About stuff people couldn't care less about!
Way back in 2011 I was slagging it off, amazed that it had climbed to USD3.50. I should have made a substantial investment then but that is the benefit of hindsight. Now, the price is approaching AUD4000 each!
I bought a few back in 2012 but no where near as many as I should have…..
I just finished migrating my DNS service and domain name registrations to easyDNS.
I started the process a year or so ago and was going to move all my domains across at that time but stopped after I found that if you migrate away from my existing domain name registrar (cheapdomain.com.au) with time left on their registration you don’t get any $$ back. easyDNS seems to be a very professional and easy going registrar, no tricky contract or crappy interface, just easy domain registration.
They recently introduces a cheaper service (CAD$15) for people like me who don’t need all the bells and whistles that their old lowest service offered so I’m really happy. Whats more – they accept payment by Bitcoin as well! When my next domain comes up for renewal I’ll be going for that option I recon.
So, if you want a great domain registrar that doesn’t make you feel like you are dealing with some dodgy mob, go with eastDNS.
Wow.
The bitcoin price over the last month or so has really gone crazy, as of today its up around $43USD/BTC. It’s hard to understand why it is so high given not a great deal has changed (other than the halving of the mining reward late last year and perhaps a little wider adoption)from when it was just under USD3 in November 2011 after its crash from previous highs around $30/BTC.
At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter what the price of a BTC is if its main purpose turns into being the “transport medium” of wealth from one individual to another, it is merely the conduit by which value is exchanged. If they are USD100 each or USD1 each it will only mean that the person sending the $$$ to someone else needs to buy more or less of them. The problem with this wild fluctuation in value is that the majority of people who want to buy to store value and to later exchange for goods or services in the medium term are likely to be to nervous to do so given its volatility and as a result the usage of bitcoin as a stored value and accordingly to be used as exchange for goods or services could be limited
Perhaps bitcoin will be relegated to just a short term transfer of wealth vehicle, quickly bought, sent to another wallet and then converted back into the local currency of the receiver before any swings in the exchange rate adversely impacts the recipient.
We will no doubt see soon what happens.
If ever you need to send me currency please send it to my Bitcoin address, it is
1CJ7BzBAvAs2zAJRuuXmxgGSP2SuAEXXqt
OK, so I just purchased some bitcoins at a reasonable price for the day.
I can understand MtGox shutting down there exchange after it appears to have been compromised but then another exchange (Trade Hill) shuts down temporarily?
I cant help thinking they freaked that if the exchange was allowed to stay open people would actually have finally realised that Bitcoin is not actually worth anything and dumped the rest of there holding at knock down prices. When prices fall so to will the exchanges commission – its in a Bitcoin exchanges interest to keep exchange rates high.
I have been thinking more about Bitcoin and what it could be used for and why the exchange rate of Bitcoin may actually mean very little in the real world. Here is what I think.
Given there is relatively few places that are actually accepting Bitcoin to purchase their goods the only thing I can think of that Bitcoin is good for is to store value; anonymously!
Lets pretend I’m a crook and I want to launder money that I have gotten through less than honest means, I could purchase Bitcoins through a place like MtGox and hold it there for a period of time and then either exchange it back to USD – or what ever the currency you purchased it for in the beginning.
In the above situation it doesn’t really matter what the exchange rate is when you buy Bitcoins, it could be USD1000 for each Bitcoin, as long as the exchange rate doesn’t move against you when it comes time to change it back to a common currency you are OK; in fact the higher the exchange rate the better because the percentage change would reduce if the rate was fluctuating by a few dollars up and down. To explain, at USD10/BTC a $2 change is a movement of ±20%, the the exchange rate was USD1000/BTC a movement of $2 is only ±0.20%. Now, sure the $ value may also be moving by large $$ values but up and down $200 would appear to the market as fairly extreme.
Further, I would even think that given the funds being laundered were ill gotten perhaps the launderer (if there is such a word) is prepared to take a hit of a certain % because, lets face it, they probably stole it to begin with.
The other explanation is that there are a bunch of guys (and girls) ripping each other off for fun, kind of like a game of musical chairs, and who ever holds the Bitcoin at the end of the game actually looses (because you have been the one most ripped off).
These are just my thoughts that help explain the exchange rate crazy-ness going on. No doubt there is some dodgy-ness going on by someone in the back ground driving the rate up anyway.
I’m going to call it, the exchange rate between USD and Bitcoin has started its downwards path and will not get to the heady heights it has recently been again (however, I can guarantee some collusion here with some nutty seller agreeing with a nutty buyer to exchange at USD20 or something stupid, I’m talking about long term averaged daily prices here).
I’m not sure how it logically could have gone up to the high experienced on 18 May of high of USD8.40. Actually, my understanding is that logic has a limited impact on markets like this because people tend to get swept up in the whole hype of it all. Perhaps it was the greater fool principle showing here, one person ripping the other off until the market takes a breath and asks its self, what the hell can I buy with bitcoin and why should it be worth so much now when late last year it was worth USD0.095?
Oh well, its been interesting seeing a bubble play out in front of my eyes. But perhaps I’m just grumpy I didn’t buy when I first heard about it when it was USD1, could have made a bit of $$$ but who was to know.
So a couple of months ago I listened to a podcast on security now about bit coins, at the time the Bitcoin (BTC) to USD exchange rate was at around parity, now I look at the exchange rate and its about 3.5 USD = 1 BTC. Is this a bubble or what?