Topic: bubble imminent - page 2. (Read 16750 times)

Panic selling the USD for BTC  i doubt it...IMO the current exchange rate is the result of speculation and hoarding, there's 5 million BTC out there yet only a fraction of that gets turned over at exchanges, just look at today's MtGox spread, High:0.97Low: 0.845 with that sort of volatility the exchange rate could go anywhere.

---------------

I'm sure there's a reason why MtGox doesn't have USD accounts? i mean why the muck around with liberty reserve?

I think that since QE2, many people are trying to protect their wealth by selling dollars. Maybe that's why bitcoins have increased its price so much.

Unless the shoe-shine boy wants the bitcoin so he can pay his rent...

Even if the current pricing does reflect a "speculative gold rush", it's inevitably self-correcting so it's nothing to worry about.

Personally, I think the speculative bubbles are yet to come. They will happen, and a lot of people will get rich, and a lot of people will get poor as a result. But the bubbles will be driven by large numbers of people (e.g. after Oprah mentions Bitcoin on her show, or Bart Simpson gets into Bitcoin).

The current market price, being determined by a few thousand early adopters who are mostly of above-average intelligence, isn't a bubble as far as I'm concerned.

i'm asking this question since i came here
it's not about expectations, it's plain speculation.
inviting new "miners" just like low credit rates fuelled the real estate market
something went wrong a month ago.

what about "US can ivade your country (alone or with allies) if you have something they want and you refuse to trade with them in us $"

not really. miners are needed only to finalzie a block and publish transactions that occured since the last block was finished.
this way confirmations are created.

Sorry guys...i meant setting up shop as a CFD (or similar) provider in the BC world, offering a way for BC speculators and investors to hedge or simply punt on BTC/USD movements....no FSA requirements would be relevant i would think as all transactions would be in BTC.

Or am i missing something 

That's an interesting thought. A bitcoin-oriented VCT would be a great vehicle for investors to use, because there are substantial tax breaks.

But I don't think it's so interesting to actually create and operate the VCT, because what you earn is the percentage that you collect as trust manager (ballpark 2% to 5% a year, I think), from which must be deducted the administrative and compliance costs.

Operating a VCT is, I think, a reasonably profitable occupation. But if Bitcoin grows as rapidly as we think it will, it will be more profitable to be investing into the Bitcoin businesses, than to be operating the investment vehicle.

I looked into this too, and I found the same as Vladimir, although I think you could meet FSA requirements for a bit less, maybe £200,000.

The UK does not have the same "bottom-up" entrepreneurial environment that, say, the US does. So new technologies are most often introduced by some existing big company deciding to branch out into the new field. And often they need to get the regulations rewritten to make it possible. The BBC and PayPal, amongst others, did this but it's not possible for the "little guy" to do the same.

For this reason, none of the big internet technologies were developed in the UK. None the new business models (as exemplified by eBay, Amazon, CraigsList, PayPal, Google, YouTube, Flickr, etc) originated in the UK, even though the UK makes up a large percentage of internet users.

The best we did in the UK was a couple of websites that started selling last minute holidays, or listing real estate online. And all of today's big UK internet sites are divisions of pre-internet businesses (e.g. the BBC, or newspapers, or bricks-and-mortar retailers).

Its only a matter of time until someone sets up shop as a market maker (type) CFD provider here, potentially good BC in it if the clients and spread are managed well...i keep thinking this just cant be legal? it will take me weeks to get my head properly around all this.

I disagree, but then again, my eating patterns are very different than most Americans.  I generally buy bulk grains, beans, nuts, and other items to supplement the food from the garden and the meat (raised and hunted).  The prices are good and the shipping isn't reasonable.  For example, bulkfoods.com offers $5 shipping on any order over $75, and they have some really great deals.  Also, their ORAC Chocolate Berry trail mix is fantastic.  I'd donate 50 BTC if anyone gets them to accept bitcoins.

+1

Also selling contracts to mine should not be looked at as anti-bitcoin.  There are MANY reasons to structure a business that way. One of them is the up front capital, which could be used to expand business, mine more BTC or just for the money now aspect.  For every market niche there is a potential business opportunity. 

Shorting bitcoin would be not possible without some kind of deposit or collateral otherwise the person offering the market to short could be on the hook to back up the possible increase in value of BTC. I could without a deposit or collateral short BTC and only take my winnings if I win, I could walk away otherwise if I am on the loosing side.

Well yeah, typical people probably don't typically buy their fresh groceries, maybe not even their frozen groceries, maybe in general their groceries of any kind, online. (I can buy lots of kinds of shippable food via Amway, but not cheaper than pre-shipped stuff already sitting in a nearby Walmart or Sobeys or Superstore or Sainsbury's or Marks&Sparks...)

It also would not surprise me, though I have not actually checked, to find that buying one's books at a discount from Barnes and Noble by going to Barnes and Noble via the Amway site, might not beat Amazon's prices. Barnes and Noble never struck me as being a "low price is our selling proposition" kind of place. But as I said I have not actually compared their prices to Amazon's. Typical people maybe don't read anyway so typically don't buy books anywhere, online or off.

If you want to buy stuff offline using bitcoin having more online businesses accept it isn't really a whole lot of help probably. Most offline businesses probably don't accept any online payment systems, they accept offline payment systems that most online payment systems have pretty much been forced to have to also accept, such as credit cards and fiat currencies...

So don't bother telling we netizens that more of the grocery shops you shop at need to accept bitcoin to make bitcoin more acceptable, instead go tell more of the grocery shops you shop at that they need to accept bitcoin to make themselves acceptable!

-MarkM- (What, you don't take bitcoin? Darn, can't buy these cartloads of groceries here then sorry. Be a good clerk and re-shelve it, thanks...)

I think most of us are the same way. At least I am.

Offer food, and I will (not just diet shakes and snack bars).  Food is the only thing besides bills I spend money on regularly, BTC or otherwise.  Blowing all my bitcoins on pizza doesn't seem wise, but if I could get good prices with reasonable delivery on bulk items I probably would spend a few BTC.  Amway just doesn't have much to offer that I want.

I have read many times that bitcoin needs more goods and services offered in return for bitcoins, but...

I think it might also be, well, let's say "nice for those who do make such offers" if there were also more actual taking up of such offers.

My landlord put is as "show me that someone actually bought something from you using bitcoin".

Mind you he also wanted to see me actually sell a bitcoin, dumurred at me doing it via IRC, and even seemed to somehow construe my response that I'd have to sell ten rather than one due to mtgox's minimum transaction size as somehow also indicating some kind of scam.

(I suspect though that this was partly an entanglement between his offer to give me a loony on the spot he held it out offering it to see me actually sell a bitcoin. I am thinking he kind of took me as indicating he should give me ten loonies. We'd both been at better off going to bed part of our wakecycles.)

But his basic argument is that like any other ponzi of course the people who got in early and profit{|ed} the most from it want it to *look* like people are really using it for real but fact is, go try offering things in return for bitcoin and does it turn out yes there is in fact plenty of people eager to spend their bitcoins? If it is a ponzi of course there won't be, because no-one is in it to buy stuff with it, they are there to play the ponzi game...

-MarkM- (Yeah I sell stuff, even give discounts if you buy using bitcoins. So join the game, there are real merchants to make it look legit...)

1. I think that the early adopters of gold were also thinking that way. But then, there rose more and more markets for gold-to-goods and backwards exchanges.
Once people start believing that something is valuable, it is only matter of time before others will want to trade stuff for that thing.

2. More markets are being created as we speak. Just look at the "Market" section. They probably need time to unfold wings.

3. Due to the nature of Bitcoin, big, "traditional" financial institutions will be very suspicious & careful when trying to invest in it. So mainstream adoption will probably take some time.


Hmmm....

Aren't expectations enough ? After all, price of dollar is driven by expectations only.
People expect that it will be stable & have value, because other people think so, because government said so in the past.

This is pure psychology. No "inherent value" at all.

The price is partly driven by future expectations.

Every month the amount of bitcoin-denominated commerce has increased. It's a simple extrapolation to see that the limited supply of bitcoins will need to be worth much more in the future to support the ever-growing amount of bitcoin-denominated commerce.

People aren't buying a bitcoin today so that they can buy a loaf of bread today, but many people are buying a bitcoin today because they might be able to buy ten loaves of bread next year.

Or maybe none, if Bitcoin fails, because it's highly speculative for sure. If, like me, you think the fundamentals are sound, it's not such a big risk.

As a new bitcoiner today one of the first mystery's for me was...why is a bitcoin worth so much when there is very little commerce to back it up?, where is the demand coming from? and how is that demand sustainable when the bitcoin economy has so very little need of bitcoins to function...as a fundamental investor and keen chart watcher i just cant see the current exchange rate as being sustainable, the bitcoin economy needs some substance..needs some fundamental drivers.