This is fuk'ed up. They always decide to sell, when Bitcoin is struggling. It's like they are hoping to hit the last nail in the coffin, when they do this. Any other private individual or company will wait for the best possible price before they sell, but they obviously do not care about that.

Why are they so eager to get rid of those coins? Do they know something that we do not know yet?

Expect a further decline in price before and after the auction. We all know how this works by now. We have been through this before. 

My vision will be to incorporate Bitcoin into every service on the internet, where micro payment is received or given.
I want every person on this planet to have the opportunity to receive micro payments at zero fees for their online
contributions. We need to distribute wealth to everyone, not just a few individual super wealthy people.

Why in this modern day, do we still need to have people dying of hunger? If Bitcoin can enable micro payment options
for everyone, we will see much less poverty.

I will take any adoption of supermarkets as a step in the right direction. If I had 10 000 Satoshi's for every time
someone asked me, "Can I buy bread and milk with Bitcoin?" I would have had several Bitcoins by now.
People want to buy everything with Bitcoin that they are currently buying with fiat money.

Supermarkets open up a whole new market and demand for Bitcoin and enable mainstream adoption.

The security thing does not fly with me... the Bitcoin address with the amount of coins can still be displayed for
everyone to see, as proof that they have the claimed coins. Coins in cold storage or offline storage is quite safe.
The Blockchain provides transparency for just this reason.

When you smell smoke, you will find the fire. Let's not get burned by this, by doing proper investigation and homework about these people. 

"The mysterious group, which sees its work as a drastic but necessary demonstration of Bitcoin XT's need, has been criticised by some users for "bullying" a live network worth several billion dollars."

So you support Bitcoin XT and to show your support, you launch a fake test to force people to accept it too? This must tell us a lot about this service. I still think there is something else behind this company and it would be exposed very soon.

Most of the companies supporting Bitcoin XT is wallet service providers, so there must be something behind that? 

Well the OP is talking about Robert Kiyosaki and he is launching a online event about this subject on the 17th of September 2015 to discuss this. https://www.richdadworld.com/catalog/live/members/the_coming_financial_storm.html?promo=CRASH

It might be interesting to hear what they have to say and if it is just another publicity stunt to make more money. I normally take something with a pinch of salt, but the latest stock market crashes has triggered the red flags.

Just shooting a bullet into the air, but could it be that they are in some way affiliated to WU or MoneyGram ?
https://www.coinwallet.eu/options and in doing this, they want to highlight the inefficiencies of Bitcoin for people to stay with WU and MoneyGram? It's a long shot, and I am just making a assumption based on their linked services.

What else can they gain from dumping massive amounts of money into a bottomless money pit? These tests can become very expensive and I see no reason why people would just dump money into a fire?

I think many people consider only a scenario when Bitcoin goes off globally. This is not necessary for a total collapse of the Bitcoin price <I say price, because taking Bitcoin down globally would be pushing it}
We saw during the Arab Spring riots in 2011, that the government at the time, blocked access to the internet, because people used online services to organize these riots.

If countries want to do this, they only need to block access to inter continental cables and Satellite access. It's not impossible to do, but they could disrupt Bitcoin <And all other internet services> if they wanted too. If they do this in any country in the world, the ripple affect would be a massive exodus of people from Crypto currencies. < Panic would spread, even if it's unrealistic that it would happen everywhere >

To take down Bitcoin, you have to take down all other internet services. That would create chaos. ^hmm^

It would be interesting to know, if they will block fiat converted on Bitcoin exchanges and withdrawn to bank accounts. If they block transfers from exchange accounts, I will close some of my bank accounts with them, and move to a group or a bank, who will not try to sabotage Bitcoin. I have already started to investigate Bitcoin-friendly options, and this will be a easy decision, if they want to follow that route.

I will also inform my business partners on my findings and I am sure they would also move to a more friendly option. We must support the companies and the banks who support us. They can work with Bitcoin to improve their services and give customers the option to decide if they want to transfer fiat money derived from Bitcoin, through their system.

To sabotage Bitcoin customers, will count against them, because there are always other options to follow or competitors to support.

I think they used Bitpay to have physical proof that the donations is going to a legitimate charity and not back into their own pockets. Different countries have different legislation when it come down to taxation, but most of them require documentary proof of these donations, and Bitpay offer a official invoice for that service.

The fee is justified for the service it offers, but in my opinion any fee's for charities should be scrapped.

Freebitco.in donated some of their own income to start the process, and now people donate some of the own income and once it reaches $100 they will transfer it via Bitpay to the charity.

You are going to find it's extremely hard to change people's mind, once they made a decision to follow a specific route. You will have to make compromises in proposals to get more people to change their minds. For example : If
Mike and Gavin came to the table and proposed to remove all the N$A backdoor features and also remove the code to make his other projects run smoother, you might see more people switching sides.

The consensus thing is just a question of how many people have the ability to sway people in a specific direction. Gavin was the Lead maintainer and he engaged with many role-players in the Bitcoin scene. <People trusted him> He has since broken away from that role, and people still follow him like sheep. He has this advantage, because he had close relationships with these companies <Sponsorship to the Bitcoin foundation and other events and it paid his salary for a while through donations>

This is more politics and power grab than anything else.      

Gavin said something that is very true. You cannot fall back on a system where a benevolent dictator makes all the final decisions, like it was done when he was still the Lead maintainer, as he called it. Why? Because that person can get run down by a truck as he put it and you will have a leadership void. 

I just know one thing, the status quo is not working and needs to be improved. If workshops is the answer for this, then we have to explore it, before we wipe it off the table as a possible solution. That is one way of doing it, and we need to explore it.

The workshop at least give more that 5 people a opportunity to state their case and to raise their concerns. ^hmf^

There is not a lot you can do, if government regulations sabotage progress. You are forced to exclude people who are governed by those states. Let's just hope they <NY> see the error in their judgement and drop all these silly regulations.

The rich people, like the Winkelvoss Twins will find ways to enter, like they did with the Gemini project. The other slaves will just have to follow the master's rules.   

"a recent Goldman Sachs survey revealed that about 51% of the U.S. millennials had never used bitcoin and did not plan to do so in the future." I wonder why?

The whole argument about Bitcoin volatility will soon be a non-issue once Bitcoin is distributed to more people as it goes mainstream. A few smaller whales can currently shift the market with small amounts, but as more Bitcoin is released and sold to more people, things will settle down and Bitcoin will become less volatile. ^I hope^

Let's not forget that most startup projects goes through the same volatility in the early days. 

I am all in for a debate on this subject and just hope they sell popcorn at the venue. You cannot miss this opportunity to rub shoulders with the main peanuts in Bitcoin.

In the left corner we have Bitcoin Core weighing in at 6000 supporters and in the right corner we have Bitcoin XT weighing in at 700 supporters. Let's get ready to rumble!

Anyone think it will be a fair fight? The referee for the fight will be ? ^puzzled^

Wow this is a difficult question. The whole Bitcoin system is based on a mutualistic symbiotic relationship, so if any
of these relationships fail, the whole system collapse. To give any of these role players more weight, would disrupt the relationship with the others.

The primary host for the rest to feed from comes from the Bitcoin holders, but without all of the other role-players the system will fail and the host will die. The only problem is, how do you implement something fool proof to give the host more voting power in Bitcoin?
 

This is not good for Bitcoin, because it should be the other way around. Gold investors should be selling their gold and investing in Bitcoin. If only 15% of the global investments in gold was invested in Bitcoin, we would have seen a incredible jump upwards in the price. Go do the math ^hmm^

I know everyone runs to gold as a better store of value to hedge against volatility in uncertain markets, but times are changing and Bitcoin will soon replace gold as a primary store of value. We will see much less volatility once it goes mainstream.

How glad am I for not having to play with someones balls to operate a Bitcoin business in my country. ^joke^
The BitLicense should influence access to ATM's for those companies that own and operate Bitcoin ATM's in NY. If they did not apply for the ShitLicense they would have to stop operating there and the users will be forced to use exchanges to get their Bitcoin.

LocalBitcoins.com also have no listing of people offering services in NY for the same reason. So it has to have a influence on the New Yorkers. A perfect example of corrupt government officials in action, to fill their own pockets and to protect the rich. ^hmmm^

If you do it in the way Freebitco.in is doing it, you might just get away with it. They have a donation option in the faucet and people donate some of their free Satoshi to it. They then use BitPay as a proof of payment :
https://bitpay.com/invoice?id=MPXZFRLaCDANerD8asDZcm which can be used as proof for tax purposes too.

You might follow this example, and try to claim that back from Tax? The tricky part is, some of that comes from the users, even though it's Ad company income being re-distributed for charity. ^hmf^

I agree with this. I had a hard time explaining Bitcoin to a friend of mine and he has been in IT for 23 years. ^Whoa^
There are so much FUD being spread around by Shills and Bitcoin haters, that people will get confused with what is fake and what is facts.

These guys have done a great job to bring 4000 people to Bitcoin, even though it was due to a push factor and necessity, rather than pure curiosity. I would have liked to hear from some of those people and how Bitcoin saved their business after the credit card companies stopped supporting BackPage.  ^thrilled^