[32519]

hrothgar, on 2013-December-08, 09:59, said:

P is the change in the price of a bitcoin (Note that the price fell by 50% in the last couple days when the government of China cracked down on bitcoins. It recovered some, but the price is swinging dramatically over short periods of time)

Here is more on hrothgar's post.

[onoway]

32519, on 2013-December-08, 09:44, said:

Mr. Greenspan said, "It's a bubble." “You have to really stretch your imagination to infer what the intrinsic value of Bitcoin is.”

Given the national debt of virtually all nations these days, it seems to require a stretch of the imagination to infer what the value of any currency really is. To my uneducated eyes, you could swap the money speculators..or perhaps the IMF.. with Humpty Dumpty;

But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.

[Vampyr]

onoway, on 2013-December-18, 13:53, said:

Given the national debt of virtually all nations these days, it seems to require a stretch of the imagination to infer what the value of any currency really is.

I don't think they normally fall quite so much in a day unless the country is in serious crisis.

[Al_U_Card]

Bubbl-icious

Bitcoin is certainly following the bubble chart.



Next up is the "quark" which apparently gets rid of some of the bitcoin issues.

[32519]

Indian entrepreneurs wary of Bitcoin

Here is an extract from the article:
"Bitcoin isn’t the only digital currency – it is estimated that there are about 50 such currencies worldwide, with unimaginative names like Litecoin, Ripple, Particlecoin, Peercoin, Namecoin, Lifecoin etc. In fact, we stumbled upon a desi version called LaxmiCoin, which is about to launch its mining operations (Laxmi is regarded as the Goddess of Wealth)."

Lakshmi is the Hindu Goddess of Wealth

[barmar]

I heard on "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me" today that a couple of Las Vegas casinos have started accepting Bitcoins.

http://www.usatoday....tcoins/4713243/

Currently it's only for purchases in select areas of the hotels, not for purchasing chips in the gambling area.

[onoway]

Well, the Feds have decided to take bitcoins seriously and try to make them out to be some sort of underworld conspiracy to undermine the banks, it would seem, as they have just charged the CEO of the company who started them (? is that the right term?) with money laundering for the undersirables..which on the face of it is like charging the CEO of General Motors because a bank robber used a GM vehicle to escape in.

In the meantime, a couple in Kelowna BC have put their 3400 sq foot luxury home up for sale for 1650 bitcoins or if cash, $1.45 million. http://www.kelownada...145m-12514.html

So all you computer wizards... here's a chance to get a pretty nice house for doing some "mining"..

[barmar]

onoway, on 2014-January-28, 15:28, said:

Well, the Feds have decided to take bitcoins seriously and try to make them out to be some sort of underworld conspiracy to undermine the banks, it would seem, as they have just charged the CEO of the company who started them (? is that the right term?) with money laundering for the undersirables..which on the face of it is like charging the CEO of General Motors because a bank robber used a GM vehicle to escape in.

I think that's a poor analogy. Suppose GM put features in their cars that are specifically designed to make them useful as getaway cars -- they might be charged as accessories or conspirators or something like that (IANAL, don't quote me on the specifics).

This is similar to the clause in the DMCA that prohibits manufacturing technology whose primary purpose is to facilitate copyright infringement.

[Zelandakh]

Another good comparison is to property purchases or the stock market. They is a legal responsibility to ensure that money is not laundered through such trades. It is not unreasonable to expect the company behind bitcoins to take on a similar responsibility. The Kelowna BC property that onoway mentions is an interesting case in point - do banks in America take on this responsibility? Presumably bitcoins would be considered the bank for the purposes of such a transaction.

On the auto analogy, how about if GM sold a car with machine guns attached as standard. Would you consider them in any way responsible if your child was gunned down using such a car? After all, it is not like the perpitrator could not have gotten the guns separately, so everything should be just fine right? Would it also be ok if the car was an off-roader and someone drove it onto an island full of teenagers and started killing them?

Bad taste? certainly. But so is the idea that setting up a money laundering scheme and covering it with a legitimate business (hotels, casinos, etc) should be acceptable.

[blackshoe]

I must confess to some enthusiasm for Car Wars.

[Zelandakh]

Have you played it Ed? There was a regular game in my university rpg/wargame club although I only tried it out once myself.

[barmar]

blackshoe, on 2014-January-30, 09:25, said:

I must confess to some enthusiasm for Car Wars.

I delibately avoided using a gun analogy to avoid inevitable replies like this, or a tangent on how the 2nd Amendment would protect them.

[onoway]

Zelandakh, on 2014-January-30, 04:52, said:

On the auto analogy, how about if GM sold a car with machine guns attached as standard. Would you consider them in any way responsible if your child was gunned down using such a car? After all, it is not like the perpitrator could not have gotten the guns separately, so everything should be just fine right? Would it also be ok if the car was an off-roader and someone drove it onto an island full of teenagers and started killing them?

Ok now you HAVE opened up a can of worms. If the CEO of bitcoins is responsible for money laundering that his clients engage in, why are the people who make assault rifles not being charged with murder for the people killed in events such as the mass murders in the theatre or the school children in Sandy Hook?

And don't bring hunting into it; the ONLY purpose of assault rifles is to shoot people with.

Or is it just that money is really of more interest to the banks and politicians than people?

[hrothgar]

onoway, on 2014-January-30, 14:51, said:

Ok now you HAVE opened up a can of worms. If the CEO of bitcoins is responsible for money laundering that his clients engage in, why are the people who make assault rifles not being charged with murder for the people killed in events such as the mass murders in the theatre or the school children in Sandy Hook?

And don't bring hunting into it; the ONLY purpose of assault rifles is to shoot people with.

Or is it just that money is really of more interest to the banks and politicians than people?

Because the US congress passed a law that grants gun manufacturers immunity from this type of liability.

[onoway]

hrothgar, on 2014-January-30, 15:23, said:

Because the US congress passed a law that grants gun manufacturers immunity from this type of liability.

So. Mass murder is just one of those things (if regrettable) that nothing can be done about, but allowing people to move their own money around without Fed approval/permission and bank fees must by definition be associated with terrorism or nefarious activities and must be stopped.

What an odd world we live in.

[blackshoe]

Zelandakh, on 2014-January-30, 09:44, said:

Have you played it Ed? There was a regular game in my university rpg/wargame club although I only tried it out once myself.

A very long time ago. Not the greatest game in the world, but it was fun.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2014-January-30, 10:19, said:

I delibately avoided using a gun analogy to avoid inevitable replies like this, or a tangent on how the 2nd Amendment would protect them.

I won't speak for anyone else, but I will not be going there.

[barmar]

It's a waste of time to ask "Why do we have a law against X when we don't have a law against Y, which is more serious?" You can also find many instances where the punishment for one crime is more severe than for some other crime that's obviously more serious. When lawmakers are debating a particular law, or the punishment for a crime, do you seriously think that they have a chart of all the other laws on the books, so they can determine where it fits in the spectrum? Laws are enacted in a context where they're just thinking about that particular circumstance -- trying to make all the laws consistent would be an impossible task (you think we have a do-nothing Congress now, imagine if they had this constraint on them as well).

[onoway]

Well,of course, but when elected people are making laws it should be possible to expect them to have some sense.

It would seem that it's perfectly legal to buy whatever sort of weapon you can afford intending to (illegally) shoot however many Americans you can manage to hit as long as you do it in the U.S. If you take the exact same money and use it to buy weapons to blow away Americans in some other country, then that's a crime. I imagine most Americans would prefer it to be the other way around.

[Vampyr]

onoway, on 2014-January-31, 19:38, said:

Well,of course, but when elected people are making laws it should be possible to expect them to have some sense.

It would seem that it's perfectly legal to buy whatever sort of weapon you can afford intending to (illegally) shoot however many Americans you can manage to hit as long as you do it in the U.S. If you take the exact same money and use it to buy weapons to blow away Americans in some other country, then that's a crime. I imagine most Americans would prefer it to be the other way around.

One would think so, but then there would exist the political will to do something about America's gun problem, despite the enormous lobbying power of the NRA.

The problem is that there was a time when the vast majority of American men were ritually mutilated at birth, even if their parents had no religious reason for wanting to do so. I think readers can see where I am going with this...