continue going up. Past performance isn't an indicator of future performance but it's a decent gauge of trends. Most news articles call it speculative because the people using it can afford to lose the USD value of the coins and there simply isn't enough mass adoption behind it to maintain its value (which would be true), so trade cautiously and ignore news about it. If you must then re-allocate your investment in or out on a monthly basis.
- camus 14y ago
  it's basically a bet,but you have more chance to win than in a casino, or at the lottery.
  - tudorizer 14y ago
    wow, seriously? Ignorance is strong in you.
- paulhodge 14y ago
  If you just want to dip your toes in the water, you could always start mining. Doesn't take any initial investment or bank information or anything like that, just processing power.
  - mistercow 14y ago
    Aren't the odds of making a single bitcoin as a lone miner, with an ordinary computer, over any sane period of time pretty microscopic at this point? To make any money that way, you'd need to join a mining pool, and at that point you're not really just dipping your toes in the water anymore.
account_taken 14y ago
Not sure if Bitcoins are a good investment. All it takes is a western country (say Switzerland) to create an online currency and Bitcoins will sink faster than a Carnival ship.
- ihsw 14y ago
  The Royal Canadian Mint developed MintChip[1] however there has been little interest. There's a scathing Forbes blog post[2] too, if you're interested. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintChip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintChip [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/04/12/mintchip-misses-the-point-of-digital-currency/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/04/12/mintchip-m...
  - haakon 14y ago
    Note, however, that the "scathing Forbes blog post" was written by the Bitcoin Foundation's press secretary.
- throwawayG9 14y ago
  Do you even Bitcoin? One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority like a bank or government (ie: they can't steal from the people by printing money).
  - rdtsc 14y ago
    > Do you even Bitcoin? No but I lift, .... mostly functions, sometimes they have multiple variables ;-) > One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority Q: What can a central authority with power to imprison and/or garnish your wage manipulate? A: anything it damn wants. Yes the Fed Gov. can't print more bitcoin it sure can come after you with a rubber hose expecting to get some sales, or money exchange tax some rather-made-up-new-law-tax. A few high profile case about bitcoin used for terrorism, drug, illegal porn, money laundering and these new laws won't be hard to make.
    - deleted 14y ago
31reasons 14y ago
Bitcoins are just a right to participate in a digital crypto economy. They don't have any value in themselves. Its like holding passes to a show in the big theater. If the show doesn't start you passes are worthless. If there is any meaningful possibility of a show in the theater, you might get lucky for holding those passes. The main problem is that people who will participate in the show also need to get the passes to actually act out the show but if everyone just keep holding their passes for no good reason, well then there may not be a show. From many bitcoins forums, people are hoping that its USD rate climb to $1000 or even $1 million, which is pretty ridiculous. People who have thousands of bitcoins, can probably keep holding on to them after selling 50% of them. But people who gonna buy it for more than $100 , they gonna panic at a first sign of decline. I suspect its not that far off.
- vacri 14y ago
  Isn't that the same as a dollar bill?
  - 31reasons 14y ago
    Yes, but dollar bill is running a successful show for the last 2 hundred years without any blackouts, while BitCoin need to START the show in the first place. It needs to sort of start a sustainable chain reaction. EDIT: But the bitcoin deflation has introduced so much resistance to this reaction. Each digital wallet is like an atom, there has to be some force to break the atom and keep the chain reaction going, but due to the deflation, each atom is requiring more and more energy to break (spend bitcoins).
- wyager 14y ago
  >people are hoping that its USD rate climb to $1000 or even $1 million, which is pretty ridiculous. Is it really? Not too long ago, a Bitcoin was worth about $.0007. 130/.0007 = 185714 It's only four more orders of magnitude to get to the $1M range. I don't think it's going to happen, but it's not all that far-fetched.
  - colwem 14y ago
nazgulnarsil 14y ago
Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme in that everyone is counting on someone else to want them. However this is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value. With bitcoin, the "bag holders" at the end of the scheme have something for their trouble: a global, secure, low fee transaction settlement system. Given that such a network would be quite valuable, there's no reason for it to crash to 0, barring threats of violence. Perhaps speculation value will come out over time, but this is fine.
- bumbledraven 14y ago
  [bitcoin] is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value No, bitcoin is different insofar as there is no powerful entity that taxes people and requires payment in bitcoin. This makes it even less valuable than currencies that DO have that feature.
  - etherael 14y ago
    That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.
    - anigbrowl 14y ago
      That's not what he said. Also, you seem to think that monetary bases are something that exist independently of government.
      - etherael 14y ago
        Yes it is; There is no powerful entity (violent extortionate power) that taxes people (engaged in parasitism) and requires payment in bitcoin. (the monetary base in question) It's just in statist apologist clothing. Monetary bases exist on any money, whether that is government issued or otherwise, to insinuate otherwise is to imply that there is no money outside that issued by the state, and that has never been and is not the case. I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exception been in strident and shrill defense of the state, but just stating you think differently and using this as evidence for calling your opinion as fact proves precisely nothing.
guard-of-terra 14y ago
It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work, you need bank transfer, your funds can be frozen, you have to wait in line, etc, etc. I live in Russia and it's amazingly easy. First, everyone here owns a virtual money account. It works like this: you put some money into it and then you can pay your bills (especially internet and mobile phone), small purchases over internet and you can donate it to other users of the system. It is denominated in fiat money and that's what you put in. On every corner there is a device with touchscreen that accepts cash. And that's where it ends: you can buy bitcoins with virtual money at metabank.ru. It probably talks to mtgox, buys some bitcoin there for you and transfers is. There is no trading involved, you buy for whatever the price is. You can actually buy BTC with CC attached to virtual money account, exactly like PayPal works. The catch is 6% fee. If you want to trade, you go to btc-e. It supports a plenty of ways to move money into and out of the system. Fees are like 2%.
- hackerboos 14y ago
  >It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work Because it's too easy to claim fraud and have your CC provider initialise a charge-back. I don't know why you can't go to an ATM or a 7-Eleven and use your CC with your PIN to make a purchase. The CC company will know it's probably you because you entered your PIN and the merchant doesn't risk a charge-back.
  - Jabbles 14y ago
    In the UK this is called Chip and PIN. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN
    - JonnieCache 14y ago
      Guess what? It's broken as hell ;) http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland10chipbroken.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland10chipbroken.p...
      - 14y ago
James_Duval 14y ago
These on-topic comments are all well and good, but what we really want to know is what Objectivists think of the government~
AlexDanger 14y ago
Is there any evidence of nation states or three letter agencies dipping their toes into Bitcoin? Its seems like a perfect solution for the CIA when they need to move money quickly and discretely to 'difficult' regions or individuals. I know that Gavin Andresen (unofficial leader of Bitcoin movement) did a talk for the CIA in 2011. But I dont know if their interest was about catching bad guys, using it for themselves or seeking to control/manipulate bitcoin: http://www.bitcointrading.com/pdf/GavinAndresenCIATalk.pdf http://www.bitcointrading.com/pdf/GavinAndresenCIATalk.pdf So I think an interesting question is whether these same agencies are generating bitcoins or attempting to manipulate the market. The big news recently for Bitcoin is the introduction of ASIC hardware dedicated to mining. An ASIC miner the size of a PC can generate bitcoin hashes 100x faster than a GPU at approximately the same power usage. ASIC miners have taken a while to hit the market because making an ASIC is hard and expensive for a small company. You can bet they didnt get funding from a brick and mortar bank. There are only a couple of companies with a shippable product. But surely making this same hardware is a relatively trivial exercise for a nation state, particularly the NSA who run their own fab and would be experts at making silicon tuned for crypto algorithms. Thoughts?
- hp50g 14y ago
  NSA use FPGAs. Even they can't afford ASICs unless its a supercomputer CPU I.e IBM power and they aren't all that quick compared to an FPGA.
  - cperciva 14y ago
    Are you sure about that? There have definitely been times in the past when the NSA rented fab capacity from Intel.
    - hp50g 14y ago
      Up to 2008, 100% sure. AFAIK, they were doing primarily mixed mode analogue as this stuff is harder to do inside an FPGA. I worked for one of their nefarious suppliers for a bit.
    - 14y ago
drawkbox 14y ago
I wonder if online gambling and gambling in games would be legal with bitcoins? Or less of a hurdle? This could be a huge boon for bitcoins if so to becoming the web currency/virtual wallet.
- Liongadev 14y ago
  Legal is unclear but a lot easier for sure. Google SatoshiDice
downandout 14y ago
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the issues that the author had with Bitinstant. The API error indicated that the service - allegedly one of the largest and most reputable Bitcoin sellers in the US - had a total of $16.48 in its possession at the time and could not deliver his order. His experience is not unique - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.2660 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.2660 My guess is that the next big Bitcoin implosion story will be about Bitinstant. Something is rotten over there.
ErrantX 14y ago
I've recently just sold all my BTC, whilst the hype is still there :) A few friends said I was mad and they would be keeping theirs, but frankly I don't have time to keep an eye on the market and wait for the true peak. Which made me think of a problem; BTC's are really a speculative market at the moment, rather than a currency (i.e. most people are buying them to trade, not to purchase items). I feel like that defeats the object. But, hey, it was a tidy profit.

I Bought a Bitcoin

110 points by benwoody 14y ago

IheartApplesDix 14y ago

~or~ how to bring in new investors to your bubble.

lwat 14y ago
The next crash is gonna be painful. My popcorn drawer is well stocked.

michaelochurch 14y ago

I bought BitCoin and I liked it Hope my wallet don't mind it... It felt so wrong, it felt so right, let's transact tonight

reaclmbs 14y ago
Hey, I know you hate Bitcoin and think it's a pyramid scheme and everything, but isn't it good for smart people, and wouldn't its success create fricture among the elites (like you are always advocating)?
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  It's a simplification to say that I hate it. The work is impressive. If there were a Bitcoin course on Coursera on how the thing works, I'd sign up and take it. I don't like the forced deflation. Deflation encourages hoarding and protects elites. With Magic: the Gathering (Mt. Gox has me connecting the two) the hoarding behavior is actually good because it keeps unbalanced cards out of play. With BitCoin, it's going to lock a lot of the stuff up with hoarders. That could destroy it, insofar as if no one's using it, the market becomes illiquid, compromising value and possibly causing panic sales. The thing certainly isn't ready for prime time as a currency. Also, there's a pretty easy (and legal) way one could destroy BitCoin. Right now, there are no reserve requirements, because it's not a real currency. Start a bank. Make sure it's a limited liability corporation, because this is a bit risky (bank runs). Let people deposit BTC and then lend them out. Now you've put a money multiplier on BTC, and without the reserve requirement, that's unbounded. Goodbye, scarcity. Goodbye, $147 BTC. At that point, it's unclear that BitCoin has any value, until regulations come in regarding reserve requirements.
  - dasmoth 14y ago
    A fractional-reserve BitBank will only be noticeably inflationary if it can take a substantial amount in deposits, then find some people to borrow them. Since most of the "convenience" arguments for keeping traditional currencies in a bank rather than under your mattress don't seem to apply here, the only reason anyone's going to make a deposit is if the interest on offer appears to justify the risk. Without the backing of a government deposit insurance scheme, I reckon that translates to both a high interest rate AND probably some degree of transparency to convince depositors it's not a complete scam. Could be an interesting project, but hard to see it causing a major shift in BTC values.

Mahn 14y ago

I keep wondering whether I should be buying bitcoins now, but I have mixed feelings about it. I'm pretty sure its value will continue going up for a while, but I guess I'm still skeptical.

ihsw 14y ago
Like any investment it requires careful analysis, personally I prefer to pay attention only to the 200-day simple-moving average. Granted in the past 200 days it has changed a lot, however recent interest in it indicates that it may continue going up. Past performance isn't an indicator of future performance but it's a decent gauge of trends. Most news articles call it speculative because the people using it can afford to lose the USD value of the coins and there simply isn't enough mass adoption behind it to maintain its value (which would be true), so trade cautiously and ignore news about it. If you must then re-allocate your investment in or out on a monthly basis.
camus 14y ago
it's basically a bet,but you have more chance to win than in a casino, or at the lottery.
- tudorizer 14y ago
  wow, seriously? Ignorance is strong in you.
paulhodge 14y ago
If you just want to dip your toes in the water, you could always start mining. Doesn't take any initial investment or bank information or anything like that, just processing power.
- mistercow 14y ago
  Aren't the odds of making a single bitcoin as a lone miner, with an ordinary computer, over any sane period of time pretty microscopic at this point? To make any money that way, you'd need to join a mining pool, and at that point you're not really just dipping your toes in the water anymore.

account_taken 14y ago

Not sure if Bitcoins are a good investment. All it takes is a western country (say Switzerland) to create an online currency and Bitcoins will sink faster than a Carnival ship.

ihsw 14y ago
The Royal Canadian Mint developed MintChip[1] however there has been little interest. There's a scathing Forbes blog post[2] too, if you're interested. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintChip http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MintChip [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/04/12/mintchip-misses-the-point-of-digital-currency/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/04/12/mintchip-m...
- haakon 14y ago
  Note, however, that the "scathing Forbes blog post" was written by the Bitcoin Foundation's press secretary.
throwawayG9 14y ago
Do you even Bitcoin? One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority like a bank or government (ie: they can't steal from the people by printing money).
- rdtsc 14y ago
  > Do you even Bitcoin? No but I lift, .... mostly functions, sometimes they have multiple variables ;-) > One of the main features of Bitcoin is that it can't be manipulated by a central authority Q: What can a central authority with power to imprison and/or garnish your wage manipulate? A: anything it damn wants. Yes the Fed Gov. can't print more bitcoin it sure can come after you with a rubber hose expecting to get some sales, or money exchange tax some rather-made-up-new-law-tax. A few high profile case about bitcoin used for terrorism, drug, illegal porn, money laundering and these new laws won't be hard to make.
  - deleted 14y ago

31reasons 14y ago

Bitcoins are just a right to participate in a digital crypto economy. They don't have any value in themselves. Its like holding passes to a show in the big theater. If the show doesn't start you passes are worthless. If there is any meaningful possibility of a show in the theater, you might get lucky for holding those passes. The main problem is that people who will participate in the show also need to get the passes to actually act out the show but if everyone just keep holding their passes for no good reason, well then there may not be a show. From many bitcoins forums, people are hoping that its USD rate climb to $1000 or even $1 million, which is pretty ridiculous. People who have thousands of bitcoins, can probably keep holding on to them after selling 50% of them. But people who gonna buy it for more than $100 , they gonna panic at a first sign of decline. I suspect its not that far off.

vacri 14y ago
Isn't that the same as a dollar bill?
- 31reasons 14y ago
  Yes, but dollar bill is running a successful show for the last 2 hundred years without any blackouts, while BitCoin need to START the show in the first place. It needs to sort of start a sustainable chain reaction. EDIT: But the bitcoin deflation has introduced so much resistance to this reaction. Each digital wallet is like an atom, there has to be some force to break the atom and keep the chain reaction going, but due to the deflation, each atom is requiring more and more energy to break (spend bitcoins).
wyager 14y ago
>people are hoping that its USD rate climb to $1000 or even $1 million, which is pretty ridiculous. Is it really? Not too long ago, a Bitcoin was worth about $.0007. 130/.0007 = 185714 It's only four more orders of magnitude to get to the $1M range. I don't think it's going to happen, but it's not all that far-fetched.
- colwem 14y ago

nazgulnarsil 14y ago

Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme in that everyone is counting on someone else to want them. However this is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value. With bitcoin, the "bag holders" at the end of the scheme have something for their trouble: a global, secure, low fee transaction settlement system. Given that such a network would be quite valuable, there's no reason for it to crash to 0, barring threats of violence. Perhaps speculation value will come out over time, but this is fine.

bumbledraven 14y ago
[bitcoin] is no different from any currency or monetary commodity with no use value No, bitcoin is different insofar as there is no powerful entity that taxes people and requires payment in bitcoin. This makes it even less valuable than currencies that DO have that feature.
- etherael 14y ago
  That's hilarious, do you even realise what you're saying? You consider it a feature of a currency that there is a violent extortionate power engaged in parasitism of the monetary base.
  - anigbrowl 14y ago
    That's not what he said. Also, you seem to think that monetary bases are something that exist independently of government.
    - etherael 14y ago
      Yes it is; There is no powerful entity (violent extortionate power) that taxes people (engaged in parasitism) and requires payment in bitcoin. (the monetary base in question) It's just in statist apologist clothing. Monetary bases exist on any money, whether that is government issued or otherwise, to insinuate otherwise is to imply that there is no money outside that issued by the state, and that has never been and is not the case. I don't expect you to agree, whenever I have noticed any comment from you it has without exception been in strident and shrill defense of the state, but just stating you think differently and using this as evidence for calling your opinion as fact proves precisely nothing.

guard-of-terra 14y ago

It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work, you need bank transfer, your funds can be frozen, you have to wait in line, etc, etc. I live in Russia and it's amazingly easy. First, everyone here owns a virtual money account. It works like this: you put some money into it and then you can pay your bills (especially internet and mobile phone), small purchases over internet and you can donate it to other users of the system. It is denominated in fiat money and that's what you put in. On every corner there is a device with touchscreen that accepts cash. And that's where it ends: you can buy bitcoins with virtual money at metabank.ru. It probably talks to mtgox, buys some bitcoin there for you and transfers is. There is no trading involved, you buy for whatever the price is. You can actually buy BTC with CC attached to virtual money account, exactly like PayPal works. The catch is 6% fee. If you want to trade, you go to btc-e. It supports a plenty of ways to move money into and out of the system. Fees are like 2%.

hackerboos 14y ago
>It's fun how hard it is for a layperson to buy a Bitcoin in USA. CCs do not work Because it's too easy to claim fraud and have your CC provider initialise a charge-back. I don't know why you can't go to an ATM or a 7-Eleven and use your CC with your PIN to make a purchase. The CC company will know it's probably you because you entered your PIN and the merchant doesn't risk a charge-back.
- Jabbles 14y ago
  In the UK this is called Chip and PIN. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_and_PIN
  - JonnieCache 14y ago
    Guess what? It's broken as hell ;) http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland10chipbroken.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/oakland10chipbroken.p...
    - 14y ago

James_Duval 14y ago

These on-topic comments are all well and good, but what we really want to know is what Objectivists think of the government~

AlexDanger 14y ago

Is there any evidence of nation states or three letter agencies dipping their toes into Bitcoin? Its seems like a perfect solution for the CIA when they need to move money quickly and discretely to 'difficult' regions or individuals. I know that Gavin Andresen (unofficial leader of Bitcoin movement) did a talk for the CIA in 2011. But I dont know if their interest was about catching bad guys, using it for themselves or seeking to control/manipulate bitcoin: http://www.bitcointrading.com/pdf/GavinAndresenCIATalk.pdf http://www.bitcointrading.com/pdf/GavinAndresenCIATalk.pdf So I think an interesting question is whether these same agencies are generating bitcoins or attempting to manipulate the market. The big news recently for Bitcoin is the introduction of ASIC hardware dedicated to mining. An ASIC miner the size of a PC can generate bitcoin hashes 100x faster than a GPU at approximately the same power usage. ASIC miners have taken a while to hit the market because making an ASIC is hard and expensive for a small company. You can bet they didnt get funding from a brick and mortar bank. There are only a couple of companies with a shippable product. But surely making this same hardware is a relatively trivial exercise for a nation state, particularly the NSA who run their own fab and would be experts at making silicon tuned for crypto algorithms. Thoughts?

hp50g 14y ago
NSA use FPGAs. Even they can't afford ASICs unless its a supercomputer CPU I.e IBM power and they aren't all that quick compared to an FPGA.
- cperciva 14y ago
  Are you sure about that? There have definitely been times in the past when the NSA rented fab capacity from Intel.
  - hp50g 14y ago
    Up to 2008, 100% sure. AFAIK, they were doing primarily mixed mode analogue as this stuff is harder to do inside an FPGA. I worked for one of their nefarious suppliers for a bit.
  - 14y ago

drawkbox 14y ago

I wonder if online gambling and gambling in games would be legal with bitcoins? Or less of a hurdle? This could be a huge boon for bitcoins if so to becoming the web currency/virtual wallet.

Liongadev 14y ago
Legal is unclear but a lot easier for sure. Google SatoshiDice

downandout 14y ago

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the issues that the author had with Bitinstant. The API error indicated that the service - allegedly one of the largest and most reputable Bitcoin sellers in the US - had a total of $16.48 in its possession at the time and could not deliver his order. His experience is not unique - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.2660 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.2660 My guess is that the next big Bitcoin implosion story will be about Bitinstant. Something is rotten over there.

ErrantX 14y ago

I've recently just sold all my BTC, whilst the hype is still there :) A few friends said I was mad and they would be keeping theirs, but frankly I don't have time to keep an eye on the market and wait for the true peak. Which made me think of a problem; BTC's are really a speculative market at the moment, rather than a currency (i.e. most people are buying them to trade, not to purchase items). I feel like that defeats the object. But, hey, it was a tidy profit.