Sounds to me as if Mr Branson has a bunch of Bitcoin and would like to cash-in early next week.
> Branson—an early bitcoin investor himself
Notice how none of the tech-giants want to get involved with it. Bitcoin isn't for the technologically advanced who are "being rewarded for being sooooo smart and adopting early", it's a scammer platform.
I heard a suggestion for a gold-backed digital currency once. That makes much more sense to me. Instead of getting into magic bean territory with monstrous gains/losses, just put 100k into gold, design a system with 100k "eGoldcoin" or whatever u wanna call it then just trade the coins. The platform would never tank because people know roughly what it's worth. It would be way less exciting, well... because it's sane.
I think you fell for a joke.
In a gold-backed online currency if it failed the users could just be beneficiaries of the trust. I'm not saying this is the ideal solution because I think maybe a completely fiat digital currency COULD work, just not with the Bitcoin scheme.
And I'm not saying Bitcoin can't work in the long-run. I'm saying it's not working NOW. It is not performing its intended function... unless that intended function is as a volatile speculator market.
(Credit Cards || Google Wallet) > All this junk
The only reason I bothered with the gold argument is because Bitcoin's volatility is its downfall. If it were pegged to a real-world asset this would essentially be solved. But credit cards already do this -- they are pegged to bank accounts.
Chamath Palihapitiya, Kevin Rose, the Winklevii
I don't care what VC hipsters are doing, and who the hell were the Winklevii before they started hyping bitcoin?
You don't understand the virtual currency space. There are many good arguments against virtual currencies or bitcoin specifically, but the lack of Silicon Valley interest is absolutely not one of them.
I'm not surprised at all that Google invested in an alternative. In fact, maybe that will catalyze Bitcoin's demise.
But I don't even care about that so much -- the reason I have an axe to grind is because all the interest seems to be fueled by greed. So these hypocrites rail against "the systemmmm" but really all they want is a new system in which they start out with the upper hand -- which they believe they have due to early adoption, investment in mining rigs, and collective delusions of bidding wars / price will go up up.
If Bitcoin were now the same way it was back in the day when it was a nerd trying to buy a pizza because he believed in the merit of the technology, I would think that is pretty endearing. But let's all just admit it -- it's NOT. It's a platform of collective greed and anyone who can resist the urge to try to make a buck off it would probably do better to go gain some knowledge and try to accomplish something more interesting than a "futristic-anarcho" (whatever) copycat version of Wall Street.
But again, it doesn't look like Google is accepting Bitcoin in exchange for their services. They just invested in a company that is going to try to make cash skimming transaction fees off the ecosystem and probably converting to USD.
You Bitcoiners claim to be more than just a mound of greedy speculators yet you view everything as a hoarder/trading scenario.
So what exactly is the worth of one ounce of gold? The current market price? Or another price? What's the difference to Bitcoin in regards to pricing?
I'm pretty sure Bitcoin just takes it's sticker price (whatever it's currently been bid upto) and then does a bunch of arbitrary currency conversions.
Again, I THINK this, do not know... but i THINK if you took the amount of gold and multiplied by its USD price to arrive at some figure of how much the "gold pool" is worth (bitcoiners do this all the time) gold traders would laugh their asses off at you. The medium needs to be tightly interwoven into individual economies through usage and growth/settling.
Bitcoin is like this thing that is sitting out in the ether totally untested and people are making random claims about how much its worth, supported only by bidding wars in trading.
No, it is not "priced". Nobody sets an "official price" for gold. Every actor in the market who sells and buys gold is free to set his own price, via "asks" and "bids" in the market. This is what gst highlighted for you: Bitcoin functions exactly like gold, their value fluctuates freely on international and national markets via trading, and nothing else.
"if you took the amount of gold and multiplied by its USD price to arrive at some figure of how much the "gold pool" is worth gold traders would laugh their asses off at you"
Actually, no. Analysts do this all the time. Google for "gold reserves". Here is the latest data from the World Bank: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FI.RES.TOTL.CD
I don't know too much about gold though so I'll let the convo go. To be honest I think CreditCards are where it's at & the small fees involved are to provide consumer protection so I don't mind.
If Bitcoin reaches a comparable infrastructure I'm sure they'll be charging fees for everything too (the exchange services already do, no?).
Actually, it is interpreted by comparing gold's price with exchange rates. When gold is, say, underpriced in yen on chinese markets when compared to its price in US dollar on american markets, this creates a condition where "arbitrage" is possible. So people who see this buy it up on the chinese market and resell it on the american market, making a profit. This naturally re-aligns the price of gold in various markets with exchange rates. The exact same thing is done by Bitcoin traders, and forex traders, and commodities traders, etc.
I wasn't saying gold doesn't have an exchange rate. I was saying it DOES have one for EACH currency (allowing this arbitrage scenario) and that's part of what makes it strong. My impression of Bitcoin was that they simply price it in Yen or USD or whatever is their best market, then convert from THAT currency into whatever other currencies they want through the real-world exchange rates of existing currencies, in order to display it with a unified favorable price.
However, these arguments aren't even worth it really since the price is so varied from exchange to exchange that let's face it -- the numbers are pretty much all distorted BS regardless of how the prices are determined. All they represent is real-time bids. It's like watching a big eBay auction on nothing and claiming the true value of the item is evidenced by the current bid.
No, exactly like gold, Bitcoin does have an exchange rate for each currency. Again, there is zero difference between how gold is traded and how Bitcoin is traded. It's all multiple independent exchanges, with their own asks and bids.
If, by your argument, "this is what makes gold strong", then this is what makes Bitcoin strong as well. Both are traded in the same ways. I am unsure why you think there is some difference.
I have a long comment history you can look through if you want to understand why I think it's a scheme. USD is strong as a currency because its stable. Bitcoin is a speculative trading platform, nothing more nothing less. There's real value in it today because a ton of people have just decided to invest in something they don't fully understand.
If you have invested in Bitcoin I understand your interest in making it seem viable.
I have traded commodities, and bitcoin, for multiple years. I know this stuff.
Yep, and now go look up how that went.
It's not possible to "gold back" a digital currency without centralization which carries a multitude of risk, as has been demonstrated by the many failures along the way.
Bitcoin may not be backed by anything, but the fact that it can't be counterfeited or inflated gives it very interesting properties.