Are they a scam? they smell like a scam to me Serious intellectual

Yes and no.
Long story short... the bubble is going to burst soon, if you havent already jumped on the bandwagon, dont. It's too late.

Your a nigger

buy IOTA NOW!

>>743965747
>your
Okay Tyrone.

>>743965692
The whole concept of the thing seems dodgy to me

Feels like few big whales hold the majority and they slowly selling breadcrumbs to joe 6 pack idiots then when the artificial price is high enough they will dumb and cash out on the back of all the average idiots that put money into it
Shit has no intrinsic value what so ever or anything to back the value

The only value is what others think its worth and buying in hopes of selling in the future is pyramid scheme 101


I know few ppl IRL who put large sums into this, ill lol when i see them lose all they life savings in the future

>>743965577
until i can go down to the supermarket and buy a loaf of bread with them, they are a scam.

/thread

>>743966315
You can buy pizza where i am.

>>743965939
"Real" money has no value either. What's your point?

>>743966371
name of the pizza place? name of the city?

>>743966447
i can buy food with "real money". i can pay for services like power, internet and car fuel with "real money". until your pretend dollarydoos can do that, they are counters in a stupid online game and nothing more.

>>743966995
You clearly don't know much about bitcoin because you can do all that depending on the wallet you have.
Look into how bitcoin is generated, that's how the value is determined, after taking the time and electricity used by your GPU.
It's a Billion dollar industry, if you can't figure out how it works or how to capitalize on it that's on you.

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ITT retards who dont realize the potential of crypto and will be left on shore.

I could even try and explain how money laundering and political climates could single handedly pump btc to 100k

>>743966995
Yes. That's the case for now. Everyday living locally. Just try and think of the future implications of anonymous currency with next to nothing transfer rate and no exchange rate. I don't think you quite understand why these digital currencies are being created in the first place. Anyways, my money in the bank is direct deposited from my employers account, then I use my debit to pay for all my goods and services, all the while not using any tangible medium. All electronic transfers. This is no different really. The printed paper you carry may or may not have any backing value to it. False inflation created for printing too much of it with no backing. Making it illegal at one point to even carry and exchange gold/silver coins for goods. The current notes we use today are just that. Notes on paper. Too easy to control and manipulate when you're the one printing it right? Things take time to evolve.

>>743967138
>It's a Billion dollar industry, if you can't buy anything with it except more bitcoins that's on you.


fixed your post for you.

>>743965692
You know fuck all, literally lol

>>743965577
Say that to my 10k in ethereum that cost me 2k 5 months ago

>>743967367
>I don't think you quite understand why these digital currencies are being created in the first place.

yeah, yeah, i've read "Cryptonomicon", theoretically i have 12 billion ISK in a wallet in Eve:Online if i could be bothered trying to redeem it. i know why people SAY cryptocurrencies are being spawned at the rate of three every week, and why bitcoin forked, and i also know that the paper in my wallet "may" have no value to it, but the supermarket still accepts them and it doesn't accept bitcoins, dogecoins, dobbscoins, Pepecoins or lindenbucks. that's what it comes down to. have fun building mining rigs. have fun exchanging electrical power for Etherium before realizing you can't do anything with it except try to talk someone else into giving you money for it, money you can spend in the real world. enjoy watching the value of your imaginary money go up and down according to reports of exchanges being hacked.

>>743965692
I remember when they went up to $30 and people said the same thing. Then they went down to $2 and people literally killed themselves.

They are always going up in the long term.

>>743967651
That drop never happened

>>743967756
It fucking did. I mean not specifically but withing like $1

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>>743967756

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>>743967756
Eat shit

>>743967756
how much do you have in bitcoin, so that you are so passionately defending them here? do you imagine that convincing half a dozen /b/tards that they aren't a scam will turn it around and you might get some of your money back one day?

i admire your optimism, but i can't share it. your money, in the words of Diamond Jim Fisk, "hath gone where the woodbine twineth."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Fisk_(financier)

>>743965692
people have been saying this for years.

it might burst, but nobody knows if or when or why.

it's basically gambling.

>>743967586
>you can't do anything with it except try to talk someone else into giving you money for it

your point might be more biting if exchanging bitcoin for "real" money wasn't so easy to do. i've cashed in $300,000 "real dollars" in the last five years on crypto. people think it's worth money, so it's worth money.

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>>743965692
nigger u dumb

>>743967586
Oh I never said I owned any. I don't. Have no need for it. I understand your argument but I also understand the deeper effect crypto currencies can have on the banking system. It's not the currencies I'm interested in.

>>743968326
considering how much trouble has been caused by the short-pants boys speculating with investment futures - playing with money like it wasn't real - you'd think the bitcoin crowd might be cautious. instead, they fap to the notion that one day they might be able to anonymously buy pizza - by the way, still haven't heard back from this guy >>743966371 about that pizza place - it's gonna be a pyramid scheme.

if bitcoin ever becomes a thing, then i will guardedly buy some, but the constant cries of "you have to get in now or get left behind!" make it sound exactly like Quintex, and the Nugan-Hand banking scam. and every other pyramid marketing scheme ever.

what sort of money varies in value depending on when you got it? okay, yeah, Robert Anton Wilson once thought up a kind of depreciating not-exactly-currency called "trade aids", supposedly to be handed out by the government for basic living expenses, and THEY lost value over time, to discourage hoarding.

face it, bitcoin fans: you can't get something for nothing. it's nice to fantasize that the ten bucks worth of Etherium you bought might one day be worth ten dollars and fifteen cents, but that's the sort of stupid shit that causes financial crashes.

read up on the financial history of Albania. the entire country's economy was wiped out by a pyramid marketing scheme, and they never recovered.

>>743968542
>i've cashed in $300,000 "real dollars" in the last five years on crypto.

what was the name of the exchange where you did this? do you have any proof of your claim?

>>743965577
Initially I thought the same. Back when they were like a buck a piece. Now I regret not buying hundreds and being a rich cunt.

Honestly at this point I don't see their worth rising too much higher. Maybe they'll hit 10k a piece but that might be with inflation. If you have money to invest do it properly in multiple facets. Never put all of your eggs into one basket though.

>>743968882
Funny cause I always see the media claiming it would never break the $2000 mark not too long ago. It's funny to watch people play around with people's money and economies. Sad world we live in.

>>743965577
the technology itself and the currency using it are not a scam, but make no mistake there are plenty of scams built up around it and related concepts

>>743966962
Australia, Melbourne, numerous cafés and eateries accept bitcoin. We have bitcoin atms here where you can buy and exchange bitcoins too.

>>743969086
I think the fed are trying to destroy it for the obvious. If any scams around it it was created by them.

>>743965577
Everyone in this thread is dumb.

There are a bunch of cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin was originally designed to be a crypto "currency". It is no longer viable as currency. There was recently a fork that proved that the owners of BTC actually don't even care if it's ever used as currency. If they did, then the majority of the market cap of BTC would have likely moved into BCC. It did not.

Now, there are other, leading, crypto CURRENCIES. Eth, LTC, BCC(now that there was a fork could potentially be as such but we don't really know yet), etc. Honestly, you have to watch both how ETH and BTC move together to grasp.

The way that BTC moves and the way that ETH moves are essentially like watching the value of gold and the value of the US Dollar. BTC is so slow to trade it is more like a commodity. It's like a really really fast, super convenient, bar of gold. ETH or LTC is more like cash.

It's far more likely that something else will emerge as a replacement for USD/EUR (if that even happens) and BTC will continue to act as a commodity and move based upon the relational value of ETH/LTC/EUR/YUAN/USD/etc. These relationships drive the value of BTC, not some garbage that people in here are making up.

Yes, there is 'faith', yes there are crashes. But it will likely retain the majority of its value over the long term at this point because it's a very convenient commodity.

>>743966447
but when it comes to a country's currency it is given value by the government, bitcoin however has no organization to give it power, it's value is dependent on how many people buy into it, its basically a volatile stock.

>>743969057
it's not as funny when financial institutions take it seriously and then go out of business by playing monopoly with them, and those institutions were also supposed to be managing existing businesses that deal in real shit, and they go out of business and suddenly hundreds of thousands of people lose their pensions. none of you little children have ever lost a large amount of money due to banks playing tiddleywinks with other peoples' money. but, hey, go buy some bitcoin. you'll find out the hard way.

>>743969393
No it's not. A country's currency value is determined only by how much of it the country prints and how much someone is willing to give you for a printed piece of it. It's purely faith based.

The USD is just a piece of paper that says "I did $1 worth of work" or "I stole $1 worth of stuff". If no one will give you $1 for it, it's not worth anything.

BTC is the same thing. You did work, the pool proves that you did the work or stole the work. The only difference is that no one can arbitrarily print more of it.

>>743969370
the fact that cryptocurrencies keep forking because people keep finding faults - the blockchains got too big and it now takes three hours to process a transaction, they're vulnerable to hacking, they rely on trust in people who run the exchanges which aren't licensed or even insured in any way - all of that adds up to a sufficiently strong fishy smell so that smart people won't want to fuck with it.

so far, the only arguments i've seen in this thread FOR them are:

- you're dumb, everyone is doing it
- you could make a lot of money if you got in early

insufficiently compelling reasons. i'm also guessing a lot of you in here have never had a real job where you have to exert yourself at all, and you imagine that money is something magically handed out by your parents.

>>743969486
Dude...banks are retarded anyway.

Under FDIC, a US bank is allowed to loan out $90 for every $1 they have deposited into their bank. Please explain to me how the fuck unsecured loans in US dollars and poorly backed mortgages propped up by the government (which is paid for by the same people who are taking out the loan) is better than messing around with fucking BTC?

The derivatives market is a fucking shit show. You literally have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

>>743969627
>It's purely faith based.

but, as i said earlier, it's a faith shared by the rest of the financial world. i haven't seen any major financial institutions actually take on bitcoin or any of the variations. the stock exchange doesn't count, because they deal mostly in intangibles anyway. banks won't accept bitcoin, stores won't (still waiting to hear from pizza guy and mr i-exchanged-$300,000-worth).

>>743969280
Bitch, i live in Melbourne. name these cafes and eateries. name the locations of these bitcoin ATMS, and i'll drive around there right the fuck now, 11:30 saturday night, and i will piss on them.

>>743969783
>Dude...banks are retarded anyway.

banks are retarded, yes. i know. i have to deal with them on a regular basis. about the only two things they have going for them is that my employer trusts them sufficiently to deposit my pay with them, and that stores accept the card issued by that bank when i go to buy shit.

>>743969736
BTC was not forked because it was flawed. It was forked because some people disliked the slow transaction times.

As I said, the slow transaction times did not make BCC worth $5k and BTC worth $100. This is even MORE proof that BTC is stable.

You're just thinking about it like the money in your pocket and not like a gold coin.

The real reason to invest in BTC is because it gives you, the common man, easy access to a commodity that is backed by other common people from around the world, with a fixed size, and no government oversight. Your earnings are tax free (if you do it correctly) and there has very large earning potential. Also, if you have holdings of multiple currencies you can insulate yourself against foreign instability and valuation changes in foreign currency and trade policy.

That is why BTC goes up and that is why you should learn how the world economy works and get involved in it. It's not a 'scam' it's just the most pure form of free market capitalism that has ever existed (and probably will ever exist at this point).

>>743969736
People said shit about computerized bank transactions first now the majority of money is just a number on a banks server. if I crash that server there goes your money. if the server is EVERYWHERE is almost impossible to crash the system without crashing the Internet in which case we're all fucked anyway

>>743970047

are there even any websites that will accept bitcoin in exchange for services? i keep asking for proof, and the people who keep making these claims have been very quiet.

>>743969884
Paypal takes BTC.

Also, refer to my other post:
>>743969370

People buy gold coins like crazy but your bank won't take a gold coin. The pizza guy won't take a gold coin. You can't buy stock with a gold coin. It's an internationally traded commodity.

ETH or LTC is more like a currency. With the implementation of .NET support for ETH and TD ameritrade's currency to speed up the transactions and ETH having actual developers...something like that might become "cash".

You could see that be a "swipe your phone to pay with ETH" at the store or paypal taking it readily because ETH could do 10,000 transactions a second.

Now, BTC will still move up in value. BTC, will be gold, ETH will be cash. Cash doesn't change value. People don't fuck around with the value of cash. $1 is $1. A gold coin....I can wait. I'll wait a couple weeks to sell it to someone who really wants it and will give me a good price. Then you can trade that for the most ETH.

>>743970115
the difference there being that if a bank fucks up and loses your money, they are under a legal liability to make recompense. the Bolshoy Duraki Bitcoin Exchange in Archangelsk won't, because it's run by one guy out of his attic room.

>>743970305
Shitloads?

Paypal, Microsoft account...

You can literally buy xbox games with BTC through your live account.

You can send them to your PayPal so then...literally everything.

>>743970345
>You could see that be a "swipe your phone to pay with ETH"

and when that happens, i'll invest. until then, i will continue to heap scorn on the people who think there is a free ride here.

>>743965577
btc are an investment, just like investing in the stock market. cryptocurrencies have the advantage that theyre less susceptible to human error but since theyre less popular than stocks theyre more volatile. btc is pretty damn safe tho, id put like a couple hundred bucks in and just watch it grow. Monero is probably most secure and the most likely to grow very fast though, the price is just less stable than BTC.

>>743970425
shitloads? you mention paypal and microsoft.

"When you redeem Bitcoin to deposit funds into your Microsoft account, you can use it to purchase games, movies, and apps in the Windows and Xbox stores. You cannot use these funds to purchase items in the Microsoft online store."

"Money added to your Microsoft account using Bitcoin can't be refunded."

"You can't use money in your Microsoft account to buy gift cards."

"Support for adding money to a Microsoft account with Bitcoin is not available in all countries and regions."

they don't exactly look like they're jumping in with both feet. and i am willing to bet you a hundred million ISK that if you tried to redeem one bitcoin in paypal and then tried to extract it as cash, a lot of delays and mysterious barriers would pop up. i invite you to try it, and we'll just stand over here with our arms crossed, nodding.

>>743970305
Humble bundle and sites like that also accept. You keep asking for a who backs it/ensures a value yet ive not seen the most obvious argument in this thread yet. Drugs. Drugs will keep the cryptos running.

hello

>>743970401
earlier days my man

>>743970597
>cryptocurrencies have the advantage that theyre less susceptible to human error but since theyre less popular than stocks theyre more volatile.

they are much more susceptible to human maliciousness, however. i don't even need to exert myself to find half a dozen stories on slashdot about bitcoin exchanges being hacked, collapsing, refusing transactions, delaying currency exchanges and exactly the same kind of fuckery that you'd expect from, say, Russian teenagers.

>>743970401
Achtually....

Here's the fun part....

So, say you deposit a check into an FDIC insured bank. When you sign the back of the check, you have legally stated "I hearby accept responsibility for this check." The bank then takes the check, waits 24 hours, then extends you a CREDIT in the amount of the face value of the check and it goes off to their clearinghouse.

Now, you look at your bank balance and it says "Available $500" so you go spend $500. At this point, you don't actually have $500. You have a loan for $500.

At some point during the next 5-7 days the clearing house supposedly verifies that the check is good and then CLEARS the check with the other bank. This actually gives you the money. Then your loan has ended.

BUT! Under the Patriot Act! It is illegal for a bank to communicate with their own clearinghouse so there is no way for the consumer to find out if the check has been cleared and after 180 days all checks are invalid.

So, you can either wait 180 days before you ever spend any of the money, OR, you're working entirely on credit, OR you have to drive all over gods creation to cash checks on the bank that they were written on and get the cash in hand.

So, the implication is this:
If there's ever a run on the banks, all the have to do is go "we're sorry, you don't have any money".

>>743970642
>Drugs will keep the cryptos running.

on which version of the Silk Road do you buy drugs? the old one, which was taken over by the American Federal police, or the new one, which was also taken over by the American Federal police?

hang on a moment.

'k, just called my weed dealer. he doesn't accept bitcoin.

>>743970628
Whatever dude...I was just giving you some examples off the top of my head. I don't go around buying shit with BTC.

I see the logo all over. All those little square things that are in like every coffee shop take it if the person wants it.

There's a BTC ATM up the street by my house.

Lots of places take it. Quit being argumenative. You asked and I gave you an example of "yes, the largest multinational corporation in the country takes them" and you start quoting me fine print. Who gives a fuck.

>>743970732
it's called a bitcoin wallet not a bitcoin safe, if you dont wanna lose your cryptocurrency then you need to keep it safe. i gurantee you every single person who loses their bitcoins lost them because they didnt take the proper precautions when handling their money. the reason you dont have to do this with your debit card is because the bank does it for you, but you *cannot* put hundreds of dollars behind one single password and expect it not to get cracked, you gotta secure your keys better than that and you gotta make sure you trust who youre paying.

>>743970799
Sucks to be you. I accept coin. A couple of hookers local do too.

I like how you glazed over a legit site that accepts. Oh amd here you go lazy faggot http://bitcoinrestaurants.net/

>>743970799
lol you clearly have never bought dnm drugs, it's still very alive and well

also my weed dealer does accept btc and xmr you pussy bitch

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>>743970944
>. I don't go around buying shit with BTC.

it's funny how many people are willing to claim you can buy real things with bitcoin, but they personally don't.

>>743970944
>There's a BTC ATM up the street by my house.

i suppose now you won't tell me the address of the ATM because you'll claim i might find out where you live.

>Lots of places take it.

yeah. paypal. and microsoft, who won't exchange anything except digital information for it. and that pizza place the guy mentioned earlier, except he never told us where it was. and those cafes and eateries in Melbourne, except that guy never told us the address of even one of them.


> Quit being argumentative.

do you even know where you are? do you want pictures of cats, since it's caturday? okay, in the spirit of where we actually are, here's a fucking picture of Mr Popo.

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anyone want to play?

I get bored with you guys.

>>743970799
>just called my weed dealer. he doesn't accept bitcoin.
not counting the many venues that let you literally pay in bitcoin (and only accept bitcoin) to have drugs delivered to your front door, a smart dealer will gladly accept transactions in bitcoin

>>743971214
http://bitcoinrestaurants.net/ seems legit. Its almost like 30 seconds on google would show you information relevant to any query.

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>>743971214
not the same guy, but there's also a btc atm in the gas station by my house. for fucks sake just google "bitcoin atm locations" you pretentious dickhead. also, if you did any research aside from stroking your penis on 4chan and just googled "businesses that accept bitcoin" youd realize that you're just plain wrong.

you're on the internet. use it.

>>743970999
>I like how you glazed over a legit site that accepts. Oh amd here you go lazy faggot http://bitcoinrestaurants.net/

that site only covers the US. it doesn't locate any of the "cafes and eateries" supposedly all over Melbourne.

let's check one. The El Castillo in New York. i went to their website and they didn't mention bitcoin at all. do you have any actual examples or are you going to continue muttering "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"?