Bitcoins

[Chicken Runner61]

er, no. they are less secure. the advocates love the Cypriot example but overlook how the bitcoin value has crashed several times. at least with your pension you have legal recourse and its unlikly a provider collapses. bitcoins so far crashes often.

i should point out to anyone looking to follow up mining, unless you have a decent ATI graphics card, its probably not worth it. the calculations used to generate the next block use an insruction the ATIs are efficient at, but Nvidia cards are poor at and CPU outright pony.

Funny that because I havent heard of anyone losing £300k on bitcoins but I have heard several that lost their savings and pension money when their bank account got raided.

 

[spring hall convert]

What alternatives are there to instawallet?

 

[beorhthelm]

Funny that because I havent heard of anyone losing £300k on bitcoins but I have heard several that lost their savings and pension money when their bank account got raided.

fair enough. but where are you putting your pension fund?

 

[Chicken Runner61]

fair enough. but where are you putting your pension fund?

Its a difficult question, I'm trying to spread it round a bit - property, land, gold, silver, some shares.

If we are seeing the beginning of the death throes of capitalism a pension fund will be a bit risky don't you think?

 

[vegster]

This new fangled rubbish won't get anyone but a very few any sort of return, do as I do and stick with Green Shield Stamps. Thats the future.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

Its a difficult question, I'm trying to spread it round a bit - property, land, gold, silver, some shares.

If we are seeing the beginning of the death throes of capitalism a pension fund will be a bit risky don't you think?

Why not invest in property? It won't fall in price provided you invest in the long-term and you can make a very tidy profit from rent. There aren't many other assets that give a guaranteed flow on income as well as the asset rising in price at the same time.

 

[bWize]

The reason they are becoming more and more popular is because of websites like this - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)

 

[Chicken Runner61]

Why not invest in property? It won't fall in price provided you invest in the long-term and you can make a very tidy profit from rent. There aren't many other assets that give a guaranteed flow on income as well as the asset rising in price at the same time.

i did include property, everything is open to risk at the moment though, I'd be wary about rents and property in general when interest rates rise there could be a big crash there and anyone with a pension coming up needs to be careful if interest rates rise too as it could take the bond market down.

Portugal looks worrying at the mo and the precedent for their banks has been set in Cyprus so that could cause further unrest around Europe

 

[dingodan]

Why not invest in property? It won't fall in price provided you invest in the long-term and you can make a very tidy profit from rent. There aren't many other assets that give a guaranteed flow on income as well as the asset rising in price at the same time.

Property prices are inflated. Low interest rates increased demand in housing, increasing the price. Those interest rates have not been allowed to correct, bad debt has not been liquidated, and house prices have not come down.

When interest rates eventually rise (which they must), the increase in the cost of borrowing will reduce demand in housing, then prices will fall and many home owners will have their equity wiped out. The increased interest rates will also cause mortgages holders to struggle to meet their repayments, many will want/need to sell as their mortgages become unaffordable. This will drastically increase the supply of properties on the market, at the exact time when demand is diminished due the cost of borrowing.

Anyone who thinks property prices can continue to rise, or even sustain themselves in the medium/long term, is in fantasy land.

 

[dingodan]

Bitcoins are becoming popular because they are a form of currency which the government and banks cannot confiscate from you, either by inflation or by seizing it as was done in Cyprus.

the anonymity is all very well but do you need that? your bank notes are unless you are being very, very naughty. problem is no one but a bunch of ISP services and fringe new age vendors accept them. you cant use them to buy your weekly shopping, petrol, cloths (im sure theres a hemp clothing vendor to prove that wrong), pay rent or mortgage etc. the supporters of the currency ignore this rather large drawback. the main benefit, its not government backed is its main failling.

People are not buying bitcoins to do their grocery shopping, but what does that tell you? That people are not using it as an alternative currency, but rather as a safe store of wealth like buying precious metals or commodities. I'm not advocating using bitcoin, I think it is too volatile and it's not commodity based, but it's easy to understand why people are investing in something like this, certainly the paper money days, enforced by the force of government, which you love so much, those days are going to rapidly come to an end.

 

[SeagullSongs]

Bitcoins are becoming popular because they are a form of currency which the government and banks cannot confiscate from you, either by inflation or by seizing it as was done in Cyprus.



People are not buying bitcoins to do their grocery shopping, but what does that tell you? That people are not using it as an alternative currency, but rather as a safe store of wealth like buying precious metals or commodities. I'm not advocating using bitcoin, I think it is too volatile and it's not commodity based, but it's easy to understand why people are investing in something like this, certainly the paper money days, enforced by the force of government, which you love so much, those days are going to rapidly come to an end.

I'd imagine that currency originally began as a way of storing wealth, then as it grew in popularity it was used for trades. I don't see why bitcoins couldn't work in a similar way. The limit of 21,000,000 bitcoins could be a stumbling block in future though, unless they introduce smaller denominations like centibits or millibits as the value of one bitcoin increases.

 

[GingerBeerMan]

Property prices are inflated. Low interest rates increased demand in housing, increasing the price. Those interest rates have not been allowed to correct, bad debt has not been liquidated, and house prices have not come down.

When interest rates eventually rise (which they must), the increase in the cost of borrowing will reduce demand in housing, then prices will fall and many home owners will have their equity wiped out. The increased interest rates will also cause mortgages holders to struggle to meet their repayments, many will want/need to sell as their mortgages become unaffordable. This will drastically increase the supply of properties on the market, at the exact time when demand is diminished due the cost of borrowing.

Anyone who thinks property prices can continue to rise, or even sustain themselves in the medium/long term, is in fantasy land.

We live on a very small island, we have one of the highest population densities in Europe and it keeps rising. Demand for property whether it be rented or owner-occupied is going to continue to rise and the supply of houses hasn't got much more room to grow anymore. If I had £100,000 to spare I'd definitely put a deposit on a house in Brighton, it's a very attractive place to live, only an hour away from one of the largest cities in the world, and arguably the home of world financial services.

 

[dingodan]

I'd imagine that currency originally began as a way of storing wealth, then as it grew in popularity it was used for trades. I don't see why bitcoins couldn't work in a similar way. The limit of 21,000,000 bitcoins could be a stumbling block in future though, unless they introduce smaller denominations like centibits or millibits as the value of one bitcoin increases.

A decentralized monetary system like bitcoin is infinitely preferable to what we have today, however it comes with some pretty major unknowns. I can't say I am convinced, but certainly the fact that debt based paper money now has some competition, is a very good thing.

Currency is meant to be a medium of exchange, the crucial element being trust - that the currency you receive for what you sell will also be accepted by others for what you want to buy. It originated as a means of facilitating trade (so I don't have to rear a cow in order to eventually swap it for a cow's worth of bread etc).

 

[dingodan]

We live on a very small island, we have one of the highest population densities in Europe and it keeps rising. Demand for property whether it be rented or owner-occupied is going to continue to rise and the supply of houses hasn't got much more room to grow anymore. If I had £100,000 to spare I'd definitely put a deposit on a house in Brighton, it's a very attractive place to live, only an hour away from one of the largest cities in the world, and arguably the home of world financial services.

Send me a postcard from fantasy land

 

[Butch Willykins]

We live on a very small island, we have one of the highest population densities in Europe and it keeps rising. Demand for property whether it be rented or owner-occupied is going to continue to rise and the supply of houses hasn't got much more room to grow anymore. If I had £100,000 to spare I'd definitely put a deposit on a house in Brighton, it's a very attractive place to live, only an hour away from one of the largest cities in the world, and arguably the home of world financial services.

Where is the money to pay from these infinitely rising house prices going to come from? The housing market is essentially a Ponzi scheme being propped up by the UK government. Once interest rates rise the bubble will burst.

 

[Notters]

I'd imagine that currency originally began as a way of storing wealth, then as it grew in popularity it was used for trades. I don't see why bitcoins couldn't work in a similar way. The limit of 21,000,000 bitcoins could be a stumbling block in future though, unless they introduce smaller denominations like centibits or millibits as the value of one bitcoin increases.

They don't need to u introduce smaller denominations. You can already buy 0.0000001 bitcoins. It's infinitely divisible.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Anyone who thinks property prices can continue to rise, or even sustain themselves in the medium/long term, is in fantasy land.

I know where you're coming from but I was told I was silly buying my first property back in '96 when the market was at its absolute top. 17 years later and during the worst recession in memory prices are still holding out and that flat is worth about 3 times what I paid. That said it surely has to stop somewhere? I have to say the UK property market is totally nuts though. Even now, given all the warning signs from the current financial situation the goverment are trying to kick start the economy with the very thing which caused the problem in the first place. Ludicrous.

 

[easynow]

It seems a bit too sketchy for me...

 

[GreersElbow]

Definitely a genius concept, but instead of all this combined computing power being used to solve puzzles. it should be used towards cancer research or other scientific projects...

So really, although not as insanely inefficient and pointless as our current monetary system, it's still pretty pointless - although it has potential, i like it.

One could argue that a decentralised currency system is a 'right-wing' idea.

The real problem IMO with bitcoin is that of the rapid flucuations of its value, makes investment incredibly risky without being able to forecast results. Many investments you can atleast you can to some extent, predict the value. Which I believe will make a large amount of people avoid using the currency as there is no certainties as to its future, and its price for those on lower income.


But currently, bit coin is very popular amongst the deep web, which includes the black market I.e Silk Road. I would imagine the police can infer the use of bit coin with that of the currency of the black market.

 

[SeagullSongs]

Couldn't someone with access to a supercomputer just use that to break the puzzles?
It reminds me of that Folding@home thing that Stanford University do/did, where you can contribute your computing power - using a laptop, PC, PS3, etc - to compute the folding of various proteins, which can go towards helping to understand and develop cures for diseases.