Can you share their email addresses? I'd like to send a few emails myself.

I'm sorry to hear that.

It is the job of the individual to protect themselves from everyone. Bitcoin, as a tool, truly shines at this task, but it's up to the individual to take the appropriate steps.

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The difference with Bitcoin is that there is a widely distributed public ledger which allows for transparency unlike anything we've had before.

Indeed. One risks losing their deposits by trusting organizations which do not submit to an audit.

Bitcoin opens to the door to transparent FRB. One can enter into a contract with their bank stating that they will deposit and not take delivery of their bitcoins for a certain period of time. The banks will have to offer competitive interest rates in order to get people to enter into these contracts. Of course, unlike pirate@40, the customers would be wise to demand third party auditing of the books.

Actual bitcoins only exist on the block chain. If your bitcoin is on the block chain, it's a bitcoin.

If you accept a note claiming to be a bitcoin, yet you can not manipulate this coin on the block chain, you have a promissory note.

Fractional reserve banking will be easier to keep in check with Bitcoin as we can always see actual bitcoins on the block chain. If a Bitcoin bank wishes to engage in FRB, it's users can demand the bank submit to audits by proving it controls a certain amount of bitcoins on the block chain. The beauty of the block chain is that it is a public ledger which can not be faked.

Now banks can compete for their customer's business by offering good interest rates on deposited bitcoins which they will loan out, yet the customers have methods to keep the banks honest.

Also, promissory notes will probably not be fungible with actual bitcoins (because it's so simple to tell them apart), the real thing will command a premium.

Ebay owns Paypal.

It would be achieved by getting people to accept promissory notes instead of actual Bitcoins. You probably can't stop it and it doesn't require a network change.

Not selling the mined coins at $0.0001
Not selling the mined coins at $0.001
Not selling the mined coins at $0.01
Not selling the mined coins at $0.1
Not selling the mined coins at $1
Not selling the mined coins at $10
Not selling the mined coins at $100
Not selling the mined coins at $1000

At every price increase, there is a risk that a bitcoin would never be worth more. At some point along the way, for most early miners, that risk became "huge".

Anyway, Bitcoin is where it is today thanks to the early adopters. If the reward schedule was different, you may have never heard about the failed experiment called Bitcoin.

Litecoin constantly beats Bitcoin in volume (by a lot).

View volume in the amount of value exchanged (typically measured in dollars) and you will get a much different picture.

As assets go up in value, the volume measured in the amount of the asset exchanged typically goes down, but the volume measured in value exchanged goes up (or stays the same). In other words, 1000 bitcoins exchanged at a price of $1 each is the same value exchanged as 1 bitcoin at a price of $1000 each.

See google:



As the value of the asset increases, the volume (measured in the amount of the asset exchanged) drops. We no longer need to trade thousands of Bitcoins to equal a significant amount of value exchanged.

TL;DR: There is nothing crazy about an asset with low value seeing huge volumes compared to an asset with high value, as long as you are measuring volume in the amount of the asset exchanged.

The topic is Silk Road. The "pirate" is "Dread Pirate Roberts" or "DPR".

This image is outdated, but it was always one of my favorites. The pixel representing Bitcoin has certainly grown since then!



If Bitcoin proves to be the superior choice, or even a choice for one of these "markets", well...

Perhaps Bitcoin would have never bootstrapped had the reward scheme been different than Satoshi's? Perhaps something as new and different as Bitcoin needed a group of early adopters who would keep pushing regardless of how many times they were told, "It will never work"? Perhaps they needed a reason beyond simply shaking things up? Perhaps profit is fantastic motivation to succeed?

Also: The Simpsons, Person of Interest, Almost Human

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2148561/

That particular milestone was reached ages (internet time) ago.

I believe in the confirmed bad news thread. I believe that it is a parody of attempts at actual confirmed bad news.

I see more bulls than bears taking offense to the parody, and that is slightly frightening.

I don't trust any of you fuckers! So... let's see. (If you disagree with my classification of the thread, too fucking bad! I tried to bias it against bulls since I'm a bull.)

(Neutral 1)    When in 2013 shall Bitcoin break its all-time-high of $31?
(Neutral 2)   Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion
(Neutral 3)    Bitcoin - Bulls out of the wedge but without force
(Bear 1)       Time to dump BTC now I say...
(Bull 1)        Important dates 2014
(Bull 2)        Why are we still at this price? Review of bearish thread titles...    
(Bear 2)       Worst Case Scenario - Price Predictions?
(Bull 3)        Bitcoin will hit $10,000 in 2014
(Bear 3)       2014 could be a slow year for bitcoin
(Neutral 4)   Analysis never ends
(Bull 4)        First Bitcoin ATM in switzerland!
(Bear 4)      SHOTRING BITCOIN: This is a good idea right now
(Bear 5)      The age of KARHU begins....seek ye refuge in alms to the KARHU!
(Bull 5)        intrinsic value and the value of accounting. why a goldrush will affect bitcoin.
(Neutral 5)   Memespeculation
(Neutral 6)   Videoblog & Technical Analysis for Bitcoin
(Bear 6)       Confirmed Bad News Sources Thread - No FUD, Just Facts!!!1
(Bear 7)       Get an e-mail when the FBI bitcoins move    
(Neutral 7)   Bitcoin Price Analysis!    
(Neutral 8 )  Mystery Chart Says to Buy Btc now and sell in ~115.2 Days
(Neutral 9)   Daily USD/BTC - Most Accurate BTC-e predictions
(Neutral 10)  Bitcoin - Price on vertex of the wedge.    
(Bear 8 )      BTC Beginning of the End !
(Bear 9)       chinese markets volume data wrong    
(Neutral 11)  Latest Developments Thread
(Bear 10)     Another BEARS ONLY discussion. When will bitcoin finally drop and how far?
(Bear 11)     Alot of BTC in the hands of newbs - wrt FBI selloff
(Bear 12)     The reason volume is so low on Gox, BTCE and Bitstamp
(Neutral 12)  Bulls and Bears! Who will win?
(Bull 6)        Green shoot analysis - volume increasing
(Neutral 13)  January 31st Impact on Bitcoin
(Bull 7)         I AM HODLING
(Bull 8 )       the Hodl and why.
(Bull 9)        I predict that btc will rise to $2000 by end of March 2014
(Neutral 14)  It's called a correction (waveaddict's bitcoin charting subscription thread)
(Neutral 15)  Bitcoin market trend analysis- so far the most reliable through 2-month test
(Bear 13)      bearish sentiment in a possible third wave?
(Bear 14)      FBI seized an extra 144000

Bull - 9
Bear - 14
Neutral - 15

Conclusion: I now trust BitcoinAshley more than TERA.

Well, I personally use it as a store of value which ultimately can not be seized without my permission (and done correctly, can't even be seized with my permission), and a means to transfer value without obtaining help from middlemen or permission from any authorities.