NP - Bitcoin and the Bleeding Edge

[malignd at aol.com]

Supposedly the Winkelvoss twins have a large position in bitcoin.



-----Original Message-----
From: Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wed, Apr 10, 2013 9:53 pm
Subject: Re: NP - Bitcoin and the Bleeding Edge


Oh and shit like this:


http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/18f3pd/i_have_my_entire_retirement_and_savings_invested/



P.




On 11 April 2013 11:46, Prashant Kumar <siva.prashant.kumar at gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/10/bitcoin-new-high-losing-160




"Bitcoin, the digital currency, lost more than $160 (£104) in value on Wednesday, just hours after hitting a record high.
The currency hit a new high of $266 before falling to $105 and then bouncing back to $130. The fall is unlikely to put off speculators. Two months ago, a Bitcoin was worth $20"
See data here: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg60ztgSzm1g10zm2g25zv
Intro para at wiki is good summary. The money supply is automatically generated, and transactions are processed and secured cryptographically. Basically one uses idle CPU time to process transactions, so called "bitcoin-mining". There is some transaction fee paid to "miners" according to the difficulty of the calculation (how much CPU time is used).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin

Everyone is calling it unstable; as per the article "tulip-mania" is the phrase of choice. A US SEC report noted that it shares some features of a Ponzi scheme (!).
On Friday night some people on the Bitcoin subreddit /r/bitcoin posted that they'd just become millionaires; by now they'd have lost half their wealth. 

Dotcom 2.0? Wondering what our resident financiers think of it, and its recent "crash"? 
Prashant




 
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