Quote from: HotHamHock on November 05, 2014, 10:55:57 PM

Quote from: cryptasm on November 05, 2014, 12:30:30 AM

what about the "they generate their own coins to dump alot" theory, could actually be scary that you could just make coins and nobody has a idea...anyone who knows more about the tech on btc should answer=)

Miners dumping coin for fiat en masse, if that is what you're asking, is a short term risk to bitcoin valuation, sure. The potential impact of such action is limiting over time as 1)the total sum of minted coins increase, 2)the block rewards halve, and ideally 3)adoption and demand grow, increasing volume and absorbing whatever miners are looking to dump.

Quote from: capoeira on November 04, 2014, 01:05:27 AM

what I don't understand is how it all started. noone would buy something that has no value (the first mined coins). so who bought the first coins? It might have started as a pump and dump, and once this caused a valorization it caused a chain reaction.

Who is to say the first mined coins didn't have value? With the exception of *intrinsic value, value itself is merely a belief, a subjectively defined, dynamic opinion with external conditions taken into consideration. Anyone that believed bitcoin had tremendous potential would naturally manifest a far greater value for a bitcoin than someone that didn't see a future for it.

Since obtaining bitcoin was relatively easy and cheap for the individuals that were aware of bitcoin in the earliest days, the actual monetary value was exceedingly low to nonexistent and lent little incentive for trading among miners, however, the first real attempt at pegging bitcoin to a usd valuation for the purpose of exchange was by new liberty standard that essentially calculated their costs in producing bitcoin. Their explanation here:

Quote

During 2009 my exchange rate was calculated by dividing $1.00 by the average amount of electricity required to run a computer with high CPU for a year, 1331.5 kWh, multiplied by the the average residential cost of electricity in the United States for the previous year, $0.1136, divided by 12 months divided by the number of bitcoins generated by my computer over the past 30 days.

*I define intrinsic value differently than most; namely, the necessities for life such as food, shelter, etc. Therefore, I do not include things such as gold, or products, or IP, etc.

Such a learned n00b. You catch on fast Shocked