Topic: Is There Any Hope Left? - page 2. (Read 5227 times)

The deflationary model has a very important social aspect in that it creates interest for Bitcoin before it becomes actually useful as a medium of exchange.

...  and thus the cycle begins again.  This is exactly why I don't like the deflationary model.

I see the current situation as a good opportunity for people to get near early adopter prices for Bitcoin.

Besides that, the technology is sound and improving everyday.

Remember, it took quite a few years before a significant number started using the Internet. The same for cell phones. It just takes time a for a new technology to be adopted. Not everybody sees the advantages right away. Considering that, Bitcoin is still quite young with less than 3 years of age.

I agree it's not completely dead.  That was said in context of another thread, and it was a bit of an oversimplification and exaggeration.

Most likely it will always be at least marginally profitable for you if you carefully plan your rigs for efficiency and you have inexpensive power, but the days where anyone could just pick up a couple Radeons and start shaking out coins worth well above their costs are over.  You can't do it on residential power in Hawaii or California no matter what hardware you have!

Iceland should switch their national economy over to mining bitcoins. Their money is close to worthless anyways and they have the cheapest electricity in the world.

Troll, or a complete moron? Cast your votes.

False.  My mining operation is still profitable and at the current difficulty, would remain profitable down to around $1/BTC.  Once difficulty readjusts next, my profitability level will be around $0.85/BTC.  Far from dead.

I do!  A couple weeks ago I commented that I had invested all my BTC into USD, and I've been earning a 1500% ROR ever since! 

But that's not really true.  It's hard to pin a specific value (Not price!  I mean value: how much it's actually worth when I buy goods) on a unit of currency, but BTC has lost 90% in 4 months, while USD hasn't lost more than 10% value even by pessimistic metrics.

Yeah, I'm mental because I make profits.  

Dude, I'm making money of mining Bitcoins and selling them. Why should I stop? With these new rigs, I'll just make more money.

Movement is relative. Flip around the typical Bitcoin exchange rate and suddenly it looks like there's a dollar bubble going on. USD crashed in June and has been skyrocketing ever since. Time to buy buy buy. But nobody ever looks at it that way. Same thing with dollars. Holding cash in your pocket is an investment in that cash, whether you realize that or not. If you are playing both sides of the Bitcoin/Dollar trade, then you have relative movement. Your feet are in two different boats and the only way to stabilize is to step out of one and into the other. I suggest the one that lets you buy groceries if you do that, but maybe you just need to practice balancing a bit longer.

I agree, but it should be about choosing to move value, not having it moved because the market shifted around me in ways I didn't expect.

Bitcoin isn't about creating value, it's about moving value. Whether you're buying or selling dollars or bicycles with B, it's all the same thing. You're playing the game, shuffling around value.

Unfortunately for a few overly-optimistic fools, it DID eat up their life savings, and they went into debt buying even more coins.

Like you say, that money wasn't destroyed, it just went to someone else... But I object to shoveling money from one person to another just because one bought in early and won the gamble against the guy who bought in late, when no one involved did anything to create or destroy any real value.  Exploiting people's gullibility is not a moral act.

Finally got out of Newbville, so I will repost this:

THE MONEY IS NOT DISAPPEARING

A lot of people are talking about how the falling bitcoin prices is making money evaporate, as though Bitcoin is somehow eating up life savings. The only thing that is evaporating is electricity and overheated GPUs, everything else is just changing hands. If you draw an imaginary boundary around all of the people playing the bitcoin exchange game and consider all of the real dollars that they have put into it, there is no sinkhole where dollars are disappearing into. It's just they have redistributed there wealth between the players. It's like playing poker at your buddies house, you came to the table, made a bet, and someone lost and someone won. The people who bought at $30 lost, and the people who sold at $30 won.

Similarly, there was no money tree when the price was ramping up. If you made money, that was late adopters putting cash into your hands. A purely speculative trading environment (Bitcoin basically) is just another type of poker. You are gambling on the actions of other individuals who in turn are gambling on the actions of you and everyone else.

I think that Bitcoin has value in that it can replace some of the action in penny stocks, commodities, and currency trading. All of these trading markets are tied down to some real world actions and have associated costs as well. Bitcoin has almost no costs and is only dependent on the people that use it. There is no shell company to declare bankruptcy, or mineral stores that have upkeep costs, or government fixing currency values. Speculating on Bitcoin ensures that the money isn't getting funnelled to anyone playing a different game than you are. Basically you can't get an edge by "cheating", you can only do your best to persuade others. It's about as fair of a gambling system as you will find anywhere.

Can I get back to you when Bitcoin is ready for release? Remember we are not even halfway to a version 1.  Once soccer Moms have a version they can choose to use, we will have an idea about it's broader adoption.

+1, it's a lot like a low value stock.

I compare it more to the pink sheets (penny stocks, which I also consider to be pyramids).  The behavior is similar:  with a tiny market cap, just a few guys pumping it (on forums, "BUY XXX" spams, giddy youtube videos, or whatever) can start a bubble, the new guys will take over excitedly promoting it, and it'll self-sustain long enough for the first ones in to cash out.

But those only get one shot, then they're dead.  Bitcoin may have a future.  If it can create some real value by growing a real economy, it may get somewhere.  Don't listen to the excited speculative investors who're telling you this will happen... They're speculating.  Pay attention to signs of real commerce - that's the only thing that will drive growth in the long run.

You could have been a millionaire by investing in apple in the 80s, doesnt make apple a ponzi scheme.  Some things accrue value.  Bitcoin accrues values as it becomes more trusted, and more widely used.

Here's something I just said in another thread:

There are several different groups here:

Miners: Hash power lags price, so when the price is rising, miners make money; when it's falling, they're unprofitable.  Right now mining is useful to people who want to acquire coins without exchanges, or who just want to support the network.  Bitcoin is dead to for-profit miners, and will stay dead unless the price surges again, in which case it'll be profitable briefly.

Speculative investors:  A few got in early and aren't about to complain.  Most bought in above $10, and they're in the middle of a bloodbath.  The ones who say it's dead lost it all; the ones who say it's alive are trying to catch a falling knife.  Most will grab too early and get a handful of blade, but a few will get lucky and grab the handle.

Trolls:  Bitcoin was stillborn, is dead, was always dead, will always be dead, and anything it ever does is because it's a fucking zombie and we need to shoot it in the head.

Cryptoconsumers (My camp): We want to buy and sell things and don't care much about the exchange rate.  For us, Bitcoin is still in its infancy: there are still far too few places accepting it, and volatility is a real drag on acceptance; in my opinion a more stable altchain may eventually win for this reason.  But it (Bitcoin proper, and cryptocurrency generally) is still very much alive, and I have no reason to run away.


I believe in fundamentals, not hopes and dreams.  I haven't held any significant number of coins in a long time.


It's not a ponzi at all (A single person collecting investments and faking returns).  It's much closer to a pyramid scheme (a bunch of people buying in and then desperately seeking new suckers so they can cash out).  It's not quite the same since you're selling into a liquid market instead of expecting the people under you to keep paying back up the chain, but the general behavior is pretty similar: tons of people who just know they're going to get rich off this thing if they can just keep it growing, and who're totally convinced it's not a pyramid scheme because they're selling something that has some value (most pyramid schemes have some variant of this).


I advocate creating an altcoin that deliberately sabotages the speculation pyramid by creating market-indexed inflation.  My variant is based on a currency basket; Red wants to derive it from the cost of electricity; I'm sure there are others out there.  That means that it won't be very good for long-term investment since there is plenty of opportunity to depreciate with only limited appreciation potential.  However, that WILL prevent speculative bubble/bust cycles, and I think a little inflation is a fair price to pay to gain stability.  My goal is to have a transactional currency, not a speculative investment vehicle.

@Brunic - I have no idea why you are buying more rigs now when it's surely far cheaper and faster to buy the coins outright.

You must be mental.

Illusions of fortune, the only fortune you had are those you have spent