Topic: The Dangerous State of Bitcoin (.com) (Read 9061 times)

Not really.  If all internet users were savvy and checked where they were, then none of the phishing scams would work.  Yet they are alive and going strong...

And by linking to bitcoin.com, you've just increased its Google juice.

Probably yes, if you take into account that news.com redirects to news.cnet.com, books.com redirects to barnsandnoble.com and shopping.com is a price comparison site owned by ebay...

Internet.com Alexa ank
Global 2,914
Japan 389

Shopping.com Alexa Rank
Global 1,297   
United States 901

News.com Alexa Rank
Global 83   
United States 48

Not everything is as linear as one think, if we take into account that most browsers will redirect you to the .com site of the word you type if the site exists.

But I agree that there's nothing that special in owning Bitcoin.com or that it is a real danger.

People should freak out more about the fact that MtGox is trademarking the word Bitcoin wherever it is not trademarked yet...

Does anyone here go to shopping.com, internet.com, books.com, news.com ...

Troll thread, the correct website is only one, the fact that someone own bitcoin.com means nothing if it isn't the right site.
People should learn to check the website, the fact that it has bitcoin in the name means nothing.

Did the founders of Bitcoin not have the foresight to register bitcoin.com at the same time they registered bitcoin.org?

back to the topic. 

Tradehill isn't going to monopolize the market with a domain name.     

Google doesn't give preference to .com's over .net or .org's...  people and some devices do however like your iphone has a .com button but nothing as such for .org or .net (or .biz or .me or dot.whatever)

that being stated,  tradehill isn't the anti-christ of companies.   they are just trying to establish market share,  and bitcoin.com appears to be the way they did it.   

From my understanding (someone correct me if I am wrong)  but they bought the domain name for $6,000 USD about 1/2 a year ago

the domain name is most likely worth about that... for branding purposes... not for SEO or "to take over the market" purposes.

Bitcoin.com is just another flexcoin.com  ..  it's the same concept,  and based on the "trust factor"  that we so gleefully received...  IE:  "it's not hosted on my desktop, it's a scam,  it's a ponzi scheme,  it's blah blah"  the adoption rate most likely will be similar.   It will score a moderate success,  it will most likely have a few thousand users,  it might solidify their position as the second largest exchange. 

But as far as "this is the new client"  and "tradehill is going to hijack an opensource program"  the answer is no.


Every penny of legitimate investment that goes into bitcoin isn't a bad thing.   

Standard Oil was notorious for unethical business practices. If you're going to go "ABLOO BLOO BLOO THE MARKUP THEY RIPPED CUSTOMERS OFF WITH BECAUSE THEY DESTROYED ALL OPPOSITION AND MAINTAINED A MONOPOLY OVER THE ENTIRITY OF AMERICA BY OWNING AND UTILISING RAILROAD, PIPELINE AND PORT FEES TO MAKE COMPETITION UNPROFITABLE AS WELL AS OUTRIGHT BUYING THEIR OPPOSITION WASN'T EXACTLY 500% YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID" while ranting some complete bullshit that this was apparently all because the government had something to do with it (a claim you idiots keep making with no evidence or proof, considering that government subsidies for industries weren't even issued before about 1940 (and even then only in an attempt to end the great depression and help build and provide infrastructure for the war effort).

Either provide some evidence for your retarded claims or shut the fuck up. however considering you all seem to be libertarian idiots your idea of an argument seems to consist of blaming the government and ranting about it louder than anyone else.

Well standard and oil didn't have a 500% markup.
Still it was the claim that his power was supplied at 500% markup.

I am still waiting (likely forever) for the name of the company.

It would appear that the shares of Standard Oil were owned by a handful of really wealthy families that weren't selling.

I suspect a "free market" can't work without government intervention.

Sure in a stateless free market, you could hire muscle to enforce your will, but then it is not about the voluntary exchange or goods and services anymore.

People could get together and agree on a set of laws, but that would be... a government!

I am actually curious here too: how would a country without regulation on sectors like finance punish them when they steal money using new grifts or "financial vehicles", assuming the (limited) government can't create ex post facto laws?

So much handwaving about the market dealing out justice goes on here, I am generally curious how it would work

Would they not have these immunities in a truly free market? It isn't a crime not. How would the laissez-faire government create laws and enforce them on ideas like credit default swaps or any new financial vehicles they would create?

Or is the solution simply "investors will know better and take whatever is left of their capital to a competitor next time, who may or may not repeat the process for a quick buck, and may even be a company formed from members of the original scamming organization?

I don't understand how a government granting immunity to certain companies is considered "freeing the market". None of us "free-marketers" advocate this. This isn't our definition of laissez-faire. We want to hold such crimes accountable.

Regulation on the FIRE sector is close to nil and any regulations left are being pulled every day.

If our market wasn't laissez-faire and was actually controlled and regulated, companies like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan couldn't have gotten away with all their securities "tricks" (I can't call them fraud, because the sector has been deregulated to the point to where nothing they did got them a criminal conviction) that allowed them to sell off shitty loans as highly-rated securities claimed to be the same rating as US bonds, letting them make money with zero risk at all to themselves and large amounts of risk that were disguised as "safe investments" to investors.

Only through violence and force. I don't advocate such means no matter the name they be under. A market that can succumb to such means is not free.

In a free market persons/companies could definitely offer financial and legal immunity to investors in a way exactly identical to what we have now.

Perhaps you didn't understand what I meant. You claimed America existed in some sort of "private, laissez-faire finance" situation. I am proving you wrong simply by reminding you that the money itself - the very core of finance and trade - is centrally planned and controlled in America. This is not only incompatible with an operable laissez-faire market, but is in fact the complete opposite. The United States is nowhere near, nor has it ever been in at least a hundred years, even close to a "private, laissez-faire" system. If you want to criticize the American system, go for it, but such critiques are not upon laissez-faire to any intellectually or empirically honest degree.



1) How does one decide what is "legitimate value added to the system?" Who makes that call? Who's arbiter of such metrics?
2) Again regarding the finance sector, it receives free money inflated into existence by the Federal Reserve. So I assume you're opposed to that, right? Also, all companies which receive government subsidies, like oil, pharma, green energy, agriculture, manufacturing, finance, education, etc. are receiving "distribution" that is very disproportionate to value added, are they not? So do you then agree such subsidies to be immoral?

I did and enjoyed it. These legal provisions and immunities are not of a free market. In a fair and moral market, liability can be covered by insurance at some level of the chain.

** Read this post Immanuel, because this is how things work in America, and I doubt investors would demand any less than easy to buy/sell shares and complete financial immunity in a "free market" as well - why would they want to accept anything less?