Why are bitcoins worth $400+ now ?

They were half a cent 4 years ago. What backs this currency. I don't get it. I know they are mostly used for ill-eagle activities like gambling and drugs.

There was an off-topic forum here but it seems to be gone now ?

 

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Yeah man, I shoulda bought some 4 years ago...

If I had bought a hundred bucks of bitcoins in 2009, I'd have...uh, well,.. I'd have, uh..., I'd have...uh, a LOT of money right now, you know what I'm sayin?

This is an example of how people are living their lives in a little 3-inch by 6-inch hand-held computer, and our whole world is "virtual". Well, for some people, anyway. And it looks like some of them are dope-fiends and gamblers.

You know, I'm thinking I can make my millions by creating a completely new, "virtual" numismatic market. It goes like this:

People who own high-grade, monster key-date, TPG-slabbed/CAC coins can photograph their coins and put the images of the coins up for sale, like a "virtual coin". You know, bitcoins have a secure code that ensures their virtual "existence", or some-such nonsense, right? Then why not the same thing for my "virtual" coin idea?

Instead of going through the trouble of searching for (...BOring!), and the tedious chore of having to save up your pocket change to buy that Buff Nickel "8 over 7" in MS-63, just buy the virtual coin, dude!

Then, in four years, people will find the convenience of buying and owning VIRTUAL coins so alluring, that they'll start ditching their physical collections! Then (check this!), the price of virtual coins will trend up, and the price of physical coins will trend down, man! Then, soon enough, you can sell your "VIRTUAL Chain Cent" in AU-50, and use the bitcoins you earned from that sale to go out and buy the REAL. THING. at Heritage!

Does Heritage accept bitcoin payments?

 

The forum is general discussion - it is still there you just have to opt in to see it. Or at least you used to have to opt in.

Can say about bit coins, but if I had any I would sell them.

 

I have a complete MS-70 collection of bit coins. Every year, every mint, and even a few small dates.

 

2500 years ago, it would have been easy to say that you cannot eat gold or silver. They do not hold an edge, so they cannot be used to make manual tools. Wheat and cows, those are real money.

1500 years later pounds-shilling-pence began as a virtual currency, a banker's abstraction to deal with the plethora of medieval coinages.

Henry V (or IV?) of France created the franc as a unit of account, independent of the coin which bore the name. Francs could have any value and often sadly had no value, the 20F coin going from gold to aluminum in a generation, though the franc survived for another generation before the euro.

I recently read an informal poll of young people, university mostly, here in the USA from India and other places. They are amazed at our cashless society. On the one hand, most places are still cash-based. On the other, in Africa, cellphone minutes are the new currency.

Bitcoins is just another instantiation of virtual currency. Flooz and egold were earlier attempts. I think that an easy comparison is that the Wright Brothers's first flight was shorter than the actual length of a 747. Give it time.

 

I'm guessing that bitcoins don't say In God We Trust on them, so for about half the US population, they're heretical in addition to being virtual. Which reminds me of my favorite definition of the word "virtual".

VIRTUAL -adjective, Implies the next word is a lie. ie. Virtual Storage.

 

They are around $900 now.

 

Found this handy site that has live pricing on Bitcoins, as well as Gold, Silver, and several other items...

https://ounce.me/

Currently Bitcoins are $625 and change.....

 

Dropped as low as $505 today. I try to stay away from coins that can drop 40% in one day. I don't understand how any business could survive taking these as payment.

 

In the late 1700's each of the states had their own moneys of account that had no physical existence either. This is hardly a new concept.

 

If you're a business, just need to buy put options on the virtual currency, which while probably expensive, I'm sure there is probably at least one shady broker out there who would create such an instrument. Albeit with some "we always win you always lose" clause built-in.

 

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4903fc9a-591f-11e3-a7cb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2m5DWrnYk

 

I know this thread is a few weeks old, but now that bitcoins have increased significantly in value over the past few weeks, even a collection of MS-67 (and less) can command 200+K on eBay, lol:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIG-Collect...7957731?pt=US_World_Coins&hash=item3cd8f4c563

 

Why does money need to include IGWT to be legit currency?

 

Might want to much further back than that sir. Gold and silver became valuable about 4000 years ago or longer. Gold was rare, unique looking, and very malleable. Therefor it was chosen as a symbol of power first by the priesthood class, then the nobility to set themselves apart from the masses in Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt long before coinage.

I agree it was an arbitrary decision then, just much further back than you indicated sir.

 

can you elaborate on that ?

I thought coins were pretty much valued by their metal content and a large variety of foreign coins of various metals freely circulated until the mid 19th century as the US Mint could not really produce sufficient product until then.

Why can't I make Doug coins to compete with bit coins ?.

I don't see why bitcoins have a monopoly of sorts ?

I guess I don't understand the concept well enough ?

anyhow , I think it is too late since they went from half a cent to over $1100 now !

 

I understand he was probably referring to about 2700 years ago in Lydia, I was just saying bars or gold, silver, and copper traded as durable trade goods for thousands of years before. Coinage did not determine gold, silver, and copper were valuable, they were already recognized as valuable items. Coinage simply denominated and assured purity of metal already accepted as valuable, but had to be weighed and assayed for each transaction.

I was simply going back further in time to where gold was taught to most other cultures as valuable because of its use by babylonian, assyrian, and egyptian priests. Anyone not in those civilizations back then were basically taught gold's value by these dominant cultures willingness to trade for it.