221 replies to this topic

[jameso]

No one is spending it. Its for hoarding at the moment

[siztenboots]

This all seems a bit tulip mania to me. Think there is way more speculation than actual exchange for goods and services going on.

 

South Seas Company , Ponzi scheme

[Tony H]

That said I did notice zzperformance are accepting bitcoin

[kitcar765]

no-one knows its a bubble until it bursts.  Bitcoins are like nothing that has come before. Soon as ebay amazon etc start to accept perhaps in the next 12 months it will be crazy. With such a small market cap plenty of people are buying £10 or £20 worth for fun around the world would be enough to drive the price crazy. who knows. for the sake of the cost of a few pints its a fun ride. i see bitcoins as a bet against the current banking system. Which is doomed, not because of bitcoins, bitcoins are just a side-effect. Current banking system relies on new entrants taking on exponentially increasing debts buying houses, without government support houses would easily half in value. So for most people right now its a case of pick your ponzi! the money in your pocket is loosing 10-12% of its value each year when you take into account fuel, food and heating costs (which are not stated in the government stated rate of inflation). Even staying in cash burning your value away. the uk goverment has basically underwritten a housing ponzi which will collapse anyway. meaning that everyone pays for it in a hugely devalued currency. people in the uk wont realise the true situation until they loose 20% of their savings in a "bail in" Cyprus style, and find the 85k the banks promise to protect doesn't mean a thing. never know people might even start blaming the energy companies for making profits! when in truth its our own government devaluing our currency.   

[dave_dub86]

^ +1 I've reviewed the figures since litecoin has grown and it looks like I'm going to put together a mining rig. It didn't make economic sense when it was at $4 but now it has a support level around $40 I'm putting a grand or so into rig which I reckon will bring in £900 a month of litecoin at the current market value. I haven't got a clue about computers so this is going to be an interesting one.. I've finished rebuilding the vx engine now though and it's back in the car so this is a new project for me

[JD VX220]

Let me know how you get on Dave.

 

I'm an IT bod and interested in mining. My gaming rig has 2 graphics cards in and after two months of mining I have found...zip....nada...nuttin....f-all. On the plus side my study is now nice and toasty.

 

Just wondering if I need to get a few more hashs out of it to start making a difference.

 

 

[dave_dub86]

What cards are you using dude? I'm planning on using four Radeon 7950, aiming for 2,200MHz hashrate. Well that was until I noticed litecoin is crashing hard lol I'll see what it's at on Monday when everyone's accounts are credited, so it will give a better idea of where it's at before I start buying hardware.

[kitcar765]

from reading up on mining isnt the difficulty going to shoot up on litecoin? is it worth mining?  afterall to get a return on the outlay £1000 mining rig and electric costs? better to buy £1000 bitcoin/litecoin? i want to buy some litecoin but i dont have a hard-drive big enough for the chain and i cant find a wallet which doesnt require the chain downloads. any wallet suggestions?  seems bitcoin is taking a breather at the moment and holding steady (as far as 'steady' goes for bitcoin!) at around £700ish.  i feel it will probably drop for a couple of hours then reach new highs. its been doing that the whole time i have been in bitcoin expect for a period it held at i think it was £70. when i look at the charts i keep thinking "this is mental it cant go any more mental" but then the new peak makes the previous one seem like nothing in comparison.  my biggest issue is that i will never sell them. im probably going to get burnt from not taking any profit.  my work makes onces thought i was a crazy man with bitcoin, been banging on about it since february/march. well before it hit the news (outside of max keiser and russia today). same on facebook only problem i have is im not tech savy. i have no idea about computers. but i read about economics religiously. at one point i lost my bitcoins as i didnt know how to get them off my old hard-drive. only recently did i seek out help to get them back!    

[dave_dub86]

The difficulty goes up every week but if litecoin stays around $40 it would take 5 weeks or so for the mining rig to pay for itself, including electricity, then pure profit.

[kitcar765]

also if you build a rig put the progress on here!!

[dave_dub86]

Will do bro. As I say I'll check out how litecoin is performing next week before I take the plunge

[JD VX220]

Hey bud, I'm using two his 7870s and I'm getting about 800 hash. I currently have money in NMC and FTC. Not sure how they will do but both were a cheap investment. Interested in the rig build though mate and if you have any questions about anything build wise feel free to pm me :-)

[kitcar765]

its been a wild journey. Here is a quick re-cap.

 

[Tony H]

I think it will crack up eventually to zero value. These bitcoins do not have any intrinsic value. I think these virtual currencies need to be backed by gold or something to work properly long term.

[kitcar765]

the money in your pocket is not backed by gold? what intrinsic value does that have?  sterling is basically backed by over-valued housing. So debt. When the bubble bursts it will take most of the value away from the money in your pocket. Its all about the trust and faith that people put into something. Can you see the faith in fiat currencies getting any better anytime soon? bail-ins, defaults, wars, etc etc. I hold gold as i can see it falling through the start of 2014 then suddenly regaining value as the markets collapse. Bitcoin will continue to boom and bust perhaps even loosing 50% of its current value. But with countries like ireland about to require IMF help coupled with bail-ins bitcoin will soon recover again. a lot of speculation with bitcoin, who knows where it will go.  A crash will probably do bitcoin good right now, it have recovered from 50% falls before. People need to see that the faith in unshakeable (never allowing it to reach £0). Now people can see that crazy crazy returns in such currency are possible, i think these currencies are here to stay.   

[Tony H]

I am as mistrustful of state fiat currency as possible, but I do not see how these baseless virtual currencies will function as a stable long-term store of value. All the fiat currencies were backed by commodities at some point in there history, debased over time.

 

I am a crackpot libertarian so I do not need any encouragement to slag off anything governments do. I really want these decentralised, unregulated currencies to succeed, and I am sure the will. They will weaken state power no end. I would be glad to see bitcoin become a mainstream, stable, medium of exchange. But I think it will be a different take on the concept that works.

[WrightStuff]

the money in your pocket is not backed by gold? what intrinsic value does that have?   

 

Exactly!

The gold standard is long gone.

 

I fully expect many of the new crypto currencies to go through many boom bust cycles and many will ultimately fail, but that doesn't mean there isn't £££ to be made in the meantime by the careful speculator.

I can't really see either BitCoin or LiteCoin going mainstream in the long term either...the transaction confirmation time is just too long. FastCoin for the win. lol!

The days of mining BitCoin at home are also long gone...there's just no way you can compete with the bigger players with their custom ASIC servers. You will spend more on the electricity than you will get in returns.

The figures do still stack up for LiteCoin though. At the current LTC/USD price a 6 GPU rig will pay for itself in around a month. At the current exchange rate and difficulty of course! Now is the time to do this though.

[kitcar765]

I am as mistrustful of state fiat currency as possible, but I do not see how these baseless virtual currencies will function as a stable long-term store of value. All the fiat currencies were backed by commodities at some point in there history, debased over time.

 

I am a crackpot libertarian so I do not need any encouragement to slag off anything governments do. I really want these decentralised, unregulated currencies to succeed, and I am sure the will. They will weaken state power no end. I would be glad to see bitcoin become a mainstream, stable, medium of exchange. But I think it will be a different take on the concept that works.

i agree 100% it would be wrong for bitcoin to be the one and only.  At the end of the day the only difference between gold and Bitcoin (apart from being physical and non-physical) is that the bitcoin has tripple entry book-keeping built into it.  As much as i hate fractional reserve banking. An economics professor once said to me "fractional reserve banking is great as long as it is ACTUAL fractional reserve banking" which is true. Banks are using all sorts to back up their balance sheets and leverageing up to eye watering levels. They are all pretty much insolvent. Hopefully the day will come when they are forced to only use actual value (although 'value' is debatable in itself) stuff like bitcoin or similar would make it easy through the transaction history to see how leveraged up institutions actually are.   it would be the first time in history that we would have a record to safeguard against excessive lending. Currency debasement would be much harder if people knew exactly how much it was backed, and double claims against the same assets would not be possible. example is the US telling the germans it cant have its gold back for a number of years. You may be right. Perhaps a better concept will drive away interest from bitcoins. Personally i see that as a good thing. Bitcoin seems almost perfect to me. A more perfect system i would support for sure! The fact that bitcoin can gain any traction at all puts my faith back into humanity. We will make many mistakes but we still drive forward as technology and new generations improve. Shame the current banking system has perhaps knocked 50 years worth of progress and stunted investment in real economic activities. But its good to know a change will come. Be this bitcoins or a better system.  For now i see bitcoins becoming worth a lot more, and thats with a view of both someone who thinks it may be a ponzi, and someone who also thinks it will be the future.  

Edited by kitcar765, 30 November 2013 - 04:38 PM.

[slindborg]

Mr kit car, do you have a mortgage? Or even paying someone else's with rent?

[kitcar765]

 

the money in your pocket is not backed by gold? what intrinsic value does that have? 
 

 

Exactly!

The gold standard is long gone.

 

I fully expect many of the new crypto currencies to go through many boom bust cycles and many will ultimately fail, but that doesn't mean there isn't £££ to be made in the meantime by the careful speculator.

I can't really see either BitCoin or LiteCoin going mainstream in the long term either...the transaction confirmation time is just too long. FastCoin for the win. lol!

The days of mining BitCoin at home are also long gone...there's just no way you can compete with the bigger players with their custom ASIC servers. You will spend more on the electricity than you will get in returns.

The figures do still stack up for LiteCoin though. At the current LTC/USD price a 6 GPU rig will pay for itself in around a month. At the current exchange rate and difficulty of course! Now is the time to do this though.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrow

An trusted escrow account would solve the transaction times in bitcoins. Many are apparently due to come onto the scene soon. 

As for the rest of the other currencies, i think its jumping the gun a bit, bitcoin is still extremely young. 

But let the best crypto win! its like the wild west! its mighty fun