bitbet.co.uk

I own this if anyone wants to rent it off me and become GAMBLOR

Quote from: knighty on March 09, 2013, 17:42:21 PM
worth $46 each now :-o

$146 now

Every time I look at the price its 

Oh well!

$146 is just crazy

I thought it would have been dead by now tbh...

Can I short bitcoins? This is a silly bubble of a stupid "currency" with no backing. Hello tulip mania.

would be amusing to try - obv I don't think there are any institutional investors to borrow from, nor is there a market for bit coin derivatives

You could try posting on some bit coin boards - find out if there are any bit coin investors in it for the long term would wouldn't mind arranging a loan of some bitcoins

some counterparty risk involved for them though - would prob need a 3rd party to act as as some form of escrow with some collateral... if your bitcoin position goes against you and approaches within an agreed % of the value of your collateral then you either cover the short and return the bit coins or the 3rd party hands over the collateral.

I would happily lend you my bitcoins to short, the problem is once in your possession you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want with them and there's sod all I can do to trace em or indeed make you give them back

A service existed for shorting (amongst other things inc all kind of funky leveraged trading) called bitcoinica, perhaps unsurprisingly it got hacked and the wallet ripped of a ton of BTC.

Quote from: Sam on April 05, 2013, 20:33:23 PM
Can I short bitcoins? This is a silly bubble of a stupid "currency" with no backing. Hello tulip mania.

Fair does, what backs gold btw?

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Fair does, what backs gold btw?

It has "value" because some people agree on a price that it's worth. This price changes throughout time. This is why bitcoins have "value" right now, because some people are willing to exchange fiat currency for it. I wouldn't buy Gold and I wouldn't buy bitcoins because I value neither.

One difference is bitcoins are backed by no one. Some people say that's its advantage. But really that's it's weakness. Sterling won't collapse because the UK govt will prop it up with it's share of the earnings of the UK (taxes to you and me). Who will prop up bitcoins in times of weakness. No one.

Another difference is that Gold is valued by governments and millions of investors. For Gold to collapse millions of people have to lose faith. With bitcoins its a few teenagers and their mining computers. Once it starts dropping people will dump it because they don't want to lose their profits.

All that being said, people will say I'm wrong. And they'll say I'm wrong if its hits $300 and they'll say I'm wrong and laugh at me if it hits $1000. They won't say I'm wrong though when its worth $0 after the bubble bursts.

Plenty more people can still make money from it. You just don't want to be the last man standing. But don't buy it thinking it's a got a real viable future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Quote from: Sam on April 06, 2013, 00:58:38 AM

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Fair does, what backs gold btw?

It has "value" because some people agree on a price that it's worth. This price changes throughout time. This is why bitcoins have "value" right now, because some people are willing to exchange fiat currency for it. I wouldn't buy Gold and I wouldn't buy bitcoins because I value neither.

One difference is bitcoins are backed by no one. Some people say that's its advantage. But really that's it's weakness. Sterling won't collapse because the UK govt will prop it up with it's share of the earnings of the UK (taxes to you and me). Who will prop up bitcoins in times of weakness. No one.

Sure, sterling won't 'collapse' just print some more money, it'll be fine.

Quote from: Sam on April 06, 2013, 00:58:38 AM

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Another difference is that Gold is valued by governments and millions of investors. For Gold to collapse millions of people have to lose faith. With bitcoins its a few teenagers and their mining computers. Once it starts dropping people will dump it because they don't want to lose their profits.

Gold is just a bit of metal, much like BTC is a blob on a blockchain, right now if you had the coins, and this is a very quick calculation done on easily visible depth on the book, you could sell 18,875 BTC all the way down to $129/BTC (there's more depth, I just looked at the top 1k bids) netting well over $2,500,000 that's a lot of teenagers*

Quote from: Sam on April 06, 2013, 00:58:38 AM

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All that being said, people will say I'm wrong. And they'll say I'm wrong if its hits $300 and they'll say I'm wrong and laugh at me if it hits $1000. They won't say I'm wrong though when its worth $0 after the bubble bursts.

Plenty more people can still make money from it. You just don't want to be the last man standing. But don't buy it thinking it's a got a real viable future.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

BTC has seen many, many, many bubbles bursting, it's dropped hundreds of times over and every time it has come back stronger, you called it at a $0 worth, which is fair does, I guess we will have to wait and see, but with more and more businesses getting on board it becomes increasingly unlikely, I guess make or break is if a big player like Amazon or such accepts them.

*I appreciate from institutional or monster investor size that's sod all.

Quote from: matt5cott on April 06, 2013, 00:29:01 AM
I would happily lend you my bitcoins to short, the problem is once in your possession you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want with them and there's sod all I can do to trace em or indeed make you give them back

you'd have to get Nige to act as a 'broker' to make the sale of the bitcoins and hold some margin from sam

re: gold - it has some utility value both in industrial use and in jewelry (though the jewelry aspect is partly as a result of it being a store of wealth in addition to simply being shiny and looking nice...)

its indestructible, easy to transport and store... no credit risk involved... liquid asset etc..etc..

though yeah part of its 'value' is simply because people attribute value to it... still as long as people do that (and they have done for centuries) then it can be a good safe haven....

while I wouldn't want to make a forecast its certainly not *always* a good idea to invest in gold

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Sure, sterling won't 'collapse' just print some more money, it'll be fine.

There's a vested interest in Sterling not collapsing. It's called the UK. It has a foundation in law and Sterling can be used to buy real things in the real world.

And bitcoins are not really unlimited. Simply because next week we'll be buying namecoins or sh*tcoins or whatever other virtual currency we fancy next.

Here is something to think about. You value your bitcoins in dollars say. You have, lets say 100 bit coins, and you're a rich man because they're worth $100 a piece (for easy maths). So you have $10k. Let's say I have 100 $100 dollar bills and they're worth $100 a piece. Think about that. I valued my dollars in dollars.

Similarly, I value my sterling in sterling. I don't convert my sterling and say I earnt 5k last week, so that's 100 potatoes or 200 bottles, like we do with bitcoins.

That is because a currency (which bitcoin is not), while like all fiat currencies relies on everyone agreeing to use it, is backed by governments, military, my landlord who only accepts sterling (at the moment), and tesco who don't accept bitcoin AFAIK. Sterling is a real important exchange vehicle. Bitcoin is not and never will be. It's a nice bit of fun and very profitable for the clever or lucky ones who don't get caught holding the bag at the end.

To Dave. Like I said earlier, the only "value" in gold is that so many people attribute value to it (the industry use is small and demand wouldn't justify $1500 an ounce on its own). The number of people trading bitcoins is tiny, and so the moves are easily exaggerated.

nn. Might be $200 in the morning.

The problem with BTC is that it will never become a real currency. However many business buy into it you can bet it will never achieve that status because it has no way to control it, trace it or apply any other means of security against it, therefore its a legal/business nightmare for any genuine large company trying to audit it. When you factor in how volatile and price unstable is its not even worth thinking about. IBM would be better off putting deep blue to work mining if it was really that worthwhile for them I think. I can't ever see Tesco letting you send them bitcoins for your shopping and waiting 30 mins for the blockchain to update

The people making the real money off this so far are the ones parting others with their bitcoins and hoarding them. Some have probably already wisely sold up theirs and got a fortune, as Sam said though others will hold until after the bubble has burst and then weep.

Yeah I'm agreeing Sam but just pointing out that it is different to bitcoins as there is some utility value

its a commodity as well as a currency essentially

the industrial use is small, the jewelry aspect isn't - though that is partly driven by it being a store of wealth in addition to the asthetic qualities/lack of oxidization/reaction/tarnishing/decay etc...


I think the volatility being seen in bitcoins is indeed partly due to a lack of liquidity... this is a pretty good illustration of just one of the reasons why the proposed european financial tax will be utterly retarded... lack of liquidity at exchanges is going to be fun when some big institution or fund wants to hedge...

Quote from: Sam on April 06, 2013, 01:56:43 AM

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Sure, sterling won't 'collapse' just print some more money, it'll be fine.

It's a nice bit of fun and very profitable for the clever or lucky ones who don't get caught holding the bag at the end.

When is 'the end' is it simply defined as 0 then? Even if it where $0.1 to 1BTC again people would likely still use it as a method of making a transaction regardless of 'exchange rate'

You cannot simply 'print more' BTC when you need to, yes over time more become available to the market (this has already significantly reduced with the block reward halving) but the maximum number is finite and unchangeable by design.

DDOS and arse being ripped out the market, absolute chaos, loads of punters locked in at the top, over £100 wiped per coin!

Seen it time and time again, do feel for those who bought big at the top though.