Bitcoins

BoracicLint

Also with regards to anonymity and tracability, yes it is possible to see every transaction, but it is also very easy to create a wallet anonymously.

I could create a dozen wallets offline, keep the pass key in hard copy only and send all my Bitcoins to the offline wallet address. There would be absolutely no way to trace them. This surely has many implications from a money laundering point of view?

Satoshi

Have you got a link to an BTC ETF?

Its so interesting, I mean people avoid gold and silver ETFs because they lie about how much real gold and silver they have, they often take paper and give paper out without buying real gold or silver.

But with BTC there is nothing real to buy. So they take your paper or these days fiat and buy a digital units of digital currency and give you another digital or paper reciept?????????????????

BoracicLint

Satoshi wrote: »

Have you got a link to an BTC ETF?

Its so interesting, I mean people avoid gold and silver ETFs because they lie about how much real gold and silver they have, they often take paper and give paper out without buying real gold or silver.

But with BTC there is nothing real to buy. So they take your paper or these days fiat and buy a digital units of digital currency and give you another digital or paper reciept?????????????????

I don't think its Live yet, but I read the Winklevoss twins were creating it (incidentally they own 1% of all Bitcoin in existence, so the idea of them operating an ETF is a scary one, considering they can probably manipulate the price).

csm888

BoracicLint wrote: »

One drawback I have experienced with Bitcoins personally, is the ability to trade is very antiquated and slow. With the price so volatile, anybody with a significant holding may struggle to offload them at the price they want. This should act as a barrier to speculators, however now there are ETFs popping up allowing people to trade on the spot price with much more speed. This will only make matters worse I feel.

Also sending Bitcoins with no transaction charge makes the blocks less attractive to miners, so it can often take hours for verification. This is fine if you are sending small amounts, but can be problematic if you are sending large quantities and require 6 confirmations before you can be satisfied the transaction is genuine.

These are of course just teething problems, and I think once the infrastructure surrounding Bitcoin transactions improves, so will their adoption into the mainstream

The exchanges still have some problems but I don't think they are very significant any more, a majority of the issue came from DDOS's, slippage is general fairly low at MtGox when you are looking to buy/sell 100 coins or less.

Don't send transactions without a fee, especially large ones. Adding a 10pence fee to a £10K transaction is insignificant and you will usually get into the next block found.

BaileyB

If you looking at getting some bitcoin which site is recommend to buy from the UK?

dryhat

This senate committee stuff is getting interesting....

http://www.c-span.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN3/

paddyrg

BoracicLint wrote: »

I don't think its Live yet, but I read the Winklevoss twins were creating it (incidentally they own 1% of all Bitcoin in existence, so the idea of them operating an ETF is a scary one, considering they can probably manipulate the price).

AIUI the FBI own 5% since the silk road busts, so they could very much have fun in the Marketplace!

[Deleted User]

BoracicLint wrote: »

Also with regards to anonymity and tracability, yes it is possible to see every transaction, but it is also very easy to create a wallet anonymously.

The generally accepted solution to keep anonymity is to use a mixing service, that would properly launder Bitcoins for you. Pretty expensive though.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service

BoracicLint wrote: »

I could create a dozen wallets offline, keep the pass key in hard copy only and send all my Bitcoins to the offline wallet address. There would be absolutely no way to trace them. This surely has many implications from a money laundering point of view?

An offline wallet just means that you have the private key securely separated from the internet, it doesn't alter the contents of the wallet in any way, nor does it affect the ability to trace them, your bitcoins still exist on the blockchain.

MFW_ASAP

Satoshi wrote: »

I hope there is a big dip I will buy more.

It's just another case of history repeating...

MFW_ASAP wrote: »

You haven't made anything until you cash out and, going off the experience of the PM bugs, that never happens. We get inundated in posts when your rollercoaster is rising and you vanish when it drops down (with a few frantic "I'm buying on the falls and making a fortune" posts as they catch a falling knife, that stop when the price has fallen to the extent that even they know the jig is up).

BoracicLint

citricsquid wrote: »

The generally accepted solution to keep anonymity is to use a mixing service, that would properly launder Bitcoins for you. Pretty expensive though.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service



An offline wallet just means that you have the private key securely separated from the internet, it doesn't alter the contents of the wallet in any way, nor does it affect the ability to trace them, your bitcoins still exist on the blockchain.

Yes but the point I was trying to make, is that an online wallet at least requires some form of ID, and is linked to your name/email address etc giving some sort of tracability to an actual person. If I create an offline wallet on the otherhand, there is no way of determining who the owner is. Yes, the transactions would still be in the blockchain, but the wallet is just a string of data. It doesn't link those transactions to any person. If I wanted a tax haven, or a place to stash proceeds from illicit sales, what's stopping me?