Bitcoin going up
 

Sir Richard Branson's Out of This World Plan for Bitcoin | Breakout - Yahoo Finance

Anyone ever used bitcoin to buy anything?

Bitcoin seems to be the new gold, as a currency alternative.

I printed out my wallet of bitcoin on archival paper and buried it in the back yard. That should leave me well provided for in the coming zombie apocalypse.
:coolsmiley:

There doesn't seem to be a way to safely store it. So it can't really be saved. If there is to be a cap of 21 million coins, what happens if people save rather than spend in the future? I just don't see it stabilizing.

???? Gold is a physical, precious metal with a transactional history dating back millennia. Bitcoin is a virtual 2009 creation with no definable controlling central authority. In case of a dispute, gold can be weighed & it's purity tested to determine the actual amount of one's holdings. What recourse does one have if their bitcoin wallet is questioned? Just try to have your lawyer contact Satoshi Nakamoto's 'agency' ;)

Given bitcoin's history of widespread use in nefarious activities (e.g. Silk Road online black market), there's real risk it could ultimately play out like Tulip Craze of 1600's. I've never used bitcoin to buy/sell anything & doubt I ever will.

And therein lies the "Fun"!

Between my bitcoin stash, my beany baby collection and the land I bought in So. Cal that will be used for the new Intercontinental Airport near Palmdale, I will soon be rich beyond the reams of averice

Your wallet is questioned by everyone else with a wallet. It's the same thing for minting bitcoins...everyone minting is trying to solve the same hard puzzle, and the one who solves it first gets confirmed by everyone else.

As to the question of what happens when the limit of bitcoin is reached, well, then you have deflation. That's not a bad thing. A bad thing is a centralized government printing money and creating inflation (and basically taking money through non-tax means from those who have saved). But with a deflated bitcoin, it doesn't really matter since they can be used in very tiny fractions. So you could buy something worth one 2013 dollar for 0.0000001 bitcoin or something.

I don't think bitcoin will become a leading currency in the world, but I do see it as a force to keep the goofballs in charge of other fiat currencies, like the US dollar, a tiny bit more 'in check'.

A good article from the Los Angeles Times Bitcoins: Widely known and widely misunderstood - latimes.com

He thinks something like the bit coin will have to persist as a way to transfer money efficiently.

I dismissed this as some crazy interwebs thing when i first heard of it.

Over the months I keep hearing about it, that crap is still being discussed?

The beginning of Nov. it was selling for just over $200 and today it's over $1000. This will not end well. I bet all those buying and hoarding tulips are laughing over this one!

Is it time to say wee to bitcoin? W2R are ya ready... :dance:

WHEE turned to WOE for this bitcoin believer.

$9M Bitcoin haul buried in U.K. rubbish tip - Nov. 29, 2013

Just spotted this headline... have no idea what it means... folks here don't seem to like zero hedge, so....

Bitcoin Plunges Into Bear Market | Zero Hedge
12/01/2013 15:29 -0500

Read a rumor that wealthy Chinese, having less than great confidence in their currency, are buying/selling to convert chancy bets on the economy, to other currencies, by laundering money in Macau casinos (using vitcoins), and that this may be forcing the fluctuations.

As many financial pundits as there are, that's how many different predictions for the future of bitcoin.

Sorry about the title of the original post. I meant it more as a joke on bitcoin being accepted for payment by Branson for his space travels.

Seeing that no one has actually said they used it, I guess no one here has.

The Nov. 30 Economist has an article on bitcoin. It mentions Germany has recognized bitcoin as a "unit of account", and Ben Bernanke said to the Senate that the idea may hold long term merit. It also concluded that if you did own any, now would be a good time to sell, as it shows all the classic signs of an investment bubble.

Personally, I like the idea of a predictable money supply, but I've not even checked into how one would go about investing in bitcoins.

My son just started mining virtual currency. Pretty crazy that this was created by some anonymous person.

He hasn't bought anything yet; I told him to cash out ASAP.

For anyone who may be interested in following the bitcoin adventure, here's a page that has charts. http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/...zm1g10zm2g25zv
Would recommend that you go to the bottom of the page, and click on the
"load raw data" link to see a chart that will either simplify or REALLY confuse you.
???

My son was saying the first bitcoin purchase was a pizza (when they were worth next to nothing). That pie now looks like a couple million bucks (based on the number bitcoins used)

For a while people were giving away free bitcoins (or fractions of a bitcoin) to try to promote it's usage. I think I might have half a bitcoin in a file somewhere, but at the current crazy exchange rate it might actually pay real money to find it. Like finding change in the sofa, but actual dollars.

Here's another slant on Bitcoin:

https://al3x.net/2013/12/18/bitcoin.html

Agree or disagree, what a wonderful use of words!