Think of Bitcoin as a bank account in the cloud, and it's completely decentralized: not the Swiss government, not the American government. It's all the participants in the network enforcing.
I think bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are great ideas. They should be allowed to be traded freely and used freely to find their appropriate role in the economy.
What I am objecting to is linking bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by federal regulations to the real economy, which would happen if we were to clear bitcoin along with other products in the same trading house.
Whatever happens to bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies are gaining ground and more respect. Ethereum, for instance, has far more transparency.
Bitcoin is successful only because of its potential for circumvention, lack of oversight.
I love this stuff - bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain technology - and what the future holds.
We set up a small bitcoin and ethereum mining operation... that miraculously now is actually making a lot of money.
Ethereum has taken what was a four-function calculator of a programming language in Bitcoin and turned it into a full-fledged computer.
My salary is converted to bitcoin, and taxes are taken out. You have to do all the tax computations in dollars because the IRS does not deal in bitcoins.
The history of Bitcoin trading is a bubble, a correction, consolidation, and another increase. It's happened four times, and it will happen again.
It's probably easier and cheaper to counterfeit hundred-dollar bills than it is to counterfeit Bitcoin.
Daniel Masters is a master of the commodities markets with over 30 years experience. His bitcoin strategy is based on the parallels he sees from the oil industry in 1999 to the current state of bitcoin.
Bitcoin has been described as a decentralized, peer-to-peer virtual currency that is used like money - it can be exchanged for traditional currencies such as the U.S. dollar or used to purchase goods or services, usually online. Unlike traditional currencies, Bitcoin operates without central authority or banks and is not backed by any government.
It's really hard to argue that bitcoin doesn't have many legitimate benefits to companies that are legal businesses when you have Dell and Expedia and all these companies now accepting it.
Bitcoin is valuable as a currency because of the economic efficiencies the bitcoin network is already creating as transactions flow over it. As with the Internet, more applications will flourish which will make the bitcoin network, and thus bitcoin as a currency, valuable.
If bitcoin is more expensive or slower than traditional financial systems, people aren't going to use it.
Gemini is a spot bitcoin exchange. To use it, you sign up with Gemini.com and undergo the initial standard review process, similar to what you'd encounter at a traditional bank. Once you're through, you can ACH or wire cash to the platform, then begin buying and selling bitcoin.
A token like ethereum has gone up 10 times faster than bitcoin, and it's fueling an ICO bubble no different then the dot-com IPOs of the late '90s.
We can code wills, escrows, trusts, notaries, revokable charge backs, proof of contracts, intellectual property enforcement. What Wall Street does can be done in code by Bitcoin.
Bitcoin frees people from trying to operate in a modern market economy.
