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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#426: Mar 2nd 2014 at 7:28:47 AM
Thumped: Please see The Rules . This is a warning that this post is the sort of thing that will get you suspended.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#427: Mar 2nd 2014 at 7:31:30 AM

I am amused by the allegations of suicides over the losses

I am not. Real people, Fighteer, if it's true. Grow up.

edited 2nd Mar '14 7:36:06 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#428: Mar 2nd 2014 at 7:37:59 AM

People treat this thing like some kind of lark or game, then act all shocked and surprised when their SUPER INTERNET MONEY vanishes due to fraud.

Okay, maybe it's not funny. It's a Darwinian elimination method for those who are suffering from a case of terminal memetic gullibility.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#429: Mar 2nd 2014 at 7:41:57 AM

It's an interesting concept, but regulation does exist for a reason.

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#430: Mar 2nd 2014 at 7:42:27 AM

Plenty of people are guilty of stupendous financial imprudence. Losing your savings on Bitcoin is arguably better than pissing them away with gambling or drink, and not much different to the little old ladies who get taken for thousands in Ponzi schemes or other frauds. They deserve pity, perhaps with a healthy dose of "well that was silly", but taking pleasure or amusement from their actual suicide is wrong.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#431: Mar 2nd 2014 at 7:45:26 AM

I do not take pleasure in their deaths. I find satisfaction in the proof of the maxim that "a fool and his money are soon parted". I mean, what's Rule One of investing? "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

What I find more revealing about the article is the entirely unsurprising conclusion that the executives of Mt.Gox were, if not in on the heist, at least intentionally covering it up and/or trying to profit off it.

Of course, the article's author appears to be one of those who believes that bitcoin is destined to become the global currency, so that's a strike against his grasp of reality.

edited 2nd Mar '14 8:12:17 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#432: Mar 2nd 2014 at 8:45:52 AM

Yeah, I felt bad for laughing at people's financial ruin with this Bitcoin thing. But then I sort of realized that for one they're idiots, for two they're probability libertarian randroids. So eh.

Oh really when?
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#433: Mar 2nd 2014 at 8:48:19 AM

I feel bad for them but I don't see any point in denying that they brought this on themselves through their own stupidity.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#434: Mar 2nd 2014 at 8:51:06 AM

A question unrelated to libertarians: Would it be possible to create a kind of Bitcoin-like currency, but backed with a central bank and regulation much like a regular currency?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#435: Mar 2nd 2014 at 8:51:39 AM

Isn't that basically electronic money? We kind of have that to some degree since most transactions are done through credit cards without any cash changing hands.

edited 2nd Mar '14 8:52:02 AM by Kostya

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#436: Mar 2nd 2014 at 9:07:25 AM

The answer is trivially yes. The algorithms underlying bitcoin are intended to be used to ensure that transactional history and therefore ownership of the currency can be verified; there is no inherent reason why there could not be a central issuer instead of a decentralized trust network. Of course, we already have electronic money that works perfectly well, so there is a question of what niche it would fill.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#437: Mar 2nd 2014 at 9:52:20 AM

"Electronic money" according to what I see is the general term for money that is transferred over electronic means, so that answer isn't very helpful. I was asking more in terms about how it would work out, especially since a lot of Bitcoin's problems that were mentioned here are due to the lack of regulation and a fiat mechanism.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#438: Mar 2nd 2014 at 9:59:17 AM

Well the thing about Bitcoin is that it's supposed to be a currency without a central bank regulating it. If you back it by a central bank then I don't see how it would differ from any other national currency beyond there not being any coins or bits of paper associated with it.

edited 2nd Mar '14 9:59:42 AM by Kostya

Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#439: Mar 2nd 2014 at 12:07:41 PM

One point that is strongly in BTC's favor is that it is not as susceptible to influence by the security state, as more established means of electronic trading are. For instance, Pay Pal cutting off Wikileaks' funding, and others.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#440: Mar 2nd 2014 at 1:07:27 PM

Bitcoin holdings have been confiscated by the FBI on several occasions. It's no more immune in this regard than any other currency.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
imadinosaur Since: Oct, 2011
#441: Mar 2nd 2014 at 1:44:07 PM

(As far as I understand it) Bitcoin is more or less an attempt to create an electronic analogue of coins. So, yes, the government can take them, but they also can not (without taking them from you) stop you from giving them to someone else. While the government can use intimidation to prevent Paypal and so on from dealing with dissidents, all they can do with Bitcoin is to confiscate it after-the-fact.

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#443: Mar 3rd 2014 at 6:27:29 AM

Wired has "the inside scoop" on Mt Gox's collapse.

It's actually not much of a story, mainly just gossip. In essence:

  • Turns out being an OK programmer and Mensa member doesn't qualify you to run a financial service.

  • Turns out being a craplousy programmer really doesn't qualify you to run a financial service.

  • Ignoring the problems years in the making is not a good idea.

  • When you're temple is collapsing around you, there are more important things than setting up the "Bitcoin Cafe".

  • Mt Gox's source code was so bad I could probably do better.

  • Hackers have been creaming money off the top of the site for years.

  • Karpeles took a weekend off during one of the last crises.

Dear, dear, dear.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Zendervai Since: Oct, 2009
#445: Mar 3rd 2014 at 7:07:48 AM

How did it manage to run for so long then? Inertia?

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#446: Mar 3rd 2014 at 7:12:30 AM

As with many financial schemes that go belly up, there was a trust factor involved. Mt.Gox maintained its solvency through having a reputation as being an "in" place to stash your bitcoins. Once you're "in", you have a psychological investment in the site that causes you to ignore warning signals up to a certain threshold. Meanwhile, the people running the place maintained a public facade of profligacy that lent credibility to the idea that its problems were superficial in nature rather than fundamental.

It's derived from the same psychological source as the Sunk Cost Fallacy. It's a herd mentality that you find among investors in all sorts of failed and fraudulent schemes. Actually, a very similar mentality can be seen in the behavior of Karpeles and his buddies. The need to save face overrides any sense of public responsibility to come clean, especially when the cause of the problem is your own incompetence.

edited 3rd Mar '14 7:15:22 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#447: Mar 3rd 2014 at 7:26:31 AM

[up]

That, and also that it was set up as a Magic The Gathering card exchange then converted very early on in the Bitcoin boom into a Bitcoin exchange. The guy who started it sold it to Karpeles when he realized he wasn't qualified to run something like that (talk about irony). Inertia is a big part of it too; it was the first, so it built up a huge head of steam and a huge market share by virtue of having a near monopoly during the early days when you could mine BTC on a PC - it's worth noting that when serious competition began to emerge, Gox took a battering. A lot of bitcoiners(?) have been saying Gox is useless for years.

There is also speculation they tried to compensate for their losses by trying to operate Baby's First Fractional Reserve (Evil! Fraud! Liars! Banksters! etc) and - golly gosh! - found they weren't qualified for that either.

edited 3rd Mar '14 7:27:52 AM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#448: Mar 3rd 2014 at 7:28:18 AM

Those are the details. The big picture is that there's nobody who is more invested in appearing competent than a person who is in over their head.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
storyyeller More like giant cherries from Appleloosa Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: RelationshipOutOfBoundsException: 1
More like giant cherries
#449: Mar 3rd 2014 at 7:29:12 AM

By the sound of it, Karpeles wasn't qualified to run anything, not that he knew it.

No VCS. Seriously?

Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play
LeGarcon Blowout soon fellow Stalker from Skadovsk Since: Aug, 2013 Relationship Status: Gay for Big Boss
Blowout soon fellow Stalker
#450: Mar 3rd 2014 at 7:29:25 AM

When in doubt, make it look convincing.

My mother always told me that and it'll get you much farther in life than you think.

Oh really when?

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