What are your thoughts on BitCoin?

[Zelig]

So you say liliangenis lack liquidity then. I'm not sure how difficult this is to understand?

This is the state of bitcoins right now. It may defy all expectations and be awesome. Maybe. But right now it's just silly and smart money is better spent on other investments,

Here's what I'm saying:

[16:59] <@Zelig> I don't understand the arguments in the bitcoin thread
[16:59] <@Zelig> For 90% of Americans bitcoins are going to be more useful than any non-USD currency on the planet
[17:00] <@Zelig> But they're not like ARGGH EUROS ARE SO STUPID AND USELESS
[17:02] <@Zelig> And on the aggregate, bitcoins are going to have *some* utility to several billion people who have internet connections
[17:03] <@Zelig> Vs. the Lilangeni, which is essentially totally worthless to everyone on the planet except for about a million Swazis
[17:03] <@Zelig> But again, nobody is ARGHH LILANGENGIS ARE THE WORST

 

[Archbob]

Why don't you try one of the currencies that can be easily exchanged at any airport instead of an obscure one like Lilangengis. Why not use USD, CAD, EURO, FRANCS, German Marks, GBP, or one of those internationally useful currencies as a comparison. Oh I forgot, if you don't use an obscure currency to compare to Bitcoins, then your argument doesn't work.

 

[timtofly]

Zelig in using an online bank, only has to worry about the value of his transactions, not what currency he actually has. His transactions may involve converting from one currency to the other, but basically all he has is a virtual amount of funds. He is comfortable with that arrangement and only loosing access to that is going to convince him in any tangible manner.

 

[Zelig]

Why don't you try one of the currencies that can be easily exchanged at any airport instead of an obscure one like Lilangengis. Why not use USD, CAD, EURO, FRANCS, German Marks, GBP, or one of those internationally useful currencies as a comparison. Oh I forgot, if you don't use an obscure currency to compare to Bitcoins, then your argument doesn't work.

Well Francs and German Marks certainly can't be exchanged at any airport and you've completed ignored my previous post.

To any American who never leaves America (so what, 50% of the population?), bitcoins are going to be more useful than every other currency on the planet (except USD, obviously.).

What is even your point? That a currency needs fiat pieces of paper to be legitimate? Does the USD stop being legitimate if the government makes it purely digital and stops printing notes?

 

[Archbob]

You can actually exchange France France and German Marks at almost any bank here. And they do have these exchange rates at a lot of airports. How many airports have an exchange for bitcoin?

To any American who never leaves America (so what, 50% of the population?), bitcoins are going to be more useful than every other currency on the planet (except USD, obviously.).

Why would you need anything(including bitCoins) except USD if your in the states? Currency has to have something backing it to be worth its weight. Bitcoin has nothing backing it, its not insured anywhere. Also I can exchange Francs and Marks at most Banks, which you can't do with Bitcoin. But thats moot now since they've both converted to Euro. Bitcoin isn't recognized by any country except maybe the people who engage in illegal activities.

 

[Dachs]

[16:59] <@Zelig> I don't understand the arguments in the bitcoin thread
[16:59] <@Zelig> For 90% of Americans bitcoins are going to be more useful than any non-USD currency on the planet
[17:00] <@Zelig> But they're not like ARGGH EUROS ARE SO STUPID AND USELESS
[17:02] <@Zelig> And on the aggregate, bitcoins are going to have *some* utility to several billion people who have internet connections
[17:03] <@Zelig> Vs. the Lilangeni, which is essentially totally worthless to everyone on the planet except for about a million Swazis
[17:03] <@Zelig> But again, nobody is ARGHH LILANGENGIS ARE THE WORST

You did, however, see people moaning about Beanie Babies, Pokémon cards, and other wildly popular commodities that saw brief usage as media of exchange. BTC is more like them than like state-issued and -backed fiat currencies used by central banks to exercise control over an economy.

The moaning is still bizarre, of course; people are free to waste their time doing whatever they like. Tastes are subjective. It doesn't affect me or anybody else if idiots gain and lose spectacular amounts of bitcoins on Mt. Gox any more than it affected me when some fool I knew traded a holographic Charizard for a few ounces of weed.

 

[Archbob]

Zelig in using an online bank, only has to worry about the value of his transactions, not what currency he actually has. His transactions may involve converting from one currency to the other, but basically all he has is a virtual amount of funds. He is comfortable with that arrangement and only loosing access to that is going to convince him in any tangible manner.

1. He has told us he doesn't actually have any BitCoin despite using an online bank.
2. That's probably smart on his part since you can't actually buy a lot of things you actually need with Bitcoins at the moment. You can buy drugs, prostitutes, auto insurance from some small company no one has ever heard of, future space rides from a company that wants to give customers tours into orbit, and pizza from this one pizza place in California. But if you actually want anything else, tough luck.

 

[AlpsStranger]

The moaning is still bizarre, of course; people are free to waste their time doing whatever they like. Tastes are subjective. It doesn't affect me or anybody else if idiots gain and lose spectacular amounts of bitcoins on Mt. Gox any more than it affected me when some fool I knew traded a holographic Charizard for a few ounces of weed.

Of course I've owned a few M:TG cards in the $100+ range back in the day, so I can't really say I'm any better.

Still seems like a "holographic Charizard" ( That's Pokemon, right? The little orange dragon? ) is probably worth more than a few ounces of weed since that's one of the iconic monsters. ( I can only name about 16 or so Pokemon at a stretch. )

I would just like to chime in and say that "foil cards" are the stupidest trend in the already stupid world of CCGs.

Now I'm off to play M&M Duels of Champions for the next half hour or so

 

[Antilogic]

You did, however, see people moaning about Beanie Babies, Pokémon cards, and other wildly popular commodities that saw brief usage as media of exchange. BTC is more like them than like state-issued and -backed fiat currencies used by central banks to exercise control over an economy.

The moaning is still bizarre, of course; people are free to waste their time doing whatever they like. Tastes are subjective. It doesn't affect me or anybody else if idiots gain and lose spectacular amounts of bitcoins on Mt. Gox any more than it affected me when some fool I knew traded a holographic Charizard for a few ounces of weed.

This.

Would type 5chars here but since my line above already had 5chars it wasn't necessary.

 

[Crezth]

Here's what I'm saying: [16:59] <@Zelig> I don't understand the arguments in the bitcoin thread [16:59] <@Zelig> For 90% of Americans bitcoins are going to be more useful than any non-USD currency on the planet [17:00] <@Zelig> But they're not like ARGGH EUROS ARE SO STUPID AND USELESS [17:02] <@Zelig> And on the aggregate, bitcoins are going to have *some* utility to several billion people who have internet connections [17:03] <@Zelig> Vs. the Lilangeni, which is essentially totally worthless to everyone on the planet except for about a million Swazis [17:03] <@Zelig> But again, nobody is ARGHH LILANGENGIS ARE THE WORST

Here's what I'm saying:

It's easy to put USD into bitcoins and relatively difficult to get USD out of bitcoins.

Thus, the value of bitcoins exists only in relation to the commodities you can purchase with it.

These do not include stocks, government bonds, or food. They do include contraband (well, past-tense), but you can buy contraband with USD as well.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

But but but digital banks apparently all take bitcoins!

 

[Zelig]

You did, however, see people moaning about Beanie Babies, Pokémon cards, and other wildly popular commodities that saw brief usage as media of exchange. BTC is more like them than like state-issued and -backed fiat currencies used by central banks to exercise control over an economy.

Except BTC is virtual, which is really the important part of a currency - any modern currency would be essentially worthless if it was only available in cash form.

Why would you need anything(including bitCoins) except USD if your in the states?

Save conversion fees on online purchases.

1. He has told us he doesn't actually have any BitCoin despite using an online bank.
2. That's probably smart on his part since you can't actually buy a lot of things you actually need with Bitcoins at the moment. You can buy drugs, prostitutes, auto insurance from some small company no one has ever heard of, future space rides from a company that wants to give customers tours into orbit, and pizza from this one pizza place in California. But if you actually want anything else, tough luck.

You can't buy any of that stuff with most currencies, you need to convert them first.

Here's what I'm saying:

It's easy to put USD into bitcoins and relatively difficult to get USD out of bitcoins.

Thus, the value of bitcoins exists only in relation to the commodities you can purchase with it.

These do not include stocks, government bonds, or food. They do include contraband (well, past-tense), but you can buy contraband with USD as well.

It's not very difficult to get USD out of bitcoins.

And the value of any currency exists only in relation to the commodities you can purchase with it, and is directly quantifiable. Currently the value of a bitcoin is somewhere around $1200 USD, or 300 pounds of strawberries.1

 

[Crezth]

It's pretty difficult to get usd out of bitcoins. Or are you telling me this currency that rose thousands of percent on value over the past year has hundreds of thousands of buyers trading millions of usd of bitcoins every single day?

Anyway, bitcoin being a virtual currency is all well-and-good, but let's not forget about permanent unavoidable deflation and it's quality of being absolutely uncollectible (ie taxes). That sucks.

 

[Zelig]

It's pretty difficult to get usd out of bitcoins. Or are you telling me this currency that rose thousands of percent on value over the past year has hundreds of thousands of buyers trading millions of usd of bitcoins every single day?

I don't know how those two things are related. I'm just saying that anyone I know who has tried, has been able to cash out their bitcoins.

Anyway, bitcoin being a virtual currency is all well-and-good, but let's not forget about permanent unavoidable deflation and it's quality of being absolutely uncollectible (ie taxes). That sucks.

I don't see any problems.

Permanent unavoidable deflation is irrelevant if you're not running an economy off it.

It's roughly as taxable as any other currency - if I get paid cash for my landscaping job, the government can't tax me on that, if I get paid bitcoins for my legit accounting job the government is still going to tax that via the company that pays me.

 

[Crezth]

OK, your anecdotes don't make bitcoins liquid. I'm just saying there's no way bitcoin trade volume favors the sellers.

Permanent unavoidable deflation means the value of bitcoins in USD will be forever tenuous. A very poor investment in my eyes.

"Roughly as taxable," ehh I'm not so sure. A lot of the appeal of bitcoins is in their cryptic qualities which fundamentally defy attempts to control. Such as it is, since you don't want to run an economy on bitcoins, I cede the point.

 

[Zelig]

OK, your anecdotes don't make bitcoins liquid. I'm just saying there's no way bitcoin trade volume favors the sellers.

Your lack of anecdotes or any data don't make bitcoins illiquid.

Permanent unavoidable deflation means the value of bitcoins in USD will be forever tenuous. A very poor investment in my eyes.

I've never spoken of the value of bitcoins as an investment.

"Roughly as taxable," ehh I'm not so sure. A lot of the appeal of bitcoins is in their cryptic qualities which fundamentally defy attempts to control. Such as it is, since you don't want to run an economy on bitcoins, I cede the point.

A lot of the appeal of cash is in the difficulty to control. So far, bitcoin has proven to be more vulnerable than cash in this regard.

 

[Crezth]

Your lack of anecdotes or any data don't make bitcoins illiquid. I've never spoken of the value of bitcoins as an investment. A lot of the appeal of cash is in the difficulty to control. So far, bitcoin has proven to be more vulnerable than cash in this regard.

I have explained my reasoning. But only time will tell. If the bubble pops and the value drops suddenly then we will know for sure that bitcoins were never very liquid.

Cash you also have limited spending ability with, why do you think there is money laundering?

 

[Zelig]

I have explained my reasoning. But only time will tell. If the bubble pops and the value drops suddenly then we will know for sure that bitcoins were never very liquid.

Eh, no we won't. Bubbles always pop, it's not necessarily a sign of illiquidity.

 

[Crezth]

Why would this bubble pop if not because the market couldn't handle too many sellers? I maintain that's the big problem with bitcoin, the design flaws notwithstanding.

There'd be no bubble if backed by government guarantee. Of course the coins might not cost many thousands of USD. But the free market and such.

 

[Zelig]

For the next few years at least Bitcoins are essentially arbitrarily divisible. Even if the vast majority of the bitcoins aren't in circulation, the remaining ones can be divided as necessary to serve as unit of exchange.