bitcoin mining

[Lasmi]

Originally Posted by TradehillAus

What TradeHill is doing is securing the long term viability of bitcoins by making it accepted legally as well as trusted by the banks so that people can trade with confidence that they won't get shut down, hacked like Mt Gox or have their BTC all of a sudden no longer legal. Any questions?

Yep. Did you get a written exemption from requiring a FSL?

[slavewone]

Originally Posted by Lasmi

Yep. Did you get a written exemption from requiring a FSL?

Interesting, i guess they would need similar licensing to the ASX, but i'm not sure if the ASX itself needs a AFSL or just those who deal in the financial product.

More info on who needs a AFS License

http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/ASIC.NSF...S%20licence%3F.

[TradehillAus]

Originally Posted by cvidler

Thank you for replying, but you haven't answered anything. Why are identifying details required? I can go deposit money into a bank account, anywhere with nothing more than the other persons account details.

Due to the nature of these transactions, the fact that large amounts of money are involved and the fact that the majority of people that mine, trade and deal with bitcoins being especially tech savvy has generated several problems in the BTC market. The biggest of these problems is fraud. In an effort to minimise fraud occurring these measures have been put in place. You're right, you can deposit money into other persons accounts with only their details, however if you wish to do this online you require a bank account, at least for a bank transfer. To open this bank account you need to provide identification, such as a passport. Then when that money is transferred the banks know who that money should lawfully belong too. However, if someone were to steal say 100 bitcoins off some unsuspecting sod, create a pseudonym account on a bitcoin website and transfer the bitcoins in, transfer it around a few other pseudonym accounts then out again into his/her real account as AUD, it is almost impossible to trace. By making each account verify themselves this method becomes no longer viable as the transactions can be traced between real people so it is now known if someone has stolen someone else's bitcoins or is attempting fraud in some way. Basically it is to protect our customers. Plus it takes a whole 5 minutes or less to submit the required items for identification, so not such a big deal. Does that make sense?

Also it's not direct money transfer that worry us, i.e. money deposited directly into an account from the bank, but online fraud, which is a far more complicated field as we all know and very susceptible to illegal activity.

[Simonk83]

Lol, this is actually quite funny

http://buttcoin.org/bitcointalk-foru...mbers-breaking

[.Radiant]

Any reason for the latest price drop? Haven't been following things as much and only checking bitcoincharts but over the week it went from $7-8 to $4-5.

[HunterBunter]

Probably just following the trend - value is constantly being withdrawn by miners (to pay for stuff/profit) without the public buying in to replace it.

I don't think non-speculators have seen a use for the currency yet, so it'll probably do this until the big miners don't make a profit mining any more, and stop.

That, plus the actual speculators are always ready to stop loss their larger investments, so when the price drops a little it usually drops a lot (bull up the stairs, bear out the window and all that).

[Copie]

Originally Posted by .Radiant

Any reason for the latest price drop? Haven't been following things as much and only checking bitcoincharts but over the week it went from $7-8 to $4-5.

Its just the flavour of the month becoming yesterdays news.

It was only ever really profitable for a few weeks anyways.

[Jat0]

So bitcoin prices have been very low for awhile now.
Whos still mining and what are your thoughts about the long term survival of bitcoin?

[slavewone]

The financial world is very volatile at the moment, money just isn't going into BTC, it's coming out.

My take is that BTC prices won't recover much until the world financial markets recover alot.

I'm hoarding the BTC that i generate using electricity i don't directly pay for. But i won't be buying or selling any unless I'm purchasing to imminently spend.

[Jat0]

Yea it was my guess that it was due to uncertainty in the world economy.
Ur lucky to not be paying for electricity makes the choice to mine or not mine much easyier.

[SoreGums]

i cashed in all my 35 coins for a amazon gift card and use that to buy kindle books to read on my Tab 10.1 and SGSII.

I probably should have just paid cash for the books, and held onto the btc...

keep generating coins while I'm at the office (wednesday next week) and then once I'm in perth probably wont do any mining.

[Wet Sandwich]

Originally Posted by slavewone

The financial world is very volatile at the moment, money just isn't going into BTC, it's coming out.

My take is that BTC prices won't recover much until the world financial markets recover alot.

I'm hoarding the BTC that i generate using electricity i don't directly pay for. But i won't be buying or selling any unless I'm purchasing to imminently spend.

There is nothing to 'recover' to. The hype has worn off and the currency has been plagued by unreliability, hacking, scandals and so forth. It's basically a joke. What makes you think people will suddenly have any faith in it ever/again? Not having a go at you, but you should be able to answer that question to yourself if you aren't going to just cash out what you can right now.

Nobody should convince themselves bitcoin will ever amount to anything just because they have sunk money into it

[HunterBunter]

Originally Posted by Jat0

So bitcoin prices have been very low for awhile now.
Whos still mining and what are your thoughts about the long term survival of bitcoin?

If you look at the longterm graph of prices, the current price could be considered appropriate, and the huge spike a pure media speculation frenzy from the get-rich-poor-quickers. It may have hit its confidence bottom.

I dunno about the whole bitcoin as a currency thing, though...bitcoins don't have inherent value (unlike gold), so would make a good currency, but because its mined, and is limited, owning it has a high cost, which is not helpful to a currency - which has a value in being able to be traded for something, but not in holding. A pretty large proportion of miners are mining to hoard, and that's not good for a currency...its good for a store of agreed value.

[slavewone]

Originally Posted by Wet Sandwich

There is nothing to 'recover' to. The hype has worn off and the currency has been plagued by unreliability, hacking, scandals and so forth. It's basically a joke. What makes you think people will suddenly have any faith in it ever/again? Not having a go at you, but you should be able to answer that question to yourself if you aren't going to just cash out what you can right now.

Nobody should convince themselves bitcoin will ever amount to anything just because they have sunk money into it

Interesting rant. However, I answered a very different question. I suspect you didn't use 'recover' in the same situation and context that i did.

[SoreGums]

Originally Posted by HunterBunter

I dunno about the whole bitcoin as a currency thing, though...bitcoins don't have inherent value (unlike gold)

USD has zero inherent value now that the printing presses have been fired up...

It just holds the value that everyone agrees it should hold atm. Which is what anything is worth - sure gold and other precious metals actually look pretty and are useful as opposed to bitcoins which are zero practical value and consume a good deal of energy to generate.

end of the day it all comes down to what people agree stuff is worth, right now a few of use think bitcoins are worth something, I don't think all of them are going to go away...