Bitcoin Currency Surpasses 20 National Currencies In Total Value 583
Velcroman1 writes "More than $1 billion worth of bitcoins now circulate on the web – an amount that exceeds the value of the entire currency stock of small countries like Liberia, Bhutan, and 18 other countries. Bitcoin is in high demand right now — each bitcoin currently sells for more than $90 U.S. — which bitcoin insiders say is because of world events that have shaken confidence in government-issued currencies. 'Because of what's going on in Cyprus and Europe, people are trying to pull their money out of banks there,' said Tony Gallippi, the CEO BitPay.com, which enables businesses to easily accept bitcoins as payment. 'So they buy gold, they put it under the mattress, or they buy bitcoin,' Gallippi said."
SELL!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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I, for one, welcome our Bitcoin Banking overlords.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Funny)
3:45 PM - Oh, crashed again...
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds a bit like Wall Street.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Still, it will help Bitcoin itself. The currently booming Bitcoin world combined with Bitpay offering merchants a payment option with only 0.99% interest, no other fees, no credit or volume requirements, and no charge backs probably means a lot more merchants jumping to accept it.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Except Wall Street is at least nominally speculating based on equity, whereas Bitcoins have less inherent value than a bag of tulip bulbs.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Bitcoins have less inherent value than a bag of tulip bulbs.
Try sending payments across the globe in 10 minutes using tulip bulbs.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Funny)
As opposed to Wall Street stock exchange computers, which run on hellfire and are cooled by the blood of the innocent.
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There is no such thing as inherent value. I dare you to try measuring any such physical attribute.
Ok. How about the ability to keep one human alive for one day? Therefore, food, water, shelter, and heating (or cooling) have inherent value. As does anything that can be directly converted into one of these things, like seeds, hydrogen & oxygen, electricity, wood, bricks, and so on.
Unless you want to argue that human life has no value, in which case I can just shoot you and win the argument.
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Yep - as well as anything that can be used to create one of those things more efficiently (like farm implements), transport those things to people who want/need them, preserve/protect them for future use, etc.
You could also argue that derivative products created from the labor of people using these basic necessities also constitutes value from those basic resource used. I suppose in that case you could also then argue that Bitcoins have a value derived from the energy/resources used to generate them (even
It is somewhat like a penny stock (Score:3)
That is a place where you see that level of volatility. Something that can be worth a ton one week, down a bunch the next, back up, back down, etc. Also has daily volatility like one. If you compare the charts to a thinly traded stock, it looks much more like that than a currency.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been investing myself for about 25 years and I thought exactly the same thing when I saw this. There is clearly a bubble in the value of BitCoin right now and there is really nothing backing that value. In the past when the US dollar was "young" it was backed by gold. That ended long ago, but the value of the dollar on it's own had been long established before that change. Other currencies have similar histories. That's the the case here. Not only would I sell if I had anything in BitCoin now and move into either US dollars (being a US investor) or metals (silver, gold, platinum being the primary three), but if I had a few grand to gamble with I'd actually short BitCoin at these rates and make some cash as the value starts to slide - be that a short term correction or more likely a collapse of BitCoin altogether.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:4, Informative)
The good thing for Bitcoin itself is that Bitpay is offering merchants who take Bitcoin a much much less expensive payment option 0.99% with no other fees, credit requirements, or charge backs and they can have payments instantly convert to fiat to work like a credit card or can keep it in Bitcoin. They are signing thousands of merchants a month. So even if this is a speculation bubble, it is stimulating actual growth in the Bitcoin economy and therefore increased demand.
The increased demand combined with decreased supply would mean that the price should be somewhere beyond that $30-40 and the longer this run goes the higher that number is. Plus, this isn't a pure buying run. Every few days there is a dip of $10-20 dollars that indicates small market corrections throughout the rise.
Just my take on the whole thing. YMMV
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Not sure who is generating demand for these other than other speculators. Apparently merchants need more incentive because there is a significant dearth of them right now. I still can't pay my rent or buy food with them. The one place I found that would actually offer Federal Reserve Notes for BTCs limited me to trading no more than 2. TWO! What do I do with the other 130 that I have? Not much, apparently. I found a site that will sell electronics for bitcoins - but nothing I want. No tablets or pho
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There are thousands. Bitpay alone is processing more than $2M a month in merchant transactions. Here are a couple online examples. http://www.bitmit.net/en/recent and https://www.bitcoinstore.com/
There are several restaurants so you CAN buy food. As for rent, it isn't a given but your landlord just might take them if asked just like he probably would take gold
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Just curious. How long before technology gets to the point you can defeat the encryption of a bitcoin?
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Just curious. How long before technology gets to the point you can defeat the encryption of a bitcoin?
It's very simple even today. The criminal hacks the BC terminal at the merchant, and from that point on - until detected - the merchant gives his wares out in exchange for invalid bitcoins (that his terminal sees as always valid.) The card reader at the grocery store is far more secure, and on top of that you have contractual protection. A Bitcoin terminal - not so much.
BC is also nonfunctional if ther
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I bought a load of bitcoins last April when they were 5 GBP... with a view to buying stuff off SilkRoad.
Which I did... but I still had about half of them left. I just held onto them to watch the price (what the hell I thought.. let's see what happens).
A few days ago I worked out that selling them would get me the equivalent of a month's wage. I could carry on watching and hoping it doesn't crash... or sell them and get a month's wage ON TOP of the drugs I bought (and enjoyed).
Fuck it.. I cashed out.
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The smartest people bought in when it was 5 bucks and will keep it until it's $1000+ or perhaps even $1 million.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you imagine $1m for a Bitcoin? I could hold your family at gunpoint for one coin, and at worst get a few months in prison. Or just pay some meth head a couple hundred bucks to do it.
Meanwhile, you can't prove I stole anything of real value from you - just a file from your computer. You can't insure it like a piece of property, you can't "cancel" it like you could a check, and nobody gives a crap where the BTC ends up because it doesn't count as real currency.
So while it's fun to imagine, the moment BTC becomes worth more than harvesting someone's credit cards via botnet, they're coming for your virtual wallet and nobody will care, not the banks, not the government, and not the retailers, because they all operate on regulated currencies and the protections they afford.
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Meh, I cashed out my 300 bitcoins a few months ago, having mined them back when CPU's could unlock 50 within a couple of weeks. Somewhat kicking myself, as I sold them at $14 a bitcoin, and now they are something like $100.
Considered getting back into mining with FPGA's, but it is really hard to get much nowadays, so not sure if worth it. I had a good run, and made some decent coin, even though it is paltry compared to this.
Oh well, good thing I don't do investment as a business, I sure suck at it :o)
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Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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People con themselves into thinking they can find consistent mathematical patterns in roulette and slot payouts too but they eventually lose all their money following them. The only way to win consistently forever is to rig the game and play on a small statistical advantage.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a bad idea by any stretch, if you already have them. Personally, I still have no faith in the bitcoin. Though to be honest, when I first started looking at bitcoins last october, they were $11 each, and I thought they were overvalued then. Now (as I write this) they are $86.71 a peice. Given that yesterday afternoon they were $89 something each, the price does seem a bit volatile, however it has made many similar fluctuations along the way up, so that doesn't mean it has peaked. If I had bought say a thousand worth and then sold them today, that is upwards of $8,000 of income.
Where it will head from here is anybody's guess. I don't believe I am any good at currency speculation by any stretch, but I haven't seen any indication that they have topped out. Still, I wouldn't buy any myself, nor would I suggest anybody else do that either.
I actually mined some bitcoins to pay for VPN and seedbox services (I make more than enough money in bitcoins per month to pay for these) using GPU power I already have (one 5750 and one 7850) at a combined 600MH/s, which at the current exchange rate yields about $100 USD per month. Thinking of using my spare bitcoins to buy an entry level asic, which will yield ten times that amount at about one tenth of the energy consumption.
If the bitcoin does end up collapsing, I haven't really lost anything other than idle GPU time. Where I live (Arizona) electricity is cheap, and based on my current metrics (which I am able to monitor in 5 second intervals btw) I have probably thus far spent $5 on mining bitcoins over the four month span that I first started mining them. A general rule of thumb in investing is that you should never invest so much that if you lost it all, you wouldn't be able to afford to keep your house. I don't think I'll miss $5. Best of all, unless I convert it into real dollars, it'll never be taxed. Meanwhile, as time passes there are more and more goods/services that I can buy with bitcoins.
If everybody does exactly what I'm doing, the value of bitcoins will only increase because more people will have a stake in them.
And before any eco activists complain about my carbon footprint: My area is nuclear powered. Nuclear has an almost non-existent carbon footprint and is dirt cheap. (I'm not one to concern myself with carbon in any case - call me an anti-social insensitive clod or whatever incorrect label you want, but I just don't see the point worrying about it - see my recent comment history for an explanation.) You can thank the government if your area isn't nuclear powered.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:5, Informative)
You are incorrect on your tax idea there buddy. That is income and you should be reporting it. You might get away with not reporting a small amount, but if it is ever worth anything you will have the IRS after you.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:4, Informative)
What citation do you want?
Do you not think that income is taxable?
If I pay you to roof my house in Euros that does not mean you don't have to pay taxes.
Re:SELL!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well let me know when the IRS starts auditing wow players, many of whom have a lot more money worth of wow gold than I have in my bank account, never mind bitcoins.
Effectively bitcoin is the same thing as wow gold at the moment.
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But it all belongs to Blizzard.
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No one will know for sure until there's a court case - all tax law is like that.
For sure bitcoins won't be taxed as capital gains, like a stock.
The good case is that bitcoin is treated like a currency.
The bad (and likely) case is that it's treated like a collectable (as gold currently is), which would mean the minimum tax rate would be 28% (IIRC), even on small gains. The collectable tax blow goats, and is why I won't own gold except in my tax-deferred accounts.
In any case, if you're paid for work in bitco
Re:SELL!!! (Score:4, Informative)
This has already been covered:
Bitcoin Virtual Cash Get Money-Laundering Rule [wsj.com]
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Just because you did not get audited does not make it so.
Not a good (Score:3)
The IRS considers Bitcoin an good not a currency.
You got a citation for that? I'm pretty sure the IRS will consider it a negotiable instrument which is not a good. And yes I am an accountant.
It isn't income until/unless you sell it and realize a profit.
Properly stated until you sell it, it is an unrealized gain and typically is not taxed, though there are some special cases.
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Yes, please sell.
Collapse this round of the bubble, so I can get in at $17 for the next round.
It will never be that cheap again (Score:3)
Quote me. A year from now it will be approaching $1000 a coin. It will never be $17 a coin again.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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That doesn't match my interpretation of the numbers.
I expect we'll see a big downswing in the next few weeks, and my gut is telling me the bottom is at $15/BTC.
In fairness, at least half the time that gut feeling is gas.
I fully expect that we'll have about 16 months of "normal" trading after this crash, then it will spike again, but I'm only feeling that the next spike will go to around $325.
Re:It will never be that cheap again (Score:4, Insightful)
Quote me. A year from now it will be approaching $1000 a coin. It will never be $17 a coin again.
You can keep on saying that, it doesn't make it so.
Magicking 'money' out of thin air *always* leads to a crash. No exceptions. Just wait and see.
You're not kidding (Score:4, Insightful)
I have some experience with both cryptography and decentralized systems of this kind. Which doesn't make me an expert. But I know enough to ask questions. I have had grave concerns about the validity of their design since I first read about it on slashdot some years back. It seemed to me the case had not been made that bitcoin was not vulnerable to rapid destruction of value, due to attacks on fundamental flaws in its design.
The thing that really surprised me was that people decided to try to use it anyway. But I guess our desires often cloud our judgment. As much as I would love a decentralized digital currency, I do not believe it yet exists. I wouldn't invest 90 cents in bitcoin.
Many currencies can appear to be stable until they're not.
So you buy every bubble then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enron's stock went up too. You might want to think about the fundamentals of what you're buying.
Fundamentals (Score:3)
I read the Nakamoto paper. Here are my concerns.
The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes, or so it is hoped. But pervasive communications are also assumed so that chain length can be measured, for the CPU-power argument to be possible to begin with. Consider how many key elements in the protocol require extensive communication, for instance to determine chain length. Between botnets, transparent proxies, ASICs, domestic and
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Or when it is $1 a coin the people who "invested" at 90 cents will be up a whole dime!
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The logical design and theory is well documented and completely open. Likewise the implementation of that logic is completely open. Bitcoin has been around for 4 years and has been a high priority topic of interest for security researchers and cryptographers from the beginning.
4 years, a completely open specification, and a billion dollar bounty for successfully finding and exploiting a weakness and nobody h
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The people who sell out wont get to see it reach $1000. The smartest people bought in and stayed in the whole way from $2 to $1000.
Buy Now! (Score:2, Funny)
It's not a bubble! Push the price higher, higher, higher!
Re:Buy Now! (Score:5, Funny)
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Is it really circulating? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Is it really circulating? (Score:5, Insightful)
claiming it is being widely used for every day living. I have yet to see anything to back up either extreme.
Let me know when I can pay my rent in bitcoins, pay my fuel bill in bitcoins, or buy groceries in bitcoins.
For now it is a geek-only way to exchange goods and services.
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Anyone who hasn't been in a coma since 2008.
How to take a short position in Bitcoin? (Score:4, Informative)
So, how do you "short sell" Bitcoin? I'd like to make a few bucks from this ridiculous bubble when it pops.
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With all their loans, I suggest China is gearing towards it.
Re:How to take a short position in Bitcoin? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes of course. China is the one that is going to want its trillions in dollar denominated us debt holdings to be worth peanuts.
Not only that (Score:5, Informative)
But there seems to be this misunderstanding that China can just "call in" the loans. They can't. US securities are sold for fixed periods of time. They pay off on a given date, period. There is no ability to call them due early.
So all someone can do who wishes to cash out early is to sell them on the open market, and of course if you dump a ton of them the price will crash meaning you'll take a sizable loss on your investment.
People really need to go and look at how public debt in the US works before they chatter about it. Too many think it is the US going to China The Loan Shark and begging for money on any terms. Quite the opposite, it is China buying US securities (denominated in US dollars, held and tracked in the US exchange) when they are auctioned off.
US debt (Score:5, Informative)
Have you seen the actual numbers? Who owns the US national debt?
- China 8%
US gov't and pension funds 46,1%:
- The Federal reserve 11,3%
- Social Security fund 19%
- US households 6,6%
- State & local gov't 3,5%
- State, local pensions funds 2,2%
- Private pension funds 3,5%
http://www.businessinsider.com/who-owns-us-debt-2011-7?op=1 [businessinsider.com]
Re:US debt (Score:4, Funny)
This is why I take the noble stand and refuse to buy cheap shoddy crap made in US households.
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It means the Dollar is a ponzi scheme and the political promises of the US government to pay out entitlements benefits are worth exactly as much as the same political promises the USSR made.
Re:How to take a short position in Bitcoin? (Score:5, Insightful)
Borrow some bitcoin, sell it now, wait for the inevitable, buy it back when the bubble pops, return to owner.
It's never going to pop like that again. (Score:2, Funny)
If you wait for it to pop this time you'll miss out. It will never be $2 a coin again. In fact it's going to reach $1000 a coin by the end of the year.
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Re:How to take a short position in Bitcoin? (Score:5, Informative)
http://mpex.co/ [mpex.co]
https://campbx.com/faq.php#trading [campbx.com]
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Futures [bitcoin.it]
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Forex [bitcoin.it]
https://icbit.se/ [icbit.se]
https://www.firstnationalib.com/ [firstnationalib.com]
Re:How to take a short position in Bitcoin? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bubbles are unpredictable to say the least.
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Someone here does not understand deflation. Hint; it ain't me.
Re:It can't pop. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's only worth what people are willing to pay for it.
If confidence goes, so does the value.
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Because of it's deflationary nature and lack of manipulation by government entities, I agree that it will continue to rise.... unless:
1. Somebody hacks the protocol, maybe with a quantum computer. If this happens, all Bitcoins will be instantly worthless and the price will plummet to nothing.
2. A major exchange gets hacked. If Mt. Gox got hacked and 50% of the world's Bitcoins were stolen all at once (or the cash that people were trading for them), you better believe there is no way it is reaching the num
Re:It can't pop. (Score:4, Funny)
I have to admit (Score:3)
Bitcoin is probably safer than Cyprus banks.
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Dude, investing in Slavers Co stocks is currently probably more viable than putting money in a Cyprus bank.
They probably surpassed ... (Score:5, Funny)
They probably surpassed North Korea with their first nickel.
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Well of course. The People's Democratic Republic of Korea, having reached true and perfect communism, has no need for currency or money as all goods are distributed equitably according to need, not according to some barbaric, capitalist tool of oppression like the nickels used by the American pig-demons or their southern puppets to buy weapons with which to destroy the peace-loving and free people of the People's Democratic Republic and their Glorious Leader(s).
</sarcasm>
Theoretical 1 billion not actual (Score:5, Informative)
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Also you'd have to see how reflexive the market would be for large amounts of exchange. You can buy or sell a billion dollars worth of USD, EUR, JPY and so on without much of a change in price. So if you have $1 Billion in Euros you can change it to $1 Billion in US Dollars pretty quickly and easily.
With Bitcoins? Probably not. You sell a whole bunch of them you are likely to find the market highly reflexive, meaning that the price will tank and you won't get near what you thought you would. So while you ca
Breaking News Alert Bitcoin Miners Threaten Strike (Score:2)
Withdrawal limit (Score:2)
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At the same time the same limitation does not apply to their foreign branches. If you have money on a bank in Cyprus, go withdraw at their branch in London. Or St. Petersburg. Not only were they never closed, they also have no arbitrary limit on how much you can withdraw per day.
This is what happens when amateurs (politicians) play against professionals (bankers).
Bitcoin could reach 1 million per coin in value (Score:2, Troll)
And when that happens you'll all wish you bought 1000 coins for a few cent. Now look at you all rushing to pay $100 per coin. By this time next year it will be $1000 per coin. A year later it will be $5000. Then 6 months later it could be $20,000, then $100,000, etc.
Re:Bitcoin could reach 1 million per coin in value (Score:5, Insightful)
So could tulip bulbs, you better go get some quick.
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Admit it, you have a ton of money in that ponzi scheme and now need someone to sell to and GTFO? :)
The value of a BitCoin is based on the faith others have in it, as with any other currency right now. All it takes to make the whole deal blow up in your face is some idiot, let's say a Cyprian politician, say that you no longer can sell them for a week. Then watch the people go bonkers.
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What you are describing is exactly my point. USD has a transaction niche, you can buy and sell stuff with USD in the USA with no problem, but not so much in China. The transaction niche is what gives it value. In the past, currencies have all developed transaction niches because the governments imposed rules and regulations in the purpose of creating them. Bitcoin is different, since it has a natural transaction niche. No one had to set it up, or enforce it. It's just better at transferring funds around the
What is the current value of tulip bulbs? (Score:3)
So how does this compare to the value of the worlds tulip bulbs?
Time to rename /. to BitcoinPushers.com? (Score:2, Insightful)
It getting to be a little much. Have you really got so much money invested in Bitcoin that you are willing to sacrifice /. to advertise it?
everyone knows what a pump and dump is, right? (Score:3)
or try Glenn Beck's paranoid ranting... and selling gold during the commercials on Fox "News"
i really hope someone at slashdot is getting a kickback for the pumping going on here
for the rest of you: time your sell right!
Re:That's completely arbitrary (Score:5, Informative)
It means that ALL bitcoins are collectively worth more than ALL currency of the 20 countries listed. They're not comparing individual currency units.
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Oh, you're right. That is quite serious then.
Re:That's completely arbitrary (Score:4, Insightful)
Such things always remind me of the exploration of the Americas, or at the simplified myth. In this story the English brought back potatoes and the spanish brought back gold. The question is who brought back wealth, and who brought back merely riches.
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Not sure you read the summary. Read it again. The $1 billion worth of Bitcoins is more the entire currency stock of several small countries.
Re:quit comparing (Score:4, Informative)
We all know inflation on the dollar is crazy and trending toward never getting better.
We don't "all know" that, because it's not true. Inflation is at about 2% and has been basically unchanged since 1984 or so. Any ideas to the contrary are primarily in the minds of those who have a financial interest in convincing people holding dollars to buy some other kind of asset e.g. Glenn Beck and his gold interests.
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MIT aggregates about a billion prices and comes out with pretty much the same number as the CPI, which has recently been around 2%.
http://bpp.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/billion-prices-project.html [mit.edu]
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Only if you enter the right Personal Identification Number number.