Well, point one, I believe that tax is worthwhile. I'm willing to believe that half of it is wasted, but like advertising budgets "the problem is, I don't know which half".
But yeah, the knowledge that the government will accept it, pretty much guarantees that the currency will continue to have value in future. Even if for some reason I didn't pay any tax, my pounds or dollars would be of value to someone else who does pay tax, so I would be able to trade with them.
Of course, the collapse of society -- think zombie invasion or whatever -- would scupper that, but that would also scupper currencies linked to real commodities such as gold, and it would severely mess with the value of real commodities if you have those. Imagine having a kilo of gold, when all everyone around you wants is firearms, canned food and a reliable water supply.
Did its value decrease, when major governments dropped the gold standard?
In 1968, governments could convert dollars into gold at $35/ounce. Nixon ended the direct convertibility of the dollar to gold in 1971; gold hit its all time high value in January 1980, at $850/ounce.
I'm afraid that doesn't tell me much. What was $35 worth in 1968, and what was $850 worth in 1980? I appreciate that's almost impossible to answer, in that there isn't a solid unit to measure against. We could have used gold, but that doesn't work since we're trying to establish whether the value of gold has changed since it ceased to be a commonly used currency.
Conceptually, you own a wallet which contains bitcoins. The distributed p2p network tracks that fact that a given bitcoin is in a given wallet.
If I can own a wallet, a bank can own a wallet. I can transfer my bitcoins to the bank's wallet, on the understanding that when I ask for equivalent bitcoins back, I get them. The bank can offer me an interest rate. The bank can trade those bitcoins for some other currency, or for shares, or for commodities, just as banks do with dollars or pounds.
Name one country that you can spend this "money" in.
It's a problem that the Bitcoin site gets Slashdotted easily, so I can't show you this. But they have a list of businesses that accept Bitcoins, and I suspect it's not comprehensive. There were a number of American businesses that sold real physical objects, such as PC components. And of course, as anyone who reads the news knows, recently Bitcoin was a great way to buy drugs...
More fundamentally, why would you *not* accept Bitcoins in exchange for some good or service? Given that you could exchange it for dollars the second the Bitcoins are transferred to you? You'd have to account for the fluctuating market price, but that's something that businesses dealing in multiple currencies handle every day.
The only reason we need banks in real life is because only the privileged (i.e. banks) have the authority to handle and deal with electronic money transfer.
Another reason we need banks is that if you don't invest your savings in money-making schemes, it will almost inevitable lose value thanks to inflation. Most of us don't want to manage a stock portfolio -- I certainly don't -- so we allow a bank to do it on our behalf.
Another reason we need banks is that sometimes we want to borrow money.
Shiny rock is real value because it has real uses. Gold doesn't tarnish in air, and is a good electrical conductor. For this reason, it's used for connections on a lot of PCBs. It was used for plating on things that were exposed to the air long before then (via gold leaf before electoplating was invented), for the same reason: unlike copper or brass, it did not need regular cleaning to remove corrosion.
Indeed. But is gold worth more than it would be otherwise, because of its historical use as a currency? Did its value decrease, when major governments dropped the gold standard? (Both genuine questions to which I don't know the answer)
If you have gold, or any other commodity, then there are people willing to pay you for it. This is not the case with BitCoin.
This is demonstrably false. There are people willing to pay real dollars for Bitcoins.
How long that continues to be the case, is an interesting question. But right now, what you've said is not true.
OK, I'm far more useless at personal finance than a man of my age should be, but aren't most people's savings either in a house, or in some kind of savings account that's disguised as cash?
I mean, indirectly, I own a bunch of shares. But if I go to my bank, what they'll tell me how many £££ are in the account.
Remember, people are uneasy about using something without a decent level of understanding about it, and it's hard enough for the average person to understand public key cryptography -- so you first have to accomplish that herculean task as a substep in explaining the specifics of bitcoin.
Are they, though? I mean, normal people. I suspect that if the client was easy enough to use, and someone with a suitably authoritative stature told them it was reasonably safe, that would be enough for most people -- as long as there was also some concrete benefit to it.
How many of the punters on that Bitcoin drug dealing service (can't remember its name) knew much about the crypto? I bet most of them just took it on faith that the technology would work, and were sufficiently motivated by what they perceived was a reliable way to get drugs without getting caught, or going to dangerous parts of town, that they were willing to deal with the hassle.
I agree that Paypal is very similar. However Paypal's exchange rate is fixed at Paypal$1 == US$1, which makes it less risky than Bitcoin.
If I was running a shop that accepted Bitcoins, I would be tempted to calculate my Bitcoin prices in real time based on market value plus conversion fees, demand instant payment, and sell the bitcoins for dollars as soon as I get them.
On the other hand, someone less risk averse than me might notice that the historical trend is for Bitcoins to appreciate in value, so it could be a worthwhile risk to hold onto them.
It's expected that the market value of Bitcoins will settle at just above the cost of mining, if you mine very efficiently. So if you're willing to innovate, and work at scale, it will be worth mining. Otherwise, you'll be better off trading. This makes perfect sense. Why would I give you $10 worth of product for n Bitcoins, when I could just make n Bitcoins myself for $10 worth of computation?
This is just like gold. It doesn't make economic sense to dig for gold, unless you intend to do it on a large scale.
People who got in early will gain. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's the same as if I'd bought shares in Amazon when they were still running out of a garage.
Or, the whole thing will come crashing down, and people who got in early will lose out, just as if I'd bought shares in a startup which went on to go bust.
Yeeees. But if you kept your life savings in a suitcase of cash, and it got burnt, you'd lose your life savings. A bitcoin wallet is like a suitcase of cash.
A Bitcoin wallet is also like your folder of photos of your your kids -- you can take a backup of it, and should do so.
Or keep your Bitcoins in a Bitcoin bank. There probably is one now -- I've not looked. If there isn't one, there's no technical reason for there not to be one.
Or, use Bitcoins to buy and sell, trading them for "real" money in order to keep it in the bank. This is what I do with my Paypal "dollars" from trading on eBay.
Some "benefits" of Bitcoin, from one perspective, appear to be that its cash-like properties lend themselves to tax avoidance (making transactions without declaring them), illicit trading (e.g. drugs or prostitution) and money laundering.
Do you view this as a positive, a negative, or neutral? If you view it as a problem, how can the problem be mitigated?
My question is, what are your aspirations for the currency. Do you hope for it to be near-ubiquitous -- used by corner shops and mainstream merchants like Amazon? Or are you happy to see a parallel economy grow, as a niche thing? Or something else?
They should price it like a rental. There are loads of games I'd like to play for half an hour to see what the fuss is about, then never touch again.
I'm supposedly a "gamer" and I've never owned a PC that was capable of playing the high-end games of the time with all options turned on. Even when my desktop supposedly met the minimum spec, I'd get random BSODs and freezes during games; I spent hours messing with BIOS settings and DirectX drivers without success, scattershot money at hardware solutions and although I'm assured it's not like that any more, they said much the same thing at the time.
I'm sure I'm not alone.
Also, I'll be interested to see whether they come up with games that do things that the typical consumer *can't* afford the hardware to achieve locally.
University may be a means to an end. But my memory of it is that it was also a very enjoyable 4 years of my life, which I wouldn't like to have missed.
University/College is only an educational institute. It teaches you nothing that you can't learn yourself in your chosen field through self-study and research.
College gives you:
- A well stocked library
- A ready made peer group, with whom you can discuss the subjects
- A structured approach to the content
- Ready access to experts (tutors, lecturers and professors)
- time
The female half of the affair was named. The male half was identified as "a Premiership footballer", and it was explicitly stated that the injunction meant they were forbidden to name him.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, point one, I believe that tax is worthwhile. I'm willing to believe that half of it is wasted, but like advertising budgets "the problem is, I don't know which half".
But yeah, the knowledge that the government will accept it, pretty much guarantees that the currency will continue to have value in future. Even if for some reason I didn't pay any tax, my pounds or dollars would be of value to someone else who does pay tax, so I would be able to trade with them.
Of course, the collapse of society -- think zombie invasion or whatever -- would scupper that, but that would also scupper currencies linked to real commodities such as gold, and it would severely mess with the value of real commodities if you have those. Imagine having a kilo of gold, when all everyone around you wants is firearms, canned food and a reliable water supply.
Did its value decrease, when major governments dropped the gold standard?
In 1968, governments could convert dollars into gold at $35/ounce. Nixon ended the direct convertibility of the dollar to gold in 1971; gold hit its all time high value in January 1980, at $850/ounce.
I'm afraid that doesn't tell me much. What was $35 worth in 1968, and what was $850 worth in 1980? I appreciate that's almost impossible to answer, in that there isn't a solid unit to measure against. We could have used gold, but that doesn't work since we're trying to establish whether the value of gold has changed since it ceased to be a commonly used currency.
I struggle to see what you're getting at.
Conceptually, you own a wallet which contains bitcoins. The distributed p2p network tracks that fact that a given bitcoin is in a given wallet.
If I can own a wallet, a bank can own a wallet. I can transfer my bitcoins to the bank's wallet, on the understanding that when I ask for equivalent bitcoins back, I get them. The bank can offer me an interest rate. The bank can trade those bitcoins for some other currency, or for shares, or for commodities, just as banks do with dollars or pounds.
Name one country that you can spend this "money" in.
It's a problem that the Bitcoin site gets Slashdotted easily, so I can't show you this. But they have a list of businesses that accept Bitcoins, and I suspect it's not comprehensive. There were a number of American businesses that sold real physical objects, such as PC components. And of course, as anyone who reads the news knows, recently Bitcoin was a great way to buy drugs...
More fundamentally, why would you *not* accept Bitcoins in exchange for some good or service? Given that you could exchange it for dollars the second the Bitcoins are transferred to you? You'd have to account for the fluctuating market price, but that's something that businesses dealing in multiple currencies handle every day.
The only reason we need banks in real life is because only the privileged (i.e. banks) have the authority to handle and deal with electronic money transfer.
Another reason we need banks is that if you don't invest your savings in money-making schemes, it will almost inevitable lose value thanks to inflation. Most of us don't want to manage a stock portfolio -- I certainly don't -- so we allow a bank to do it on our behalf.
Another reason we need banks is that sometimes we want to borrow money.
Shiny rock is real value because it has real uses. Gold doesn't tarnish in air, and is a good electrical conductor. For this reason, it's used for connections on a lot of PCBs. It was used for plating on things that were exposed to the air long before then (via gold leaf before electoplating was invented), for the same reason: unlike copper or brass, it did not need regular cleaning to remove corrosion.
Indeed. But is gold worth more than it would be otherwise, because of its historical use as a currency? Did its value decrease, when major governments dropped the gold standard? (Both genuine questions to which I don't know the answer)
If you have gold, or any other commodity, then there are people willing to pay you for it. This is not the case with BitCoin.
This is demonstrably false. There are people willing to pay real dollars for Bitcoins.
How long that continues to be the case, is an interesting question. But right now, what you've said is not true.
What do you really mean by "backed by a government"?
I think the fundamental thing is that the government pledges to accept tax payments in that currency, and from that, inherent value results.
OK, I'm far more useless at personal finance than a man of my age should be, but aren't most people's savings either in a house, or in some kind of savings account that's disguised as cash?
I mean, indirectly, I own a bunch of shares. But if I go to my bank, what they'll tell me how many £££ are in the account.
Remember, people are uneasy about using something without a decent level of understanding about it, and it's hard enough for the average person to understand public key cryptography -- so you first have to accomplish that herculean task as a substep in explaining the specifics of bitcoin.
Are they, though? I mean, normal people. I suspect that if the client was easy enough to use, and someone with a suitably authoritative stature told them it was reasonably safe, that would be enough for most people -- as long as there was also some concrete benefit to it.
How many of the punters on that Bitcoin drug dealing service (can't remember its name) knew much about the crypto? I bet most of them just took it on faith that the technology would work, and were sufficiently motivated by what they perceived was a reliable way to get drugs without getting caught, or going to dangerous parts of town, that they were willing to deal with the hassle.
Come on.
I don't know whether it's a scam, or whether it will succeed, or fail spectacularly.
But it's *fascinating*, and as such it belongs on Slashdot.
I just found out that the smallest fraction of a bitcoing, .00000001 bitcoins, is called a Satoshi.
http://thebitcoinsun.com/post/2011/06/14/Moving-the-Decimal
You can trade in fractions of a Bitcoin.
I just found out that the smallest fraction of a bitcoing, .00000001 bitcoins, is called a Satoshi.
Why should I bother with bitcoin when exchanging bitcoins for cash after a trade takes days?
Interesting, I didn't know that.
Why isn't there a competing exchange service, such that customer demand drives both to work faster?
I agree that Paypal is very similar. However Paypal's exchange rate is fixed at Paypal$1 == US$1, which makes it less risky than Bitcoin.
If I was running a shop that accepted Bitcoins, I would be tempted to calculate my Bitcoin prices in real time based on market value plus conversion fees, demand instant payment, and sell the bitcoins for dollars as soon as I get them.
On the other hand, someone less risk averse than me might notice that the historical trend is for Bitcoins to appreciate in value, so it could be a worthwhile risk to hold onto them.
It's expected that the market value of Bitcoins will settle at just above the cost of mining, if you mine very efficiently. So if you're willing to innovate, and work at scale, it will be worth mining. Otherwise, you'll be better off trading. This makes perfect sense. Why would I give you $10 worth of product for n Bitcoins, when I could just make n Bitcoins myself for $10 worth of computation?
This is just like gold. It doesn't make economic sense to dig for gold, unless you intend to do it on a large scale.
People who got in early will gain. I don't see anything wrong with that. It's the same as if I'd bought shares in Amazon when they were still running out of a garage.
Or, the whole thing will come crashing down, and people who got in early will lose out, just as if I'd bought shares in a startup which went on to go bust.
Here's one. It currently works with "testnet", the parallel Bitcoin network where the coins are theoretically worthless. https://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet
Yeeees. But if you kept your life savings in a suitcase of cash, and it got burnt, you'd lose your life savings. A bitcoin wallet is like a suitcase of cash.
A Bitcoin wallet is also like your folder of photos of your your kids -- you can take a backup of it, and should do so.
Or keep your Bitcoins in a Bitcoin bank. There probably is one now -- I've not looked. If there isn't one, there's no technical reason for there not to be one.
Or, use Bitcoins to buy and sell, trading them for "real" money in order to keep it in the bank. This is what I do with my Paypal "dollars" from trading on eBay.
Some "benefits" of Bitcoin, from one perspective, appear to be that its cash-like properties lend themselves to tax avoidance (making transactions without declaring them), illicit trading (e.g. drugs or prostitution) and money laundering.
Do you view this as a positive, a negative, or neutral? If you view it as a problem, how can the problem be mitigated?
My question is, what are your aspirations for the currency. Do you hope for it to be near-ubiquitous -- used by corner shops and mainstream merchants like Amazon? Or are you happy to see a parallel economy grow, as a niche thing? Or something else?
Coraline.
I mean, even the book/film notes the distinction.
They should price it like a rental. There are loads of games I'd like to play for half an hour to see what the fuss is about, then never touch again.
I'm supposedly a "gamer" and I've never owned a PC that was capable of playing the high-end games of the time with all options turned on. Even when my desktop supposedly met the minimum spec, I'd get random BSODs and freezes during games; I spent hours messing with BIOS settings and DirectX drivers without success, scattershot money at hardware solutions and although I'm assured it's not like that any more, they said much the same thing at the time.
I'm sure I'm not alone.
Also, I'll be interested to see whether they come up with games that do things that the typical consumer *can't* afford the hardware to achieve locally.
The target audience for this doesn't give a toss about mods, just as Xbox/PS3 gamers don't care about mods.
However there's no technical reason why a remotely hosted game couldn't support user-generated content.
University may be a means to an end. But my memory of it is that it was also a very enjoyable 4 years of my life, which I wouldn't like to have missed.
University/College is only an educational institute. It teaches you nothing that you can't learn yourself in your chosen field through self-study and research.
College gives you:
- A well stocked library
- A ready made peer group, with whom you can discuss the subjects
- A structured approach to the content
- Ready access to experts (tutors, lecturers and professors)
- time
This is exactly what was done, for weeks.
The female half of the affair was named. The male half was identified as "a Premiership footballer", and it was explicitly stated that the injunction meant they were forbidden to name him.
It has been a farce.