A few thoughts - Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:29 pm
A few thoughts:
This forum is becoming huge
Daily discussion threads were great for times when there are few posters, but now there are many users posting all at once, resulting in unmanageable threads. As I said before, the moderators have done such a great job that some people come here first now, because they don't want to be peppered with the many non-imformative posts at /r/bitcoin.
Having two daily discussion threads is like increasing the 1MB transaction limit to 2MB. Since Internet forums often also grow at an exponential rate, all that does is push the can down the road a few weeks at most.
A better suggestion might be to use the standard reddit discussion system to allow upvoting or downvoting of topics that are "in-depth" as separate posts. Come up with a definition of "in-depth" posts, and tell people who just have a one-sentence comment about a random fact to post it in the daily discussion threads. An example of such "in-depth" posts that require significant analysis are /u/moral_agent's and /u/emocmo's. That will reduce the size of the daily discussion threads, not require a second thread every day, and allow people to better select what they want to read.
Delayed news for Apple?
Some users were commenting that the reason for yesterday's spike was Apple's announcement of bitcoin apps in their store. While that is a reasonable explanation, keep in mind that by the time the news is out, everyone who can make money has already done so.
Apple's acceptance of bitcoin apps is a better explanation for the rise on Sunday. Some people probably obtained a leaked copy of the script for Monday's remarks, or were tasked with updating Apple's website on Monday morning, and they noticed that change and purchased bitcoins.
How the Apple news relates to what I've been saying about cause and effect
I've been saying for a while that the price is the primary mover and that the other news is either the effect of the price or is uncorrelated to the price rise. This Apple incident clearly shows how the price came first, and then the actual action came later.
This happens all the time in bitcoins. Sometimes, the price (represented in the bubble cycle) causes people to take actions, and other times, the price precedes actions that are correlated to, but not directly affected by, the price.
What was missed in Apple's rule changes
One of the more significant phrases in yesterday's Apple news that many people failed to pick up on was that Apple will allow "approved virtual currencies." Regardless of what the conspiracy theorists say, it seems difficult to imagine a world where bitcoin is not an approved virtual currency for people to use in apps.
However, it is also unlikely that infinitecoins and krugercoins are going to be approved by Apple anytime soon. Therefore, Apple just went from being bitcoins' greatest enemy (as I complained last week) to bitcoins' greatest friend, in the course of a few hours. If they do the work of weeding out wallet applications in low market cap cryptocurrencies that provide no benefit over bitcoins, bitcoins will benefit as the confusion is removed from the App Store. Apple will also improve bitcoins' image by hindering new altcoins that suddenly crash and cause a lot of people to cry "scam" when they lose money.
Where are the Chinese?
It's now been months since we've heard anything at all from China. Is that because bad news is still happening and being ignored, as generally happens during this phase of the cycle, or is it because the Chinese have seen that bitcoins are recovering regardless and are rethinking their next move?
One possibility is that they have an all-out ban ready to be announced when the period of unsustainable growth begins, in an attempt to abort this cycle before it reaches a high. Another is that they realized they need to take a different approach and are trying to figure out what it is.
During the downphase of this cycle, there was probably significant manipulation by Chinese officials who knew of impending news, which would explain why a lot of the time the drops were far out of proportion to what was reasonable. If I were an official at a Chinese bank, I would sell, announce the news, and then buy to make easy money. Not only that, I could do that on an exchange with zero fees and cash out by selling "points."
Why most people are unethical
I had a discussion with /u/emocmo on Sunday about ethics. /u/emocmo claimed that most people in the world are ethical and would not steal money if given the chance. However, I dispute his assertion. Here, I'll provide a few simple counterexamples to prove that:
1. If most people were ethical, then why is personal use of drugs prohibited? The idea behind the prohibition is that some drugs cause other crimes like theft, but ethical people don't commit theft under any circumstances.
2. If most people were ethical, then why is every post on reddit followed by a request for proof? In /r/bitcoin, someone posted that he lost 800 bitcoins yesterday, and the first comment was a request to sign a message. If most people were ethical, then misleading posts would be so rare that nobody would bother to ask such a question.
3. If most people were ethical, then why do we need communities like /r/seduction? If the world were ethical, then (to use some of the terminology) there would be no "AMOGs" and women would not need to reject men by default unless they stand out in an exceptional way.
4. If most people were ethical, then why is bitcoin mining a billion dollar business? If only a few people were unethical, then it would be very easy to determine who is manipulating the blockchain simply by comparing the 8000 other correct copies and finding the one person who has an incorrect copy.
5. Why isn't everyone posting his or her real name and address? If most people were ethical, then there would be nothing to fear. If the answer is that there might be one unethical person while most are good, then those few people would be so outnumbered by the good people that it would be physically impossible for them to cause any trouble to the good people even if they did nothing else.
There are more examples, but I think I've gone into enough.
Other
This forum is becoming huge
Daily discussion threads were great for times when there are few posters, but now there are many users posting all at once, resulting in unmanageable threads. As I said before, the moderators have done such a great job that some people come here first now, because they don't want to be peppered with the many non-imformative posts at /r/bitcoin.
Having two daily discussion threads is like increasing the 1MB transaction limit to 2MB. Since Internet forums often also grow at an exponential rate, all that does is push the can down the road a few weeks at most.
A better suggestion might be to use the standard reddit discussion system to allow upvoting or downvoting of topics that are "in-depth" as separate posts. Come up with a definition of "in-depth" posts, and tell people who just have a one-sentence comment about a random fact to post it in the daily discussion threads. An example of such "in-depth" posts that require significant analysis are /u/moral_agent's and /u/emocmo's. That will reduce the size of the daily discussion threads, not require a second thread every day, and allow people to better select what they want to read.
Delayed news for Apple?
Some users were commenting that the reason for yesterday's spike was Apple's announcement of bitcoin apps in their store. While that is a reasonable explanation, keep in mind that by the time the news is out, everyone who can make money has already done so.
Apple's acceptance of bitcoin apps is a better explanation for the rise on Sunday. Some people probably obtained a leaked copy of the script for Monday's remarks, or were tasked with updating Apple's website on Monday morning, and they noticed that change and purchased bitcoins.
How the Apple news relates to what I've been saying about cause and effect
I've been saying for a while that the price is the primary mover and that the other news is either the effect of the price or is uncorrelated to the price rise. This Apple incident clearly shows how the price came first, and then the actual action came later.
This happens all the time in bitcoins. Sometimes, the price (represented in the bubble cycle) causes people to take actions, and other times, the price precedes actions that are correlated to, but not directly affected by, the price.
What was missed in Apple's rule changes
One of the more significant phrases in yesterday's Apple news that many people failed to pick up on was that Apple will allow "approved virtual currencies." Regardless of what the conspiracy theorists say, it seems difficult to imagine a world where bitcoin is not an approved virtual currency for people to use in apps.
However, it is also unlikely that infinitecoins and krugercoins are going to be approved by Apple anytime soon. Therefore, Apple just went from being bitcoins' greatest enemy (as I complained last week) to bitcoins' greatest friend, in the course of a few hours. If they do the work of weeding out wallet applications in low market cap cryptocurrencies that provide no benefit over bitcoins, bitcoins will benefit as the confusion is removed from the App Store. Apple will also improve bitcoins' image by hindering new altcoins that suddenly crash and cause a lot of people to cry "scam" when they lose money.
Where are the Chinese?
It's now been months since we've heard anything at all from China. Is that because bad news is still happening and being ignored, as generally happens during this phase of the cycle, or is it because the Chinese have seen that bitcoins are recovering regardless and are rethinking their next move?
One possibility is that they have an all-out ban ready to be announced when the period of unsustainable growth begins, in an attempt to abort this cycle before it reaches a high. Another is that they realized they need to take a different approach and are trying to figure out what it is.
During the downphase of this cycle, there was probably significant manipulation by Chinese officials who knew of impending news, which would explain why a lot of the time the drops were far out of proportion to what was reasonable. If I were an official at a Chinese bank, I would sell, announce the news, and then buy to make easy money. Not only that, I could do that on an exchange with zero fees and cash out by selling "points."
Why most people are unethical
I had a discussion with /u/emocmo on Sunday about ethics. /u/emocmo claimed that most people in the world are ethical and would not steal money if given the chance. However, I dispute his assertion. Here, I'll provide a few simple counterexamples to prove that:
1. If most people were ethical, then why is personal use of drugs prohibited? The idea behind the prohibition is that some drugs cause other crimes like theft, but ethical people don't commit theft under any circumstances.
2. If most people were ethical, then why is every post on reddit followed by a request for proof? In /r/bitcoin, someone posted that he lost 800 bitcoins yesterday, and the first comment was a request to sign a message. If most people were ethical, then misleading posts would be so rare that nobody would bother to ask such a question.
3. If most people were ethical, then why do we need communities like /r/seduction? If the world were ethical, then (to use some of the terminology) there would be no "AMOGs" and women would not need to reject men by default unless they stand out in an exceptional way.
4. If most people were ethical, then why is bitcoin mining a billion dollar business? If only a few people were unethical, then it would be very easy to determine who is manipulating the blockchain simply by comparing the 8000 other correct copies and finding the one person who has an incorrect copy.
5. Why isn't everyone posting his or her real name and address? If most people were ethical, then there would be nothing to fear. If the answer is that there might be one unethical person while most are good, then those few people would be so outnumbered by the good people that it would be physically impossible for them to cause any trouble to the good people even if they did nothing else.
There are more examples, but I think I've gone into enough.
Other
- Today's user of the day is /u/bitalias. In a comment at http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comment ... es/chxglo6, he offers a controversial viewpoint in pointing out that by getting married, you essentially stake your entire financial future on having made the right choice. One of the reasons that I have chosen not to get married is because I spent many years working long days and nights to save up money so that I don't have to work until I'm 65. As /u/bitalias says, getting married places that at risk, because you can never truly know someone until years later.
- Days until July 24: 51