Interesting Links for 08-12-2013

[andrewducker]

• Welcome to the era of the laser-controlled spider!
  (tags: spiders lasers )
• Polar bear cub vs teddy bear.
  (tags: bears cute )
• Transgender murder victim’s life not as valuable as higher class victims, says lawyer
  (tags: law crime lgbt )
• Fact-checking the Margaret Thatcher Museum petition
  (tags: petition margaretthatcher )
• There's a £60m Bitcoin

Comments

Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

I think the heist is a big thing for bitcoin.

If the guy who stole the “money type stuff” isn’t publically caught then I think the credibility of bitcoin founders a little. I know, any store of wealth is subject to theft and fraud but I think the aura of bitcoin is that it’s a bit more robust than paper money.

Re: Bitcoin

[andrewducker]

Noooooo - the whole point of bitcoin is that it's like paper money, but online.

Which means that it doesn't do chargebacks (once a transaction has occurred, it's occurred), and it's anonymous-ish.

It is deliberately set up so that you can't just rewind time and extract money from somewhere once it's moved, easily track it to a real person, or require an intermediary who could authenticate any of it. It's decentralised by design.

Re: Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

In which case - bitcoin only works if the theif gets away with it?

I’ll go an have a look at the Saturday article.

Re: Bitcoin

[andrewducker]

That depends - do coins/notes only work if the thief gets away with it?

I'd say that it's the same answer in both cases - the lack of tracking implicit in the payment method makes it easier for fraud/thievery, but that doesn't prevent other methods of tracking someone down. If you were mugged you wouldn't blame the nature of cash for the fact that someone made off with some of yours, I assume.

Re: Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

I might blame the nature of money if someone were trying to persuade me to use a new form of cash and I wasn’t really familiar with it, and people kept popping up telling me it was wonderful, and then suddenly and somewhat unexpectable someone steals a lot of it

Re: Bitcoin

[andrewducker]

"I think this shows that bitcoin isn’t magic currency but a slightly nerdier form of cash"

Yes. But that's all it ever was. I don't think people said it was powered by fairies. It's entries in a decentralised ledger that's available worldwide without any middleman.

This is useful if you want to be able to make global transactions without a middleman. Not useful otherwise :->

Re: Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

I don’t think it was ever anything other than nerdier cash than paper but I think it has a bit of a reputation amongst those as ignorant or more so than me as being something a bit better than paper money and I think this case highlights what I think are two slightly contradictory opinions about bitcoin that people might have (erroneously) taken away - that it is both more anonymous than a credit card and more secure than paper money. If they catch the thief, it’s not anonymous. If he or she or they or it gets away then it’s no more secure than just a big bag full of cash.

I'm thinking of the reputation that bitcoin has with the average Guardian reader (and indulging my suspicion that the whole thing might just be an elaborate fraud.)

If there are futures markets then the shorting should be straight-forward.

Re: Bitcoin

[andrewducker]

I'm sure that the average Guardian reader is very confused :->

But then the average Guardian reader probably also doesn't understand how the internet works. Or, indeed, how normal money moves around:
http://gendal.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/a-simple-explanation-of-how-money-moves-around-the-banking-system/

Re: Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

Guardian Headline.

Magic Money That Can't Be Stolen or Traced is Stolen Then Traced.

Re: Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

I read that article when you first linked to it - it was helpful.

Re: Bitcoin

[danieldwilliam]

I wonder if someone has actually discovered a way to short bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin

[andrewducker]

There are bitcoin futures markets. I haven't looked into them in detail though.

Re: Bitcoin

[andrewducker]

Oh, and it's worth reading the "How Bitcoin Works" piece from Saturday, if you want to understand how it does all of this. It requires a little bit of maths, but really not very much.