[ExI] My personal "intelligence" failure regarding Bitcoin...

Asdd Marget alex.urbanec at gmail.com
Mon Jan 26 19:31:35 UTC 2015


I'm somewhat disappointed to see the general sentiment in this thread to be
focused only on Bitcoin's value as a "speculative investment." Bitcoin is
so much more than that.

The idea of cryptocurrency in general is a revolutionary concept. A
currency that is produced by pure math and raw computational power, instead
of multimillionaire bankers releasing money as they see fit. However, the
currency is not what I find interesting about Bitcoin itself. The
technology behind Bitcoin, the Blockchain, is the real star of this
advancement.

The Blockchain is essentially an unalterable public ledger. It safe guards
Bitcoin against double spending, incorrect wallet amounts, and all
transactions, but it has further potential. It could be used for Voting,
for contracts, for Deeds: anything that previously required records being
kept manually and physically can be stored virtually.

I've even applied for an ID, a "Proof-of-Existence", showing that I'm a
citizen of the planet Earth. My birthdate, sex, name, place of birth, all
of that can be encoded into the Blockchain.

Anyone who thinks Bitcoin is just a bubble or a speculative investment or a
place to "pump and dump", is not looking at the whole picture. This has the
potential to change the way our world operates.

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 10:19 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:

>
> I have a good story too.  It's much longer, so sorry, but for those
> interested....
>
> I liquidated a significant portion of my IRA to invest in Bitcoin, and
> bought in at an average of about about $120.  I was having fun at the
> Bitcoin Miama conference, in Jan of this year, while Bitcoin was arround
> $900, and I was thinking I was going to be way more rich than I really was.
>
> At that conference I heard more about Either, and Bitshares, and realized
> Bitcoin was doomed, so I started selling, while still arround $800.  At
> least, I was doing this slowely.  I still fealt Bitcoin had a good chance
> at making at least one more 10 times in value run, so was taking my time.
> But as things started to crash, likely because of MtGox, I panicked and
> activated my rehearsed plan to get out as fast as possible.  This plan
> included selling the maximum limit on many exchanges I had established
> accounts with, including MtGox.  So this include sending 90  of my Bitcoin
> through Mt Gox with an immediate sell.  I knew the risk, but figured the
> better price was worth the cost, and obviously lost that bet, and those 90
> Bitcoin.
>
> So, when all is said and done, I made a crap load of money, and then lost
> most of it during this expensive panic selling on exchanges. incliding
> being Goxed.  But we were able to pay off our house with what was left, and
> we had near the same amount of money left, not in IRA money, taxes and
> penalties paid, so kind of a constellation, finally not having a house
> payment, and some non IRA money could could now spend/invest.
>
> I then invested (not near as much) in both Bitshares and Either, still
> thinking these will take over where Proof of Waist Bitcoin left off.  At
> the Bitshares Price peak, I made more money, with a much smaller
> investement, than I did with Bitcoin, so was feeling rich again.  But, at
> the current valuations, the profit is much smaller.  I sometimes wonder if
> even Bitshares or Either will be able to survive and make crypto currency
> any more than a flash in the pan, like most all grass roots efforts to
> revolutionize the world.  People just need to find some way to make a grass
> roots efforts scale to become as powerful to compete with Hierarchy and
> bureaucracy.  (You know, like you can do with Canonizer.)  and become more
> than just a flash in the pan.  I think at least Ripple will disrupt things,
> and contribute to the hierarchical bureaucracies that created them, and
> make things more efficient than currently.  It'd be too bad if we can't do
> more.
>
> I could sell out now, with little if any profit, again.  I am wondering if
> I should.  Or, could a 2.0 currency take over where Proof of waist left off?
>
> What would you guys do?  Anyone still holding any crypto currency of any
> kind, besides me?  What is your favorite Currency (most likely to have a
> future) today?  Bitshares and Either are still quite pie in the sky, but
> you never know, if they can manage not to destroy each other (again, as
> Canonizer.com might be able to enable, by building consensus for things
> like mergers between such).  After all, the singularity is near, right?
>
> Brent
>
>
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>
>
>
> On 1/25/2015 5:53 PM, John Clark wrote:
>
>  On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 1:51 AM, Stuart LaForge <avant at sollegro.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Don't feel so bad, John. You didn't profit but neither did you lose. I
>> too have a tale of woe regarding bitcoin. I bought 120 btc from MtGox back
>> in 2011 at about $8 per when MtGox was the only exchange with any
>> reputation.
>>
>> Because my computer is old and slow, except for some experimentation, I
>> never transferred the btc into my wallet. I figured I was going to be
>> trading on the highs and lows anyway so I left my bitcoins in my MtGox
>> account as I would stocks on E-trade or a similar online brokerage account.
>>
>> When the price went through the roof back at the end of 2013, I sold off
>> my coins for about $60,000. I was congratulating myself for having made a
>> $59,000 profit on a $1000 investment.
>>
>> But when I tried to get my $60,000 wired back to my bank account, the
>> nightmare began. MtGox started demanding copies of my ID, bank account
>> statements, and even some kind of letter from my bank to prove that I was
>> who I said I was. This was all despite the fact that it was the same bank
>> account from which I had wired Gox my original $1000.
>>
>> Well needless to say, I started get really nervous about sending all
>> manner of personal info to them especially when the forums were full of
>> people saying they had sent all their info months earlier and still had not
>> gotten their money. So I bought back into bitcoin at a loss, upgraded my
>> wallet, and tried to transfer the bitcoins out of MtGox at which point,
>> they announced that they were halting all bitcoin withdrawals. Then a few
>> weeks later MtGox declared bankruptcy.
>>
>> So I guess what I am trying to say is that I got into bitcoin early but
>> still managed to lose $60,000 (really only $1000 & 2 yrs of waiting) and
>> feel kind of idiotic because of it. So don't feel bad for not making money
>> in bitcoin if you didn't lose any either.
>>
>
>  There are worst Bitcoin stories, A man names James Howell in the UK
> mined 7,500 Bitcoins in 2009 on his home computer but then lost interest in
> it. A few year later he junked his old computer, including the hard drive,
> and sent it to a landfill. Then in late 2013 when he realized it was worth
> millions he talked to the dump manager to ask where his old computer might
> be, he said it was burred between 3 and 5 under potentially hazardous waste
> in a area the size of a soccer field. He never found it.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
>
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