Well some crypto currency trading areas lost some bitcoins as they were stolen.

I think guys may not know the risks. And I agree on that.

The European Union only lives from negative payback rates. When we would go back to 20 years ago with 9 percent interest rate, hole European Union would burst.

The bitcoin just helps to burn money, as they printed too much in past years

An Austrian bank idiot, called novotny, already suggest a bitcoin tax. LOL

Some others will prevent crypto currency. that stuff will be taxed, will be kept in a cage and soon no one will really bother with it anymore

eu politcs are quite slow but when they focus on something, they will ruin anything in their path.

The key term here is "windfall profits." Remember that there was a time when tulips produced "windfall profits," too.

The crux of the scam is simply that all of these "digital tokens" are not(!) "legal tender.™" They are barter tokens ... a.k.a. "scrip." They have no 'intrinsic value' whatsoever. They are only 'worth' what "a willing buyer" will pay "a willing seller" at that instant in time.

Legal Tender,™ on the other hand, has a value that is established by the issuing government, and it must be accepted as Legal Tender for All Debts, Public and Private within all domains where said government has jurisdiction. Anything which is "convertible on demand" to a unit of Legal Tender becomes Legal Tender. The "value of" a Dollar is not subject to negotiation by buyer or seller, and sellers cannot refuse to accept it in payment of any debt or purchase, if it is offered by a buyer anywhere within the issuing government's (specifically, the seller's) domain.

Regardless of the statement that "a bitcoin is 'worth' $XX,000.00," and even though the token misleadingly uses the term, "coin," this statement has no legal tender status. Tomorrow morning, every buyer could abruptly decide that "this is nothing more than an ordinary tulip-bulb, nothing more than a tasty onion," and there would be absolutely nothing that you could do about it. Like every sucker before you, you just got left holding the bag.

The State of Texas is viewing bitcoins for what they really are. A Ponzi scheme.

I have been saying for decades how poor computers are. I've been saying it over and over and people think they can mine a fortune in bitcoins overnight. Yet every day we get a new major issue.

Bitcoins are not based on the logic of real money. Yes, I know about the Federal Reserve. I know some folks that work there. Real money isn't real but the standards that keep it usable are in place.

Go ahead and get on the crypto mining business. Plenty of system out there to get you lucky.

Better sell your bit coins. They will not have any value in any sort of less than civil society.

That may be, but the reality is that paper money (or plastic in my country's case) will be replaced with online/digital currencies sooner or later. It's just a matter of time.

Many businesses are already allowing people to pay via bitcoin.

The central banks don't like it, because they have no control over it.

Think about it... people used to actually talk to people in person once upon a time... Now it's via Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Some country's have already moved (or started to) away from paper/plastic money.

So how's money going to be different in that regard?

FWIW the current value of bitcoins is so high and the encryption scheme so strong that individuals mining is long gone. It takes a modest super computer to have anything even remotely like decent odds. While we argue about BitCoin, which may or may not survive another year, the larger issue is something IS going to manage to become global currency and it's a safe bet that computing will be a large part of it. The odds are pretty good that some version of crypto-currency blockchaining will be at least one major player.

From the comments here I can tell many don't truly understand blockchaining and crypto-currency. Assuming BitCoin is the only, or worse, the only possible, permutation is simply ignorant of the facts. This may help -- Wikipedia on Blockchain Technology --

Sundial you keep harping on "legal tender" as if we hadn't left the Gold Standard a long time ago. I am quite aware of the tulip bubble as well as the dot.com bubble and now what may well be the bitcoin bubble, but virtually all money these days is fiat money. Yes, the degree of risk varies wildly but none of it is backed by more than the power of good will and consensus, and even that can turn out to be scammed - ponder Enron.

There are no laws under the sun forbidding the use of barter transactions. In fact, businesses employ them all the time.

But the crypto-scammers are counting on three things:

1. People are accustomed to "electronic transactions" and therefore will not comprehend or appreciate the difference between a barter token (which they carefully and misleadingly refer to as, "coins"), and "legal tender." The Russian Government stands behind the value of the Ruble. But, no one stands behind barter.
2. Companies will be willing to cash-in on the scam while it is running, and to thereby add a perception of "legitimacy" to it.
3. The notion that "money" must be "rare," and "hard to come by," and that some characteristic of the barter-token somehow makes it "equivalent to real money."

There's nothing that you can do while the swindle is running its gigantic course – I'm quite sure they've bought the lawmakers and judges long ago – except to stay far, far away from it and don't get swindled or let your vulnerable loved-ones do so. "Tulips look pretty, and if you eat them they taste like onions." But, in the heyday of that swindle, many a fool parted with much gold and was left with a flower. (Sometimes, even with a dead bulb that wouldn't grow.)

There's a great double-book on the subject, published over a hundred years ago and still in print because (as we see here) it's still relevant: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness Of Crowds. Swindling is still one of the most-popular forms of crime when it can be mounted on a massive scale, as has very-methodically been done here.

sundialsvcs,

While I can't speak for other country's, Barter transactions in Australia are perfectly legal and as quoted below, are subject to the same taxes and laws as any other transactions are.

You can read it for yourself:

https://www.ato.gov.au/Business/GST/...ade-exchanges/

FWIW, jsbjsb001, sundialsvcs is bright, educated and rather prolific here on LQ but he is also utterly insular, and often intractable. In hundreds of posts I don't recall a single time he has ever learned anything, or at least admitted so. I suppose some folks revel in the illusion of their own certainty but I think there is no shame in being mistaken or uninformed, only in staying that way, especially with the "evidence to the contrary notwithstanding" stance of many. Personally, I am still quite fond of a phrase by Bob Dylan -

It does, however, take all kinds to make a world and wouldn't we be boring as hell if we were like ants?

Absolutely, absolutely. Sad, but true isn't it?

Got any Bitcoins?

No. I'm probably way too conservative, and possibly as a result, poor, to gamble at the very least on that level. I may eventually regret it but for now I just find crypto-currency and the whole blockchain thing fascinating and intend to watch it's evolution with great interest.

Enorbet, I will first-of-all remind you of one of the fundamental rules of this thread: that "we do not discuss each other!" Thank you for your consideration.

- - -
In the eyes of the law of most every country, "barter tokens" are not illegal. Until very recently (and maybe they'll come back very soon), if I visited a Disney® resort park, I could buy this year's "Disney® Dollars.™" Or, if I found myself in certain portions of the upper-northeastern United States that are too damned cold(!) to even think of visiting right now, I could buy a few copies of this year's "Berkshares™."

But, either way, I would know the rules of the game.

The problem with the present swindlers is that they are doing everything they possibly can to skate around the edges of international(!) law, while obviously cashing-in on the greed of (inter)national government officials who by now ought to know better. They purposely call their tokens "BitCoin" and "CryptoCurrency." And they have obviously spent great sums of money "in all the right places."

International swindlers know their game, as they have for many centuries, and they still know how to play it. Once it was tulips. Now it is numbers. Nothing has changed. "Don't be a 'mark!'"

It's a good rule. It would be nice if you could follow the converse: "we do discuss with each other!"

As opposed to: ignoring what everyone else is saying and just spamming the same message over and over...

See sundial? I was actually being nice, trying to be honest and truthful but with compassion, perhaps a bit obliquely. I thank ntubski for hitting the nail right on the head. Once again I should quote the old Sicilian saying -

In any case it truly was not my intent to offend you. It's just some feedback, a mirror to display how you often come across to others here... not a flame. As I've said before I'm confident we could easily close down any bar or coffee shop with lengthy, good-natured conversation. Here, unfortunately, we are absent the body language that often speaks those unspoken queues delineating friends from enemies.

I'd like to add that though I generally agree that comments should be about subjects and not authors, the fact remains that, at least over time, that still gets communicated by manner and pattern. Our personalities do show through and if some sanctimonious poster talks down to you, you will over time know it and rightly be offended. I sincerely hope I have never done that to you by any neglect for courtesy in my manner. IIRC there have been only 2 or 3 over many years on LQ that I actually wanted to offend and hope that I did since it did seem they deserved no less for their rude behavior.

Enjoy your day, old friend.

No offense was taken, enorbet. (Shall I buy the next round?

But "cyber-currencies" (sic) are raging as an international swindle that makes tulip-mania look like child's play. I know that they are targeting both the elderly and ordinary people who really don't know how one form of "electronic transaction" differs from another.

I am glad that the supposed "value" of bitcoins has lately both "reached improbably astronomical heights" and "fallen from them." The speculators are pumping the pump-handle much too fast, and in some states and countries it is finally beginning to attract law-enforcement attention. But in other states, we have "bitcoin ATMs" in convenience stores.

It's a sign of the money behind this scam to see the number of countries that are talking about it, and of course, to see an "ATM" that a convenience-store chain actually decided to install in their stores. Swindles depend on promotion, and these swindlers have legal-tender to burn on it.

I hope that they will be shut-down by law enforcement before they manage to spring their trap.