Eating Crowcoinpie, Kinda

Well, this blog has served its purpose. I hope I saved some people from dumping money into Bitcoins last year.

I do believe the recent rise in the value of the currency is legitimate, as reflected by the growing volumes of BitCoin trade on MtGox, and given the growing use of BitCoins as a way to pay for porn on Reddit, among other things.

As for the results of the poll, I would erase the "World Domination" as an outlier driven by true believers. The other votes are a pretty good indication of the wisdom of crowds.

Personally I think there's a chance BitCoins will survive in the short run (a year) as a way for anonymous micropayments for porn; and as a way of money-laundering and some speculative buying as a 'store of value'. In the long run it will remain as a historical curiosity unless someone develops a disruptive technology that breaks the system.

I may post on this blog again, who knows, but I plan to let the domain lapse (anybody who wants it feel free to contact me _ you can buy it in Bitcoins for a very good price!).

Good luck to all those true believers, you'll need it. To everybody else, always remain cautious and skeptical.

Best,

Beryl

Technology Review: why BitCoin sucks

James Surowiecki of the New Yorker (here writing for MIT's Technology Review), becomes the latest to offer up the "hoarding will kill BitCoin" argument.

"We may already be living in that scenario, since despite all the buzz about Bitcoin, the number of actual transactions conducted in bitcoins, and the value of those transactions, has been shrinking."

Surowiecki says, and I would agree, it would be much better for BitCoin if it had never become the object of speculation. However, that's a bridge long since crossed. He says Shitcoin enthusiasts face a "real paradox."

"The best thing for bitcoins would be for people to stop thinking of them as an investment and start thinking of them as a currency. That probably requires the bubble to burst, as it may be doing right now. But if the bubble bursts, it's possible that people's interest in Bitcoin will just fade away."

Here's another ShitCoin paradox, no MIT credentials necessary: If it remains as difficult to use as it currently is, it can't get much traction outside of geek circles. But make it easy for people to use, and it'll no longer be Bitcoin.

MyBitCoin to refund 49 cents on the BTC

Well, that's not quite as well as you would have done putting your money in U.S. stocks the past weeks, but not as bad as a 100pct loss _ the most likely long-term outcome.

From the desk of 'Tom Williams'

https://www.mybitcoin.com/

For what it's worth, Tiger Beat has identified Williams as Dalin Owen.

Quote of the day:

"What do you think we did after the hack? We got shitfaced."

Runner up (Gawker):

Bitcoin is dying. Whatever.

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2011/08/the-bitcoin-is-dying-whatever/

In times of financial turmoil, BitCoins, like gold, shine

Oh no, wait, actually, they plummet.

Timothy Lee of Forbes has this take:

"You can’t eat, live in, or make jewelry out of Bitcions. And this means there’s no logical stopping point to Bitcoin’s price decline. So far Bitcoin enthusiasts have been buying Bitcoins as the price falls, convinced that the price will go back up eventually. But as the hoped-for rally has failed to materialize, more have gotten discouraged or bored and cash out, pushing the price down further. This process has been going on for a couple of months, and now it appears to be accelerating. I suspect it’s terminal."

Polish Bitcoin Escrow 'Company' Bitomat FAIL. The hits just keep coming

BitCoin, the currency of the future or a three-ring circus?

Today's hero is a person who may (or may not) be named Bartek Shabbat.

Actually, I can't tell from this Google-translated explanation of what happened whether he's claiming he was hacked, whether he's blaming it on Amazon, or whether, as most coverage says, he just accidentally deleted his hard drive.

Incompetent site manager, foolhardy users, or (as I would argue) a flawed ShitCoins concept to begin with, you be the judge. Why exactly should anybody pay him 17,000 BTC to take over his apparently flawed and reputationally damaged site? Quote of the day:

"Holy crap, that is crazy," Boston-based software developer and Bitcoin enthusiast Alex Spitzer said when Betabeat asked him what had happened. "It's like if I set up the Bank of America site on my home computer and forgot to back it up, and then rebuilt my machine."