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16th December 2014, 07:27 AM | #281 |
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Who needs a product with all BTC's problems with theft and value instability when there are secure and stably-valued alternative e-payment methods available? BTC's big selling point seems to be anonymity, which no doubt appeals to a certain sector but it isn't a big draw to most people.
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16th December 2014, 07:28 AM | #282 |
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Down to 336$.
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16th December 2014, 07:39 AM | #283 |
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Interesting that the collapse of the ruble doesn't seem to be having any positive effect on BTC.
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16th December 2014, 07:51 AM | #284 |
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The only thing that seems to have an effect on BTC is quantum fluctuations. I swear the damn thing makes no sense.
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16th December 2014, 08:44 AM | #285 |
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16th December 2014, 09:21 AM | #286 |
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16th December 2014, 09:38 AM | #287 |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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16th December 2014, 06:46 PM | #288 |
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There's also the fact that your money isn't in the hands of big business, banks, government, ect. Without your private key, nobody can take your Bitcoin from you, freeze your account or reverse a deposit made into your account.
These things can be done with just about all other forms of electronic accounts. (The ability to keep your private key secure is a separate issue.) |
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17th December 2014, 08:50 AM | #289 |
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17th December 2014, 09:21 AM | #290 |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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17th December 2014, 10:25 AM | #291 |
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17th December 2014, 11:41 AM | #292 |
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So which is it? Did Mt Gox take bitcoins out of people's wallets without their consent or did they simply lose bitcoins that their customers had entrusted them with?
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17th December 2014, 11:47 AM | #293 |
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Wareyin's post clearly said "somebody"; whether that "somebody" was inside or outside of Mt. Gox isn't clear. The loss puts the lie to the notion that BTC is somehow safer and more secure than other repositories of financial value.
And, whether the coins were "lost" or "stolen" is a distinction without a difference to the people who lost $450 million, now isn't it? |
17th December 2014, 11:47 AM | #294 |
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Bitcoin exchanges have been hacked. That's why banks are better. They've never been hacked.
Bitcoin exchanges have had employees do immoral things to benefit themselves or the exchanges at the expense of their customers. That's why banks are better. They've never done that. Plus bitcoin and bitcoin exchanges have been around as long as banks so it's not like these exchanges were relatively new territory where mistakes would happen and improvements would be made over time. |
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17th December 2014, 12:13 PM | #295 |
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17th December 2014, 12:21 PM | #296 |
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17th December 2014, 12:42 PM | #297 |
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Here's the most recent info I could find about the Gox unpleasantness; apparently Kraken has stepped up to handle the liquidation.
http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/...uidate-mt-gox/ I'd guess that the creditors might, if they are fortunate, see 10 cents on the dollar. Gox still holds about 200K BTC, but of course any effort to liquidate that many coins would drive the price to near zero. And, to get back to psionl0's post, it appears that the bulk of the coins were stolen, i.e. removed from accounts without the account holder's consent. This contradicts the assertion made in post 288, which was that no one can take your BTC from you if they do not have your private key. Clearly, thieves can and have taken BTC from account holders. |
17th December 2014, 12:57 PM | #298 |
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Trusting somebody else with your money (in whatever form it takes) always has some risks.
However, in spite of the unfortunate use of the word "account" instead of "wallet", Brian-M was never referring to bitcoin exchanges and, as the highlighted section shows, you know this all too well. It is just a feeble attempt to derail the discussion. The fact remains that provided you take sensible security precautions with your wallet, nobody can ever take your bitcoins away from you without your consent. They can only try to persuade you to hand them over. |
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17th December 2014, 03:54 PM | #299 |
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I think you'll find that Mt. Gox had the private keys to all the wallets containing the Bitcoins in their customer's accounts.
Keeping your Bitcoins in a trading account is the same thing as putting your money in the hands of a business, and as a result the security advantage of Bitcoin is lost. (Of course, unless you're mining bitcoin or selling products in exchange for bitcoin, or happen to know someone who has bitcoin they're willing to sell for cash, you pretty much have to go through a trading account to get bitcoin. Similar situation for selling your bitcoin. Unless you know someone interested in buying you'll need to use an exchange as well.) ETA: Are you saying that the thieves stole the bitcoins without either getting hold of the private keys for the wallets in which they were stored, or by some form of indirect access to the private keys (such as by ordering a computer with access to the private keys to transfer the bitcoins to a different wallet)? |
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17th December 2014, 04:30 PM | #300 |
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17th December 2014, 07:03 PM | #301 |
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17th December 2014, 09:20 PM | #302 |
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The "transaction malleability" weakness was fixed in Bitcoin 0.8.
Prior to that, it was possible to duplicate a transaction that was identical in every way but had a different signature. If the second transaction was subsequently confirmed then the first wouldn't be. This could be a problem if you were only checking signatures. Note that there is nothing automatic about this. The recipient would have to fraudulently claim to have not received the bitcoins and convince the sender to re-send the bitcoins. If the sender's bookkeeping was up to scratch, then they would instantly detect this funny business. MtGox fell flat on both accounts which is why they were so easily duped into resending bitcoins. Note that exchanges don't have access to anybody's private keys so the only bitcoins at risk were the ones you sent to MtGox - not the ones still in your wallet. Of course, this is all old hat. I posted about "transaction malleability" way back in February. (http://www.internationalskeptics.com...postcount=4764). Jhunter1163 is only rehashing these old arguments in order to avoid dealing with post #285. |
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18th December 2014, 12:38 PM | #303 |
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24th December 2014, 05:45 PM | #304 |
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Oh yeah, introduce Randian objectivism into the equation. That is just what a barely functional means of exchange mostly used for criminal activities needs.
Fact of the matter is, as has been repeatedly demonstrated over the course of history, for a currency to work and continue it needs a strong backing by a state or other large actor, with a coherent goal for what it is to do and a proper set of policies to manage it. That is why both a) the likes of bitcoin will never be better than a fad (it'll never have the right backing nor the right policy direction) and b) putting the likes of Greenspan (or any other freemarketeer) in charge of a national currency will end in disaster. |
24th December 2014, 06:25 PM | #305 |
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"The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled. Where something so important is involved, a deeper mystery seems only decent." - Galbraith, 1975 |
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25th December 2014, 11:32 AM | #306 |
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25th December 2014, 11:51 AM | #307 |
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All right, then, to address post #285;
No, you probably couldn't do that with Apple Pay, at least not without going to some trouble, but for 99.44% of users, BTC's major selling point (anonymity) simply is not necessary. I don't care if eBay knows my name. I don't care if Amazon knows my name. Hell, I don't care if you know my name. It's John Hunter. I do, however, trust my bank to keep my account information secure, and if they are hacked there are laws in place to make me whole if I do happen to lose money. BTC has none of the protections of banks and apparently more of the risk of theft. |
25th December 2014, 12:03 PM | #308 |
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Of course you can't. Apple pay wasn't designed for transfers of money between individuals. It is a system for paying for purchases at either a brick-and-mortar or online store (it doesn't even have its own commodity/currency).
As long as Apple pay and bitcoin serve entirely different functions, it is not possible for one to displace the other. It would be like saying that the invention of the electric light would make electric motors obsolete. |
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25th December 2014, 12:45 PM | #309 |
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Seeing as you seem to be fond of posting fanboy pages to "support" your arguments, I'll hold myself to the same criteria here. I just won't bother spamming nonsense.
Quote:
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25th December 2014, 08:55 PM | #310 |
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IOW You can't back up your nonsense so you have decided to attack the arguer instead (that's a rule 12 violation BTW).
Anything else you might have to say about money can similarly be dismissed as personal opinion based on sheer prejudice. |
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26th December 2014, 11:41 AM | #311 |
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26th December 2014, 07:06 PM | #312 |
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I just noticed that the Bitcoin Bowl (US college American football) is being played tonight. I thought that was pretty funny--just how much more mainstream can you get than sponsoring a college bowl game?
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27th December 2014, 01:00 AM | #313 |
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27th December 2014, 02:17 AM | #314 | ||
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That is of course a 100% made up statistic.
It is not the anonymity of bitcoin that matters as much as the convenience of not having to go through an approvals process. There is no need to apply for a bitcoin account as if you were applying for a passport (ie provide 100 points of photo ID to prove that you are not a criminal who is trying to launder money). You also don't have to wait until some ******* gets back from holidays before dealing with your application. Anybody can install bitcoin software on their computer and have a wallet set up within minutes and start receiving bitcoins instantly and the only people who's business it is are you and the people you are trading with.
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27th December 2014, 06:54 AM | #315 |
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Put those goalposts back. You've been trumpeting anonymity as a selling point all along; now, when it's developed that a) BTC isn't as anonymous as Bitbugs have been led to believe and b) anonymity doesn't matter to most people anyway, you're moving on to "convenience", ignoring the fact that BTC is far, far less convenient to use than plain old USD.
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Last edited by LashL; 2nd January 2015 at 01:29 PM. Reason: Edited to properly mask profanity in quote. |
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27th December 2014, 06:59 AM | #316 |
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There is no anonymity in bitcoin. In fact the polar opposite. And we are seeing that coming out in the Silk Road legal proceedings. If dollar bills were as carefully tracked, there could be no graft.
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27th December 2014, 10:47 AM | #317 |
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How does anything in my post constitute "goalpost shifting"? It is certainly 100% consistent with post #285 - unless you are trying to construct another strawman. I have always pointed out that once someone knows your wallet ID it is a matter of public record how many BTC you have in that wallet.
Another derail fail. |
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29th December 2014, 12:33 PM | #318 |
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29th December 2014, 01:39 PM | #319 |
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29th December 2014, 03:42 PM | #320 |
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Here are some better investments that BTC over the last year;
http://recode.net/2014/12/28/newspap...tcoin-in-2014/ |
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