i'm specifically inquiring into where 'people' are keeping their money

wow i am amazed how blind investor mentality is! btw, that is not just towards you, there seems to be a lot of that blind mentality around; consumers and suppliers of goods and services are not concerned about the long term value of currency! what matters for that use, $->btc-> goods and services->btc->$, is that for successful trading (of goods and services), the $ at each end has to roughly match! y, sometimes, someone (with the volatility, rarely both) in that transaction will benefit but that is not much security for people whose only interest is $1=$1 within the lifecycle of the transaction. sure, this might not be applicable for all traders (of goods and services) but it represents a downhill direction where less and less people are using btc for exchange of goods and services. my question remains unanswered "how do you hold the exchange value of a currency that you can't buy or sell anything with?!"

I'm with Impaler on this; What is happening right now is; buyer purchases some BTC for a transaction, by the time the transaction occurs, his bitcoins drop in value so he can't afford what he was planning to get so buys less goods and services. the seller (of goods and services) gets his BTC but by the time he converts to $, BTC has lost value so he's not getting as much for his product. How long do you think that can continue before people stop buying and selling goods and services with BTC?? And when they do, how do you hold the exchange value of a currency that you can't buy or sell anything with?!

another question to speculate about (i'm genuinely curious about this); just got up and bitcoins are down again, commodities are down, equities are down - does anyone have an educated perspective on where all the money is going?

that's just mainstream competitive market thinking with the perspective of viewing BTC as a commodity instead of a currency. i am from australia, can't speak for all australians, but in general, when someone buys or sells a beer here, we don't check the price of USD at the markets to make sure the beer costs US$4, we simply have a price for the beer in AU$4 with the understanding that AU$4 will still be worth AU$4 when it is next exchanged. the value of AU$4 against USD, or the volatility of that conversion is not a concern to the buyer or the seller as they're circulating the currency quick enough for it to not effect them. the exchange rate and liquidity are only really relevant if you are investing in currency and holding onto it. similarly, if your bartender just thinks about selling the beer for 0.04BTC and there is a big enough economy for him to spend that 0.04BTC and acquire goods and services with the same value as the beer, he doesn't really need to worry much about the conversion rate to $, only make periodic adjustments when the goods or services they're buying increase or decrease in BTC value.

another good example of alternative thinking are bitcoin brokers (as opposed to exchanges); those that set their prices based on their own supply of $ and BTC or 24 hour market averages are a lot less volatile.

wow, all these ideas for buying and selling BTC for a profit more efficiently! how about, don't? how about using BTC as a currency, to buy and sell stuff and services like its supposed to be used instead of trying to make a quick buck exchanging it? these kinds of posts are simply proposing to fix the problem by making the problem more efficient 

lets improve liquidity by introducing better markets?! its the lack of liquidity that prevented BTC from hitting rock bottom and the little liquidity there is comes from people trading with BTC instead of trading in it. as with the mainstream economies, its that competitive greed that is ruining the currency, making it more volatile and therefore less suited to exchange of goods and services, further eroding the liquidity - it is supposed to be a cooperative currency and trying to make money from money (at the expense of others) is not a very cooperative occupation 

how about mining pools controlling the sale of BTC (they are after all, creating the currency) or some sort of mechanism to make BTC "rust" (it could simply rust back into mining rewards instead of disappearing, preventing this competitive mindset and encouraging more circulation 

I would be interested in learning why you feel that is the most logical conclusion. Personally, lack of liquidity, nicely demonstrated now, would lead me to conclude that it is quiet bad at storing value. I would not want to store my savings in a commodity where trying to get them out is likely to cause a reduction in its value regardless of how small they are Currently, I seem to be watching a whole lot of panic sellers stuck in a bottleneck, not a good look for savings or investments. Whereas when it comes to spending, I can send payments immediately and without a middle man to take some of it. Works equally clean when i receive it. That to me is a brilliant medium of exchange (or at least a good iteration towards one) and with all the recent publicity, one that has the potential to be widely accepted 


You don't need a better comparison, "market cycle" is exactly what happened because people are trying to trade bitcoins the same way they would trade any other commodity in the markets. That is probably also why the new investors were attracted to Mt. Gox, the place looks and works like any other market they have been trading in. One of the reasons why I think this crash has been a blessing; it has the potential to make people understand bitcoin and its possibilities rather than taking the simplistic approach of simply treating it like any other commodity. But, there is also the possibility that the cooperators will move on if the currency stays unsuitable for exchange due to excessive volatility created by the competitors. If that were to occur, It would be interesting to see how the competitors would prop up the value of a currency you can't buy anything with 

yes, mindfulness is as hard as it is easy but does wonders for correcting those mindsets and keeping us happy I'm just using the term 'crash' as shorthand for the 'big price drops recently', I have no doubt that BTC will bounce back as it is very useful and people like buying useful things


some mornings would be pleasant surprises, others quiet unpleasant. the harmful thing there is that hoarding BTC basically drags competitiveness (if you're making a profit from the boom/bust/boom/bust, it is at the expense of others) into a refreshing cooperative system. Competition, even if you're winning, is stressful. I'd rather not be a winner or a loser but just help out people who help me out 

it is true that hoarding speculators that enjoy the competition are needed by the system as well so it can grow, but would be inclined to think that obtaining an unhealthy ratio of competitors (buying and selling bitcoins) to cooperators (buying and selling commodities and services with bitcoins as well as mining and software development) is what causes the crashes. hopefully it is resolved by more people switching to the cooperators team rather than just leaving BTC but we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.



cheers, that is exactly the kind of healthier thinking i've returned to - thanks to the crash i am very thankful to Bitcoin for re-awakening the part of me that had given up on finding something that can make a difference! i don't necessarily agree with all of the political positions behind it, but the power of alternative markets and currencies to make a difference has already proven itself to a degree.. and that is something to be excited about

i am currently trying to learn as much as i can, as quickly as i can regarding those concepts, and welcome any mature discussion as i type away my interpretations based on knowledge obtained so far. as for starting a business, i find myself plagued by the same problems as in the mainstream economy; have the skills to make things happen (software, hardware, design, architecture, development, admin etc) but they're spread out - jack of all trades (involving tech) but master of none (fairly decent at each but not as good as someone focusing in a single field) and definitely lacking business (money side) and marketing skills - i don't really mind but it does get in the way whenever i take the entrepreneurial path... except in cases where i can collaborate with people that have the opposite skill sets; business minded people who need someone with an overall, mature view of technology to coordinate it. maybe there are some here? 

for much less than $4K ($2400 to be exact), i would build what i have

i3 3220T
4 X MSI Radeon HD7970 3GB OC
Corsair AX1200i - the "i" is important, means you get 80 PLUS Platinum to lower electricity cost, without the "i", its Gold only

those cards made it trivial to get a %10 overclock on top of the factory overclock i ended up shutting it down as it eventually dawned on me that i live in an old house with old electrical cabling and running a server, gaming P.C. AND a 1.1kW miner is likely cause me to become a victim of an electrical fire while i slept

while it was running (without any optimization i would have done if i continued to use it), I was getting nearly 2.7 GH/s

i don't like the odds but where are you on the planet? i've been unsuccessfully trying to find someone that can house my miner, share the risk by covering electricity and i give them half what it makes

i am, as the title suggests, a newbie so I'm not sure if these forums are always this bleak but the topics suggest it might be heavily caused by the price drops caused by whatever. however, I've finally analyzed my own bleakness on the issue and here it is in case it resonates with others.

I've been into Bitcoin for a little over a year now, not giving it much thought other than initially learning just enough to have a little trust in using it for relatively small transactions. Then, as I enjoyed the extra freedoms, I developed a sweet spot for what it represents and the technology behind it. However, the thought of hoarding Bitcoins was never a concept; buy Bitcoins to buy stuff with Bitcoins was about it. But then I got stuck with some when a particular transaction I bought Bitcoins for didn't end up happening.... Then the boom came and all of a sudden, I found myself checking the price of Bitcoins even when I had no plans to use any  And once the drop in prices got into full swing, I found myself with a sense of loss.... WTF?! I bought what I have at $20, the thought of selling them for a profit was still an option, but I somehow felt that more than doubling my money was still a loss?!... Examining the absurdity of this feeling, I also came to the realization that I have been avoiding buying things I would like to buy so I could hold onto these damn coins! That was the provebial light bulb; the problem wasn't the crash, it was the boom! Having developed a bunch of wealth without doing anything, I had made myself a slave of it, with the coins controlling my [purchasing] behavior instead of serving it!

Obviously, once you become mindful of the psychology, you are freed from it  Bitcoin is a very useful tool for facilitating exchange. For it to be more useful, more people need to be encouraged to use it, not hoard it! I believe this crash is going to serve a lot of useful purposes; with the large publicity it generated, it will discourage hoarding behavior somewhat (panic sellers would have loved the liquidity!) and if Bitcoin holds public interest long enough or recovers quick enough, it will prove its resilience to more people, hopefully causing more circulation 

As for me, I've now gone and spent my coins in exchange for things I like and I am happy! I no longer feel the need to check on prices, it can wait till the next time I need to use Bitcoins.. And if you send me more, I will spend that too  Alternatively you can spend it yourself for  stuff you like, just don't hoard it, keep it circulating; its better for Bitcoin and it will make you happier 

Disclaimer: I make no claim to knowing the secret of happiness or mastering the concepts of Bitcoin or market forces or human psychology, simply extrapolating from analysis of my own head, however I can attempt to provide those services in exchange for Bitcoin to spend 

might have better luck on the LTC forum i believe "don't mine with your CPU" is still valid and might help with those temps

+1 it is kind of fun building and owning the monstrosities we do, would be boring to have these well behaved little usb boxes making them obsolete :/

what the ...?! back up and showing volumes for the entire day... while they were closed?!

yep, seems extremely suss to me too - when it was back up for a tiny while, the prices were flying up again, shut down again, prices plummet again. it would be an efficient way to make money; shut down, buy BTCs cheap from other exchanges, open up and sell at the high price again :/ even if they're just really completely incompetent - 2 days to deal with capacity problems?!?! don't they have a single person working for them that knew that you have to plan a public system to be scalable?! - they have definitely proven themselves (again) to be the achilles heel of bitcoin :/

Hi, I belong to the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all our immediate ancestors i also like to mine (4 x 7970s overclocked to achieve 660MH/s at 275W each) but my miner scares my dogs so i had to turn it off :/

no need for crossfire, none of the gaming rules apply, only thing that matters is gpu clock speeds (which you can overclock much higher by dropping the memory clock), even plugging cards to PCIe x1 slots still result in 100% scaling i do use a separate worker for each card though, not sure if all this holds true if you have a single miner using multiple cards.... lots of fun but the resulting computer scares household pets lol