What the heck happened? R9 290 series price increase by $100?!

[KingFatty]

I believe you can make a profit or a loss by simply trading money between different currencies, and getting the timing right when you cash in. So when the Canadian dollar loses value compared to the american dollar, convert a bunch of your american dollars into the low value Canadian dollar. Then wait, and when the value fluctuates and the canadian dollar rises, you cash out all your canadian dollars for american dollars. Just for illustrative purposes, but that's one way to make money with nothing more than using money and pretend numbers. I could see how bitcoin could be like the canadian dollar, and you just use it to convert your american dollars into bitcoin, then wait, then convert the bitcoin back to american dollars.

You never really used the bitcoin, but the value was that it's a very trustworthy thing to use for a transaction that everyone can verify and use across the world instantly.

 

[Keysplayr]

What is the value of gold, and where does it come from? Exactly the same with dollar.

Gold is a physical, coveted element that has been around since the formation of the planet. The dollar, up until the 1950's as someone had pointed out, was BACKED by this tangible and coveted element.

Bit coins are nothing, made from nothing. A result of a calculation of who knows what. And now it's worth money for who knows what reason.

It's all a touch crazy IMHO. Like a fantasy role playing game come to life. Utterly alien.

 

[Erenhardt]

You missed point I was trying to make, I'll try once again.
Each $ had their value because it was backed by amount of gold worth $1 that was put in undergrounds of bank of america, or whatever it is called.
But how you define gold value? Why gold is $1236.30 per oz.? What makes it so expensive?The only reason it has such a value is because people give it this value. You could argue that gold value is highly inflated, and is a bubble to burst.

 

[Grooveriding]

American dollar is no different now, a fantasy currency with no tangible assets backing its creation, that gets printed at will to try and stabilize whatever the current financial disaster of the day is.

At least these coins take some sort of process of creation that takes time and is finite, unlike a currency in shambles where more can be pumped out at will by the behest of a shady unknown banking cartel.

 

[SlowSpyder]

"The pieces of green paper have value because everybody thinks they have value." Milton Friedman, Nobel prize-winning economist. Bitcoins are much the same. It doesn't matter if it is or isn't tangible paper or metal. As long as people are willing to trade goods or services for bitcoins, they have value. That is how currency works.

 

[Screech]

as noted in the post above mine, as long as people agree something has value, it can be thought of as valuable. With money, fungible. The issue with bit/lite/whatevercoin is the chance that everyone decides one morning that they are worthless. One way to solve this of course is to mine until you have the coin to buy x and then buy it and now you have x although if the value of your coin would have increased 100x then you have shot yourself in the foot but whatever.

To address one of the larger discussions above this post, gold is a remarkably useless material for something that has been coveted so much through history. You can't make a weapon with it (too soft) (well, you could, but it would kinda suck compared to your average iron), you can't shoot someone with it, you can't eat it to stay alive, you can't drink it to keep from being dehydrated, you can't put it in your vehicle as a gasoline, you can't really do anything with it except try to look pretty. Which is pretty subjective in its own right. At least with paper money you could burn it for heat if it came to that. Gold as an element simply isn't very useful; as a currency the only reason for it to be regarded as valuable is that it.....is regarded as valuable. Like paper money. At least with oil, guns, vehicles, cows, etc, these things have some inherent usefulness.

edit: ok, you can do surface enhanced raman spectroscopy with gold, but that is a rather narrow field...and you can use silver there. Gold is conductive, but copper is better and cheaper. Gold as a phase is decently stable, but can corrode anodically while titanium passivates. and so forth.

 

[96Firebird]

Except the conductivity of gold is awesome, and it doesn't corrode like other materials. Great for in-body electron transfer. My company sputters gold, we get customers who pay tens of thousands of dollars for microns of gold on small parts.

It has intrinsic value.

 

[Erenhardt]

you can't really do anything with it except try to look pretty. Which is pretty subjective in its own right.

Well, there is that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombac
So, "looks pretty" is not a valid argument. The only thing gold is good at is paperweight due to high density, but its rather hard to justify the price...

 

[Atreidin]

Gold is a near-ideal naturally occurring currency. It is fungible, and easily divisible into whatever quantities desired. You could split a bar in half and each piece's value is exactly half of the original bar, then put it back together if you want, and the value won't change. Certain other valuables like gems don't have those characteristics. It is easily transported, easy to verify if you know what you're doing, and it is highly resistant to corrosion and acids, so you can place it somewhere, leave it alone, and trust that it won't degrade. If you leave your gold in your house and it burns down, the worst that could happen to it is you have melted gold. More was mined as human history went on, slowly increasing the money supply as the human population increased, and in general not at a rate that caused big disruptions in the markets.

This is off topic, but I just want to put out there that gold wasn't picked as a currency only because it was some random, zany idea that caught on because people before us were just idiots who liked shiny things, but the people in our enlightened generation have it all figured out. Gold has a lot of important characteristics that made it a good choice for a store of value.

 

[Screech]

Except the conductivity of gold is awesome, and it doesn't corrode like other materials. Great for in-body electron transfer. My company sputters gold, we get customers who pay tens of thousands of dollars for microns of gold on small parts.

It has intrinsic value.

(now we are going waaayyyy off topic but I am genuinely interested) Why not use copper (or silver) instead? I sputter a number of elements from time to time in my work -- it sounds like copper would be ideal here unless you need to anneal it to get good conductivity where gold would sputter and be conductive at lower temperature or some other reason that makes copper unuseable in this instance. Unless it is a corrosion issue -- true, gold is better than copper in this regard.

 

[Grooveriding]

The idea of a paper-based currency backed by gold in the US was one they copied from the British who had been using such a system at the time, it was thrown out after one of the major financial crises where they started printing up piles of money, at the same time is when the system of privately run federal reserves came about.

I would assume the notion of a gold based currency dates all the way back to when the currency literally was gold coins/pieces.

Gold is a sensible currency base because it is finite and can't be created at will - ironically similar to cryptocurrencies -, has innate value, and tangible uses which also in most cases will not cause it to be destroyed or lost in its usage.

 

[96Firebird]

(now we are going waaayyyy off topic but I am genuinely interested) Why not use copper (or silver) instead? I sputter a number of elements from time to time in my work -- it sounds like copper would be ideal here unless you need to anneal it to get good conductivity where gold would sputter and be conductive at lower temperature or some other reason that makes copper unuseable in this instance. Unless it is a corrosion issue -- true, gold is better than copper in this regard.

I think the thread has gone off-topic regardless of talking about this, but in short copper and silver erode in the body (as well as erode the body tissue, copper more than silver). We coat mainly medical devices (electrodes for heart monitors, stents, guidewires, etc...). Gold is also radiopaque, which means it can easily be seen under x-ray. There are other metals that can also be seen under x-ray (tantalum and titanium), which are cheaper if you don't need the conductivity aspect of gold.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Except the conductivity of gold is awesome, and it doesn't corrode like other materials.

Gold is an extremely versatile metal to say the least, like you said only minor downside is it's not as conductive as silver and copper. I think the most chemically inert metal is iridium.

Yea we went slightly off topic. :hmm:

 

[hawtdawg]

It's backed by something. The paper is just representative of Federal Reserves promise to make good on the note with something of real value. Gold for example.

I don't know about you, but I can't generate gold with any GPU. Gold is real. Tangible. Bitcoin is make-believe that somehow, someway, attained value. I'm sorry but it's just not a concept that my puny mind is readily able to grasp. :biggrin:

the USD hasn't been backed by gold in over half a century. You find value in cash based on some words that you don't even understand.

 

[hawtdawg]

I see your point, but I still dont really understand it. Granted, paper money is no longer backed by gold, but it is issued by a known and *supposedly* reliable entity. Bitcoins seem just to have appeared out of nowhere. I also wonder if eventually the government might step in and regulate them, since it almost seems like printing your own money.

Also, why the sudden resurgence? I thought I read several months ago that it was becoming unprofitable to mine them, and that there was some specialized device that was much more efficient than a gpu.

The system releases the coins in a reliable manner. A manner that many consider more reliable than the Fed, since the Fed can just go print up some money on a whim, yet with bitcoin, there is no way to speed up or slow down the release of the coins.

 

[hawtdawg]

The problem with this entire argument is that the dollar doesn't shift in volume and lose half of its value overnight. Bitcoin isn't a stable currency. There is far too much fluctuation.

"Real" currencies do not have this issue. The dollar isn't going to lose 80% of its value overnight. That has happened to bitcoin in the past, and will likely happen again. Let's see, just last week bitcoins lost half their value. Now they're up to 2/3rds of that value. Whatever. Like I said. Not a stable currency and may not be an accepted one going into the future, since some governments refuse to recognize it (china, for instance).

You're comparing the stable price of goods for the USD in the USA vs the price of other currencies vs the USD. I think you'll find that currency conversion rates vary almost as wildly as Bitcoin prices.

Also, keep in mind that the market is still searching for the worth of a Bitcoin. It's popularity will have to peak before it's real value can be established.

 

[hawtdawg]

Gold is a physical, coveted element that has been around since the formation of the planet. The dollar, up until the 1950's as someone had pointed out, was BACKED by this tangible and coveted element.

Bit coins are nothing, made from nothing. A result of a calculation of who knows what. And now it's worth money for who knows what reason.

It's all a touch crazy IMHO. Like a fantasy role playing game come to life. Utterly alien.

I already explained to you on a basic level what gives coins value; the system that it's based on.

And are you seriously trying to suggest that since the USD was at one point based on something tangible, that this somehow still gives it value even though it hasn't been for half a century?

If anything, this conversation should tell you how little you (or anyone) understands about why money is worth anything at all.

 

[blastingcap]

Anyone who thinks the US Dollar isn't backed by anything is naive. Currency is backed by law, and laws are backed by force. The IRS demands you pay your taxes in USD, even if your employer tries to be cute and pay you in gold coins (that was an actual case, by the way). If you don't pay, they take assets and assess penalties and if you still don't get it, you get sent to jail. All currencies in the entire history of mankind have ultimately been backed by laws, and laws by force. Gold isn't that intrinsically valuable, but when the old kings demanded it as payment, it became backed by force same as today's US Dollar. Gold is no longer a currency; it's a commodity like gemstones.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Feels like a Numismatics forum in here now, all this talk about certificates and how they used to back up gold and silver........

 

[Silverforce11]

Anyone who thinks the US Dollar isn't backed by anything is naive. Currency is backed by law, and laws are backed by force. The IRS demands you pay your taxes in USD, even if your employer tries to be cute and pay you in gold coins (that was an actual case, by the way). If you don't pay, they take assets and assess penalties and if you still don't get it, you get sent to jail. All currencies in the entire history of mankind have ultimately been backed by laws, and laws by force. Gold isn't that intrinsically valuable, but when the old kings demanded it as payment, it became backed by force same as today's US Dollar. Gold is no longer a currency; it's a commodity like gemstones.

Currency isn't back by law guarantees that its worth anything, ever since it became unlinked with gold. TAXES are backed by law. If taxation law demanded you pay taxes in live chickens, you will pay with live chickens.

Gold is a standard because its finite, rare, and useful in many applications AND it is the only currency throughout history that is globally accepted and recognized. The USD has fulfilled that role for the past 60 years however.

There's nothing to stop bitcoins playing the same role in the future. Just like in the 60s, VISA was a ridiculous idea at the time. As more people use it and its acceptance spread, it will be a major currency.

 

[blastingcap]

Currency isn't back by law guarantees that its worth anything, ever since it became unlinked with gold. TAXES are backed by law. If taxation law demanded you pay taxes in live chickens, you will pay with live chickens.

Gold is a standard because its finite, rare, and useful in many applications AND it is the only currency throughout history that is globally accepted and recognized. The USD has fulfilled that role for the past 60 years however.

There's nothing to stop bitcoins playing the same role in the future. Just like in the 60s, VISA was a ridiculous idea at the time. As more people use it and its acceptance spread, it will be a major currency.

You just repeated (plagiarized?) what I already stated a couple of posts ago. You have added no new ideas. Currency is backed by law via taxes; taxes are denominated in currencies and thereby are backed by law. The U.S. Govt is not going to accept chickens or goat livers or bitcoins or whatever instead of US dollars when your taxes come due. And law is ultimately backed by the threat of force. There is no need to bold. And yet you STILL came up with a totally wrong conclusion. No country worth mentioning is going to willingly give up its currency regime (with rights to seigniorage) to bitcoin; no country worth mentioning would demand to be paid in bitcoin; thus bitcoin is NOT backed by tanks, planes, and nukes the same way US dollars are.

It would take something crazy like a revolution where the people then agree on bitcoin as the national currency, or something like that. Any country that unstable isn't going to be an appreciable fraction of world GDP and will probably have a ton of other problems and descend into revolution again anyway. This has nothing to do with VISA or credit cards; your thinking otherwise demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of currency and debt regimes. Credit card debts are still denominated in US dollars and ultimately trace back to taxes and force again--hell, you can even pay federal income tax via credit card, in US dollars.

 

[stahlhart]

Thread irreparably off topic, and closed.
-- stahlhart