Slashdot Mirror
Virgin Galactic Now Taking Bitcoin For Suborbital Flights
Nerval's Lobster writes "Bitcoin hype has reached orbit: you can now use the virtual currency to fly on Virgin Galactic, which will begin taking passengers on sub-orbital flights in 2014. 'One future astronaut, a female flight attendant from Hawaii, has already purchased her Virgin Galactic ticket using bitcoins,' Virgin CEO Richard Branson wrote in a blog posting on Virgin's Website, 'and we expect many more to follow in her footsteps. All of our future astronauts are pioneers in their own right, and this is one more way to be forward-thinking.' Branson is an investor in Bitcoin, which has seen its per-unit value skyrocket from $10 to $900 over the past two years (today, its value stands at $766, but that could rapidly change). 'The lack of transparency from Bitcoin's founders has attracted some criticism, but its open source nature means anyone can audit the code,' he added in his posting. 'It is a brilliantly conceived idea to allow users to power the peer-to-peer payment network themselves, providing control and freedom for consumers.' A flight aboard Virgin Galactic costs $250,000, or roughly 320 Bitcoin at today's price. However, Bitcoin is also a volatile currency, diving and spiking in response to a variety of factors—while it's certainly possible that its value could zoom above $1,000 in the near future, there's always the possibility it could crash down to a few hundred dollars, or even lower."
I can fly into orbit with bitcoin, but I still can't buy a hotdog. :-P
Actually, you can buy a hotdog and just about anything else.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321800.0
For those armchair economists here who haven't read anything about Bitcoin, but know what it's all about because they're, like, economists, I present this link:
Bitcoin - The Libertarian Introduction.
Reading this might prevent your post from getting a response that makes you seem ignorant, if you care about that sort of thing.
(Such posts as: "it's a Ponzi scheme", "it can't work because it's not based on anything", "it's only for illegal commerce", "it's got some sort of technical flaw", or "the authorities will try to stop it, and that's important".)
LOL - that article is full of propaganda.
I wish I was the guy that came up with this pyramid scheme, I'd be liquidating by bitcoins and enjoying my mansion in Hawaii.
And... voila!
The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".