Bitcoin Forum

Now that Liberty Reserve got shut down, and it was a huge anonymous business, if we follow logic and all users switch to bitcoin...that will be a lot of users and a new large rise in btc price? Thoughts?

Very likely after they get their funds out of LR if thats even possible. Since its a US govt op I'm betting not.

It will take time for people to switch and learn bitcoin.

These are also all underground people, hackers, fraudsters and the like. They could draw a lot of unwanted attention and bad publicity to bitcoin.

lol

LR GOT SHUT DOWN?!?!?!?!?!?

this is huge

It's a very mixed blessing.

On one hand that money is locked away from bitcoin, and a good percentage of those users are going to be more shy about using anything at all but fiat now. :(

On the other hand, a larger percentage of its' users are now forced over to bitcoin. Too bad these are most likely to be the shady folks mentioned above.

However I don't mind at all that my chosen currency can be used for buying drugs and other shady stuff, because fiat cash is always going to be #1 for those industries, as it is technically more anonymous than bitcoin ever could be.


Here's the Coindesk artice on the the LR takedown for those who haven't seen it:

http://www.coindesk.com/liberty-reserve-exchange-shuts-down-founder-arrested/ (http://www.coindesk.com/liberty-reserve-exchange-shuts-down-founder-arrested/)

On the other hand LR uses that have lost their money might be more wary of digital currencies and
think bitcoin is a big risk as well. Only question is if they have a better alternative.

Looking at the topics on Talkgold it seems those people have learned nothing from the shutdown of LR. They are all happily moving to other centralized systems such as HD Money and whatever god awful payment portals there are. Honestly, I dont think they understand how Bitcoin works and why it is different. Take a look for yourself: http://www.talkgold.com/forum/f472-.html

Look at this thread btw: http://www.talkgold.com/forum/r391464-.html

It is completely completely crazy people have 10k+ stored in a centralized, non-regulated system like that. Who in their right mind did not think this could happen? LR was the pit hole of all scam in the world and next to E-gold when it came to being seized next. Yet people did not give Bitcoin a second look, despite its properties.

They don't want to adopt bitcoin as their main currency because those peoples doesn't want to put their money in a non stable currency. Most of them are Forex/HYIP investors.

And about LR, it was a old currency, even big companies/exchangers started using LR, that build trust between users and thousands or probably millions of peoples started using it.

I think stability can be argued now that the worth of LR money is a big ZERO. Just because there is no big swings in the dollar and gold compared to Bitcoin, still does not make these payment systems secure in terms of stable money. The proof is right here in front of us. Tomorrow HD Money could be gone. Bitcoin is volatile but beats any storage medium for stability. I think most people would rather loose 10% on price instability than 100% due to confiscation. Cyprus anyone?

According to them LR was backed by gold and they were not scam site, They were a secure payment system but US govt fucked them, because peoples were using it for money laundering,drugs,porn and other illegal things, like bitcoin is getting used now.

 >:(

Bitcoins are the last bastion of true financial freedom

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/liberty-reserve-laundered-6-billion-bharara-says-h7kwG_fSQIe~21Dsq~yVmQ.html

Some body lost a lot of money?    :-[ >:(

Lots of peoples lost thousands including me. Some had more than 50k

Sorry to hear that, bud.

Why is this crazy?  I'm sure numerous people had or still have thousands of dollars w/ Gox.  At this point and for the foreseeable future, the most reasonable way to obtain Bitcoins is by trusting some of your fiat balances to a centralized exchange.  Even if you go through a company like Coinbase, there's still a period of a few business days where the money is ACH'd out of your bank account and your Bitcoin is not available.  Counterparty risk is still one of the major issues that needs to be resolved.

Didn't know those forums, I'm quite puzzled. There's some special olympics shit going on in there.

EDIT: this is just a quote of one of the very first post I read


EDIT 2: that "talkgold.com" forum is unbelievable, it's for people who willingly participate to all kinds of ponzi scams (reminds me to our alt currencies subforums on steroids). Check this one, almost 3% daily return guaranteed: https://secureassets.com/

Payments methods: LR and Perfect Money :D

i cant believe these LR people werent keeping 90% of funds in BTC.

This looks like a lot of business coming BTC's way

Insane people.. How could you trust LR with hundreds of thousands...just insane.

I love it. The more you lost the better!!

Thats what greedy people get.

Dubbed the “financial hub of the cyber-crime world,” authorities say Liberty Reserve had more than 1 million users worldwide and processed more than 12 million transactions annually as the favored money-laundering service for carders, hackers and other cybercriminals in the digital underground who used it to transfer money around the world effortlessly and anonymously.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/05/liberty-reserve-indicted/

Liberty Reserve served all the good people.

It's been on the news quite a bit today, and it's quite funny how now they all label LR as a "digital currency".
My bet is the USA govt. is trying to associate, in people's minds, the word digital currency with illegal shit, and/or force all the scum that used LR over to Bitcoin. Pretty easy for them to target Bitcoin then.

I'd not gloat too greatly about the demise of LR.

The powers that be are creating new doctrine, which they will inevitably use -- when fully developed -- to outlaw aspects of our Bitcoin system. True, we're decentralized. However that only makes us difficult to seize - not beyond the law.

Let us not forget that the entire doctrine of 'money laundering' being something illegal unto itself is a relatively recent development.

Remember they still have not moved against Bitcoin, because they dont really know how to. Now with LR gone, we can expect to see some fresh money flowing in, and even more people to secure the network validation.

Exactly! Let the government Liquidate Bitcoins' competition for us. It's great news.

To me it looks like they've opened mt gox's "how to deposit" page and are going through it item by item.

Dwolla - check
Liberty Reserve - check
OKPay - dealings with mtgox suspended in last 24 hours - check

Which just leaves people in Europe making SEPA deposits...

Am I being overly cynical?

It may come to Americans having to travel to Europe to open bank accounts with an international bank, to get their money out (they can then do an internal transfer via their bank to their American account.

I disagree, Americans can just use wire transfers as a funding method. SWIFT transfers as a funding/withdrawal method. Or localbitcoins.

Apparently the issue with the intermediarys is that they have a stable currency (stable vs fiat) but can be shut down by the evil empire. Btc on the other hand is volatile but hard to shut down.

The solution perhaps could be a gold backed cryptocoin, but how would that work? It would have to be issued from a country that doesn't bend over to Uncle Sam ...  ;D

and then ban bitcoin in america and seize all american bitcoin exchanges/companies. It will be easy for them.

They are Govt. They can do anything.

Libertyreserve was also gold backed currency. Check DGC wiki, Don't know what happened to their "GOLD".

Yes, please! Let them seize all the Bitcoins they can find and DESTROY them! So the remaining ones will skyrocket in price :D

And don't forget that a) Bitcoin solves a lot of practical, real life problems. It will be used regardless of it being legal/illegal because there is a demand for it (check if prohibition got rid of gambling, drugs, prostitution, etc.); b) Bitcoin is in no way similar to Liberty Reserve, as it cannot be taken down unless you take down the internet; c) everything illegal, comes with a premium.

No fear my friends. Keep'em coming.

They can't seize bitcoins, but they can make price go down, and if panic started, you can just pray.


A. LR was in demand too
B. I never said they can seize bitcoins, but they can ban bitcoin related exchange sites/companies etc in USA like they did with LR in past, that time other countries exchanger (sites) will stop accepting US customers and price will fall.

LR was in demand but could be easily taken down, as you have witnessed with your eyes. Bitcoin, CANNOT.

And BTW, Bitcoin was also left for dead in 2011. Dead for good. Wired published an article saying it was FINISHED, game over, finito, caput. Didn't you know?

They ban bitcoin related business in the US? Price *might* fall short term, but it will skyrocket long term. It's a no-brainer.

Panic doesn't last forever. Only way for the US to *really* crash the market is buying as many BTC they can to dump'em - wash, rinse and repeat until nobody wants to touch BTC with a bargepole. And they would build a lot of fortunes in that way, and even that strategy doesn't guarantee success for their interests.

And that's why BTC is a genius idea.

Let them try, we are waiting.

Its like when HSBC got shut down for laundering billions of $$$ for mexican drug cartels  ::)

This would long term make BTC sky rocket, also the rest of the world can keep BTC trading

I lost 'money' with Bitcoin that I never actually had ?

Now I lost 'money' in LR that I transferred from BTC that I never saw or physically owned ?

It's a true story...

I used LR for legal and legitimate purposes such as real forex trading with regulated LR accepting brokers, such as RoboForex and others. I've designed and built profitable automated forex trading robot EA's (expert advisers) and have spent over 5 years tuning them to make profits on my trading accounts.

Before I have had the opportunity to release most of my hard earned trading profits back into fiat currency (or Bitcoin) and declare my accurate paper trail for tax purposes in the UK (despite forex trading being tax free), LR gets closed down and causes problems with most of my chosen FX brokers and my funds and trading profits are in limbo...

In short, any currency, including cash can easily be used for 'illegal' purposes by anyone if they are that way inclined. LR was a payment system being innocently used by individuals and businesses to conduct legal business activities on the internet. Governments have basically stolen peoples hard earned money (yet again, just like they did in Cyprus) without compensation or justification, because they need to fix their own messed up fiat currencies (and over inflated BS economies) that are in fact themselves nothing more than elasticated ponzi schemes. Banks and governments, go ahead and steal our money back and print more worthless pieces of paper over and above GDP again and again (or just add more zeros to computer screens in the form of treasury backed bonds).

The real criminals here are governments and politicians, not to say that the owners of LR are completely innocent either. Although, if you want to 'legally' launder money then it clearly helps to be a banker or a politician of that persuasion it would seem!

All 'money' is in fact a ponzi scheme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm3DixfL9o0 - Zeitgeist Addendum - Modern Money Mechanics

FACT.

...

Bitcoin and Liberty Reserve ? Humm... I think their was a song about it in Eurovision 2013.

The real question is which shoe is which and is he singing 'Spain', 'pain' or 'faith'? - lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VLhnzk_dAs What a true legend!

I continue to use Bitcoin (and love and hate it at the same time), but can no longer put any 'faith' in LR, because I have no choice in the matter.

"Don't let the thieving b******s get you down". Its really not their fault!?  >:(

It is true.  And it explains why they repeatedly spend millions to get elected to a job that pays $200,000 or less.