189 thoughts on “Bitcoin Is Creating A New Class Of Millionaires”

1. So how many Bitcoin thefts have to happen before people realize that states can do basically the same thing as a form of taxation? http://www.informationweek.com/security/attacks-and-breaches/bitcoin-thefts-surge-ddos-hackers-take-millions/d/d-id/1112831

   1. This is not a problem with Bitcoin, but with the infrastructure (exchanges, hot wallets etc.) built on top of it. This is like claiming that gold is worthless because someone cracked open your safe and took it out. The solution is not to ignore gold, but to secure your safe better.
      As Bitcoin matures, better security will be implemented at the infrastructure level. The current lack of regulation and novel nature of the technology means a lot of the existing supporting structures are poorly implemented, which will be fixed as acceptance grows over time. Noone has much chance of cracking Bitcoin’s own encryption without a quantum computer though (read up on SHA if you need further clarification), which I mentioned in the post.

2. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

   1. That ship has sailed.
      Just buy one. I read it’s basically a lottery ticket, it will probably be worth nothing, but if it hits it hits big.

   2. That ship has sailed.
      Just buy one. I read it’s basically a lottery ticket, it will probably be worth nothing, but if it hits it hits big.

   3. That ship has sailed.
      Just buy one. I read it’s basically a lottery ticket, it will probably be worth nothing, but if it hits it hits big.

   4. That ship has sailed.
      Just buy one. I read it’s basically a lottery ticket, it will probably be worth nothing, but if it hits it hits big.

   5. That ship has sailed.
      Just buy one. I read it’s basically a lottery ticket, it will probably be worth nothing, but if it hits it hits big.

   6. That ship has sailed.
      Just buy one. I read it’s basically a lottery ticket, it will probably be worth nothing, but if it hits it hits big.

   7. Yeah, all mining is ASIC-based now. CPU mining died years ago and GPU mining was stone dead months ago.

   8. Yeah, all mining is ASIC-based now. CPU mining died years ago and GPU mining was stone dead months ago.

   9. Yeah, all mining is ASIC-based now. CPU mining died years ago and GPU mining was stone dead months ago.

   10. Bitcoin mining is generally done with large “ASIC” rigs, actually just long story short: there’s no way to compete with the extant miners.
       Bitcoins ensure that their transactions are legitimate by having bitcoin users (all members of the network) seal the transactions in the long history of transactions in bitcoin history. To get bitcoins, all miners compete to solve one “block”, and whichever address succeeds in solving the block, gets a batch of bitcoins. Once the block is solved, the transactions are considered immutable.
       It’s not like we are competing to “generate” bitcoins, we are all competing for one batch of bitcoins, that will be awarded to one bitcoin address.
       Other notes:
       1) Bitcoins are anonymous, they require no personal information to own them.
       2) They are decentralized, no one distributes them.
       3) They are self-sustaining, the community of bitcoin users themselves, monitor the transactions, which makes faking transactions difficult.

   11. Bitcoin mining is generally done with large “ASIC” rigs, actually just long story short: there’s no way to compete with the extant miners.
       Bitcoins ensure that their transactions are legitimate by having bitcoin users (all members of the network) seal the transactions in the long history of transactions in bitcoin history. To get bitcoins, all miners compete to solve one “block”, and whichever address succeeds in solving the block, gets a batch of bitcoins. Once the block is solved, the transactions are considered immutable.
       It’s not like we are competing to “generate” bitcoins, we are all competing for one batch of bitcoins, that will be awarded to one bitcoin address.
       Other notes:
       1) Bitcoins are anonymous, they require no personal information to own them.
       2) They are decentralized, no one distributes them.
       3) They are self-sustaining, the community of bitcoin users themselves, monitor the transactions, which makes faking transactions difficult.

   12. Bitcoin mining is generally done with large “ASIC” rigs, actually just long story short: there’s no way to compete with the extant miners.
       Bitcoins ensure that their transactions are legitimate by having bitcoin users (all members of the network) seal the transactions in the long history of transactions in bitcoin history. To get bitcoins, all miners compete to solve one “block”, and whichever address succeeds in solving the block, gets a batch of bitcoins. Once the block is solved, the transactions are considered immutable.
       It’s not like we are competing to “generate” bitcoins, we are all competing for one batch of bitcoins, that will be awarded to one bitcoin address.
       Other notes:
       1) Bitcoins are anonymous, they require no personal information to own them.
       2) They are decentralized, no one distributes them.
       3) They are self-sustaining, the community of bitcoin users themselves, monitor the transactions, which makes faking transactions difficult.

   13. Solo mining is not realistic since the global processing power dedicated to BTC mining is now measured in petahashes. The difficulty of mining adjusts every ten days or so to keep the number of BTC mined to an average of 25 coins every ten minutes. The more people that are mining at any given point, the less likely it is that they will “hit the lottery” and be awarded a 25 BTC block.
       Most people mine in pools, where they contribute their computing power to the power of other users around the globe and share in the proceeds based on the percentage they individually contributed to finding these blocks of 25 BTC that become available every ten minutes.

3. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

4. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

5. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

6. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

7. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

8. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

9. How can a poor person mine for Bitcoins? I got my own “Wallet” and was trying to mine, but got nothing. I went to some message boards, and the dudes there told me that, at this point, mining for Bitcoins with my processing power (just a regular PC) would be cost-prohibitive, because all the mining (technically, decryption) is now being done by supercomputers and processor farms.

10. This is just a side note.
    But the amount of nefarious, illegal, and dangerous activity that goes hand in hand with bitcoins and the deepweb is amazing. You can purchase armaments, any manner of psychotropic substance, stolen computers, credit cards, PayPal accounts, ‘hits’ (apparently you can pay people to murder someone for you) etc.
    The true gangsters are on the internet, physical crime doesn’t pay anymore (well I suppose it would for organized crime, but I’m not in on those details). I had a friend who owned several Russian AKs with their serial numbers filed down, he was attempting to sell them to a gang of Norwegian prisoners, the go-between was full of shit though. I have another friend who defrauded social networks for a living, yet another friend who had around 30 grand worth of bitcoins.
    The amount of shit that goes down within these online communities (primarily communicating via Skype and chat websites, like TinyChat) is incredible. I have met the members of Lulzsec, swatting happens daily, people trade child porn etc.
    People on the net are, generally speaking, fucked up.

    1. James, you are absolutely correct. Moreover, what you say is also true of any currency: dollars, euros, whatever. Currency is a neutral unit of exchange completely independent of goods or services being bought and sold. People off the net are, generally speaking, fucked up too.

    2. James, you are absolutely correct. Moreover, what you say is also true of any currency: dollars, euros, whatever. Currency is a neutral unit of exchange completely independent of goods or services being bought and sold. People off the net are, generally speaking, fucked up too.

    3. James, you are absolutely correct. Moreover, what you say is also true of any currency: dollars, euros, whatever. Currency is a neutral unit of exchange completely independent of goods or services being bought and sold. People off the net are, generally speaking, fucked up too.

    4. James, you are absolutely correct. Moreover, what you say is also true of any currency: dollars, euros, whatever. Currency is a neutral unit of exchange completely independent of goods or services being bought and sold. People off the net are, generally speaking, fucked up too.

    5. Just out of complete, harmless, not really interested at all curiosity – what website might one go to, say, theoretically purchase one of these AK’s? Let’s say someone had a Muslim wedding in Toronto to attend on the 3rd of January and he didn’t want to feel left out as everyone else is firing their AK’s into the air. Would one of these sites that you know be able to theoretically allow someone to purchase an AK and have it on hand before then?

       1. mt gox

    6. What is bitcoin backed by? a promissory note from the gov’t? Nothing whatsoever? This is the South Sea bubble all over again and a direct example of what happens when you implement a zero interest rate policy for too long. What is the asset backing this currency? It’s a greater fool theory. It’s a zero. Silicon valley should stick to creating communities for dumb people to hang out.

       1. As a note, at one point, real estate in San Francisco was rising by $1000 a day. One argument in favor of buying real estate (at any price) was that there could only be so much (thanks to environmental regulation). What people didn’t think about was that someone had to have enough money to buy the homes … oh yeah, hmm, how will people have the money to buy homes in a few years (they borrowed money!).
          Bitcoin is no different. Like Warren Buffett said about the internet – “It’s the new sex” except as he said, “Nothing is the new sex.” Any central bank right now could secretly begin buying bitcoins by expanding their supply of money without anyone knowing (and for all we know, they’re doing this).
          What bitcoin is useful for and has a ton of value is simplifying the complex currency exchange mess as well as limiting the fees credit cards charge. However, this won’t be an advantage if everyone holds on to their bitcoins and doesn’t spend them (thinking that they will “rise” in value), which leads us to the deflationary problem.

       2. What’s the asset backing any currency?
          Trust.
          A lump of gold is worth nothing, yet people ascribe value to it due to its rarity. Bitcoins are limited too, so it’s a matter of taste which artificial medium you trust.

          1. A lump of gold is worth much. It has many purposes. Where it doesn’t have purpose it has allure.

          2. Women and plenty of men like gold and do not relate to algorithmic rarity. Since tangible pussy likes tangible gold, gold has value because pussy has value. Incel geeks can like gold for space vehicle shields and electrical circuitry.

          3. A real currency is backed by the government. As reckless as the U.S. government is, it still has an ownership stake through taxation of several of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world. Apple, Miscrosoft, Coca-Cola, Nike, Exxon, etc. etc. Not to mention also a stake in it’s citizens through tax. I’d much rather own a currency that has those ownership stakes behind it, rather than one based on absolutely nothing. Most wealthy people have their money in US$ denominated assets, or Euros. No smart hedge funds are buying bitcoin. Its purely a retail, valley spec play.

          4. Bullshit, Faux News. Gold has to be prospected, drilled for, mined, refined, and minted before it goes to the distributor. It has value, the intrinsic value being that many people’s labor was traded to produce it.
             It is hardly rare, but great effort and expense goes into its production, giving it value. Bitcoin? It is virtual and has a bunch of zeroes attached to its value. Any number of techs in a roomful of computers can create any number of virtual currencies. Nobody thinks it through, what real money is.
             For the detractors who claim you can’t eat gold, well, you can always sell it or trade it for whatever you need. Personally, I’m fed up with the lack of thought that goes into what a real curreny is.

       3. Gold is just there to create scarcity. If you have some other way of ensuring a currency’s scarcity, you don’t need it.

    7. Actually the Italian mafia also operates internet-based ‘businesses’ as well now.

11. This is just a side note.
    But the amount of nefarious, illegal, and dangerous activity that goes hand in hand with bitcoins and the deepweb is amazing. You can purchase armaments, any manner of psychotropic substance, stolen computers, credit cards, PayPal accounts, ‘hits’ (apparently you can pay people to murder someone for you) etc.
    The true gangsters are on the internet, physical crime doesn’t pay anymore (well I suppose it would for organized crime, but I’m not in on those details). I had a friend who owned several Russian AKs with their serial numbers filed down, he was attempting to sell them to a gang of Norwegian prisoners, the go-between was full of shit though. I have another friend who defrauded social networks for a living, yet another friend who had around 30 grand worth of bitcoins.
    The amount of shit that goes down within these online communities (primarily communicating via Skype and chat websites, like TinyChat) is incredible. I have met the members of Lulzsec, swatting happens daily, people trade child porn etc.
    People on the net are, generally speaking, fucked up.

12. This is just a side note.
    But the amount of nefarious, illegal, and dangerous activity that goes hand in hand with bitcoins and the deepweb is amazing. You can purchase armaments, any manner of psychotropic substance, stolen computers, credit cards, PayPal accounts, ‘hits’ (apparently you can pay people to murder someone for you) etc.
    The true gangsters are on the internet, physical crime doesn’t pay anymore (well I suppose it would for organized crime, but I’m not in on those details). I had a friend who owned several Russian AKs with their serial numbers filed down, he was attempting to sell them to a gang of Norwegian prisoners, the go-between was full of shit though. I have another friend who defrauded social networks for a living, yet another friend who had around 30 grand worth of bitcoins.
    The amount of shit that goes down within these online communities (primarily communicating via Skype and chat websites, like TinyChat) is incredible. I have met the members of Lulzsec, swatting happens daily, people trade child porn etc.
    People on the net are, generally speaking, fucked up.

13. This is just a side note.
    But the amount of nefarious, illegal, and dangerous activity that goes hand in hand with bitcoins and the deepweb is amazing. You can purchase armaments, any manner of psychotropic substance, stolen computers, credit cards, PayPal accounts, ‘hits’ (apparently you can pay people to murder someone for you) etc.
    The true gangsters are on the internet, physical crime doesn’t pay anymore (well I suppose it would for organized crime, but I’m not in on those details). I had a friend who owned several Russian AKs with their serial numbers filed down, he was attempting to sell them to a gang of Norwegian prisoners, the go-between was full of shit though. I have another friend who defrauded social networks for a living, yet another friend who had around 30 grand worth of bitcoins.
    The amount of shit that goes down within these online communities (primarily communicating via Skype and chat websites, like TinyChat) is incredible. I have met the members of Lulzsec, swatting happens daily, people trade child porn etc.
    People on the net are, generally speaking, fucked up.

14. This is just a side note.
    But the amount of nefarious, illegal, and dangerous activity that goes hand in hand with bitcoins and the deepweb is amazing. You can purchase armaments, any manner of psychotropic substance, stolen computers, credit cards, PayPal accounts, ‘hits’ (apparently you can pay people to murder someone for you) etc.
    The true gangsters are on the internet, physical crime doesn’t pay anymore (well I suppose it would for organized crime, but I’m not in on those details). I had a friend who owned several Russian AKs with their serial numbers filed down, he was attempting to sell them to a gang of Norwegian prisoners, the go-between was full of shit though. I have another friend who defrauded social networks for a living, yet another friend who had around 30 grand worth of bitcoins.
    The amount of shit that goes down within these online communities (primarily communicating via Skype and chat websites, like TinyChat) is incredible. I have met the members of Lulzsec, swatting happens daily, people trade child porn etc.
    People on the net are, generally speaking, fucked up.

15. This is just a side note.
    But the amount of nefarious, illegal, and dangerous activity that goes hand in hand with bitcoins and the deepweb is amazing. You can purchase armaments, any manner of psychotropic substance, stolen computers, credit cards, PayPal accounts, ‘hits’ (apparently you can pay people to murder someone for you) etc.
    The true gangsters are on the internet, physical crime doesn’t pay anymore (well I suppose it would for organized crime, but I’m not in on those details). I had a friend who owned several Russian AKs with their serial numbers filed down, he was attempting to sell them to a gang of Norwegian prisoners, the go-between was full of shit though. I have another friend who defrauded social networks for a living, yet another friend who had around 30 grand worth of bitcoins.
    The amount of shit that goes down within these online communities (primarily communicating via Skype and chat websites, like TinyChat) is incredible. I have met the members of Lulzsec, swatting happens daily, people trade child porn etc.
    People on the net are, generally speaking, fucked up.

16. The Chinese are causing the inflated price because they are flooding the system with tens of trillions of dollars. Look in any US city and you will see wealthy Chinese buying property. They are creating money on a level that makes the US monetary policy look like child’s play. They have the cash to but up the price of bitcoins.
    Bitcoins are like any other investment market place: manipulated.
    I would rather not have too much money tied up into something that is being manipulated by the Chinese government who are notorious for cooking books and making up numbers.
    That being said, it’s worth trading in small amounts and taking the profits like any other investment.

17. The Chinese are causing the inflated price because they are flooding the system with tens of trillions of dollars. Look in any US city and you will see wealthy Chinese buying property. They are creating money on a level that makes the US monetary policy look like child’s play. They have the cash to but up the price of bitcoins.
    Bitcoins are like any other investment market place: manipulated.
    I would rather not have too much money tied up into something that is being manipulated by the Chinese government who are notorious for cooking books and making up numbers.
    That being said, it’s worth trading in small amounts and taking the profits like any other investment.

18. The Chinese are causing the inflated price because they are flooding the system with tens of trillions of dollars. Look in any US city and you will see wealthy Chinese buying property. They are creating money on a level that makes the US monetary policy look like child’s play. They have the cash to but up the price of bitcoins.
    Bitcoins are like any other investment market place: manipulated.
    I would rather not have too much money tied up into something that is being manipulated by the Chinese government who are notorious for cooking books and making up numbers.
    That being said, it’s worth trading in small amounts and taking the profits like any other investment.

19. The Chinese are causing the inflated price because they are flooding the system with tens of trillions of dollars. Look in any US city and you will see wealthy Chinese buying property. They are creating money on a level that makes the US monetary policy look like child’s play. They have the cash to but up the price of bitcoins.
    Bitcoins are like any other investment market place: manipulated.
    I would rather not have too much money tied up into something that is being manipulated by the Chinese government who are notorious for cooking books and making up numbers.
    That being said, it’s worth trading in small amounts and taking the profits like any other investment.

20. I still have no idea wtf this all means

    1. Re-read the post, and the linked RVF explanation. I did my best to make it as clear and simple as possible, although there’s only so much you can do with such a novel and multi-facted development.

       1. The post was great, not hating on it. Just the whole concept of it all is confusing to me.

          1. As simply said as possible: Bitcoin is the internet of money, and the money of the internet.

          2. Bitcoin is a digital system of money that has all of the primary functions of physical money (divisibility, scarcity, irreproducibility) without some of its downsides (no storage cost, fast trade across vast distances, ability to shelter money when emigrating), while having its own downsides (lose your password or HD and you have lost your BTC… same risk as physical currency though). The largest appeal I see is retaining wealth while emigrating to avoid confiscation by the govt.

21. I still have no idea wtf this all means

22. I still have no idea wtf this all means

23. I still have no idea wtf this all means

24. I still have no idea wtf this all means

25. A nice way to fool greedy Chinese, let them buy this crap and offload the US dollar bonds, that way we don’t have to pay them when our bonds mature.

26. A nice way to fool greedy Chinese, let them buy this crap and offload the US dollar bonds, that way we don’t have to pay them when our bonds mature.

27. A nice way to fool greedy Chinese, let them buy this crap and offload the US dollar bonds, that way we don’t have to pay them when our bonds mature.

28. A nice way to fool greedy Chinese, let them buy this crap and offload the US dollar bonds, that way we don’t have to pay them when our bonds mature.

29. A nice way to fool greedy Chinese, let them buy this crap and offload the US dollar bonds, that way we don’t have to pay them when our bonds mature.

30. What’re some good/safe sites to purchase bitcoin?

    1. I buy mine through Coinbase.

31. What’re some good/safe sites to purchase bitcoin?

32. What’re some good/safe sites to purchase bitcoin?

33. What’re some good/safe sites to purchase bitcoin?

34. Bitcoin has two problems: It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s not spent. And because it’s not spent it might not actually be a currency. But it could be something like gold I guess. A way to park money..
    The second problem is that it’s not anonymous. We can meet and I can give you 10 USD and the feds will never know. With bitcoin they can know. Assuming they can map wallets to users, which, given the amount of surveillance going on, is likely.
    Another thing: Be careful. Whoever owns Bitcoins will write posts like this one, because if more people want to buy, their value increases. People who own them would be stupid to write anything different, wouldn’t they? But I suppose buying a little and assuming that money 100% lost can yield an unexpected profit.
    Just my 0.02 Satoshis.

    1. Newsflash: “Liberated”, “red pill” man believes government propaganda about “deflation”.

       1. It’s in this post, too, btw, read it. So perhaps op is a government shill.. 😉

    2. Newsflash: “Liberated”, “red pill” man believes government propaganda about “deflation”.

    3. Newsflash: “Liberated”, “red pill” man believes government propaganda about “deflation”.

    4. Newsflash: “Liberated”, “red pill” man believes government propaganda about “deflation”.

    5. Newsflash: “Liberated”, “red pill” man believes government propaganda about “deflation”.

    6. Newsflash: “Liberated”, “red pill” man believes government propaganda about “deflation”.

    7. Of course I have a vested interest.
       “Adapt or live with regret among the masses. You have been warned. At the very least, do some reading and make an informed decision.”
       If it’s not for you, that’s fine, but make that call after you’ve done some research rather than before. I’ve given ROK readers the chance to do exactly that while the choice still exists, and I hope as many as possible take advantage.
       Anonymity is a tricky subject with it’s own section in the linked RVF post, refer to that for further details. Used properly, it can have a high degree of anonymity (hence why it’s a preferred method of trade for sites like the Silk Road) and additional infrastructure is being developed to make it additionally so (Dark Wallet, Coin Join etc.). That said, it is also completely transparent due to the Blockchain. Certainly the potential is there, and for all the other benefits of Bitcoin that’s quite an achievement.

    8. > It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of
       bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s
       not spent.
       This is not a new concept, it’s exactly the same as stock, with only difference being you don’t get dividends. And the people who treated it as stock (bought in early, didn’t rush to sell at the first sign of trouble, held on until the price went up) made the most money. Also, just like stock, it is susceptible to bubbles, and susceptible to its price eventually falling way back down.

35. Bitcoin has two problems: It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s not spent. And because it’s not spent it might not actually be a currency. But it could be something like gold I guess. A way to park money..
    The second problem is that it’s not anonymous. We can meet and I can give you 10 USD and the feds will never know. With bitcoin they can know. Assuming they can map wallets to users, which, given the amount of surveillance going on, is likely.
    Another thing: Be careful. Whoever owns Bitcoins will write posts like this one, because if more people want to buy, their value increases. People who own them would be stupid to write anything different, wouldn’t they? But I suppose buying a little and assuming that money 100% lost can yield an unexpected profit.
    Just my 0.02 Satoshis.

36. Bitcoin has two problems: It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s not spent. And because it’s not spent it might not actually be a currency. But it could be something like gold I guess. A way to park money..
    The second problem is that it’s not anonymous. We can meet and I can give you 10 USD and the feds will never know. With bitcoin they can know. Assuming they can map wallets to users, which, given the amount of surveillance going on, is likely.
    Another thing: Be careful. Whoever owns Bitcoins will write posts like this one, because if more people want to buy, their value increases. People who own them would be stupid to write anything different, wouldn’t they? But I suppose buying a little and assuming that money 100% lost can yield an unexpected profit.
    Just my 0.02 Satoshis.

37. Bitcoin has two problems: It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s not spent. And because it’s not spent it might not actually be a currency. But it could be something like gold I guess. A way to park money..
    The second problem is that it’s not anonymous. We can meet and I can give you 10 USD and the feds will never know. With bitcoin they can know. Assuming they can map wallets to users, which, given the amount of surveillance going on, is likely.
    Another thing: Be careful. Whoever owns Bitcoins will write posts like this one, because if more people want to buy, their value increases. People who own them would be stupid to write anything different, wouldn’t they? But I suppose buying a little and assuming that money 100% lost can yield an unexpected profit.
    Just my 0.02 Satoshis.

38. Bitcoin has two problems: It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s not spent. And because it’s not spent it might not actually be a currency. But it could be something like gold I guess. A way to park money..
    The second problem is that it’s not anonymous. We can meet and I can give you 10 USD and the feds will never know. With bitcoin they can know. Assuming they can map wallets to users, which, given the amount of surveillance going on, is likely.
    Another thing: Be careful. Whoever owns Bitcoins will write posts like this one, because if more people want to buy, their value increases. People who own them would be stupid to write anything different, wouldn’t they? But I suppose buying a little and assuming that money 100% lost can yield an unexpected profit.
    Just my 0.02 Satoshis.

39. Bitcoin has two problems: It’s deflationary, because there’s a cap on the total number of bitcoins, which means, it’s more likely to gain in value because it’s not spent. And because it’s not spent it might not actually be a currency. But it could be something like gold I guess. A way to park money..
    The second problem is that it’s not anonymous. We can meet and I can give you 10 USD and the feds will never know. With bitcoin they can know. Assuming they can map wallets to users, which, given the amount of surveillance going on, is likely.
    Another thing: Be careful. Whoever owns Bitcoins will write posts like this one, because if more people want to buy, their value increases. People who own them would be stupid to write anything different, wouldn’t they? But I suppose buying a little and assuming that money 100% lost can yield an unexpected profit.
    Just my 0.02 Satoshis.

40. “Careful you must be when sensing the future Anakin.” -Master Yoda
    That is sound advice, even if it does come from a clunky sci-fi movie.
    2016 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen in that period. Anything that threatens the status quo, will be mercilessly attacked. I’m still wary of Bitcoin, for the moment because it isn’t widely used yet. If more businesses adopt it, then that could have a huge global impact. However, don’t think the global elite will allow a currency to dethrone the dollar, without serious resistance. Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.

    1. “The only two possibilities for Bitcoin are that its value goes to zero, or increases.” and “Although ultimately, we’re all pure speculators on a very untested new technology.”
       I fully recognise the potential for Bitcoin to become worthless (I even suggested a leap to quantum computing as one possible cause), but in my opinion it’s very unlikely and I’m putting (some of) my money where my mouth is. The only other possibility is it becomes huge.
       The genius of Bitcoin is that it really doesn’t matter what the global hegemony and established elite think or do, BItcion doesn’t care. Welcome to decentralisation. Just like how people can still pirate music via Torrent, and the law enforcement at best can persecute a couple of people (after the fact) from millions of users, while the network powers ahead unperturbed.

       1. they could move in and corner the market and then dump it… it’s only $21B… there are hedge funds that control 100 times that…

          1. Exactly. Bitcoin to me is like a stock that produces nothing. Its value can be inflated by speculators at will and it can also crash at will. Silver and gold will never be worthless though.
             Bitcoin looks like a huge build up and shear down operation.

       2. I’ve been following bitcoin prices for a few weeks now but beyond supply and demand I have very little idea how it works. Do you understand it well and can you explain it? Why don’t you think it’s just a bubble especially with all the attention it’s been getting the last couple of months? I never keep much cash on me because of my philosophy – I don’t think money is worth anything, it’s resources that matter. What do you see as the benefit of holding bitcoins?

    2. “Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.”
       This.

    3. A value-storage system not controlled by a government does not comply with the function money has: be manipulated to make an economy grow. If you take away those silly neoclassical assumptions that the media is all the time imprinting in your brain, such as “inflation is created by printing money”, you can see why Bitcoin does not compare favorably with USD, or ARS or whatever. In Argentina, with 25% annual inflation, the right-wing parties accuse the Government of “creating” inflation through printing. This is not true. Printing “follows” inflation, which is derived from Supply and Demand. In an economy with oligopolies on the most common products, and rising wages with lower unemployment, and closed or regulated imports, inflation will occur. It is to note also that 25% annual inflation is a historical constant in Argentina, it is not new nor abnormal. If wages and devaluation of the peso follows inflation, the real value of money can be maintained as a constant, or even grow for the middle class (as it happened in Argentina in the last years). Of course, there are winners and losers. Winners: workers with union-based raises, local industries, low class citizens with Government allowances, etc. Losers: importers, professionals without Union-based raises, middle and middle-high class urban dwellers that can´t follow raises in real estate in the desirable parts of the city and must move. Basic Keynesianism, folks. It seems for work, for now. The important part is to break oligopolies on a way that competition and efficiency can be achieved to make possible a deceleration of inflation, and to make the economy more competitive to win over imports and increment exports.

       1. a coke used to cost 1cent… now it costs more than $1… since there are no supply and demand issues with coca cola… the only reason for the increased price over the last 100 years is money printing…. from 1700 to 1900 the prices of everything from real estate to horses hardly changed because they ran on gold…. a roman senator paid 1oz of gold for his robes…. $1250 buys a pretty decent suit for today’s senator….. there are no supply and demand issues with clothes, so the price has remained the same for more than 2000 years when you look at it correctly….. the rest is just ‘newspeak’

          1. Do you mean that the Cola market is not an oligopoly? Coke, Pepsi, and all the marketing guys working for them would like a word with you.
             You need to compare the nominal price with the price of work (take one hour of work). It is more expensive to buy 1 can of Coke in the past or now?
             No inflation at all means a stagnant economy. The ultimate value of money is based on the production of goods and services (work).

    4. Just wait, the global elite already have a plan to get rid of the dollar for a new world currency called SDR. Dollar will be worthless soon.

    5. Y’all need to study the Bitcoin protocol before “peter shifting/doug caseying/or Gary Northing” your asses about such involved topic. (That means making an ass of yourself and loosing credibility).

    6. It’s already broken.

    7. Tigerdirect and newegg are just a few vendors considering it. You can already purchase many different gift cards with BTC on Gyft.com. This whole “not widely accepted” is quite unfounded.
       Gyft has: Amazon, Kmart, Target, CVS, Sephora, Sears, Gamestop, Nike, Whole Foods, Staples, Marriott

41. “Careful you must be when sensing the future Anakin.” -Master Yoda
    That is sound advice, even if it does come from a clunky sci-fi movie.
    2016 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen in that period. Anything that threatens the status quo, will be mercilessly attacked. I’m still wary of Bitcoin, for the moment because it isn’t widely used yet. If more businesses adopt it, then that could have a huge global impact. However, don’t think the global elite will allow a currency to dethrone the dollar, without serious resistance. Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.

42. “Careful you must be when sensing the future Anakin.” -Master Yoda
    That is sound advice, even if it does come from a clunky sci-fi movie.
    2016 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen in that period. Anything that threatens the status quo, will be mercilessly attacked. I’m still wary of Bitcoin, for the moment because it isn’t widely used yet. If more businesses adopt it, then that could have a huge global impact. However, don’t think the global elite will allow a currency to dethrone the dollar, without serious resistance. Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.

43. “Careful you must be when sensing the future Anakin.” -Master Yoda
    That is sound advice, even if it does come from a clunky sci-fi movie.
    2016 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen in that period. Anything that threatens the status quo, will be mercilessly attacked. I’m still wary of Bitcoin, for the moment because it isn’t widely used yet. If more businesses adopt it, then that could have a huge global impact. However, don’t think the global elite will allow a currency to dethrone the dollar, without serious resistance. Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.

44. “Careful you must be when sensing the future Anakin.” -Master Yoda
    That is sound advice, even if it does come from a clunky sci-fi movie.
    2016 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen in that period. Anything that threatens the status quo, will be mercilessly attacked. I’m still wary of Bitcoin, for the moment because it isn’t widely used yet. If more businesses adopt it, then that could have a huge global impact. However, don’t think the global elite will allow a currency to dethrone the dollar, without serious resistance. Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.

45. “Careful you must be when sensing the future Anakin.” -Master Yoda
    That is sound advice, even if it does come from a clunky sci-fi movie.
    2016 is a long way off. A lot of things could happen in that period. Anything that threatens the status quo, will be mercilessly attacked. I’m still wary of Bitcoin, for the moment because it isn’t widely used yet. If more businesses adopt it, then that could have a huge global impact. However, don’t think the global elite will allow a currency to dethrone the dollar, without serious resistance. Many a men have gone to early graves because they attempted to break American/Western European petro-dollar supported global hegemony.

46. Great article.
    Anybody who claims that BC will fail because it is “deflationary” doesn’t know WTF they are talking about.
    I am skeptical that LC will ever find a role, as the game theory implies that only one “permanent bubble” i.e currency, can exist at a time. I may go into greater detail on this in a future post.
    I also believe that BC has a low probability of success. As you say, most BC owners are white male tech-y dudes, which is to say public enemy number one in America today. The US Government will try to smash it, and Russia/China and perhaps others will roll out cryptocurrencies of their own.
    Then again maybe I’m underestimating the courage and resilience of American beta men.
    In any case, one bitcoin will be worth 7 figures in the event of a global monetary re-standardization, so their expected value is still insanely high.

    1. Nailed it, although I disagree about the low probability of success. But we’re only degrees apart, and only on the single issue of robustness.

47. I’m not an expert on this issue by any means. But, it seems to me that, as with any type of currency, bitcoins only have value because humans recognize them as a valid form of currency. It seems to me that, the more valuable bitcoins become, the more weary people will be of giving them this value, which will lead to either the collapse of bitcoins or a stagnation in their value.

    1. “It’s a bubble in exactly the same way as the US dollar, which also gets its value entirely from community consensus (the paper it’s printed with cannot be eaten, used as construction material and is pretty poor fire fuel).” Literally directly from the post. Please re-read it until you understand.
       Increased adoption is never going to make people LESS likely to value something, look up ‘the network effect’. It’s actually the exact opposite, the more people that value something the more likely others are to value it too.
       As for stagnation in value, “In the long term, Bitcoin’s value will increase at a decreasing rate, but never stop, as it can be lost but not replaced.”

       1. No, need be snarky. I read your entire article, including the passage you cited. But, a currency backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government is a far cry from an electronic currency create by a couple of guys on the internet.
          At some point, as bitcoins continue to rise in value, people are going to be hesitant about parking large amounts of wealth in them and using them to conduct business. When that occurs, bitcoins will either completely spiral into worthlessness or steadily lose value, not continue to increase in value at a decreasing rate.

          1. It is not my intention to sound snarky, and if I did so it is only due to the frustration of spending several hours carefully writing and rewriting a post to include contingencies that address all of the common objections, and then have people make those exact same complaints.
             You have done exactly the same with “a currency backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government is a far cry from an electronic currency create by a couple of guys on the internet” which I anticipated with “I am more prepared to trust a democratic, distributed, deflationary technology than the self-serving government printing press, and I suspect a lot of others might too.”
             Trust is subjective though, so on this we just have to agree to disagree.

          2. You do realize that when people comment on an article, they discuss points made in the article, right?

          3. if no new money supply can come into the system.. it is primed to increase in value so people will hold it… worse you can also lose bitcoins… so money supply will decrease… both with lost coin and people holding for the value to increase…. this will make a boom bust… the Fed does a shit job, but it can create new money, and stop creating new money to (in theory) cushion this problem… bitcoin is like a car with no suspension.. .it’s going to be a hell bumpy ride no matter what happens…. .unstable valuation will be its undoing… no one wants a currency that is all over the place…

          4. @raywolfson:disqus Agreed, but I still think bitcoin will be useful for things like travel, payments, etc. Its initial phase, like right now, is going to be a headache because it will increase in value so high with people speculating that it will go higher. This is kind of like the dotcom stocks; after the boom and bust happened, many tech companies stayed around once we all figured out what everything was worth. Bitcoin will be like that and convenient to use.

          5. “But, a currency backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government”
             That’s just a windy way of saying “backed by nothing”.

          6. The U.S. nothing? It has the back of all the production of goods and services , of which the USD is a means of exchange (and more). Bitcoin in the other hand…. cyber-mining?

          7. This article and all your comments are an embarrassment to RoK. I read a lot of financial sites, and posts like this are popping up all over the place.
             Always, but always, posted by people who have a vested interest in promoting Bitcoins, as they already own some (or a lot of them). This is just an attempt to suck in some ‘greater fools’ so they can cash out.
             “The author obviously has a vested interest in this bitcoin nonsense and is using the popularity and traffic of this site to drive people to also invest in the same scheme so he can profit.” is an excellent summation.
             FYI, a real “currency” (I used to trade ForEx a lot) DOES NOT BEHAVE LIKE THIS: “In the time taken for this post to go through the ROK submission and editing process, closing prices have doubled. The original version of this article had the graph below finishing at $450.”
             From the start of the year to now at over $1200, it sure likes like a parabolic blowoff to me, and I used to trade heavily based on pure technical analysis.
             Now that it has hit the MSM, the most likely outcome will be a total ban in most Western countries, as Governments have quite legitimate concerns about it’s use to fuel illegal activities of all sorts. I would put money on them citing “terorism” and “fighting drug trafficking” as reasons for the ban, and you won’t get much argument against that, except from those like you who have already “invested”.
             Roosh should be ashamed to have allowed this to be posted.

          8. Anyway, there are even bigger issues with the internet in general that just
             don’t give me much faith in the value of any ‘electronic currency’ these
             days.
             Yet Bitcoins are gaining acceptance, 450+ business are taking them now, including a lot of big companies, Seems difficult to deal with the price changes on the conversion for a business though. Owning them looks more like gambling to me than trading in a traditional currency.
             The chart: shows how crazy the price moves are, it strongly resemble a typical mania blowoff in a speculative stock. Not that the rally could not continue for many more months or years now that everyone wants to get in on the action!
             Bitcoin was under $3 in early 2012, to as high as $1242 recently, to $1159 atm. Now that’s a nice gain! With all the MSM attention, they might go to $200K lol wish I owned some!
             But you can bet that many Government security agencies from numerous countries probably have large sections now dedicated to tracking, and attempting to hack Bitcoins any way they can. An anonymous means of exchange on the ‘darknet’ is an obvious priority. I’d bet a 10 foot stack of Bitcoins.
             Since they have hacked every router, firewall, software and hardware by now, in so many ways, there is really very little of what I would call “security” left on any device connected to the internet, and even others not directly connected. Including Bitcoin miners. With hundreds of genius coders on the work, they can create infiltration software that take years to build and perfect. ‘Stuxnet’, ‘Flame’, ‘BadBIOS’ etc are attacks that are nearly impossible to stop. The problem is that once they get into the wild, hackers will then emulate them.
             Almost any new Wi-fi enabled or wired devices can be hacked remotely, and laptops,phones, tablets and gaming consoles are open season. Your ‘smart’ TV reports everything you do and when to home base, and is easily hacked. If it has a camera, they can watch you, if it has a microphone, listen too.
             Knowing all of the above, and that regulative action could prohibit or limit them soon, and that hackers have already stolen Bitcoins, I would have to say: just buy real gold or silver They have not done well of late, of course, but as a long-term store of value they will do fine. Bury it in the backyard and tell no one.

          9. Anyway, there are even bigger issues with the internet in general that just
             don’t give me much faith in the value of any ‘electronic currency’ these
             days.
             Yet Bitcoins are gaining acceptance, 450+ business are taking them now, including a lot of big companies, Seems difficult to deal with the price changes on the conversion for a business though. Owning them looks more like gambling to me than trading in a traditional currency.
             The chart: shows how crazy the price moves are, it strongly resemble a typical mania blowoff in a speculative stock. Not that the rally could not continue for many more months or years now that everyone wants to get in on the action!
             Bitcoin was under $3 in early 2012, to as high as $1242 recently, to $1159 atm. Now that’s a nice gain! With all the MSM attention, they might go to $200K lol wish I owned some!
             But you can bet that many Government security agencies from numerous countries probably have large sections now dedicated to tracking, and attempting to hack Bitcoins any way they can. An anonymous means of exchange on the ‘darknet’ is an obvious priority. I’d bet a 10 foot stack of Bitcoins.
             Since they have hacked every router, firewall, software and hardware by now, in so many ways, there is really very little of what I would call “security” left on any device connected to the internet, and even others not directly connected. Including Bitcoin miners. With hundreds of genius coders on the work, they can create infiltration software that take years to build and perfect. ‘Stuxnet’, ‘Flame’, ‘BadBIOS’ etc are attacks that are nearly impossible to stop. The problem is that once they get into the wild, hackers will then emulate them.
             Almost any new Wi-fi enabled or wired devices can be hacked remotely, and laptops,phones, tablets and gaming consoles are open season. Your ‘smart’ TV reports everything you do and when to home base, and is easily hacked. If it has a camera, they can watch you, if it has a microphone, listen too.
             Knowing all of the above, and that regulative action could prohibit or limit them soon, and that hackers have already stolen Bitcoins, I would have to say: just buy real gold or silver They have not done well of late, of course, but as a long-term store of value they will do fine. Bury it in the backyard and tell no one.

48. Seems like people are creating a bubble with this crypto currency stuff that will burst sometime. The higher it goes, the bigger the fall. Normal currency at least is somewhat backed by real value like gold, or at least it used to be, this only values as much as theres someone willing to pay for, could be 10M dollars or it could be 1 cent.

    1. The key part of your statement is “used to be”. I also directly addressed in the post that the US dollar and Bitcoin both derive their “value” from community consensus, although at least with Bitcoin you know how many there are and always will be (21 million), so there is intrinsic value by scarcity. “Quantitative Easing” (aka printing money) means the same can’t be said of the USD.
       Bitcoin could stablize at 1c, but I find that a difficult conclusion to draw from the graph. 10M dollars looking much more realistic.

       1. You got some valid points, but real currency, unlike crypto currency doesnt require power and processing power to maintain itself.
          I would accept the price increase in bitcoin if there was an increase in usage, lets say amazon started accepting bitcoins, or you could buy groceries and fill your tank with crypto currency.
          Truth is, you cant.
          I dont see any increase in bitcoin usage to justify an increase in demand.
          The 2 only major events that happened recently, was the Silk Road shutdown which actually decreased bitcoin usage and the release of the new ASIC mining hardware, that caused a “gold rush” in miners and increased the mining diffficulty.
          ASIC technology made the network safer and actually more energy efficient, but an increased security comes with a cost, and that cost comes in Watts, because the network now consumes more power than before, even though you get more Hash per Watt, I can only assume the price increase is related to the cost of maintaining the bitcoin itself plus people buying in mass euphoria, therefore the bubble.
          Bitcoin isnt sustainable in the 3rd world and emerging superpowers. Energy is a finite resource, and unless the world can solve the energy crisis that will come in a near future, bitcoin will be too expensive to exist.
          Its usage doesnt justify its power consumption yet, and remains to be seen if ever will.
          Like I said, unless people start buying groceries with bitcoin it will be a niche currency.
          And if government backed currency fails you think it bitcoin will save you? Try to trade food with crypto currency when theres no power because people are too busy rioting in the streets, destroying things like power lines and stuff, because all their lifetime savings in government backed currency are now worth ZERO.

          1. yeah it’s a good point.. if a big fiat currency dies….there will be chaos and others will probably go with it… Euro and Yen are primed to pop…. USD is a mess, but in crisis times money goes back to USD… and USD is the least bad of the bunch of shipwrecks waiting to happen….
             A Yen or Euro blow up would beget a Yen or Euro blow up… one will most likely kill the other… that will bring on a massive global financial mess, and either reinstate or destroy the USD as king pin… if USD is back in… bitcoin is dead…. and if USD dies… we’re all fucked and bitcoin like you say will be untenable…
             so basically whatever happens bitcoin is fucked… the other problem with bitcoin is that once the mining stops, you have a jam… new money needs to be created or the value will just go to the moon and no one will want to sell… if there is no money supply then business will die…. then you get a crash… bitcoin isn’t deflationary… it’s boom bust boom bust guaranteed….
             the fed does a shit job, but with no additional money supply bitcoin is primed to do an even worse job…

          2. There is something very fishy going on with the US financial system these last couple of years – quantitave easing has pumped tremendous capital into our toll-booth economy with no apparent benefit at all and still increasing in quantity. I personally fear we might be heading toward a crisis ala-Argentina style as they did in 2001. This is perhaps the reason why bitcoin got popular in the first place – that the public world-wide is aware of the acute problem of many other currencies being pegged to the dollar. Alot of the 3rd world has in fact remained 3rd world for so long because of the predatory practices by the WTO and IMF, the financial arms of US deemed more powerful than its military. None has this exploitation been more pronounced than in Latin and South America. Yet despite of everything the US still is respected fo many reasons (military first) and that indirectly confers respect to our fiat currency.
             Went a bit off tangent there bur the make-or-break for bitocoin, as you suggested here, is when major or not so major business start conducting transations with bitcoins. And if it ever gets that big then there will undoubtebly be acceptable fees (but less than bank fees) associated with them to keep it running but I don’t see the cost to maintain the transactions increasing so astronomically since computing power is also increasing much faster with promising advances such as quantum computing.
             I personally think the one thing bitcoin really has it going for is summed up in one word – convenience. Just like the credit cards that we use more than cash but without the nuisance of dealing with a bank. The post by Jeremey below pretty much summed up the need for something like bitcoin in the 21st century. This along with peer-to-peer lending global networks, a bit of precious metals on the side could be the first nail in the coffin for predatory banks and even governments as well. The only problem many might have is accepting a currency that is non-portable physically just in case you know what… but then again we can make a few silver or gold bitcoins eh?

49. This looks like a classic bubble. Chances are that it’ll end in tears.

    1. Yup, in 2005 the housing market underwent a similar change. Saner people tried to warn that it was a bubble, but even fucking Ben Bernanke denied it.
       Bitcoins are great as a form of currency and I predict they’ll stay around for a long time. But the price has officially hit the ‘bubble’ phase now: http://www.portfolioprobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/bubble-phases-1024×686.jpg
       The ‘smart money’ has already been made by early adopters. Now we’re at the ‘New Paradigm!!!!’ stage.

       1. Buy with the rumor, sell with the news. Now we are in the “news” stage. I heard about BC a couple of years ago. Now it is too late.

50. “Bitcoin Is Creating A New Class Of Millionaires” = The stupidist ROK article to date. Anybody who believes the content of this entry is an idiot.

    1. Several people now own more than USD$1 million worth of Bitcoin, and/or have cashed out for exactly that. Max Keiser is a high profile example, you can look further into that if you’re interested.
       I apologize for providing informative content on groundbreaking technology flavoured with my own educated perspective, and look forward to your superior ROK contribution. You can find the link to submit an article yourself at the bottom of the page.

       1. Classic response of the scam artist.

          1. Roosh is also a scam artist. Those silly books he sells, people buy them and think it might improve their chances of getting laid. Look at how he capitalizes on his little website with special sponsors and shit. This page was mentioned in the Daily Mail the other day, which is what he wants.
             This kind of garbage should be no surprise, word is getting out that the suckers be here. So go “mine” for bitcoins from the comfort of your mother’s basement, faggots, because Roosh told you and he may have once gotten laid in Slovenia.

          2. Nope. Roosh produced something through work, something real, with real information. This information can help people to find the better spots to meet ladies, and takes into account cultural differences. Roosh books can be as useful as a Lonely Planet guide, and you don´t see people complaining about the existence of travel guides. As long as the guides themselves do not have a deleterious effect on the places through massive consumption (the “Lonely Planet effect” on some South East Asia destinations), the info on Roosh books will continue to be useful, since only a small portion of travelers use it.

    2. People who bought hundreds or thousands of Bitcoins when they were less than five dollars each (or mined them when it was much easier to do so) and held on to them are indeed millionaires today. That is just simple mathematical reality.

    3. There are over 1000 new millionaires thanks to bitcoin: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=356264.0

51. there are only 21M coins as of 2020 something when the mining finishes….. right now it’s at $1200, which sounds so impressive when it started at $1 and was only $100 earlier this year… but 21M bitcoins (some of which don’t exist yet), makes the entire bitcoin market cap less than $21B dollars – to put that in perspective the market cap of Apple is $500B, hundreds of smaller companies have market caps far higher than $21B…. so as of today, it’s hardly an impressive wealth transfer… you’d need the bitcoin at $1M a pop to put any kind of dent in anything…. about $3 Trillion Euros are bought and sold every day on the forex market…. the volume on Mt. Gox is pathetic.. some penny stocks have higher daily volume, their exchange is an excuse for a service compared to NYMEX, GLOBEX, CME, CBOT, LME, ICE and all the other real global exchanges….
    Bitcoin is a miniscule experiment in the scheme of financial reality… it’s an ice cube in an ocean of money……when it’s on a real exchange then take it seriously…. look at the bottom line numbers…. gold is at $1200 also, but there are more than 5 billion ounces in the world… just to be level with gold bitcoin needs to get above $250,000 per bitcoin… it has a hell of a long way to go, both in value and liquidity…

    1. Hi, Ray. Just wanted to clarify a couple of your misconceptions surrounding Bitcoin.
       — The mining of BTC will not finish until close to the mid-22nd century.
       — The entire market cap of BTC would be $21 billion or so as of this post if all coins were already mined, but that does not take into account what the exchange rate of BTC will be at any given point in the future.
       — How would the “Big Boys” corner a market that is completely decentralized across the globe and peer-to-peer? No exchanges are required whatsoever to deal in Bitcoin. If you have a Bitcoin address, I could send you BTC right now and it would be in your virtual wallet the same as if I handed you a $10 bill on the street. Furthermore, around the clock, on the average of every 10 minutes, someone on this planet is receiving 25 newly mined Bitcoins (or their share of 25 BTC if they are participating in a mining pool that successfully finds that block of coins). This is far beyond the scope of what one national government can control, which is the very reason for the existence of Bitcoin in the first place.
       — My prediction (and that of many others) is that BTC will remain very volatile in the short term, but as more people begin to use it and accept it as an everyday medium of exchange in the decades to come, we will see a stabilization of the exchange rate.

    2. People think it’s so crazy, but it’s not much different than using credit and debit cards everywhere. I RARELY use paper money, and many young people use 100x as much digital references to money (credit/debit) as paper money. The era of paper is almost done, so now it’s just a matter of whether we use the existing system of fiat digital (credit/debit references to inflating paper) or this entirely new concept of scarce digital money. From an alien perspective, all that fiat paper has in its favor is a history of widespread use, but much downside. Bitcoin has volatility and risk of speculation. Much of the appeal of money today is social support, and I really don’t think BTC is going to just disappear any time soon. The one downside is how obtuse the process is of buying and setting up a wallet… it’s a learning curve that will severely limit adoption by the old or less tech-savvy… but then again, all new technology and groundbreaking ideas were adopted only by the intelligent elite and then trickle down to the rest. I just thought BTC would take off AFTER a major breakthrough in gaining mass appeal.

52. Unfortunately, it seems to me that this is a bubble.
    Let’s say the value of the BC continues increasing. People will start to save BCs more and more, investors will turn into savers – this will lead to the paradox of thrift, which will result in a devaluation.
    However, I think that the BCs have extremely good short-term potential.

53. Looks like the MSM has caught wind of bitcoin. Global news is covering the “dark side” of bitcoin as we speak

54. Great article and I like how you defend bitcoin, though I think with a little more thinking you could have presented both sides. For instance, one easy argument against bitcoin is that central banks (after they realized they missed out on bitcoin) could secretly buy bitcoins by printing money that no one is aware of (and with everything being electronic, this can happen). I find it funny that people distrust central banks so much, but will turn around and think that they’ll “play by the rules” in the case of bitcoins. The Federal Reserve could easily create random accounts and purchase a few bitcoin for each account, most of you would think they’re an actual person. One you have the market narrowed, you win.
    This is why Bernanke wasn’t threatened by bitcoin and even spoke positively about it (the claim by libertarians is that bankers would hate it – hardly; they can still win this game because they own the money supply and bitcoin is still valued by some currency).
    Yes, bitcoin is a great concept and it may go higher in price, but it is not and will never be immune from manipulation.
    Finally, all good investing comes from learning about things, not from fear. If you want to know how to spot a bubble – what are people buying on the basis of Fear Of Missing Out; that’s your bubble. If you want to buy bitcoins because you want to learn about the process and even think that the concept behind it is wise that’s one thing, but buying because you’re afraid that you’ll be in the 99% of poor people, you won’t save what you think you will
    Also, some of you may remember long term capital. Just because something looks bulletproof right now, doesn’t mean it will in the future. Anytime a person says, “Nothing can stop this” we know what’s about to happen.
    So yes, learn about bitcoins – a lesson in encryption and cryptography is well worth it. And buy a few (or many) for fun. But if you’re doing it out of fear, you’ve already lost.

    1. All that would achieve is causing the USD to depreciate further against BTC.

55. Thank you for the attribution. I think I need a new handle if I am going to be quoted.

56. I will give the author a blowjob if A) the US government doesnt freeze transactions for american goods and services or B) a competitor comes out with a different name. Just like online poker, terrorism and child porn, the gov’t can kill it.

    1. Yeah, the government has done a bang-up job of killing terrorism. Glad that’s a thing of the past!

57. Does anyone seriously think the Nu Wurld Oder will not kill or play bitcoin currency? We don’t even know who invented it. I wouldn’t ‘invest’ in bitcoin for the long haul. SHTF = no Internet and not more bitcoin redemption. There are other, more disturbing possibilities: (1) bubble bust extortion like 1929, dot-com 2001, Housing 2008, and (2) proto-one wurld currensee. With enough political control, the ‘code’ can be made to do A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. One could play the speculation game with full knowledge, but the elites control the timing of all bubbles and the access to rehypothenication of your ass because they control you on the IMF tax farm. Financial responsibility is moving (exchanging) your financial value (wealth/fiat purchasing power based on the circumstances in flux. There is no escape from a total collapse of civilization. The US Guv/Fed stole private gold in 1933 (executive order 6102 and private silver in 1934. There is no substitute for, duh, winning! Patriarchy is currency. No brotherhood first, no family, no civilization for you.
    http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14611
    http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=14741

    1. I agree with you about the Internet being necessary for Bitcoin’s future. No worldwide network, no Bitcoin. Think about what is would take to bring down the entire Internet, however. I don’t mean in the US. I mean everywhere in the world. Since everyone running the Bitcoin software on earth has an exact copy of the Bitcoin ledger of transactions from day one, the entire United States could go dark and that may affect my ability to access my Bitcoins easily here, but it doesn’t mean they have disappeared or that I have lost them.

58. Tulip Mania 2.0, you’re all fucking morons

59. One thing to keep in mind is that, while there will never be more than 21 million bitcoins, those bitcoins are currently divisible down to eight decimal places. In other words, unlike gold or silver (which I am not disparaging in the slightest) Bitcoin is robust enough that everyone can own some.

60. Lol! Unlike Gold and Silver, Bitcoin is intangible. You can’t hold it, you can’t look at it, and you can’t store it under your mattress. It is a CONCEPT, not something real. It’s like looking at internet porn and thinking that you’re good with chicks cause you can always see one naked.
    While there are “philosophical limits” on bitcoin, there really isn’t any law or regulation or physical limit on bitcoin – it is a concept, not a real thing, unlike Gold and Silver (But not Fiat Money).
    Who controls fiat money? The Federal Reserve and The Government.
    Who controls Gold and Silver? Mother Nature and our human abilities to figure out how to extract it from the ground for less than it costs an ounce.
    Who controls Bitcoin? Who the Fuck Knows! It was created by some no-name, which doesn’t really matter, but also, there is only some anonymous people’s reassurance that they will not print more of them. Ask the Fed how that works!
    Bitcoin is a good concept that can’t be backed up in the physical world. The reason why Gold and Silver have worked for thousands of years is because it’s physical availability directly limits human’s “rationalization hamsters.” With gold and silver, you can rationalize wanting more money for a bazillion reasons… yet because they are physically limited, rather than conceptually limited as bitcoin is, nobody can fuck you around by creating more of it out of thin air to satisfy their hamster.
    The government is arguing whether Bitcoin is a “real” currency. Rest assured, if they decide it is valid, they will regulate it until they control it. Further, you can’t trade it for goods without an (at least) electronic record… can’t really slip it to your neighbour for an ounce of weed without typing it into the ‘puter now, can ya? If the long arm of the law comes after you, they can monitor your bitcoin account, can’t they? Can they do that with Gold and Silver? Only if you’re a dumbass and buy paper gold and silver instead of the real physical stuff.
    Bitcoin may become a valid “currency” in the future – as an international internet currency – but it has too many holes to make it a true store of wealth.
    Nobody gives a crap what government is in power, what the laws are, or how many spies are watching your online activities when you are holding a nice, heavy, untraceable gold coin in your hands.

    1. The value of gold is pretty conceptual, while it’s true that it’s probably worth something, you don’t really know what that something is. Also the government at one point seized gold, making possession and transfer criminal offenses, so it’s not that secure from the government

61. They’ll EMP the planet before bitcoin is allowed to usurp the Fed. Sure, they’ll let it go on so long as feel good stories about new millionaires are created… they love a good ponzi scheme… link forthcoming

62. Don’t trust BitCoin.
    You can’t buy much with it and right now all it’s really good for is speculating on peoples stupidity.
    On top of that owning BitCoins gets you put on a watchlist as a suspected drugs trafficker.
    There’s nothing secret about them as we’ve seen how the NSA has already cracked open TOR. And the FBI seized millions in BitCoins when they shut down the Silk Road.

    1. Other good points made.

    2. Both false. TOR has never been cracked. Backdoored definitely but the encryption that runs the TOR network is still very much secure. Also Bitcoin addresses can be generated in an instant and are completely anonymous. Someone who knows what they are doing can acquire Bitcoins without the government knowing a thing other than that wallet has some Bitcoins in it.
       People should take the time to read up on technology rather than take the word of the media or Hollywood movies.

       1. Point is TOR has been rendered useless.
          They can now find out who is who.
          And you still have yet to address the fact that you can’t buy much with Bitcoins right now. All you can get is Pizza in one part of the world, drugs from the CIA and what?

    3. Don’t trust the internet. the internet is only a fad that’s gonna go away eventually.. very very dangerous, your identity can get stolen…

63. The author obviously has a vested interest in this bitcoin nonsense and is using the popularity and traffic of this site to drive people to also invest in the same scheme so he can profit.
    The whole bitcoin concept still remains abstract but one thing is certain: by the time investment news of any kind hits the blogs such as this, being promoted under the “new class of millionaires being created by blah blah blah blah blah…” it is too late, and the ship has sailed. Anybody who invests now will lose.
    I’m also getting the impression that the author is sock puppetering in this discussion under different user names.
    I’m less annoyed with the charlaton who wrote this piece and more annoyed with Roosh for allowing it to be published. He should know better.
    FAIL.

    1. Yeah bit coin with $10 billion dollars market capitalization is getting rich of traffic from ROK or Rooshv. Bitcoin is larger than smith and weston and strum and rugers combined multiple by 4…. I highly doubt the write could drum up substantial traffic.

64. There is like 30+ crypto currencies out there based on even better security hashing mechanisms. Please give me one valid reason, BT should prevail.

    1. the networking effect.

65. What the hell is this place?

    1. A website for men, as you can see by perusing the articles, that center on meeting nice ladies through self-improvement, but dabbles on interesting issues such as cultural differences, energy, investment, careers, money and the economy, and even arts. Lots of commenters are right-wing of the “libertarian” flavor, and some (as myself, a post-feminist Marxist sociologist/economist) are not.

       1. Clear.

66. If you’re worried about hyperinflation in the United States, the safer investment is in Red Neck Gold aka ammunition.

    1. I agree, but even the once cheap box of 9m is now expensive. I guess we keep our guns but cant afford ammo…

       1. Buy the tools to make your own.
          These days handloading brass is almost a necessity if you want to shoot with any frequency on a budget.

67. Wow. Trying to wrap my head around this. One thing I know, since it’s been in the mainstream news already, I probably should keep clear of it.

68. Buying internet coin is fool’s gold!. I lost $600 on 100oz of silver… and thats only 600. Others weren’t so lucky.
    I remember my mom and everyone telling me to buy a house back in 2008 before the bubble burst. She’d say shit like “Go ahead Danny, real estate is a great investment you can never lose”. And look where all that buying got them. Everyone is drowning now….

69. The one standing gas station in post-Katrina New Orleans, doesn’t accept bitcoin (or American Express).

70. Bitcoin is simply the most dangerous game in town. It’s not backed by hard collateral, and not backed by any legitimate public institution. While this might sound like the ultimate libertarian’s dream, one should also remember that governments still have the power to crack down and “regulate” Bitcoin every which way they want. When that happens, those instant millionaires will taste quite a bite of dust.

    1. How is the US government going to effectively regulate a WORLDWIDE, completely decentralized currency? There is no bank to regulate. I store most of my bitcoins offline in a private wallet. In about ten seconds i can send my bitcoins to an anonymous address in Japan or Bulgaria or any number of other foreign countries, completely out of their reach.
       I can even offload my coins into a “paper wallet” completely off the grid, out of circulation until I provide the randomly generated private key that matched the public key bitcoin address. Now, where on the planet did I snail mail that key so many months ago? I am sorry, Agent So-and-so: I just can’t remember.

71. “The only other potential issue is advances in quantum computing that
    smashes apart current encryption standards, but that would cause far
    larger problems with all online privacy. If anyone would come out on
    top it’s the forward-thinking and technically-minded Bitcoin community.”
    A quantum computer would not be able to break the elliptic curve digital signature algorithm.
    Please watch this video:
    

72. This Bitcoin thing sounds a whole lot like tulips. I wouldn’t invest in it long term, but for those that got into it early, held it, and are selling off shares now, good for them. I’m no economist, but I’d say that it isn’t the right time to get in, but time to cash out.

73. You say, “It’s a bubble in exactly the same way as the US dollar”. But what if it’s more like the bubbles in real estate in 2007, in dot com stocks in 1999 or in tulips in the 1630’s? Judging from the erratic price charts, anything could happen.

74. I can harldy imagine that a goverment who did FATCA would allow something like bitcoin to survive.
    Remember the guy who sold silver/gold dollars of his own minting? It was perfectly legal and within the constitution and still he is facing like 20 years in prison, his reputation, family and wealth destroyed.
    Also do you remember what happened to e-gold? Yes the first gold backed internet financial service company? Think like paypal but backed in gold. They got shut down, their managers cuffed and their gold confiscated.
    Bitcoin will be destroyed by the same people. Mark my words.

75. Are you reading my mind. On the week i get interested in BitCoins, RoK publishes this. 21st, btw, the op in the forum had a bizarre error, saying that fungiblity is the ability to perfectly divide something… is`s actually the interchangeability of any two units of that something: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fungibility

    1. Yeah I mistyped and meant Divisibility, and then was going to explain Fungibility separately but by the time I realised the error I had been locked out of editing the post.

76. Great article, Gen. I didn’t know much about this subject and now I feel like I get the basics.

77. All transactions are public in the blockchain, this means that all transactions are public to entities with the resources to monitor the blockchain, but not to anyone else.
    This is worse than a credit card, and far worse than cash.

78. Lol has the author ever tried to cash out on his bitcoins?
    24-48 month wait times, possibility of crash or not getting your money altogether.
    and that’s just the current issues. great post, Overwatch.

    1. You can cash out any time using coinbase.com and the money will be in your checking account in about a week.

79. Yes!!! I am a Bitcoin developer and an aggressive supporter of the manosphere. (Roosh: let me set you up on taking donations in Bitcoin)
    Please ask me any questions. Also, I am running a Bitcoin mining operation that is fascinating. Get a hold of me if interested in Bitcoin mining; [email protected]

80. good concept doesn’t always mean a working concept. But I think the concept is generally flawed, since deflation can be even more harmful as inflation. The best currency is a stable currency. Then, if nobody is controlling transactions, black market and money laundering mobs will use it.

81. quantum computing will render the encryption of the transaction system useless. So i’d be inclined to only put small amounts into bitcoin akin to gambling/entertainment

    1. QC is nowhere near happening right now. It may never happen, if what my physics/electronic devices professor has it right.
       All current mechanisms for computer operation require gain to function. This is as true with your phone or computer as it was for the old Vacuum tube machines. We don’t currently have a functional theory for how such a computer could be programmed, and very little insight on how it could be implemented.
       Encryption is the thing for the next several years, and I anticipate it always will be. Can you imagine how volatile a QC would be, how easy it would be to permanently destroy your cyber-currency?
       But then, I am heavily invested in modern computing methods, so I could be biased.

82. So, as in all things, there are nuances to bitcoin/cryptocurrency that mean gigantic changes to society.
    So, with government backed (or fiat) currencies, there’s always overhead to using them. This overhead is created by government legislation that itself was created to protect people who did not follow “caveat emptor”. As a result I cannot transfer dollars to ROK without a middleman interjecting themselves and costing me more money. Most of these middlemen who take money are banks, however there’s much more to it than that. Lawyers take money as a commission on drawing up and executing contracts. Stock brokers charge fees for trades. etc..etc… Everyone attempts to interject themselves into the process of making money by lobbing for some new regulation. Bitcoin removes significant chunks of those financial regulations. This means it’s a true free market that can move up AND DOWN and is not influenced by a national “treasury department”. Over the long haul, it will likely retain considerably more value than any government currency, but it will have NORMAL NATURAL BUBBLES that people need to be aware of.
    All this said, Bitcoin is NOT a ponzi scheme. It is not a get-rich-now-forever scheme where the early adopters will make out big and the followers get screwed. It is exactly what a currency should be, it’s pure economic lubrication that cuts out middlemen. In the distant past, in order to move value around, you had to herd goats into town 40 miles away on foot. This could take you days and you would have losses on the trip. Money was invented to allow people a method of transferring labor value without having to transfer significant amounts of mass. This resulted in a slow, but steady increase in the rate and ease with which transactions could take place. This unheralded concept was the real meat behind the industrial revolution. Machines made industrialization possible, but financial capital and the easy transfer of wealth meant that in order to build the machine, you didn’t have to walk to the nearest steel mine 100 miles away and beg for an advance of raw material in exchange for a percentage of profits.
    Well, government or gold backed currencies have gotten us this far. However, because governments ultimately controlled currencies, they controlled the regulations attached to using those currencies. This means that the small man, the small business owner, could be squeezed out by monetary regulation. You know what the average cost of the average IPO is these days? Go look it up, but regulations and the employment opportunities that come with complying with those regulations make it all but impossible for the average industrial stay-at-home-mom to seek public funding.
    Now imagine a world where access to money has reverted back to a stage similar to 1870s America, but with an internet available to communicate your idea to everyone, and significantly more capital available to pull from. That’s ultimately what bitcoin offers, it offers true liquidity back to the masses like you and me, where it belongs.
    Bitcoin represents our best shot at stopping this inevitable march where the rich only get richer because of cronyism (be it crony capitalism or crony socialism, both are just as bad).

83. Im happy for the bitcoin millionaires, but lets look at where its really at – going public.
    Right now, everyone and their mother is trying to buy or (foolishly) mine bitcoins. Sorry kids, the bus to easy street left in 2011. Dont get me wrong, I anticipate the price of bitcoins to increase, but *at any time* there can be a sharp decline in the price as people offload them for real (and by real, i mean accepted everywhere) currency.
    One of the things that points to this is that the average person isn’t willing to drop $1,000 on a digital currency, even if its estimated value is going to grow.
    (in my view) Until the following things happen, bitcoins will be risky:
    1. Governments allow them as acceptable currency
    2. Joe-hates-computers has a means to acquire them and keep them secure. The viability of a mass currency depends on the acceptance of it as legitimate. Joe-hates-computers understands the value of having a fist full of cash and that he can go anywhere with it and buy a gallon of ass.
    3. Quantum computing never becomes a reality
    4. The current holders refuse offload them and refuse to mine/trade

84. Of course Winklevoss guys are claiming its worth $100,000 a coin, those fuks have 11 million dollars invested that they have turned into an effective $91.6 million dollars (in barely over half a year, $11m of coins at $120/coin, now $1000/coin).

85. Bitcoins are going to provide the death blow to socialism & feminism. It is now possible for men to keep all their wealth in cyberspace, immune to government confiscation. I can store all my bitcoins in a brain wallet and bring them with me undetected to any country. I suspect that there will be major economic shifts before we hit the year 2020 due to bitcoin.

    1. Best reply on here.

    2. Don’t be so optimistic,you still need to exchange bitcoins into currency

86. been following btc for quite a while now. only downside of those btc millionaires is that they are paper millionaires. at the moment it is very difficult to cash out large sums of bitcoins without destabilising the market. so people have to sell below market value on second markets. also lots of fraud [no more than real banking i hear you say] but a lot of people are getting fucked over.

87. Looks like a bubble to me.

88. Mt Gox failure. $500B in bitcoins “disappear” into the ether. What fool would play around with this currency?

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