Interesting Bitcoin/Napster parallel from Reddit, I have to agree with it: " My sense is that Bitcoin is the Napster of cryptocurrencies, the proof-of-concept that changes reality, but doesn't stay on top forever, because future iterations improve on its flaws. "Flaws like what?" Flaws like Bitcoin addresses being long strings of random characters that can't be spoken or easily remembered, or a blockchain that takes far too long to download, or confirmations that take far too long to be confirmed, or transaction limits that don't scale well, or huge amounts of mining CPU power wasted on what is essentially busywork, and so on. I know there are a lot people emotionally invested in Bitcoin who will defend it against any of these criticisms, but the fact is that someday, when a new cryptocurrency comes along that addresses some or all of them well, Bitcoin will begin to sunset. I would love to see more people talking about what this future cryptocurrency should look like, and working to organize it. I enjoy reading all the supportive posts here, and everyone involved in making Bitcoin a success has a lot to crow about, but Napster wasn't the be-all, end-all of P2P file distribution, and Bitcoin won't be the be-all, end-all cryptocurrency. A little more skepticism and a little more impatience with its flaws would suit the community better, IMO." Someone pointed out that another analogy would be better: "Napster was also centralized. e-Gold was Napster, bitcoin is bittorrent." But I guess the point of the first opinion is that not always the first famous invention survives for the long run. And if it is a quasi-legal invention (Napster,Megaupload) they are the first and biggest target for a government action...
Who is this "we" shit? I read this today: "Blackstone, a leading investment firm, has spent $3.5 billion buying single-family homes in nine markets in the past year and is expected to buy another 15,000 units this year. Other investment firms active in buying up houses are Colony Capital LLC and Two Harbors Investment Corp. As soon as they conclude prices have moved enough, theyâll be gone as fast as they came,â I'm now letting them have it. My partner in Vegas said 2 houses sold last week (one in 7 days- another in less than 2 weeks). Now everyone knows Vegas is hot and I am not referring to the weather LOL. Just trying to show another way to take advantage of a bubble with trading profits with low risk/high reward...for perhaps those that do give a shit and are looking for high returns next time. I've come here for more years than I care to admit but never had the urge to post until recently, (and you know what they say about no good deed goes unpunished)? So, if I log out I'm not tempted to respond- has nothing to do with being old. You are old when you can't get it up anymore. As far as Bitcoin- Drudge's headline yesterday may be sufficient... Woody
Anybody who hates offtopic material.You keep bringing up RE as an alternative to trading or Bitcoin using. It is not. I can start trading with a 5K account, I can buy BTC with an account of few hundred bucks. Can I do that in RE? Of course not, so stop talking about it, it is irrelevant and offtopic. And being overly detailed is not helping either, who cares about the details??? You made money in RE, that is fully noted, we are glad about it, now let's get back to BTC. Also if you want to talk about your son's bond trading, that is more interesting, but still offtopic in this thread....
I was reading up on e-gold (company was closed down for operation of an unlicensed money transmitting business) when it occured to me. You need to be licensed for being able to transfer money??? That's is not what all Bitcoin users are doing? http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1960 Prohibition of unlicensed money transmitting businesses "(a) Whoever knowingly conducts, controls, manages, supervises, directs, or owns all or part of an unlicensed money transmitting business, shall be fined in accordance with this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both." "(C) otherwise involves the transportation or transmission of funds that are known to the defendant to have been derived from a criminal offense or are intended to be used to promote or support unlawful activity; (2) the term âmoney transmittingâ includes transferring funds on behalf of the public by any and all means including but not limited to transfers within this country or to locations abroad by wire, check, draft, facsimile, or courier " Sounds like the DoJ could be knocking on the door in any minute... Somebody has to make this shit up: "In July 2008, the brother of footballer Joseph Yobo was kidnapped in Nigeria. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of $10,000 paid through e-gold." If you think about it, it is genius. No more drop off locations in the woods for the kidnapped, just send me Bitcoins, here is the address, it is secretive!!! Anyhow, other Bitcoin related parallels: "e-gold has been perceived by the United States government as the medium of choice for many online con-artists, with pyramid schemes and high-yield investment programs ("HYIPs") commonplace. This has been blamed on e-gold's policy of irreversible transactions. " "The essence of the allegations in the indictment is twofold: (1) e-gold is an unlicensed money transmitting entity as defined by United States Code;[16] and (2) e-gold was a de facto means of moving money from illegal activities to wit: high-yield investment programs which are Ponzi scams, credit card and identity fraud sites and retailers of child pornography."
Is it even legal to create private currency in competition with the dollar? Someone please clarify. Many have tried to do this before and they are now living their lives on the run. United States Private Dollars Angel Cruz, founder of United States Private Dollars, "fugitive...to face a maximum possible sentence of up to 185 years in federal prison" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_currency#United_States_Private_Dollars Liberty dollars Bernard von NotHaus, Liberty dollar creator, "awaits his fate behind bars" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/u...his-fate-behind-bars.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 Does anyone really think it is in the US Government's interest for BitCoin to be a success? At best the Feds will ignore BitCoin whilst it is small scale and possibly monitor transactions to get a handle on money laundering, terrorist activity etc. I like Pekelo's theory but that sounds far too clever and forward thinking for a government to pull off. Most likely when it suits the Feds they will shut BitCoin down overnight and BitCoins will lose all value overnight. They might even get a list of anyone who ever traded in BitCoins so they can investigate individual's personal situation and tax reporting. They'll go after the founders like they went after Julian Assange. Any kind of anti terrorist or money laundering law could be used to shut the operation down, for a period of time at least, most likely indefinitely. I must admit I did consider investing a tiny amount in BitCoin a couple of years ago to sell to some greater fool at a later stage, but then I came to my senses. Maybe I am the fool for missing out.
This is like the blueprint what will happen to virtual currencies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_gold_currency Read the whole thing, the parallels are astounding.... Not to mention, the idea of gold backed digital currency is somehow sounds better than bitcoin mining, backed by hours and hours of computing power wasted... (although your room is nice warm and cozy)
April 2011 interview by Russ Roberts with Gavin Andresen, Principal of the BitCoin Virtual Currency Project on Econtalk:- http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/04/andresen_on_bit.html