Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by Atropos on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:38AM (#5473262)

The whole "Cyprus people are getting into Bitcoin" narrative is a total lie as well. But I guess Bitcoin is a great learning opportunity for spotting Scams etc., as long as people don't lose too much money, it might even be beneficial.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by PassTheAmmo on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:49AM (#5473352)

Actually for me bitcoin proves just how few people can ACTUALLY spot a pyramid scheme or a pump and dump - instead resorting to calling everything that seems too good to be true a scam. It may work 99.9% of the time, but BTC is the false positive IMO. I totally agree that the Cyprus thing is totally bogus though, journalists are uninformed and lazy as usual. The real reason is that it seems more and more likely that bitcoin will be the currency of the Internet in the future. And nothing else.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by ubernostrum on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:00AM (#5473433)

The fact that Bitcoin is touted as an alternative to untrustworthy -- because inflationary -- traditional currencies, while its exchange rate staggers around like an ice-skating drunk compared to those same traditional currencies, does not fill me with confidence.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by Atropos on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:58AM (#5473417)

"The real reason" for the current price hike is most likely http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=bitcoin meaning we are back in a super high interest in bitcoin phase. Maybe because that is because the world just realized the "currency of the Internet" thing, or it is just a hype, fueled by a lot of misleading promotion and lies. No use to discuss it though, we all will learn in 6+ months...

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by jellicle on Monday April 01, 2013 @02:58PM (#5475124)

> It may work 99.9% of the time, but BTC is the false positive IMO.

That's one of the major markers of a bubble - people convincing themselves that this time is different. There's a book about bubbles with that title.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by niggler on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:52AM (#5473377)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKC7iaBKvs#t=768s

A pretty brilliant scam if you ask me

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by imsofuture on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:03AM (#5473456)

That's not a terribly good point though -- fiat currency also has no intrinsic value.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by niggler on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:06AM (#5473476)

That's a misunderstanding of history. USD used to be backed by silver and all bills said "in silver payable to the bearer on demand". It was only relatively recently that the practice ended.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/US-%245-...

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by Karunamon on Monday April 01, 2013 @12:44PM (#5474196)

It doesn't really invalidate his statement though. The USD is not backed by anything (whether it was in the past or not is irrelevant), and aside from the fact that it's commonly accepted, has no more intrinsic value than Bitcoin.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by prodigal_erik on Monday April 01, 2013 @05:17PM (#5475983)

As long as 300 million people are required to convert a fraction of their income to USD for taxes, its value can't go to zero. Bitcoin's value is purely an article of faith so far.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by philliphaydon on Monday April 01, 2013 @12:56PM (#5474280)

I'm pretty much convinced its a scam after reading this:

http://nerdr.com/bitcoin-exchange-scam-bitcoins-are-worthles...

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by dragontamer on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:46AM (#5473329)

While I'd like to believe you, a link to the "Cyprus lie" would be nice. :-)

I don't think "core bitcoin" users are scamming anyone. But at this point, the speed at which BTC has grown has triggered my "manipulation trigger". A decentralized currency is prone to manipulation... its not like there is an FCC out there to stop people from manipulating BTC.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by dghughes on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:16AM (#5473539)

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/experts-pour-cold-wa...

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by gwern on Monday April 01, 2013 @02:51PM (#5475082)

That's incredibly stupid. They present no evidence, and here's the quote they lead with:

> “If I was looking for a store of value, I'd buy gold, wouldn't I?” Edward Castronova, a professor of telecommunications, and an expert on virtual worlds and currencies, told Ars. “It's a hell of a lot safer than Bitcoin.”

Castronova, have you ever heard of things like 'margins' or 'fungibility' or 'walking and chewing bubblegum'? You know, people can buy both bitcoins and gold - shocking as this may seem. The question is not 'are people physically on the island of Cyprus who would be buying gold instead buying bitcoins?', the question is 'on the margin, are people worldwide buying bitcoins because of Cyprus?'

Nor is pointing out the recent rise an objection. The rise over the past months to $30 was relatively slow and gradual. The rise to $50 and then $105 has been meteoric and directly correlates with the sudden Cyprus crisis. Bitcoin literally started with criticism of bank failures and bailouts (check out the first block, by Nakamoto, in the blockchain) and immunity to this sort of shit is one of its main selling points. The burden of proof is on anyone who thinks that Bitcoin has suddenly just sorta accidentally tripled for no reason at all relating to Cyprus.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by SilasX on Monday April 01, 2013 @03:46PM (#5475409)

>Why would anyone trust an electronic form of money that could get hacked and then diluted into oblivion?" Michael Pento, president of Pento Portfolio Strategies, told CNBC.

Instant credibility death.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by mikro2nd on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:19AM (#5473559)

All currencies are prone to manipulation. Spend a couple of months trading forex (even on paper) if you don't believe me. The columes involved in forex trading (last I looked something like 3 or 4 trillion USD/day equivalent) are way beyond the capacities of /any/ central bank to "manage" or manipulate in their own favour, and it's an over-the-counter trading system, so mostly-impossible to regulate.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by MacsHeadroom on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:39AM (#5473707)

You said the forex market is prone to manipulation and then said that it's way beyond the capacities of any central bank to manipulate. So which is it?

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by nawitus on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:43AM (#5473299)

So you can objectively tell that "bitcoin is a scam"? Sure, there might be bubbles, but that doesn't mean bitcoin is a scam.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by kiba on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:45AM (#5473320)

I think he meant getting scammed in bitcoinland, rather than thinking bitcoin itself is a scam.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by drivebyacct2 on Monday April 01, 2013 @12:14PM (#5473954)

I'm growing really bored of people who don't know what they're talking about calling Bitcoin a scam.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by tudorizer on Monday April 01, 2013 @03:18PM (#5475253)

same here...

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by oleganza on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:35AM (#5473236)

So who and when is going to get out? And out where? To fiat currency that is controlled, inspected, can be frozen, taxed and stolen? Bitcoin grows like crazy because it is a money proved to work. It survived exchange hacks, stolen wallets, viruses, user mistakes, network-affecting software bugs and government seizures of bank deposits. It allows you to hold something in your pocket that nobody knows about and you can split it in 100 pieces and send to 100 people in different countries in a matter of seconds.

Bitcoin is not a promise of future delivery. Like William Gibson said, "The future is already here — it's just not very evenly distributed."

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by niggler on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:38AM (#5473263)

"Bitcoin grows like crazy because it is a money proved to work."

Bitcoin grows like crazy thanks to various entities of increasing credibility building an ecosystem around BTC. Like Coinbase, which I'm sure is why a lot of people here got into bitcoin.

Listen for about 30 seconds of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKC7iaBKvs#t=830s

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by codehalo on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @01:29AM (#5477842)

Coinbase is a fucking disaster.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by rmc on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:57AM (#5473410)

you can split it in 100 pieces and send to 100 people in different countries in a matter of seconds.

No, a transaction can take from 10 minutes to an hour to complete. You may have to pay a percentage to do that aswell.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by oleganza on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:04AM (#5473464)

If they trust you, it's a matter of seconds. And anyway, try to do that in 20 minutes with gold.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by paulgb on Monday April 01, 2013 @01:34PM (#5474549)

If they trust you, they can do it with gold too. "I owe you an ounce of gold."

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by oleganza on Monday April 01, 2013 @05:32PM (#5476070)

They need to trust you for 10-20 minutes before confirmation, not forever like with borrowed piece of gold.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by TylerE on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:37AM (#5473256)

It'll be proven to work when you can pay taxes and buy groceries with it.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by AdmiralBeotch on Monday April 01, 2013 @04:31PM (#5475716)

Pay taxes and other government debts here: http://www2.egovlink.com/press-release-bitcoin.cfm

You can already buy food at a couple places in Vegas where I live.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by joonix on Monday April 01, 2013 @01:35PM (#5474564)

Kind of a ridiculous comment. I would buy groceries for someone and deliver them if they gave me 1 Bitcoin. I would also hand them my homegrown vegetables for a Bitcoin.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by chii on Tuesday April 02, 2013 @08:39AM (#5478898)

sure, you (and comparatively a minor number of others) would.

But as a society, bitcoins is still not an accepted form of exchange in general.

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Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC by mikemoka on Monday April 01, 2013 @10:34AM (#5473230)

I agree, even though the amount of bitcoins in circulation will be limited this looks too strange to be a regular trend.

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