Yes, it may not be the same people, for the reasons you stated. It could also be that he is paying for the posting of stuff he writes. I doubt he spends all his time doing the posting.
At least it offers a logical reason for these posts. I assumed that the FUDster lost his shirt in a scam and his anger drives him to post. But perhaps he is just doing a job. Trying to put downward pressure on peoples perception of BTC and earning a few Satoshi each post?

I think a crypto-coin backed by gold is a stupid idea. This scam has been tried many times as "paper gold". The problem is that you buy gold and get paper. Why the hell would I do such a stupid thing?

If I'm spending the money to get a gold backed coin then I want an actual gold coin. I want to know "where is the gold, who has it, how can redeem my coins?" What if the business says "well, I think we'll just keep the gold". It's a ridiculous deal. And for what? So your private keys are backed by shinny rocks? What is gold backed by?

This is actually a big deal. Bitcoin has come out of the shadows this year.

I put you on ignore. If it makes you feel better you are now banned from me. 

Most exchanges just connect people who have coins for sale with buyers. They facilitate the trade and may not require many coins themselves.

Just before climbing up to $460 in the last week bitcoin was again declared dead. Whatever, that happens every day.  
Another almost daily occurrence is the creation of several threads by brand new accounts warning us of the immanent collapse of bitcoin. They are generally a few sentences long and never provide any supporting evidence. They typically look like this:


Except that example was not from these forums. It is a quote from Taavet Hinrikus, CEO of TransferWise. TransferWise is a payments app, the kind of dinosaur that is not going to survive the cryptocurrency revolution. It makes sense that he would deride bitcoin, but the words he uses are strikingly similar to our local FUDster.

Could be nothing, but did anyone else notice this?

You will just burn up a nice laptop and almost certainly never find a block. You would have much better odds buying lotto tickets, although you still are extremely unlikely to profit.

I wonder also. I haven't seen anything recently about the number of users. Or anything that was done in a scientific way. As a question its quite problematic. You can count wallets, nodes, Tx, block volume, tweets, online searches, etc. But all will end in a statistical guess because all the data are just corollary.

I think it's agreed that bitcoin continues to still grow. But..

EDIT: Perhaps the network hash rate is a better measure than users? It is a at least a number and not an opinion or interpretation. And if bitcoin is just a protocol then this measure of it's strength must mean something. You can see it graphed in the link below, which also has other relate graphs. 

http://bitcoin.sipa.be/

The money I see is in payment processing. 
Hmm. They better pass on some of the savings to the customer.
I would guess they are paying 1% on outsourced processing. That is 2% less than they likely pay for outsourcing payment of a credit card and they should, at least, split that with the customer. I have come to expect a bargain with bitcoin because I am sweetening the deal for the seller also. They are getting an irreversible payment within the hour, and saving 3%. Of course I pay the bitcoin fee, but that is a low and fair fee that goes to strengthen my money.

Then you are in luck!
By Thursday you will have .04 BTC
At 100% profit per day you will have .16 by Saturday and .64 by Monday.
Then things really take off! 1.28 Tuesday and 2.56 Wednesday.
You don't need our money, your system is more than enough. 

There is no question that bitcoin is faster, safer, and cheaper than a credit card. I got rid of ALL my credit cards when I switched to BTC. If you are an online business and want my money then you are going to have accept bitcoin.

Again, I just can't see a business model that sells bitcoins for I.O.Us. Which is what a credit card Tx is.

I guess I should start with what wallet you are using. "Dashboard" sounds like you are using an online wallet? In that case it is a little harder to answer because such a system may be layered over the bitcoin protocol and could have other internal rules. In the protocol you must wait for confirmation because until your transaction is included in a block it is not recognized. Websites may have aditional requirements or wait times. Which wallet are you using?

If it's not confirmed yet then you don't have the bitcoin and can not transfer it.

Something you need to know is Gavin. I doubt you have ever met him or have any inkling about coding. So how would you know?

I'll second your motion.
Bitcoin has no center and no coordinated projects. It really is spreading by grass roots / word of mouth efforts from users. There is a lot you can do including:
Basic:
1. Take a moment to explain it to a newbie.
2. Demand the option to pay with at local businesses and show them the advantages of accepting bitcoin.

Advanced:
3. Print up paper wallets with a little coin and give them away. The paper wallet can include information about bitcoin, links, propaganda, etc.
4. Host a training for businesses that wish to start taking bitcoin.

Crazy:
5. Meet with people to lobby governments and financial institutions. Teach them how to make good bitcoin policy.

I have done all these and will continue to do so.  My current project is to persuade the government of Iceland. I will be meeting with the pirate party later this year in Reykjavik. I started with printing paper wallets with a bitcoin button pinned on. All paid for in bitcoin of course.  

He knows all that. This guy foolishly lost all his bitcoin and now posts crap like this all day from his Mom's basement. I have never seen anyone wish so hard for something that is just not gona happen. lol

There have been many attempts to create physical bitcoins. Most (like the one below) hide the private key inside under a tamper proof seal. If you ever wanted to you could destroy the paper bill and use the private key to transfer the bitcoin to another account. So they are backed by real bitcoin, but they require trust. How do I know the private key is really in there? How would I know if someone used an Xray machine to see the key inside? Or maybe the issuer of the bill kept a copy of all the private keys when he made the bills?

Square peg, meet round hole. 

For a private sale I would just mention taking bitcoins in the description somewhere. I see that on sites all the time. For example Gunbroker does not mention bitcoin but if you search for it you find people who do take it. You could do the same in a craigslist add or even a printed newspaper add.
EXAMPLE: http://www.gunbroker.com/All/BI.aspx?Keywords=bitcoin&SearchType=1

You will also see a lot of places selling cars for bitcoin. Some dealerships take it. Or go to Overstock, which can get almost any car in bitcoin. Note that you may find bitcoiners expect a deal. Overstock shaves 3% off the price if you pay in bitcoin. Overstock is currently redesigning the site, but they have "millions" of cars to shop for.

EXAMPLE: http://cars.overstock.com/

The problem I see is that while the bitcoin network can mathematically protect virtual coins, a paper note is easy to counterfeit. There is really no way around this that I know of.