Bitcoin giveaway! :)

[Rien]

Muchas Gracias Marc!

[RickV42]

Marc,

I'm always reading this site as there are many smart, mostly like minded people on this board.  I have not commented too much as of late but your kind offer has brought me out of posting hibernation.

Thank you for not only the offer, but also for persuading me to take some time to understand this more. 

Hit me up!   

16HkxXUQmf4KGavTfrU6ro8oxwmaRF82g3

Thanks again!

[frugal]

Hello MARC,

How are you?

Can I start to belong to bitcoin family?


1A5iaKFGySRTJu6aauE8FBXdVq3j8x6QQf

With my best regards!

Hey Frugal!

Welcome to the bitcoin family! 

Thank you so much for valuing my work and blog the past few years.


Hope you succeed in building it to 1 btc. Only 21 million people in the world will be able to own 1 full btc. And that is if no one else owns more than 1.

Here you can see a cool globe in 3D with all people currently running the bitcoin client:
https://blockchain.info/nodes-globe

My early morning post disapeared !

MARC: Great Man, great blogger, great mind.

[Mdraf]

I know nothing about Bitcoins but followed this thread and created a wallet:

13iQ3FuyrhrU3f8wmBSm9WymKerNkh1ka4

Then I happened to read this today

A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished

[Pointedstick]

Oh, China.

I don't use an online wallet for just that reason. It's less convenient, but safer.

[frommi]

You know what I just realized? Moda and Gumby have been talking about how the natural "risk-free" rate of interest on a floating fiat currency is zero percent; what's the "risk-free" interest payment you can get on Bitcoin--a floating fiat currency? Zero percent. All of these gains are coming from appreciation vs other currencies, not interest payments. If and when Bitcoin eventually stabilizes vs the dollar or euro or something, I think there's a very strong case to be made that nobody's Bitcoin reserves are going to be accumulating any interest payments without lending them out to borrowers and taking on some real risk. How could it be any other way? Bitcoin is an inherently deflationary currency; "risk-free" interest the way bank reserves work today requires inflation.

These gains come from the greater fool that is paying you more . But someday there will be no greater fool available and then this whole thing breaks up. It looks clearly like euphoria, the last stage of a bubble.
@Marc when i were you, i would transfer most of the gains to the real world and buy real estate or stocks for it, and live from the cashflow of rents and dividends. Currently you look like a lottery winner who gives away his money.

[Marc De Mesel]

Muchas Gracias Marc!

You are welcome Rien!

[Marc De Mesel]

Hello MARC,

How are you?

Can I start to belong to bitcoin family?


1A5iaKFGySRTJu6aauE8FBXdVq3j8x6QQf

With my best regards!

Hey Frugal!

Welcome to the bitcoin family! 

Thank you so much for valuing my work and blog the past few years.


Hope you succeed in building it to 1 btc. Only 21 million people in the world will be able to own 1 full btc. And that is if no one else owns more than 1.

Here you can see a cool globe in 3D with all people currently running the bitcoin client:
https://blockchain.info/nodes-globe

My early morning post disapeared !

MARC: Great Man, great blogger, great mind.

Thanks so much Frugal, you made my day 

Ps: What do you mean with the early morning post?

[Mdraf]

Oh, China.

I don't use an online wallet for just that reason. It's less convenient, but safer.

Thanks.  Not knowing anything about it I thought an online wallet was required. After reading your post I found and downloaded one to my PC.

[Marc De Mesel]

Marc,

I'm always reading this site as there are many smart, mostly like minded people on this board.  I have not commented too much as of late but your kind offer has brought me out of posting hibernation.

Thank you for not only the offer, but also for persuading me to take some time to understand this more. 

Hit me up!   

16HkxXUQmf4KGavTfrU6ro8oxwmaRF82g3

Thanks again!

That's great to hear Rick

There you go!

[Marc De Mesel]

I know nothing about Bitcoins but followed this thread and created a wallet:

13iQ3FuyrhrU3f8wmBSm9WymKerNkh1ka4

Then I happened to read this today

A Bitcoin Exchange Holding $4.1 Million For 1,000 Customers Has Simply Vanished

Yes, bitcoin land truly is the new Wild West.

Not only does it regularly happen that people their account gets hacked (hence 2 factor!), 1 in 5 service operators ends up disappearing with the coins as well (hence cold storage!), even the government likes to raid the largest exchanges from time to time (hence no trading but buy and hold!).

I advised the blockchain.info wallet because they are the most trusted and using that with 2 factor on your phone is safer than just installing the bitcoin client I think, since most people don't use their computer safely and it's easy to hack into. But indeed the best is cold storage like Armory, though much more complicated and not worth it if you only have small amounts.

Holding on to your coin is very hard.

Some get robbed, some lose them, many invest them, some gamble them, others consume them, and those that still have them often sell them way too soon (they got me on this one) 

Hence, when the fingers are itching to move the coin, watch this song.

Coins send, good luck! 

[Pointedstick]

You're really selling this, Marc!

[Mdraf]

Thank you Marc.  I'm a Luddite about all this. I have a whole new subject to explore...from an initial web sweep it looks to me like the exchanges that allow one to buy bitcoins with money offer terrible exchange rates   Which ones do you favor? I'd like to drop a few bucks in there and see what happens.
I opened a blockchain.info wallet but after PS's post I downloaded MultiBit.

[Pointedstick]

Thank you Marc.  I'm a Luddite about all this. I have a whole new subject to explore...from an initial web sweep it looks to me like the exchanges that allow one to buy bitcoins with money offer terrible exchange rates   Which ones do you favor? I'd like to drop a few bucks in there and see what happens.
I opened a blockchain.info wallet but after PS's post I downloaded MultiBit.

I like localbitcoins.com. I sold the other day at the rate of $360/BTC when the official exchange rate was very close to that.

[Marc De Mesel]

You know what I just realized? Moda and Gumby have been talking about how the natural "risk-free" rate of interest on a floating fiat currency is zero percent; what's the "risk-free" interest payment you can get on Bitcoin--a floating fiat currency? Zero percent. All of these gains are coming from appreciation vs other currencies, not interest payments. If and when Bitcoin eventually stabilizes vs the dollar or euro or something, I think there's a very strong case to be made that nobody's Bitcoin reserves are going to be accumulating any interest payments without lending them out to borrowers and taking on some real risk. How could it be any other way? Bitcoin is an inherently deflationary currency; "risk-free" interest the way bank reserves work today requires inflation.

These gains come from the greater fool that is paying you more . But someday there will be no greater fool available and then this whole thing breaks up. It looks clearly like euphoria, the last stage of a bubble.
@Marc when i were you, i would transfer most of the gains to the real world and buy real estate or stocks for it, and live from the cashflow of rents and dividends. Currently you look like a lottery winner who gives away his money.

You are being cynical. The greater fool is true for any asset. The gains may be payed by the one buying, but they are made by the one selling.

I think your 'looks clearly like a bubble' will be proven wrong. Here what I think is more likely: https://bitcointalk.org/http://77.104.1 ... msg3464070

I sold enough coins to have a nice profit if bitcoin goes to zero. I am giving away bitcoins as to motivate people more to adopt it as so many have done with bitcoin. A payment network is not easily build. Paypal gave away $30 per new account and spend millions before making billions.

Challenge your thinking, this is still early adopter phase, the institutional investors are getting started but the masses are far from here. A bubble it will indeed likely become, but that would be way down the line at much higher valuations.

[Marc De Mesel]

You're really selling this, Marc!

lol 

People like the danger, it's irresistible.

Very happy about the crowd, free btc is selling like hot cakes here!

Hope there are some rich investors here getting hooked 

You seem to be into it pretty deep too. When did you take the plunge? And why? Were you resistant at first?

[Pointedstick]

You seem to be into it pretty deep too. When did you take the plunge? And why? Were you resistant at first?

I dabbled about a year ago but got in more when I decided on a whim to accept payments for my business in bitcoins. It proved popular since my customers tend to be tech nerds like me, so many of them had bitcoins already. I had one guy who tried to bargain me down on an order because he didn't have enough BTC and I had to remind him about dollars! It's worked very smoothly. Other than the volatility, I think it works very well as a payment method.

[Victorsan]

1ET6amaMJC1QFLyAtGpxK9hYTAEJd5fvuZ

Domo arigato, Marc!

[Marc De Mesel]

1ET6amaMJC1QFLyAtGpxK9hYTAEJd5fvuZ

Domo arigato, Marc!

I don't take new accounts, I'm sorry amigo.

I'll send you a kiss instead

mmmmwwwwwwaaah

[frugal]

Hey Frugal!

Welcome to the bitcoin family! 

Thank you so much for valuing my work and blog the past few years.


Hope you succeed in building it to 1 btc. Only 21 million people in the world will be able to own 1 full btc. And that is if no one else owns more than 1.

Here you can see a cool globe in 3D with all people currently running the bitcoin client:
https://blockchain.info/nodes-globe

My early morning post disapeared !

MARC: Great Man, great blogger, great mind.

Thanks so much Frugal, you made my day 

Ps: What do you mean with the early morning post?

During today's morning I wrote a post with similar message.

Maybe I didn't click Post correctly...


Thank you again and keep us updated with your posts, videos ...

[Mdraf]

You seem to be into it pretty deep too. When did you take the plunge? And why? Were you resistant at first?

I dabbled about a year ago but got in more when I decided on a whim to accept payments for my business in bitcoins. It proved popular since my customers tend to be tech nerds like me, so many of them had bitcoins already. I had one guy who tried to bargain me down on an order because he didn't have enough BTC and I had to remind him about dollars! It's worked very smoothly. Other than the volatility, I think it works very well as a payment method.

If you use it in business how do you account for it? Do you have a separate entry in your balance sheet? What proof of income do you use for IRS purposes?

[Pointedstick]

We're basically in uncharted territory accounting-wise, but I use the blockchain's transaction confirmation pages, and yeah, it's just a separate entry.

[Gumby]

I admit I don't know much about Bitcoins, but this Forbes reporter suggests that there are some long term limitations:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/ ... -bitcoins/

Reason #3:

The Bitcoin protocol requires that every node in the network download a copy of every Bitcoin transaction that has ever occurred. As Bitcoin has grown more popular, running the “full”? Bitcoin client has become more and more resource-intensive. The last time I started up my Bitcoin client, it took several hours to download all the transactions that had occurred in the few weeks since the last time I ran it.

To prevent things from becoming completely unwieldy, the Bitcoin protocol limits the size of each “block,”? the basic unit of Bitcoin’s shared transaction register, to one megabyte. Since one block is created every 10 minutes, on average, this places a hard limit on the number of transactions the network can process each hour.

Right now, the network is operating well below the limit. But it’s not that far below the limit. If the Bitcoin economy continues to grow rapidly, we’re likely to hit it in the next few years.

Reaching the limit wouldn’t be catastrophic; the Bitcoin protocol has an elegant system of transaction fees to process the most urgent transactions first. But it does place some limits on Bitcoin’s long-term future. For example, it’s hard to imagine Bitcoin ever becoming a replacement for conventional credit cards. There are far too many credit card transactions for the Bitcoin network to accomodate.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/ ... -bitcoins/

[Rien]

Somehow many of the reactions to bitcoins you can see nowadays remember me of the reactions to the rise in silver and gold in 2006/2008.
Which suggests that there is a similar psychology at work here.

How does the saying go?

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

[Marc De Mesel]

Somehow many of the reactions to bitcoins you can see nowadays remember me of the reactions to the rise in silver and gold in 2006/2008.
Which suggests that there is a similar psychology at work here.

How does the saying go?

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

Yeah indeed, here a very good video why growth rate in adoption and price will likely increase instead of decrease.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHUPPYzzZrI

In short this is not to be compared with gold or broad stock index funds where the potential is only to tenfold. This is to be compared with a startup such as facebook where the potential is to 1000 fold with the difference that in bitcoin you can participate early stage, and chances for success are much higher, whereas with fast growing companies only venture capitalists can participate early stage and chances of success are extremely low, hence why they must invest in 10's to 100's of startups to have a chance to strike it big.