Bitcoinica sued for $460,000 by 'out-of-pocket' punters | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoinica sued for $460,000 by 'out-of-pocket' punters

theregister.co.uk

25 pointsjpswade15 comments

Reading the original "Show HN" thread about Bitcoinica is still haunting. So many predictions that came true. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973301

Bitcoins in general are really interesting as a sandboxed, time-accelerated microcosm of capitalism. You get to watch the entirely predictable boom/bust cycle, inevitable follies, manipulation and theft play out in years or even months instead of decades.

Yet you still see people going "but this time the bubble's legit guys!"

That's just glib. People use lots of bitcoins on silk road every day with no interest in speculation. Bitcoins are a real currency with value backed by the interest in silk road products.

If you can only look at bitcoins from the viewpoint of turning a quick buck, then you are not able to see a substantial part of the elephant.

> Bitcoins are a real currency with value backed by the interest in silk road products.

If a few big countries legalized drugs, perhaps that would make bitcoins less valuable/interesting, causing a bust? Probably not realistic in the short term, but interesting to consider.

"People use lots of bitcoins on silk road every day with no interest in speculation. Bitcoins are a real currency with value backed by the interest in silk road products."

The existence of some people who use bitcoins as they are intended does not change that goldbugs, speculators, and others are legitimately affecting the currency as capitalism not only allows for, but ENCOURAGES. This is not glib. This is reality.

I'm very interested in Bitcoin, and advocate for it as best I can.

I don't think you'll find anyone really who disagrees with you in the Bitcoin community. Most of us see that as a feature, not a bug.

Sure, I just don't see how observing these patterns is "glib". It's not the "point" of Bitcoin, but certainly common.

Bitcoins are a real currency with value backed by the interest in silk road products.

Why isn't one bitcoin fixed to dollar or euro by some conversion factor? That would remove the question of the value of a bitcoin. There are lot of currencies that are permanently fixed to an other.

The novel thing is the theory that you can cryptographically make anonymous transactions unique. It doesn't imply being a separate currency. Or am I missing something?

Who would enforce the restriction that 1 BTC == 1 USD? The fact that bitcoin is decentralized means that the value of the currency pretty much has to float.

Here is a very prescient comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2977425

Apparently punter is less offensive than I thought. I previously equated it with something like asshole.

It has a variety of meanings, but it is used here to mean speculator. In the UK, it can have a meaning similar to the US's "John" in terms of someone availing of the services of a brothel or prostitute.

In the UK it means any customer taken from the general mass of the uninformed public.

"Taking a punt" means taking a chance, as in gambling. Customers who try their luck at fairground games of chance (find the lady, shooting mechanical ducks etc) would be called punters. While not insulting, it is certainly condescending and using it implies that you view your customers as interchangeable and disposable. A related term is "mark" or "sucker" but that implies specific malicious intent to defraud, rather than an assumption of their inability to properly assess what they're buying.

You can see the link to bitcoinica.

Both in the UK and the US we have this term...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=muppet

One of those punters was the original developer of Mt Gox.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/first-...

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