
Bitcoin market cap now +$200M as prices keep rising - VaucGiaps
http://blockchain.info/stats
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thomasz
This website reminds me on one thing about internationalization:

Do not, under any circumstances, serve auto translated content by default.
It's horrible, and a little bit insulting. If you don't have the resources to
do a proper translation for a locale, just serve en-us and maybe a link to
google translate.

Jesus. "Blocks Verminte"... That gibberish roughly translates to "blocks
defended by minefields."

~~~
bdcs
Agreed. Although, if you want to help out an open source project and make ca.
250$, you can provide a translation here:
<https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135336.0>

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josh2600
I don't understand bitcoin.

The number of bitcoins on the market is increasing and so is the value of each
bitcoin. I understand that bitcoin has to be mined and that mining is becoming
harder and harder, but what is causing the value of each coin to increase? One
would expect that supply and demand would not increase together for any
significant period of time.

Is this an aberration or is Bitcoin going to stay at these pricing levels?
Wasn't there a big Bitcoin heist last month due to the Rails vulnerability?

Some insight would be lovely.

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mtgx
_One would expect that supply and demand would not increase together for any
significant period of time._

Why would one expect that? The demand _is_ increasing, and given the fact that
the supply is increasing at a much slower rate, then it's quite normal for the
value to increase.

That being said, I don't know what caused the "sudden" (few weeks) increase
from $14 to $18, as I don't read about Bitcoin that often. But I do expect the
value to keep rising as more companies start adopting Bitcoin payments and
more people then get interested in it. And I also expect Bitcoin to remain
relatively volatile at least until its market value is counted in billions or
tens of billions of dollars, when each individual transaction will have a much
smaller impact on its value, in either direction.

~~~
derrida
Stuff just goes up in January, people are optimistic.
[https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-stock-
prices...](https://ssl1.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do-stock-prices-rise-
every-january-new-year-optimism/2011/12/28/gIQAmGkwQP_story.html) Markets
aren't rational. I bought in December & exited about a week ago on this
strategy.

I think short term (1-3 years) there is a real issue with liquidity in the
Bitcoin market (moving between currencies) & acceptance. I suspect to see a
dip dropping below November prices March-July as people need access to cash
later in the year (due to January optimism wearing & credit bills to pay) and
in the process of trying to make liquid their bitcoin reserves discover the
problems with liquidity, which have to do with shady exchanges: causing
further dip. In person cash transactions are best at this stage, but require
effort. Bitcoin has solid value though and isn't going anywhere.

Basically: what places that do accept bitcoin for currency are shady and
uncertain, and few accept for goods.

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gigq
While I agree it used to be very difficult to move between USD and bitcoins,
<https://coinbase.com> (YC S12) has made this pretty easy at this point.

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dkulchenko
Ironically, about 45 minutes after this was posted to HN, bitcoin began to
crash, down almost 20% as of this comment: <http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/>

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snake_plissken
The only thing I don't understand is this: how is an upper bound on the supply
of bitcoins deflationary? I constantly read pieces extolling this virtue.

Maybe I am reading this wrong. Perhaps prices in bitcoins will tend to be
deflationary. But does that really matter? FX risk is the same thing as
inflation/deflation, and you to buy in bitcoins you need to purchase bitcoins
first. The floating rate guarantees no stability.

~~~
bunderbunder
> how is an upper bound on the supply of bitcoins deflationary?

If the supply of currency doesn't grow at exactly the same rate as the economy
as a whole, then overall prices in that currency will change. If the supply of
currency grows faster than the economy, then the currency will become less
valuable in relation to goods and services, and prices will rise. This is
known as inflation. On the other hand, if the currency supply grows slower
than the economy, then the currency will become more valuable in relation to
goods and services, and prices will fall. This is known as deflation.

The upper bound on the supply of BTC is deflationary because it guarantees
that the rate of growth in the supply in bitcoins is forever approaching zero.
This means that, in the long run, _any growth in the bitcoin economy
whatsoever_ will result in deflation.

Whether that's a virtue or not is, at best, debatable. Economists generally
agree that deflation is very bad in the modern economy. While they aren't
synonymous, the historical record indicates that economic deflation and
economic recessions (and depressions) tend to go hand-in-hand, and there's a
fairly strong theoretical explanation for why this should be. That's the whole
reason why governments try to always maintain a small amount of inflation.
Zero (or near-zero) inflation might be the ideal, but policymakers consider
deflation to be scary enough that they prefer to err a little bit on the side
of inflation as a cushion to guard against deflation.

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theklub
Every time I'm about to get some Bitcoins I see some news story about people
being robbed or ripped off and decide to wait. Then a month later the prices
continue to rise, then someone gets robbed. Its like a huge cycle and I can't
decent whether to give them a shot or not.

~~~
TkTech
You hear about it more often because of the culture and nature of it. How
often do you think physical/digital money in other forms is stolen?

The bigger thefts come from people trusting untested websites acting as banks
& brokers that are not regulated, do not (usually) have a physical presence,
and usually do not have the required capital to insure their holdings.

~~~
bunderbunder
> The bigger thefts come from people trusting untested websites acting as
> banks & brokers that are not regulated, do not (usually) have a physical
> presence, and usually do not have the required capital to insure their
> holdings.

e.g., bitcoin wallet websites

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gesman
I just wrote a Wordpress plugin (actually WooCommerce payment extension) to
allow building of online stores and accept bitcoins through blockchain.info.

Zero fees!

Essentially it allows anyone to sell physical and virtual (digital
downloadable) goods and charge either normal currency or Bitcoins - leaving
choice to customer.

Now I have to find a time to put it online....

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wmf
"Zero fees" is misleading. Merchants are likely to convert BTC back to real
money which will incur fees. Exchange rate volatility (oh look, down 3% in the
last 5 minutes) and conversion losses due to poor usability are effectively
fees as well.

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acomjean
Are bitcoins Ints or Floats? If so at 19$ per coin the currency can only be
used for larger purchases.

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gbaygon
Bitcoins values are stored in 64-bit integers, with 1 BTC stored as
100,000,000 which gives plenty of room to fractionalize, since it's stored as
if it where a double-precision number.

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nym
If you're interested in buying bitcoins, check out this guide:

<http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/in/united-states/>

Also, I recommend these companies:

\- Coinbase (1% charge) <http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/coinbase>

\- Bitme (0.75% charge) <http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme>

~~~
metaperl
I dont know why bitfloor was not mentioned there, but you can transfer
directly from an Electric Orange checking account into Bitfloor.

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undrcvr
[http://buttcoin.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/buttcoin-
info...](http://buttcoin.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/buttcoin-
infograph.png)

