I could barely believe it myself.

Once again the Something Awful goons are talking about doing what Bitcoin people should be doing.  They are chatting about handing out flyers about Bold Funding if Bruce is there acting as a feeder for the next series of scams.

As things evolve I feel more and more that that a majority of people simply should not play around with Bitcoin at all, and those who do should meet first with some raw and un-cut warnings about what they are getting into.

My mock-up of a Bitcoin introduction site for something like the 'operationbitcoin.org - ows campaign' started out with the flat out statement to 'trust nobody...not even us.'  Then went on to describe the various options for dealing with addresses/keys/wallets.  If I were to do it again, I would follow up the statement with a case-study of 'MyBitCoin and the OnlyOneTV feeder project' as an optional link at least.

My opinion is that Bruce Wager should focus on paying off the people who gave him what little money they had in the Bold Funding days (and the courts have decided he should in my understanding of things.)  When he get's that done, then get back to educating people about Bitcoin.

But it's a free country and as long as he is a free person he can do as he likes I guess.  I cannot honestly say that I consider him to be an inappropriate spokesman for the Bitcoin community at this point in time.  Sad as that may be...

I advocate calmly using Bitcoin in support of the efforts and making known in a simple and straightforward manner how it was used.  E.g.,

  "$524.89 of funding was made possible in spite of the PayPal block using the P2P currency system 'Bitcoin.'"

Period.  If the currency cannot be used in a tangible and construtive way in this effort, that might explain why it is having some trouble gaining traction rather than the general retardation of non-believers which is so often used as a scapegoat.

I think I've mentioned before that I have some money in reserve in the hopes that Mt Gox crashes the train and other exchanges do not.  But I've mostly given up on that eventuality and am not sure it would play out the way I'd initially hoped even if it did.  May not bring the price down much (as Bitcoin is already undervalued at this time in my analysis.)  But this is the basis for my hoping that you are right and Mt Gox is flat out old school insolvent.


I'd say that it is at the very least questionable to have more than 1/2 to 1/3 of your dealings with Mt Gox due to their legacy of fail.

Beyond that, I'll gladly call anyone a fool for having a) more than they need, and b) more then they can afford to lose with any exchange or anywhere but in separate encrypted wallets on one's own secure hardware.


'swhy it's good to diversify when one has no choice but to trust others (though in the interest of honesty, I must admit that I am not practicing what I preach here as much as I should.)

BTW, I can see any organization acting in a bizarre manner if they received an NSL (National Security Letter.)  In that case they are bound by law not to talk about it.  I've long pondered if that was not the reason that Dwolla would not speak to Tradehill in any way, shape, or form.  I have no idea if US NSLs are honored in Japan, but it wouldn't surprise me.  Japan is a vassal state of the US and a willing lick-spittle to boot (and, unrelated, now quite radioactive complements of GE who owns a fair chunk of the US government and Japan's own shitty disaster planning.)

True.  I was supposed to be working and did not read carefully enough to see that.  Sorry.


I never read anything about AML or terrorism in anything from Mt Gox, but I also didn't spend much time seeking it.  I'm just postulating about the various things which could cause a delay.

I hope you are right that Mt Gox has just run out of money, but the evidence seems shaky to me.  If I had anything which could be remotely construed as questionable going on and Mt Gox was giving me a lot of grief, I'd be nervous and starting to plan my defense.

One way or another, big delays in dealing with funding could be costing people a bundle depending on the situation, particularly with Bitcoin losing so much value so fast.  I was in no big hurry when Tradehill 'messed' with me, but they got things worked out within a day of their stated time frame as I recall.

But that's the way free markets work, and the reason I like Bitcoin.  If Mt Gox gives people bad service and/or flat out steals their money, they'll loose customers and go under...Eventually

I've got very precious little sympathy for anyone who loses much to any Bitcoin related enterprise.  Bitcoin is not an appropriate playground for the weak and stupid at this time, and people who cannot stand the heat should get out of the kitchen as far as I am concerned.

That sounds like a hypothesis to me.  A valid one, but a hypothesis none-the-less unless you are privy to their books.

Mt Gox seems to me to be one of the few organizations having anything to do with Bitcoin who has the potential to be solvent at this point.  I cannot see that their business costs much to run, though it seems quite possible that they got caught short in their projections of the economy and made some mis-steps.  It's also possible the they got robbed.

But the simplest explanation seems to me to be that Mt Gox has realized that there is not much to lose by avoiding facilitating the rampant fraud and theft which characterizes Bitcoin at this time.  Seems like the Bitcoin development wing and a lot of the bigger commercial efforts have concluded that joining the mainstream legal environment is the way forward.  For better or worse, time will tell...

I've had Tradehill hold up some of my transfers for closer evaluation.  It was annoying but I basically agree with their methods here.

I expect that they (both Tradehill and Mt Gox) are likely cooperating with law enforcement and are collecting information on suspicious activity.  Naturally they would be able to tie together Bitcoin transfers to names so if there is some information about names missing they would want to obtain it.  Methods of tracking transfers within the network are, I would suspect, outrunning the garden variety 'Tom Williams' class crook's ability to adapt.

I would not be surprised if a few people are squirming a bit and are likely most unhappy as the value of their haul deteriorates with the price value of Bitcoin.  To bad, so sad.

Both Tradehill and MtGox could probably do a pretty good business extorting thieves if authorities are actively pursuing some of the thefts.  If nothing else, one wonders what they are planning to do with the unclaimed funds?

I wonder how much the big exchanges are stepping on the toes of those who have made a bit haul (e.g., MyBitcoin, allinvain, the Polish exchange, B7, and on and on) and want to cash with some modicum of privacy?

I remember one of the interviews with the Tradehill guys where they told customers to give them a ring and chat before they would release a great deal of currency.  Sounds like the customers got pissed off but never did give them a ring.  I would assume that Mt Gox has roughly the same policies, and I have always assumed that both are perfectly willing to work with any law enforcement agencies who might have been convinced to look into some of the thefts.

I guess the 'big' thieves are going to have to be using exchanges like B7 to try to cash out (chuckle), and those who have not managed to liquidate already must be getting pretty irritated and desperate as the price continues to fall.  That's about the close to 'justice' as can be achieved in the Bitcoin world I suppose.

---

BTW, I've always wondered how much Mt Gox _really_ paid for the Polish exchange.  I wonder if they did not 're-fund' the accounts with some of the funding which was already in the accounts.  Not that it would have necessarily have been a pre-planned thing on the part of Mt Gox, but after the deed was done it could have been a useful exit strategy for the thieves to sell the exchange and the funds at a discount and in fact the users who got ripped off came out well too.

Looks promising, and along the lines of what I had hoped would evolve.   That is, instead of using Bitcoin to buy skittles, it is used as more of a backing store as needed for lesser custom tuned solutions.

I've got an idea.  Let's all pile on and let these people know how ignorant and clueless they are.

Let's belittle their 'craigslist' idea ('cuz we all know what a loser craigslist turned out to be after all) and their 'drupal monstrosity' (since no matter what it is, it is certain to be one.)

I bet we could really win the hearts and minds that way and loft Bitcoin to even greater heights than it has already achieved.

I don't believe that I am to a great degree.  It's likely that a lot of us are allowing our hope for the solution and disgust at the current 'official' monetary systems to cloud our judgement.  I try to avoid that as well.


As I said, I continue to fill in to the USD amount I've chosen to convert.  I may even up the amount (again) as I have more disposable USD and the Bitcoin network remains sound and unexploited (in a technical way.)

I am actually more than comfortable with the appearance of morbidity for Bitcoin for the simple reason that it would, hopefully, induce the crooks who have obtained their coin through theft to liquidate and create a period of time when a higher percentage of people are interested in Bitcoin were so on the basis of theory (technical and/or monetary theory that is.)  More like it probably was back in the good old days a year or two ago.

The enumeration of improvements is exactly why I consider the solution to be dying.  It is a bad omen to me that even with all of those things you've outlined, the whole systems capital creation can still be purchased for a small outlay.

This surprises me.  I would not have expected it to come to this, and am deep in the red on my current BTC bet due to where I started accumulating (durring the Mt Gox down-time.)  But as always, I did not put enough money in that I could not afford to lose with a chuckle.  Indeed, I outlined a certain amount that I expected to put in and still have a fair amount of power dry and am still buying on dips.

BTC may or may not pay off for me in the end (years from now.)  In the mean time, if I want to support efforts which happen to be out of favor with governments/financial institutions, Bitcoin is useful.  I can buy some Bitcoin for USD and get it to the target within minutes and thus not lose value in spite of the rather unhappy longer term trend of USD/BTC value.  It is, of course, up to them to transfer it back to their chosen currency.

If a small-ish group of people can buy the daily supply with a smallish amount of money, I would say that the system is in it's death throes.  1000 people spending $10/day could do so at 7200/day and a price of $1.40-ish.  So, I would say that we are uncomfortably close at this point and that interest would likely drain away.  Judging from the network activity, that seems to be occurring.

But it seems to me that it is also possible that rather than death, we could have some sort of a 'mothball' situation where current value holders put enough effort in to keep the system basically going.  If/when an obvious and significant need for such a solution appears, it could be that the existing Bitcoin solution is more viable than alternate newer solutions or variants of the Bitcoin solution.

Oops.  =red-face=  I was thinking of this:

 http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hosts.html

I just went looking around for the announcement of that page (which had been in a browser tab of mine for a long time) and got the wrong announce mail.  Sorry about that.

Oh God.  Can someone with graphics skills make a RIP Marconi, picture of Edison, and 'Inventor of the Tesla coil' on it?

I believe that a majority of people who one might run across at the protests are going to be focused on a lot of things, and many of them will have never heard of Bitcoin.  It is unrealistic to expect that they are going to drop everything and focus on a fairly complex and confusing system.  Trying to force them into it in the heat of battle is more likely to annoy them than anything else.  Not to mention that a fair fraction of Bitcoin enthusiasts absolutely seethe with contempt for these people which I doubt will go undetected.

I continue to believe that it is both more practical and ultimately more effective to get the message across that has been and can continue to be a valuable tool in circumventing the power of the financial institutions.  That will set the stage for a more thorough and exploration at a more opportune time.  Especially if/when they go back to their cities and are setting things up.

And I am dubious at the value of handing out Bitcoin for tweets, especially in such low quantities.  I think you are dreaming if you think that the tweeters are going to fuck around figuring out the in's and out's of Bitcoin for a few bucks.  I believe that it makes a lot more sense for someone with the ability to do so to give them a cash payment.   Might work somewhat to offer them a choice of Bitcoin in a slightly higher monetary value or USD.

The site looks really good, and the project and data collection quite valuable.

I just donated around 10 BTC.  For now.  My hope is that it is used as much for the efforts of this organization as for promoting Bitcoin specifically.  So, I am perfectly happy if some responsible person converts the Bitcoin to USD and pays people for necessary things in that form.

I think that it will ultimately be more effective for Bitcoin generally if it is clearly known that some funding was made possible through Bitcoin, but actively pushing it is fairly low-key.  In other words, let people focus on their more critical work rather than spending to much time thinking about how to deal with Bitcoin at this point.  In the end, when people have a chance to sit back and reflect, I suspect that a fraction of them will contemplate Bitcoin and become convinced of it's usefulness.  And when a bunch of 'money of terrorists' propaganda permeates the media they'll know better and tell their friends.

Hmmm...what have we here?  Decide to put a little marble on the roulette wheel just in case?

Bump.

What happened in the Thursday 10/6 timeframe?  The charts make it look to me like a total system failure of the Bitcoin network.

This has happened many times.  Each time Mt Gox has jumped on the forum and provided a plausible explaination to the puzzle, or at least that has been my general perception.

It is of course not their duty to use any forum as a technical support channel and, arguably, not good business practice.  But it does seem to be somewhat effective.  And they own this forum as I understand it.

An obvious and probably legitimate response would be to move this thread out of the limelight if nothing else.

I'd be immediately suspicious that the new guy is trying to start a panic about Mt Gox.

I wish him luck because one of my strategies (for world domination or whatever) is build loosely around this happening. But I've pretty much given up on that.  At this point, Mt Gox is so big that even if they were crooks they would likely be terrified of executing a B7 end-game or even worse, that they get legitimately robbed because nobody is going to believe them.