It opens the door for future Bitcoiners and it's also the home of some of the core developers who worked for the Bitcoin foundation. Any constructive learning about Bitcoin or the Blockchain technology is good for all of us. The next super App for Bitcoin is just around the corner.  

The improved option to PGP encrypted emails, would have been to back it up with telephone or some sort of human verification. Their business practice sucked and through simple social engineering they lost $1 800 000 USD.

No wonder the insurance company did not want to pay their claim. I hate insurance companies, but in this case I have to agree with their decision. 

What do you tell to the 150 000+ merchants that already adopted Bitcoin? There is also millions of dollars invested into development of Bitcoin based businesses.

Your solution sounds simple, but it's a lot more complicated than that. The alternative would be to just lift the block size a bit, and see how it goes. 

They can implement some sort of Escrow service or use a 3rd party payment processor with consumer protection. I would rather deal with the odd disputes than having to put up with the fluctuations in their national currency.

It's still a bit of good news, so let's enjoy it. It cancels all the bad news.

Do not underestimate the banks my friend. They are doing a fine job to deflect the attention and to create a smoke screen to protect their business. In this scenario, they want to inject the notion that Bitcoin is only for cypherpunk & anarchists. What they really want to do, is to group crypto users into groups.

In the end you will have one group, who will use the <public> Blockchain (Cypherpunks and Anarchists) and the rest will use their <private> Blockchain. (The one they supposedly created for everyone else)

They are masters in what they have been doing for years. They even use your money to create their own <private> distributed ledger or <private> Blockchain technology.  

I cannot see why they would say Bitcoin is only for the wealthy and the elite. You can buy a few Satoshi for less than a cent, if you are really that poor. The divisibility of Bitcoin opens up this <commodity> to everyone. Rich and Poor can participate in this game and that makes Bitcoin the greatest invention of this century.

It can also be used as a currency, and that makes it even more incredible. ^LoL^

I will stop using it. I have a family to think of and no criminal record. I doubt if it will happen in my country, because we have a vibrant Bitcoin economy and a Bitcoin friendly government. I am not saying it will not happen, but the government is getting a lot of extra TAX from this, so they are happy.

I know the Russians and China and Australia are clamping down on Bitcoin use now, so it might happen to them. Australia even banned Chris Brown from entering their country.  

To think this whole debate began with, Its not a problem that there are problems because the problems only happen some of the time, of course the problem will become bigger problems in a few months but that's not a problem!

I think the bigger problem, is the problem that people are ignoring the problem until it becomes a bigger problem and then they increase the problem, by adding too much debate about the problem.

Increase the damn blocksize and end the damn debate.

My pick for this one will be, Decentralized and pseudonymous. I like the fact that Bitcoin cannot be shut down, no matter what governments or hackers want to try. It will bounce back, even if 90% of the nodes are compromised.

The pseudonymous feature is also important, because nothing we do these days are private. All internet traffic is monitored and if you walk down the street, CCTV follow your every move and every financial transaction you make, is stored on some centralized data base. 

I would have thought there would be much more interest to use Bitcoin after the Ashley Madison hack. It became clear that using credit cards for these types of transactions are not a good idea. The porn industry should use this as a marketing tool, for people to rather use bitcoin over credit cards, if they want some degree of privacy.

A hack like Ashley Madison, has the potential to ruin a industry, if people start to commit suicide over things like that. Some things should just be private and bitcoin respect that, if you use it correctly.

I think the chance for a ROI on the 21 Bitcoin computer is low, and the ROI on cloud mining is very low and the ROI on hoarding the Bitcoin is average to high.

You could always wait until the price of BTC rise above the price you paid for it, and make a profit, but the other two options is guaranteed to give you a loss. <Most math on this was done> 

The verdict is not out over the two biggest possible scams in Bitcoin history <MtGox> & <BitPay> hacks. Until then, we can only speculate. A collection of confirmed scams are posted here on the forum, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=83.0

Let's rather wait for the final verdict on both of these cases, before we make crazy statements. It is easy to judge, but it's harder to forgive.  

Also look at this site, http://www.badbitcoin.org/

A killer APP in my opinion should be something where people adopt Bitcoin just to use that specific application or service. They did not use Bitcoin before, but that APP enabled them to use it now. In a sense, that was what happened with BackPage.com when other payment processors stopped supporting it as a payment method.

A killer APP must be something that spark mainstream interest and are the only payment method or tool to use this APP or service. 

I think their new angle on this, was to say this is a <Smart contract enabler> not a mining computer. It's a bit of a novelty gadget for the developer market. I just doubt that it was their initial intention when they started with this.

It would be cool, if this took Bitcoin a step further into the mainstream market, if it succeeded to mine a few coins. The first computer to pay for it self, would have been a great marketing tool. 

The questions was easy to answer and I like the fact that you did not need to give any personal information. Some of the first questions should have made provision for multiple answers, but the rest was good. A survey should not take up more than 5 minutes to answer, or people will lose interest.

I would have liked to see a summary of the preliminary results at the completion of the survey to judge your answer against the rest of the people who completed the survey.

I hope you will post your thesis or the result of this survey on this forum. 

We have a little Pizza shop and a food merchant selling Mexican food and some niche shops selling spy gadgets. I use Bitcoin mostly to shop online, because I feel it's the most secure method to buy thing on the internet. The merchants I have spoken to, more or less say the same thing, <We do not get enough requests for it, to accept it>

The only way, merchants will start to accept it, is if you ask for it. ^hmmm^

I think there was some people who were asking for this type of integration, where Bitcoin is the underlying network and based on the fiat currency as the interface to the customer. The customer will not make any judgement based on the tainted background of Bitcoin, they just use a service that works.

Why is it so important for people to know that they using Bitcoin? If more of them use the technology, we all benefit from it anyway. 

I have heard that some of these sites are being opened up by drug users that are being paid by the drug cartels. They just use these people to do the dirty work for them and they get paid with drugs. Some people will do anything to get their hands on drugs.

They can rinse and repeat this process every time the site gets busted and taken down. The drug user then have to take the rap for the mess. Money and drugs can buy you anything these days. It's beyond evil. 

You will not be assisting terrorist by doing this. There are a lot of people evacuating their countries of origin to get away from these people, who are killing them, because they are not supporting their cause.
These people will go back after the fighting was done, and if we handle them like animals, they will turn hostile against us.

How can we turn our backs against women and children who are hungry and scared for their lives? Their only goal is to survive.
 
Put yourself in their shoes and then decide if this is a good or a bad thing.

If you cannot buy drugs with Bitcoin, it would be worthless. Why? Because you can buy drugs with ANY other currency. I am not promoting using Bitcoin for drugs, and I am totally against it, but Bitcoin should have the same use as any other currency or it would be worthless.

You cannot blacklist some items and stop people from buying it, because it is against the characteristics of a currency.