Ahoy-hoy Bitcoin people. I have been lurking here for well over a year but neglected joining partly because my girlfriend induced in me a soporific, hedonistic, idleness. I spent months trying to teach her about bitcoin - I even gave her a couple back in the bubble at the end of last year - then a few weeks ago she asked me if I could trust all of my savings with "the bitcoin company"! I told her that my bitcoins are stored in my head. Her eyes glazed over, and our relationship had to end.
      So, here I am. As a second best alternative to a hot Chinese girl , I suppose I may start to post musings on small percentage changes in the dollar rate of the good old bitcoin.

Pirate Ragnar

Yes, funny and tragic! Unfortunately observing the bitcoin price over the past 18 months has caused me to eat recklessly, drink profusely, and chain smoke. I have therefore aged a great deal so I may never find another young hot lady again. My hope now is that when bitcoin goes to Da Moon I will be so rich that it will compensate for my haggard looks. Bitcoin takes away then gives back.

Ragnar

How about a coin with proper anonymity?

+2
This place has really gone to seed since the days of Frozenlock and Walsoraj!

Nice to communicate with you jayjuangee! I always enjoy your rigorous postings.

I would say to mine "No one can stop you transacting Bitcoin and there is no power on earth that can take your coins from you if you store them properly. You can walk with impunity through any customs port in the world with millions of dollars stored in your head. Bitcoin will make mockery of capital controls. Someone just transacted $20,000,000 in a few minutes and paid no fees". She would respond "that's very good my dear...... Where do you want to eat tonight".

Ragnar

Not if they don't have your keys. As you should know it is (for all practal purposes) impossible to hack an offline wallet. Take all the computer power in the world and dedicate it towards deriving a private key from a public key and it could not be done in millions of years. Bitcoins on my phone or my online computer, I grant, can be vulnerable as is cash in my pocket. So what? Even offline they can be vulnerable to old fashioned physical theft. So what. Memorize an appropriately long password. Don't write it it down or tell anyone what it is - though you could perhaps engrave it on a stone and hide it in the Forrest leaving a cryptic map with a trusted or feeble relative - and your bitcoins are safer than anything else that you own.

Ragnar

Dr Stadler Stolfi, I have respect for your intellect and academic approach. It is always healthy to have a skeptic around, even if they won't recognize their own biases. It is delightful, though not unexpected, that you have failed to convince people of your view.
     Bitcoin can so easily look like a ponzie, or a con to the closed minded. After all hey don't even physically exist! If your powers of mind and eloquence can't convince people that Bitcoin is bad.......!!! That is quite bullish!

So don't print them! In the words of Shroomskit,"welcome to ignore"

Thank's Molecular. Bitcoin has been exciting and entertaining since I have been involved. And I believe future waves will be far higher and equally choppy.

Ragnar

Bitcoin-is-a-mirage, I took you off ignore because I thought I was being uncharitable to you. Though apparently I was justified. I am delighted bitcoin is at $475! A year ago it was hovering at little more than $100. Soon it is going to explode again, it was evident a year ago and - with all the amazing developments that have occurred in the past several months - it is more evident today. Cut loose your state-backed fiat and buy in before it is too late.
       

Welcome again to my ignore (for the last time)

Ragnar

Haha. Has that happened before?  I know fonzie went the other way. It would require a rather big setback to make me think bitcoin will fail. I can't foresee any such setback other than the breaching of SHA256 or an unfixable flaw in the code - both of which seem ridiculously unlikely.
However, I don't think bitcoin will be the government-slayer I thought it was. I am even becoming concerned that it may turn into a tool of terrible oppression. I still love Madame Bitcoin but I suspect her of infidelity.

Ragnar

        How about this scenario for the next few weeks/ months. I got a little carried away and it becomes a little ridiculous towards the end.

1. The extraordinary developments in the bitcoin space that have occurred throughout the past months continue to accelerate. Large and reputed merchants will continue to adopt bitcoin and weekly we see major retailers join the club.

2. The accumulated good news of the past many months has generated enough interest in a few new players that they push the price up slowly to $600.

3. The vast numbers of bitcoiners, who are currently still uncertain and confused, buy back in - though coins are becoming rarer - and push the price to well above $680.

4. Bitcoiners are becoming excited - the mood has changed - we are breaking a six month high - the bubble is coming! - how could we have been so blind not to have forseen this after the paypal news? - hodlers hodle more tightly - shorts are closed and longs extended - many of the hundreds of thousand who understand bitcoin, but are only partially invested, add a fraction or a couple of bitcoins to their stash - the trenchant bears also gain sense and disappear from the forums but invest their pocket money in bitcoin.

5. The price breaks the ath. We all know what is coming next.

6. Millions - who heard about bitcoin during the last bubble, but were put off when the price collapsed and had their views further poisoned by the Gox unpleasantness and the China Fud - now are seeing a strong societal  vindication of bitcoin, they begin to understand its potential and want in before the bubble completely explodes.

7. Bitcoin is a news sensation much larger than November's, as November's was from March's. It is pumped to such an extent that many sheep with a gambling bent, previously ignorant of bitcoin,  want in before the price reaches $10,000 they can now do so as the infrastructure is available to allow them to enter more quickly and easily than in the previous bubbles. At this point the smart money stops buying and many start selling, providing the only liquidity available.

8. The price exceeds $5,000 and all the old-timers advise the hoards of newbies on the forums not to buy or sell out before the inevitable pop. Rpietilla has sold half his position and still the price is climbing, climbing $1000 a day. The newbies all think this is a new paradigm, there will be no collapse as Bitcoin has now achieved mainstream success and approval. They think the price will reach $20, $30, $40 thousand and then plateaux.

9. On a wintry day the price increases by $3000 in only a couple of hours and reaches beyond $10,000. Say goodbye to the quadruple digits guys! $50,000 by Christmas. Matthecat buys back in as does falllling and Veronica. Adam offers to buy everyone bottles of champagne. But wtf,  ? Out of nowhere someone has market-sold 10,000 coins! What is this manipulation? Who would sell at these undervalued prices when we are obviously going to the moon? "I came back from walking the dog to find bitcoin has has dropped another $4,000", " f$&k this dude I am like so going to sell my 0.5 btc when it gets back to like $10,000". "Whattttt? The price price is now like $2,000! I am selling, bitcoin sucks and blows way too much for me dude!"

10. Rpeitilla and the rest of the old guard buy back. All the new comers expect an imminent rally but we reach nothing close to the old highs.

11. Tera and Matthecat return. Rpietilla, now rich beyond the wildest wet-dreams of Mammon, purchases an island in the West Indies which becomes a semi-atonomous Monero-based state - Monero off course being the number 2 crypto coin.

12. We experience another long bitcoin-winter where the price relentlessly falls, adoption continues apace, miracles of innovation and entrepreneurship around bitcoin are to read in the news daily, and everyone on the speculation forums are depressed and worried that Bitcoin that bitcoin may be moribund.

Ragnar

Sorry for the long post. Life without pretty wenches can be hard and one is inevitably filled with excess energy, that is
 if one avoids indulging in the " solitary sin". Perhaps I should do more press ups.

Ragna

 Yes the fact that so many people, who should know better, are still bearish despite the daily strengthening of bitcoin is is indicative of human nature. They are crowd-followers who allow the momentum of the last 9 months price decline induce in them uncertainty. There will be thousands of newbies coming shortly who, after seeing the paypal and other news, will start buying, perhaps tentatively at first but enough to raise the price to the point where most of the bears will buy back and we will be ready for the next moon launch.

Ragnar

It will happen slowly at first as those who have been attracted by the recent news tentatively and slowly buy in. There will be many bear traps along the way but once we exceed $680 the fun will start. It will become clear that $500's are gone forever and people will wonder why they could not see earlier that the price is ready for a major and permanent reevaluation into the 4 digits

For the Bears: pay close attention, because this is how it happens. This is how you will get left behind with nothing but a bitter story about how you could have been rich and free. Cut loose your ghastly gun-backed, blood-soaked, freedom-destroying, toilet-paper of a currency: it has and ignoble past, an evil present, but it has no future! It has caused death, and mental and physical impoverishment to your ancestors and continues to enslave us more than ever. expell this evil from your life by becoming part of the only viable non-institutional currency that exists anywhere on earth. Cut the loose. Your time is running out

It certainly isn't. Does passion make a cult? I am open about aspects of bitcoin that trouble me. But the evil of state-backed currency needs to be exorcized and expelled for something better. Do you have any suggestions besides bitcoin? The qualities of bitcoin are unparalleled amongst the thousands of currencies of history, it leaves even the gold-standard severely lacking. I don't say this will always be the case, but if something better comes along then great.

Pirate Ragnar

Hear, Hear!! Except it is worse than a cult, because they force us to use the filth that they call money. While bitcoin let's people choose! Can you imagine? The first time in history we can actually have a choice about one of the most fundamental aspects of our lives. What was it Satoshi said when he released bitcoin? Something like "here it is, if you like it, if you find it useful, then you are free to use it".

Pirate Ragnar