http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/25/technology/security/bitcoin-mtgox/ Wow some people had millions of dollars worth of bitcoins, all gone now. People were literally buying cars and houses with these things just recently and now the value is zero because Mt. Gox has gone bankrupt. Stunning news to hear.
The value of bitcoin is not zero. That was one exchange. The value has already bounced back up to near 600. People who had money/btc stored at Gox lost a lot but bitcoin isn't going anywhere anytime soon. It's more and more widely used and accepted. If you had millions in btc that wasn't in your own cold storage that was pretty stupid of you.
I still have no comprehension of this whole bitcoin thing. Some kind of digital currency or something? I don't get how you can use it to buy things and how the value gets determined.
It's a decentralized digital currency with a ceiling of the number of bitcoins to ever exist that is about 21 million. Bitcoins can be obtained by "mining" which is basically something left to the big guys at this point or by buying or trading for them. You can buy them at a place like coinbase.com. There's also an exchange in NYC where you can buy for cash if you want. Once you have bitcoin you can buy things at any place that accepts them (like overstock.com) using whatever wallet software you have on your phone or tablet. Generally this is just scanning a QR code. The price is basically determined by demand. When the price dropped due to Mt. Cox going down a lot of people started buying which caused the price to go back up. Start here: https://bitcoin.org/en/ The technology is very cool and there is a ton of innovation piggy backing on it right now. Decentralized applications on the block chain are starting to be built. Very neat stuff.
Yeah that Yeah thats what I mean, I dont get why people would have put all their bitcoins into Mt. Gox though, apparently though a ton of people had it in Mt. Gox because they were the #1 currency translator. These bitcoins though have gone all over the place value wise, its really interesting to watch a new currency develop. It is very young, all things considered.
Long term though this is likely where currency is heading, people investing now will be making a killing once when the US dollar loses all of its value. It honestly would be smart to buy into this right now but its just so damn risky but its where we are heading though at the end of the day.
I'm still in the bitcoin is asking to get tied up in a tree naked and left for dead category of assets. Does anybody really think the authorities are going to stay ahead of the crooks on this one? Particularly whem almost all of the authorities that might have a chance to do so have vested interests (dollar, euro, ruble, renminbi) elsewhere? We just watched the worlds largest criminal conspiracy steal untold billions of dollars in the housing bubble. Somehow we're going to stop them from exploiting an asset that actually has no solid components behind it to prevent default? In what fantasy does that happen?
I don't get your point? So because criminals can fuck us over with fiat currency we should not trust digital currency either?
The point is that the thieves are in control at this point. There are no major governments that are not at least slightly corrupt and serving the interests of the people who try to steal huge sums legally. This has probably been true since 1998 but you could make the argument that the corruption in the US extends back to the S&L crisis in the mid-80's. Using a virtual currency that is not backed by any of the large stakeholders is just asking to get robbed blind. The structure is not policed by anybody and if it were covered it would be covered in a way that slanted heavily towards the vested interests. There's a big bitcoin theft? Joe Public is out of luck but the big stakeholders will wind up covered somehow, just like in the 2008 mess.
The large stake holders are the biggest thieves of them all. I don't think you'll find a single person try to argue that bitcoin isn't a high risk investment. The official bitcoin site talks warns of high risk. But there's also no federal reserve to "legally steal" from you. Still not sure how it's any better to be robbed of fiat over digital currency. I guess it's better if it's legal.
