LOL! Somebody get niemivh a copy of "Economics in One Lesson."

Incidentally, its a great primer for anyone who is cognizant of their own deficiency of basic economic understanding. It's available for free on mises.org

Plus, at this rate, miners are getting about the same amount as their hashrate (at the current difficulty)

600 mh/s ~= $600/month

Another "Austrian", how quaint.  I don't need a '101 lesson' in economics, thanks.  I've read all the classics and have accurately predicted many of the past big swings in the market by knowing who to trust and where to get my information.  In lieu of assuming I have no idea what I'm talking about (not a unfair assumption, we are on a internet forum and ignoramuses abound) I'll elaborate what I mean with what I thought should be obvious:

1)  The influx of new miners DOES create a short-term inflation of the supply of bitcoins to a degree.  This infusion of new bitcoins could be equal to the inflows of new USD keeping the price stable.  Or it could be a continued sell off of 'the Big BTC holders'.  Which one?  I don't know and that's why I'm asking.  Maybe it's something else?

2)  With Gavin visiting the CIA and Chuck Schumer Senator from Wall St. taking interest in BTC this creates fear in the market as the US Government could do severe damage to the Bitcoin network.  Is this apprehension a cause of potential buyers holding off?  Or are they holding off for the 'bubble to burst'?  I don't know, that's why I'm asking.

My question is really more of a survey: what do people think is the main cause of the current, albeit not that long standing, price stability.

I think this would be impossible to answer, even with a thorough audit of the block chain.


Again, impossible to answer.

I guess you are just asking us to speculate on why the price has remained relatively stable for the last few days? I would say that it's fairly normal behavior. I'm kind of surprised we aren't seeing a bit of a decline as we normally do after such large increases.

It was just a joke, although it really would be convenient

I wish I could disbelieve the mandatory redistribution of wealth nonsense, but the taxes coming out of my paycheck every month are very believable.  It comes in all forms.

RE: The CIA's interest.

This ought to be viewed as a boon to Bitcoin. Bitcoin would serve the CIA's interests perfectly; they can easily conduct cross border transactions, and fund their operations in a stealth manner. Bitcoin poses much less risk to them than their present system of shell companies and laundering through traditional banks. Overtly, the gov't may take a stance against Bitcoin, but on a covert level you best believe they're welcoming this useful tool.

I also think that Bitcoin would have very limited use for CIA at this moment.
Bitcoin market is still very small and it's probably easier and safer for them to pay with cash.

Technically the supply of bitcoins as a whole is in a rapid level of inflation in the first 4 years but the demand for them is outpacing the fixed band of inflation that the BTC can have; to such a degree that we saw the huge increase in price from its inception.  The deflation that BTC has 'baked in' is that the growth rate is within a narrow band of growth, the 21 million BTC cap and the fact that they are dividable by 8 decimal places (making them still usable for very high potential valuations of the currency).  Those are the fixed variables where if the demand of BTC were to grow in relation to these factors (moreover the first and second) is where the deflation happens - which seems very likely at this juncture.

Political Sidenote:
This rapid increase shows that while rapidly increasing the amount of 'currency' in this case BTC doesn't directly coorollate with a devaluation of the currency but just the opposite in the specific case of bitcoin.  Why?  Because it is providing a service that people want, e.g. a currency is only as good as the things you can buy with it.  Maybe I should make a post to illustrate how the price phenomeon of BTC can provide a great (and another) real world, living history example as to why Monetarists like Milton Friedman fail so hard (among other reasons).

"Isn't it also true that if all miners used just 1% of of their present computing power the same number of BTC would be mined?"

There is a minimum amount of work that has to be performed at each level to mine the coins.  In addition, there is a diminishing returns on the number of people mining but it's not a zero sum game.  In addition to the power consumption for each coin produced trade off, blah blah blah.

"Some people may be choosing a holding pattern in response to Schumer's letter, but I think a good many of the sort of folks that Bitcoin appeals to enjoy giving the finger to authoritarians."

Unfortunately the cynical and circular sentiment I find on this forum (and in the world at large is the same): "our Government sucks so I'm not going to spend any time petitioning the government with my problems".  I hope people can see the circular reasoning here.  You get the government you deserve and the government CAN and HAS historically been much more aligned with the will of the people.  But those people had to assert their will and not just consider themselves completely out of the political process.  I know it's hard not to have this mentality as the past many decades have been a successive route after route of the middle and lower classes by the rich and powerful.  But this isn't going to change until people reconnect with each other and their government; and of course adopt the correct economic policies for their own growth, but maybe more on that in the "Economics" part of the forum later.

=]

Can you buy a passport with Bitcoins?