The Glade 4.0

Bitcoins at $47 now... guess who was right... me of course.

That's not even worth an hour of my time. How long does it take to mine a single bitcoin, again?

Right now, 25 BTC are generated every 10 minutes but the generation of your own coins depends on your individual computing power relative to all other nodes that are verifying transactions.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Well, I meant having in Bitcoins in general was worthwhile, even if you exchanged dollars for them (which I mostly did). I agree mining them is a waste of time. Sorry for the vague statement.

Web Money Gets Laundering Rule



I'd say it's over.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

How is it over? There is no central issuing authority or depository, it's not really traceable to an individual. Are they going to shut down the internet?

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

They do what governments do when they can't do anything else..

They make you a criminal

(see those dirty dirty file/music/video/movie sharers)

Make who a criminal? This doesn't work like other peer to peer services. It's all encrypted via SHA 256; in fact the encryption and implementation of forced work is how the entire system works.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Imposing the requirement that certain transactions must be recorded and communicated to the treasury when bitcoins are 1) exchanged for dollars, or 2) managed in a payment procesor setting, undermines the exact paradigm you described.

Seems to me that the treasury is saying that the moment anything about a virtual currency touches a national currency, they want jurisdiction.

Imposing that kind of requirement on a currency infrastructure designed to be anonymous and decentralized seems to me to break the model.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

That is really a restriction on the USD not the BTC. Unless we are talking about revoking all issued physical currency, there's really no way to stop the transfer of BTC to USD and vice versa. There probably won't exist any clearinghouses for large transfers because it would look like reverse money laundering (or laundering BTC, more likely) but the black market may still provide them. At any rate, it will still be possible to trade BTC for services and maintain a peg or value to both real monies as well as the USD.



Sure but 1. They can't stop it from be traded for any physical currencies and 2. They can't do much about it functioning as as an independent currency



What requirement? It still operates as a decentralized, anonymous peer-verified currency regardless of what restrictions they place on the dollar. The only way to really stop its function with any sort of efficiency is to "shut down" the internet or build a massive computer farm that could start building false transaction blocks faster than the current sum of all honest nodes participating is verifying transaction blocks. That would compromise the integrity of the currency. Pursuing offenses for individual transactions would be like trying to break up drug smuggling by going after only individual users and street levek dealers.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

When bitcoins were ignored by the treasury, it had a chance.

Your argument that it can't be stopped seems to indicate you believe that the currency can withstand the pressures criminalization will impose. I don't agree. I think all other nations will follow the lead of the US treasury.

If it can only be used illegally it loses the only benefit I see it provides - as a speculative investment. Right now with the interest rates at a ridiculous low, people are investing in anything they feel will provide some reward. That's why the stock market is where it is, despite the impending (or current) recession. People are in a frenzy trying to put their money where it might grow. Introduce risk, people will pull out.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

I think we have a bit of a disconnect here. Will you ever be able to go buy stuff at Sears with BTC? Not likely. But the currency was designed to be untraceable, not able to be confiscated, anonymous and require no clearinghouse to make transfees. Those characteristics alone make it incredibly likely to be crimibalized by governments. The given reason is because it's a sound currency which can be used for black market purchases, which is true. The more insidious reason is that it is not likely to be taxed and isn't subject to inflationary policies of central banking entities.

Governments have criminalized drugs for centuries yet they are still bought, sold and traded in large volumes. That BTC isn't physical, can be traded over the entire world near instantly, much harder to confiscate and seems to have solved the problem of being distributed yet secure and sound I estimate it will be even more prevelant than and important than drugs.

It's not just a speculative investment because it provides a quality no other centrally issued currency provides (save perhaps the Swiss Franc): transparency and a sound base. Perhaps this view is informed by the severity that centrally issued currencies undermine the proletariat; if you don't see central fractional-reserve banking as an insidious and underhanded means of control over the masses, it's understandable you might not see the inherent valuenof BTC. I would just strongly disagree with such a position.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Yes they are, because people will exchange them for currency backed by some treasury somewhere.

You've seen it posted here yourself - the bitcoin to dollar exchange rate. Bitcoins have no intrinsic value themselves, but if they're worth a dollar, suddenly they have value. Whether you use that buck to buy drugs or a piece of candy is irrelevant. That dollar is the worlds method of exchanging value. Decouple the bitcoin from the dollar because you dont want to follow treasury rules and its worthless. Follow treasury rules... then why use bitcoins? WOW gold would have more value.

_________________
In time, this too shall pass.

Dollars have no intrinsic value, either. They are backed by the assumption that they will not be produced out of thin air. How valuable, given the last 80 years, is that assumption? Your assumption that BTC are somehow more "fiat" than USD is flawed. You cannot decouple this currency from other fiat currencies, either since physical exchange is always possible.

USD is backed by the credit worthiness of the Federal Reserve. If you think that is more suitable a currency than BTC, then by all means. But it doesn't refute the fact that the BTC is more transparent and sound than a currency issued by a secretive central bank that is subject to a myriad of moral hazards.

_________________
"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

This is interesting:

$88.87.

$350 now. I wish I bought more!!! Jeez. I hope this makes me a millionaire.

It actually was "worth an hour" of your time, at the time of your posting at least. It's ok though, everyone makes mistakes.

Any idea how the bitcoin miners are fairing with these crazy prices on bitcoins?

You need specialized equipment (such as ASICs) and cheap power to make a lot from mining nowadays. Of course, even if you mine at a loss, your coins still might be worth 100x more in the future.

Bitcoin still going up, glad I bought more.

Log scale since the beginning. I'm really hoping this trend continues.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gaming-co ... 12157.html

More importantly re: Bitcoin mining efficiency:



14K x 14 days = 30 coins.

_________________

That's why the value of existing coins is going up. It's harder and harder to generate new ones as time goes by.

_________________
Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The price spike amused me.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones