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Bitcoin Discussion Thread

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BTC replaces big brother in transactions. But you need to have some sort of trust system in place for any transaction. You pay fees to big brother in order to be able to recoup your money. In theory. People still manage to get ripped off pretty easily using paypal and so forth. Accounts get hacked, etc. Obviously BTC has flaws. First they were worthless, but when they developed value the criminals started focusing some attention to them. Nothing easier to do than look for wallet files or break into servers doing transactions. I expect what has happened is only the start. It is probably going to be a few code forks down the road before some type of reasonable security is found.
 
computerpro3 said:
This is my point.

You shouldn't use it instead of USD for local purchases.

But you SHOULD use it instead of paypal for internet purchases. It's much cheaper in fees, and more secure.
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Fees just depend on the mediator. The first company to make a usable web-based BTC interface, similar to paypal's, will have free reign to do the same thing (jack up rates, charge fees, etc) once they have sufficient market domination. The paypal problem isn't solved by switching currencies - it's solved by dissolving paypal's monopoly on e-wallet services. I think there are better ways to do that than inventing a new currency.

As far as easy money, well, I'm not a big risk taker I tend to stay away from what I don't know terribly well. Some folks were saying it would take a month to recoup their equipment costs at this week's earlier growth rate. Counting on a small market like this to grow at that rate for any extended period of time isn't very smart, imo. Using equipment you've got already to farm? Sure.
 
computerpro3 said:
This is my point.

You shouldn't use it instead of USD for local purchases.

But you SHOULD use it instead of paypal for internet purchases. It's much cheaper in fees, and more secure.
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Yes, Bitcoin is much more secure. Insead of using paypal, you open an account on liberty reserve, which is some sort of dodgy internet semi-bank in costa rica. Then you allow Liberty Reserve access to your bank account, and transfer money to Magic the Gathering Online eXchange/mtgox, which is now trading in bitcoins. Then you buy bitcoins. Then someone hacks into Mtgox and steals your bitcoins.

Well, ok, maybe that last part doesn't happen. Maybe you get your bitcoins, and send it to whoever you're buying from. Then they don't send you the stuff, and you can't do anything about it.

But if they do send you the stuff, hooray! You saved the 3% paypal fee! Well, the seller did, but at least somebody saved something.
 
Uncle Humjaba said:
Fees just depend on the mediator. The first company to make a usable web-based BTC interface, similar to paypal's, will have free reign to do the same thing (jack up rates, charge fees, etc) once they have sufficient market domination. The paypal problem isn't solved by switching currencies - it's solved by dissolving paypal's monopoly on e-wallet services. I think there are better ways to do that than inventing a new currency..
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This isn't quite correct. The difference is that for paypal, they have a monopoly on the method of payment. Paypal itself is almost like a currency. Similarly to bitcoin, your USD in paypal are worthless if major retailers don't accept it. This is what makes it impossible for third party competitors to paypal to become successful. If I start a paypal competitor, nobody is going to use me because, well, everyone accepts paypal.

This is beauty of bitcoin. IF - and it's an admittedly big if - a major online vendor accepts bitcoin, no monopolies like paypal will be able to be created. Why? Because a bitcoin address is a bitcoin address. It doesn't matter how it's sent. If Amazon accepts bitcoins, it can be sent from ANY bitcoin client - unlike how paypal has to be sent specifically from paypal.com.

If you don't like the usable online interface, use a different one. Hell, use your almost free client. Due to this, fees would remain extremely low. Otherwise, nobody would use them.

Such a thing would be impossible with paypal because there is no alternative.
 
meme said:
Yes, Bitcoin is much more secure. Insead of using paypal, you open an account on liberty reserve, which is some sort of dodgy internet semi-bank in costa rica. Then you allow Liberty Reserve access to your bank account, and transfer money to Magic the Gathering Online eXchange/mtgox, which is now trading in bitcoins. Then you buy bitcoins. Then someone hacks into Mtgox and steals your bitcoins.

Well, ok, maybe that last part doesn't happen. Maybe you get your bitcoins, and send it to whoever you're buying from. Then they don't send you the stuff, and you can't do anything about it.

But if they do send you the stuff, hooray! You saved the 3% paypal fee! Well, the seller did, but at least somebody saved something.
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You missed all the parts where I said "if the UI is improved, reliable exchange is created, etc, etc, etc."

I'm not saying bitcoin is there yet, or even ever will be.

What I'm saying is that THEORETICALLY, it's a far superior online payment system vs. paypal.
 
Is anyone debating whether they should stay up until mtgox opens?

Part of me wants to say up until 4AM EST, try to transfer my $150 dwolla to mtgox, and try to buy dirt cheap btc.

The logical part of my brain says that mtgox is so incompetent that they will miss their 8 GMT deadline, and then be so swamped that Dwolla transfer will take 24 hours, meaning I'll have stayed up for nothing.
 
computerpro3 said:
Is anyone debating whether they should stay up until mtgox opens?

Part of me wants to say up until 4AM EST, try to transfer my $150 dwolla to mtgox, and try to buy dirt cheap btc.

The logical part of my brain says that mtgox is so incompetent that they will miss their 8 GMT deadline, and then be so swamped that Dwolla transfer will take 24 hours, meaning I'll have stayed up for nothing.
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. I wouldnt trust MtGox now for anything.
 
Chihlidog said:
Absolutely not. I wouldnt trust MtGox now for anything.
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Latest update says that the auditors PC was hacked, the site was not hacked through sql injection. Even said that, they are beefing up password encryption and their logon system.

IMO mtgox is handling this in a very professional and smart way.
 
sethmo said:
Latest update says that the auditors PC was hacked, the site was not hacked through sql injection. Even said that, they are beefing up password encryption and their logon system.

IMO mtgox is handling this in a very professional and smart way.
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My email address was still leaked. That's enough to turn me off for life no matter how it was done. This is a trading house dealing with real money. Security should be almost impossible to bypass, however it was done.
 
Uncle Humjaba said:
But as a US citizen living in the united states, why should I use btc instead of usd? I have no guarantee that the guy Im sending bitcoins to will give me what I'm paying for, unless I use a mediator. And at that point, it just becomes the same thing as paypal, or google checkout.
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I think that's not the right example to think of. When using USD, think of the actual physical cash. You say you send some guy some "bitcoins" and you have no guarantees. That is true. Just as when you send somebody cash in the mail, you have no guarantees.
 
Uncle Humjaba said:
But as a US citizen living in the united states, why should I use btc instead of usd? I have no guarantee that the guy Im sending bitcoins to will give me what I'm paying for, unless I use a mediator. And at that point, it just becomes the same thing as paypal, or google checkout.
Click to expand...

you have no guarantee using Paypal or the USD either, you can send someone Paypal in a FS forum and not receive what you were expecting as well (if anything at all), or you could make a deal on CL and get robbed when you show up, everything you outline is NOT exclusive to bitcoins, I guess I just don't see your point here...
 
It also looks like the biggest exchange, mtgox, was hacked, and all user passwords were exposed.

I suppose that also sparked a selloff

This is the danger of a fickle marketplace I'm afraid
 
jebo_4jc said:
So, help me understand what happened this morning. https://support.mtgox.com/entries/2...ell-off-due-to-a-compromised-account-rollback

One account gets hacked, a guys sells off $1000 worth of BTC, and that is enough to send the market into worthlessness? One website I read said the BTC was only worth "pennies".
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No, the guy had like a million dollars worth of bit coins and the hacker sold every last one crashing the market.

MtGox has daily withdraw limits so the hacker was only able to cash out $1000 of the money he had made selling all the coins. The issue isn't about the guys thousand dollars. It's about all his stolen bitcoins being sold for dirt and causing the market to crash.
 
schizrade said:
$100, which I think is a damn good deal for a card that will be BTC'd to death, lol. These tards keep canceling on me after I drive all over the damn place.
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PM me the details - model, usage. I might take it off your hands. Thanks.
 
schizrade said:
$100, which I think is a damn good deal for a card that will be BTC'd to death, lol. These tards keep canceling on me after I drive all over the damn place.
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That's why you telling them you're from somewhere else and they meet you halfway which is near your house.
 
When's the mass selloff of 5850 gonna happen. I don't mind buying some for dirt cheap.
 
jebo_4jc said:
It also looks like the biggest exchange, mtgox, was hacked, and all user passwords were exposed.

I suppose that also sparked a selloff

This is the danger of a fickle marketplace I'm afraid
Click to expand...

there is supposed to be an update today at 2pm on some live bitcoin show about the whole situation, some 'breaking news', but so far the word is that the massive sell off was a result of the hacked account selling a large number of bitcoins...

the massive sell off could've been an attempt to get around the $1,000 worth of bitcoin daily withdrawal limit, sell en masse to drive the price down, buy back at $0.01, then they can withdraw 100,000 bitcoins instead of 75 or so, then wait until it rallies and then sell for a much bigger profit...
 
nxcess said:
That's why you telling them you're from somewhere else and they meet you halfway which is near your house.
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Lol, I do. Sheeeeeit son. I was on Craigslist in 1998 when it was Bay Area/Silicon Valley based and full of mostly good tech gear.

But sitting around even 1 mile from my house when I could be productive doing something else wears on you.
 
wol-va-rine said:
there is supposed to be an update today at 2pm on some live bitcoin show about the whole situation, some 'breaking news', but so far the word is that the massive sell off was a result of the hacked account selling a large number of bitcoins...

the massive sell off could've been an attempt to get around the $1,000 worth of bitcoin daily withdrawal limit, sell en masse to drive the price down, buy back at $0.01, then they can withdraw 100,000 bitcoins instead of 75 or so, then wait until it rallies and then sell for a much bigger profit...
Click to expand...

It will go up again. You can bet on it.
 
trade hill is still trading and is at ~$14 right now. So any of these sites reporting bitcoin will be down to a penny are loco.

Any one use tradehill? Their site sure looks much nicer than mtgox. I'm pretty OK with how mtgox has handled everything tho.
 
Kardonxt said:
trade hill is still trading and is at ~$14 right now. So any of these sites reporting bitcoin will be down to a penny are loco.
Click to expand...
From what I read, mtgox actually DID go down to a penny over the weekend
 
Kardonxt said:
trade hill is still trading and is at ~$14 right now. So any of these sites reporting bitcoin will be down to a penny are loco.

Any one use tradehill? Their site sure looks much nicer than mtgox. I'm pretty OK with how mtgox has handled everything tho.
Click to expand...

There isn't enough volume on tradehill for a selloff even if people wanted to.

It won't go to a penny, but I'm confident it will drop once mtgox opens. Historically, there is always downward pressure after suspension of trading in real life.

The only possibility is that someone (maybe Satoshi) will use a massive amount of bitcoins to stabalize because it's in their best interest for it to rise over time. The market is small enough where it would be cheap to offer enough resistance to avoid a bloodbath.
 
jebo_4jc said:
From what I read, mtgox actually DID go down to a penny over the weekend
Click to expand...

Yes it did. That was the crash. From the last I read Mt Gox will reopen at $17. But people like computerpro3 feel it will just drop back down for some reason. I don't see why this would be the case.
 
Dallows said:
Yes it did. That was the crash. From the last I read Mt Gox will reopen at $17. But people like computerpro3 feel it will just drop back down for some reason. I don't see why this would be the case.
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Because historically that's always how it works. I could be wrong, but we'll see.
 
Kardonxt said:
trade hill is still trading and is at ~$14 right now. So any of these sites reporting bitcoin will be down to a penny are loco.

Any one use tradehill? Their site sure looks much nicer than mtgox. I'm pretty OK with how mtgox has handled everything tho.
Click to expand...

Namecoins were trading overnight central time at +/- that price, which is why I wasn't expecting a big sell-off.

Tradehill worked nice so far for me. Made more bitcoins trading than mining on my lonely 5870 (still waiting on a 5830) so far! :)
 
ya i wasnt trying to say it didn't drop to a penny. I just don't think it's going to take another major drop when it opens back up.

I expect a drop of a dollar or two. Honestly my confidence in mtgox is pretty darn good right now. They handled the problem well and are beefing up security to prevent it from happening again. Notifying gmail about all of the stolen accounts was also a nice touch. I was prompted to change my gmail password before I even knew what was going on at mtgox.
 
Dallows said:
Yes it did. That was the crash.
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Not really, though. It wasn't a real crash. It was just that the hackers got access to a whale account and sold off all of the bitcoins in the account with an Ask price of 1 cent. So in effect, since the account had so many bitcoins, it satisfied every Bid on the board, all the way down to 1 cent.

So there really was no crash. Just a dirtbag clearing the board with somebody's obscenely huge bitcoin balance.
 
Parja said:
Not really, though. It wasn't a real crash. It was just that the hackers got access to a whale account and sold off all of the bitcoins in the account with an Ask price of 1 cent. So in effect, since the account had so many bitcoins, it satisfied every Bid on the board, all the way down to 1 cent.

So there really was no crash. Just a dirtbag clearing the board with somebody's obscenely huge bitcoin balance.
Click to expand...

it's hilarious to me how people are all upset about the rollback because they got to buy bitcoins at $0.01, what would those same people be saying if their car was stolen, they saw someone else driving it, and that person said that someone had sold them the car for $100...? my guess is that they wouldn't say "oh, okay, you weren't the one who stole it...? keep the car, you paid for it"...
 
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