Topic: An Open Message to all Bitcoin Investors (Read 4483 times)

way back you could trade dollars for the gold it was backed by...  then it shifted to petro-dollars as most oil is sold in dollars or you get bombed to shit.

perhaps if there was some new energy revolution that would tie BTC to Kw you would get a more stable value... as you could then trade them for a 'barrel' of Kilowatts


there would be a whole lotta blood in the streets either way before any change like that ever happened

 

When their masters say jump, they jump.

I mentioned earlier the parallels between BTC and religious/semi-religious groups and your position does seem more and more an article of faith rather than anything structured.

1. Do you think BTC is a currency or a store of wealth?  You infer you believe it will be a currency but you decry currency exchange, which is one of the first requirements it needs to survive.  Either currency or store of wealth, it needs to be traded against established currencies.  How can you wonder why this is part of BTC...it is essential.

2. You have stated many times that BTC is going to change the world.  That would be lovely but in the early nineties (when I was young and idealistic) so was the internet, the last great computer protocol.  It has changed the world: there has been some good but it has also brought increased materialism, pornification, new social problems and a huge drain on the world's energy supplies.  Not what we had in mind when we wanted to 'change the world'. 

I see very little behaviour on this board to suggest the people who are into BTC are going to do any good in the world....they will just be the new rich. 

3. What an earth do you think 'new money' (ie BTC) is going to do other than first attract the rich and the avaricious?

4. "BTC keeps chugging along unchanged"....I won't pretend to be a technical genius but its my understanding that the protocol has been and continues to evolve and be tweaked.  This is good because it is neither perfect nor immutable.  Seeing something as fixed and unwavering is not so healthy...its what we do with gods and saints to create a point of order within a chaotic world.

TL:DR  BTC isn't perfect, neither are people and BTC won't change the world, although people can.

Poor choice of words then.  
Obviously there would be some shock and bewilderment.  Especially since Bitcoin is really going viral.
I am fully aware of the worldwide race right now to build infrastructure for Bitcoin and technologies that overlay the Bitcoin protocol.
So I would be confused as to why it had dropped so low.
But the reality is, the trading market, and all the super cool day traders buying and selling and jerking eachother off with their super cool trading terms like "dead cat bounce" have absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin itself.
In fact it is they, and all the weak hands, who know little or nothing about Bitcoin who are giving Bitcoin a bad rep.
Simple minded people in the media think the trading exchanges are an indicator of Bitcoins worth or success, when in fact the trading exchanges are 1,000000% removed from what is actually going on in the industry.
In fact I sometimes wonder why trading was even part of the Bitcoin "thing" at all.  
It goes up in response to "happy news" and down in response to "sad news".
Meanwhile Bitcoin itself keeps chugging along, unchanged.  Going viral.  Getting built out.  Expanded upon.  Saturating markets.
There seems to be little correlation between the trading exchanges and Bitcoins true worth.

It's just a faze he's going through ;-)

Don't forget the Senator who announced that he would be making a phone call after the first recess, coincidentally right after fincen gave its green light.

No. Watch the Senate hearing on Bitcoin. All the regulatory agencies were heard from.

FBI: Bitcoin doesn't look like a problem for us; we can trace it.
FinCen: Register with us and we don't have any problems.
Secret Service: We're seeing Bitcoin-related crime, and it looks like regular crime.
SEC: We'll go after anybody who tries the usual investment scams.  (Like Trendon Shavers).
DEA: The big drug dealers aren't using Bitcoin.

The  U.S. Government doesn't care about Bitcoin one way or the other. It's just another asset class. All the usual laws apply, from taxes to fraud.

  Well said, I'm with you all the way to $1, then back to the moon, and on to alpha centauri. The day I am waiting for is not the day that bitcoin hits $1 million, but the day that we stop thinking about bitcoin in dollars.

Sorry, I need more than this.

An altcoin will solve this. Believe in the ecosystem. It is competitive.

NYT is a yellow piece-of-shit paper, read their other uneducated silly articles on bitcoin and you can stop quoting them let them speak with their ass alone.

I'm ok with that.

I'm not saying your wrong, I'm just saying that most people don't care (or understand) about what you have just written and so in reality it probably has very little to do with whether or not BitCoin will make it mainstream.

I think freedom is also a part of the store of value function of bitcoin. Now, saving in money is discouraged and made impossible. They want to manage the economy to a larger output than what it will have by its natural pace. But this is not freedom, freedom is when each individual decides for himself how much to work, when to consume, when to save and when to invest. In addition, they will not be able to force the economy this way, the result is misallocation of resources and lower economic output. So they are uninformed and makes thing worse, not counting that they can also enrich themselves. Bitcoin can fix this by allowing people to save in money.

Can I just ask, what if it doesn't get banned but it gets accepted as an asset on which you must pay tax on capital gains?

I fear you may be banking on it getting banned when it looks like it is not going to get banned. What then eh?

Tax offices, the Inland Revenue, etc. will treat Bitcoiners like everyone else. They will make use of the blockchain and the cooperation of Gox, Bitstamp, and all other companies and exchanges, present and future, that want to succeed (and therefore will have to comply) to track fiat going in and out of Bitcoin, and then track the gains of your stash in fiat terms and tax it like the gains made by any other human being living in their country.

This looks like the most likely scenario for the future to me. Please tell me where I am wrong or how this doesn't make any difference to the "freedom from governments" philosophy. I'm interested to learn more.

they say to the guy who bought his bitcoins for 12 dollars a piece about a year ago

Yes, everybody I know is doing the same to me
"So sorry to hear"
"HAHA told you it was a scam"
"Boy, you must feel such a loser right now"

I didn't even try to defend anymore
I didn't lose anything

wow, this is the best serious thread going right now

friends have been trying to console me today "so sorry about the bitcoin news"  I'm like, bitcoin is fine, same as it ever was

that's a point I have raised before...there are many aspects of BTC which resemble a cult and its a shame because its this sort of behaviour which is probably one of BTC's major weaknesses.  While I agree with much of what the OP says with regard to having patience and fortitude, to stick with something new through thick and thin, there is also a touch of blind adherence that in a different scenario would be classed as fundamentalism.

Bitcoin has two main value propositions, it is a cheap fast international money transfer protocol and also it is a decentralised store of value.  Anyone who does not have vested interests in the current system is going to embrace the money transfer part.

The store of value is the controversial part, there lots of people that are semi religious about the decentralised store of value aspect, and unsurprisingly the people who benefit from the current system hate it.  There are two very loud mouthed extremes, but to be honest I don't think that there is much mass on either side.  Most people simply care about getting stuff in a convenient, fast and safe manner.  Whether the money is government controlled or not does not matter to most people(hell,  most don't even understand).  I think that if the is mass uptake of bitcoin it is not going to be because of the store of value benefits, I think it will be because of the freedom the transfer system offers.



I'm sorry, but if anything I owned dropped that much in value in a week it would phase them.  If not could I please have all your stuff?