virtually all the alt coins are linked directly to the value of BTC, so when BTC goes down the value of all the alt coins goes down.

I wouldn't describe this as dropping like a dead rocket, remember the price of BTC right now is way up from just a couple of months ago ($160 or so in October), and nearly 10x the price in June/July.

So anyone who got in recently, like at the $1000 level, yeah they are seeing a huge price decrease, but for those of us who have been involved longer, its still way up, just a correction from all the greedy people in China who were trying to cash in.

Unfortunately I wasn't involved when the price was at $12, just last January.

Ok, I'm fairly new to bitcoins, having been trading etc.. since May of this year.

I'm reading all the speculation on here, and there are some things that are certain. The current price of bitcoins has zero affect on future prices. Just like stocks or commodities on the market, prices are affected more by external events than anything else.

Now since bitcoins are a currency, (to those who trade with them they are, so for our purposes they are), then things that affect currencies will affect bitcoins.

The speculation in China that bitcoins were going to be accepted by the central bank is what drove the really big increase to $1200 per bitcoin.

But, there is also another thing going on, the Ukraine has been in financial crisis for several weeks. And has just now agreed to a bail out from Russia.

I think these two things first China's central bank not accepting bitcoins, causing it to fall from the $1200 high, but then the instability in Ukraine has been holding it up in the $800 to $900 range for the past week or so.

Now that the Ukraine situation appears to be resolved, then I believe the price point will come down some. I wish I had that crystal ball to know exactly where that point is, as we all do I suppose.

I believe we will see prices in the $400 to $500 range, then slowly rebound.

The problem with your calculations is that not even the US Dollar, which is the most widely used currency in the world, is used by 7 billion people for purchases.

And your assumption on the average monthly salary is pretty extreme for the majority of the population of the world.

I do believe that widespread use of bitcoin will drive it up in value, but I'm questioning your calculations, and assumptions used in your calculations.

Another point is that it takes technology to use bitcoin, even if its only a cell phone, it has to be a smart phone. The cost of smartphone plans is not affordable to a huge portion of the population in many countries.

I hope to see a low tech solution which will allow trading of bitcoins without the overhead required now. That will boost the use and acceptance of bitcoin and increase its value significantly.

watching

not sure i'll mine this one, seems kinda pointless.

Sounds to me like there is an opportunity here to set up a competitive service.

Say a network of bitcoin users get together and offer exchanges to local currencies world wide.

Makes me wish I had the capital to start up a venture of this nature. Someone will I'm certain as soon as there is enough confidence in the use of Bitcoins for this type of exchange.

watching

Sounds interesting, watching.

Have to duck, to avoid being hit by the can they are kicking down the road.

It appears that there are many assumptions going on here, and to be honest I'm not certain exactly what the consequences of a default would be, but some posts here assume that a Government default is the same as the US Dollar collapsing.

These are two very different events, with very different ramifications.

The US Government defaulting would most likely cause as huge decrease in value of the US Dollar, but that in itself is not a complete collapse of the currency. The default would cause interest rates on the US Debt to increase, probably to the point where the US would not be able to pay all its debts which would eventually result in a collapse of the dollar, since the Federal Reserve would simply print more and more currency. (they are already doing that at the rate of $800 Billion a month).

The US Dollar collapsing completely is a far more significant situation, with far reaching ramifications. If you've followed other country's currency collapse, typically they issue a new currency, with some buy back of the old currency at some % of value towards the new currency. The problem is that the US Dollar is the world trade currency, and most other FIAT currencies are valued off the US Dollar. So this would be a world affecting event, extremely bad for all countries involved. (I am certain that the world banking organization, WBO, already has plans in place for handling this situation, and I guarantee bitcoin isn't going to be part of that plan).

I believe that something like BTC, which is not controlled by any government is eventually the proper way to go. But there isn't currently, and never will be, nearly enough BTC in circulation. Not to mention that making BTC valid currency for world trade would make a lot of ppl on here insanely wealthy, which the WBO will not allow.

I have 7 block erupters that I have been mining alt coins with for several months.

I did just find these on Amazon for 8.99 each + shipping of course. So debating purchasing some more to increase my hash rate.

These will take a long time to pay for themselves, so the primary reason for mining with these is to support the network.

Of course if you bank on the US Congress not working well together, it should increase the value of bitcoins, which will then drastically improve mining profitability. So I'm mining away with my little bit of hash power, and waiting to see what happens.

These are a much better deal than waiting for BFL, and I simply can't afford the other miners out there.

watching

You can find these on Amazon for 18.49 + shipping.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B00E7AAJIM/ref=sr_1_2_olp?ie=UTF8&qid=1379455460&sr=8-2&keywords=usb+erupter&condition=new

I'm interested, have to get more btc in my wallet first though.

Looking for next week if possible.

And maybe some of us smaller miners will get good deals on used hardware.

Thanks, mostly I wanted to figure out what was going on.

I'm mining zetacoins and have been for a couple of weeks.

I noticed a discrepancy between what I've been credited and what has automatically transferred to my wallet.


Credit                 Debit_AP            Fee                   Tx Fee
6369.89508442    5362.25967025    63.69895107    4.9

My balance right now is
Confirmed           25.74821347
Unconfirmed   54.15289726

So as I see it I am missing about 860 coins.

Just trying to find out where these other coins are going, because they should be in my wallet.

Can you look into this? My account is under the same name as here.

2Kool4Skewl -> Have you ever even been associated with a software development project? You're whining about performance on a early release of software? LOL

Mtrlt, hats off to you, I am quite impressed with the progress you've made, and I hope to see improvements on this fine accomplishment.

Is anything happening with this coin?

Just curious.

I believe that BTC is and will continue to be affected more by outside influences than anything the community does or says.

That being said, there are some upcoming events that are going to affect all currencies.

Spain is having significant issues financially, as well as some other European countries.

The US Dollar is going to be affected significantly by the upcoming debate over the current debt limit. How that plays out will drastically affect the price of BTC.

Obviously this thread is comparing BTC to US Dollar, so as the dollar weakens BTC will continue to strengthen.

The other factor that will affect BTC is simply the additional attention its getting in mainstream news, the more people know about it, the more people will be interested in investing in BTC. Which will drive up the value.

So I believe it will exceed $200 in value in October due to the US debate over the debt limit increase. It may fall back a little after that though. But that's my opinion.

interesting, worth looking into.