While this still represents a small quantity of coins I think it is important bc I believe that these are become very low velocity coins -- that is buyer would obly pay the premium and the inconvenience of face2face if he/she is holding.

Anyone in greece with money should be loading up on physical euro gold silver bitcoins.  Bitcoins because they are easily hidden.  In today's world without bank secrecy presumably greek govt could insist that foreign banks divulge its citizens holdings.  Tax revenue is down; looks like ppl are deferring debt payments in favor of holding.

Ripple Labs must have amazing slideware.  All the "consultants" and "market analysis firms" fall for them lock stock and barrel.

200 is the new 2 (and all you bears should keep in mind that that's 100x return in 3 years)

Not really.  The driving force is holders.  Holding a single coin consumes as much supply as a huge amount of economic activity if you assume a reasonable but still very conservative velocity.  For example if a transaction ties coins up for 3 days on average then holding has 100x the effect as activity.

What's the driving force behind holders? 

First, liquidity.  Its important to be able to easily spend BTC.  This is why exchanges are important and why other economic activity (legal or illegal) is important.  Liquidity, portability, and easy-to-hold-yourself are the key arguments to prefer BTC over gold for holding (its a PITA to redeem your gold coins for USD or food).  So removing liquidity removes a big advantage, although not the only advantage.  So Gox was a big blow and conversely the coinbase exchange is a shot of liquidity confidence for US markets... but the real confidence comes from seeing consistent economic activity occurring.  So if you want BTC to succeed, spend your coins (and rebuy them)!  While its obviously less convenient (than other forms of payment) if you buy exactly what you need just before you spend, I find it faster and more convenient if I load my phone once a month (say) and then spend when needed.  I can point my phone at a QR and press pay a lot faster than getting out my CC and typing in all the numbers...

Second, diversification.  Holders want to move some assets away from their home country currency.  And by extension move some assets away from all currencies using the same potentially flawed management system (central banks).  But stabilization of the fiat systems means that pressure to diversify out of fiat is pretty low right now (I am guessing I haven't done research).  And for those doing it, Bitcoin is not comparing as favorably against stocks, real estate, gold, etc because of the year long BTC price decline.  However, that vicious circle can reverse quickly with 3-5 months of price stabilization or slight rise (as we saw in 2012).  And recent behavior in Greece might bring the flaws of the global fiat currency systems to the forefront once again, depending on the repercussions of the 240 bln default has.  Remember, QE etc (essentially buying loans with newly printed $) has no long term effect on inflation (in fact, causes deflation), because eventually the money gets paid back.  Once paid back, the QE printed money is retired so net is 0 (actually net is negative given payment of interest on the loan).  Works great UNTIL the loan defaults.  At that point, the QE money will never be paid back -- so there's now 240bln additional euros permanently in the supply.  Oops.

Then you hate the game as it is played today.  Yet again the Pats prove that the age old rushing or long bomb game perfected by so many of the traditional powerhouse southern and western teams is dead.  And yes I know almost nothing about football :-).



 

There is no doubt that a single forever remembered blockchain cannot handle every tip or coffee bought so offchain or better sidechains are needed.  But that does not mean that BTC should not also be scaled in block size.  With the price trending down discouraging new holders we need to welcome any and all real use.  And approaching a txn limit does not help that.

Its very simple.  The price is depressed by 3600 new coins per day.  And no it doesn't matter that exchanges are doing tens of thousands of trades per day -- most are likely the same coins passed between the same traders.  It doesn't matter that miners often hold.  If they weren't holding mined coins they would have been buyers.

Creating the next wave will be actual use or fear-driven diversification.

By actual use I don't mean another exchange.  I mean remittance, changetip, to a lesser degree credit card replacement (since the benefits are minimal, esp if you don't already hold BTC), and most importantly new uses.

Diversification is not happening much now because most people are momentum buyers and central banks are mostly keeping a lid on things.  So there is less reason to diversify out of fiat currencies, and BTC is not perceived as such a great choice even if you wanted to.
 
This could change if we have a few months stability or a gradual rise.  But again, this will be hard at 3600 coin inflation per day.

Aren't these mutually exclusive?  US gets "on top of the energy pyramid" by supplying incredibly cheap nat gas, not by providing expensive product.

Wow he's so far "left" he's come full circle and is on the right.  No more bailouts.   Just declare bankruptcy and move on

No 2016 3% is very much inline with fiat... in 2021 it will be something new.

AFAIK DACS preexisted BTC.  I learned about them in the context of open source hardware.  BTC is interesting because it provides one DAC mechanism... but what it rewards is very limited (mining).  Others have proposed plans like divvying up money based on source control checkins.  This is distributed dev, but still centralized rewards.

The timing of btc backgrounders in major news outlets (ex WSJ) strongly hints that a heavy hitter is moving into the pump phase.

well 2**9 = 512. 

No I'm a reg reader.   He really did call it.  Kudos!

Yes every white paper I've read in this space is garbage with the exception of Satoshi and the SC one (but note I havent analyzed SC paper fully yet).  However Cypherdoc to answer your question directly, CS is not an experimental science so you would not see the kind of study you propose.  In fact that is an indicator of poor thought.  You should be looking for an algorithmic proof similar to a mathematical proof.

Just like with bitcoin we should evaluate these new opcodes on their technical merit not on who submitted them.

One idea is that a small custom device like the trezor could have put an accelerometer in for just a few bucks

Haveged might be really bad on an isolated device.  No interrupts coming in...

Worse than that.  I found that he lacks the fundamental mental techniques needed to objectively assess an idea.  Just read the bitshares white paper.  It is (or at least was) a lot of wishes and hand waving.  I cant believe he got money... just goes to show that its more abt who u know.

The judge has to slap his wrist because the coin unfortunately DOES look quite official.  But its hard to find criminal intent when the "counterfeit" coin's melt value was greater than its denominated face value (assuming you make the mistake of thinking the "dollars" on the coin refer to USD).  

The prosecution was asking for 14+ years and 16000 lbs of silver, which exemplifies one of the key problems with the US justice system.  The govt prosecutors are incapable of saying "ok we made our point.  We've brought clarity to exactly what counterfeiting is, but clearly this situation is nothing like printing $100 bills on spare paper."  Instead they go after this guy with everything they've got like he's public enemy #1.