The Bitcoin Strikes Back

smitty777 writes "Slashdot readers are no doubt informed of the infamous crash of Bitcoin. In fact, its demise was followed closely here. Wired has a recent article tracking Bitcoin's climb out of chaos. Valued at $17 before the crash, it had lost 90% of its value due to the hacking incident, down to a low of $2. It climbed back up to $3 in December, and is currently valued at $4. From the article: 'Bitcoin boosters have traditionally suggested that Bitcoin is an alternative to [the world's] currencies. But we'll suggest an alternative explanation: that Bitcoin is not so much an alternative currency as a "metacurrency" that allows low-cost and regulation-free transfer of wealth between nations. In other words, Bitcoin's major competitors aren't national currencies, but wire-transfer services like Western Union.' Still, Bitcoin has significant obstacles to overcome, such as covert mining, criminal uses, and other security issues." Amir Taaki of the Bitcoin Consultancy (who did an interview here a while back) disputes the reasoning and the conclusions in the Wired article.

Comments

Re:Propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok.. so its at $4.. Which press release did we 'pay' for ? This slashdot? Please....

You guys are all entitled to your opinion but the majority of you have no idea whats going on with the Bitcoin community what so ever.

  The guy with the 'dropping bitcoin nodes'... What proof do you have of that?
Right now Bitcoin bootstraps off an IRCd to find nodes but there are several other bootstrapping methods for which you can not guage the amount of peers.

  Yeah, maybe the amount of miners has decreased but there are still plenty. Miners dont make the network; People spending Bitcoins for services does. Bitcoin has hit an all time high for trading amounts so even if the miners are decreasing, the trading is increasing.

  I run a business that solely accepts Bitcoin for payment (www.bitvps.com shameless plug) and business is doing just great.

Re:Propaganda

[silanea]

I run a business that solely accepts Bitcoin for payment (www.bitvps.com shameless plug) and business is doing just great.

Unless you planned to spend a very significant amount of money on his/her service I see the idiot somewhere else in this discussion. I do not own a credit card. By your definition about 3/4 of all US-based online shops are run by idiots. Or maybe, just maybe I am not within their target audience for some reason.