Re: There's nothing wrong with trading Bitcoins

I do fear for bitcoin to have a future as a trade facilitating currency, rather than as casino chips, someone is going to have to come up with a bright idea for bitcoin 2.0.

No somebody just needs to come up with a way to provide hedging for merchants. Obviously this involves some risk and it is risk they can be compensated with. I would have no problem holding assets in bitcoins if I could be at least partially shielded by volatility. I have no problem giving up some of the upside potential for downside protection. I don't need bitcoin to go up 10,000% a year to make money as a miner.

An ever better system would be one which partners with a pool and allows members to be paid in both bitcoins & cash (to cover electrical costs). By heding part of the posistion and locking in a cash rate which covers electrical cost miners would have more confidence in keeping some of their assets in bitcoins (and bitcoin economy).

A Bitcoin 2.0 is doomed just like alt-chains are doomed. Bitcoin achieved massive community interest and is still unknown by 999,999 out of 1 mil people on the planet. Any version 2.0 would have an even tinier base. Any alt coin has an even tinier base. Combine that with the inability to "stop" Bitcoin 1.0 the idea of a reboot is simply fail. It won't happen. Ever.

Trying to fight speculation without govt decree is futile. If someone can do something highly repeatable and gain x% they will. It is human nature.

This is exactly what I'm doing.

Bitcoinica is a good foundation.

Potentially. I believe easy to use hedging for non-financial experts is the "killer app" for Bitcoin. Bitcoin makes that task more difficult because the risk of fraud/theft is great but I believe it can be done.

If (and it is a big if) miners can hedge their electrical costs by getting paid in fiat for part of their gross revenue with stable longer term pricing that makes the mining network more secure and increases adoption.

If (and it is a big if) merchants can hedge their holdings in bitcoins then bitcoins can be used more for intra bitcoin transactions which is a virtuous cycle (more merchants paying expenses in bitcoins leads to more merchants accepting bitcoins and paying some expenses in bitcoins, etc).

If (and it is a big if) consumers can hedge their holdings in bitcoins then more will be willing to use them and thus be introduced to the advantages of bitcoins.

I am not saying it is possible or it will happen but it certainly has more potential that a reboot to bitcoin2.0 or some worthless alt-coin.