News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The first Bitcoin post on HN by slg on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @02:01PM (#6763497)
The problem is that few people are willing to fix their price to a BTC value because it is so unstable. It is a chicken and egg problem.
Re:The first Bitcoin post on HN by sliverstorm on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @03:06PM (#6764021)
Absolutely! A first step could be updating prices periodically, perhaps on an hourly or daily basis, rather than every second.
Re:The first Bitcoin post on HN by jzwinck on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @06:37PM (#6765321)
Just like Zimbabwe in the good old days of 2008, "updating" prices constantly would have deleterious effects on purchasing by normal people.

When prices in some system have to be updated constantly to reflect another metric (say, USD), it may be more efficient to just use that other metric in the price. This is what happened in Zimbabwe.

Re:The first Bitcoin post on HN by sliverstorm on Tuesday November 19, 2013 @07:18PM (#6765561)
Updating them constantly will be bad, yes. But prices don't need to remain perfectly fixed. Prices on Amazon, for example, fluctuate all the time. Most products stay at the same price, but plenty fluctuate a couple percent on a daily basis.