Just placed an order thru Agora!  I hope you don't have to wait too long. The 2013 pieces are sold out everywhere I think. The 2014 ran into some delays and are shipping to the distribution later this week so if you got really lucky and scored one of their last 2013s you might get it fast, otherwise expect late next week before they get one of the 2014s out to you. The first batch of 2014s is shipping out today for those that paid ahead (which I do not like to encourage as I don't like folks to wait in bitcoinland). The first batch are made using pre-hobbed dies. Not much is lost in the hobbing of dies, but these are the first strikes and some collectors really like them better. For circulation purposes, they are all good, first strike or not. They are struck one at a time, hand fed, but same prices while they last. |
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If "the oldest and once largest" Bitcoin exchange were to fold, hundreds if not thousands of people would probably lose tens of millions of dollars.
Learn to math. 1K x 10M = 10B = more than the value of all bitcoin. Is your claim that gox has all the coins? |
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didn't quite reach my bids. hope that wasn't my last chance to buy low!
Still a breddy gud price on stamp now i'd say How in the heck is $730 a good price? It's a whopping 18% above the bottom of $619 just a few hours ago. That's ridiculous. It's further from the bottom than it is from where it fell from, during a downtrend. Last time when it crashed to 380-450, the 630-650 was still a damn good price to buy That was the initial crash, which is always a huge trading opportunity. During that time the long TA indicators are still pointing upwards. Now they are downwards, indicating that this is likely the first step of a downtrend. i kinda agree, the only question is, at what point shall we short back? 780? Short back Western Union, Paypal? Now is as good a time as any. |
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if you take the time to read the article, you'd see that it would be around a 4% premium.. edit: oh nice you sroted it out If we are talking about the typical Western Union customer who deals in cash, it is more like an 8% premium, and then someone has to take that on the chin again at the other side of the world. Considerably worse rate than Western Union. Also, the premium on bitcoin in those "other parts of the world" are likely to be pretty good in favor of those to whom the bitcoin is sent. Especially so in places where there is economic difficulty. |
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I missed the first 10 minutes so if anyone finds the video please list it.
All in all Gavin did well, he wasn't the guy to challenge TPTB on the merits of Austrian economics, but did a great job of expressing illustrating Bitcoins decentralized nature.
I think my take away is Bitcoin is supported buy a bunch of nutters who would rather give money to poor people than fund regime change, or encouraged corporate resource extraction for "mutual benefit " "the greater good" monopolistic profit.
I don't think he emphasized enough, the blockchain as a tool to track money in crime is superior to cash and unlike other records "corporate fraud" you can't burn the records.
No value here, it's a flawed system trying to disrupt PayPal rent seeking, central banks weren't challenged.
That the bitcoin blockchain is open and unencrypted is part of why governments are as complacent about it as they are. The session was recorded to the CFR youtube channel. You can watch it again and again if you like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgFUAhz7h2UThis was wise for everyone. Maybe they read enough of this thread to sort of "get it". The CFR has an interest in making their group less scary to people, even though many of their ideas and goals are very wrong headed 1, they do engage in debate and this stuff gets discussed even if their innate sense of entitlement and assurance in their knowledge of "the way things ought to be" leads them down so many dead ends. If you want to know the CFR better, I'd recommend reading their public magazines and publications. Like any group the members are fairly diverse, but overall have a particular slant. Theirs is very much slanted for TPTB. Maybe the CFR should come out with "compliancecoin" complete with central bank keynesian adjustments at all the wrong times and directions and beholden to political forces just like the central bankers use. 1That their members are openly proud of money backed by military might and float extraterrestrial asteroids as justification for this is sufficient evidence in just this one video. |
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Congrats on your success.
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I think it will be a good year for both bitcoin and gold. That's what I thought in 2011, 2012 and 2013. And in 2014? " Billionaire Mark Cuban has a currency trade idea for 2014 -Long Bitcoin and Short Gold." molecular has held the idea consistently since 2011 (although he did short XBT and buy alpaca sock - and has refused to sell) I'm sure molecular will hold in 2014 too. My alpacas are prolific, more baby cria all the time. If anyone wants some alpacas, I do take bitcoin |
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There needs to be a BTC conference in Los Angeles so I can go to it.
Travel to Holland is pretty easy and it is a good place for conferences. I can assist with organizing in LA in needed, there are plenty of folks. We have a large bitcoin population here, some of the Meetups are 200+ and turning folks away at the door if you aren't there early. |
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I wouldn't call meeting the CfR an honor.. but I would call it important.
No matter what you think of them, if you ever want to have any influence in this world, and don't intend to use violence/force (and you'd need a massive army for that), you need diplomacy.
Use diplomacy to gain trust and reach a mutually beneficial agreement.
Don't fight the CfR, gradually become the CfR.
And when you are the CfR.. you have the influence to accomplish change.
Gaining the trust of the CFR is nice and all that, but is orders of magnitude less important than holding onto trust in the Bitcoin community. Gavin had the ability to demand transparency even if it isn't the playbook that the CFR normally follows. He could easily have just said that his interactions with them would be transparent and publicly documented. Period. Take it or leave it. Bitcoin is strong enough to command that kind of respect...for now...and it is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate position. I don't see that it ever even occurred to Gavin. By all appearances he is simply not a very original thinker. Gavin does not appear to be under the illusion that there was a choice, or that this is anything other than what it is. Meeting in secret and getting CFR taint, or no meeting. The CFR do seek to end what they see as a threat, and have openly published their plan to do so. They are not going to be persuaded otherwise as a group, but there may be individuals there that may get a glimpse of what it is like to be in the presence of an honest freethinking person who is working for the common good at great personal risk. http://www.cfr.org/economics/crs-bitcoin-questions-answers-analysis-legal-issues/p32148?cid=rss-economics-crs__bitcoin__questions,_answe-010614That the CFR is opposed to everything Bitcoin is and represents is no secret. Whether they use the events surrounding this meeting to exert overt coercion or try to win some points with charm and displays of wealth and power remains to be seen. (carrot or stick?) Whatever the outcome, another day, another bitcoin. I wish him well, he has done much good and I will not hold this against him. |
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Anonymity is not just for illegal activities.
There are plenty of very good and legal reasons to conduct private transactions. Companies that use open blockchain transactions can be tracked by their competition and so many companies are not eager for this information to be public for simple business reasons.
This prospect provides an alternative for these legitimate uses.
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Total speculation follows:
If MTGox is compromised and under coercion, they would not be able to say that they have a gun to their head. The failure and bad service may be their final gift to the bitcoin community. If they were operating efficiently, it would be a sweet honeypot. By operating poorly, it is a sour honeypot. Folks are fleeing and not so much under fire.
FBAR and FATCA compliance to follow.
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I don't think it is necessary for counterparty to fail for mastercoin to succeed, or vice versa.
Instead it would appear that each effort advances both.
Most of the world knows nothing of bitcoin. Most of the folks who do know bitcoin don't know or understand that it is more than just a wannabe currency. Colored coin, mastercoin, counterparty and whatever the future might bring, all advance our common agenda. There is way more opportunity than any one effort can address. There is much to do and too few hands doing it.
Mastercoin is awesome, holds great promise and as a decentralized exchange (among other things) is going to change the world. It makes little sense to spend any effort to attack those who are also working to do the same. I'd hope to beneficially participate in each of these efforts, and make good use of them all.
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If an exchange's outstanding obligations (the sum of its client's account balances, plus pending bills etc.) are more than its assets (furniture, cash in bank, and coins in wallet), why would anyone want to buy it?
Reputation (lol), contacts/customers and a platform that has been mostly proven and is up-and-running. There may be buyers for their physical assets including computer hardware and software. That may be worth a couple million US$ at most. However, no one will want to inherit their client accounts, since they are not assets but debts. I would guess that the sum of all account balances (coins and cash that they owe to their clients) is much more than 100 million US$. Do they have that much in their bank and wallet? I have pennies in my account. If a credible operator took over, there would be tens of thousands in it. I am not alone by a long shot. We would be trading, generating commissions and fees. We only left because we had to. There is still a big demand for an exchange other than stamp that can handle big volume. it would be a tremendous opportunity for someone who could recapitalize Gox. Recapitalization will take only a few million. Gox could be a billion dollar company if the operator got his act together. +1 Rover was bought by BMW with massive debts and they only wanted the Mini brand. VW bought Skoda, which was considered a joke at the time. Gox is still the legacy 'headline exchange' that the media uses for the actual benchmark price when an ATH is hit. It would be recoverable very quickly and the cash in need only be enough for sufficient liquidity and a guarantee of safe withdrawal. I always traded there rather than Stamp until recently, even though Stamp was my first exchange. In BTC things move so fast I think this is absolutely right - Gox would be back real fast. Imagine if money stepped in, and promised secure withdrawals. Western Union should buy Gox. It would give them both a future. WU has all the registrations and certifications worldwide to deal with the existing structure. From a business perspective it is an easy deal, but not likely to happen for social reasons. |
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I'm adding a simple idea.
A good government shall be close to a concierge in a large building. Making sure the alleys and the stairs are clean, and preventing some tenants to be loud at night, but most of the time staying silent and not interfering in any way in people's lives.
The problem of this analogy is that whenever you ask this concierge for anything you have to remember that they are also the armed guard, they spread the cost on the bill of everyone staying at the building, and if the residents don't pay for that, they can get imprisoned or worse. And somewhere along the way someone asked the concierge to bug all the rooms in the hotel and put that on your tab. |
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If you see any of the fake ones on eBay, you can click on the report this item link:
The current eBay Coins policy is to remove replica coin listings and relistings from eBay.com. eBay defines replica coins as a copy or reproduction of an actual coin, including U.S., foreign and other historic coins. This update better reflects standards across the coin industry, and helps ensure compliance with applicable laws that require replica coins to be permanently marked with the word, "copy."
I'm very well aware of this. The Litecoin copies I've reported. Of course I can't always keep a count of them but I have done the ones I've come across. Thanks. This was more for your other supporters, I knew you were well on top of it. I'm indicating them as well when I notice them, but don't use eBay much. |
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Just placed an order thru Agora! I hope you don't have to wait too long. The 2013 pieces are sold out everywhere I think. The 2014 ran into some delays and are shipping to the distribution later this week so if you got really lucky and scored one of their last 2013s you might get it fast, otherwise expect late next week before they get one of the 2014s out to you. |
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If you see any of the fake ones on eBay, you can click on the report this item link:
The current eBay Coins policy is to remove replica coin listings and relistings from eBay.com. eBay defines replica coins as a copy or reproduction of an actual coin, including U.S., foreign and other historic coins. This update better reflects standards across the coin industry, and helps ensure compliance with applicable laws that require replica coins to be permanently marked with the word, "copy."
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Please come back down to Earth guys...
We are talking about buying bitcoins and spending bitcoins here.
Why is there a need to mix coins if I buy, let's say a graphics card, from a website
with coins that I mined, or coins I bought from an exchange?
Why is there a need to mix coins when I want to buy a beer with bitcoins?
The "privacy" you guys outlined are on a totally diffierent level to
the "privacy" issues involved in spending bitcoins. Don't mix them up.
Isn't that what Shrem is up against? Buying, spending, selling bitcoin? Seems some of the folks he was trading with were doing things his government didn't like. Just because you have nothing to hide, doesn't mean you have nothing to protect. Perhaps your international business has competition and you don't want them to know your trading partners and the volumes? There are so many reasons for this beyond just doing something illegal. Governments also engage in industrial espionage. (Maybe even the US does this?) |
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Copy cats are out in full force. Be wary of buying coins from a 3rd party.
Now I'm aware of at least three different coins being counterfeited: Casascius, Lealana, and Bitcoin Specie.
Joseph congrats on your success with your silver coin. Very happy for you. Aloha.
Mahalo, smoothie.  The brass silver-plated pieces look pretty shoddy, so I hope no one gets fooled. Also look like they may be molded rather than struck, wrong size, wrong weight, wrong year, wrong in so many ways. I'm more concerned over the high-value pieces that are being copied such as yours and Mike's. Someone could get badly harmed, they are infringing copyrights at minimum which probably is enough for eBay to drop them. |
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However us mere mortals know that everything lives in the real world, and when that reality catches up to the FED it won't end well.
It seems that it will end VERY well for them, just not for anyone else. And if they ever do move into Bitcoin, following the money will be somewhat easier than it is with the entirely unauditable central bank. |
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