This is the address from where the refund originated:
https://blockchain.info/address/182xSUmHbVQQyULxBuc89kRmwvsBWN9yym

I'm not that good at tracing its coins back to the miners and determining if they're refunding with bitcoins they mined themselves so maybe someone else can do some analysis on that matter.

It still asks the password to send the coins. How come DPR was so stupid that he didn't make any cold storage? It just doesn't fit into my head.

Also think of it like that: When people ordered from BFL and paid with BTC, the latter was converted to USD (BTC got aggressively sold). Now, when BFL refunds they might convert USD to BTC thus aggressively buying BTC. Thus, BFL refunding to their customers might actually rise the price

But then again, I suspect BFL is refunding to their customers with the bitcoins they themselves mined secretly with the hardware they were supposed to send to their customers.

I've subscribed to $4k+ prices. 5 digit prices would make a lot of people filthy rich IMHO.

Speaking of friends and stuff... When and where should the first meeting of the Bitcoin Speculation Subforums take place? Once we're all filthy rich it could sound like a plan, don't you think?

HODL TO THE DEATH! (and take the private keys with you)

you mean the first order or the second? I ordered the first time just for the lulz as I just got a fat pay cheque, I converted it fast into bitcoins and ordered the ASIC in 2012. I received that ASIC in October 2013 and in the first month it mined 6 bitcoins. I was able to order the 2nd generation ASIC for the profits of the 1st generation ASIC so it felt like a good bet. I admit, I don't care much about profits and money and that's the reason why I dared to buy shit load of bitcoins when they traded at 4.5$ each. So, it's difficult to say if I'm dumb, wise or just lucky.

Back in November 2013 Bitcoin was trading at 1200$. A couple of months ago Butterfly Labs started giving out refunds for pre-orders older than 6 months. What would be more profitable -- taking the refund now and doubling your bitcoin holdings or waiting and wishing for the Monarch to be delivered? I faced such a dilemma and finally decided to take the refund because BFL kept deleting my whiny posts in their forums which angered me. Also, even if they delivered I would have had to pay ~700 EUR for import taxes just to receive my equipment.

I was secretly wishing for the next bubble not to start until I get my refund and today I got the refund, effectively turning the initial 3.4 bitcoins into 5.8. I learned it the hard way that mining is pointless because my 60 GH/s miner costed me 140 bitcoins and it only mined 10 , thus I'm pretty happy about cancelling my 2nd generation ASIC pre-order. I don't believe it would have made any profits bitcoin-wise.

Having said that, my gut feeling tells me that the next rally can start now. To make this post more interesting, I predict that we will exceed 1000$ by the end of August.

I wonder if the price also remains stagnant when bad news pop out. Some China FUD would be nice for a while

That's what I suspected. Nice marketing trick, but I'm not falling for it. I will wait for the first exchange-on-swipe card to go live and get media attention and then maybe order myself one.

Ok checked out the FAQ of the debit card. I must admit it sucks because it's just another pre paid card. It will not convert the required number of bitcoins on demand. Don't use ANX because they make it seem special while in reality it is just another lame pre paid credit card that simply accepts bitcoin payments for initially loading the card with dollars!

Check out xapo's FAQ for comparison. Id rather use xapo, but unfortunately they're not shipping cards yet.

I'd like to see them regulating friend-to-friend trading.

never say never, dude. unexpected things tend to happen these days more and more.

Yeah, these interesting times have been ahead for what -- more than a year now? Hold it, hold it, it's going to the moon every second now. Just wait for the winkelwoos to get their ETF done.

a phishing attempt? there's also anxbtc.com

anyway, seems there are many entities providing bitcoin debit cards.

https://bitplastic.com/ boasts to be totally anonymous for example.

the question now is -- which one of these is the best?

I'm having some serious de ja vu moments with the price and what people think of it. My friend was dead serious when he said that bitcoin would never rise above 100$ because it would just be unrealistic. Now that very same friend says that bitcoin rising over 2000$ is simply so unrealistic that it won't gonna happen. To my understanding he hasn't got any bitcoins because he's too poor to buy them but I owe him the big thanks for telling me about bitcoin in 2011. I remember he used his 300 Mhash/s gamer's PC to mine exactly 1 bitcoin in 4 days and pretty much threw it away for not being worth the effort

I still don't get it how the fuck did they get the private keys of those coins?! It's pretty default to encrypt the private keys! Why would Ross give them the password? Does not compute.

Why would that be better?

Also, this card seems like a really nice piece. Who has pre-ordered it? Should I pre-order it or rather wait for it to go live and see what happens in the news? Maybe xapo will get banned for money laundering or tax evasion?

I don't know about BitBills but it's true that counterfeiting will be a problem. I figured that if we face the same problem with conventional paper money anyway and still use it then it must not be that big of a problem.

Casascius coins include private keys themselves which is kind of different from my perspective. I wouldn't include the private keys with the coins themselves but let some trusted entity hold them. Trying hard to play the devil's advocate on the matter but I must admit it is not easy

Even though paper money backed by bitcoins is superior to paper money backed by gold, it is still less functional than using bitcoins directly.

Maybe the possibilities of multi signature addresses/transactions would add something useful to the equation?

Or maybe the notion of decentralized paper money backed by individuals would spark some new ideas?

Using some standard note template, a person would print its own money. The note would be target specific, so that the receiver's address is taken immediately before printing and the note is funded right after printing. The third party of such a multi signature address/note would be some trusted entity.

Why such a construct would be required? Basically only in the situations where the receiver has no smartphone but wants to receive bitcoins. The receiver would have to still know their bitcoin receiving address or its firstbits. If bitcoin differentiates between the order of signatures in a multi signature address then the address could even specify the paying and receiving addresses. The trusted entity would not allow the reversal of the transaction before 30 days for example, allowing the receiver to safely access their credit. Just throwing things out there but seems that this solution will not find its real practical problem.

wtf? why would such domain names be of any value?