Guess what? Almost EVERYONE disagree with the government. Even those within the government who are corrupt and are profiting big time don't agree with all that much with their party.

It's just a matter of agreeing enough and not disagreeing too much when you're out in public or when you're dealing with certain people with ties with officials.

The Wild Wild West nature of Bitcoin fits perfectly with China (country of cowboys and bandits).

It's not so much about obeying. I mean, that guy said there's many organizations set up to look for political opponents and put them in prison. But do you realize that with the amount of things going on China, with a population of that size, it's almost impossible for those organizations to enforce anything? How are you going to stop your average joe who don't give a shit about what the gov thinks about Bitcoins, from buying a few? They can't even stop your average internet savvy 20 and 30 something person from breaking through their firewall.

So I don't think it's a matter of "obeying". It'd be more accurate to say, people in public will pretend it's all on the level and obey the laws. But in private (when they're sitting at home with a laptop), it's a different story. However, at this point in time, even if you went out on the street and became very vocal in your discussion of Bitcoins, I doubt anyone will raise and eyebrow, much less arrest you, for something that's so trivial.

2BTC for 300MH is still too much, even for the average geek who are not expected to be too deep into mining... 2BTC is 200 bucks for a tiny 300mh unit.

If it was 30 or 40 bucks for 300MH, then that would make more sense, for the casual user and those who want to really get into mining. I don't expect some random kid with a macbookpro to drop 200-300bucks for something like this.

You sure that they only listen to what government agency says? I'm pretty certain that the average Chinese national doesn't believe or take value from what their government says - trust in their government is probably at an all time low. Even if the government disapprove of Bitcoins, people there will still take interest in it, much like anything else.

I don't have enough USB ports to power 300 of these at once.

Is there a video in that link? All I see is text.

China won't crack down on this thing, that would just make it more attractive to the average user since they don't give a rat's ass about what their gov approves or disapproves of.

Yeah I'll encrypt the wallet on an old laptop prior to bringing the files onto a computer with live internet access.

Alright thanks. I guess I won't need to touch those wallets, ever, until I want to send the coins away.

Couldn't some big gov entity just swallow up a bunch of ASIC wafers and get 51% that way? If a government really wants to kill Bitcoins, if the banks wants to kill Bitcoins, it shouldn't be too hard to get that type of computing power.

I've created a few offline wallet.dat files back in summer of 2011. I've been adding coins to them (through pools) since then but I've never used them online with any bitcoin clients.

Am I safe? Am I able to access the coins later on for use? Or should I be regularly resyncing the wallets, even if I'm not spending the coins?

Anyone?

It says around these parts that May 15th is the last day possible to upgrade the BTC QT client.

I have a few offline wallets that I made back in 2011. Do I need to do anything? Should I sync them with the new client? Or can I just leave them as is, since I'm not going to be spending those coins?

Coinlab likely got Gox to sign a contract on purpose, one which Gox wasn't prepred for, so Coinlab could sue them in the end.

Only be a matter of time before TPTB injects the ledger with terrorist plots and frame Bitcoins as a mains to communicate and coordinate terrorism.

What I would like to know is, if so and so country were to tax your Bitcoins, then how would they determine how much to tax? If I were to exchange one Bitcoin right now for some fiat, what's the tax on that exchange in dollar value? I'm asking because the price changes rapidly every few hours.

So what happened with Bruce and his whole Bitcoin show? I heard he scammed people or something?

See, the thing is, Bitcoins are not backed by a military or force; there's no one on the magnitude of Apple or IBM or whoever else forcing this thing onto people. You'll hear very little about Bitcoins outside of maybe a random blip on a news channel or certain circles of the internet. So if Bitcoin continues to succeed, it will be because average people see the advantage of using it, not because someone forces them (or as you said, brainwashes them) to use it. Now if people are going to use it out of their own accord, and enough people follow suit, then you can see how that would inspire confidence, especially for those who want to try something new and something that's not backed by violence.

It is indeed a disruptive tech. How much would exchange students or domestic workers or others who need money transfers on a regular basis stand to benefit if Bitcoins become popular with that crowd? They can dodge fees from Western Union or wire transfers, hurting WU and other companies involved in the money transfer business. What about Ebay? What if someone set up something like Ebay but instead uses exclusively Bitcoins or other alt currencies? They just have to undercut Ebay/Paypal a little and ensure that they are responsible enough to take on the "escrow"-like role for a small fee.

I don't see how the philosophical ideas of Bitcoins is drivel... perhaps you don't think of them as important or worthy of thought, that doesn't mean that others will follow in your path. Those who do think about those ideas can gamble and potentially gain something in return. The "average joe" doesn't know how their bank operates but that doesn't stop them from putting some money in the bank. Eventually Bitcoins will expand far enough so that even the average person can gain from being in the system and lose out from not.

I can hardly see a situation where Bitcoins will "die" in a fashion where it cannot recover and once again excel. We've seen cases where it looked like Bitcoins was doomed in the past, but after some time, it is back with more vitality than ever.

EDIT: I'm not saying that Bitcoins will succeed; it might succeed but that day might not be as close as some of us like to think. But the point is that, thus far, Bitcoins has come a long way. And I think we should take the time to reflect on that and appreciate its success.

It's called the network effect. There are a dozen Facebook clones out there but that doesn't mean they are used; people head towards the network with the largest amount of traffic and users. Apply that to BTC's - no point to hold any alt. coins if the alternate networks have very few users.

I'm sure someone said else said something similar to the OP back in the 2011 crash. Heck, someone might have even said the same thing last Fall without any huge price corrections.

I expect a lot of new services and firms using BTC's to emerge in the next 6 to 12 months. I don't think all those VC's you heard about in the past month will suddenly get weak in the knees because of these price swings. Volatility and BTC's go hand in hand in this really early phase when the world doesn't know what the true value of a Bitcoin is. Each time we get large price movements, useful people will take notice. Some of those useful people move into the system and help it grow. Those who are unfit for Bitcoins will leave. In the end, Bitcoins loses nothing and gains everything.

And consider these facts:

-Bitcoin is open-source CURRENCY. It is not a PRODUCT being pushed and marketed by powerful elites (with their endless supply of brainwashing guru's) with really really deep pockets.
-No one has tried introduce a disruptive tech like Bitcoins before, a tech that fights centralized banking
-It's a CURRENCY not backed by a centralized power <- remember this, it is not some smartphone or some piece of operating system, which are just products on top of existing products that the masses are ready to consume... the whole philosophical idea behind Bitcoins is totally foreign to the average citizen who don't understand how their papers are created

Those facts alone makes life VERY difficult for Bitcoins. So to have Bitcoins where it is today (in a relatively short lifetime of 4 years) I would say Bitcoins is ALREADY a smashing success.

Sure Bitcoins is not perfect, but what is? It's still totally unknown to 99.9% of the population. It is an infant fighting ALMOST insurmountable odds. So there's much growth to be had, and most likely, much growth WILL occur.