If someone wanted to pay me 1BTC = 1 USD conversion rate, I'd consider it.

Not for me. Bitcoin is going to crash.

Pardon my ignorance, but how do you get bitcoins?

With that kind of volatility and risk, is it really worth it to save 3%? Really?

Bitcoin value change % in last:

15 mins. 30 mins. 1 hr. 3 hrs. 24 hrs. 1 week
-0.14% -0.29% -0.40% 0.24% -0.31% 2.97%

See more at: http://www.bitcoinbnk.com/#sthash.vxVNcNXm.dpuf

I don't really even understand what the bitcoin really is, let alone how this made up thing on a computer has any real value. What is it backed by? Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near bitcoin. Give me good old cash money dollars any day because at least I know they are real, even if they are worth less than most other countries currency.

Just curious, which major retailers?

bitcoins are backed by the same thing the dollar is backed by...nothing

Kind of interesting. The bills of credit or notes called dollars are no less questionable. And lord forbid they're being accounted on a statment of some sort.
Bitcoin is a unit of account, supposedly outside of the general banking system. The block chain does the job of 3rd parties making them obsolete. A decentralized currency. Just happens to be digital. Good for exchange, but probably more questionable as a store of value.

Federal judge: Bitcoin, “a currency,” can be regulated under American law....

If there is one thing you can count on, it's more government and more regulations. If you think that will be good for Bitcoin values, then have at it.

Working for a bank, I can say that regulations generally add cost and complexity. Bitcoin is in a 'gold rush' stage but the advantages will diminish over time. There is no reason virtual $U.S. can't be just as cost efficient nor any reason why those involved wouldn't ultimately want the same return on their investment as those processing $U.S.

About 3% is what is charged for a credit card transactions (or perhaps you are referencing PayPal). 25 cents for a debit card transaction if you are a merchant. So, I'm not sure 3% is the right comparison. Point being... Paying with BitCoin is the equivalent of paying with cash (digital currency), not the equivalent of paying with credit.

If you are Home Depot, as an example, I guess the question would be whether the cost of Bitcoin transaction and infrastructure and managing/hedging the currency risk is greater or lesser than that of other types of transactions or not. For retailers, it's all a matter of reducing expenses and improving efficiency.

Questionable that overstock is a major retailer, it's only one, and the CEO is hyping it to boost their business.

This will quickly digress into a pro/con bitcoin argument with political overtones but suffice it to say, bitcoin is a long way from being a meaningful currency that fulfills a currencies role as medium of exchange and stable store of value.

Take it as payment for a pinball machine if you want but if you want to confidently keep the value of what you sold, convert it to dollars as soon as possible.

Just chiming in on the bitcoin discussion.

I paid $23.95 to get some bitcoins (1.3855 bitcoin) about a year ago (Dec 2012). I was looking to buy a website "lifetime" membership which cost about $15 (at the time) but the min. amount I could buy in bitcoin was $20 and there was the $3.95 service fee. So I join the website....and the "lifetime" of the website was about 2 months after that.

So I figure I was out $23.95...though I did have a small bit of bitcoin left in my wallet. I just forgot about it for the most part until October I started hearing a lot of rumblings about bitcoin. So I go and check my wallet. WOW! What started out as $5 worth of bitcoin was worth almost $250.

I found a gift card website that accepted bitcoin (gyft.com) and cashed out most of it for a $200 Amazon gift card. Yes, I got the card and yes, I spent the card. It was a smooth and legit transaction. I let a little bit of my bitcoin balance ride and even that small amount peaked at a little over $60 a couple of weeks later. I see it's now at $43.91 and the price now is just about what it was when I got the gift card.

I can't help but think of the load of money that some people must have made with bitcoin in a years time. $5 going up to over $250 is pretty crazy. If I would have had even the slightest clue I would have thrown in another $20 on bitcoins....and not paid for that website "membership".

$12,000 by Christmas!

I'd disagree. People chose it as money, that's why it's money, always has been, and always will be. It was gold in England, it was gold in China, it was gold anywhere, no question. And it's limited use, with it's consitent rate of production is just one of the appeals. It's nature's money, anything else affords plunder and waste of future resources which is all extracted on credit.

That's why there's all this interest in competing digital currencies right now, everyone's hoping one of them won't get sued out of existence by Kanye and will take off, and they can get in on the ground floor for one of those experiences while the mining is easier.

I suggest we go back to the 'salt' currency system.

Delicious delicious salt.

Which is why I push myself to know how to do stuff should it hit the fan. I'll make my own bread, can my food, and brew my own beer.

I hear ya. I find the topic exciting and the depth of why those things are what they are fun to contemplate. Stuff is the standard.
You only live once. Might be taking part in a monetary revolution by doing so. Good luck.

If you don't lose your shirt and savings first.

Ponzi. First in got rich.

The consumption of gold produced in the world is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. (electronics is in here)..

In 2010 the world bought 2,017 tons of gold jewelery, which was valued at approximately $79 billion.

I hear the no fees about bitcoin, but then I hear that if you want your transaction processed in a reasonable time, you're charged fees. So which is it?

How sure are you now?

Link for bitcoin un-informed....

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bitcoin-collapse-20140226,0,5968430.story#axzz2uSTd7UfZ

Bitcoin is the online version of Beanie Babies. One day they are a hit and worth $$$. Next day you can't pay someone to take them.

So wait; are you saying that Mt gox (Magic The Gathering Online eXchange) was not a bulletproof place to safeguard 900 million dollars?

No, but I bought a pin with monopoly money once.

I'm looking to buy a TZ pin, and I'm willing to pay for it 100% in bitcoin! Hit me up if you're interested.

-Mandrik

Cash is king! Bitcoins are just one more scandal away from being out of existence!

the bitcoin underworld is pretty extreme. a buddy clued me in on what most people do with their bitcoins and alot is illegal.

crash and burn I would think, Im stayin away

Bitcoins are for chumps. Darkcoin is the way of the future

I've given over $2500 to Humble Bundle charities using Bitcoin.

I have run a small mining setup for fun over the past 5 years. I'm currently running a Butterfly Labs jalapeno on a RPi. It doesn't make me rich, but it's been enjoyable when it spiked to $1000 a coin.

Just out of curiosity, is the whole "mining" thing generating anything useful (along the lines of the "Folding at Home" ap you can run on your PC or Playstation) or is it just a mechinism to slow generation of new bitcoins? If so, does anyone know how much computing power is being dedicated to the "mining" operation? I haven't thought about it much so maybe there's a good reason to do it this way instead of having timed releases of new bitcoins, but it seems funny to intentionally emulate physical mining (i.e. requires significant investments in high end computers that are dedicated to non-useful, make-work tasks in order to earn more bitcoins).

I would not delay the selling/buying process. USD cash only.

The work that's being done is effectively verification and encryption of the transactions done with bitcoin, i.e. making the money go 'round. It's deliberately difficult, however, for various reasons that are hard to explain but are reasonable if you start from the premises that lead to bitcoin---decentralised currency is a tricky thing to design. There's a reason that the various bitcoin competitors have broadly the same structure.

And it's a fantastic amount of computer hardware dedicated to the task of mining cryptocurrency, mostly done at this point on very specialised rigs that wouldn't be very useful for other tasks. However, the fact that hardware manufacturers are designing hardware for the task is your first clue that this is a large amount of hardware.

As Excalabur points out, you are offering your hardware and commodities to further the block chain along and help ensure the security of the whole system. It's become so computationally intense that mining on anything other than specialized hardware won't even cover the cost of the power you are using. There is a common concern about bitcoin mining that I think you are alluding to, and that is the "spending more resources than what you get" problem.

That's not an actual problem as I see it, but that's a topic for another post...

To give you an idea of the hardware used, you need to understand the metric for it. What it boils down to is hashes per second per watt. A hash is one attempt at solving the latest encryption in the chain.

For example, a video card was the best tool to mine bitcoins several years ago. A top of the line video card back then could perform around 500,000 hashes a second, but drew like 300 watts. The little jalapeno I use can do 5,000,000,000 hashes a second, and draws around 35 watts. So, 10,000x faster and draws about 10% of the power.

Now, we are seeing the popularity of bitcoin mining farms that you buy timeslices in.

Check out this video:

I don't understand, why is it not a problem?

i have a friend that mines bitcoins. he has 2 large tower looking things with huge heat sinks and 4 smaller tower things with 2 fans on each one. they run 24/7 his electirc bill alone more than tripled, and the heat these things put out is unreal. i dont have any figures as far as the electric bill but ill ask him.

The argument typically boils down to environmental impact of the power draw, a great argument when the only perceived gain is a piece of digital currency that "doesn't really exist or have value".

That is only a partial truth. Yes, bitcoin miners draw power, probably made in a horrible coal driven power plant somewhere. Yes, their output is digital currency. But, compare the environmental impact of consuming electricity for mining versus the environmental/cost impact of a non-digital or centralized currency. The value in mining also comes from the benefit it provides to others. The coins you get for mining are a reward, not the actual job. The job miners are actually doing is ensuring the security of the network. That's something you usually pay banks to do, except you have to blindly trust them that they aren't letting anything bad go on. We see how that's turned out...

I think if you even just look at the innovation that's taken place over the past 5 years in the digital currency space, Bitcoin has had a much larger impact than just generating currency.

For example, one of the reasons bitcoin gets harder every X iterations is because they knew hardware would become more capable as time passed. It's one of the failsafes built into the system. Once hardware started to push ahead of the curve, bitcoin difficulty started increasing at a faster rate to compensate (because we were all mining faster). It self corrected, for lack of a better term.

In the end, it's an experiment. Your participation is purely opt-in and bitcoin itself may crash a horrible death. What it has done is open the door for a new type of currency, more suited for the future we are trying to build.

But there's a risk of a 51% attack with the possibility of one mining pool gaining too much power. I don't see much of a difference in placing faith in the banks, or placing faith in a collective of people who also don't have my own personal interests at heart. So it's a problem in my eyes.

I do see it as an interesting experiment. Just not one I'd want my money, hardware, or electricity involved with. I thought it might be fun doing some trading with, but given the history of exchanges, it's probably best to stay out of it all for someone like me.

ok 2 story 3 bedroom house in southern california. his normal electric bill was an average of $160 - $200. after 3 weeks of him mining bitcoins 24/7 his electric was $800. YIKES! i hope it pays off for him.