GG SEAL WITH CLUBS - THIS IS JUST THE START

[sonatine]

the thing is, speculation and promotion, market forces... these are not simply unrefined forms of profit. how did bitcoins go from being worth $4 to $55 in such a short period of time? they are currently borderline useless beyond the grey market.

my question, phrased differently, is *why* is bitcoin at this price? it just doesnt make sense to me. i dont think its at all far fetched to say these things are being artificially inflated.

Maybe Fed artificially driving up the price using tax payer money and then will crash it when they feel the time is right.

Pretty easy way to get rid of a problem you dont want.

Id suspect Eastern Euros before the Fed honestly. Those guys have the resources, the intellect, the motivation, and a history of doing anything and everything to make supervillain quantities of filthy fucking lucre.

[PLOL]

Maybe Fed artificially driving up the price using tax payer money and then will crash it when they feel the time is right.

Pretty easy way to get rid of a problem you dont want.

I personally think the Fed will assign a trainee to this case. Guessing Micon will get probation

Give him house arrest and at least our streets will be cleaner.

And I am also sure there has been a decent amount of just pure speculation on these things.

It is starting to look pretty bubbly

[sonatine]

my question, phrased differently, is *why* is bitcoin at this price? it just doesnt make sense to me. i dont think its at all far fetched to say these things are being artificially inflated.

Because the supply stock is fairly fixed. An increase in demand/use will ratchet up the price fast. The makers should have made the supply increase faster

Maybe, but again I dont reallllly see how a small army of neckbeards snatching up magical e-money is going to inflate its value 10 fold...

[PLOL]

Because the supply stock is fairly fixed. An increase in demand/use will ratchet up the price fast. The makers should have made the supply increase faster

Maybe, but again I dont reallllly see how a small army of neckbeards snatching up magical e-money is going to inflate its value 10 fold...

It's people speculative buying, as well as just general increase in demand.

And people talking about "market manipulation" don't really know what they're talking about.

[sonatine]

In all fairness I definitely dont know what Im talking about.

[PLOL]

In all fairness I definitely dont know what Im talking about.

You're supposed to pretend like you do. It's called being an American, dumbass.

[Fergie72]

6) Alternate currency. The US government is very sensitive about any currency or monetary instrument being used to pay debts other than the US dollar. This is why there are such strict regulations against using casino chips to pay for anything outside (or even within) the casino.

This is really the main reason, don't steal from the government (or Federal Reserve)...because it hates competition!

An ECB figure head called BTC a "ponzi". Takes one to know one!

[varys]

Someone shouldve taken hiv in the death pool... didnt he dust off thousands of these things when they were worth a couple bucks a piece?

[delaware]

MICON WILL END UP LIKE RUSS HAMILTON. NOT A CARD ROOM HE CAN PLAY IN WITHOUT TROUBLE.HE BETTER GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT SHIT. THEY NEED SOMEONE TO BE THE SUCKER. YOUR MONEY IS ONLY BACKED WITH THIN AIR. WERE THE GOLD HELD TO BACK IT UP.PLUS 90 PERCENT OF BIT COINS ARE A BUNVH OF KIDS THAT KNOW NO BETTER.

[BUBBLES]

MICON WILL END UP LIKE RUSS HAMILTON. NOT A CARD ROOM HE CAN PLAY IN WITHOUT TROUBLE.HE BETTER GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT SHIT. THEY NEED SOMEONE TO BE THE SUCKER. YOUR MONEY IS ONLY BACKED WITH THIN AIR. WERE THE GOLD HELD TO BACK IT UP.PLUS 90 PERCENT OF BIT COINS ARE A BUNVH OF KIDS THAT KNOW NO BETTER.

The problem is that Micon dont have the buy in to play.

[anonamoose]

This industry is highly unregulated. What's stopping someone from putting up a huge amount of bitcoins up for sale at a 10% increase and buying them from another username themself? People see that someone is purchasing large amounts of bitcoins at a higher price and market starts to increase. If you hold a lot of bitcoins you can keep doing this here and there over several months. So all those thousands and thousands of bitcoins you snatched up at 5 dollars, everyone's going holy shit the price is going up people are paying more and more and more! I say this thing hits 90-100 and then whatever groups have been doing this snap off a shit ton of bitcoins until the price goes back to 2-3 dollars. Effectively taking about 50k to a cool 10 mil.

Scam of a lifetime.

[The PINO]

SealsWithClubs temporarily DD - DDoS attack:

http://www.4flush.com/online-poker-n...s-attack/13030

[Muck Ficon]

SealsWithClubs temporarily DD - DDoS attack:

http://www.4flush.com/online-poker-n...s-attack/13030

[Steve-O]

I had to do quite a bit of research on bitcoins for an article (included talking to Micon) and they are apparently quite different from Liberty $ in that they are peer-to-peer, so it's much harder to shut them down as there is no single (or handful) of people running things. The info Micon gave me was a bit on the high-end, but we're talking tens of millions of dollars of these things and in addition to SWC, Switch Poker and WinPoker (an iPoker room) accept them, as do some restaurants and other retailers.

I am also surprised at the people on my Twitter and Facebook feeds who are on bitcoins. I don't know if the government is ready to go after them or not, but if they do it will be harder than people think to just put an end to bitcoins... think online poker in the US, even now there are still workarounds.

All that said, they are way overpriced right now imo; seller's market.

[sonatine]

I had to do quite a bit of research on bitcoins for an article (included talking to Micon) and they are apparently quite different from Liberty $ in that they are peer-to-peer, so it's much harder to shut them down as there is no single (or handful) of people running things.

Do you think its harder to shut down a distributed currency than it was to create an entirely new implementation of bleeding edge crypto theory to generate hash collided Microsoft driver certificates?

Because honestly I dont, and I suspect youre probably grossly underestimating the resources available to Uncle to pursue threats to national security, such as unregulated currencies.

[Muck Ficon]

I had to do quite a bit of research on bitcoins for an article (included talking to Micon) and they are apparently quite different from Liberty $ in that they are peer-to-peer, so it's much harder to shut them down as there is no single (or handful) of people running things.

Do you think its harder to shut down a distributed currency than it was to create an entirely new implementation of bleeding edge crypto theory to generate hash collided Microsoft driver certificates?

Because honestly I dont, and I suspect youre probably grossly underestimating the resources available to Uncle to pursue threats to national security, such as unregulated currencies.

[sonatine]

Do you think its harder to shut down a distributed currency than it was to create an entirely new implementation of bleeding edge crypto theory to generate hash collided Microsoft driver certificates?

Because honestly I dont, and I suspect youre probably grossly underestimating the resources available to Uncle to pursue threats to national security, such as unregulated currencies.

[SilkRoad]

There is no way the government will ignore bitcoins in the long term, or even in the medium term.

Bitcoins create legal issues in the US for various reasons:

1) Usage of trade of illegal drugs. Right now most people are just using this to buy recreational amounts, but eventually they could be utilized in larger drug transactions between dealers, replacing the "suitcase full of cash".

This is already done with dollars.

2) Money laundering

This is already done with dollars.

3) Funding of terrorism. Right now it is very difficult to get $10,000+ into the US from abroad without potential scrutiny. Bitcoins allow this to be circumvented.

This is already done at HSBC.

4) Illegal gambling

This is already done with dollars all over the internet.

5) Tax evasion. One could easily shuffle around bitcoins to avoid/delay payment of taxes, and there would be no paper trail.

This is already done with dollars.

6) Alternate currency. The US government is very sensitive about any currency or monetary instrument being used to pay debts other than the US dollar. This is why there are such strict regulations against using casino chips to pay for anything outside (or even within) the casino.

My cock is sensitive.

With that said, I might actually look into whether bitcoin mining is worth my time/electricity, because it has spiked to such a high level. I am not against bitcoins themselves, and in fact think they can be useful for both small transactions and as a short-term, high-risk investment (that is, get them and sell them quickly after they rise). I think they will continue to rise in value in the near term. They do still carry a large risk to plummet to virtually nothing literally overnight.

The network hash rate is spiking due to ASICs, which you basically can't get unless you make them.
http://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate

The government now recognizes bitcoin:
http://bitcoinmagazine.com/fincen-bi...exchanges-are/

http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/...-2013-G001.pdf

Druff, how successful was the government shutting down torrenting?

[sonatine]

The government never tried to shut down torrenting, and people who torrent warez are routinely fined hundreds if not thousands of dollars, and people who torrent CP go to prison for huge percentages of their mortal lives.

If the government wanted to shut down torrenting, they would (easily), but they dont, for reasons I think we can all say are completely obvious.

In other news, back when bitcoins were first hitting, someone bought a pizza for 10,000BTC.

I really hope that pizza was amazing.

I really do.