Bitcoin Forum

It's written in blood this time I'm afraid guys...

As soon as the media gets a hold of this story, that's pretty much the end of BTC as anything but a backwater fringe item of TOR connoisseurs and trivial web-developers, hosts, and hippy products.

So, just like it was before the hacks, except with pretty much zero potential for any legitimacy at this point.

And legitimacy was really the only thing that mattered.

No more.

Was a fun couple of weeks guys.

Hell, I'm actually pretty depressed about this.

Right when I was starting to see a glimmer of hope in the future of BTC, it's all COMPLETELY stripped away...

I feel just like I did when they canceled Stargate Universe lol...

Don't panic, Bitcoin is a lot tougher than just a single exchange. Better we get these sort of ordeals out of the way at this stage and not later.

It may have slowed things down a bit but I have every confidence that it will all be okay.

Time will tell if this is Bitcoin's darkest moment or finest hour.

This can be nothing but bad press for Bitcoin, I think it's screwed.

That's because you're totally naive.

Bitcoin is dead as a common, widely used...ANYTHING. Not a store of value, not a medium of exchange, not a transaction processor, and certainly NOT a currency...

Again, TOR junkies and criminals might still use it...

He's right, guys. You'll have to all just sell him your BTC for whatever measely price you can get on the way to 0.01 BTC/USD...  ;D

I don't think this is a fatal blow. Bad press is still publicity. In three months, or a year, all that will matter is that the name bitcoin got out, not what exactly happened.

dude even if, even $100/coin is still a fucking deal :)

+1

All publicity is good publicity. The worst thing that could happen to Bitcoin is nobody even being aware of it (like the months before April or so).

The leaking of accounts show some great statistics, only 60.000 people registered, imagine what would happen when 1.000.000 are trading bitcoins and interested on the matter.

We are only at the beginning of a long ride. The techonology behind bitcoins is just too good to be wash away and as soon more people realize that by reading how it works will just be a matter of time for the mass adoption begin.

Well, possibly guys.

Personally, I think it's dead in the water.

However one nice side effect over this though is that it might not be as nice of a target for all the pump and dumpers...

...but then again, the opposite might be true, since there's obvious still a bunch of easy patsies still willing to believe in this shit.

Either way, it's going to be an interesting couple of weeks from here.

Firstly, the miners are going to shit themselves when they see the price bottoming out after the media attention starts to hit.

Then, it will likely just cascade from there, creating a feedback loop of FUD all the way down...

And unfortunately, it will be completely justified FUD.

I agree with the OP.

It doesn't matter what the truth is.

Public always get carried away by whatever the dumbass media tell them. Public are too ignorant to see beneath the headlines.

This will destroy BTC. If I owned any right now, I'd dump my entire holdings and cash in. With prices elevated as they are in recent days, you have nothing to lose by doing so.

I think the problem is not the fact that the guy/girl got away with a potentially crazy amount of BTC.  It's the fact that there does not seem to be anything in place to prevent this from happening again in the future.  And thusly, BTC will continue to suffer until people drop support for it.

People in the same way that bitcoin hashing provides "security" for the network, the same needs to be applied to exchanges?  I'm not exactly qualified to know how it would work but the premise, I believe, is still applicable.

yep, oh well...

btw Synaptic, send all your bitcoins here...

1NsozTfNyoWXyF2i4GaJwNDbMTpHYWRp7m

I will dispose of them in a proper way...

I am not naive, I just have faith in the idea and see these events in the larger context. If you are only interested in a quick buck then you are quite right. Run. Go, we are better off without you.

The fact that people have resorted to hacking an exchange and not the protocol speaks volumes about both the systems security and the burgeoning interest in the the thing.

Certainly not a good place for the faint of heart though.

Fortunately I disposed of all 10 of them on Mt. Gox just last night on a hunch that some kinda shit was going to happen.

I'm pretty insightful that way.

And thanks for being a patsy.

Cheers.

wait... 10? really? come on man, do you have to fill the forums with all this hate over *10* btc?

Like 99% of the rest of society that could have actually added and real goddamn value, to what now WHOLLY amounts to a speculator's community Fleshlight.

Let me how many strokes you last...

i really want to coddle you, and tell you some sweet bed time stories.

I have been playing therapist over the phone to a friend who just majorly bought into this shit on Friday.

He's pretty much fucked now, and probably out of his girlfriend too, and is probably going to have to move out.

Unless he can still find enough suckers to sell out his holdings to before the price completely crashes...

After the sell off, prices bounced right back to 15. Tradehill is still selling around 14, everything is fine. Quit your lame doom spreading. You do it all the time, on every subject and none of us believe you. Have over. You just fill every thread with crap. Give it a rest.

where to begin? btc is a LONG bet -- he should know that. and if a little bit of gambling is enough to cause a split... come on now.

it sounds like your friend suffers from a bit of stupidity/naïvete, but that doesn't mean you have to spit it back in OUR faces.

Aww you didn't benefit from the actions of a scammer. So sad. Stop spreading your doom and gloom shit. No-one cares.

LOL people are so flimsy. Did you not expect grand events like this as Bitcoin rises? Did you not expect calamities?

There was no issue with the Bitcoin protocol or code. It was one business (albiet a very important one) that was hacked. Many more will be hacked! Many more will lose money in the ups and downs of a volatile new market. Have some nerve for crying out loud.

Bitcoin is just getting started, calm the F down. And PM me if you want to sell me your coins.

He got caught up in the altruism and potential of BTC, not the speculation side.

Now that he finally sees clearly what I was telling him from the beginning, his optimism is gone, and he's not only emotionally destabilized, but financially destabilized.

Added to the fact that I don't give a fuck about you or anyone else here as a person, and yeah, I'm apt to be en garde.  

please explain under what situation can this be bitcoin's finest hour lol

Yes, drive the actual price down to 0.1.
Is the OP a dirt-bag troll (no offense intended) or a real person?

There are different kinds of people on this planet, they can be broken down into many different groups, one set of groups they can be broken into are these:

A)Those motivated to do research and make informed decisions. This is the natural, birth state of an awe-filled species.
B)Those not motivated to do research and make informed decisions. This is the state that many people are tricked/scared into.

This recent development will surely cause less (B)s to adapt because they will be told not to adapt by the media, and that is all they have to go off of. (A)s are not going anywhere because they know that what was compromised was some guys webpage in japan, not the structure of bitcoin itself. (A)s will continue to be rewarded for the effort it takes to make informed decisions. it is for the best that (B)s don't have large amounts of money. Bitcoin is fantastic at converting (B)s to (A)s, depending on how hardcore a (B) you are, that is how hard it will be for you to convert.

So, by all means, if you are (B) then please sell your coins, we need as much money in the hands of (A)s as possible for the future of our planet.

so you're 'right' now -- but what about later? like I said, LONG bet.

Dirt bag troll, reporting in!

And according to a couple of other GENIUS posters here, a Gubmit supported and paid for troll!

Yeah.

Good luck with that.

Since the media already reported the "crash" from a week ago, they will probably report this too. But it doesn't matter. This hack has nothing to do with bitcoin itself. We have always known things like this are going to happen; the road is going to be "bumpy" as Gavin has said. But bitcoin itself remains secure. The only reason this hack will be a problem is because people will overreact (like Synaptic). But people will calm down in time.

You admit being a troll Synaptic, why are you trying to harm the project and other people?

You just don't get it do you?

All of you kiddos have this incestuous love for bitcoins and keep saying that a family that plays together stays together.

Well guess what dude, bitcoin is fucking dead to the eyes of the public now. That's it. What happened today is the end of anything that was going to happen in the wider market.

I'm not over-reacting in the least bit.

See me in a week/month/year and tell me I'm wrong.

Don't agree. Very good for disasters happen while Bitcoin is still in fringe use.
Developers of bitcoin and exchanges need to wake up to the significant flaws in their products.
Best outcome would be competition with a product containing similar features. Second best is just for bitcoin to be attacked while it is weak.

Troll fodder.

"Despite various inducements, none of the royal magicians or advisors can interpret the omen."

Sure thing, Damian.  Keep humping that monkey.

People make up your own minds, dont read all this rah rah. Im done with BTC, should have went with my gut when the
hacks and other garbage started. Its a criminal hacker currency, at some point the mob will control it, whether its a hacker mob or russian mob or whatever.
I had most of my money pulled out, the rest was making a trade today at 17.49 did it get filled I have no clue.  I hope not. DONE. Probably too late....

In school I was picked on for being too smart, so your stupid childish post has no affect on me.
Now why are you obviously trying to harm the project and other people Synaptic?

Well gosh Mr. Aspie, you're so smart why don't you tell me?

There is nothing in this world that I could potentially do to harm "this project" anymore than Mt Gox has done already.

Sorry buddy.

So, if a bank gets robbed then USD is worthless? Brilliant!

Why are you all so emphatically posing this distinction? The oh-so-loved decentralized nature of Bitcoin was inevitably and ALWAYS bottle-necked by the exchange. The actual value in decentralization has no relevance to a trading market, only (and, even then, supposely) to the benefits of buying and selling actual goods. Since the value of Bitcoins never came from its adoption and use in a tangible goods/services market (apart from drugs and kiddie porn) and only from speculative circlejerking (which is what you all were concerned with), why are you so up in arms about this?

Get this through your thick heads: Bitcoins = MtGox. That's what it has effectively been. That was reality. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be HURTING as you are now. Right now, you have nothing to do with your precious bitcoins apart from using Tradehill which has no effective market to speak of and won't move at all since all eyes are on Mt. Gox. Oh, I guess you can buy Alpaca socks, or some random coffee beans! Or heroin an kiddie porn too...

Are you that retarded?! That's a serious counter? Wow. You really do NOT understand anything if you are being serious.

way to bold your obvious lie pal.

https://i.imgur.com/qTLPM.gif

/alpacasocks

 ;D

Lesson learned.   When all the rumors of people getting their mtgox & email account hacked (including those running on Linux, with strong-ish passwords, not re-used) started the obvious conclusion was mtgox is compromised.   That was yesterday.  

Unfortunately, I didn't believe it.  Don't have a huge amount invested in bitcoin, but I'll be a bit sad to see it all gone.

While I don't believe this is the end of bitcoin (there's no such thing as bad publicity) the next few weeks could get exciting.  Def. withdrawing everything from mtgox the moment I can.  Changed my email password to a 16 character one with lots of mixed case, digits and special characters just to be sure, but I expect to get LOTS more spam since it's not one I hand out to free sites.

Looks like I need to get disposable email addresses for all exchanges, and only keep enough funds in there I won't miss if they're stolen.

No. Because MtGox might fall, but Bitcoin won't. So they're different.

The story here is that an upstart website got in over it's head dealing with very large sums of currency.  Bitcoin is still chugging along, doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing.  It might dampen the speculation market, but that was never going to be the reason for bitcoin's success anyway.

According to Synpatic, bitcoin is a waste of time. Yet he spends hours on these forums trolling about how bitcoin is a waste of time. Stop preaching and start acting your beliefs. If it really is a waste of time for you then go away. Otherwise you're a hypocritical bigot.

The event that has transpired amounts to the first, and probably not the last, bitcoin bank robbery.   Banks and assets still exist today, so I don't think bitcoin is going anywhere. mtgox might be finished though, we'll have to wait and see.

I basically bought into BTC for the entertainment value.

You had better bet I'm going to do my best to get my USD's worth here.

Asking me why I'm here is a fair question, so I'll answer it.

I was drawn to Bitcoin as the idea of a "digital currency" was very interesting, and from a technical standpoint, the design and implementation of Bitcoins themselves is very impressive - perhaps there are technical faults with the network itself, but I wouldn't know as do not have the level of technical skill to fully appreciate what they've done.

The problems I have with this "game" is that there has not been any meaningful use of this technology, apart from attempting to anonymize illicit transactions. I believe that this largely stems from the failure of those creating the bitcoin "system" (although it may not have even been in their interest to do so) to provide a means of liquidity. Initial adoption through mining is quite an ingenious way to disseminate Bitcoins, but no other infrastructure was put into place to allow adoption of this currency. Add to that the forced deflation of the currency by a solid cap on the upper limit of Bitcoins, and Bitcoins became nothing more than a system where by growing media exposure allowed for unsuspecting later-adopters (like some of the poor saps here) to inject USD to buy coins and pass value downstream to the miners. Those who hold the most Bitcoins have created them with computing power, NOT by exchanging them for money. Where was the real capital behind all of this? Before you jump to the "but gold was the same" argument, know that gold had value among the world long before the Goldrush. It's not the same thing, by a mile. This is the fallacy.

Regardless, that wasn't even the biggest problem. The biggest problem was/is security (as I mentioned in a thread yesterday). I don't feel like repeating myself, so you can go read that.

Now, I stay on here, to hopefully convince some unsuspecting person not to piss away their life's saving or tuition (as someone here has apparently done) on this gambling.

So the Mt.Gox fireball scares away a lot of users. The value of Bitcoin drops like a rock.

But it still has *some* value. There are other exchanges (Virwox, TradeHill) with substantial numbers of registered users. And if people mistrust Mt.Gox, it's not that hard to move trading to one of these.

At worst, Bitcoin is back where it was 6 months ago or so, with nobody outside a small community caring about or using it. And if it was working fine then, it'll work fine now.

Bitcoin will live on, it just created a huge market for jobs in the last few hours then any other economic force on the planet.

I'm the patsy...? lol...

not quite...

I have absolutely nothing invested in bitcoins, I think it's interesting but it's just a hobby and I have just a few bitcoins that I've mined with spare parts I had laying around (except for the ones I already spent on a brand new video card from Amazon.com), the patsy...? hardly...

your friend OTOH...? yep, patsy ass motherfucker, and guess what...? you're such a good friend that you just stood by and let it happen, and didn't even let your friend in on your "insight"...lololololololol

good job...

Except I did dipshit, and if you were going to make such an argument against me, you'd think you'd have looked through my comment history before you made an asshole of yourself.

It was in fact, in the first post about him I ever made here...

Care to back that up or will calling me names be the entirety of it?

A single exchange fails. A bunch of banks get robbed. Somehow this is supposed to be a weakness of the underlying currency? I don't see how. Explain yourself.

I think this may give some of us who heard about bitcoins a bit late another chance to be early adopters.

Most of the users on mtgox signed up in the last month or so, a third in the past two weeks (post june 10).  Which means they only had the opportunity to mine just a few coins at a difficulty of 570k or higher or buy at $10-$32.

There are dozens and dozens of people who have bought hardware specifically to mine once they saw bitcoin at $30.  It's undeniable.  6990s and 5 series are sold out world over.  The same 4 or so terahash capacity we saw come online in the past few weeks will probably go right back where it came from -- returned to newegg or tigerdirect with a small restocking fee -- if bitcoin crashes to sub-$1 levels as a result of this.

What a whiny bitch.  This is the reason of humanities sorry state of current affairs, there is no will to fight.  No perseverance, just a bully bloodies your nose and you want to go home and cry to mommy.  Do men still exist?  Or are we just a bunch of eunuchs?

It's ok to be depressed but every time we have a problem it just compounds it by everyone venting their frustration on this forum.  Stop it.  Do something constructive with that energy.

So, you're saying because MT. Gox(Magic the gathering online exchange) failed Becuase of Security reasons, Bitcoin will die right along with it?
So, Tradehill means shit?!
The CIA interview debriefing earlier this week means shit?
The numerous amounts of coverages(Of both good and bad) does't mean shit?
God you really must be a troll.
I give it a couple weeks, month or so tops for this is history.

I'm going to assume we're all idealists here. Or people who are speculating on the value of Bitcoin based on its merits as a self-contained system and not really looking at the bigger issues (a.k.a. idealists I don’t agree with (people who believe religiously in a Free Market as a context that need not look outside itself (yes, I’m nesting parenthetical statements))).
 
There seems to be a lot of ideas in this thread about a much broader adoption in the future if only we/they can get the Bitcoin ecosystem “safe” enough or “user friendly” enough and if we can only get the media to portray it fairly.  How broad are you talking about? Are you imagining it replacing the USD or the GBP etc..? Or even existing alongside them on an equal basis?  Why do you think the media is not portraying it in such a way that you consider fair? I would say that this is because the media basically voices the concerns of the state and the people who unquestioningly believe in the state (sadly, a majority).  Do you really think our respective governments are going to give up the power they get from controlling the currency? How about the multinational banking network?

I guess just lately I’ve been turned on to the power of Power. I think it’s easy to overlook how powerful power is when coming up with utopian alternatives and solutions that will coexist with the status quo.

To be adopted en masse we have to get the general public who are afraid to say the word “bomb” on their cell phones to adopt a method of exchange that basically, through its very existence, threatens the government and the primacy of the banking institutions. I’d say without some sort of global civil war being won by whatever can claim Anonymous as its nascent form, there will never be any wide scale adoption of bitcoin or anything similar to it. I’m not saying this will not happen; just that the stakes of the game are very, very high.

Bitcoin’s opened the floodgates of the currency front to the decentralization war we’re living through and (in this forum more than most) are the active participants in.  
There seems to be a binary belief system expressed in this thread of either Mass Adoption or Ultimate Failure. I think it’s definitely not that clear. Anyways, keep fighting the good fight. Keep speculating and buying MDMA. I will do neither but will amass Bitcoins for a time when using them becomes necessary. The future is a battleground of collective will.
  
:-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*

There are just too may people here who jumped on the bitcoin train because they thought they could make a buck, and now they are crying because the value of their holdings is not what they thought it would be.  As for me, I'm not worried about bitcoin at all, the technology is sound insofar as I've researched it, and IMO bitcoin only has 3 long term threats.

1) The internet dies.
2) Someone overpowers the block chain.
3) A better competing digital currency emerges.

I don't see any of those happening anytime soon, if these hiccups cause the rate of adoption to slow down then so what? It's not going to "kill" bitcoin, bitcoin is pretty much unstoppable, the concept is truly ingenious, and if someone comes up with something even more fantastic, the world will be better for it.

I'm amazed at the vitriol at those who aren't bulls. Since when does it make someone a troll to be a bear on a currency?

This place does not exist solely for supporters of the currency. If you want to look like grown-ups, you should allow fair debate on it instead of trying to run anyone over who dares speak against bitcoins.

Honestly, the love affair for bitcoin in the face of all logic is starting to look ridiculous. Those proponents who come out of this best are the ones who admit that the "project" actually has a few flaws and weaknesses. It's the ones who invent an answer that suits their own position for every single probing question that look like idiots. It's as if you have your own FAQ in your head just to make you feel happier about your huge position.

This is typical layman's method of trading or investing and often fails. Why do you think rich people entrust others to trade for them? Because they know that it is only too human to get caught up with your emotions and fail to be logical.

+1

What "logic" does it fly in the face of? I think that there are a million different sets of axioms flying around here and people are using them to derive logics of all sorts which are all necessarily based on faith (including yours and mine)

It is not that people who speak out against bitcoin are instantly shunned here (which is what i too used to think). It is that often times people who speak out about bitcoin dont provide any proof or evidence backing what they claim. alot of their posts start out with things like "You dumbass motherfucker.." and then go on to merely claim that they think people are stupid or the system can't work.. but it is very very rare that these people have valid arguments. Since Synaptic started this thread I will point him out specifically, look at how many of his posts could have the words switched to support something like a sports team or a country, they admit right away that they hate the other side, then the rest of their argument is name calling.

It says a lot of a person when they spend their time attacking other people who are trying to accomplish things instead of spending their time accomplishing things. These are the same kinds of people who used to pick on the smart kids in school, not everyone grows out of this stage.

100% pure drama queen

You haven't  been here for very long, have you?

This isn't the first time mtgox got attacked.  The attack in Oct 2010 was actually far more disruptive than this one because the result was that mtgox users could no longer deposit or withdraw USD for several weeks.

Didn't hurt Bitcoin as a project. People just continued trading on other exchanges and OTC. That is the whole point of Bitcoin, that it doesn't depend on a single website or company.

This is a test of Bitcoins resilience. If anything, this strengthens Bitcoin in the long term because it gives people confidence that their wealth cannot be compromised at the whim of a single organization.

As long as I live bitcoin will live.

That MTGox was hacked was not that unexpected if you think about it. Hotmail was hacked, but is email dead?

I think rather they or someone else will come back with much better security there is just to much money in the future of bitcoins and it has been proven.

Insofar that none of the logic is based on anything quantitative, I agree with you. Even if we call it faith, this forum seems to be trouncing one faith in favour of another when there is no reason to do so.

People here have got to see the other side of the coin (no pun intended). If they just want to deny the obvious then that is more likely to lead to this currency's oblivion than anything else.

This forum is starting to sound like the Iraqi Information Minister. In the eyes of the world = laughable.

How far back does this faith go? did satoshi use faith or logic to create something that has allready impacted the entire world so greatly? Faith is what people use when logic looks like to much work for them, this is why you often see faith and hate so often on the same side of an argument.

I hate to be an asshole but you claim to level the playing field by saying none of the logic is based on anything quantitative but then say that people who are not agreeing with you are denying the obvious so, I guess my next question is what is "the obvious" you speak of and how does this escape/transcend the mutually agreed upon conclusion that none of the logic you (and I) are using is anything but faith based?

No, faith is what defines the axioms and logic is how they derive a workable system from their axioms. My guess is Satoshi created the seed of his idea with faith (epiphany?) and used what seems to be an amazing gift of logic to flesh it out into a system that (my faith tells me) will basically blow up the authority structures defined by the previous faith based monetary system. How are faith and logic antitheses to one another? My view is that they are different dimensions of a powerful system (which Satoshi has created).

Shinobi

I basically agree with Shinobi. Think the problem is that the developers didn't appreciate the importance of financial instruments to economies. For my proposal on how these could be introduced in a p2p cryptosystem, see here:
http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=19130.0

I guess one of my points is that both the lovers and the haters of Bitcoin are appealing to logic to support their positions. And both sides have proponents who reason impeccably... and those who reason horribly so it's best to look deeper and broader to examine what it is we're doing.

An axiom is something that is considered obvious, yet is unproven. I don't think that it is evident that at any point there was an aspect of his work that was unproven to him, if he could envision the entire project and then set about to create it, then faith was never involved any more then i have faith that when i combine the ingredients of a cake and stick it in an oven that it will become a cake. I think that by calling part of what he did faith it gives one an excuse to not be able to create something just as amazing oneself, as if he was 'given' something instead of him 'earning' it through sheer hard work. As if he got lucky that his faith was correct and someone else could work just as hard and merely not be lucky because they had 'faith' in the wrong thing. Faith is a roll of the dice, logic creates weighted dice that land the way the creator of the dice wishes. Bitcoin is to wonderful for me to be able to chock it up to luck or chance, it is a carefully planned piece of art work, a machine.

ADD:
epiphany does not imply faith, it is a surge of understanding.

all any of us can do by surrounding ourselves in this is sharpen out minds.

An axiom is what you base your logic on. How far down does logic go? Is it turtles all the way down? Each step being preceded by a perfectly logical step before it, preceded by a perfectly logical step before it etc.

First, we're arguing about what went on inside another person's mind who we have never met before, which is necessarily an argument based on faith.

Second, the turtles all the way down argument: his logic had to have been based on something right? And that something couldn't really be based on logic or else that wouldn't be what the logic was based on but a step in the logical system he created.

Third, why is faith a weakness? He had an idea, however it came to him, he had that idea and then (I assume) he decided it was the right idea and an extremely powerful idea and he didn't doubt himself, or at least he didn't doubt himself to a point that kept him from seeing his idea through to its manifestation in the real world. That takes a huge amount of faith. That is not a crutch but a massively important virtue. Faith and Will are intertwined and without them all the logic in the world won't get you out of bed.

One of the biggest problems right now in our world I think is that people have an unquestioning and unanalyzed religious sense of Logic and Rationality and Science that makes us attribute all sorts of completely unreasonable things to them and to think that important dimensions like morality can be emergent traits of systems as long as these systems follow logical paths.

Absolutely, this is one of the more fascinating inventions I've ever seen.  Also maybe we can find in it something we believe in and put that in our arsenal of things we are actively attempting to will into existence to make the world better/more beautiful/more fair/more fitting with some preconceived notion of the way the world works/whatever...

It's funny, Bitcoin seems to be (or is definitely about to be) one side of what I assume will be an epic battle but in itself it's a huge battleground with so many sides laying claim to it for so many different reasons.

I thank you both from the bottom of my heart. It is the fact that people like you two exist that make me thrilled to be alive and drive me to fight for what i believe in  ;)
You remind me that I am not alone.

So mtgox got hacked before, but they didn't see it as a reason to implement basic, essential security features and everyone just continued doing business with them? Wow. Don't see how that's a positive thing at all.

If you think it's dead, stop posting and disappear.

We'll see you down the road.

The only difference I can see between gold and bitcoins in this regard is that the rate of adoption and associated rise in purchasing power of gold happened very gradually, so being an "early adopter" didn't really mean much, and therefore wasn't a source of envy.

99% of the "public" still has no fucking idea what Bitcoin is.  This idea that it's somehow "dead" even though it's userbase is already small is retarded.  As I said in my other thread, this stuff must happen in order for Bitcoin to be viable in the long term.  Bitcoin is still in the experimental stage, and stuff like this is virtually guaranteed to happen.  As long as the community identifies each attack, evaluates the damage, and re-deploys either the Bitcoin code or the support infrastructure (exchanges), then Bitcoin will be fine.

One comment about your friend who dumped his savings into BTC: he was fucked from the start.  BTC is too unstable now to guarantee future value.  You are acting like the Mt. Gox hack was the reason he's going to lose money.  No, the reason he's going to lose his money is because he dumped his savings into an experimental currency system.  I think Bitcoin will succeed, but it may take quite a bit of time for that to happen.

One last thing: this whole Mt. Gox hack is way overblown.  Most of the Mt. Gox internal trade state is being rolled back, and I'm fairly sure 99% of users won't lose any stored value they had with Gox.  I doubt very seriously there will be any real monetary damage from this  hack, aside from the busted pride of a lot of users who were naieve about electronic security.

Bitcoin is part of a meme shift of unparalleled proportions. Information has escaped a draconian stage and everyone who views Bitcoin sees a facet of this newness drawing everyone down the rabbithole. Cavalier attitudes are garnered for the way some profiteers have played their hands, while other attitudes are thinly disguised intent bought and paid for by who knows.
If I told you a little know program developed to be some joke about banks or world finance would devour such feverish attention in a tiny span of time, you would think me daft. Information is coming out of the darkness and into the light. That is what Synaptic was sent here to control.
In this thread there are several handlers that try to drive conversation along well-thought out lines of challenge. Everyone else is just along for the ride. This Dragon is a "methane" dragon full of foul stench and hot upon every challenge. There are plenty of other dragons in other postings. Last Saturday many Moderators had their profiles spoofed as quick clones. I saw Atlas appear as Atas, Alas, _Atlas in a matter of minutes. Me thinks we have professionals that will simply goad serious posters to endless depths and chase newbies off at any cost.
The media fails to cover their own shark-infested comment sections, what makes you think they care about ours?
This is not a battle to be won, the battle was over the minute that a new meme escaped the realm of human thinking. This meme is just the edge of a sword, the strike of a match, the dust of a tempest, and a distant echo of thunder. Weeks of Synap'tick won't change that, so how do you like them apples?

Nicely written... though a bit theatrical.

I don't care what they say about me, just make sure they spell my name right: B-I-T-C-O-I-N.

Right-brain, thx

My instincts are good enough to suspect that is true, but wasn't sure if "they" really work that way. Propaganda and "mind-control" are really powerful, so I suppose you could very well be correct.

trolls and shills.  Google Jon Nadler

Well... I sold my first product for bitcoins back in about April....

... and I've seen ups / downs, comings / goings, histrionic-over-confidence / panicked sell-offs...


... and if there's one thing I've learned from all this, it's this: Nobody knows what the fuck they're talking about


So doom-sayers gonna doom-say / Evangelistas envangelize... Me? I have about 100 BTC and I'm hanging on to them... and I'll carry on selling things for bitcoins.


You didn't actually think setting up a global alternative-currency was going to be an advent-free experiment did you? Support it. It's worth it - and we've got a long way to go yet.

hear, hear!

Plus Uno! :)

+1 Bingo!

Yeah, merchants are all going to be like "Bitcoin? Yeah I remember a bunch of negative publicity about that while back...or, was it positive publicity?  Oh, who cares now, let's use it! Seems like a great idea!"

Synaptic - Do you only make use of products and services that have zero problems and/or criticism since the date they were created? That must feel so good... I can't do that, so I need to kinda look ahead and imagine BTC's ability to improve and win people over because of its advantages...

Synaptic only likes to bitch because he's mad that he bought 10 btc at $32 and bought his mining equipment on newegg which he is returning today.  He no longer has a horse in the race and will just keep coming back as a troll to prove to everyone that he was right to buy high and sell low and that he was right on canceling his mining order from newegg without a restocking fee

My bullshit detector is going crazy right now.

Never spent a cent on BTC besides hardware.

The address I used to xfer to mtgox was 13fS2WLY658KgXJHZDwSoVENRfdTyG3trJ

So girls, sally up your sweet, sweet puffy lips cause daddy's got present for you.

go back to the kiddie pool where you came from, it's obvious you can't swim in the ocean with the big fish

LOL....

Bitcoins can only go up from here guys!

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/6725/tumblrlfw9kg1hfs1qzeftv.gif

LOL...

I just have to revist this because it's been giving me such joy...

...cause the FIRST thing that comes to mind when I think "bitcoin" is so Definitely "big fish."

Lol, man, I just couldn't make that up if I tried.

Keep the insults coming, I'm loving them.

Or you could y'know, say something useful.

why are you still here? are you getting paid to troll or something?

Yeah, and we're hiring.

Let me know if you need an application anyone. We guarantee 20% over $/MH/s recalculated daily in cold hard USD, the currency of leetness.

I don't even think synaptic knows why he's still here

Just for decorations, that's it and that's all.

Of course, that's what trolls do.

Synaptic goes plonk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonk_(Usenet)).

Thanks, this means so much to me.

I'll wear it as a badge of distinction.