Why bitcoins are hovering around $14 - page 2.

luv2drnkbr

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Quote from: Elwar on July 14, 2011, 10:16:43 AM

Quote from: hello_good_sir on July 14, 2011, 09:11:05 AM

Bitcoin has stagnated because the decimal point wasn't moved. We need to move it 2-3 places. Normal people might be willing to throw $10-20 into bitcoin. For that they get.... 1 coin? If they could get 100 or 1000 it would seem like a better deal. The psychological barrier is far, far, more important than most people on these forums realize. Believe it or not, most people in the world aren't mathematically adept libertarian engineers. We need to go after the humanities people, the liberals, the people who don't understand fractions or decimals. We need to move to a "points" model, like xbox points or credit card rewards points.

For most of a century people were paid in pennies.

A penny for your thoughts, pinch a penny, the $5 per day job at Ford considered high wages...

A penny for your thoughts still sounds better than 0.00071429 Bitcoins for your thoughts, or 71,429 Satoshis for your thoughts!

RandyFolds

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Quote from: hello_good_sir on July 14, 2011, 07:12:39 PM

Quote from: RandyFolds on July 14, 2011, 03:52:52 PM

Well, they figured out bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes and terabytes all right...

Oh really? Walk down street and ask 10 people how many kilobytes are in a gigabyte. No more than one person will get the answer correct.

I wasn't referring to the actual numbers, and if I was, a wonky 8-bit system would not be my prime example. I am talking about orders of magnitude. Of those ten people, more than one could order them from smallest to largest...I hope. Maybe I am overestimated the common man, but if my parents get it and only use the computer to play bookworm, i think the average joe has some concept of it. Consider cell phones and data plans...these things have become relevant to the everyday user, not just the people who care about gadgets.

Keep in mind that that technology has been around on a consumer level for twenty years, max. I remember my first 240mb HD that would never ever run out of space. I am sure there are people on this forum who remember their 640kb HD with the same thoughts upon its installation. That's pretty good progress...from a non-existent term to an everyday term...

It will take time for the jargon to take hold, but that's better than bending to the whims of ignorance. For every major overhaul to the bitcoin system, their is going to be a backlash and loss of confidence to match or overshadow it. A step forward doesn't mean it isn't over a cliff...no one knows the future.

myrkul

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FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM

Quote from: Leon on July 14, 2011, 09:10:08 PM

Quote from: Shinobi on July 14, 2011, 06:06:05 PM

Be careful. You make assumptions about the value of Bitcoin that hinge on its long term viability, something that your speculation works against.

Quote from: Leon on July 14, 2011, 05:45:44 PM

Quote from: Shinobi on July 14, 2011, 05:44:03 PM

Quote from: NghtRppr on July 14, 2011, 04:06:54 PM

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency.

There's no evidence to show otherwise. Bitcoins are either (1) hoarded or (2) sold on the exchanges. Nothing else is happening, man. Accept this!

True that and really BTC has a huge ROI compared to any other investments right now.

Its been having HUGE ROI and continues to do so unless the price goes down to $0 tomorrow.

Or into negative numbers.

Leon

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Quote from: Shinobi on July 14, 2011, 06:06:05 PM

Be careful. You make assumptions about the value of Bitcoin that hinge on its long term viability, something that your speculation works against.

Quote from: Leon on July 14, 2011, 05:45:44 PM

Quote from: Shinobi on July 14, 2011, 05:44:03 PM

Quote from: NghtRppr on July 14, 2011, 04:06:54 PM

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency.

There's no evidence to show otherwise. Bitcoins are either (1) hoarded or (2) sold on the exchanges. Nothing else is happening, man. Accept this!

True that and really BTC has a huge ROI compared to any other investments right now.

Its been having HUGE ROI and continues to do so unless the price goes down to $0 tomorrow.

hello_good_sir

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Quote from: RandyFolds on July 14, 2011, 03:52:52 PM

Well, they figured out bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes and terabytes all right...

Oh really? Walk down street and ask 10 people how many kilobytes are in a gigabyte. No more than one person will get the answer correct.

Quote from: myrkul on July 14, 2011, 03:54:27 PM

Oh yes, because people will NEVER understand the change from $0.05 per apple to 5 cents per apple.

Once bitcoin is very well established people will have no trouble with having 2-3 different units in the mix. We do not live in that time. As it is right now bitcents are also a reasonable unit to use, because of the similarity with the dollar.

Quote from: Rassah on July 14, 2011, 04:02:06 PM

It's not much harder for me to understand 1.00100 than it is to understand 1,001.00

You are in the top 10% of mathematical ability, most people would have trouble with that. That said the next group of people that we need to reach (hip urban people) would have not too much trouble with 1.0001 compared to 1001. However understanding 1.001 vs 0.001001 is too hard for them.

Quote from: NghtRppr on July 14, 2011, 04:06:54 PM

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency. It prevents outsiders from seeing the potential and focusing solely on "ZOMG PONZI SCHEME!" I'm glad the price is currently stabilized because that's what we need, not volatility.

You do not know me. I am not a speculator. Right now we have a nice core of technically-adept people to build software and nice core of liberty-minded people to evangelize the currency. However the problem with these people is that we don't spend a lot of money on junk. We need consumers. We need people who actually make purchases with bitcoin. We need people who will buy stuff because they want stuff, not for the novelty of using bitcoin or because they want to make the world a better place.

CurbsideProphet

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Quote from: Leon on July 14, 2011, 05:45:44 PM

True that and really BTC has a huge ROI compared to any other investments right now.

Depends on when you invested. If you did so at $17, let alone $30, your ROI is pretty bad right now.

Shinobi

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Be careful. You make assumptions about the value of Bitcoin that hinge on its long term viability, something that your speculation works against.

Quote from: Leon on July 14, 2011, 05:45:44 PM

Quote from: Shinobi on July 14, 2011, 05:44:03 PM

Quote from: NghtRppr on July 14, 2011, 04:06:54 PM

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency.

There's no evidence to show otherwise. Bitcoins are either (1) hoarded or (2) sold on the exchanges. Nothing else is happening, man. Accept this!

True that and really BTC has a huge ROI compared to any other investments right now.

Leon

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Quote from: Shinobi on July 14, 2011, 05:44:03 PM

Quote from: NghtRppr on July 14, 2011, 04:06:54 PM

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency.

There's no evidence to show otherwise. Bitcoins are either (1) hoarded or (2) sold on the exchanges. Nothing else is happening, man. Accept this!

True that and really BTC has a huge ROI compared to any other investments right now.

Shinobi

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Activity: 196

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Quote from: NghtRppr on July 14, 2011, 04:06:54 PM

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency.

There's no evidence to show otherwise. Bitcoins are either (1) hoarded or (2) sold on the exchanges. Nothing else is happening, man. Accept this!

NghtRppr

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Elder Crypto God

Quote from: hello_good_sir on July 14, 2011, 03:37:44 PM

Yes, too bad for us. We (those of us who have bitcoins) could be millionaires if it weren't for people like you wanting to keep the bitcoin economy exclusive.

I think the real problem is people like you that think Bitcoin is some kind of get-rich-quick scheme rather than being a currency. It prevents outsiders from seeing the potential and focusing solely on "ZOMG PONZI SCHEME!" I'm glad the price is currently stabilized because that's what we need, not volatility.

Quote from: Rassah on July 14, 2011, 04:02:06 PM

Fractions? What fractions? We're not dealing with numbers like 1/2, 1/16, 1/5, 1/7, or whatever. Just decimals.

Since we're being pedantic, decimals are fractions. They were originally called "decimal fractions".

Rassah

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Fractions? What fractions? We're not dealing with numbers like 1/2, 1/16, 1/5, 1/7, or whatever. Just decimals.

It's not much harder for me to understand 1.00100 than it is to understand 1,001.00

myrkul

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FIAT LIBERTAS RVAT CAELVM

Quote from: hello_good_sir on July 14, 2011, 03:37:44 PM

You are incorrect. Switching to mBTC is inferior to actually moving the decimal point. Regular people do not understand SI prefixes. People memorize the relationship between meters and kilometers. You are kidding yourself if you think that normal people have the skills or desire to understand the concept of mBTC. We need to actually move the decimal place.

Oh yes, because people will NEVER understand the change from $0.05 per apple to 5 cents per apple.

RandyFolds

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Well, they figured out bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes and terabytes all right...

People will figure it out.

Leon

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Quote from: Elwar on July 14, 2011, 07:01:52 AM

I figured that this would happen when they announced the commissions on trades would be 0% for those who had an mtGox account before the hack.

People are buying in small price swings and selling at small price swings. They can make a few dollars and pay no commission. So the swings have become smaller and smaller and smaller until now it has just been wavering by less than ten cents.

I predict that the 26th, when commissions go back up to full price, the price will start to rise again as people hold longer and the traders set up larger swings for trading.

+1

hello_good_sir

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Quote from: grod on July 14, 2011, 09:23:16 AM

People absolutely understand fractions. And if they don't, well. Too bad.

Yes, too bad for us. We (those of us who have bitcoins) could be millionaires if it weren't for people like you wanting to keep the bitcoin economy exclusive.

Quote from: realnowhereman on July 14, 2011, 11:35:45 AM

I wasn't literally suggesting those commands (I shouldn't have written them); and if you note I was careful to change the units. I was trying to say that when we say "print x/100000000" it is pretty easy to make that "print x/100000" 1 BTC would remain 1 BTC there would be no "new bitcoins". We simply switch to showing millicoins instead of coins. It's a user interface issue; nothing more.

You're right that exchanges could do the same, but ... who cares?

As I said, it's not a problem worth worrying about, other than perhaps providing people a nice interface to specify in the units they prefer, it will take care of itself when the greengrocer changes his "0.005 BTC per Apple" sign to "5 mBTC per Apple", which he is free to do at his option; and requires no help from the bitcoin system.

You are incorrect. Switching to mBTC is inferior to actually moving the decimal point. Regular people do not understand SI prefixes. People memorize the relationship between meters and kilometers. You are kidding yourself if you think that normal people have the skills or desire to understand the concept of mBTC. We need to actually move the decimal place.

hugolp

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Quote from: Dhomochevsky on July 14, 2011, 07:17:25 AM

That's an interesting point; however, I don't think that's all there is to it. The interest in Bitcoin has capped at the moment. Check out Google trends, you'll notice that the number of searches has dropped drastically. Maybe the price stagnation is also a symptom of this. If the interest in Bitcoin keeps dropping I expect the price to erode further.

Still, you have a point, we'll see what happens in a couple of weeks.

But there are still 50 bitcoins created every ten minutes (roughly) that means 6000 bitcoins a day, 42000 bitcoins a week, ... you get the idea. Thats a big increase in the money supply and there are a number of miners that sell what they produce, so there has to be people buying, otherwise with the new supply of bitcoins the price would plummet.

realnowhereman

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Quote from: grod on July 14, 2011, 10:17:29 AM

Quote from: realnowhereman on July 14, 2011, 09:44:32 AM

How would I, a nobody, invest in this Berkshire-Hathaway company? I can't get the money to buy even one share. If they split the stock by 100,000; I could, and so could a lot more people.

The exact same way you, as a solo miner, would aquire a bitcoin with a difficulty in the tens of millions. By joining a pool. You buy into a mutual fund, and the fund buys the shares. Along with shares in other companies for good measure.

Buying shares in the share pool is splitting the stock. Why not just split it?

Quote from: grod on July 14, 2011, 10:17:29 AM

Quote

As to shifting the decimal place. It's not a problem, it requires nothing other than a UI change. I really don't see what the problem would be. Boot up vim and ":bufdo %s/100000000/100000/g" then ":bufdo %s/BTC/mBTC/g" and job done.

1,$s/1000/1/g is not the solution, it's a technical implementation. Exchanges could also implement this with no changes to the client. It would also be bad in the sense of "we're changing our currency to NEW bitcoins" sort of bad, even though it's a simple rename and decimal point shift.

I wasn't literally suggesting those commands (I shouldn't have written them); and if you note I was careful to change the units. I was trying to say that when we say "print x/100000000" it is pretty easy to make that "print x/100000" 1 BTC would remain 1 BTC there would be no "new bitcoins". We simply switch to showing millicoins instead of coins. It's a user interface issue; nothing more.

You're right that exchanges could do the same, but ... who cares?

As I said, it's not a problem worth worrying about, other than perhaps providing people a nice interface to specify in the units they prefer, it will take care of itself when the greengrocer changes his "0.005 BTC per Apple" sign to "5 mBTC per Apple", which he is free to do at his option; and requires no help from the bitcoin system.

grod

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Quote from: realnowhereman on July 14, 2011, 09:44:32 AM

How would I, a nobody, invest in this Berkshire-Hathaway company? I can't get the money to buy even one share. If they split the stock by 100,000; I could, and so could a lot more people.

The exact same way you, as a solo miner, would aquire a bitcoin with a difficulty in the tens of millions. By joining a pool. You buy into a mutual fund, and the fund buys the shares. Along with shares in other companies for good measure.

Quote

As to shifting the decimal place. It's not a problem, it requires nothing other than a UI change. I really don't see what the problem would be. Boot up vim and ":bufdo %s/100000000/100000/g" then ":bufdo %s/BTC/mBTC/g" and job done.

1,$s/1000/1/g is not the solution, it's a technical implementation. Exchanges could also implement this with no changes to the client. It would also be bad in the sense of "we're changing our currency to NEW bitcoins" sort of bad, even though it's a simple rename and decimal point shift.

Elwar

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Quote from: hello_good_sir on July 14, 2011, 09:11:05 AM

Bitcoin has stagnated because the decimal point wasn't moved. We need to move it 2-3 places. Normal people might be willing to throw $10-20 into bitcoin. For that they get.... 1 coin? If they could get 100 or 1000 it would seem like a better deal. The psychological barrier is far, far, more important than most people on these forums realize. Believe it or not, most people in the world aren't mathematically adept libertarian engineers. We need to go after the humanities people, the liberals, the people who don't understand fractions or decimals. We need to move to a "points" model, like xbox points or credit card rewards points.

For most of a century people were paid in pennies.

A penny for your thoughts, pinch a penny, the $5 per day job at Ford considered high wages...

realnowhereman

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Quote from: grod on July 14, 2011, 09:23:16 AM

Absolutely NOT. This is intended to be a serious medium of exchange, not some sort of "point" system designed to obfuscate value.

As a counter example I present Berkshire-Hathaway. That stock has never had a split, never paid a dividend, was never gussied up to look pretty for the "common Joe." Result? $115,000 per share, and returns well above market.

People absolutely understand fractions. And if they don't, well. Too bad.

I thought the reason that shares often had to be split was not because of any "people don't understand fractions" nonsense, but rather because it's not possible to sell a fraction of share?

How would I, a nobody, invest in this Berkshire-Hathaway company? I can't get the money to buy even one share. If they split the stock by 100,000; I could, and so could a lot more people.

As to shifting the decimal place. It's not a problem, it requires nothing other than a UI change. I really don't see what the problem would be. Boot up vim and ":bufdo %s/100000000/100000/g" then ":bufdo %s/BTC/mBTC/g" and job done.

Topic: Why bitcoins are hovering around $14 - page 2. (Read 6243 times)