Bitcoin Forum

It is possible that the Karpeles arrest will make Bitcoins image problem even worse.
We already know that in one case offering BTC a payment option had a negative impact on revenue. Whollyhemp did a study and published the results. The resulting virtual lynchmob on reddit was fun to watch.
Enough digression.

Two new things we learned from the proceedings are
-) Karpeles had a single Bank account for customer deposits, day to day operations and even some personal spending ( He bought a car)
-) Mtgox payed out withdraws from other customer deposits.

Roger Ver still is regarded as an honorable person by the core Bitcoin community. A convicted felon who later got a pseudo-citizenship to evade taxes, calls himself Bitcoin Jesus, kept explosives in an apartment, to be shipped via postal service, a failed politician for the Libertarian party. And ultimately, based on what we know now a confidence trickster who used his popularity to lure other people into a false sense of security just at the right moment.

It doesn't end here. The vast majority of this community consists at best of Libertarian Conservatives, realistically Anarcho Captialists and at the worst Objectivists. Independently of how you feel about these ideologies (hint - they're flawed) the vast majority of people won't react kindly if they are called statists.

People outside of the Bitcoin community aren't gonna judge this as separated incidents. They will look at all the crooks, scams and nutjobs and associate it with every case of massive financial losses and every case where a prominent figure gets prosecuted because they have no regards for the laws that govern the society we all live in.

We are in a bull market - bad news are ignored...

Honey badger doesn't care about cult of personality.

I don't think any revelations about Mt Gox will really shock anyone to the point where it influences their investment decisions.  Everyone expected the worst.

I'm not posting about existing Bitcoiners, who obviously do not care as much about social stigma, or in some cases may even endorse it because it is stigmatized. But other people do.
And don't kid yourself. Everybody cares about social stigma it's just some care less.

The effect is cumulative. The more stigmatized Bitcoin becomes the less people want to deal with it.
If Bitcoin is already so stigmatized that people who are into buying hemp soap won't want to have it's bad. 

Hence why major financial institutions are using the term 'blockchain'. Some have the objective of creating competing chains (which may or may not succeed), others are trying to do a rebranding job by distancing themselves from the name 'Bitcoin', which takes time, but with large amounts of capital and big names behind is likely to be successful in the long run.

Yeh, in time BTC can leave its sordid past behind it, but I am not convinced that that time is here yet. And I agree, Karpeles in the news is not likely to help with  'social stigma' in the short term with new entrants. Agreed, we already know this shit, but to Joe Public, it is a bad read, but if he is nailed to the wall, the medium term outlook improves ...

We may still have to revisit whatever is imagined as 'No Willy Bot' prices (whatever they are) to establish a 'true' base but that remains to be seen. I am undecided on that. But I think in the long run, as much as possible of the Mt Gox story being made public and flushed down the tube is a good thing. We can then leave it all behind ...

Shorter term I think we are going up regardless. Remains to be seen if it can hold though over the coming months

Am I the only one thinking that this is good news?
If you fuck with bitcoin you go to jail.

Is this even news to people yet unfamiliar with bitcoin? Will this news even enter their world? I think not.

The problem is this is an international case.
During the process the big problem bit coin poses for the real system becomes clear to people that matter in this world. Following that I think it's likely we are looking at a global ban within two years.

People who are fooled by the illusion of law & order (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1140907.msg12055089#msg12055089), aren't going to be buying crypto-currency for disruptive reasoning any way, rather only because they are jealous of gains others made.

And those who are buying crypto for disruptive reasoning, aren't concerned about the free market process because that is what they want.

Your thesis is fundamentally irrelevant.

You are just another worry wort control freak like your philosophical cohort Gregory Maxwell (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1049048.msg12049524#msg12049524).

Pleeaaase don't try to assert that Bitcoin is going to replace legal tender in the minds of your cohort. Delusion is all you know.

despite the old history stigma, its overlooked and people will continue to move forward.

its good to see that guys face and his t-shirt "rekt" while wearing his black hat. he probably felt so shitty inside and asked himself a thousand times whats the point of being rich or trying to be one if I have no friendssss.

There are enough libertarians out there to drive Bitcoin to the moon, if that's a problem.
Anyway, I don't think it's a problem in terms of mainstream adoption. All new technologies have been used to do bad things at the early days, it will not surpass the positives.

I agree on some points esp base on the user either they do it for good or bad.

But the thing with bad news, it spreads like wild fire and the good points are not seen anymore based on fear, cause I just asked what my friend thinks about bitcoin. And all his was response was oh yeah that scam thing. Lack of understanding he explained he read something on about silkroad years back, and that itself made him re-think.

Its sad, but theres many cases like this.. I just told my friend to re-think about it.

Hopefully he sees this gox story as a positive sign?

It is still going up


I think this post won ;)

Why is it sad that your friend is an idiot?

It just is. Accept it.

Of course that you didn't realize that makes you an idiot too, so it all makes sense. It just is. I accept it.

I think the deflationary distribution baked into the bitcoin protocol is political. That's the interesting part.

Thinking that joe blow public gives any care to Roger Ver, MtGox implosion, or even bitcoin itself is somewhat silly. It bubbled and died in late 2013 in their minds. The CEO committed suicide and a guy wearing a magical tux haxored all the coins.

If bitcoin does penetrate the mainstream, it will be on the backend. Living behind the splashy javascript curtain, the rails. Until then, it is the domain of idealists, traders, scammers, black/grey markets, capital control evasion, and the tech horny. (Not a horrible thing btw, but possibly problematic for posters bleating "$10k coins next year!")

I'm waiting for the altcoin with an exponentially increasing rate of emission, maybe call it Krugcoin? Surely the proletariat will flock like moths to a flame to build and support it.

The social stigma is like lasted for 1 entire day for me.

And then I moved on reading to other great news on coindesk and then just read more threads about his whole arrest situation being late.

The market sets the price. Mt Gox closed over a year ago.

Try as perma bears like OP will, they are running out of bad news to smear bitcoin with. Just the final USMS auction and the Gox payout now.

The veil is being lifted. It comes to light that most people who revolve around bitcoin, aren't idealistic do-gooders, but instead greedy pigs without ethics. The wannabe "new elites" who have no interest in revolutionizing finance, by making monetary services cheaper and removing the unnecessary leeches from the system. They only wish to become the new leeches who earn a lot without doing any work for it.
The main thing that will be effected by these news is merchant adoption. The main reason why merchants adopted bitcoin payment, was to get some positive free press. Bitcoin payment option doesn't have any practical advantages, so, publicity and getting new customers among bitcoin enthusiasts were the only reasons.

With that said, it's an illusion that bitcoin price is tied to merchant adoption. So, this negative publicity will have just as little effect as positive publicity about new merchants using bitcoin payment. The price will be calculated by a group of people who own enough BTC and $, to make the price move to any direction they wish. This group includes the same people who operate the most popular exchanges, and therefore have access to information that is crucial when calculating the right moves. The bitcoin market is like a casino, where the winning odds are precisely calculated by the house and all the bright lights etc. are only meant to distract the players from the cold calculated odds that aren't in their favor. Positive or negative news like these are the distractions of "the bitcoin casino".

same with me. there's even no point in staying too much on that

bitcoin is a technology. some new tech can change world and some inventions never make it. we don't know yet regarding bitcoin. what we know for sure is that arseholes will always use whatever they can to fuck around honest people. i don't think it is bitcoins "fault" that arseholes can use it.

an ak47 is designed to kill. that is its purpose. are you trying to say that bitcoin is designed to scam people ?

Nothing happens to Karpeles: bad for BTC because anyone can lose people's money and get away without consequences

Karpeles arrested: bad for btc community according to OP.

yeah, no matter what happen, some people always will make it looks bad

Bitcoin made a lot of imperfect humans wealthy and powerful. Time exposes human character flaws unless you are a Clinton.

In the end these stories will be like the wild west in the USA, flawed men that are considered heroes for their courage and ability to live on the edge and see the future. Flawed almost all of them, but pioneers with a technology that will ultimately change the planet.

Despite the stigma that the US media tries to put on it, Kalashnikov pattern rifles are the most popular and widely-used assault rifles in the world due to their simple, reliable and rugged designs. I'd be more than pleased if Bitcoin became as popular widely-used as the AK47.

This sentence wanna make me watch lord of war again :)

Btw bitcoin = ak47 would mean btc would have a marketcap like the US $

mmm jelly doughnuts

We could all think about what-ifs and what-nots in relation to the gox fiasco, but it doesn't really help.

While each of these sentences is correct out of context you can't drive that conclusion. People don't stigmatize something out of thin air, bitcoin isn't stigmatized because of technical details of the software it runs, it's because of mistakes people involved with it have been making.

that is so true. seems weird, though, since i never expected that only noble, smart, bright (etc) would get into bitcoin when they found out about it. more average people with some strong leaning towards gambling. how can the non-noble, non-smart and non-brightness of some (many?) first movers can be held against bitcoin?
did you expect more?

No one should have expected anything else.

The design of Bitcoin (deflationary, finite eternal supply cap) has within it a political ideology (Libertarianism at least as that term is used in the US), and the creator, earliest adopters and most vocal enthusiasts for it have always been incredibly vocal about this ideology and literally offer Bitcoin as a kind of sacrament to that ideology.

It is also undeniable that Bitcoin community is rotten to the core, full of scammers, parasites, get-rich-quick types, ponzi runners and pyramid schemers, this is the communities opinion of itself.  The old saying is true the fish rots from the head down, and the head of Bitcoin is Libertarian ideology, a fundamentally immoral and rotten ideology.

Bitcoin is simply a way to get the currently widely dispersed Libertarians to interact with each other, the result is not unlike what would result from air-dropping Libertarians onto an uninhabited island, the result is literally a dystopia on par with classics such as Animal Farm and Brave New World, only the physical separation provided by the internet and the fact all these people are still embedded in normal society keeps them from literally ended up in Lord of the Flies cannibalism.

Nothing else was ever possible, the community is not some random agglomeration of people who were bad by random chance.  Any institution attracts the kind of people it deserves, people who embody the institutions values.  To think otherwise is like claiming Mother Teresa had equal probability of becoming a Nun or a Nazi prison guard.

Holy shit seems you were abused from your libertarian father as a child?

You post is so full of fallacys and strawmans even lampchop would be jealous of you

Excellent summary of what the public thinks of bitcoin. In the end the mainstream won't experience the basic bitcoin, that we have right now. They will use apps that are build on it. No one will send money to an public key, but they will easily transfer money between facebook, skype, email accounts without ever touching the underlying protocol.

No, my father is loving and ardent socialist like myself. 

But your aim is quite true, except you loaded the arrow backwards.  In an fine example of classic projection in which ones own motivations are attributed to the opponent you attribute to me the underlying motivation of a Libertarian.  It almost always grows from some kind of immature resentment towards an authority figure, the best example is Rand herself who's entire ideology was simply the whole-sale inversion of the Soviet value structure that she had been the victim of.  Most modern libertarian mouth breathers can't lay claim to anything on that scale, they are overwhelmingly young white males of middle class privilege, their resentments are indeed towards parental authority.

I invite you to try to point out these fallacies and strawpersons, and by the way lambchop has someones hand in it, not straw.

Oh my gawd.
Wannabe stalin crossbreed with freud.

Shoulda have just stayed away after you fucked up the 2013 bullrun.

http://rs197.pbsrc.com/albums/aa78/fear_free/mind-blown_zps3086e54c.jpg~320x480

*edit
Dunno, but lately i have to use this meme quite often.

Parental figure? Like good old papa Stalin?
Socialism is the way to go. Let's all stand in line and work for the good of others, especially the ones on top.

http://www.mbird.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/stalin_poster1.jpg

socialism? wtf? its as bad as hitler bro... in fact, Stalin killed millions more people than the nazis. I actually get offended when people try and promote socialism. try "post-capatalism" instead... that one might actually take flight, and not oppress and kill millions in the process.

anyways, to go back "on topic" and address OP... Karapele's fiasco and the new developments will for sure add to BTC's poor reputation in the short term, the nay-sayers will parade this news around like some sort of victory, the weak hands will drop coins, the doubtful will become more doubtful...

this is all short term, same as every other scandal in btc land.

what is also the same, but having exponentially larger repercussion every time scandal hits, is that regulation, legal definition, good standards and best practices will be tightened up, reformed, made more clear-cut and put into legislation.

the libertarians will hate this, but libertarians are like commies, they only hate the state because they dont know how to work within it. they hate the rich because "sour grapes" they hate critics like me because I'm right.

they tend to be very unrealistic, if not actually mentally ill, homeless, or underage.

the more regulation there is on btc, at least well defined parameters where it can operate without people getting abused, the better for BTC. Mass adoption will never happen in an environment of anarchy. mass adoption will only happen when the masses can feel assured they wont be robbed blind in some wild-west of unregulated chaos.

"its not a perfect world kids, and people like me are here to keep it that way" Mister Toad, from Bill Griffith's Tales of Toad

I'm with you homie. Good news, run-up imminent. Not just because of this, obviously, but because of everything.

http://www.coinfox.info/news/2962-saint-petersburg-authorities-evacuated-city-s-major-transport-locations-due-to-bitcoin-terrorists-attack

harsh, right? Is there a more reputable source about that?