It's like the unexpected hanging paradox. Everyone *knows* that there will be a major cashout at 1000 so everyone *knows* the fight to 1000 will be fraught with battles and crazy ups-and-downs so everbody *knows* it's better to cash out at 900 so...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unexpected_hanging_paradox

lol at all the ltc hate

LTC seems like a cheap copy where the creator has been able to benefit immeasurably off the back of genius. That said, I agree with your sentiment. Any opinion on weighting LTC to BTC holdings?

just wanted to come in to say HAHAHAHA LTC CRASH

Gold @ gox.

Looks like a good bear trap.

The actual story: http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/12/05/china-bitcoin-idINDEE9B405S20131205?type=economicNews

Hold on a second:

Bloomberg Twitter - "BREAKING: China bans financial institutions from Bitcoin transactions"

Reuters - "China's central bank warned on Thursday that financial institutions should not trade the digital currency bitcoin, saying that while it does not yet pose a threat to China's financial system, it carries risks."

Uh, so... financial institutions banned, or warned?

Simply said, what China bans in this notice does not exists in any country yet. As far as I know no bank is using bitcoin as a currency in all over the world. Even Germany treats it as a private currency. China just officially announced it. On the other hand, previously exchanges are in gray area but now they have chance to be 'white'.

I'm suggesting it must be nice to have all potential competition in your country, essentially, get the kibosh. How that may have happened, I can only *speculate*.

Anybody here use bitcoin wisdom and know how to get the 4 big exchanges on one screen? I've seen it explained here once but can't seem to find how to do it.

... You know you've got them when their correcting your spelling.

Another insight:

Above a certain volume, TA is absolutely worthless. Large holders can and do draw whatever pattern they want on the charts, sometimes to push the masses into buying or selling.

Don't know if already known but i just saw this:

http://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-astropay-faster-latin-america-transfers/


Dear customers of MtGox in Latin America: we are proud to announce that MtGox now has partnered with AstroPay payments provider to perform quick and easy direct bank deposits from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.


“The option to use AstroPay with Mt.Gox in Argentina was available for a few days, but was later removed. The service seems to be still working for Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay, but not for Argentina’s Bitcoin community.”

So your girl/wife thinks you were dreaming about a goat buying a Lambo and driving it

If dpr is in jail how does that work then?

http://china.dwnews.com/news/2013-12-16/59357811.html

O

M

G

!
!
!

TL;DR Translation:  Satoshi Nakamoto located and apprehended by Chinese government.  Was carrying emergency bitcoin shutoff code.  Chinese government plans to use code to shutdown bitcoin network.  Satoshi charged with criminal economic disruption.


Coindesk is getting ready to publish an article corroborating this news from internal sources.  This is the end guys.

Shanxi Luliang had 70,000,000 richest man on the verge of bankruptcy daughters married
Big in small 2013-12-16 12:09:11 forwarded Twitter Facebook Print contributor Newsletters
[News] multidimensional Luliang, Shanxi coal bosses richest man is Libin had "70 million daughters married," a sensation, but recently, he was broke liabilities of 20 billion Libin brink of bankruptcy, its legendary bubble finally burst.
The 46-year-old Luliang City of Shanxi Liulin Libin is leaving town reputation who is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shanxi Liansheng Group. In 2011 Forbes China rich list, with 4.48 billion yuan in personal wealth ranked No. 244. 2012 but had denounced Rmb70m heavily (1 U.S. dollar equals 6.1 yuan) is the daughter of lavish marriage and "cabbage price" to buy the mine incident caused concern.
Xing Libin Liansheng Group is the largest private enterprises in Liulin County, Shanxi is also the largest private coal company, under the jurisdiction of Shanxi Liansheng Energy Limited and its holding of a number of investment companies under the number of coal mining enterprises, equity holding mine 38 a total capacity of nearly 4,000 tons.
According to " Money Weekly "reported on December 16, November 29, Liulin County, Shanxi Province People's Court held a news conference to announce the acceptance of Shanxi Liansheng Energy Limited and its companies, 12 companies under the jurisdiction of the restructuring application.
Liulin according to data released by the People's Court, the current financial position of the Group worrying Liansheng, financial liabilities of nearly 30 billion, debt settlement has basically lost the ability, and facing unpaid tax, employee pension insurance, engineering models, materials, equipment, etc. a number of financial issues. Among them, the Lend Lease Group has secured relationships with more than 10 private enterprises, the scale of credit funds owed ​​more than 20 billion.
According to earlier media reports, in order to provide over Liansheng CDB loan institutions, including country, Merchants Bank, Bank of Communications, China Merchants Bank and State Road branch in Taiyuan, Taiyuan Wuyi Road Branch of Huaxia Bank, Shenzhen Development Tianjin Binhai Branch, Willows credit unions, etc. and Beijing Trust nearly 50 billion yuan, Shanxi Trust one billion yuan, the investment trusts one billion yuan, Jilin Trust one billion yuan.
In early August of this year, Lend Lease Group fortune in Liulin County, Shanxi Coal Industry Bureau of Du Yanbin open to the media broke the news, many coal prices in the Willows, Lend Lease Group had the worst day, even bluntly, "It started from July 2011 arrears of wages, the wages currently issued only to July 2012. " In other words, Xing Libin has more than a year overdue wages.
For most people, know the Shanxi coal suppliers Xing Libin, because he was in early 2012, in Sanya, Hainan threw $ 70 million, to the daughter to do his best in a luxurious wedding. After the wedding, about coal's source of wealth, lifestyle, had set off a vigorous discussion.
But for the purposes of financial institutions, the richest man in Luliang, was already a spent force. Coal prices continue to decline, the Lend Lease Group Libin, the situation began to wage arrears. Lend Lease has a lending relationship with the Group's banks and trusts, have started to care about the solvency problem Liansheng.
By now nearly two years, has finally admitted that he Libin insolvent.
Debt ratio continued to soar
Yang Libin contracting ironworks which started in 1990, the pot of gold from the gold leasing business of Liulin coal Township Office, Xing Libin of mine made a major technical innovation, its production capacity from 100,000 at the beginning of the lease tons to the current 60 million tons.
After a series of mergers and acquisitions overwhelming to start, Xing Libin Lend Lease Group's asset size and single-handedly built the rapid expansion and jumped the richest man in the Willows, the scale of its assets are second to none in the whole of Shanxi Province.
Coke Enterprises has been claiming to build "aircraft carrier" of Lend Lease Group, the pace of expansion has never stopped. After 2002, he worked in equity, mergers and acquisitions and rental, etc., took place about half the Willows and collective coal mines.
And behind this expansion requires a series of large-scale steady stream of financial support, in concept Libin, relying on debt to make an inventory of assets leveraging funds undoubtedly is a very viable path.
Opportunities coal restructuring also allows Liansheng Group in the major financial institutions seem hot, so we see a lot of banks, credit unions name appears in the list of co-Liansheng Group.

don't panic, its a buying opt. trust me, when the bull horn is heard loud and clear across the world again, its going to be spectacular!

Yes

Picked up a large amount of BTC that would otherwise have hit the market, at the CNY rate.

Its not very difficult to bring large amounts of USD into China on a private plane. I have a close relationship with my A&P.

Would be a nice twist... why is there no bitcoin-movie yet?

I'm new on these forums, and it's pretty obvious who knows his shit, and who does not.

they see LTC being faster and not using a closed source encryption method that was made by the NSA, but rather an open source encryption method understood by many.

i know, they might be nuts but still...

Vielleicht gibt es hier ja mehr Deutsche, als wir denken.

I am more logical than most females- that and very frugal!    For all you guys out there with women that love to spend money maybe there is some good in that after all if they like "wasting" it on clothing only worn for a few seconds!  

so who wants to break minor resistance and possibly cause a paradigm shift!

is it you?

its not me... you'll be buying my bitcoin, i can't help but sell a little... *sigh* everyone has a price tag...

So they banned the dollar bill?

The last sentence of the first post.

I am a dinosaur academic type.

I understand enough of the protocol to believe that it is technically sound.  My skepticism is about the economic aspects.

It doesn't bother me that people are speculating (basically, gambling) on a market with very uncertain future -- as long as everybody understands the odds and risks.

It does bother me that Bitcoin is being "sold" by some with rather misleading claims, such as "the supply is limited" (true of Bitcoin, but not of cryptocurrencies in general), "transfers are anonymous", "cannot be stolen or taxed",
 "there are no fees", "banks and governments cannot touch it", etc.  

And it bothers me a lot when speculators turn to Latin America as a promising source of Rich Suckers -- who, they hope, will buy those overpriced Bitcoins that no longer find buyers in China, India, Europe and North America.

Not if I can help it.

once again i sodl when i should've hodl!

And my sources in Germany as always don't know nothing. I'm in inferior position :-(

Are you saying I'm saying it's because of bitcoin, or she is saying it's because of bitcoin? I never said anything like that. I, as a completely rational, outside observer, can easily see bitcoin is not at all to blame. You, as a completely rational, outside observer, can also. She, however, is incapable of being rational due to the loss of her son, and needs something to focus on other than maddening grief. Bitcoin became that focus. It's irrational, but it doesn't make her an idiot. It makes her human. Cut her some slack, and blame the people who deserve it: politicians kowtowing to the irrational rantings of a grieving woman to get votes, and the media for exploiting said irrational woman to get ratings/fulfill an agenda.

As for him being 21, totally irrelevant to my argument. Your kids don't matter less to you, nor does it hurt less to lose them, simply because they're adults. To blame this woman is to lose focus on what is really important: politicians and the media sucking balls.

It's open source.


And it's even already been forked. Hodlbot holds twice as hard.

Anybody know if there is going to be a pre release of testimony for the New York hearings in two weeks, like the senate hearings?

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/lily-allen-calls-herself-an-idiot-for-declining-bitcoin-payment-now-worth-millions-9046211.html

posting cuz new to me!

i guess this is big news in england

this is BITCOINtalk.org, not Dogecointalk. You fuckers are just being rude. I don't go to your house, piss in the flowerpot and shit on your rug. Please do us the same courtesy. You have your own, threads, your own subforum, your own reddit. use them and leave us alone. We don't want you here. You are like juveniles. you missed the early adopter phase and you think it's unfair. tough shit. life ain't fair. It'll be even less fair when your shitcoin tanks but I won't invade your space and gloat about it cuz, you know, I'm better than you. Now do me the favor of fucking off and possibly dying, but that last part is up to you. Thanks.

Please quote the part of the article where the author claims bitcoins cannot be stolen?

In order to use your bitcoins, at some point the key have to be entered into a computer... 

What about your family if the worst happens? Your wife / children / mother / husband / favourite charity or whatever can't retrieve btc by showing a death certificate and a will, they can with all other assets.

I have made arrangements so that my family can retrieve mine if needed (nice bonus that it's tax free too).

Only the signature needs to be input.  This could be worked out on paper from the transaction and the private key.

I believe I know enough about the positive arguments, and in general I do not dispute them.

The risk of bitcoins being stolen (possibly en masse) by hackers is an example. 

Governments can ban, restrict, or heavily tax cryptocoins if it suits them.

What will prevent banks and Wall Street from taking control of Bitcoin?

How could the value of a bitcoin be stabilized enough for merchants who thrive on 2% profit?

And so on...

BTC and LTC for the win unless the "Bitcoin Foundation" kills off BTC

If 90% of BTC are consumed by reserve demand and 50% of the global GDP is denominated in bitcoin, we will see $80mm/btc.

That's the idea ;-)

Seriously, Bitcoin has the potential to do much more than merely replace national currencies. It has the potential to allow dramatically increased world productivity and wealth. The financial sector is currently sucking off around 8% of global economic activity. Bitcoin could cut that in half.

There are more cars per capita now than there were horses per capita 150 years ago. This is because additional utility is produced at the margins. A more efficient disruptive technology can take more than 100% market share of the technology it replaces.

This is a gross under-estimate -- US-centrism is blinkering you.  WU and MoneyGram *alone* do 0.685 tn usd/an in remittances.  Hawala networks, non-US related remittances, Internet-based remittances multiply this by a *large* factor.  There are nations of central Asia in which 60% of the GDP consists of remittances (mostly from Russia and Kazakhstan.)

3k asks just disappeared off gox. Were they bought by invisible money or were they just removed?

There are two 10 kinds of people:

+1

Lol...they just don't get it!

It's time to sell... go people sell all your coins!!! (to me)

Ripple?

Hey guys, I want to tell you about this cool new thing. It's called Bitcoin and it's like having a bank on your computer.

Funny... I bought a Lambo and I am doing my masters at that school in Cyprus, paid with BTC.   

Control everything !!! Hodlers, Shrotrers, Bulls & Bears. Sing a goddamn song so we can all dance to it!

A while ago someone discovered that most cellphones had a routine instaled by the factory at a very low level, "for maintenance and debugging purposes", that recorded all your button and keystrokes and send them to the manufacturer on demand.

Even if you use an open source OS and software, you can't check the code of every program you download to see whether it contains a trojan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_IQ

The company partners with Huawei, which is owned by the PRC military.

Ulbricht didn't suffer a wrench attack.  I make no claims of immunity to a wrench attack.  I would like a better system for evading wrench attacks.

Why would the bad guys use physical presence and physical force when they can remotely hack into my computer, install a virus that will steal my keys just when I try to use them, and have it send my bitcoins instead to a mixer in Timbuctu?

The police could perhaps save me from the wrench method.  Who is going to help me recover my hacked-off bitcoins?

LOL.  When I first read that I thought you were calling my explanation a piece of ....

Here is my prediction for the coming month:



The plot shows the Bitstamp prices from Nov/2013 to Jan/2014 (purple) and estimated lower and upper bounds for Feb/2014 (green).  I claim that, in any 1-hour interval in the coming month, the Bitstamp price will be within the two green lines above, with 95% probability.

For example, I claim that on Feb/22 the price will be between 300 USD and 2200 USD with 95% probability.

(Note that this is not the same thing as saying that the entire price plot will stay in that region for the whole month with 95% probability.)

This prediction is based on the simple "log Brownian" model that I described a while ago.  Namely, it assumes that the price change from one 1-hour interval to the next, in log scale, is a normal random variable that is independent of the previous history. 

More precisely let P(i) be the weighted mean transaction price in the 1-hourinterval number i.  Let Z(i) be log_10(P(i)). The model assumes that

  Z(i+1) = Z(i) + C*RAND(i)

where the factors RAND(i) are independent random variabls with zero mean, unit deviation, and Gaussian distribution.  Therefore, for any n > 0,

  Z(i+n) = Z(i) + C*sqrt(n)*RAND(i,n)

where factors RAND(i,n) are again random (but not independent) variables with zero mean, unit deviation, and Gaussian distribution.

Analysis of the Bitstamp prices from Sep/2013 to Jan/2014 yields 0.00964 as the best fit for the parameter C.

Since 95% of the probability of the Gaussian distribution is within 2 deviations of the mean, the model implies that, n steps in the future,
the value Z(i+n) will be within the values

  Zmin(i,n) = Z(i) - 2*C*sqrt(n) and
  Zmax(i,n) = Z(i) + 2*C*sqrt(n)

with 95% probability, where Z(i) is the current (last known) price.  The green lines are these two bounds, converted back to linear scale (Pmin(i,n) = 10**Zmin(i,n), etc.)

More specifically, according to the model, at any specific 1-hour interval i+n in the future, the log price Z(i+n) will be

   below Zmin(i,n) with 2.5% probability;
   between Zmin(i,n) and the current price Z(i) with 47.5% probability;
   between the current price Z(i) and Zmax(i,n) with 47.5% probability;
   above Zmax(i,n) with 2.5% probability.

Note that, by this model, the future prices P(i+n) may be on either side of the current price (red line) with equal probability, even though the inverse log mapping yields a much wider range above than below.
 
Of course this model is quite rudimentary and basically useless for traders.  There may be more sophisticated models, but I doubt that they can yield better predictions. 

(The Brownian model is visibly inadequate for small n, since the log price increments from one interval to the next do not have a Gaussian distribution.  As a consequence, the 2*sigma interval Zmin(i,n) to Zmax(i,n) contains somewhat less than 95% of the probability.  However, by the Law of Large Numbers the distribution becomes almost Gaussian after a few hours. )

(before people ask: no, a model with a linear "historical trend" term Z(i+n) = Z(i) + T*n + C*sqrt(n)*RAND(i,n) does not seem appropriate, and its predictions for the next month would not be significantly different.)

anyone watching this .5 BTC bot on bitstamp ...?

I'm buying  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHtzZukli3o

fuck ya!

this makes me want to kill i ipodtouch

What amazes me is that I lived in the US in the late eighties and kids were saying "awesome" then; its somehow managed to stay in fashion for 30 years and become a lazy global adjective.

but problems with the core tech is gana do that kind of thing...

core tech? adam, I know you're just up, but seeing as this is your thread I feel the need to make sure you properly get this (assuming my understand is correct):

gox has blamed a bug in the btc protocol. It is actually not a bug, it's just how btc works at the moment. and work it does. what gox has done is used the wrong data to perform a task, when there is data that is reliably usable. Other exchanges have not made this mistake.

Saying this is the fault of bitcoin is inaccurate.

However, if you are calling gox's code "core tech" that is actually semi-reasonable given that it is responsible for so much movement of btc.

The incompetence at gox is absolutely inexcusable, possibly criminal. There may be a lawsuit soon.

There's no "exploit" unless you use a custom software that uses "transaction ID's" as the only element to check transaction, and then you let someone to "social engineer" you by making you believe they never received the money you sent them.

If you use the reference implementation (bitcoind/Bitcoin-QT) your wallet will show BOTH transactions (the "malleated" and the original one) and will display the CORRECT balance, so there is really no way for you to be social engineered. If you use a custom implementation that only cares about txid, then probably the "malleated" transaction won't show up in your client/accounting system, leaving the door open to a social engineering attack.

TL;DR: whoever is trying to "malleate" as many transactions as possible is doing it either for shit and giggles, either for trying to spread some panic among novices and thus induce panic selling.

You mad, MtGox haters? It's Bitcoin that is shit. Gavin Andresen and Jeff Garzik have been exposed as Bitcoin marketeers "There is absolutely no problem here guys".

The Bitcoin Foundation seems more worried with appeasing regulators than addressing any real problems. Also, worrying about new functionality before addressing previous issues.

I have a feeling this may have been Gox's demise as well (although it really could be anything with Gox).

there so much FUD right now, and alot of poeple come here to understand what is happening, so i feel compelled to point this out:




as you can clearly see the bitcoin network is working just fine, despite what some would have you believe

the problem lies in the custom built wallet software exchanges implemented.

attacker(s) are, unsuccessfully, trying to fool these exchange into thinking tx are not occurring when they really are

bitcoin dev are working to resolve this problem by working with exchanges, miners, and also thinking about possible protocol updates to completely remove all possibility of future attacks.

now look back and see who has been spreading FUD, and click ignore.

Since fonzie didn't bother to answer, maybe you can.

How have Dogecoin creators addressed the transaction malleability issue?

https://bitcoinfoundation.org/about/board

See the guy in the number two spot?

Bitcoin does need a voice - a focus as an advocate.

However, the foundation has little has little if any credibility - so if it is possible for fresh faces (and respected ones) to move in and push for change, it can't do any harm.

You would have my vote, take Jorge with you?

Andreas is de facto the voice of Bitcoin right now.

 you hold the power to kill comments, use the ignore button.

These predictions are free of charge, mass, and spin. 

Note that I have not opened an account anywhere.

are you sure it's good news?   the problem with the malleability is still there to be abused.

Careful with Kraken, they only allow BTC deposit and withdrawal from the U.S. no fiat yet.  I like what they have to offer, but they are not there yet.

just because gox withdraws were to do with overly modified source... does not mean jack shit, the malleability issue still exists as a way of manipulation of the chain no matter how small, no matter if overall balances are not effected , bitcoin still has an issue.

I have seen these issues when testing hard forks with coins I have been working on.  

"Balaji Srinivasan at Startup School 2013" is a glimpse of the future, in my opinion. This is relevant to your post. I hope you take the time to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A

Saying that malleability is an issue is no different than saying that buggy code is an issue.  It's an issue if you let it become an issue.

There is a million ways to fuck something up no matter how many rules you put into place.  Besides, at what point do rules become something that are meant to be broken.

The simple fact is that GOX either mistakenly or purposely ran buggy code that allowed some people to get rich at the expense of some unlucky bag-holders.

Instead of talking about malleability issues people should be asking where the fuck is my money period.

If it results in the loss of hundreds of millions in market value I'm going with "bug".

the calm b4 the storm...

shit may or may not hit the fan in ~12hours.

in any case HODL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh shit, ohhhh FUCK, the train is right behind us!
GO GO GO!!!!!!!!

Its a squirrel, isnt it?

Like all I have seen is someone on reddit say they thought gox has had sent a few btc someplace.

Then Gmaxwell saying they still have no idea wtf they are doing.

wow, that is slick

#2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6TIFY-lNTk) reminded me of a Scientology ad. The general message makes me think the Neo CEO has a serious Jesus complex.

I think there's quite a lot of people that don't realize that "shortcomings" in the Bitcoin protocol are often elegant (or not-so-elegant) solutions to issues that Bitcoin was created to solve.

Not surre if this was already posted, but, from: http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1yuuok/daily_discussion_tuesday_february_25_2014_early/cfnzt9i


So here's what has happened for those who can't keep up. I doubt any of this is a pure coincidence given the time frame.

1.) MtGox allegedly lose 750,000 Bitcoins, according to a leaked document in the hands of TwoBitIdiot, a known person within the Bitcoin community.

2.) He then decides to leak the document to the public 1 - 2 hours later confirming this number, and within the document it says they are to rebrand as http://gox.com and lie their way out of this mess.

3.) After the document is leaked, MtGox halts trades immediately (Around 5 minutes after)

4.) At this point, http://gox.com is still a parked domain, and not long after starts to redirect to http://mtgox.com (EDIT: More information on the domain situation from chris45215, which basically confirms that MtGox were indeed planning to relaunch as Gox.com as explained in the leaked document)

5.) After around 30 minutes, Coinbase, Blockchain, Circle and Kraken simultaneously release identical articles titled "Joint Statement Regarding the Insolvency of Mt.Gox" (EDIT: Since then, some of the articles have removed the word "insolvency", but not all of them.)

6.) A further 5 minutes later, http://mtgox.com is taken completely offline.

7.) And now we are here, with not a single word from MtGox.

...and me using bitcoin cannot possibly tell me anything relevant to the sources of my skepticism.

Surely I am entitled to have an opinion on global warming and energy sufficiency, even though I have not burned a single poud of coal in my life?

For those too young to know, or not technically inclined, .pif files are very old file formats, that predate Windows (TopView and DESQview). Program Information Files contained info on DOS programs. Windows used them to store info about the programs, font type, etc. Technically .pif files are not executables, but Windows has forever treated them like one.

This makes them a popular vector for virii/keyloggers/etc. Don't click on them, there is never a good reason for them to be in an email attachment.

Bitcoin is based on not trusting.  Its primary value is as a cryptographic protocol providing cryptographic guarantees, so that you do not need to trust a counterparty.  If you give your bitcoins to someone else and they do not return them, it is not a failure of bitcoin.  It is a failure of your good sense.  Do not trust your good sense until you retrain it.  Bitcoin remains trustworthy.

Well... none of the other exchanges has volunteered to give even a rough idea of their financial position, especially how many BTC they owe and how many BTC they own. 

I count that as "real and material" evidence that they must be in some sort of Karpelian situation themselves. 

* However, if I see someone buying a lottery ticket because he thinks it is a good investment, I feel this Darwinian duty (magnified by professional habit) to inform that fellow primate about the odds, expected value, and all that.  If the guy does not believe me, then, shrug,  that is his problem.  And, of course, I consider myself excused of that duty if  I think that the guy may steal my bananas, or if he snarled some unfriendly noises at me.

Where the hell is Slovenia, anyway? It's 2014 and I can't believe we don't have better exchange options yet.

Two questions... why is the foundation the only group issuing bitcoin-qt updates? In most open-source projects there are people all over the place submitting their own updates.

Also, does anyone think there is truth to the idea that the government is who confiscated the Gox coins, placing the team under a gag order, and thus the reason for the "malleability bug" excuse?

So, how can one honestly recommend investing into bitcoin as a hedge against a possible dollar collapse, as a way of becoming a millionaire, or whatever the "salesmen" are saying these days?  It is like buying a ticket for a crazy lottery that does not tell its clients what are the odds and prizes, and may or may not be seeking to lose money.

Sorry, the joke was too good to pass. 

But you must at least agree that the audits of MtGOX by Ver and of Coinbase by Antonopoulos were pathetic, to put it mildly?

EDIT: removed the double spaces after punctuation.

No - he just regrets talking to that "journalist" because his description of Satoshi led her to believe Dorian was Satoshi.

After seeing the effects of a stroke first hand, it is absolutely possible to go from white-paper nakamoto to newsweek nakamoto.  

I affirmed that there were no audits, and that is a fact.  What Ver and Antonopoulos did were not audits (even Ver admitted that).  Saying that they were audits is a lie. 

Well... none of the other exchanges has volunteered to give even a rough idea of their financial position, especially how many BTC they owe and how many BTC they own.

I count that as "real and material" evidence that they must be in some sort of Karpelian situation themselves. 

I love how everyone is double-spacing after their periods now.  Its like a blast from the past.

Was it not?

Up one level.  Are you trying to argue that there is no risk that other exchanges will go MtGOX's way?

Cognitive dissonance is quite an euphemism.

One of those links (Coinbase) did not give that information.

The other one is a new exchange that is not even listed in the usual chart services.

(MtGOX too used to show balance sheets, IIRC the last one was in mid-2012.)

But again, before we continue this fruitless debate, can you explain what is your real point?  Do you have any connection to any of those exchanges?

I give up.  We are not writing in the same language.

with his identity revealed, chance of a 'dump' or sell for money to assume a new life increased.  so I guess the fall is 'justified'

I had similar thoughts at first but its just too much to set up, isn't it? Unless Leah is in on it... but then her credibility is on the line.

...in this regard, the real Satoshi should NOT give a flying fuck about whatever is going on with Dorian or that Dorian is being confused for Satoshi.. unless Dorian is the real Satoshi...

i think those options weed out the not so serious voters
trolls can't help but hit the troll options, which give more meaningful results to the yes,no,idk option.
its a troll trap and it works, when i'm not sure, and i feel like trolling the poll i hit buy buy buy.

fire in shibuya ! gox ?

https://twitter.com/ThomasKyoto/status/446534622252257280/photo/1

 

As for now... price is upredictable as it was before

I guess several people going to join Kraken now.
It was about time.

This is what goes passes for capitulation for me. I'm out of fiat. out of leverage. Might lose everything in a margin call. Pawn shops are closed and I just bet the mortgage money. I'm just a spectator now. Good luck, Gentleman. I did everything I could.

If I were a paid troll, I would deny it, no? Silly question...

Tell me where I have "spread fear" without backing it up with argument.

Actually I am learning A LOT here (thank you to all who taught me). I even learned how to spell bitcoin in Chinese.

Please note that I do not start speeches against bitcoin here.  As I have written many times, I don't care if people invest or trade in bitcoin knowing well what they are doing.  I do speak out against those who try to "sell" bitcoin as good investment to the unwary,  because I believe that ist is a terrible one.  I have no respect for those who try to sell it as a hedge against inflation, a way to evade taxes and buy drugs safely, and other false things that "salesmen" still say -- when in fact they want the guy to invest (and hold at any cost) only to get the price up so that they can make a profit at his expense.

But I know that this is not the place for such speeches.

However, when people write things that I believe are wrong, why should I keep quiet?  I write my opinion, if it bothers you, there is the ostrich ignore button right there.

Beserk? No, the lesson will be delivered calmly, with just a few keystrokes.  But it is not a decision to be taken lightly.

Regarding, Jorge, the level of paranoia in here is getting a little scary (and I talk as someone who tries to maintain a high level of paranoia). Jorge is wrong (IMO) but sincere. No one is seriously going to be trying to control the market through this forum (unless it is the market for pictures of rockets and trains).

You all have been warned long ago. 

I would agree with that, but to be fair, Jorge was being taunted like a nerd set upon by a pack of schoolyard bullies.  No matter how reasonable and well-socialized and mature you may be, that sort of thing can elicit rash behaviour.  It's not an environment of rational, respectful argument.  It wasn't even worth the label "argument".    

I've spoken rashly here under less oppressive circumstances than that.

It is not a "threat in an argument"; it has nothing to do with bitcoin, it is about attacking my person instead of my posts.

Why would I try to hide the fact that I delivered an apt and well deserved lesson to someone?

Who remembers?

Aren't they from San Francisco? Part of the Payward? And yes, they use Fidor bank, based in Munich. If you want a business account at Kraken, get ready for sending them tons of paper    
I use it also... specially for pay out, because Kraken EUR is much higher than bitstamp USD. And I don't lose money on bank exchange fees

Their address:
Payward
548 Market Street #39656
San Francisco, CA 94104-5401

Love the fact that there is still bearish sentiment

Perhaps.  But I understood that the investment deal had been decided back in December? What does "closed" means?

Dumped coins could have easily bought back and re-dumped.

Shit, confirmation times falling:
https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time
Dump moar!!

Stamp and Btc-e can both be considered 'western' (you know the details of both, both have 'brass plate' identities in London)...Kracken, is Vicurex still in business?

Ya, I could have said it a little differently:  Bears are the ones who will buy at some point.  Bulls are waiting for the place to sell.

market has gone bonkers

I love this hypothetical speculation about God Being a day trader. How much would He be trading and to what goal? Maximizing His dollar return on investment?  If so, the goal would be to trade to accumulate Bitcoin by selling  high and then buying back more Bitcoin, a larger dollar amount at the lows. This would over time have a larger and larger effect on the price making the lows higher and the highs lower until the upward trendline is near perfectly smooth. When trendline became perfectly smooth, God could make no more profits from trading volatility and would simply sell 1% for every 1% increase in price for a perpetual river of income. 

Every trader's actions, no matter how small, affect the market. Successful traders reduce volatility and unsuccessful traders increase volatility up the the point they leave the market. This is why bitcoin needs no central bank. It has us. Dumb traders pay smart traders and smart traders reduce volatility.

What your saying is that GOD wouldn't be a day trader, which is against the very premise of the hypothetical, you stupid fuck.

Dude, kiss my ass. I said this was a fun game and I wanted to play. You basically said you don't want to play. You didn't have to do that. You could just not play. You're being a dick.

If this ssl vulnerablility has been a problem since 2011, why should we be worried now? are hackers targeting every site?

2FA enabled, like authenticator, would prevent any major damage to an account. Passwords best changed though.

Starting from the Coin Desk article there is this test site :
http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/

Here are my test results :
(list from bitcoinwisdom)

All good, btc-e.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, cavirtex.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, bitcoin.de:443 seems not affected!
All good, coinbase.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, kraken.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, bitfinex.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, bter.com:443 seems not affected!

bitstamp.net:443 IS VULNERABLE
btcchina.com:443 IS VULNERABLE
okcoin.com:443 IS VULNERABLE
cryptsy.com:443 IS VULNERABLE

The test site did error with a couple of sites, namely huobi.com and campbx.com

A bit more detail lifted from the article for the lazy :

I came into the theater when the movie had already gone through three plot changes.  Maybe that is why I am still confused about who are the heroes and who are the villains.   

you seem to be forgetting heartbleed.

you can't log into to bitstamp.

I can tell you how I felt when I saw Stamp was still not allowing logins, and I'm not pleased of not finding any reminder to change my password at all now that I can login.
I withdrew most of my coins back to personal wallet but I can imagine weaker hands just selling off and ordering cash withdrawals.

Greed may even destroy bitcoins most praised quality, its planned scarcity.  I don't  see what could prevent that.

Correct -- but WHOSE consensus?

@billy

About major Chinies exchanges going dark 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=562524.0

I tried to find recent news from China by Googling  "04月09日" "比特币" and using Google Translate.  I cannot tell for sure, but it seems that they are still uncertain about the bank account closure on April 15; no denial, no cofirmation from the PBoC.

However MtGOX is still regularly mentioned in the Chinese bitcoin news.  It seems that the Central Bank of Japan too declared that bitcoin is not a currency.  (But please check, I may have misunderstood, or the news may be old.)

Yeah, unfortunately the bitcoin scammers are now looking to Latin America as the only remaining sucker tank.   

The large 330 EUR wall at Kraken has just been set to two small 325 EUR and 320 EUR walls!

The large 326 EUR wall at BTC-e still remains...

...is there someone running out of money or is this the beginning of the dump?
 

What is weird though is the low amount of sell orders on huobi compared to the buy orders and still we are going down. 

Not quite. Miners will do whatever gives more benefit to themselves.  Is the 21 million BTC cap good for them?

No, you assumed that some "bad" miners would try do that in order to destroy bitcoin or whatever, and claimed that the "good" miners would not let them do that.  I am asking about your "good" miners.  is the 21 M BTC limit good for them?

Today, BtcTrade and Huobi join OKCoin, FXBTC, and BTC38 in announcing an end to their acceptance of Chinese RMB deposits via bank card recharge. It is worth re-mentioning that Bitcoin is not banned in China. China has merely forced Chinese Bitcoin exchanges to operate outside of Chinese banks, fiscally. China wants to limit the amount of Bitcoins that can be bought by Chinese citizens to a measly $50,000 USD worth annually, thus limiting capital flight by that method.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/22obst/stop_the_fud_china_is_not_banning_bitcoin/

Not really. Banning bitcoin would mean banning the internet. Choking exchanges hamstrings bitcoin and it's more practical (i.e. it actually has an effect) than deeming it illegal.

We have our bad days but our good days are worth the pain.  

I cant take it anymore

I have arranged to be cryogenically frozen.

they will though me out when bitcoin reaches 1,000,000$ or 2020 whichever comes first.

Its been fun guys.

see you in a few years, Hopefully sooner!

Yes, but the point is: exponential growth for the past N years is no guarantee that it will continue for one more year.

As @solex whote a couple of days ago, "the trend is your friend, until the bend in the end"  

The petahash on ghash.io has been steadily going up all day......... so the mining sure seems alive and healthy.... and you can snag mining shares at .010 pretty much the same price last 2 weeks??

I want to go to the 2016 to see how much money i got then , shit!

Well, bank accounts have been closed, CNY deposits are halted. How is this not a ban?

i was asked why i post here.

Perhaps he was describing what he would do to his boss once he got his FU money.

Mervyn, let me clue you.  I am paid highly for financial analytics, and have been for almost a decade.  I am pretty sloppy here in the forum because I'm not putting my real name on it, and its nice to relax and talk smack now and then - I need the de-stress sometimes - but I do know something about what I'm saying. 

USD devaluation is one of the massive relative appreciation scenarios for BTC. 

Is it already sleepysleepy time in china?

I'm NOT going to play your annoying little game...

I am a full professor of computer science at a public university, with a fixed salary, light teaching load, a few grad students, no admin duties at the moment, a foot in a slow-going research project,  and freedom to choose my research topics.  And also occasional public advocate on social things like electronic voting.
...

re-quoting for posterity - his cracks me up every time "The world was running low on scarcity, so we had to create some"

I find it bizarre that ...

Ha    http://www.coindesk.com/new-colorado-marijuana-vending-machines-accept-bitcoin/

For a hodler, watching China FUDgasms is like being crucified on a procrustean bed of gordian knots cleft by the sword of damocles in the depths of the augean stables.

Compared to other forms of theft, stealing bitcoins is actually very easy, very safe for the thief, and extremely lucrative.

Do I need to tell the many ways in which the private keys of a victim can be obtained by a thief? Once the thief gets hold of the private keys, it can immediately use them to transfer the victim's bitcoins to any other address.  This is easily automated so millions of coins can be stolen from millions of victims while the thief is taking a nap on the beach.  (Or even dead!) Compare that with trying to steal the same amount of cash from the same number of victims by stealing their credit card data or bank passwords. 

A bitcoin-stealing virus or trojan does not need to communicate with the thief or leave any other clue that could identify him.  The thief can leave the stolen coins "sleeping" on the receiving address for years, and then "cash them out" in many ways.  Again, try doing that with credit cards or bank wire transfers.

Another way to steal bitcoins is address phishing: the victim thinks that he is sending bitcoins to his car dealeer, but in fact the account address he got from their webpage is the thief's.

But we do not need to discuss theory. The MtGOX heist alone stole 5% of all the money in the bitcoin economy.  There have been dozens, if not hundreds, of other heists; the total may be 10% of all the money.  AFAIK, none of those thieves has been identified, much less caught; and none of those stolen coins were retrieved.

OK, where do I start? You know what a 'computer' is?  A 'program'?  A 'hacker'? A 'trojan'? A 'key logger'? A 'hardware patch'? A 'memory dump'? A 'covert channel'? A 'malicious wallet software'?  A 'pseudo-pseudo-random number generator'?   A 'social engineer'? A 'disgruntled employee'? A  'naive user'?

The discussion started because someone (@aminorex?) claimed flatly that bitcoins are much safer than traditiional payment methods.   That statement is at least unwarranted, because (1) there are many ways to steal bitcoins, (2) stealing bitcoins is easier, "safer", and more effective in many ways than stealing credit cards or bank keys, and (3) bitcoin theft is still a common occurrence in bitcoin businesses, which are supposedly run by computer-savy people.

AFAIK, each year about 7 trillion dollars are paid with credit cards worldwide, of which 20 billion dollars (~0.3%) are fraudulent.  

What about bitcoins? I have no idea how much ...

Yes, many of those problems could be fixed in theory; but in practice many still haven''t been fixed, and others (like the irrevocability of thefts and the near impossibility of identifying the thief) do not seem to have a solution even in theory.  

Others, like address phishing (tricking people to send bitcoins to the wrong address) may be done in so many ways that it seems unlikely they will have a single, simple solution.  The problem is made worse by exaggerated claims of security, since they may induce users to lower their guard. (E.g., see that site that generated vanity addresses.)

And anyway, why should I find the solutions? I am the skeptic here...

By the way, the MtGOX heist must have been the largest single digital theft of all time, not just of bitcoin. Is that true? I cannot even imagine how a hacker could steal 300 million old-fashioned dollars from a company, and walk away with it.

The largest theft in history, to my knowledge, is the embezzlement of 4.3 trillion USD in the U.S. dept. of defense reported to congress by sec.y Rumsfeld on 10 Sep 2001.  Clearly it was digital, as otherwise the task of transporting the benjamins would have required 2200 standard 50ft boxcars, I.e. a train of boxcars 22 miles long, which would have drawn attention.

You're giving hackers way too much credit.  Guinness, Madoff, Enron, Savings & Loan, Boesky, Kerviel, Minkow, Barings, Worldcom, Wall Street, Parmalat, QE, Amaranth, Long Term Capital, Brink's MAT, Breitwiser, Graff Diamonds, Dar es Salaam bank, SMBC...

Ridiculous. The only reason why most bitcoin crimes go unpunished and victims get no reparation is that bitcoin was appropriated by rabid "libertarians" who hate governments, law, regulations, and police.

The logical consequence of assuming that those things are evil is that "there are no criminals nor victims, only smart people and stupid people".

The invariable response of the "bitcoin community" to each new bitcoin scam or heist is "stupid victims, they should have blah blah blah."

Yes. Your presentation of it.


"Buy now, because we are (almost) guaranteed to turn around anytime now, based on the log trend."

That's the essence of your sales talk, and it is doing a disservice to Bitcoin.


"Buy now, it has historically proven to be a good approximate spot, but be prepared to see your USD value go down further in case the bear market continues."

That'd be an honest presentation of the historic results, but one that I have yet to see in this form.


In case you accuse me of putting words in your mouth, here's the type of presentation I have in mind:


There is no such thing as "rock bottom" of the trendline. If the market continues to go down south, your model will pick that up long after the fact.

For fairness sake, you do add disclaimers when pressed (like: "don't invest what you can't afford to lose"), but you are still regularly abusing your model in discussions about short-to-mid term predictions (e.g. was this the bottom or not?), where this model has no place whatsoever.

This will be so true at the end of 2016 it will be funny to read.

Just what is offered, in your view?  The community seems relatively robust, but PoS is substantially less secure that PoW.  The layered products will emerge in any coin that has traction, so I'm not sure layered features are a big plus. Anonymity is huge, in my estimation.  Much bigger than the little features that derive from layered applications of the blockchain.  A coin is neither required nor suitable for most of those.  Parasitic protocols are not viable in the long term.   Merge-mining fees is the correct way to use blockchains as infrastructure for layered apps, not cramming stuff into the core coin, but other ways of funding a distributed transaction db may be more efficient.

Anonymity on the other hand is part of the core, necessarily.  Part of the core implementation, and part of the core value proposition.  For that reason, of the alts, I like MRO.  BCN would have been interesting, but suffered from pre-mine.  MRO forks BCN and fixes that.  The upside is the best anonymity in a working coin, CPU-mined.  The downside is extreme immaturity of the software, no market yet:  It's roughly 2 weeks old.

For the anonymity alone?

Isn't it ironic that the libertarian bitcoiners, champions of laissez-faire capitalism, are betting all their life savings on the hope that the Satoshi Bitcoin will be one day the only cryptocurrency in the market, so that they can charge monopoly prices for it? 

Good to see you airing those "academic" prejudices a little more openly again, prof.  Have the high priests of the global Bitcoin conspiracy been getting to you again?

The reason that some crimes involving Bitcoin have gone unpunished is because governments and regulators are slow to catch on to new technology.  Now, what's the reason for the lack of prosecutions with regard to massive fiat scandals?  Oh yes, the institutions are "too big to fail" and the individuals involved apparently can't themselves be held accountable either.  So that's fair.

Bitcoin could be your saviour but you're so terrified of some of its libertarian fans somehow taking complete control of this massive open-to-all consensus-based network that you'd rather dedicate your time to saving the world from those dangerous imaginary cultists in the most bizarre and fruitless way possible - trolling this thread.

If you want to try and change Bitcoin's direction, stop pushing back and start looking forward.  

Out of interest, what didn't you like about NXT?

Some transactions are fast, low-cost and secure.
For everything else, there's MasterCard.

Why is everyone all butthurt in this thread yet again? All this bickering is such a downer. It's a beautiful day, Bitcoins are great!

People are willing to give you over $400 for just one!!

Ripple got a bank, doge got a car, crypto-currency is becoming more and more a normal daily thing.

Brighter days are ahead my friends, just be mindful of the bumps.

I would not wait for an increase in volume, I don't think it will ever come.
Mt Gox ruined that trust, these exchanges are just too amatuer. Nobody feels comfortable putting large amounts of fiat/coins into them anymore. Large buyers and sellers will wait for institutional level exchanges, and in the meantime the buying will happen through Second Market, dark pools, and directly from miners.

There won't be an uptick in volume on Bitstamp, the stream of coins coming in for sale will slowly dwindle as the off chain buying increases. You will wait for large volume, but suddenly there will hardly be any coins for sale. Buying on Stamp-level exchanges will be for small fish and last-resort larger traders.

I can agree with that.  But putting one's hopes on a technological "deus ex machina" is weak and lazy naiveté, not robust and diligent naiveté...

Currently up for sale. 

We been broken down
to the lowest turn
and being on the bottom line
sure ain't no fun
but if we should be evicted from our homes
we'll just move somewhere else
and still carry on...

Hodl on, Hodl on, Hodl on

The only way is up, baby
For you and me, baby
The only way is up
For you and me

Here you go! Now you can make your own chart/graph. Edited code for this thread. (topic=178336) You may have to add/change years.

I don't want to save anyone on this thread. I assume you all are adults and know the game you are gambling in.  I feel that I have an obligation to warn people who may be lured into investing in bitcoin with false promises, but they are unlikely to be reading here.