Bitcoin Forum

Let's discuss who's done the most for the development and the future of the community.

Choose top achievers of the industry - vote for people, places, businesses and more.

[Votes accepted here](http://cointelegraph.com/cointelegraph-2014-awards)

For the biggest story i think it's between

Mtgox and Paypal.

Bitcoin capital of the year - San Francisco!

Ok, but what about Microsoft?

Or dell maybe?

Mtgox !!!

Maybe Microsoft since it's such

a big corp.

Exactly!

Dell is just a big I think.

What about the person of the year? I only know 3 of the 5 people.
Just read about Vitalik Buterin - he sounds really cool.

Roger Ver is really impressive. He's got my vote.

Nice, ill vote for bitcoin future

OK, I voted Mt Gox on biggest news story (they're currently in the lead), as it says 'biggest' not 'best' or 'most positive'.

But just realised it doesn't go with this part:


Does it mean that if mt gox wins, cointelegraph will label them as community champions?

Whatever you do please don't vote for BFL, they owe us all so much money it's unbelievable.

Edit: BFL are not nominated :)

A good point. It would be good to hear what CT people think about it.

I think it is DELL and Microsoft.

No wonder ))

Roger Ver and Andreas Antonopoulos continue to head the list as far as I am concerned

Ok, but what about this guy? (http://www.coindesk.com/ethereums-vitalik-buterin-wins-world-technology-network-award/)

I think that Paypal and Microsoft did most of all for the development of bitcoin community. Because they are large companies whitch have a great reputation. And the fact that they began to accept bitcoin has a great importance for the development of bitcoin community.

PERSON OF THE YEAR

Andreas Antonopoulos

STARTUP OF THE YEAR

Virtex

MOST SUCCESSFUL COMPANY

Blockchain.info

BIGGEST NEWS STORY

I can`t choose between Microsoft and PayPal. ???

MOST INNOVATIVE PRODUCT

BitStash

BITCOIN CAPITAL OF 2014

San Francisco

Although BFL has scammed horribly I would argue that they have somewhat benefited the community. It has taught potential customers of miners the importance of not paying for preorders when the miners are not going to be shipped immediately (or in the very near future). It has caused miner manufacturers to put more skin in the game and as a result have produced higher quality products.

I would say PayPal.

San Francisco is most likely to be the capital.

That's a stupid argument. it's like saying bullies are great cause when they beat up and hurt a weak kid they're actually helping him become stronger. It makes no sense. Anyone out there who hurts people in any way whether it's emotionally, physically,financially, is not a good person ,no matter how many life lessons we may learn from them.

I don't think that BFL is at all a good person, but I do agree with the arguement. BFL has taught people a very good lesson that could potentially be more expensive down the road when bitcoin mining gets even more competitive then it is now.

At some time down the road, even a few days or a few weeks delay can mean the difference between a miner being profitable and loosing most of their investment. By BFL teaching the 'market' to not pay for preorders today, they will not pay for them tomorrow when their investment will potentially mean a lot more

The lack of preorders is also causing mining companies to produce miners in multiple batches which means that more people can buy them which means the network will be more decentralized

Seems like we could do without such lessons.

My vote exactly - thanks for writing them out for me :)

That's a questionable reason to nominate them at all.

How about BitPay for all the great PR from #bitcoinbowl? 

STARTUP OF THE YEAR
Coinffeine, of course, p2p exchange is the future

Yep, very expensive lesson indeed.

I think ChangeTip did a lot of good for the community

The worst news is about MT gox

I am not so sure about development, but certain movement by Mt. Gox

Yeah..easily it has to be Microsoft!

Whoever came up with the idea to sponser a college football bowl game wins my vote.
A truly great advertising venture.

When are the results are due?

I'm curious to know who wins.

BitPay has done more than anyone else. Even the Microsoft news can be attributed to BitPay.

13 days remaining, we can wait :)

never heard of these rewards before.. How serious is this really?

Why not vote and make it serious?

its a scam i guess just kidding

pbmining  :)

As for startups, BTCChina was huge this past year.

Bitstamp's input looks more important now that I think of it.

Blockchain.info! I kid you not.

http://www.coinbuzz.com/2015/01/05/bitcoin-bowls-popular-success/


BitPay, the top third-party payment provider, even sponsored a Bowl game, paying ESPN for the rights entirely in bitcoins, whereupon they immediately exchanged them bitcoins using a third-party payme... Wait a second! If this trend continues, next year we may witness the Fiesta/HashTrade Bowl and the LiquidHuluBits Bowl and the Netsolus/Nectarine Bowl, all on the same day to boot, preceded by the CoinWare Parade in front of the Miami Bitcoin Embassy bearing a block-long, two-story tall banner that reads: A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man.

Bitstamp's website was down all day yesterday, couldn't get any money out, doesn't give me a good feeling.

I don't even know what you're talking about Bruno? Can you be a little less cryptic and dumb it down for me?

Do you mean: Because BitPay exchanges BTC for USD they aren't doing anything valuable for Bitcoin? Streamlining merchant acceptance of Bitcoin by performing a seamless exchange function is kind of what they do for a living. 

I have a deposit with them, too, nothing big, but a little worried as well.

Even if they exchanged their bitcoin for fiat it sill exposed many people at ESPN to bitcoin which will result in potentially more people at ESPN using/buying bitcoin.

Additionally the transaction in question gave bitcoin positive publicity which it has been running short of as of recently

I'd vote andreas as #1 and unfortunately gox as #1 news story but maybe we should pick something more positive.

What third-party payment provider did ESPN use when BitPay, a third-party payment provider themselves, and the one that got ESPN to accept bitcoins in the first place, paid ESPN bitcoins for the rights, whereupon ESPN immediately had the bitcoins converted to fiat and deposited into their bank account?

BitPay --> ESPN --> BitPay --> BitPay's Bank --> ESPN's Bank

or

BitPay --> ESPN --> CoinBase --> CoinBase's Bank --> ESPN's Bank

The latter wouldn't make any sense, for it was BitPay that got ESPN to accept bitcoins, not BitPay's competition, CoinBase.

The rest of the BS that I penned about CoinWare, et al., was to get you to think about the above. It doesn't make sense! BitPay could've easily just gave ESPN a check and that'll be that. But to state that they gave ESPN bitcoins whereupon the bitcoins were immediately sent back to BitPay so that a conventional fiat transfer can be made doesn't make sense on so many levels.

Just like nobody, and I mean NOBODY can open up an account at BitPay to solely convert their personal BTC to fiat, whether it's a buck, ten dollars, a grand, or a million dollars. BitPay is a third-party payment provider. The key word being third. But, supposedly unknown to BitPay, that's exactly what service they provided to Sonny Vleisides' BFL when they converted over 10 MILLION DOLLARS worth of BTC to fiat under the guise of product purchases where there is NO way that BitPay wouldn't have known that that was exactly what BFL was doing even prior to this PR release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/10/prweb11283333.htm picked up by Reuters here: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/31/idUSnGNX4VPYg9+1dc+GNW20131031

Again, BitPay is a third-party payment provider and not an exchange. Especially, not an exchange to convert tens of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins that were mined via ill-gotten means to fiat, of which is exactly what transpired when BFL did such virtually up to the day of the raid on their facility via the FTC.

To be clear, BitPay was a major player in a multi-ten-million-dollar money laundering scheme conducted by Sonny Vleisides' BF Labs Inc. (Butterfly Labs) and I uncovered it back in late 2013 (not 14), but nary a periodical has touched this. The question is why? And why has BitPay not answered a single email to them concerning this issue?

Bruno, you get yourself all flustered and confused then go off on a tirade. ESPN does not accept bitcoins for payment. ESPN does not have a merchant account at BitPay. None of the people involved in the Bitcoin Bowl accept Bitcoin for payment through BitPay. BitPay cannot exchange Bitcoin for them without them having an account because they would all go to jail. It was a publicity stunt that they graciously paid A HALF MILLION DOLLARS for. Part of the stunt was to pay ESPN for the event in Bitcoins. ESPN does not want Bitcoins, they want dollars. They had to go to some exchange to sell them because they have bills to pay for the event and they don't give a shit about Bitcoin. They chose Coinbase probably because they wanted assurance that they would immediately get cash for the coins. That transfer to Coinbase was probably brokered months before the event. How the fuck can you not get that!

You know that every once in a while for the last 3-4 years I've told you when you were straying a little too far from the shallow end of the pool. This is one of those times. As a friend, please chill out dude. You're freaking out a little and making conspiracy connections that simply aren't there.

What, Gleb? Never :D

Yeah same here, i wouldn't lose much but Bitstamp is the only way I have set up to convert my Btc into fiat atm.

True, I do need something more positive at the moment.

They're saying now
We are working to transfer a secure backup of the Bitstamp site onto a new safe environment and will be bringing this online in the coming days.
Any thoughts about how long it's going to take? And how exactly they're going to make this work?
Bitstamp customers can rest assured that their bitcoins held with us prior to temporary suspension of services on January 5th (at 9am UTC) are completely safe and will be honored in full.

Temporary suspension of services?? That sounds bad. I was hoping maybe it was a glitch with their website or server, it sounds a lot more serious than that now.

I'm just wondering how temporary is temporary.
I know a few people who got their money stuck there.

I think they're back now, the website is up again. However, I don't know if the system itself is working as I haven't tried any transactions since this incident.

I think he needs to understand that it doesn't matter the payment method that ESPN received for the sponsorship. Money as a whole is generally fungible so it doesn't matter if they were paid in bitcoin, dollars, Euros or whatever, it will eventually be turned into whatever format of money that their employees and vendors will accept as payment

Even if i could why would I make it serious when there is no info on these awards? Not my job to make it serious or trustworthy.

Well I guess you have not heard of them because they've just started them.

Why consider it a job at all? You've been asked for your opinion, if you have one.

The answer is Mt. Gox....Second Place, SR. this is an utterly stupid and pointless thread.

The industry was an industry that never existed. It's a just a big gay bullwhale club circle jerk. As I've said from day one.