Bitcoin Corralito?

[ARbound]

Full disclosure: I mine Litecoin/Dogecoin, accept it on the site I'm building, and I have a job because one of the components in the whole deal is made by a company I work for. I don't think Bitcoin/Litecoin/Dogecoin will replace Dollars but I think it's a great tool for those of us here in Arge and other economic dictatorships (I think this appropriate, we all bitch about the economy here) and I only use them to get USD.

Anyways,

Mt. Gox is a behemoth that has crashed. It is also not the entire Bitcoin world. Though this is not an equal comparison, let's view it as say Lehman going under (sorry if someone else used that analogy already on here but I only skimmed through). People lose their Bitcoins, people get rich, people get poor, people associated with Mt. Gox generally get well, you know... Point is that like Lehman, people will pick of the pieces and move on. The more solvent, secure and better trading firms become more secure and popular and the market reflects the change. As well, the price will stabilize as speculators are spooked back to more stable investments.

Crypto currencies aren't tools of investment, their tools of trade but just like if a bunch of people, companies and businesses started demanding say Fiji's Dollar it too would skyrocket as it would struggle to meet demand.

Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results, Consider Carefully Before Investing, Ask For An Investment Prospectus, etc.

Long story short it's a great little system going right now. Why? If governments regulate it/ban it/seize it, it gives it credibility, and like foreign currency people will
develop an intrinsic value for it. If you say it's worthless or not real or not legal it will remain valuable as a means of trade under the radar. You're damned if you do you're damned if you don't and you're even more damned if you think you can get rich quick if you're not already.

 

[scotttswan]

This chain of bytes is worth five hundred bucks. Guaranteed by no one, protected by no one.

Modern day magic beans.

you mean tulips
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

Although tulips are nice to look so they actually have a value!

edit: bonus fun article. http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/02/schadenfreude-1.html

 

[Chet]

The debate rages on!
Like anything new and different bitcoin is the wild west, and yes full of scammers and people thinking to get rich quick. It does however have a lot of advantages. I can move 'value' (money if you will) anywhere in the world without going through the banker/gov't gatekeepers and without exposing personal information to possible identity theft. Only time will tell if the features of the bitcoin system outweigh the downsides.

 

[jackbower]

Now where has all that excess speculation gone?

 

[Dublin2BuenosAires]

The debate rages on!
Like anything new and different bitcoin is the wild west, and yes full of scammers and people thinking to get rich quick. It does however have a lot of advantages. I can move 'value' (money if you will) anywhere in the world without going through the banker/gov't gatekeepers and without exposing personal information to possible identity theft. Only time will tell if the features of the bitcoin system outweigh the downsides.

You can move value indeed, my assessment is that the risk of sufficiently high to make it not interesting. Indeed people are seizing on MtGox but it is not a unique incident.

 

[Bricky]

Does anyone know of a cueva that exchanges bitcoin?
I've heard mention of the "bitcoin blue", and also there was some mention of cuevas buying it at the bitcoin summit here a few months back - but my own local cueva doesn't appear to be on board yet.

 

[Chet]

You can move value indeed, my assessment is that the risk of sufficiently high to make it not interesting. Indeed people are seizing on MtGox but it is not a unique incident.

Risk for ease of use, much like liberty vs. security. Choices we all make, each for our own reasons.
And actually yes the online exchange stuff is high risk, but keep your own wallet and things like localbitcoins and the web-of-trust work pretty well.
@Bricky I checked and localbitcoins has a few listings for BA

 

[thorsten]

Risk for ease of use, much like liberty vs. security. Choices we all make, each for our own reasons.
And actually yes the online exchange stuff is high risk, but keep your own wallet and things like localbitcoins and the web-of-trust work pretty well.
@Bricky I checked and localbitcoins has a few listings for BA

Web-of-trust does not work very well at all as you can make any amount of accounts... Yes you can restrict yourself to high value traders with perfect ratings, but that is not what I would call working very well.