several recent attacks on Bitcoin services

It's not clear from the company's announcement how the service was breached, or how many Bitcoins were stolen. As The Hacker News notes, this is just one of several recent attacks on Bitcoin services -- $250,000 was stolen from BitFloor last fall, and $90,000 was taken from Bitcoinica last May. http://www.esecurityplanet.com/hackers/instawallet-hacked.html One silver in the hand is worth two bitcoins on the www?

 

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I'm not an advocate FOR, but most of the knee-jerk anti-BitCoin polemic is untrustworthy.

Here's an objective article in Forbes and The NYT:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/04/07/four-reasons-bitcoin-is-worth-studying/
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/business/media/bubble-or-no-virtual-bitcoins-show-real-worth.html

Now's rather late, but bullionizing your BitCoins at this time looks prudent. I suppose there's a classic Investor Death Spike in this chart:

 

My cousin's son just called me Saturday asking about Bitcoins. I guess he bought 100 or so a few years ago and had forgot about them. My advice was to sell at least half today, since they are simply going crazy. Best to take at least some profits in such a market. Hopefully he listened to me, since all it will take is for the masses to realize how unsafe digital money can be for the market to tank back down to near zero.

 

Sell half?! No, at this price SELL ALL & book the profits.
Buy (back) some @ ~$20. or lower in a few months, if you insist.

 

That was my first advice to him, but he didn't want to. He thinks they are going up further. So I had to try logic to get him to at least sell half of them. Hopefully it worked. I agree, though, that at today's levels he should sell all, but you can never tell a young man anything, right? Its always "different this time".

 

Dang, if he sold now, I bet he made a very good profit margin.

 

BitCoin went from an average high price of $12.75 in the last 6 months of 2012 to $194.90. It was $13.70 three months ago.
That 3 Month GAIN is +1,320%. Annualize THAT and ... 4,095,948% Whoa!

This is the classic parabolic formation of an Investor Death Spike. BitCoin will and must crash & burn ("because I say so" lol) but that simple statement of fact is not good enough for most people. So: when has a parabolic price hike of +1,000% ever been sustained without crashing? Provide ONE example, please. Or SELL ALL NOW.

Reminder to nephew: 'A winning lottery ticket that never gets cashed is worth nothing.'

 

Not disagreeing. I simply had to work hard to try to convince him to at least take some profits.

Btw, I think he has about $.50 per into these things. I thought the idea was stupid 5 years ago, just goes to show what I know.

 

$50 to $20,000 ... not bad for a few years of sitting :devil:

 

BitCoins are not so safe after all. What a surprise?

 

Nothing in the OP proves that.
Some sites have been hacked, TRUE; 2 corporate accts have been looted YES... but there's noting to show that BitCoins are less safe than e-bank accounts generally. Or for retail folks specifically.

 

Online bank accounts can get hacked but at least the money is returned and insured. Once your BitCoins are stolen there is nothing the owner can do.

 

Sounds like something else some of us have in the house uninsured........

 

Right but we are talking about e-currency.

 

So exactly how many verified individuals have actually lost BitCoins?

People lose money from bank accounts every day. This is old news! It happens so often - and so many times in the past - I don't know how anyone can be so ignorant of that fact.
Ergo: "banks aren't so safe"? No, that's logic turned upside down.

We don't know whether BitCoins are safer or riskier than banks for theft.

 

I beg to differ.

When you compare the dollar value of the recent attacks on the Bitcoin network to the total dollar value of all Bitcoins, then compare the dollar value of recent unreimbursed bank thefts to the total dollar value in the banking system, one can prudently make the assumption that Bitcoins are not safe.

 

It is more difficult to verify a BitCoin theft than it would be from a bank account. Check out this article his "wallet" was stolen.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/230377/worlds_first_virtual_heist_bitcoin_user_loses_500000.html

 

Who does this verification you speak of? The FDIC? Nope. The Securities and Exchange Commission? Nope. Wikipedia? lol

 

No - compare to the amount of all theft, not just 'hacking' or 'online.' People get robbed of cash every day. Robbed of BitCoins? Almost never.

As I said, nothing in the OP proved BitCoins are "unsafe." My verification comment referred to a researched article that showed most "claims" of BitCoin hacking were anti-hype from haters; simply BOGUS CHARGES.

I don't own any BitCoins now, fyi. But that was a brilliant investment I cannot deny: even better than ATB pucks or Gold obviously.

Here's a CFA weighing BitCoins against Gold.
http://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2013/04/08/bitcoins-new-gold-or-fools-gold/

Cash-rates in PMs here: ~9.3 BitCoins per 1ozt Gold Krugerrand
http://coinabul.com/index.php/south-african-gold-krugerrand.html
https://www.bitaurum.eu/krugerrand-c-4_9/1-oz-krugerrand-p-40.html?zenid=1hc6r4l03l7v631cba52msr2k2
https://www.goldsilverbitcoin.com/product/krugerrand/

 

Sure, people get robbed every day. They get robbed for $10, $20, $50. Very rarely do they get "robbed" of $250,000 in cash, so I still think the ratio is smaller for cash versus bitcoins. Especially when you consider just how much money is in the banking system. Think all deposits, including those that have been loaned out. If a bank has $50 million in deposits and $45 million loaned out, we're talking about a liability of $50 million, not $5 million. Also think about all retirement accounts: 401ks, IRAs, state pension funds, etc. Since the value of the bitcoin fluctuates wildly, why not also lump in all the money in the NYSE? ($15 trillion by some estimates, some of which is held through 401ks, IRAs and pension funds, so there's some duplication there, but still.)

The bulk of dollars is held in these types of accounts, not in people's wallets. Just like the bulk value of Bitcoins aren't held in physical tokens in people's pockets, they're held online. So when you're talking about people getting robbed, that's truly an insignificant amount.