any jewelry store pretty much will buy your gold.

josh, i hear ya, thing is, if this is the cryptocurrency that does take off, that parabola is on a long timeline eh.

also, checkout this brand new beta open source p2p payment gateway that supports btc and their goal is to be the best way to buy and sell/exchange btc,

Simple, global, open, and practically free. ripple is an open source person to person payment network
https://ripple.com/bitcoiners/

it's a paypal for cryptocurrencies. this sort of infrastructure will go a long way to helping this maintain momentum imo.

You can buy gold contracts where it's stored in a secure location and you just have a contract that is proof of ownership, you typically pay a "storage fee" based on the amount you own.

Really easy to buy and sell.
Gold have a value in terms of status since its used in the real world.. bitcoins do not so I can't see how it compares ?

How will that momentum be "maintained" when 1000 other people start 10,000 similar currencies? What is the value of bitcoins when there are 10,000 similar currencies? What is the value of a bitcoin when its realized that anyone can just randomly wake up and start a currency using open source software and people are doing it daily? What is the value of a bitcoin going to be when millions of people lose money on similar currencies?

Money is religion. Nothing more. It's a deity in a sea of deities. It's faith. The value of a piece of paper lies in the understanding that others will accept that it has that value, both today and in the foreseeable future. Nothing more. Sharing or not sharing the same beliefs in the same deities does not make those deities more real or imagined, more stable or more unstable over the long term.

josh, check out this smartphone app

https://www.bridgewalkerapp.com/

Bridgewalker Bitcoin Wallet

Bitcoin wallet with a twist: Send and receive bitcoins, but hold US dollar. Bridgewalker converts back and forth between bitcoins and US dollar just when you need to send some or receive them. Minimize your exposure to the young currency's exchange rate risk, while taking advantage of its strength for fast and cheap world-wide money transfer with zero risk of identity theft.

Fiat money is religion.
Bitcoin is natural selection.

i like this idea of wallet.

all currency is based on faith. nothing more.

settle down.

since you quoted "momentum" i'l figure you were quoting me on that, if you doble-check, you will see that i was referring to the infrastructure provided by ripple.com, which is not cryptocurrency specific.

i've never said btc is the holy grail, far from it. in fact, you'll be hardpressed to find me doing anything around here re: btc that isn't supported with a link to where i retrieved the information. a lot of people are asking genuine questions here re: btc and i think it's important to at least try to provide factual replies.

so yeah, i fully understand that myspace was here before facebook, i get that, in fact, collegeclub was here before myspace and i happened to work for collegclub starting in 1998, so i know what it's like to be left standing during a game of high-tech investing musical chairs.

:)

yes, teh moneys = cult

I've really been trying to wrap my mind around Ripple. From what I understand its not just for cryptocurrencies but for all currencies. Its all based on trust. Bob wants to buy from me but I dont know Bob, but you know BoB and trust Bob and I know you and trust you, therefore I trust Bob and I can sell to bob. (or something?)

Cryptographic hashes are based on faith?

Yea... you're an idiot.

i'm not intending to criticize anything you are say as much as I was trying to pose the question. I understand the enthusiasm, what is harder for me to understand is how little this seemingly obvious fact that anyone can now create a currency, thus affecting the value of all other similar currencies is discussed. Further, those which are created and fail or are not secure, where people get ripped off etc etc etc, radically change perceptions of value globally in mere minutes.

Value is based on faith. Value is perception, nothing more. That perception can change in milliseconds and even evaporate completely.

apparently, they've created their own internal monetary system, a ripple xrp credit, i think it is called.

this is from a digital coin forum where they discussed it a bit

Why does everyone buy Coke still? There are 10,000 other things that taste like it. they are doomed.

for me, the opportunity for scarcity (longevity) lies in the algorithm. IF it is as elegant as they say it is, and it's all open-source, then it could in fact be just like gold, a 1 of a kind element and will withstand the test of time and competition. i was reading elsewhere though that some believe there should be more than 1 cryptocurrency in circulation also.

more:::

Ripple credits, aka XRP or ripples, are the units used as a transaction fee to protect the Ripple payment system from malicious attacks.
XRP is the proposed ISO 4217 currency code designated for Ripple.
XRP as currently implemented has six digits of precision. The smallest unit is one millionth of an XRP ( 0.000001 ) and is call a "drop". That is: 1 XRP = 1,000,000 drops.
XRP spent as transaction fees are destroyed. The default transaction fee is currently 10 drops. There should be enough XRP to last for thousands of years despite this destruction. If the value of XRP changes, the transaction fee can be adjusted by the consensus of the network.
XRP are the only currency in the Ripple network that has no counter-party risk and can be sent to any account without a trust relationship.
When the Ripple network was created, 100 billion XRP was created. The founders gave 80 billion XRP to the OpenCoin Inc. OpenCoin Inc. will develop the Ripple software, promote the Ripple payment system, give away XRP, and sell XRP.

https://ripple.com/wiki/Ripple_credits

Bitcoin is NOTHING like gold. How can you claim that something that exists only 4 years has the same value as storage of wealth and security as gold? Gold has been a currency for thousands of years and millions of people have lost their lives over it over history. Gold is the main reason why Christopher Columbus discovered America and has driven men to the edge of the world. Bitcoin is produced by some geeks in their mothers basement and can be worthless tomorrow.

There is no safer feeling than knowing you have few kilos of gold somewhere in a safe storage for rainy days. How safe can you feel with having bitcoin as your long term backup?

Gold is very liquid, you can go to any real gold dealer with good delivery bars or bullion coins and get spot price for it, even spot +2% for some more popular bullion.

So you think that anyone starting a company to compete with a $200,000,000,000.00 company, their bottling capability, their 8 figure marketing campaigns and having restaurants worldwide locked down and failing to compete is analagous?

What would Coke's position be in the market when 20,000 people could jump in on a whim and create a startup with a level playing field with Coca Cola in terms of resources, marketing and distribution? That's what bitcoin is. Anyone can do it. So ultimately the idea of digital currencies might succeed in some form, but its highly improbable that bitcoin will any more than excite.com, netscape.com, prodigy.com, webcrawler.com etc was in the start of the web.

Bitcoin is like looking at day 2 of the internet and telling the guy who created a search engine or browser that he's the future. No one here could ever come close to predicting where this will be in 1 year, or 2 years and peoples certainty on the subject is proof positive of irrational behavior and views.

ok, so that reference to LETS above, ripple uses that

http://www.gmlets.u-net.com/


https://classic.ripplepay.com/faq/

Its kinda dumb to say I can start a cyrpto currency right now and be on the same level, of computing power, and acceptance that bitcoin is on. There are lots of cryptocurrencies out there but you probably dont know about them cause they offer nothing really new. If I want to buy drugs am I going to buy a crypto currency that noone is using to buy drugs or am I going to buy bitcoin where it is accepted already? I'm sure there will be some that come out that with properties that people want to use and that is fine. Bitcoin will always be used as a means of transfer weather the value is one penny or 1 billion dollars. Its not meant to be a speculative investment, but a means of transfer.

There will always be demands for an alternative. There will always be alternatives. Same with every product in every product category in any free market.

i'm with you man! i had to read the article a few times to try and figure out wht the author meant.

i think he meant either
1. btc is just like gold for the sake of writing an article to better understand the characteristics of bitcoins, not bitcoins as a replacement for au.
or
2. he looks at btc as some sort of techno-gold

That is a philosophically meaningless word game.
How much is a hug worth? Is it's value based on faith?

Perception != Faith

I think you just know you are on the losing end of the argument. People do not use hugs as currency. If they did, there would be a commonly established value and your willingness to accept a hug as payment would be based solely on your faith that someone would accept that hug as payment for the same value.

Since you're not the brightest let me help you with a real world example that is 100% indisputable. If you live in Alaska, you have no problem spending Canadian change because everyone has faith that others will accept a Canadian quarter as .25 for US debts. If you live in Washington state, say in Bellingham Washington you will quickly find that people will not accept Canadian change as payment as there is no faith that others will accept it in kind once it is in your possession. This is true all over the world where tourist areas will accept foreign currencies where outside those tourist areas, they won't. They have no faith that others in those regions will accept those currencies.

This is basic economics 101 which you have no understanding of. But sure, you can predict the future of a currency.

Wonder how much everyones gold in Europe was inflated once tons of it started arriving from the new world. On another note, not sure where you live, but the US did confiscate everyones gold in the 30's. So having gold isn't a sure deal. With Bitcoins they would have a task trying to confiscate them. :p

You are making convoluted anecdotal generalizations to hide the fact that you cannot construct a valid logical argument.

You are also redefining words as you see fit. If it is your position that hugs and human affection have no "value" then it's pointless to take the conversation any further.

Where I live (EU) they are confiscating money on peoples bank account. Is that better?

There will be massive breakage in bitcoins. If your laptop crashes and you didn?t back up your bitcoins, well, you?re SOL. If someone steals you laptop that has 10,000 bitcoins on it you won on Bitcoin Poker, you?re SOL. Lost your USB drive with 500 bitcoins on it after a night out on the town? You?re SOL.

Back up your wallet, encrypt it, email it to yourself/dropbox/etc. Problem solved.

LOL how you answered your own question with your own post on a related topic. Bitcoin has the advantage of what business class calls "first to market" advantage...all this recent publicity puts bitcoin's brand name ahead of the 10,000 other cryptocurrencies. As a result bitcoin could earn the trust of merchants & customers, to where the other 10000 currencies would not be accepted, exactly like your canadian currency example.

as an aside, trust in money & banks that hold it is absolutely essential to the public, & also to economic viability. Bank runs & financial panics happen when the public loses that trust. One single hiccup in trust, its over. For this reason, i dont think there is a viable marketplace for 10,000 privately traded e-currencies.

The public trusts gold, trusts the Fed & its reserve notes. I can easily see a scenario that cryptocurrencies are fronts for ponzis. The cryptography is highly technical, so its quite easy to dupe people with elegant language to imply a currency is trustworthy. Ponzis would scare the crap out of ordinary customers & sink the whole industry, even if bitcoins were 100% secure. there is already the egold & epass & ibill examples.

I would personally forecast that cryptocurrencies will ultimately not be viable on a par with government backed currencies, which are highly regulated by governments, for the preceding reason. Which is not to say none would be viable at all, it would be like today where bitcoins are used in very specific markets.

But the examples you used were all centrallized. Bitcoin is not a ponzi but that doesn't mean ponzi's wont use bitcoin. There have already been a few.

just IMO but cyprus is an exception, not the rule for bank bailouts. another thread about cyprus pointed out that country is a tax shelter & haven for illegal money. & the confiscation is happening so that the EU is not making drug dealers & tax evaders whole.

Ponzis in other ecurrencies will kill trust, & that means there will be a limited market for e-currencies. just like there are a limited number of trusted porn billers, due to shenanigans in the industry.

IMO the anonymity of bitcoin works against its utilization as a currency on a par with the dollar. simply because, the government is not going to sit back & watch the economy shift from the dollar to an anonymous ecurrency where the IRS can't follow the money.

one more comment & im done. the fact that one can tumble bitcoins with others does not bode well for its viability with the US government. As soon as bitcoin, or any other ecurrency, becomes the chosen currency of the wealthy, & tax receipts start falling, & the IRS can no longer follow their money, its game over. The government will to do bitcoins the same thing they did to internet sports books, prevent any US banks from dealing with anyone who deals in bitcoins. So it might still take off for other nations. But should bitcoins start costing the IRS income, forget it as a viable currency for US mainstream transactions.

Friendster was "first to market" too. Then came MySpace, then Facebook. Now no one knows wtf Friendster is. You think there aren't any other nerds out there that can come up with an algorithm and market it better? Hell, what other business relies on an algorithm? Search engines. Was Google the first search engine? Fuck no.

Bitcoin is expensive right now, whereas Wirecoin and GCoin and CyberCent and whatever else comes tomorrow will start off the same cent or 2 cents each or whatever and the craze will turn to that, then Bitcoin will all of a sudden be nearly worthless.

Bitcoin isn't even the first of its kind technically. Remember Flooz? There were stores that accepted that. Til there weren't.

Collapse simply doesn't happen to normal currencies - maybe 3rd world ones like Zimbabwean dollars, which now are at least useful as toilet paper. When bitcoins are worthless, you can't even wipe your ass with them.

good points man. your right that flavors change all the time on the web. But not in all cases. nothing has really threatened amazon or ebay's success. I doubt businesses are going to want to deal with dozens or hundreds of ecurrencies, so i would expect a dominant player to emerge if the business model becomes mainstream.

here's the thing about btc and competing/new/other cryptocurrencies-

btc is open-source, it welcomes a better solution. have at it. anyone can take the original, check it out, see how its done and make it better, make it more secure, make the creation rate better, if it is better, or cooler or faster or whatever the community thinks, then the competition would take over and btc would take a back seat, current btc holders would lose their risky investments.

but the fact is, btc is where it is today and able to support its own continually gaining traction because of its algorithm. maybe it is fancy enough to survive. :)