The best part will be when they'll be forced to change their full-retard method of using the blockchain as a state variable of betting outcomes.

v0.8.2 can't get here fast enough...

How about you sign a message with the private key of one of the top 10 bitcoin balances?

Then we might be inclined to believe you. But then again, if you have access to over 100,000 in BTC - why do you need us to do anything at all?

Unless your alt-coin offers something truly innovative, it won't succeed. Look at the current hashing power commanded by the Bitcoin network. That is your target, and it will take a lot of effort to get even close.

It should be a somber reminder that the closest alt-coin with an actual purpose, namecoin, didn't succeed even though it looked like a good way to decentralize DNS. (And perhaps it may be someday, if DNS gets co-opted by evil forces.)

So if they can't even get some starting momentum, what chance does your "twiddle-a-few-settings-and-push-it-out-the-door" alt-coin have?

Oh, and not to mention the self-defeating process of divided attention as everyone and their scamming brother tries to push out their particular alt-coin-of-the-week.

It's a bit comical, really.

The only ones afraid are the same that are abusing the blockchain.

Luckily, we'll soon be rid of their abusive behavior. Thanks for pushing us to this point, fellas - you're all such real "chums".

So a government agency has referred to Bitcoin as a currency then?

I would've expected more headlines out of that one - "US Government Agency - 'Bitcoin Currency Not To Be Regulated By CFTC'"

It would be more likely for them to integrate Bitcoin into some kind of payments/clearing than to issue their own flavor of blockchain. Hell, they could section off part of their datacenters for ASIC clusters to protect their investment by holding a percentage of the total hashing power.

Just like penny stocks - most are worthless crap.

I meant smoother in the sense of her self-restrictions on the experiment - not willing to use intermediary payment systems like BitPay, etc..

Personally I think China wants to use whatever it can to bring the USA down a notch, and Bitcoin is a convenient method to do so - among many others.

This may be the financial black swan that nobody in the current staid financial sphere will be expecting. I really believe that I'll live to see a sovereign state adopt bitcoin in some fashion. Doesn't have to be China - any country would suffice.

I bet this experiment will go a lot smoother by next year. So many announcements about business adoption, I can only imagine what the landscape will look like in six months.

This catching on would absolutely freak the financial guys out - at least those near the top. I'm sure some of the actual traders on the NYSE floor would love to participate in some good old-fashioned open outcry

Good for them, I really like this idea spreading.

Hindsight is a cruel mistress - don't beat yourself up too much about it.

That would be rather ironic. I don't really enjoy Facebook's propensity to turn people's data into a commodity - or their collection on someone being handed over to anyone with an inclination to dig into a users activities.

This could spur the adoption of "registering" an address on your profile that the government would use to determine what you've been up to. Of course, that is totally ignoring the fact that you could have many addresses and just use those. I can just see some government agency somewhere thinking that is a great idea.

I have mixed feelings, I suppose.

Simple - it's regulator-speak for:

"We can't afford for people to have true financial freedom. We'll be enacting laws to benefit our already wealthy constituents and campaign contributors."

It's just so transparent it makes me ill.

I appreciate kiba's efforts to have standards maintained - but there's no need to get too abrasive about it.

I want him/her to stay anonymous.

It was probably the best thing that Satoshi disappeared, because right now anyone pissed off about bitcoin would be trying to dig up dirt on the individuals involved, no matter how minor.

I also think that anyone trying to "piece it together" and posting the result is either a complete idiot, or horrifically naive.

Governments can't even balance their budgets, and somehow they'll create a bitcoin 'rival' and succeed?

Hahahahahaha... *deep breath* Hahahahahahaha

Suuuuuuuuuure they will.

You can all thank Erik "Tony Hayward" Voorhees for polluting the blockchain so badly that this has come to pass.

Thanks for "stress testing" us to a hard-fork, Erik (again). You're such a champ - at taking people's money. I'd also like to thank all the mouth-breathing fools that thought Satoshi Dice was a good idea. You're also at fault too.

Great job, Erik - you profit-first douchebag.

Oh no, a fossil doesn't embrace an emerging crypto-currency.

Obviously we need to make a steam-powered miner and call it the "Knickerbocker Steam-Chainer" to get his attention.

That's mostly a function of sharing information in a few moderated IRC channels. Why bother with the troll-circus of the forums or reddit?

Nobody listened when a few people shouted warnings on April 9th on Reddit - so why would they pay attention here?