Bitcoin Forum

This is a big. Freaking. Deal.  (No sarcasm)

http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124?mg=reno64-wsj

For the first time, my ultra-conservative financial advisor is paying attention to Bitcoin after seeing this.

Anyone have a membership so we can see the entire article?  All I had to show him was the title....

-Burger-

For the first time, I decided to pay for a paywalled article after seeing your link.

No, just kidding, that will never happen.

Sounds like good news to me.

It wasn't behind a paywall earlier.  Luckily I still had my browser window open.

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Famed Trader Joe Lewis Backs Bitcoin
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By HARRIET AGNEW
Joe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin.

Mr. Lewis leads the Phoenix Fund, a Zurich-based private-equity fund that on Tuesday plans to invest $200 million in Avalon, a company that makes computer servers aimed at creating bitcoins, according to people familiar with the situation.

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that exists online and isn't backed by any government or central bank. Bitcoins were invented in 2008 by a computer programmer who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, who describes it as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

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ZUMAPRESS.com
Joe Lewis's Phoenix Fund is investing in a bitcoin company.

The Phoenix Fund's investment in Avalon reflects the growing popularity of virtual currencies, which are also coming under scrutiny from regulators. Other bitcoin enthusiasts include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are best known for their role in the creation of Facebook Inc. FB +1.50% They have proposed an exchange-traded fund that is tied to bitcoins.

Bitcoins are created through a process called mining, in which computers solve complex mathematical algorithms to earn the bitcoins. The total number of bitcoins that can be mined is limited to 21 million. There are now about 11.5 million bitcoins in circulation, according to Blockchain, a website that monitors bitcoin transactions.

The Phoenix deal will also involve Taiwanese microchip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., 2330.TW 0.00% which is set to supply the state-of-the-art microchips that will power the hardware.

The Phoenix Fund was set up this year to invest in bitcoin mining-hardware companies. It looked at several of Avalon's rivals in the sector, including Butterfly Labs and KnCMiner but decided against investing, according to a person familiar with the private-equity firm's strategy.

Investors in the Phoenix Fund, which includes a small number of individuals who made their fortunes in currency trading, believe that the currency will become more stable and popular if more parties are involved in the mining process, this person said.

Mr. Lewis moved into currency trading in the 1980s and 1990s. In September 1992, Mr. Lewis teamed up with Mr. Soros to bet on sterling crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, an event that was later named "Black Wednesday." Mr. Lewis didn't respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Lewis had big losses investing in U.S. brokerage firm Bear Stearns Cos, in which he began amassing a stake during 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

Mr. Lewis is the main investor in an unlisted company called Tavistock Group, which has investments in more than 200 companies across the globe.

Tavistock Group includes ENIC Group, which has a Bahamas-registered subsidiary called ENIC International Ltd., through which Mr. Lewis owns 85% of the shares in U.K. soccer club Tottenham Hotspur.

The Phoenix Fund is independent of Tavistock.

The bitcoin deal was put together by Andrew Laurus, a former government-bonds salesman at Lehman Brothers who is also an investor in the fund. Avalon was set up by Yifu Guo, a pioneer in the bitcoin-mining industry. He was part of the team that developed the first ASIC bitcoin mining hardware. ASIC stands for application-specific integrated circuit, a type of custom-designed microchip. Mr. Guo couldn't be reached for comment.

Separately, Coinflash, a company that planned to set up kiosks for bitcoin enthusiasts to buy the virtual currency, is shutting down before it even opened its doors. "Due to an unforeseen change in our personal circumstances, we've made the difficult decision to suspend Coinflash's services indefinitely," the San Diego-based company said in an email statement.

Coinflash was established earlier this year and had planned to open the bitcoin kiosks in California and New York this summer.

As part of the deal, Avalon will gain access to TSMC microchips based on 20-nanometer processes, which are much faster than other chips. TSMC recently won a contract to supply chips to Apple. The increased processing power should give Avalon an edge in solving the algorithms that control the supply of bitcoins.

—Robin Sidel contributed to this article.
Write to Harriet Agnew at Harriet.Agnew@dowjones.com

First comes the 200 million dollars.
Then comes the 200 million difficulty.
:)

I hope they don't come in or Bitcoin is one one of the Fiat related derivatives.

Unbelievable!  :o :o

You can Google an article title to go through the paywall on WSJ. E.g.

1. Search for "Famed Trader Joe Lewis Backs Bitcoin"
2. Click on the WSJ link (should be the first link)

It should display the full article.

Well yes - I don't believe it yet.

So it was reported in wsj... big deal.. journalists get things wrong all the time.  I'm waiting to see confirmation.

Yeah. Feels off by an order of magnitude or three.

Heh, this bit I find particularly fun :).

Avalon will become the 800lb gorilla of Bitcoin mining hardware if this is true.

Not surprising.  He can't be reached for customer support either.

$200 million from the UK football (soccer) team owner of Tottenham Hotspur, to be used to create the next gen of ASIC's 20nm chips..

hmm i wonder how many Thashs that will buy him.

knowing that there is only 3600 coins made a day or 1.3m a year it will take 2 years to break even, and thats with nabbing EVERY coin. which we know to be impossible as that above the 51% safe zone. so lets make it atleast 4 years to break even. (hedging that the price will remain constant or rise.)

this guy is not in it for a quick in and out 6 month profit. he is in it for the long haul, unless bitcoin doubles or goes to $1000 a coin in a short period.

this news is definitely going to kick the markets off..

Hmmm.. Is this fake information?

https://twitter.com/ScottWapnerCNBC/status/364370798892421120

maybe. im digging deeper. as mr lewis has many hands in many pockets of many investment firms

What does "HARRIET AGNEW" have to say about her article in light of the Twitter Tweet?

-Burger-

The WSJ got their facts wrong in this case. They've already written in a correction, although I can't access the full article behind the paywall

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1jql3z/twitter_scottwapner_cnbc_spoke_to_joe_lewis_this/

Correction article reads:
"Investor Joe Lewis isn't investing in a bitcoin venture called Avalon and doesn't lead a Zurich-based private-equity fund called the Phoenix Fund. An article on the supposed investment was inaccurately published and has been removed."

The first sign should have been that the Chief Avalon Developer's name is not Sum Ting Wong. 

Has this been confirmed either real or hoax?

Would be great news for the community if we could have some real positive feedback. Unfortunately the media is so unreliable it allows reminds me of that commercial, "Where did you hear that?" "The internet".

Fake the mainstream media have been idiotic recently when releasing bitcoin news
Bitcoin not Banned in Thailand bank does not have government power
Famed Trader Joe Lewis DOES NOT back bitcoin

Guess were getting free PR and they are getting bad reputation for posting incorrect articles lol

Someone at the Wall Street Journal is getting fired.

https://i.imgur.com/jPvhpr9.png

Famed? Never heard about him.

Egg on my face.

THANKS harriet. 

lol

Wow that's embarrassing for the WSJ.  Even if it were true, he wasn't backing Bitcoin, he was backing Avalon.  Basically the shovel providers in this modern day gold rush.

Wow, certainly seemed very unrealistic. A $200M investment in avalon just didn't make any sense. Not surprised it was just a hoax. Someone at the WSJ is probably going to lose their job over this, how embarrassing for them.