I told you so.
There. I’ve said it.
The biggest Bitcoins exchange has gone bye-bye. It took with it the money that the investors thought was safe.
Reuters reports: “Mt. Gox had $174 million in liabilities against $32.75 million in assets. It was not possible to verify the document or the exchange’s financial situation.”
I say: “A fool and his digital money are soon parted.”
How will the investors prove in a Japanese bankruptcy court that they deserve a part of the supposed $32.75 million? After all, the transactions are all secret.
They wanted secrecy, and they got it, good and hard!
I have said it from the beginning. Bitcoins are not money. They are a crap-shoot. Those who invested in Mt. Gox have lost all of their money. Real money. Dollars.
The programmers (with little money then and less now) said Bitcoins will replace dollars. They said Bitcoins are safe. They said, “this is the wave of the future.” Yes, it was. A tsunami. Think of Mt. Gox as Fukushima.
You go to your bank. You take digital money out. Real digital money. Dollars. This leaves a record. You buy Bitcoins on an exchange. You lose control of your money. It’s not money any more. It’s Bitcoin digits. These digits are not money. They are promises to pay issued by some outfit you know nothing about.
Then it goes belly-up. Goodbye money. Goodbye dreams. Goodbye hype. “Sorry about that. Better luck next time.”
The programmers will say, “Well, it’s only one case! Accidents happen.” I say: “Don’t invest in accidents that are clearly waiting to happen.”
It will happen again. Who’s next? I don’t know. Neither do the programmers.
Bitcoins are no threat to central banks. They are a major threat to programmers who think Bitcoins are money.
Programmers bought Bitcoins from Mt. Gox. They could have bought gold. They were going to get rich with Bitcoins. Now they cannot find the head of Mt. Gox.
Read it and weep. The key words: “8 hours, 47 minutes ago.”
Six leading Bitcoin exchanges – which allow users to trade Bitcoins for U.S. dollars and other currencies – distanced themselves from the Tokyo-based exchange.
“This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry,” the companies – Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, BTC China, Blockchain and Circle – said in the statement. “As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we’re seeing today.”
Certain bad actors? Give me a break! This was the largest Bitcoins exchange on earth. This was Bitcoins in the minds of most Americans who knew about Bitcoins.
If you think Bitcoins are a threat to the Federal Reserve System, I’ve got a bridge to sell you in New York. A digital bridge. But I want payment in dollars, not Bitcoins.
This has probably the greatest number of misstatements of any article on Bitcoin I have recently seen. Mt. Gox was the biggest exchange some time ago but hasn't held that distinction for a while. Most of the money left at the first sign of trouble. It was a gaming company that bit off more than it could chew. The remaining businesses, such as Coinbase and Bitstamp are run by professional money managers with plenty of oversight. Secondly, the accounts are NOT secret and never were. They are all documented in detail. Where anyone gets the idea that they were secret is beyond me. It also is baffling that someone would think that programmers run the exchanges, they don't. Businessmen with experience in finance run them these days. The entire comment about the exchanges taking your money and then you have to trust them with it is nonsense. They are exchanges, not banks. I no longer own any Bitcoin but when I did none of it was ever left on an exchange. Most folks don't. Just to wrap up, nobody ever bought Bitcoin from an exchange. They bought Bitcoin from a seller and the exchange facilitated the transaction. Maybe there is some confusion about what an exchange does. I think it got way over priced and is having a much needed correction. That's why I sold last year. The idea, however, is quite sound. I also sold gold back in 2011. Bitcoin had nothing to do with the downfall of Mt. Gox anymore than gold and wheat brought down MF Global.
"greatest number of misstatements" – And so the excuses begin, and of course you blame those who warned about the not-a-currency scheme called Bitcoin. They are wrong! You were right! Get the doubters!
I can only hope you put all your money in Bitcoins, the way others put all their money in dollars. If you believe in it so much, you have nothing to fear, right? The crash will help you sober up. And a fool and his money SHOULD be parted, so he can't use them for something even dumber.
"The remaining businesses, such as Coinbase and Bitstamp are run by professional money managers with plenty of oversight."
Ok, I am going to hold you to your word. And should any of these blow up, I am going to quote you once again that day arise, and make sure you eat a big plate of crow. Thanks for being so sure of yourself.
It's understandable that people would be interested in an alternate currency such as Bitcoins. After all, the future for fiat money isn't that rosy. However, a sound currency needs to be 100% backed by hard money like gold or silver. Even better, gold and silver should circulate as money.
SO HOW MUCH DID YOU LOSE? WAKE UP YOUR BROKE, QUIT YOUR BITCHIN" I BET MY HAT THIS IS WHAT YOUR TELLING YOUR WIFE! LOL I make a prediction at this time next year all bitcoin will be is fodder for late night comedians.
I hope this digital currency fad ends soon, then maybe the AMD R290X video card will come down in price from $1,500 + to the list price of $600. They've been bid up in price by these stupid bitcoin miners.
This is the kind of commentary and analysis you will read when Zimbabwe comes to the US of A. Good luck world…
When I was just a lad in High School, I had a shop teacher who made the following observation. "You guys, if you can't eat it, smoke it or screw it, you don't want it". Little did he know how that attitude would serve to keep me from such fool-hardy schemes as "bitcoins".
Video cards are totally worthless for mining Bitcoin. If prices are high, that's not the reason.
I think that as in any venture, you have to run risks. The fact that these folks lost their money means that they were trying. Those that didn't loose anything in it just sat around watching.
Did you even read my post? It doesn't appear so. Not one excuse and no one blamed but the idiots at Mt. Gox. If you had read my post you would also see that I don't own any Bitcoin, having sold out last year. I can smell a collapse as well as the next fellow. I also bailed out of gold ahead of the last 40% drubbing for the same reason. Bitcoin must be a failure, though, you read it on the Internet and we all know that the Internet is never wrong.
Actually, they're the driving force behind mining Bitcoin. Their design is perfect for mining. That's why their prices are so high. That's why they're in such huge demand.
Do some research.
I'm glad Gary finally realizes that regulation and oversight is necessary.
Bitcoin has not failed. Mt.Gox is not Bitcoin, but is a Bitcoin exchange. They provide a place to convert fiat currency into Bitcoin. While you can store your Bitcoin on your Mt.Gox account, most do not. In fact, 94% of all Bitcoin in existence reside elsewhere. Keeping Bitcoin on an exchange when you aren't actively trading has always been a big no-no, as you do not have possession of your coins at that point. In this case, the folks who lost money are the folks who kept Bitcoins on their Mt.Gox account.
Mt.Gox has failed because their software implementation of the Bitcoin Protocol was flawed. The Flaw allowed users to manipulate Mt.Gox Bitcoin withdrawals to appear as if they had never taken place. Mt.Gox would then resend the withdrawn Bitcoins to the user upon request. This has been occurring for years and resulted in the "Theft" of the 752K Bitcoins that is being mentioned.
Anyone who has been seriously involved in Crypto Currencies has been avoiding Mt.Gox like the plague because they were very obviously incompetent. While it is unfortunate that a small portion of Bitcoin users are caught up in the failure of Mt.Gox, I say, good riddance to Mt.Gox. They were a failed service and deserved to fail.
Regulation and oversight are necessary. Just not by governments!
I have. Video cards are NOT used at all anymore and haven't been for quite some time. Video cards are FAR too slow to be used for mining Bitcoin. Dedicated banks of ASICs are needed to even hope to keep up.
Gary North, spent his entire career railing against fiat currency and the federal reserve. But when it comes to attacking Bitcoin, all of a sudden Dollars are ‘real money’.
The reality is once your bitcoin was transferred to Mt Gox, you were no longer using bitcoin, but Mt Gox own internal software system. Some hackers found an exploit where they could make a bitcoin deposit, then reject it within the 10 minute timeframe, but MtGox still showed this deposit as actually existing on their internal system. These same hackers then later withdrew ‘real’ bitcoins from MTGox. This is how some hackers were able to drain MtGox. Nothing to do with Bitcoin itself. The bitcoin malleability issue has always been known, that why you wait 10 minutes to confirm a transaction.
If you want to get any significant money out of BC and into yen/dollars/euros the only viable way is via an exchange.
And Mt. Gox was until recently a very large and popular one.
So who do you trust now with your BC?
Business managers in digital can be. Any unskilled. with. A moring. Robb. On and never know. You. Live. In a digital. World, you are. Controlled. By. Gamers. Digital charecters. Got your real money for. A game. Play like. Thing. Ever play. Digital. Poker. No real. Money. Same thing but real. To.those. who trust. Make. Believe. Computer. Worlds. Dummies. Sorry. It,s. All I know. to tell you the real. Of it. By. .. . the. way. You owe. Me for. .many. Digital homes I built. You. …can,t find them in the teal world but trust. Me. They are. Real, ???
I trust myself to hold my crypto currencies. I don't put anything on an exchange unless I am going to do an instant conversion to fiat or trade for another crypto currency. If the latter, I withdrawal as soon as my trade is completed.
As far as purchasing Bitcoins or converting back in to fiat, you can use Coinbase if you are in the US, Bitstamp in the EU, and BTCChina if you are in China. BTC-E is available as well. Those have been the most trusted exchanges for the last six months at least.
It has been pretty difficult to get any money out of Mt.Gox for several months, but I have no personal experience with that as I have never used them. As I said before, most people that are heavily involved in cryptos have stayed away from Mt.Gox.
BZZZT! Wrong answer Shane, would you like to go for double jeopardy where the scores can really change?
How about 100% backed by math? I can’t tell if you understand how it works based on your post.
You can both be right on this one. There are probably a lot of individuals trying to join the gold rush, even if they don’t have the sophistication of the larger operations.
Along a similar vein, I wonder how many U.S. Dollars have been "stolen" in just the time this article was written? At least a bitcoin is more traceable than an I.O.U by some government or central bank…
So you live in the jungle and live off the land? Please.
It means no fractional reserve banking. A=A, 1+1=2. Logic, Mathematics and Praxeology (economics) are deductive systems.
"This was Bitcoins in the minds of most Americans who knew about Bitcoins."
Ad populum, and modus operandi.
No, you actually can't mine Bitcoin with video cards any more. You can hook them up to a network and watch your electric bill spin up the charges but you won't mine anything. Network speeds are now so high that the odds of a graphics card mining a Bitcoin begin to resemble to Lottery. Somebody might find one but it won't be you. To say they are the driving force behind Bitcoin mining is beyond ridiculous.
I read JP Morgan was interested in investing in Bitcoin. If they are don't you think they would fabricate this stuff to lower the value so they can buy it all up and become the biggest exchange in the world??
Let's put mining with a R9 290x in perspective. If you were to mine Bitcoin on a mining pool, you would probably mine around $0.08 worth of Bitcoin per day. Yes, 8 cents.
If you take into account that the 290x uses around 295 Watts when its running full blast, and add another 100 watts or so for the computers other components, that's around 400 watts.
Now if you are paying $0.10 per Kw, thats $0.88 per day of electricity cost, plus generation fees, taxes, etc, but forget all of that, let's deal with the known 88 cents.
You would actually be paying (losing) $0.80 per day to mine..and it's only going to get more difficult to mine as time goes on. So mining Bitcoin on video cards is dead and has been for quite some time, unless you have free electricity, but even still..pretty pointless.
Now that is Bitcoin. There are hundreds of different crypto currencies to mine and their difficulty and value fluctuate all the time. Mining a scrypt based (Litecoin clone) coin, you could probably make $2 – $5 a day with one of those cards. But, think about how long would it take you to pay for a R9 290x ($699 @ Newegg) at those rates, 4 1/2 months of 24×7 mining…at best.
“This tragic violation of the trust of users of Mt. Gox was the result of one company’s actions and does not reflect the resilience or value of Bitcoin and the digital currency industry,” the companies – Coinbase, Kraken, Bitstamp, BTC China, Blockchain and Circle – said in the statement. “As with any new industry, there are certain bad actors that need to be weeded out, and that is what we’re seeing today.”
This is nothing more than the sad tale of people hoping they can keep the scam going long enough to get paid. It reminds me of a stock tout on a local show who bought big into a penny stock fraud. He had a good year and the money flooded in to his fund and he put millions into a penny stock IPO. When it started to collapse he dumped 100,000 into it and brayed to everybody within earshot about how confident he was. Why not, he was going to lose tens of millions. If he could temporarily goose the stock up and dump it on anyone else listening he could cut his losses tremendously.
Once JP Morgan has all the bitcoins and everybody else has all the money, why would they buy back any bitcoins?
The value of Bitcoin is up 1,500% from where it was at 1 year ago today.
Your comparison to the penny stocks example is invalid, as most exchanges make money on transfer fees for trades between individuals, rather than selling their own Bitcoins. When you purchase Bitcoins on an exchange using fiat, you are buying them from another user on the exchange who wants to trade their Bitcoins for fiat.
Example: Seller A sells 1 Bitcoin @ $555 to Buyer B. The Exchange takes 0.2% from both buyer and seller at the time of the transaction,.002 Bitcoin from the buyer and $1.11 from the seller. The buyer receives .998 Bitcoin and the seller receives $ 553.89.
I had no problem identifying MtGox as a bad actor when I first got into BitCoin. Neither did most other people I know. The only people who lost money at MtGox were fools. And fools are soon parted with their money.
If you trust Federal Reserve Bankster Notes more than the free-market, as turncoat Gary North apparently now does, you are an even greater fool. They've been robbing us blind for over 100 years, and yet the increasing senile Gary North suggests running back home to the bankster mafia with your tail between your legs when things get a little rough in the free market.
BitCoin and crypto-currencies are the purest expression of the free-market that we've seen in decades.
The answer to our monetary enslavement lies on the road ahead, not back on the plantation. Was Gary North foolish enough to believe that the road to freedom was going to be a smooth one? Apparently so.
The world is what we make it to be. And there are a LOT of good people involved in crypto-currencies who are trying to make it a better place.
Gold and Silver are excellent stores of value, but in a modern world they are next to useless for conducting transactions. This is no longer a world in which 95% of your transactions could take place in a face to face environment at the town square market. We now live in a long-distance global economy.
Gary North is trying very hard to ignore this reality, but it can't be ignored. Honest money for a modern world must have some important attributes that gold and silver just don't have.
I had a box of silver coins in my garage, and I wanted to sell them so I gave them to a third party storage service to hold for me. This third party exchange lost my silver and now won't give me my money back! In conclusion, silver coins have failed, they are worthless and anyone investing in silver coins is stupid.
Yep, everyone should pile back into bankster monopoly money. Screw free-market ideas. Run back home to mommy – the government will keep you safe.
— right up until the point where THEY screw you. And you've have no way to use your judgement to avoid that trap – because they have TOTAL control over their money, and they have all the guns to enforce that control.
Sorry, I'll take my chances with the free-market. Liberty does not come without risk.
And what backs gold and silver?
… I'll give you a hint.
1) The productive capacity of the economy.
2) Resistance to debasement
Nothing else.
Without an economy that produces goods and services that you can trade it for, gold is worth nothing. You can't eat it, you can't burn it for energy. The same is true for BitCoin, and Bankster Fiat
Bankster fiat has no resistance to debasement,
Gold and BitCoin do.
Gold has very poor transactional utility in a modern long distance economy.
BitCoin better transactional utility than any form of money ever invented.
Some love to point out that BitCoin would be rendered useless if the internet were completely shut off… True, but in that case you have also destroyed the economy, so your Gold and Fiat would be worthless too. The modern economy is TOTALLY dependent on the internet.
And in 4.5 months, those GPU's probably won't even be able to pay their electric consumption anymore, because the difficulty of mining Alt-coins keeps going up.
Bottom line – if you want to mine BitCoins with GPU's, your are way too late.
– if you want to mine Alt-Coins with GPU's, and aren't already doing it, you are also too late.
Anything can be lost if you aren't careful. That includes Fiat, Gold. Silver, and Bitcoin.
The question is, which one can be most easily and effectively protected from being stolen?
I would argue that Bitcoin in cold storage is probably the most secure by a large margin.
Gold, Silver, and Fiat will be instantly recognizable if discovered by a thief. BitCoin in cold storage can be hidden and disguised in such a way that a potential thief would never be able to find or recognize it.
Gold and silver as money are medium of exchanges. A money that can't be manipulate by government fiat is necessary for a thriving economy. I do not agree with your statement "Gold has very poor transactional utility in a modern long distance economy. BitCoin better transactional utility than any form of money ever invented." However, I'm willing to see how it plays out on the market place. I betting that gold and silver win in the long-run, because it takes productive effort to produce them; which means the quantity can't be increased willy-nilly. By the way, during the destruction of an economy, I would much prefer to possess hard assets than paper promises.
Somehow, it's very interesting for me that in his opinion about bitcoin Mr North is in total agreement with the office of our Russian Attorney General – to tell nothing about the Central Bank of the Communist China. Mighty allies, aren't they? Rostislav, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
Your emotional attachment to gold and silver, and lack of technical understanding of how crypto-currencies work is clouding your analysis. I accumulated a very substantial amount of Ag in the past 10 years, but I recognized a few years ago that it has, and always will have, a liquidity problem from here on out. The ease of transferring value from point A to point B has become paramount in our modern long-distance economy.
Gold and silver once worked very well for face to face purchases. Paper fiat replaced gold/silver coins for face to face purchases LONG ago. I should also be obvious by now that paper fiat is being replaced by digital bankster dollars. Cash is only being accepted for smaller and smaller transactions. Look around and you'll that see this is true. Paper money – just like gold and silver – is becoming increasingly inconvenient and difficult to use. The digital age is here, there is no going back unless society collapses back to the horse and buggy days and all trade (except local trade) comes to a total halt. That s not likely to happen, because that would destroy the source of power for banksters and governments.
You correctly point out that Gold and Silver require productive effort to produce. Difficulty of production is critical for honest money, so it can't be debased by a corrupted central issuing authority.
You fail to acknowledge (or understand) that cyrpto-currencies share this same critical characteristic. Crypto-currencies have no central issuing authority. They are issued in limited quantity – at great effort – by ANYONE with the knowledge and resources to mine them. Any changes to the protocol have to be approved by a majority consensus of those in the mining community. Any attempt to modify the protocol by a single entity, or even a minority group, will be immediately rejected by the network overall. Willy-nilly creation of any particular crypto-currency is simply not possible unless the protocol supports it.
Any crypto-currency that is introduced which does support unbridled creation is not going to be accepted by the market, and if it were, it would self-destruct in short order. People will not continue to use something that is decreasing in value – IF they have other choices. (Which is why it is important that BitCoin has competition from other Crypto-currencies)
The "blockchain" – the public ledger, is one of the key components that makes crypto-currencies totally transparent, while also being pseudo anonymous. Absolute anonymity can not be achieved without losing transparency. The level of transparency provided by the blockchain MUST be present so that anyone can monitor creation and flow of a crypto-currency in an economy. That enables totally honest and open money. The market then has the tools it needs to compare and choose which crypto-currency it wishes to use.
One final point, so long as we have a functional central money issuing authority, gold and silver have no chance to escape being artificially manipulated and suppressed by massively leveraged paper markets. Crypto-currencies have no such vulnerability.
It doesn't matter who fabricates or "mines" the bitcoin that much so long as the quantity is limited. And IT IS limited by the protocol itself. The protocol can't be changed without a majority consensus of those mining it. If JPMorgue tried to corner the ASIC market to mine more of the remaining Bitcoins, their effort would have minimal impact since over half of all BitCoin has already been mined.
It would be easier for them to just buy up all the BitCoin with freshly printed Federal Reserve Notes. But that approach also fails because:
1) The BitCoin must circulate in the economy to be of any value.
2) The quantity is still limited.
So, in theory they could buy up all the bitcoin and hold it. But, they've just traded away all the value. The value will then flow into another crypto-currency and then they are faced with the same problem once again.
So long as you have competing currencies (which is what cyrpto-currencies enable), central banks can not win the game.
They must find a way to get ahead of, and stay ahead of, some of the brightest minds who believe in the free-market.
That isn't going to be easy.
You present some rather interesting points. I agree that there is a problem with massively leveraged paper markets. Since free enterprise produces desirable results, I favor crypto-currency competition. Your argument is similar to the free banking argument-no central bank. Let see how it plays out. However, I wouldn't discount gold and silver in the long-run.
I certainly wouldn't trust the banks themselves to do it, and if you do, you're a fool. Independent 3rd party agency, maybe.
Thank you for your enlightening post, David.
Oh wait, never mind. You brought nothing to this conversation.
Its so sad to read this article. I actually respect Gary North, his opinions… But this is the shittiest of articles i have ever read. The first commenter is 1000% correct.
"Yep, everyone should pile back into bankster monopoly money. Screw free-market ideas."
Everyone, reread my post. Do you see any words that remotely resemble what Ken is saying here?
Neither did I.
So is Ken responding to someone else's post and replied to mine by mistake? Or is he just retarded?
"Sorry, I'll take my chances"
No need to be sorry Ken, I corrected your error.
"Thank you for your enlightening post, David."
Your welcome Shane, I was more than happy to show that your claim regulation and oversight was necessary is not only false, but completely missing the point of the article.
"Oh wait, never mind."
We already "never mind" you when you post here Shane, unless what you say is so ridiculous you make us burst out laughing.
"You brought nothing to this conversation."
Shane only accurately describes himself here.
The government has repeatedly allowed banks to commit fraud, so your suggestion is foolish. People need to wake up and stop trusting banks. I don't, instead making sure my money is distributed well enough that any one theft won't impact me greatly.
Bitcoin and Litecoin and others are a good thing, because of the opportunity to separate from those who want only to controll and, in time, destroy. The $ and Bitcoin are both fiat and based solely on trust. As soon as we stop trusting the dollar just like the Peso and DM and others in the past, then the value disappears. And of course they come up with New Pesos worth 1000 of the old, terrific! That helps me so much – Gracias. If we think that we can trust the Gov't and the Private People of the Fed, controlled only by the goals their users seek, to do what is right for the people, we will be crushed even more than we are now. BUt if they are smart they will keep moving slow enough to keep the riots down and make you think you have something to lose by fighting back. The Govt and the Fed is a cabal, but the controllers of both are the same. If one controls the value of money and the up and down of an economy so you can come in and collect the real and always valuable assets for tiny fractions of the fiat money and the ability to confiscate money from people and control them with close to 10 million laws, as far as this dying world goes, what can't you ultimately control with a little patience and time. So far, NOTHING. If you think there is no effort to control the people then you are perfectly controlled. If you know what I just said, then you probably are a resister.
So yes because Bitcoin- there may be options to get away from some of the government control (I have none, and have made no efforts, b/c of the lack of trust I have for it just yet) . But the more people benefit and are successful with it, I fear, the more problems will occur. Some real and some made up, anything to discredit it and move the people away from the door of freedom and back into their gov't cage. Our gov't and every gov't is not what it is supposed to be. It has long been lost to the dark forces and dark principalities of this dark world. But take heart, there is a way out. All you need to do is find out Who the only person is who claimed to be the Truth, and figure out whether or not the person was telling the Truth. Because, ultimately it does not matter what you believe, so long as it is the Truth.
I read your post and found it to be a calm, level- headed response to an 'I told you so' bit of thinking. To recognize a trend and act accordingly, while remaining open to a shifting medium of exchange, free of governmental controls..("for our own good", of course) seems to me to be prudent critical thinking. Accepting risk, reward, and responsibility is a better measure of one's commitment to individual liberty and freedom than hyperbole and keeping score over who's right at the moment. It was a thoughtful comment.
" Do you expect your grocery store to reprice everything they sell several times a day in order to keep up with its fluctuations?"
There is no need for a grocery store to reprice anything. You can ring everything up priced in dollars, then pay that dollar amount in Bitcoin.
The market has provided payment services, such as Coinbase and BitPay, which handle exchange rates and allow businesses to take payment in Bitcoin and then instantly convert that payment into dollars. The payment processors take a small fee on each transaction that is typically substantially less than that of credit/debit card transactions meaning more $ in the pocket of the business per transaction.
With the QR code technology becoming more popular at POS installations, adding Bitcoin Payments to any business is fairly simple.
You are the Stupid One ,A fool and their are soon departed . By a very large safe ,home security ,guns,and alot of bullets.
"There is no need for a grocery store to reprice anything. You can ring everything up priced in dollars, then pay that dollar amount in Bitcoin."
In other words, Bitcoin is useless as currency without Federal Reserve Bankster Notes.
Thanks for proving my point shuadoom.
The intent of your post was to draw attention to the lack of regulation among Bitcoin exchanges. To see you scorn such a free market draws comparisons to central-bank issued currency. You do know that you paid for the bank bailouts in 2008? Even if you didn't want to, you paid for it. Right there is the advantage of a wild free market. You take the risk. You own your money.
Unless you stupidly leave it on an incompetent exchange.
He doesn't have a bank balance as a result, because he can't eat it, smoke it, or screw it.
Unfortunately, he now can't pay for a screw either.
Gary, it's obvious you didn't do your research. I'm really disappointed in you.
Who is ignorant enough to confuse bitcoin, the digital currency, with MtGox, an exchange?
This does not prove your point. The case would be the same regardless of what form of alternative currency you are using if the standard currency is in FRN. The value of Gold or Silver are priced in FRN, not because they have no value on their own, but because the standard currency is FRN.
"This does not prove your point."
Yes it does.
"The case would be the same regardless of what form of alternative currency you are using if the standard currency is in FRN."
Wrong, an alternate currency, such as gold or silver, could be used if the buyer and seller wish. The "standard currency" is irrelevant.
"The value of Gold or Silver are priced in FRN, not because they have no value on their own, but because the standard currency is FRN."
You completely miss the point. Gold and Silver don't skyrocket up and down in a single day. A currency needs to be stable. Bitcoin is useless as currency. Gold and silver can be used as currency because they tend to be more stable. Anything that tends to be stable in value could be used as currency in theory.
A store could put its prices in gold, and not have to change them every day. They could accept gold and not have to check the price and update it before completing the sale. Bitcoin would require you to check and double check the price before each sale so someone doesn't lose their shirt.
"The intent of your post was to draw attention to the lack of regulation among Bitcoin exchanges."
Wrong. You have completely misunderstood my intent. You read minds very poorly.
"To see you scorn such a free market draws comparisons to central-bank issued currency. You do know that you paid for the bank bailouts in 2008? Even if you didn't want to, you paid for it. Right there is the advantage of a wild free market. You take the risk. You own your money."
When you are done preaching to the choir, go back and read my post. It has nothing to do with lack of regulation, or scorning free markets. It has everything to do with pointing out Liberty1 giving BS assurances are nothing but empty promises. And now, one week later, Flexcoin just announced all their user accounts have vanished.
Proving Liberty1 was wrong. As I knew he was.
I am now going to go rub this in Liberty1's face and enjoy every minute of it. I suggest damisword that you work on your reading comprehension.