# Lifestyles & Discussion > Bitcoin / Cryptocurrencies >  Bitcoin is a scam.

## itshappening

Does anyone wish to refute this theory: 

Bitcoin is a scam. The miners/early adopters/drug dealers and now Kim all have an interest in seeing it ramp up.

When there's enough suckers around they will dump their bitcoins on the market and crash it. 

They will keep doing this periodically but the bigger crash will come if the US government legislate and these people panic or when the limit is reached and no more can be mined. Whichever happens first.

If the US government doesn't legislate the mother of all crashes still comes when they've mined the rest of it  and then try and make off with the loot.  

Estimates are that they have mined just over half of it.

It's a circular scam because the early adopters are probably investing in the powerful and increasingly expensive computers to mine the rest of it... and so on.

It's not private industry paying for their computers and data centers to accomplish their task is it ?

The financing comes from somewhere. Probably from previous gains. They've sold some off and bought more machine power.

Once they've mined the $#@! out of it and made off with the loot what price will bitcoin be then ?

This is why I think once it hits the limit bitcoin will "reset" after these guys have dumped all their bitcoins.  

I don't think they're able to unload enough and "feed" the market to the new suckers who come in.  

At the end of the ride they will still have substantial amounts of bitcoins to cash in and make off into the sunset and to their Caribbean island.

Or the US government gets in first and shuts them down by taking out the exchanges and their banking relationships. 

Every exchange tells you what bank account number to send the money to. They're easy for a government to trace and shut down. Too easy!

Who knows what will happen but it doesn't seem good to me.

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## kpitcher

I'll take a stab.

You're focusing on the miners who provide transaction computations. The system has a built in small inflation to encourage usage. Also every transaction has a small transaction fee (Very small, pennies in USD). A miner who wins that block currencly gets 25 coins plus the transaction fees. The coins per block will half again in 2017 but all coins will not be mined until 2140. Transaction fees as more people simply use the system will also grow. 

This is a known number, currently around 11 million are out there, 21 million max. However the system can currently go to 8 decimal places and could go even further if the need arises. If you want to know exactly how many are out there it's published. Here's one place http://www.bitcoincharts.com/

Also as there are 60+ trillion calculations a second - bitcoins are the most powerful distributed supercomputing process on the face of the earth - it's hard to mine. In order to 'win' a transaction it's not a single user but large groups of users working together and paid by percentage of total work. So a typical miner may make 0.005 bitcoins per block or something small like that. The profit margin is very slim from computer expense and electric power to bitcoin. So it's an investment like any other thing.

This slight inflation, mining, is separate from a typical user's point of view. End user should just send coins when they purchase something and not worry about the transactions behind the sceens. Yes there were early adopters. Some did make money. No different than a Bill Gates and the Microsoft millionaires when MS stock went public. Early adopters of any new successful process will win.

More financial tools are being built to make bitcoins not swing around as much. Derivative markets, investment funds, even bitcoins to stock exchanges. As more people can use them as a way to move money around the world without fees it will be easier to use.

While I think the anonymous feature of bitcoin is nice it's not an absolute. People are not only using bitcoin for black market activities. You can buy computer parts and goods and services from an ever growing number of legit business. There are a number of bitcoin cash to BTC ATMs being built. Not sure if that will be popular but it may. This is still early in bitcoin usage so I expect a lot of things will keep getting better. However if you really want to put money in exchanges you can go to a CVS and give them fake information, cash, and get money into the exchange without anyone IDing you.

I do a retail service over the summer at farmer markets. I'll be taking Cash, Visa / MC / Disc and this year I'll be adding bitcoin. Why? I'll gladly take anyone's money for my goods and I think bitcoins are a good exchange medium. The value to USD does get most of the attention. It's a neat Forex market that is growing. But everyday people are using it as simply a very convenient way to pay for things.

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## PaulConventionWV

> Does anyone wish to refute this theory: 
> 
> Bitcoin is a scam. The miners/early adopters/drug dealers and now Kim all have an interest in seeing it ramp up.
> 
> When there's enough suckers around they will dump their bitcoins on the market and crash it. 
> 
> They will keep doing this periodically but the bigger crash will come if the US government legislate and these people panic or when the limit is reached and no more can be mined. Whichever happens first.
> 
> If the US government doesn't legislate the mother of all crashes still comes when they've mined the rest of it  and then try and make off with the loot.  
> ...


Why do you care so much about trashing bitcoin?  Just tell me, what good does it do you to sit around here and trash bitcoin?

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## FSP-Rebel

/burned

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## RickyJ

> Why do you care so much about trashing bitcoin?  Just tell me, what good does it do you to sit around here and trash bitcoin?


The same question can be asked about bit coin gurus, what good does it do you to sit around here and hype bit coin?

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## Sentinelrv

People who believe in Bitcoin want to see others get in before it's too late and people who think Bitcoin is a scam want to save others and convince them to get out before it's too late. At least people have other's interests in mind, whether they're right or wrong about their particular theory.

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## FSP-Rebel

> The same question can be asked about bit coin gurus, what good does it do you to sit around here and hype bit coin?


I think it has less to do with hype and more to do with the excitement factor. People are trying to lay the groundwork to strengthen and build a currency outside of the evil bankers reach and what's not to be excited about if we can see it pan out. It's certainly worth the stake that I've put into it in my mind. Whether it was pushing Ron and the anti-Fed/pro-liberty message, Rand and his mission, other liberty candidates, getting involved as a lower party officer in my local and state GOP, precious metals and in this case BTC, I do what I can as much as I can to subvert the ringmasters. As Jefferson once stated, "I've sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."

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## amonasro

I posted this before, but with 11,000 posts on a Ron Paul message board, a board where competing currencies should be embraced and not immediately and ignorantly dismissed, I really am disappointed. 

Apparently it's not happening with you.

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## 69360

> competing currencies should be embraced


Sorry but something that fluctuates in value as wildly as BTC is not viable as a currency.

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## jmdrake

> I think it has less to do with hype and more to do with the excitement factor. People are trying to lay the groundwork to strengthen and build a currency outside of the evil bankers reach and what's not to be excited about if we can see it pan out. It's certainly worth the stake that I've put into it in my mind. Whether it was pushing Ron and the anti-Fed/pro-liberty message, Rand and his mission, other liberty candidates, getting involved as a lower party officer in my local and state GOP, precious metals and in this case BTC, I do what I can as much as I can to subvert the ringmasters. As Jefferson once stated, "I've sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."


+rep!  Seriously, anything is a gamble.  Most of us donated money to beyond longshot campaigns.

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## newbitech

people who like bitcoin like it because they as an individual have the potential to gain something from it's success.

people who dislike bitcoin dislike it because they as an individual have.....

please fill in the blank.

I am still way skeptical of bitcoin, but I went ahead and got into it because it doesn't really cost me anything and I don't really have anything to lose.

You can get into bit coin for as little as 20 dollars.  

If I lose the 20 dollars (and the little bit of time I have take to fully explore what it actually is) at least I know WHY don't like it ...

So... 

Why do people who dislike bitcoin dislike it?  Is it because they got into and got burned?  or what?  I'd like to know.

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## PaulConventionWV

> The same question can be asked about bit coin gurus, what good does it do you to sit around here and hype bit coin?


Nobody's asking you to click on these threads.  The only reason it's different for a hater is because they have no reason to be interested in these threads.  But for some reason they still hang around and trash those who like to discuss it.

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## PaulConventionWV

> People who believe in Bitcoin want to see others get in before it's too late and people who think Bitcoin is a scam want to save others and convince them to get out before it's too late. At least people have other's interests in mind, whether they're right or wrong about their particular theory.


That's a nice theory, but I really think it's just done out of spite.

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## RonPaulIsGreat

I think bitcoin could work, or a near similiar system, but the coin creation mechansim is screwed. 

The coin creation rate, should be tied to population increases, as determined by the average of various estimates. This would allow new creation at a steady rate. This would tie the Virtual to real thing that is the primary factor in determining how many bitcoins or bitcoins 2.0 there should be. 

I'd set an the target at 1000 bitcoins 2.0 for every man women and child, allowed to be created. 

In this way, it wouldn't by default tilt to the absurd side of deflation and thus seal its doom. NO REAL BUSINESS WILL USE ANY MEANS OF EXCHANGE DESIGNED TO DEFLATE BY DESIGN. They want Relative stability.  They also don't want inflation in the extreme either. It seems many misunderstand and think its merely inflation that is bad, slight inflation or slight deflation aren't killer, though slight inflation is perferable, IMO, it's large deflation, or inflation which makes bitcoin in the end a dead end.

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## PaulConventionWV

> Sorry but something that fluctuates in value as wildly as BTC is not viable as a currency.


Any currency would do this if it was as new as bitcoin.  You have to give it time before you can rule it out.  Fluctuations in the beginning is really nothing to be surprised about.

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## PaulConventionWV

> I think bitcoin could work, or a near similiar system, but the coin creation mechansim is screwed. 
> 
> The coin creation rate, should be tied to population increases, as determined by the average of various estimates. This would allow new creation at a steady rate. This would tie the Virtual to real thing that is the primary factor in determining how many bitcoins or bitcoins 2.0 there should be. 
> 
> I'd set an the target at 1000 bitcoins 2.0 for every man women and child, allowed to be created. 
> 
> In this way, it wouldn't by default tilt to the absurd side of deflation and thus seal its doom. NO REAL BUSINESS WILL USE ANY MEANS OF EXCHANGE DESIGNED TO DEFLATE BY DESIGN. They want Relative stability.  They also don't want inflation in the extreme either. It seems many misunderstand and think its merely inflation that is bad, slight inflation or slight deflation aren't killer, though slight inflation is perferable, IMO, it's large deflation, or inflation which makes bitcoin in the end a dead end.


In case you didn't notice, bitcoin is divisible down to 8 decimal places or more.  I really don't see why we need a certain number of whole bitcoins per person when you could just trade in fractions of a bitcoin.

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## RickyJ

> *Nobody's asking you to click on these threads.*  The only reason it's different for a hater is because they have no reason to be interested in these threads.  But for some reason they still hang around and trash those who like to discuss it.


No one is asking you to click on this thread either, you bitcoin lover.  

Hate or love for some mere bits, really?

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## PaulConventionWV

> No one is asking you to clock on this thread either, you bitcoin lover.  
> 
> Hate love or some mere bits, really?


I do it because I am interested in hearing about the bitcoin.  Haters do it because they like to hate.  Which one sounds better to you?

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## RickyJ

> people who dislike bitcoin dislike it because they as an individual have.....
> 
> please fill in the blank.


I am sick and tired of hearing about it and I think it is a shame so many RPF members are getting into this. A shame for this forum and a shame for a real competing currency, gold!

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## RonPaulIsGreat

Yes, but if you don't add new bitcoins, as more "productive" capacity is added into the economy, you automatically increase the demand for the existing bitcoins in circulation, thus applying a irrational deflationary pressure.

So, it's an ultimately broken mechansim, that is BY DESIGN, to benefit those that get in early and merely hold.

The perfect "BITCOIN" would attempt to neither deflate or inflate. Bitcoins, is completely and totally bent to advantage deflation. So, it will not work in anything more than niche markets.

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## newbitech

> I am sick and tired of hearing about it and I think it is a shame so many RPF members are getting into this. A shame for this forum and a shame for a real competing currency, gold!


I mean, where I am at, no one is talking about it.  This is where I first heard about it and believe me, I ignored the threads for as long as I could.  Eventually I said screw it, I've read everything else in these forums I guess let me check this out.  

Anyways, so is it something that is talked about a lot where you are?  I am not sure why you would feel shamed by other people getting in to it.  It's not like you are really putting anything on the line.  There are a lot worse things that people can and have gotten into on these forums.

I hardly see where a completely innovative technology that speaks directly to what many have come here for is something to be ashamed of.  

I can understand why seeing millions in daily bitcoin transactions and hype would miff people waiting to see gold rise to glory.  Bitcoin is competing for those same dollars and wants to stay in the limelight. 

BTC and crypto currency in general is taking some of the shine away a little.

To me it's not a big deal now that I've gotten in to it a little bit to see what all the hype and fuss is/was. 

I didn't get in early enough to rake in 1000's but, with the volatility in the market, and my self-taught education on chart analysis, i've nearly doubled my initial 20 bucks in about a day and a half.

And I went out and put money in as it was peaking in USD.

There is just a lot of really great technology and ideas springing up around this alternative to store value. 

I've yet to actually trade anything for BTC besides dollars, but eventually I will because I think it's actually hear to stay.

Just like during the .com bubble, there were a lot of really bad ideas and a lot of scamming and bull$#@! that went down.  Lots of lost money, lost productivity and a whole lot of doing nothing.  

But out of that rose some power house IDEAS and eventually spurred us on to the next level of innovation.

I am all about being prepared and I recognized we are one idiot dictators nightmare away from the neo dark age.  

At the same time, I am hopeful for the future and I like to participate in things that have potential.

At the very least BTC is raising an awareness of alternatives to the fiat.  It's gaining cultural acceptance that we don't always have to think of money in terms of dollars. 

So what if it's not gold doing the talking right now?   Really?  So what?  before we replace fiat, the culture needs to be accepting of an alternative.  BTC is moving that along rather swiftly right now.

So even for the haters,  there is something to like about btc.

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## newbitech

> Yes, but if you don't add new bitcoins, as more "productive" capacity is added into the economy, you automatically increase the demand for the existing bitcoins in circulation, thus applying a irrational deflationary pressure.
> 
> So, it's an ultimately broken mechansim, that is BY DESIGN, to benefit those that get in early and merely hold.
> 
> *The perfect "BITCOIN" would attempt to neither deflate or inflate.* Bitcoins, is completely and totally bent to advantage deflation. So, it will not work in anything more than niche markets.


I don't think that is possible.

The economy is always going to be either shrinking or growing.  Idleness is an illusion.  Your idea of perfection is an illusion.

Perfect would be to allow the market to decide what level of inflation or deflation is acceptable. 

In fiat inflation and deflation are controlled by the central banker screwing around with lending rates, and there is no limit to how much money fiat can be created OR destroyed.  

In BTC inflation and deflation are controlled by individuals in the market by deciding how many 0's to put in front or in back of the decimal place.  There is an absolute limit to how much money BTC can be created OR destroyed.  

In fact, like gold you cannot completely destroy BTC.  Since as long as there is just 1 valid transaction representing any fraction of a BTC that transaction will carry the fractal value of all other transactions that come after it. 

Meaning 1 BTC can represent the entire economy.  It's all about the bits and where the decimal slides throughout the transaction history.

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## muh_roads

> I am sick and tired of hearing about it and I think it is a shame so many RPF members are getting into this. A shame for this forum and a shame for a real competing currency, gold!


Gold is a good store of personal wealth, but sorry to burst your bubble...gold would not work well in a global digital economy.  It is heavy and takes too long to move and costs to much to insure when traveling at great distances.  Money needs to move fast.  Groups that have been trusting other groups to store it for them are now wanting their gold and having difficulty getting it back.

Nobody said you have to like Bitcoin.  Just don't take part in the threads and don't read them if you don't want.

buywhatchulike

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## kpitcher

> I think bitcoin could work, or a near similiar system, but the coin creation mechansim is screwed. 
> 
> The coin creation rate, should be tied to population increases, as determined by the average of various estimates. This would allow new creation at a steady rate. This would tie the Virtual to real thing that is the primary factor in determining how many bitcoins or bitcoins 2.0 there should be. 
> 
> I'd set an the target at 1000 bitcoins 2.0 for every man women and child, allowed to be created. 
> 
> In this way, it wouldn't by default tilt to the absurd side of deflation and thus seal its doom. NO REAL BUSINESS WILL USE ANY MEANS OF EXCHANGE DESIGNED TO DEFLATE BY DESIGN. They want Relative stability.  They also don't want inflation in the extreme either. It seems many misunderstand and think its merely inflation that is bad, slight inflation or slight deflation aren't killer, though slight inflation is perferable, IMO, it's large deflation, or inflation which makes bitcoin in the end a dead end.


There is one alt-currency that has popped up that is somewhat tied to population. It unfortunately has some issues with it including not being totally decentralized. 
I guess you could theoretically give coins to every man woman and child but passing them out would be impossible without a global ID... and then you're back to having a centralized system.

The reason bitcoin mining slowly gives out coins for the *NEXT CENTURY* is to not only increase the money supply at a reasonable rate but to ensure the system handles transactions by paying for number crunching. Without number crunching going on no crypto currency is going to work. In time the usage of bitcoin alone will mean a pile of micro transaction fees that will be self supporting to pay the miners.

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## itshappening

No one has refuted my theory.

Bitcoin is a scam.

The miners who are paying for the expensive equipment are all early adopters when it was 2 cents and are dumping on to suckers and buying their equipment.  Also dumping are big fish like Kim, drug dealers etc.

They will keep dumping to new suckers (entrants to the market) as they mine the $#@! out of it and when it's all mined they will go off into the sunset and will probably crash it again but crash it massively. 

If the USG legislate and shut down the exchanges their scam will be halted so they will rush to exit the market.

The result is at the end of this journey bitcoin becomes worthless or back to down to 2 cents (maybe a few dollars each I reckon) and the miners ride off with the loot. 

It's a clear scam and new entrants are the suckers who are buying bitcoins off the miners who are further up the chain by virtue of buying them all when they were 2 cents and whom are now busy frantically mining the rest to sell to new entrants.

Wake up people.

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## jj-

> No one has refuted my theory.


You'll need to write something coherent first.

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## Icymudpuppy

Gold/Silver/Copper all all sufficiently anonymous for me.  Although there is a cost for exchanging them for coin of the realm, it is not extreme.  I keep my savings in PMs as they are Very stable over the long term.

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## muh_roads

> No one has refuted my theory.
> 
> Bitcoin is a scam.
> 
> The miners who are paying for the expensive equipment are all early adopters when it was 2 cents and are dumping on to suckers and buying their equipment.  Also dumping are big fish like Kim, drug dealers etc.
> 
> They will keep dumping to new suckers (entrants to the market) as they mine the $#@! out of it and when it's all mined they will go off into the sunset and will probably crash it again but crash it massively. 
> 
> If the USG legislate and shut down the exchanges their scam will be halted so they will rush to exit the market.
> ...


Anything you want to know is right here...  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths

Do you actually care to inquire about your concerns or are you just trolling?  I think you should be banned IMO.  You won't shut up about the same crap when google is two clicks away.  FFS your posts are getting tired.

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## muh_roads

> No one has refuted my theory.
> 
> Bitcoin is a scam.
> 
> Wake up people.


Personal theories do not equal proof of a scam.




> The miners who are paying for the expensive equipment are all early adopters when it was 2 cents and are dumping on to suckers and buying their equipment.


They paid for the investment of their hardware, in many cases it was very expensive...the early adopters (if they didn't sell) get to reap the rewards currently.  Why shouldn't they?  Miners are rewarded for their contribution to the network.  It cost a  lot of electricity to generate those 2 cent coins that was returning a negative profit at the time and Bitcoin made no  promises to them that they would ever go higher.




> Also dumping are big fish like Kim, drug dealers etc.


First you have no proof those people are dumping.  Second, even if they are...it is a free society.  They can do what they wish with their money. It is their money.  In a free society they can also sell what they wish.

If you don't like seeing drug dealers making money, then push to see them deregulated.  They are making money BECAUSE of retarded government policies...not the other way around.




> They will keep dumping to new suckers (entrants to the market) as they mine the $#@! out of it and when it's all mined they will go off into the sunset and will probably crash it again but crash it massively.


What you view as dumping I view as contributing to an economy that allows more people to be involved.  People can save or spend if they wish.  What makes that a scam?  People buy in because they want to use them for various reasons.




> If the USG legislate and shut down the exchanges their scam will be halted so they will rush to exit the market.
> 
> The result is at the end of this journey bitcoin becomes worthless or back to down to 2 cents (maybe a few dollars each I reckon) and the miners ride off with the loot.


If Government bans all guns and the early gun adopters enjoy a huge price increase.  Does that make guns a scam too?

Government is the problem.

You sound jealous.  There are people who will be first to anything and there will be people who weren't.  That doesn't make something a scam.  I wish I was 20 years older and could have got in on the computer revolution sooner.  I would've understood programming and would be making a lot more money at my day job than I do now.  But I didn't.  Such is life.




> It's a clear scam and new entrants are the suckers who are buying bitcoins off the miners who are further up the chain by virtue of buying them all when they were 2 cents and whom are now busy frantically mining the rest to sell to new entrants.


Miners who sold much cheaper to pay off their hardware and electricity costs are also missing out.  New users who buy and hold can make more than them.

-------------

If you want to point "ponzi" at something...it may be more fair to point at gox & the mining *hardware manufacturers*.  Satoshi intended for Bitcoin to send from user to user wallets.  Satoshi didn't have gox in mind.  Gox is the free market creating a service around Bitcoin.  Whether they are legit or not, I don't know.

Mining hardware manufacturers promise great returns despite not being honest about the rising difficulty.  Butterfly Labs raised their prices 2.5x just a few days ago.  I would say it is more of a legit concern to point the finger at them.

Bitcoin itself can't help what hackers and scammers do with the currency.  It's a free & open market that is completely deregulated and decentralized.  If you want to be part of it you need to learn how to protect yourself.  If you don't, it's not Bitcoins fault...it is your own.

Government isn't going to be around to wipe your sandy little vagina for everything.  Those of us that like Bitcoin don't want them to.  I've always wanted something completely deregulated and decentralized.  That time has arrived.

Bitcoin is helping us build a voluntary society without their permission.

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## thoughtomator

> I hardly see where a completely innovative technology that speaks directly to what many have come here for is something to be ashamed of.


There's the little problem that Bitcoin is no more sound a currency than any other type of fiat. Being an alternative to state currencies does not in and of itself make it a _good_ alternative. Even a debt-backed currency - provided not so much of that currency is created that the debt can't actually be paid - has more solidity to it.

Those of us looking for a _sound_ currency will not find it in agreed-upon illusions of bits and bytes. A currency must be backed by actual physical things of value in order to be sound.

If you are not at least a little bit skeptical of Bitcoin and similar schemes then you weren't listening too closely to Ron Paul talk about why a sound currency is important.

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## itshappening

Paladin, your ignoring the fact that the writer of the application is anonymous and he's anon for a reason.  

Because he's in on this scam and making off with everyone's money ! 

Wake up! 

If it was a truly amazing app he was proud of he'd put his name on it and be out there being heralded as the next Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/whatever.

He doesn't want that publicity because he and his friends are busily squirreling away MILLIONS of dollars LOL. 

It's probably the biggest scam i've ever seen. 

I have to hand it to Satoshi and his gang.

He sure has a lot of people fooled.  They really believe it.  

Little do they realize they'll be holding worthless bitcoins once he's mined them all, crashed the market and laughing all the way to the bank.

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## newbitech

> Paladin, your ignoring the fact that the writer of the application is anonymous and he's anon for a reason.  
> 
> Because he's in on this scam and making off with everyone's money ! 
> 
> Wake up! 
> 
> If it was a truly amazing app he was proud of he'd put his name on it and be out there being heralded as the next Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/whatever.
> 
> He doesn't want that publicity because he and his friends are busily squirreling away MILLIONS of dollars LOL. 
> ...


2 words,

open
source

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## itshappening

Satoshi was smart enough to release it as open source and let some community build up around it. He knew if he could get the community going and enough people believing it then it'll take off and increase in value.. As it does he continues to cash in, mine, cash in, mine some more and so on...

If you study it he has set it up very cleverly.  No one can compete with the guys at the top of the chain who are either Satoshi, his friends, associates or some very early adopters

He will mine it and rape it for all its worth leaving you at the end with worthless or near-worthless bitcoins.

Just watch.

Or as I say USG will stop the scam before he's finished.

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## newbitech

> There's the little problem that Bitcoin is no more sound a currency than any other type of fiat. Being an alternative to state currencies does not in and of itself make it a _good_ alternative. Even a debt-backed currency - provided not so much of that currency is created that the debt can't actually be paid - has more solidity to it.
> 
> Those of us looking for a _sound_ currency will not find it in agreed-upon illusions of bits and bytes. A currency must be backed by actual physical things of value in order to be sound.
> 
> If you are not at least a little bit skeptical of Bitcoin and similar schemes then you weren't listening too closely to Ron Paul talk about why a sound currency is important.


Ah, but it is AN alternative.  The more the merrier.  Makes me think of Ron Paul's views on smoking pot and basically putting whatever you want into your body.  He doesn't think its a great idea, but he's not going to be ashamed to stand up for your right to do so. 

I still don't see where the shame is. 

Who says that any of us have to agree on what a sound currency is for it to be an valuable and useful alternative?  Isn't that what competition is?  Don't you like the fact that people are willing and able to separate themselves from transacting in dollars? 

I'm not a bitcoin pumper, or enthusiast beyond being able to flip a few of them and increase my holdings in either dollars or btc.  However, I like the fact that an alternative to the dollar and generally state currency has gained attention.  

I think this is a pioneering effort and if the guy who is out there blazing the trail gets rich off it, good for him.  Good for anyone that can find a technologically SOUND way to compete with state fiat. 

In my mind, market fiat > state fiat.

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## newbitech

> Satoshi was smart enough to release it as open source and let some community build up around it. He knew if he could get the community going and enough people believing it then it'll take off and increase in value.. As it does he continues to cash in, mine, cash in, mine some more and so on...


open source is about leveraging the brain power of the community.  Any serious project that starts in the grassroots is open source.  Of course any idea that is shared by many and implemented by many will rise in value. 

If you wanted to attract venture capital or investment capital, or just create a profit off your idea, you have to develop the idea into a tangible product and send it out into the world.  Yes, there will be hype and pumping up.  Yes that created an unsustainable and crazy rise in the exchange rate of BTC/USD and BTC/all other state currency.

SO WHAT?

It corrected, as was extremely predictable.  It's probably not finished correcting.  The "product" is in market discovery mode right now. 

Actually, its been in discovery mode for some time, it's just now gaining a wider audience.  

The market will decide if it's a scam, not you, or me.

So far, your theory about it being a scam is contrary to the single that the market is sending.  So your theory isn't really getting much support from what I and many others can see with our own eyes, and yes manipulate and change with our hands.

Not saying your theory is wrong, it is after all, just a theory.  So I'll be looking for evidence that proves your theory, because I am prudent and diligent like that.  I won't discount your theory on its face, but so far I don't see any evidence to support your theory that BTC is a scam.

I'll just examine your first point.  

Something is not a scam because the people who created it have an interest in seeing it succeed.  If we use that definition of a scam, isn't your theory also a scam since you created it and you have an interest (not sure what it is yet, but I assume you have an interest in) seeing it succeed?  

So if you want to pull that notion from your theory, since it is so easily dis-proven, I will be more than happy to examine the next line.

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## enter`name`here

> Satoshi was smart enough to release it as open source and let some community build up around it. He knew if he could get the community going and enough people believing it then it'll take off and increase in value.. As it does he continues to cash in, mine, cash in, mine some more and so on...


The history of each coin is public record.  Much of the early coins have not moved since they were mined.




> If you study it he has set it up very cleverly.  No one can compete with the guys at the top of the chain who are either Satoshi, his friends, associates or some very early adopters
> 
> He will mine it and rape it for all its worth leaving you at the end with worthless or near-worthless bitcoins.
> 
> Just watch.
> 
> Or as I say USG will stop the scam before he's finished.


the miners are necessary for the network and it is only natural they would be rewarded for doing necessary work. Keep in mind that it is in the best interest of the miners for bitcoin to be successful, what is the point in mining worthless coins? So their motives don't frighten me all that much because their interests are aligned with those of the bitcoin economy as a whole.

Also you make specfic claims as to the number of miners and the power each entity exerts over the network, far as I can tell this is total speculation. Your claim that a select few control the entire network is no more valid then if I were to contend that processing power of the network is evenly divided between 3000 different people.

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## LibertyRevolution

Of course bitcoin is a scam...
It is backed by nothing, its not sound money, its even more worthless than fiat currency.
At least you can burn the fiat currency to stay warm when SHTF.

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## amy31416

If it's a scam, that's pretty amazing considering how much it's been under the microscope and can't yet be termed as such definitively. It's been around for over four years now.

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## LibertyRevolution

Lets look at it another way...
They have just about mined half the bitcoins, so 10.5million exist.
Each was valued at $65 2 days ago, so the entire bitcoin economy is worth $682,500,000.
71,277,366,000,000 is the world total GNP..So bitcoin is .000009575269658533678% of that.
That is why the USG doesn't care enough to shut it down at this point.

It is nothing, barely a blip on the radar of the world economy... 
It effects the worlds economy just about as much as the country of Samoa... So, basically not at all.

Gold for comparison... 8,487,797,102,400

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## muh_roads

> Paladin, your ignoring the fact that the writer of the application is anonymous and he's anon for a reason.  
> 
> Because he's in on this scam and making off with everyone's money ! 
> 
> Wake up! 
> 
> If it was a truly amazing app he was proud of he'd put his name on it and be out there being heralded as the next Bill Gates/Steve Jobs/whatever.
> 
> He doesn't want that publicity because he and his friends are busily squirreling away MILLIONS of dollars LOL. 
> ...


Do you work for a profit?  Yes?  I guess that makes you a scammer.

Gold miners are scammers too I suppose?

Satoshi is probably secretive because he/she/they don't want to get assassinated like the reddit creator who was against SOPA.

You're fishing for a theory that doesn't exist IMO.  Many say Satoshi owns the first 50 coins from the Genesis block...and that's about it.  I don't know and don't really care...

You have such a boner for hating Bitcoins that I think you're just trolling at this point.

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## kpitcher

I like tin foil hat conspiracy theories as much as the next person. But Satoshi was a scammer? That's a good one.

If Satoshi was a scammer hats off to being a visionary on something that would grow profitable enough to be worthy of a scam. Seriously - he, or the group - went through all the effort to create a peer to peer digital currency that works. Their release of the code worked it wasn't some half ass attempt with a 'here it is, help us fix it'. It's withstood years of scrutiny and with a billoin of value waiting to be scammed, it's not only holding up but growing. 

I don't think you understand what bitcoin mining truly is. If you think it's a way to just print money ALA the fed it is not. It is a lottery of people running the transactional servers to reward encoding the transaction history. They earn a few new coins - a way to ensure the early adopters don't have all the coins - and any micro transaction fees the system earned. 

I guess the thousands of people all talking tech tips on the various bitcoin mining forums are smoke and mirrors too? These are the ones that are contributing their resources to the large mining pools - no single individual mines by themselves instead they work in large groups to pool their resources and ensure earning some coins. And when I say some I do mean some. A $400 graphics card, nevermind the electricity and computer system it's plugged in to, will fetch you a whole $4 a day with an ever declining profit as the difficulty increases as there are more users. Miners believe that they're helping create the currency of the future.  No different than buying stock in a new company.

As to why he's anonymous there are many theories. He has serious crypto skills so it would not be surprising if he/they have a day job. Perhaps even in the banking industry that he stated he doesn't care for. It doesn't really matter.

I get you are fundamentally against bitcoin, that's fine. I can respect someone's differing opinion. However to be tossing out patently false info I can't abide.

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## newbitech

> Of course bitcoin is a scam...
> It is backed by nothing, its not sound money, its even more worthless than fiat currency.
> At least you can burn the fiat currency to stay warm when SHTF.


Could you imagine if there was an asteroid coming towards the earth and the only way to stop it was to focus millions of watts of computing power into generating an unknown frequency that would resonate the asteroid and it to disintegrate before impact?

I wonder if the world governments would be able to come together quickly enough to convince you and all of your social media friends to get together and tap on the enter key as fast as you could for 5 minutes all at the same time.  

What do you want your money to be backed by?

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## LibertyRevolution

> Could you imagine if there was an asteroid coming towards the earth and the only way to stop it was to focus millions of watts of computing power into generating an unknown frequency that would resonate the asteroid and it to disintegrate before impact?
> 
> I wonder if the world governments would be able to come together quickly enough to convince you and all of your social media friends to get together and tap on the enter key as fast as you could for 5 minutes all at the same time.  
> 
> What do you want your money to be backed by?


Really, Asteroid?  Man we are talking when the dollar tanks and it is like Zimbabwe.. not extinction level event..
My worry about asteroids is they will pull one into orbit and mine it for PM, tanking the market. lol

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## jtap

It seems to me that so many people right now don't even touch FRNs and go weeks without doing so. Direct deposit paycheque, debit card for transactions. More and more the average American is using a digital currency. It's more similar to BTC than people realize at first.

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## jj-

Satoshi is a scammer the same way somebody who invests in a business when it's small to profit when it grows is a scammer.

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## alucard13mmfmj

what prevents a competing virtual currency?

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## Bodhi

> what prevents a competing virtual currency?


Nothing, there are many more.  Nothing stops anyone tomorrow from creating a new one.

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## jmdrake

> Lets look at it another way...
> They have just about mined half the bitcoins, so 10.5million exist.
> Each was valued at $65 2 days ago, so the entire bitcoin economy is worth $682,500,000.
> 71,277,366,000,000 is the world total GNP..So bitcoin is .000009575269658533678% of that.
> That is why the USG doesn't care enough to shut it down at this point.
> 
> It is nothing, barely a blip on the radar of the world economy... 
> It effects the worlds economy just about as much as the country of Samoa... So, basically not at all.
> 
> Gold for comparison... 8,487,797,102,400


So let's see if I understand you right.  The biggest threat to biitcoin is that the government would "shut it down."  But the government isn't interested in shutting it down because it's relatively small in terms of market share.  So basically, until 1 bitcoin is worth thousands of USD, there's no need to worry about the government shutting it down.  Oh, you didn't say that, but that's the logical implication from the facts you are asserting.

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## kpitcher

> what prevents a competing virtual currency?


There are a few and all are branched from the bitcoin code in some way. They all try to be slightly different but nothing that truly stands out.
Litecion has a different encryption scheme that tried to make mining not take advantage to those with lots of graphics cards (They failed there) and is the next most popular crypto currency. Namecoin adds a distributed .bit domain name system. Then there are a pile of others.

The way bitcoin has grown to be so popular are the variety of services for using bitcoins. None of the others can be as easily accepted for payment or even traded on all the major exchanges. It's taken a few years for bitcoin to get where they are and the others are just trying to find a way to be relevant.

Realistically we could start a LibertEcoin in a heartbeat. But getting enough users to make it worthwhile, giving a value proposition on why people should use your coin instead of bitcoin or the already exciting coins, is the trick.

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## newbitech

> Really, Asteroid?  Man we are talking when the dollar tanks and it is like Zimbabwe.. not extinction level event..
> My worry about asteroids is they will pull one into orbit and mine it for PM, tanking the market. lol


every bitcoin thread deserves a celestial reference.  Even this one.

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## 69360

BTC was all the way down to mid 50's this morning. I was tempted to buy some at that price and sell when it recovered to $100. But I just don't trust the exchanges not to crash or get hit with a ddos. If there was a RELIABLE way to instantly trade this stuff I would have more faith.

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## ninepointfive

don't view bitcoin as an investment - view it as a way to make nearly anonymous transactions with a high degree of confidence.

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## kcchiefs6465

It's that 'nearly' part that always throws me off.

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## 69360

> don't view bitcoin as an investment - view it as a way to make nearly anonymous transactions with a high degree of confidence.



It's beyond too volatile to use as a currency and I don't see that changing. My only interest would be a quick profit.

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## newbitech

i'm averaged in at around 67 ish.  seems to be holding right there

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