I'm quite surprised by some of the names that are accepting them. It would be fascinating if they actually became an alternative, widely accepted currency; drive the powers-that-be batshit!!
So let's have the usual Sunday look at bitcoin. Price is sky high, around $180 and no sign of weakening. Mining officially became a hobby and not an investment. At this point there is no positive ROI if you want to order a mining equipment right now. Unless bitcoin keeps raising, but then you are better off just buying the bitcoins. Here is the math breakdown: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1oto74/thinking_of_ordering_an_asic_there_is_most_likely/ China went half legal with bitcoin and they don't plan to outlaw its usage. That is supposedly behind the unstoppable raise. Their psychological barrier was 1000 CNY/BTC. Here is an interesting interview with a Chinese user: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1otbyw/ama_request_any_real_chinese_bitcoiner/ The mining difficulty is increasing 117% per month. Users found Silk Road's unused (only deposits) wallet with 110K coins in it. That is way less than the reported 600K coins from commissions, so maybe it is just one of the many wallets, or SR spent a lot on something....
That's the MtGox price which everyone knows is bogus. Use the price from BitcoinAverage which lets you ignore the MtGox price or not as you wish. You can see from the list of price sources that MtGox is an outlier. The real price is more like $163.
True, but all other prices are also increasing, and people will use MtGox's price until it goes down. Also, you can withdraw your deposit in bitcoin from them, so it is not like it isn't a real gain.... In a way it is like the Dow Jones, everyone quotes it even though it is irrelevant and historically inaccurate for comparisons....
Like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like but you can never leave. You can sell BTC at that price at Gox, but good luck actually withdrawing the USD. That's getting harder and harder at all these exchanges.
I am not sure about that. There are still a bunch of new players to the game, a new Canadian exchange has just opened: https://www.vaultofsatoshi.com/
Not a hotel I want to check into. When you say harder to withdraw USD, do those with offshore accounts or non-nationals of the US have an easier time transfering to their bank?
I honestly don't know about non-US banks. I only know the SEC has been increasingly leaning on various "money transmitters" (SEC term) to the point where many are simply dropping out since it's not worth the legal hassle.
Thanks for this stevegee58. Very useful. I am just reposting the following links for future reference: Quotes from various exchanges https://bitcoinaverage.com/ https://bitcoinaverage.com/#USD https://bitcoinaverage.com/#USD|nogox Charts http://bitcoincharts.com/ The biggest exchange (by volume) after Mt Gox https://www.bitstamp.net/