Topic: A lot of bad news recently for bitcoin, IMO it is going to start to hurt. (Read 4914 times)

Unfortunately, yes 

joulesbeef, part of the beauty of Bitcoin.  21 million (slightly less) is the upper bound of BTC.   Loss is not insignificant.  Study compSci (computer science) and investigate "order O notation", upper bound and lower bound become significant factors... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation

Same principles apply to BitCoin money supply.

nah but a ton of coins have already17,000 have  been lost at that one exchange, and tons of people have screwed up and lost their coin and tons quit with change in their wallets but the more that our lost the less that should be, as value goes up, once we get all 21 million, hopefully fractions of a bitcoin will be worth a lot, so people will tend to lose small fractions rather than whole coins.

Still once lost bitcoins are lost forever. unlike gold

Wait, I missed the part where everyone at the convention was toting around their entire wallet on their smartphone and were the only one's in their family/circle with access to their backups.

This was (still is) one of my biggest questions about bitcoin. There is supposed to be a max of 21,000,000 BTC eventually, but how many will get lost, deleted, etc.... 10%? 20%? more?

(*WARNING - wild imagination about to go wild*)

What if bitcoin actually succeeds? Say bitcoin gains mass acceptance, and then some wacko decides to bomb a bitcoin convention with the intent of decreasing the supply in order to drive up the demand/price??

It's like high school all over again, isn't it?

The problem is that Bitcoin is only as good as the people using it.  It can't exist by itself in a vacuum.  While we as techies/geeks may write off the human component and market stuff as less important than the "fundamentals", they are just as essential to its success as the client, network, and crypto are.  Too many of these incidents (and they're getting worse as more people get involved and centralize more) may sour the public on the whole idea and drive them away for good.

Ok i understand.. you are right.. most of the flaws so far are growing pains and people starting to recognize that bitcoin is a target for scammers cause it is new, a lot o fmoney goes through it and people dont have good security habits yet.

Well, I agree with your idea that prices are hurt by bad press. What I meant about those examples not be bitcoin problem is that they are not flaws in the fundamentals of bitcoin.  Scammers, shady or unprofessional websites, market manipulation, those are problems with people, not bitcoin.
If SHA-256 were broken, now that would be a flaw.

really hard to believe you can say that. Many people used mybitcoin as they did not trust having their wallets on their own computer with various bitcoin trojans. Now suddenly the place where they felt safe, disappears without a trace. And that is about 100,000 bitcoins, many of those people were current traders. If you just lost 1000 coins would you immediately go buy some more? If you didnt feel safe with the wallet at home and the biggest most recommended online wallet just disappeared, would you go looking for the second biggest?

yeah some of my examples are only small straws on the camels back. The MTGOX glich for example. But it just adds to peoples unease. DO you really doubt that ANY stock would not go down with similar level of bad news?

I'm not saying it would hurt long term, I hope not. it will if this shit doesnt stop. But you would have to be blind to not see it has hurt the short term. Why do you think we are at $9 right now? due to all the good news?

Huh, I have been replacing all the Winxx OS on the computers at work. When I check back a few weeks later to ask how they like the new Ubuntu OS, the just say... "wha? I didn't notice anything".

Anyway on topic. No I don't think it will be so bad for BTC. The examples you mentioned are mostly not problems with bitcoin.

there is a reason why most businesses use linux in the back while their sheeple non techie employees are all on windows. And it is a bit more than "we have always done it this way that is why"


you can quibble all day about if either is more user friendly or if you can get the same level of customer service from redhat as you could from MS.

at the end of the day, it is cheaper on businesses with windows up front and linux in the back, even if it doesnt seem like it with all them damn windows licenses.

I guess I have a different level of "dumb" than everyone else then... there's a separate application just for installing closed-source drivers that has never let me down and installing my miner was as simple as typing "git pull".  Any problems I ran into were solved with Google, same as when I was on Windows and OS X.

Of course there are going to be isolated incidents of people having problems with their computers because of a unique combination of hardware/software, but again Windows has a huge industry behind it that exists to solve all those problems for you for a profit.  You paid a computer manufacturer to configure Windows perfectly for your hardware, they pay Microsoft and hardware companies to write drivers so it all works together, and you pay for a service agreement to solve all your problems for you.

Similarly, people who use Linux seriously (servers, finance industry, businesses, governments) pay Red Hat, Oracle, etc. for that kind of service and reliability.  They just haven't pushed hard enough into the desktop arena like Windows has.  But again, that's an issue behind the business side of selling OSs, not a technical argument.

Funny that Do you think that is the reason most serious developers use OS X? Well they do, because A. it's a solid OS just like linux and B. it increases productivity by making your life simple. So you know, you can get shit done instead of struggling with mediocre Windows problems

you're not an idiot, you're only not an informatican

@vulgata

See, thats what i ment what's Ubuntu about...

I like and use Ubuntu, but that's the reason, why i normally use Windows, and run Ubuntu on a stick..

I don't think it's user-friendly at all; just look at the stupid shit people do to bork their systems.  The only reason why it seems "usable for dumb people" is because they grew up using it and forget about the steep learning curve it had in the beginning; also there is a HUGE industry set up just to help people use their computers and to save their asses after they inevitably fuck it up (geek squad, antivirus, etc.).  No other system do you have to reformat and reinstall as much as Windows, even if you use it properly.


What?  A dumb person doesn't want to do any more with the system other than their basic needs.  They treat a computer like a microwave or any other appliance--it does a one or a few functions (email, facebook, youtube, google), they learn how to use those, and don't bother with anything else.  Why would they get "bored" with it?  And for that matter, why would they not get "bored" with OS X and Windows if they can't figure out how to use those either?

E.g., my parents used to use Windows because that's what it came with and that's what they used at work.  They would inevitably have problems and so I would troubleshoot over the phone, clean/reformat once every 6mos-1y when I would visit (more when I lived with them), and if I was too busy they would just take it to the store.  A few years ago I installed Ubuntu for my mom and after the few initial calls to figure out how to do certain things (flash, streaming video, downloads, etc.) she hasn't had any issues since.  Now when I come to visit all I have to do is upgrade, which is free, painless, and optional anyway (so I only do it if I have time).

Maybe I'm just one of those "dumb" people but I have no idea what you're saying about Ubuntu here.


I agree totally.  We need one of those gaudy, saccharine "Web 2.0" beasts with tons of AJAX, rounded corners, faux-3D effects, and cutesy animations for this to gain any mainstream appeal.

dont think so... OS X is for computer users who have absolutely no clue of informatics and nearly no logical thinking... everything's so simple, tha the dummest person can handle with it... (but you cant change very much of the system)
-> most userfrendly but shit

Windows is for users with more logical thinking and a bit knowlege of informatics (yo dont have to see the solution, you'll find it if you think logically). the more you know, the more you can change the system. it's usable for dumb and intelligent people, because you can do more qith windows if you want, but you dont have to.
-> less userfrendly, but as user you've got more possibilities

Ubuntu is quite simple, at the beginning, but most dumb people dont see what all you can do with the system, so they will be bored short time after installing... an informatician can change nearly everything. if you want to use Ubuntu with all his possibilities, you have to know much about informatics ant think absolutely logical...
-> in the beginning userfrendly, but after short time of using it is not.

means the bitcoin client and the exchantges have to look much more professional (placebo effect for mainstream), simple and userfrendly to use for first time users, but with much more possibilities for advanced users!

look at an applestore, the product they sell are IMO one of the worst, but they present it white, clean, simple, trustable, uzseful for the dumbest person

right? ;-)

No, not exactly.  If the coins were lost through theft (as most of the losses have been) then the coins aren't gone from the money supply since the thieves have to USE the coins in some way (buying things, selling for cash) in order for them to make a profit, i.e., the supply is the same but the coins have simply shifted ownership.  I doubt most of them are ideologically motivated to simply take bitcoin down or to raise the price.


Maybe, but I'm pretty sure everyone can agree that OS X and Ubuntu are far more user-friendly than Windows.  What Windows has going for it is critical mass and good business marketing.  Windows adoption took off because of its widespread adoption by business--you will likely adopt for home use whatever your work requires so you can do your job properly, and other businesses will adopt Windows so they can be interoperable with their clients/other businesses and most importantly use essential trade-specific programs.  Microsoft did a really good job marketing to businesses with volume discounts and support plans.  Computer manufacturers also got locked into Microsoft-only deals early on, and consumers had no other choice.  Apple dropped the ball by trying to have their cake and eat it too (controlling both hardware and software).  Microsoft also tied Windows strongly to IE and Office in addition to the other aforementioned business programs; while IE is slowly being eroded away by FF/Chrome (for most of us it's not even a contender anymore), anyone who doesn't use docx now is at a severe disadvantage (although many governments/organizations are switching to ODF, but Microsoft also bullied its way somehow into ISO certification).

tl;dr It's not about ease of use at an individual level but market forces that force large-scale business decisions.

I will be announcing a business plan soon with my upcoming wallet site BitWal.com. I think you will like what you see so stay tuned smalley .

+1,000,000!

Smartest comment in this forum in weeks!