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1441
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Other / Off-topic / Re: Answer the question above with a question.
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on: September 22, 2014, 06:57:04 PM
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who is kermit the frog?
What's Kermit the frog got to do with climate march? Kermit the frog did a climate march? Did you not see Kermit with the First Man?  "Is that a penis parading how much you like me?" Did you mean Kermit with the First Lady? why is she called First Lady? Didn't you know Michael Obama is a man? Is she he? What about this kermit toad there... is it a he, or a she? ... or both? As a non-human animal, shouldn't he she it be a 'it'? |
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1442
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
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on: September 22, 2014, 02:50:34 AM
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In your view, what metric(s) can measure bitcoin adoption?
It would help if bitcoin payment processors released monthly reports on volume processed, with at least a crude breakdown on kind of businesses served (gambling, exchanges, material goods, travel&lodging, ...). That would give an idea if bitcoin use is increasing, but would still have some limitations, e.g.: * it would measure bitcoins being sold for dollars to purchase, not people buying bitcoins; * it would not include people paying with bitcoin directly to merchants that really accept bitcoin It may also be distorted by people paying to themselves: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150803.msg8916727#msg8916727But that is the best data I can think of that might be available one day. |
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1443
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
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on: September 21, 2014, 09:34:47 PM
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 Transactions are steadily increasing, suggesting adoption is still on the up. Well, however, this chart of USD transaction volume per day (excluding apparent change-backs) does not show steadily increasing adoption at all. Either adoption has been stagnating, or slightly decreasing, since January; or e-payments account for only a small fraction of the transaction volume. (My guess is the latter.) If we look closely at your chart, even the number of transactions per day has hardly increased from January to August (60'000 tx/day), and is now only slightly higher than it was in March (74'000 against 72'000). Bitcoin traders need to create their own association (with a modest fixed fee, so that it will not be dominated by whales). Part of its mission should be to obtain reliable economic data and other information relevant to traders, and push for more transparency at exchanges and other bitcoin ventures. You will never get that from the Shrem Karpeles & Friends Foundation, or from the bitcoin news outlets. |
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1445
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: Bitstamp's first annual statements
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on: September 21, 2014, 08:51:21 PM
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Look at the Profit and loss account reserve. It's their first period of trading, they started with P&L reserve being zero, so they made a profit of $833k, possibly more if dividends have been declared/paid.
They must surely have taken some profits out over that year. They couldn't just ignore the BTC holding tho, therefore it must have been included in 'cash in bank' position, which is not incorrect imho, despite the name 'cash...' it can also include cash equivalents.
If they did that, they took quite a bit of liberty in their reporting... They had to pick a price to convert BTC to USD, and on 2013-10-31 the price varied from 195.10 to 203.75. Which one? (OK, they are not required to say, apparently.) Also it would be ironic for them to call the blockchain a "bank"  Let's round the price to 200 USD/BTC. Then, if that number includes the bitcoins, they held at most 330'000 BTC on that day, probably only some fraction of that. Just for comparison, on that day, their trade volume was 13741 BTC, MtGOX's was 4608 BTC. Hm... |
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1446
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: Bitstamp's first annual statements
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on: September 21, 2014, 07:04:26 PM
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It does not say how much profit they made. It says only that, *as of Oct/2013*, they have about 64.9 M USD that belong to clients and about 820 k USD of their own. Apparently it does not include their bitcoin holdings, since their assets (65.7 M USD) are described as "cash in the bank".
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1447
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Economy / Economics / Re: How profitable are exchanges?
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on: September 21, 2014, 07:02:53 PM
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That is an abbreviated account of their financial state *as of Oct/2013*, which they were required to file under UK law (and they filed only in Aug/2014, maybe late). It does not say how much profit they made. It says only that they have about 64.9 M USD that belong to clients and about 820 k USD of their own. Apparently it does not include their bitcoin holdings, since their assets (65.7 M USD) are described as "cash in the bank". |
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1448
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
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on: September 21, 2014, 03:39:49 PM
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I was trying to make a simplification to the effect that there is some amount of Bitcoin usage apart from speculation. I think that's what people mostly refer to when talking about fundamentals - developments that affect non-speculative use. The point is, we don't know what the price of BTC would be in a philosophical la-la land where price is driven solely by non-speculative uses, so we can't argue that an increase in such uses must lead to a proportional increase in BTC price.
That "fundamental" demand -- people buying BTC for the express purpose of paying for something -- seems to be relatively small, and it may not be increasing. Note that such demand would only sequester the bitcoins for a few days, perhaps a few hours; so that it might take 1000 BTC of payments per day to have the same effect on price as one investor buying 1000 BTC once for hoarding. Unfortunately, there seems to be no data on the USD volume of payments made via bitcoin (from the blockchain we get transaction volume, but only some transactions are bitcoins changing hands). Moreover, we do not know how much of that volume generates new bitcoin buying demand (as opposed to being bitcoins that were bought previously for investment or speculation). Sadly, the "bitcoin press" does not seem to be capable (or willing) to dig out such data. |
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1449
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Bitcoin / Hardware / Re: BFL fucks us over again
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on: September 21, 2014, 07:45:43 AM
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You wanna hear a really scary thought? Best be sitting down for this one. What if... are you sitting?... What if Sonny Vleisides was the backbone of Bitcoin all along, and now that he's in the hoosegow with you... Holy fuck! Who's feeding her chickens?
Well, that is a good one... I want to believe that all those scammers and crooks that infest the bitcoin ecosystem were independently attracted to it by the unique features of bitcoin -- anonymity, lack of regulation, transfer anywhere in the world without going through banks, a naive community with money to spare, ... I assumed that each scammer recognized the other scammers "by smell", and cooperated with them instinctively, by a natural tacit agreement -- "You will pretend not tp see my scam, and I will pretend not to see yours." So it was, I thought, that Danny Brewster "helped" Ukyo to "resolve" the BitFunder affair, and that the Bitcoin Foundation never had a bad word to say about any scammer. But indeed there is another possibility: that all those scammers were part of a single gang, that saw the "potential" of bitcoin years ago, and recruited suitable soldiers to run the individual scams and occupy key posts in the system... (Dang, I am running out of tinfoil.) |
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1450
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Other / Off-topic / Re: Answer the question above with a question.
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on: September 21, 2014, 07:16:57 AM
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Well, what next?
Can't think for yourself?  Why are you questioning the person above? Didn't you know it's rude to answer a question with another question?  Isn't doing otherwise considered "off-topic" and a clear violation of forum rules? So we are expected to be rude here? |
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1452
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Economy / Speculation / Re: Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
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on: September 20, 2014, 06:51:12 PM
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I voted "disagree" on the poll, because i believe there is more HODLING and real economic activity ( BTC is chasing all kinds of goods services, altcoins, bitcoin company stocks ... etc..) then ever b4. the BTC/USD market just dosnt have a big enough float to paint this "high volume" bottom. we'd need some truly horrific news to see this happen, blokchina.info bugging just dosnt cut it.
@stolfi: its always the chinese. You said it.  |
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1453
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Other / Off-topic / Re: Answer the question above with a question.
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on: September 20, 2014, 10:35:29 AM
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The above question isn't a question, or I'm wrong? Haven't we decided already that a sentence is a question if, and only if, it ends with a question mark? Did I just see the Satoshi's Eye inside that ponzi pyramid sentence ending with a question mark which we have already decided IS a question? If the Supreme Satoshi has only one eye, is that a left eye or a right eye? I'm not too sure. Too hard to tell. What does everyone else think? Doesn't it look like the right eye? How could a one-eyed alien have a right eye? How do you know this is a one-eyed alien? Isn't that the smallest number of eyes that is consistent with all evidence we have? Are you tryin' to stump me with such a deep question? Seriously, how do we know that the Supreme Satoshi peeping at us from that hole at the top of the Big Ponzi doesn't have THREE eyes? |
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1455
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Bitcoin / Hardware / Re: BFL fucks us over again
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on: September 19, 2014, 07:51:26 PM
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Would be a movie-worthy plot if it was raided by disgruntled customers posing as US Marshals.
Movie plot for movie plot: BFL management may have staged the raid themselves so that customers would not get alarmed by the lack of replies from their customer service, and they could be in Costa Rica before somebody realized what happened. (Hm, wait, there seems to be a problem with that movie plot... ) |
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1458
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Other / Off-topic / Re: Answer the question above with a question.
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on: September 19, 2014, 06:13:55 PM
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The above question isn't a question, or I'm wrong? Haven't we decided already that a sentence is a question if, and only if, it ends with a question mark? Did I just see the Satoshi's Eye inside that ponzi pyramid sentence ending with a question mark which we have already decided IS a question? If the Supreme Satoshi has only one eye, is that a left eye or a right eye? I'm not too sure. Too hard to tell. What does everyone else think? Doesn't it look like the right eye? How could a one-eyed alien have a right eye? How do you know this is a one-eyed alien? Isn't that the smallest number of eyes that is consistent with all evidence we have? |
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