Slab-a-dab-dab:

rfid chip

Bitcoin is in a greed and speculation induced bubble. The bitcoin community is full of crooks. I think that there are unrealistic expectations and a lot of ignorance fueling this mania. It is starting to look like a bad ending to me, series of bubbles and burst new adopters abandoning the currency for a simpler to use, secure and more stable. Maybe competition would help to level bitcoin out. Right now there is a monopoly on anonymous digital currency I hope that changes fast. I am going to be pushing ltc and any other digital coins that come out. I dont know if you can tell but i dont like what is being done with bitcoin. 

The operator does not know that the coins are lost, so treats them as any other coins—the operator will not spend the coins. So the coins are effectively lost.

A person (who shall remain unnamed) in my high school told me that they bought an alienware laptop from someone (worth around $2k) for $250.  Immediately, alarm bells went off, so I asked him how he got it for so cheap.  What he said disgusted me:

He bought it from a guy in Italy who told him that it was with a stolen credit card.


I dont get this.  How can someone morally accept that they are blatantly defrauding some poor unsuspecting person?  I mean, I get it, Amazon.com will probably take the heat for it, but I still don't get it.

How the hell can people think that this is OK?  And, I mean, the guy was 14 or 15 years old.  At such a young age, buying a laptop with a stolen credit card.


I worry about the next generation of humanity.

Already tried and failed mining solo with: bitcoind, p2pool, eloipool.  And I know enough to know that my own pushpool, unmodified, cannot keep up either

Need to hack pushpool or use another proxy server that can keep up.

Sure, that's the predicted average.  Machine/miner reliability, bad luck, the pool's cut, costs related to pool hopping and other factors definitely impact income.  p2pool's income was something like 50% below predictions.

So its an estimate from the blockchain. At this point, those profits are as real as pirateat40 profits. Notice how SDICE is not confirming or reporting official numbers. They are just letting people run wild with their own imaginations so they can sell more "shares"...



Doesn't sound very realistic does it? More revenues from people willing to risk all-or-nothing dice, or from people trading day after day on mtgox? I don't think so

The first block with a transaction is: http://blockexplorer.com/block/00000000d1145790a8694403d4063f323d499e655c83426834d4ce2f8dd4a2ee

In this block, Satoshi sent coins to Hal Finney (who is nowadays disabled and unable to participate in Bitcoin).

There are several contributing factors here.  First off, Satoshi is almost certainly not a Japanese national.  He might be ethnicly Japanese, but I would question even that.  He originally used British spelling and grammer, and did not suffer from the gramatical quirks of a native Japanese speaker.  Add to that the fact that there were zero translations of the White Paper into Japanese for at least 18 months after it's release, and it's easy to assume that Satoshi isn't a native Japanese speaker.

Furthermore, Bitcoin doesn't really offer much new to the trade culture in Japan.  As a society, they tend to be very cash & local trade biased, and even online shopping isn't (demographicly) as big in Japan as it is in the (much more geographicly diverse) United States.  Sure, they use the Internet to decide what to get, but oftentimes they can order the item online and pick it up at a store within a local travel distance for cash.  Walmart.com uses a similar model.  Even when they do trade electronicly, they actually have more advanced forms of electronic commerce than is presently available in the US or Europe, already having NFC enabled smartphones and such.  In the US, the credit card industry has been secretly resisting moving away from the plastic card model and towards the smartphone app model because they have a huge vested interest in the prior model, while companies like Google have a head start in the latter model.

Anyone have any ideas (estimates) on how much Tom might still owe out to people in dollars? or bitcoins?

||bit

I may have to beg to differ on this, SS.

I'm sure we've all seen, heard, read, etc., accounts of scams taking place via phone, now net, preying mainly on the elderly, but other demographics apply. The local paper does a little write-up on said scams, advising its citizens to contact the local police department, anonymously, if anybody has information. There hope is to nap the guy(s)/gal(s) before further damage is done in the respected community.

Likewise, if you see a theft committed of some other person, the police will not decide to not investigate because it's not your property at stake. Furthermore, if you know of a person who has stolen property, even though it's not your property, you're obligated to inform the police department. This is true even if the thief hasn't yet been reported, let alone not yet in the court systems, regardless of what jurisdiction the items were stolen from. In this case, it's documented and trackable wealth stolen from citizens from across the globe.

An example, to possibly drive the point home. I go to Indiana and visit a fellow Bitcoiner. During the visit, I stealing something from his home he yet has discovered missing. Back in Illinois, another fellow Bitcoiner visits my home and somehow notices that I have stolen property in my possession belonging to the other Bitcoiner in Indiana. The Bitcoiner in Indiana is now currently on safari in Africa, and will remain out of pocket for at least a couple more months. Meanwhile, it's a known fact, I'm moving soon.

Given the above, the Bitcoiner who visited my home is obligated to contact the police, stating his case. At this point, the police may take possession of said stolen item, informing me that I will get it back once the safari guy returns and proves that this is all a misunderstanding. No real harm for all parties occurred, and all are protected.

In Tom's case, the proof is overwhelming, and for the police not to act accordingly would not bode well for their department.

Bottom line, real wealth was transferred via wire under false pretense, and the scam is continuing to this day, but now incorporating identity theft, a felony.

To me, if convicted, Tom Van Riper may not see his children grow up, and all the college degrees he's earned would be for naught. Now, imagine being in his shoes. You think you pulled the perfect crime, but compounded it, and now you're scared to death. Personally, if I pulled such a stunt, not a single family member would come to my rescue, regardless of what I may have done for them in the past. I can't see anybody having 100% support from their family if they pulled such a ruse.

Tom Van Riper is not in a happy place now, for he inevitable knows that his perhaps once good name is forever tarnished.

~Bruno K~

wow I can't believe how late I am on BitMillions. 

bravo OP / amazing site.

I bought some tickets today of course.  I will be covering this site in my next Bitcoin Magazine gambling article.  Absolutely brilliant.  Tough fight between this and bitcoinvideopoker for best new pure btc gaming site recently. 

love seeing projects like this pop up - and also pretty awesome how you did all the work then just dropped it on the community almost perfect - really, really great job.

I will be firing.  This will create another good blockchain stress test similar to SatoshiDice - I think this will be that level of popular.

Not yet.  Maybe another 1-2 days.


Not true... I wish.

Hi Raize. Thanks for the info. I guess all should be ok then. I for one subscribed to their mailing list. Also many of us bought ngzhang's Icarus boards and I'm sure Yifu has access to (or can ask for access) to ngzhang's previous customers list. But if they want some sort of proof beyond that I'm not sure what would satisfy them.

You mean batch 2, right? Batch 1 was the first pre-order batch that is currently shipping or has been shipped to customers. I think the Avalon team should allow all their previous customer to get credit towards a new Avalon system regardless if Batch 2 is closed to regular full-price purchase orders. I don't think it will make that much of a difference for them as I have a feeling that they have by far more NEW customers than previous ones trying to exchange their old fpga boards.

I dunno, I just hope they won't screw us over by not providing ample notification before opening the doors to the website where we can get credit towards new Avalon units. What I would do if I was them is give 2 to 4 day early noticed via e-mail and then allow for a 48 hour window for people to place their orders. I'd also open the order window on the weekend when more people are likely to have spare time. The 2 to 4 day early notice gives people ample time to purchase BTC if they need to do so.

Is the police responsible to investigate when they get a notice about a large scale fraud or is selling a product, get paid with a non-standard currency and never deliver anything legal in the US? Will there be an official investigation?