Silk Road forums
Discussion => Silk Road discussion => Topic started by: cantharidin on April 11, 2013, 01:43 pm
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Here's an interesting question, and I'm wondering if anyone has an informed opinion. How much of the BTC economy does Silk Road comprise? It has to be significant, but is SR really the major portion of BTC activity as I've seen people on other threads argue?
1. Are there other BIG retail applications for bitcoins? I know that there are businesses here and there that take them, but are there any major players?
2. What is the total size of the bitcoin economy? How many BTC are traded each day? I know that the total number in circulation is well known, but how many actually change hands in a day?
3. What's the size of the SR market? OK - that's a question that probably shouldn't be analyzed too closely, so it's just a rhetorical question
Here's the thing that bothers me when I hear people say that SR is the majority of the bitcoin market - I don't believe that SR is big enough to bring down Mt. Gox as happened yesterday. The amount of activity that would bring down a major clearnet site like Mt. Gox has to be orders of magnitude greater than could be handled by SR (or Tor, for that matter). That implies that a majority of the activity NOW is speculators and financial wheeling dealing, and SR activity has minor or no impact on the BTC market. Outside of the bubble situation that we are in now, would this be different - in more boring times does SR take a larger role in driving the bitcoin market?
There's a reason to ask this. If the BTC market is (normally) largely SR driven, then I worry a lot about government shutting it down one way or another. If SR is a minor player, and there is a lot of investment and other legitimate component to bitcoin, then I see hope that it can survive.
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I would say that its less than 2%. Silkroad is big but its hardly the catalyst behind the price of bitcoin.
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@ $120 usd = 1btc current bitcoin market cap is $1.3bn
annual sales last year on SR were $20 million
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I would say that its less than 2%. Silkroad is big but its hardly the catalyst behind the price of bitcoin.
I can for sure buy that during the current bubble. How much larger BTC volume has there been over the past few months relative to the baseline for when BTC was poking along at whatever it was at last year?
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ResearchRUs...
I found a good site with lot of historical bitcoin market info.
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg180ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv
The volume in bitcoins has been running maybe 40-50K coins per day since the start of the year. Since late January, there have been regular spikes (weekly more or less?) to 150K coins per day. For all of last year, the volume (in numbers of bitcoins) was not all that much different - July and August showed very similar volume spikes to what we are seeing this year.
The $ volume of the market has gone up 10 fold since the # of bitcoins traded has not changed a lot but the value has gone up. Right now, the market is $20-30MM per day, so SR cannot be an appreciable portion of that.
Here's what I think is an interesting observation... last year in July and August, there was the same volume behavoir (in # of coins/day) that we are seeing now. During that time, the price doubled (from $7 to $14). The price then corrected back to $10, volume settled down, and the price began a more slow stable rise. Hmmmm.
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The thing most people don't understand when they say BTC isn't a large part of the BTC economy is the fact that (as we saw from the recent insane price rise and drop) the PRICE of bitcoin is driven almost completely by speculation. Crazy, crazy speculation. If you count bitcoins getting traded around on exchanges and those just being held as speculation and used for no other purpose as "part of the bitcoin economy", then sure, but I totally disagree with that. It's technically "part" of the economy, but it's a meaningless part, other than bouncing btc price around.
Of the ACTUAL real goods/services traded that involve bitcoins, I believe SR is a MAJOR player. Certainly along the lines of 20%, but probably much higher. I don't have all the numbers, but I'd assume at least $2 million in sales is done a month on here (according to various sources I've read). I think it's quite a bit higher personally, but that's just speculation.
What other services are there that don't directly involve the EXCHANGE of bitcoins? This rules out money made by fastcash, bitinstant, gox, and all the other exchanges.
There are very few. A few sites that offer webhosting/vpns, sites like bitcoinstore (I don't know how big they are), and sites that sell mining equipment. The mining rigs might be a significant portion, but some of them like BFL may never even see the light of day (scams), and even if they do, that's just mining equipment... although it could drive btc economy with the increased hash power, I guess.
I dunno, but unless I'm missing something the vast majority of REAL exchange using bitcoins is done through silkroad. In terms of trading goods for coin, I think it's over 50% of the market.
EDIT: wanted to add a little more to address the end of your post, which I missed. I think that SR going down completely WOULD have a negative effect on bitcoin temporarily, but more sites would pop up quickly to take its place. There are already a couple competitors out there and at least one is gaining some steam, I believe. It's place would be filled, that's how the market works.
And I have a feeling that DPR, if he felt so inclined (although there are MANY reasons why I don't believe he would want to), could probably single-handedly crash the shit out of BTC price. Remember, that SR is making probably in the $200,000/month range in revenue. If that's 75% profit (I think that's a very conservative estimate), he could be sitting on a TON of coins in a short amount of time (probably has a ton now). If he felt like mass selling them it would precipitate a huge drop in exchange prices and cause another panic like yesterday. I believe yesterday's crash began with a big time seller in the 50k btc range.
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@ $120 usd = 1btc current bitcoin market cap is $1.3bn
annual sales last year on SR were $20 million
The bitcoin market cap argument is such bullshit, though. First of all, as we saw yesterday, if a large number of btc get sold off the bitcoin price drops like a rock, bringing down that "market cap" number. Market cap doesn't even really make sense as a term related to bitcoin, but I don't want to get into that argument.
The point is SR sales are over $20mil/year. Now compare that to ANY other bitcoin related business EXCLUDING exchanges and other ways to buy/sell coin for USD. You're not going to find anything close.
Basically bitcoin PRICE is driven nearly 100% by speculation, BUT SR is probably more like >75% of the REAL economy (goods/services trading) involving bitcoin.
Although, related to the topic, a lot of people probably just use BTC as a very temporary means to hold money and get either drugs or USD with them ASAP on here.
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And I have a feeling that DPR, if he felt so inclined (although there are MANY reasons why I don't believe he would want to), could probably single-handedly crash the shit out of BTC price. ... he could be sitting on a TON of coins in a short amount of time (probably has a ton now). If he felt like mass selling them it would precipitate a huge drop in exchange prices and cause another panic like yesterday. I believe yesterday's crash began with a big time seller in the 50k btc range.
Rumor goes the 60k+ btc dump that crashed gox down to 120 usd today was DPR
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@ $120 usd = 1btc current bitcoin market cap is $1.3bn
annual sales last year on SR were $20 million
The bitcoin market cap argument is such bullshit, though. First of all, as we saw yesterday, if a large number of btc get sold off the bitcoin price drops like a rock, bringing down that "market cap" number. Market cap doesn't even really make sense as a term related to bitcoin, but I don't want to get into that argument.
The point is SR sales are over $20mil/year. Now compare that to ANY other bitcoin related business EXCLUDING exchanges and other ways to buy/sell coin for USD. You're not going to find anything close.
Basically bitcoin PRICE is driven nearly 100% by speculation, BUT SR is probably more like >75% of the REAL economy (goods/services trading) involving bitcoin.
Although, related to the topic, a lot of people probably just use BTC as a very temporary means to hold money and get either drugs or USD with them ASAP on here.
Sorry but exchange from fiat to a to BTC makes a valid part of the market. You really have no idea what you are talking about, that much was pretty clear when you said DPR could crash bitcoin at will
lol
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The thing most people don't understand when they say BTC isn't a large part of the BTC economy is the fact that (as we saw from the recent insane price rise and drop) the PRICE of bitcoin is driven almost completely by speculation. Crazy, crazy speculation. If you count bitcoins getting traded around on exchanges and those just being held as speculation and used for no other purpose as "part of the bitcoin economy", then sure, but I totally disagree with that. It's technically "part" of the economy, but it's a meaningless part, other than bouncing btc price around.
Of the ACTUAL real goods/services traded that involve bitcoins, I believe SR is a MAJOR player. Certainly along the lines of 20%, but probably much higher. I don't have all the numbers, but I'd assume at least $2 million in sales is done a month on here (according to various sources I've read). I think it's quite a bit higher personally, but that's just speculation.
What other services are there that don't directly involve the EXCHANGE of bitcoins? This rules out money made by fastcash, bitinstant, gox, and all the other exchanges.
There are very few. A few sites that offer webhosting/vpns, sites like bitcoinstore (I don't know how big they are), and sites that sell mining equipment. The mining rigs might be a significant portion, but some of them like BFL may never even see the light of day (scams), and even if they do, that's just mining equipment... although it could drive btc economy with the increased hash power, I guess.
I dunno, but unless I'm missing something the vast majority of REAL exchange using bitcoins is done through silkroad. In terms of trading goods for coin, I think it's over 50% of the market.
EDIT: wanted to add a little more to address the end of your post, which I missed. I think that SR going down completely WOULD have a negative effect on bitcoin temporarily, but more sites would pop up quickly to take its place. There are already a couple competitors out there and at least one is gaining some steam, I believe. It's place would be filled, that's how the market works.
And I have a feeling that DPR, if he felt so inclined (although there are MANY reasons why I don't believe he would want to), could probably single-handedly crash the shit out of BTC price. Remember, that SR is making probably in the $200,000/month range in revenue. If that's 75% profit (I think that's a very conservative estimate), he could be sitting on a TON of coins in a short amount of time (probably has a ton now). If he felt like mass selling them it would precipitate a huge drop in exchange prices and cause another panic like yesterday. I believe yesterday's crash began with a big time seller in the 50k btc range.
To your point that SR is the major tangible goods retailer for bitcoin, I can't dispute that - one point of my original question was to ask if anyone knew of any other large retail marketplaces. However, I do not accept the argument that speculators don't count in the overall 'economy'. Maybe it's just semantics, but I'm talking about the overall trading of bitcoins and the factors that determine the price and government's view of the bitcoin market. In that regard, I don't think SR plays a big part.
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You could just as easily have asked what % of the dollar economy does ExxonMobil represent?
- Obviously ExxonMobil is a powerful corporation with great influence on oil prices.
But the link between ExxonMobil and the dollar at this precise second is indirect.
A dollar, or a share price, or any price for that matter, is determined by supply and demand. So that is what needs to be explained. Yes, logically some of the demand for USD must be to do with people placing gas into their automobiles, this is known as "the fundamentals" by market analysts, it is the logical underpinning of the price. However you wouldn't suggest that ExxonMobil is the main driver of dollar price vs other currencies. There's too many other variables, even when just looking at demand alone, especially market sentiment i.e. herd instincts, emotion.
ExxonMobil is part of the "real economy". The corporation does useful work. Prices not do reflect the real economy at all in the short term. In long term, over a period of months or years, prices tend to converge on the true value of things like shares, dollars, corporate valuations etc.
A famous investor called Benjamin Graham explained this most succinctly by saying:
"In the short run the [stock exchange] resembles a voting machine. In the long run, it acts like a weighing machine."
This has always, and continues to, cause an immense amount of confusion to Socialists.
General Pine Thoughts. Watch out, WOT incoming!
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Current BTC prices do not reflect the actual BTC economy. This is always true at any particular time, since value and price could only be perfectly synchronized in a world where nothing changed. However the average BTC price over several years shall certainly represent the BTC economy.
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The majority of movement on BTC exchanges today can be attributed to naive speculators. Bitcoin is a great idea for a medium of exchange but it's still subject to the basic laws of economics that govern every other currency.
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It's important to know that all currency markets are zero sum games. The only legitimate way to (consistently) make money with the BTC economy is to offer services and products, such as the Silk Road, such as offering OTC exchange services in your locale and so on.
In every other situation where you are not adding your labor value to the market in some way, it is a zero sum game. This means for every BTC you snag by speculating, somebody else must have lost a BTC. There is no free lunch here. All speculators eventually get burned unless they walk out of the casino in the event of a successful trade.
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It is hilarious that DDOS is using used to manipulate BTC prices, because now that it is known that DDOS is being used to change prices by stamping down demand, that information itself changes the price of BTC. In other words, this ultimately won't generate profits for the attackers. It only works when it is asymmetric information, when they are DDOSing and nobody realizes they are doing it, believing that the lower demand is caused by a legitimate source and they are the only ones who believe the price should be higher... Since that is not true, DDOS only leads to a reduction in the price as that information is factored into the market such that the manipulators find themselves holding their "cheap bitcoin" which are seeming more expensive by the second since the price is dropping and they can't dispose of it for a profit. They shall only catch the falling knife. Markets are a form of collective intelligence gathering, you battle them at your peril.
Awesome.
Truly Bitcoin is the Devil's method of teaching geeks economics! I think the participants in the BTC economy are on a sharp learning curve which is very healthy. Even if you yourself lose some money, I suggest taking it philosophically as a learning experience, because it'll prevent you making dumb mistakes with much bigger sums of money later on.
It is possible to manipulate small or highly illiquid markets successfully if you have a lot of money and a measure control over communication channels (think the pump and dump or boiler room scams), just not as crudely as this. Using other people's electricity and computer power to generate bitcoin is smart, albeit immoral.
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Perversely, even though SR is not a major component of the price movements and volume right now, if SR were successfully interrupted for a while it would likely cause Bitcoin to plummet to single digit prices. That is because the narrative or story about BTC is in large part about "The Internet Black Market Dollar". Once a panic starts, starting with a logical reason, it can spread without reason. The smartest movers have a disproportionate affect on the actions of other market participants when their actions become known (witness the Buffet following cult).
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Ignoring the bitcoin price level entirely, and focusing on the concept and its virulent spread from experiment to prime time. That is what is really interesting.
The best part is that Satoshi Nakamoto and the others are manipulating millions of people's decision making processes from ten thousand feet. This is the definition of cypherpunk, using a mixture of crowd psychology and manipulation of the network super structure (computer/financial/political) to achieve our objectives. Economic structural changes change people. Physics->Chemistry->Biology->Economics->Society/Culture->Politics. When you manipulate one of the lower layers, it affects the layer further up hugely. Code is Law. Each and every bitcoin boom cycle spreads information about BTC further and further afield generating a meme that is incredibly hard to suppress.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the John Gault of Cypherpunk, What wasn't remotely possible in Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged", the idea of the productive members of society moving out of the old economy to start their own economy, is now technically feasible. It was completely preposterous. A libertarian pipedream. Now it is a realistic proposition. It is imminently practical and becoming more so all the time. That this is true is incredible and we are privileged to witness the rise of the Cryptocurrency and the Darknet Markets. I mean this is legitimately a first in world history. I am absolutely certain that cryptocurrency and anonymous communications is the key to hollowing out the State. It won't suddenly happen though. You're going to be telling your grandchildren about this.
If I am intercepted, I shall become a political prisoner or I shall starve myself to death in a cell. Because this is a War. We are soldiers in a battle against our enemy the State. The State shall, once it has got it into it's thick skull what we are about, shall act violently. It always has done before now and this time shall be no different. To fight against such an immoral enemy is the highest honor. Live free or die. If you're not willing to sacrifice everything for those you love, then it's not worth being alive.
At the end of the day, with the encroachment of the State on every form of economic activity, the Cypherpunks are just ahead of the curve. Ultimately the majority of people agree with the ideals of the Cypherpunks, they just don't know it yet. They are worn by cynicism and apathy. They don't vote any more because the two parties are for practical purposes identical and everybody knows it. Centerism is political cancer. Nobody has any new ideas except for the Cypherpunks. The Occupy, Zeitgeist, Thrive idealogies are simply rehashes of ideas that already exist. They are all correct in that there is a real problem and perspectives need changing, but they offer no structural change to make that happen beyond propaganda. Cypherpunk is an injection of pure adrenaline to the heart of this system. It is *exactly* what is needed.
It's this or we become slaves anyway. The majority of Western countries are taxed over 50% of GDP, half of all production goes to the State. That trend cannot continue without turning into some boring variant of economic Communism or Fascism and destroying us all. Ironically, without some kind of creative destruction going on, the System can eat itself. Not taking a risk can be the greatest risk of all.
There are better things to be patriotic about than arbitrary geographical boundaries.
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Ignoring the bitcoin price level entirely, and focusing on the concept and its virulent spread from experiment to prime time. That is what is really interesting.
The best part is that Satoshi Nakamoto and the others are manipulating millions of people's decision making processes from ten thousand feet. This is the definition of cypherpunk, using a mixture of crowd psychology and manipulation of the network super structure (computer/financial/political) to achieve our objectives. Economic structural changes change people. Physics->Chemistry->Biology->Economics->Society/Culture->Politics. When you manipulate one of the lower layers, it affects the layer further up hugely. Code is Law. Each and every bitcoin boom cycle spreads information about BTC further and further afield generating a meme that is incredibly hard to suppress.
Satoshi Nakamoto is the John Gault of Cypherpunk, What wasn't remotely possible in Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged", the idea of the productive members of society moving out of the old economy to start their own economy, is now technically feasible. It was completely preposterous. A libertarian pipedream. Now it is a realistic proposition. It is imminently practical and becoming more so all the time. That this is true is incredible and we are privileged to witness the rise of the Cryptocurrency and the Darknet Markets. I mean this is legitimately a first in world history. I am absolutely certain that cryptocurrency and anonymous communications is the key to hollowing out the State. It won't suddenly happen though. You're going to be telling your grandchildren about this.
If I am intercepted, I shall become a political prisoner or I shall starve myself to death in a cell. Because this is a War. We are soldiers in a battle against our enemy the State. The State shall, once it has got it into it's thick skull what we are about, shall act violently. It always has done before now and this time shall be no different. To fight against such an immoral enemy is the highest honor. Live free or die. If you're not willing to sacrifice everything for those you love, then it's not worth being alive.
At the end of the day, with the encroachment of the State on every form of economic activity, the Cypherpunks are just ahead of the curve. Ultimately the majority of people agree with the ideals of the Cypherpunks, they just don't know it yet. They are worn by cynicism and apathy. They don't vote any more because the two parties are for practical purposes identical and everybody knows it. Centerism is political cancer. Nobody has any new ideas except for the Cypherpunks. The Occupy, Zeitgeist, Thrive idealogies are simply rehashes of ideas that already exist. They are all correct in that there is a real problem and perspectives need changing, but they offer no structural change to make that happen beyond propaganda. Cypherpunk is an injection of pure adrenaline to the heart of this system. It is *exactly* what is needed.
It's this or we become slaves anyway. The majority of Western countries are taxed over 50% of GDP, half of all production goes to the State. That trend cannot continue without turning into some boring variant of economic Communism or Fascism and destroying us all. Ironically, without some kind of creative destruction going on, the System can eat itself. Not taking a risk can be the greatest risk of all.
There are better things to be patriotic about than arbitrary geographical boundaries
Great read, Pine. I AM SO JACKED UP ON FREEDOM NOW
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You could just as easily have asked what % of the dollar economy does ExxonMobil represent?
etc....
There are better things to be patriotic about than arbitrary geographical boundaries.
I argue that there is a huge difference in discussing BTC vs ExxonMobil. Exxon's relationship to the dollar economy is easily studied and strong conclusions can be reached, because both Exxon and $ have long histories and real (more or less) relationships with tangible things (the weighing machine). There are for sure lots of variables and spurious events that cause noise in the system, but still... If I gave more of a shit, I'd go get an economics degree.
The question about SR and BTC is much more interesting to me because while SR exists as a tangible marketplace with tangible value in inventory, trade, etc (let's not argue about who assigns value or in what units it's measured) that can be connected back to all of the history and value of the traditional economy. It can be weighed. It doesn't matter to SR whether one bitcoin is worth $10 or $1000 (other than the disruption that excessive volatility causes) - we buy bitcoins with dollars or Euros or whatever, and we buy stuff, and (should) think of the cost of what we bought in the $ we paid to get the coins. BTC is a middleman in the transaction.
BTC, on the other hand, is brand new and no one knows what the real value is or how to assign it. The place of BTC (and all cryptocurrency) in the world is being hashed out right in front of our faces, and I think it's really interesting. If SR is 100% of the bitcoin market, then it would be much easier to look at value of bitcoin, and, in fact, bitcoin would act like a traditional currency with some arbitrarily assigned exchange rate. If 100% of the BTC market is controlled by speculators, then the value of bitcoin is impossible to assign because there is no value other than as a gambling machine - the price could be pegged to tulips...
My original question really had to do with my thinking about what the effects of SR activity are on BTC as a whole, and especially the role that SR plays in the perception by the PTB of what BTC is and what their response will be. I agree 100% with you that this is a revolution, but I'm not as optimistic that there's a good end as people come to realize what's being done to them. Corporate Fascism has taken deep root and the People in Charge will be ruthless at ripping out anything that rises up to challenge the status quo. We're slaves already.
That being said, I hope I'm wrong, and I'll do anything I can to support what's happening here. This is the best chance we have to undermine the system and proactively create something new. That is a much better vision than tearing down the system and letting anarchy reign...
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Great read, Pine. I AM SO JACKED UP ON FREEDOM NOW
Pine posts will contain approximately 38.6% more Freedom in the future.
I argue that there is a huge difference in discussing BTC vs ExxonMobil. Exxon's relationship to the dollar economy is easily studied and strong conclusions can be reached, because both Exxon and $ have long histories and real (more or less) relationships with tangible things (the weighing machine). There are for sure lots of variables and spurious events that cause noise in the system, but still... If I gave more of a shit, I'd go get an economics degree.
Although I agree Exxon's fundamentals can be studied more since they have more historical information, all oil companies keep trade secrets and the quantities of oil that exist in the ground is usually a matter of the highest nation state secrecy. Although it's not a black market, there's plenty of information that the market can only make (very sophisticated, thousands of geologists, chemists, physicists at work on Wall Street) educated guesses at. There is a huge incentive to keep secrets in that industry due to the colossal sums of money involved. That is why oil companies frequently use dark pools of capital to achieve their financial objectives e.g. buying up small prospectors. They need anonymity too, probably more than we do. Just because you got a whole lot of data from the past does not imply this shall help your predictive powers. This may sound like pine is being deliberately obtuse, but I'm really not, that is what it is. It really is that hard to reach "strong conclusions" about the relationship between any two prices in the economy. You can have a great head for valuations, but prices are another matter.
The big difference between SR with relation to BTC and Exxon with relation to USD is that SR is relatively speaking a much bigger component of economic value in the economy that trades BTC. But that is beside the point, which is that all currencies have similar properties, even if they are cryptographic and the supply isn't generated by fiat. Currencies can represent either economic activity or speculative activity. Whenever you hear of a market analyst on CNBC talking about how "conditions in the European Union contributed to a fall in the Euro" or anything of that character, they are full of shit. Even when they sound logical, they are full of it. Nobody can actually know the motivations of millions of actors in the economy, the system is too complex to be wound up into a coherent narrative that our brains can understand. Occasionally some people may get a ray of light, but that's as much as you can hope for. Anybody that can consistently interpret market moves has a bridge to sell you, no better than an astrologer.
A bit OT: but the economics profession gets a lot of flak for either making predictions, or for not making them and being too general. The truth is that their answers are often accurate (outside of predictive power) and do indeed reflect some aspect of reality, but that nobody wants to hear the truth because it isn't useful to you in placing trades or setting government policies. They are cursed to be bearded bespectacled Cassandras. :D
The question about SR and BTC is much more interesting to me because while SR exists as a tangible marketplace with tangible value in inventory, trade, etc (let's not argue about who assigns value or in what units it's measured) that can be connected back to all of the history and value of the traditional economy. It can be weighed. It doesn't matter to SR whether one bitcoin is worth $10 or $1000 (other than the disruption that excessive volatility causes) - we buy bitcoins with dollars or Euros or whatever, and we buy stuff, and (should) think of the cost of what we bought in the $ we paid to get the coins. BTC is a middleman in the transaction.
That is so. I think of it as being a place, Silkroadistan, where you visit on holiday and need the local currency btc in order to be there.
BTC, on the other hand, is brand new and no one knows what the real value is or how to assign it. The place of BTC (and all cryptocurrency) in the world is being hashed out right in front of our faces, and I think it's really interesting. If SR is 100% of the bitcoin market, then it would be much easier to look at value of bitcoin, and, in fact, bitcoin would act like a traditional currency with some arbitrarily assigned exchange rate. If 100% of the BTC market is controlled by speculators, then the value of bitcoin is impossible to assign because there is no value other than as a gambling machine - the price could be pegged to tulips...
I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Well. By middle I mean 90% speculation 10% fundamentals, so that's a funny kind of middle, but there you go. I suppose if SR really was 100% of the economy they wouldn't be called bitcoins. They would be called silk road vouchers, like some kind of currency in a one company town. (but what a town!) :D
My original question really had to do with my thinking about what the effects of SR activity are on BTC as a whole, and especially the role that SR plays in the perception by the PTB of what BTC is and what their response will be. I agree 100% with you that this is a revolution, but I'm not as optimistic that there's a good end as people come to realize what's being done to them. Corporate Fascism has taken deep root and the People in Charge will be ruthless at ripping out anything that rises up to challenge the status quo. We're slaves already.
That being said, I hope I'm wrong, and I'll do anything I can to support what's happening here. This is the best chance we have to undermine the system and proactively create something new. That is a much better vision than tearing down the system and letting anarchy reign...
Hear hear! I note that for every act of creation there is an act of destruction. The invention of the automobile destroyed the horse and cart industry. So some element of seeming 'chaos' is natural, but still, I think the end result will be a better world once we have new (cryptographic!) institutions. By 2100 or even 2050 the concept of government fiat and central banks determining montary policy should be an anachronism.
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Pine posts will contain approximately 38.6% more Freedom in the future
Is that 38.6 hedged?
Although I agree Exxon's fundamentals can be studied more since they have more historical information, all oil companies keep trade secrets and the quantities of oil that exist in the ground is usually a matter of the highest nation state secrecy. Although it's not a black market, there's plenty of information that the market can only make (very sophisticated, thousands of geologists, chemists, physicists at work on Wall Street) educated guesses at. There is a huge incentive to keep secrets in that industry due to the colossal sums of money involved. That is why oil companies frequently use dark pools of capital to achieve their financial objectives e.g. buying up small prospectors. They need anonymity too, probably more than we do. Just because you got a whole lot of data from the past does not imply this shall help your predictive powers. This may sound like pine is being deliberately obtuse, but I'm really not, that is what it is. It really is that hard to reach "strong conclusions" about the relationship between any two prices in the economy. You can have a great head for valuations, but prices are another matter.
I fully agree that a huge number of Exxon variables are totally unknown, but the economic infrastructure which provides the context for analyzing Exxon and its interaction with the larger economy is pretty well understood, studied, and even predicted (although there's plenty of malpractice in that field). The bitcoin economy on, the other hand, is totally new and still being invented. Much harder to understand which levers create which action in that environment.
Whenever you hear of a market analyst on CNBC talking about how "conditions in the European Union contributed to a fall in the Euro" or anything of that character, they are full of shit. Even when they sound logical, they are full of it. Nobody can actually know the motivations of millions of actors in the economy, the system is too complex to be wound up into a coherent narrative that our brains can understand. Occasionally some people may get a ray of light, but that's as much as you can hope for. Anybody that can consistently interpret market moves has a bridge to sell you, no better than an astrologer.
Yes, yes, yes. Any media figure giving the latest daily NYSE closing numbers is obligated to give you the single sentence soundbite about what in the world caused the .002% movement.
That is so. I think of it as being a place, Silkroadistan, where you visit on holiday and need the local currency btc in order to be there.
I liked that one.
I note that for every act of creation there is an act of destruction. The invention of the automobile destroyed the horse and cart industry. So some element of seeming 'chaos' is natural, but still, I think the end result will be a better world once we have new (cryptographic!) institutions. By 2100 or even 2050 the concept of government fiat and central banks determining montary policy should be an anachronism.
I hope the chaos has some kind of underlying momentum toward a good, or even Good, outcome.
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Pine posts will contain approximately 38.6% more Freedom in the future.
::)
+1
Piece, Love, and Fuck Haters.
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And I have a feeling that DPR, if he felt so inclined (although there are MANY reasons why I don't believe he would want to), could probably single-handedly crash the shit out of BTC price. ... he could be sitting on a TON of coins in a short amount of time (probably has a ton now). If he felt like mass selling them it would precipitate a huge drop in exchange prices and cause another panic like yesterday. I believe yesterday's crash began with a big time seller in the 50k btc range.
Rumor goes the 60k+ btc dump that crashed gox down to 120 usd today was DPR
Is that why SR went down for maintenance the day before the crash? BTW I spent every last coin once I seen it drop to just above $200. Now below $100, I got to think that SR actually has to pay out some hedges.
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someone said sr takes up 2% of the btc economy.. if that's true... what other sites are ppl using their btcs at???
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someone said sr takes up 2% of the btc economy.. if that's true... what other sites are ppl using their btcs at???
Anywhere. bitspend.net allows you to buy anything online. Many merchants use bitpay.com then we have places like bitcoinstore.com where you can get electronics or memorydealers.com heatslingers.com bitmit.com arkarmysurplus.com
Shit there are probably thousands of stores.