Bitcoin _ Online Currency of some sort?

[Starcraftman]

let's crunch some numbers
this month was 1300
800 profit - 100 per month
oh wait, now it's 500 profit.
now it's 1000.
now it's 250.
etc

Perhaps you should look at some actual market data before you start spewing random numbers.
Edit: Probably should have mentioned I hold onto 1/2 the bitcoins that I mine. I could be making a profit in USD but I'm waiting to see where the market goes.

[Ad Bot]

[stuntman021]

sounds good.

that's a two day chart
edit:

here's a one month one

[Starcraftman]

*applauds* See my edit above.

[stuntman021]

Perhaps you should look at some actual market data before you start spewing random numbers.
Edit: Probably should have mentioned I hold onto 1/2 the bitcoins that I mine. I could be making a profit in USD but I'm waiting to see where the market goes.

AAAAAAAND THAT is where the fault lies. the bitcoin system is based on trickle down economics (the rich get the riches and it trickles down to the poor), yet a large amount of miners hoard their coins! i remember someone brown townyzed the number of coins mined vs coins transferred, and 25% of all the bitcoins are being held in accounts with no plans to ever use them! for an economic system to work, there has to be actual economic activity going on.

[Starcraftman]

Also, this is the guy I was talking about earlier.

[Starcraftman]

the bitcoin system is based on trickle down economics (the rich get the riches and it trickles down to the poor), yet a large amount of miners hoard their coins!

The same is true about the real world economy. A VERY small minority hold most of the money that there is.

for an economic system to work, there has to be actual economic activity going on.

One of the biggest reasons that bitcoin hasn't caught on is because the system is not readily accessible to the average person. Having to set up multiple accounts just to safely transfer normal money into bitcoins is not very straightforward because there is no official documentation, and the same goes for managing the default wallet program, which really does not have a very user friendly interface. There are sites that accept bitcoin see here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade, and people do trade items and services on the bitcoin forum here: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?board=5.0. The obvious flaw that can be seen here is that the majority of all bitcoin transactions are between people who have some idea of what they are doing/have faith in the concept.

[stuntman021]

you admit that it's unwieldy and hard to use. therefore, it is a bad choice as an economic system because the average person can't figure out how the forget to use it.

[Starcraftman]

you admit that it's unwieldy and hard to use. therefore, it is a bad choice as an economic system because the average person can't figure out how the forget to use it.

Yep, that is true, but unlike real world currencies and economies it is far simpler and actually feasible to overhaul the system to make it accessible to the average person.

[stuntman021]

another thing i forgot to mention: this currency is completely computer based. what about people who can't afford computers? do they just get no money at all?

[Kearn]

300 mhash/s with a 5830

[Starcraftman]

another thing i forgot to mention: this currency is completely computer based. what about people who can't afford computers? do they just get no money at all?

The bitcoin system is currently not well suited to work like cash because it can take several minutes for your transaction to be verified, so its more suited for buying things online or currency exchange. But, there is absolutely no reason why the wallet program could not be ported to work on cell phones, which nearly EVERYONE has, or a credit card type system with a central authority to quickly process transactions.

[stuntman021]

The bitcoin system is currently not well suited to work like cash because it can take several minutes for your transaction to be verified, so its more suited for buying things online or currency exchange. But, there is absolutely no reason why the wallet program could not be ported to work on cell phones, which nearly EVERYONE has, or a credit card type system with a central authority to quickly process transactions.

and there are still people who can't afford cell phones or data plans. do they get forgeted out of bitcoins too?

[Starcraftman]

bitcoins are a terrible currency

and there are still people who can't afford cell phones or data plans. do they get forgeted out of bitcoins too?

If you think bitcoins are a terrible currency, then why would you even think that they could become mainstream enough for that to be a problem?

or a credit card type system with a central authority to quickly process transactions.

The system could easily work this way too. There is no reason why anyone should not be able to use them, should bitcoins become a more accepted currency.

[stuntman021]

with a central authority? isn't that exactly what bitcoins were created to avoid? weren't they meant to be entirely peer to peer with nobody regulating them?

[Starcraftman]

with a central authority? isn't that exactly what bitcoins were created to avoid? weren't they meant to be entirely peer to peer with nobody regulating them?

The only reason the central management would be necessary would be to speed up transactions because using the current client requires time to validate the transaction. To maintain anonymity, it would still follow the principle of bitcoin, where you deposit and withdraw in/out of your account using bitcoin's key system, but the central system would just keep track of the amount of coins in your account. On the other hand, a central system could be avoided if the validation system prioritized similar IP addresses, which would greatly reduce the amount of time needed to validate the transactions.