I don't know, but it would be a crazy coincidence that it would be both Avalon and 200 million again.
Plus, of all companies why Avalon?
they were the first ASIC producers to come to market, so proven track record also, Phoenix probably negotiated the best deal with them |
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Do you think Joe Lewis or the Phoenix Fund would've been mentioned? Command+F "Phoenix" 0 out of 0 results |
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Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.
I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour. Would love to be wrong though!
too well researched to look that way, very much unlike the thailand rumor |
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go ahead, trade on this "if it happened b4 it will happen again" nonsense
You mean the part where everyone knows Bitcoin will recover and rise to new incredible highs?  it has been up since 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and prices in 2009<2010<2011<2012<2013 Yup, but "someone" here thinks we can't base our expectation on the past.  you can't, if so we could expect to go up 20,000% in 4 years nonsense, nonsense, nonsense just look at the last 6 months of trading, understand why price moved the way it did, look around at what is happening now on the dev side of things, and then speculate. |
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Why would it cost anything like $200m to take the Avalon design to the latest, narrowest chip tech?
Surely a few million would be enough. Doesn't make sense.
I just don't see why $200m is needed to beef up the Avalon operation. Since Avalon did their first ASIC on a shoestring (couple of million?) why would it take $200m to go the latest chip technology. Surely something like $5m would be enough. HashFast and CoinTerra are not going to spend anything more than a few million either.
200M to buy a whole generation's worth of mining (while leapfrogging a few others while they're at it), first mover advantage, why the hell not!!! got a couple more billions in his pocket... vision: set it to "nothing's impossible" |
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The only connection I see there is the $200 million figure.
I just don't see why $200m is needed to beef up the Avalon operation. Since Avalon did their first ASIC on a shoestring (couple of million?) why would it take $200m to go the latest chip technology. Surely something like $5m would be enough. HashFast and CoinTerra are not going to spend anything more than a few million either. 200M to buy a whole generation's worth of mining (while leapfrogging a few others while they're at it), first mover advantage, why the hell not!!! got a couple [dozen] more billions in his pocket... vision: set it to "nothing's impossible" |
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Setup for Mother of all Rallies? hehe not with gox like this We don't really need'em. Go to Coinbase or Stamp, peoples. The fact that Gox is still leading the market boggles my mind. and kraken, tradehill and coinsetter are just around the corner! |
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Setup for Mother of all Rallies? hehe not with gox like this |
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At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year. In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that. Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy 200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more |
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Correction posted: Investor Joe Lewis isn't investing in a bitcoin venture called Avalon and doesn't lead a Zurich-based private-equity fund called the Phoenix Fund. An article on the supposed investment was inaccurately published and has been removed. and with that, any credibility I reserved for the modern press (and high academia for that matter—author was a journalism graduate of the University of Edinburgh!) has now vanished. What kind of publication like the WSJ hires reporters that do not do their due diligence in corroborating with primary sources when claiming speculation as facts? Sucks. Either way, hopefully that this is a case of any news is good news, and that this brings serious discussion to the table for those with the means to utilize the clear opportunity of first-mover advantage and take Bitcoin seriously. =============== http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.htmlJoe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin. Mr. Lewis leads the Phoenix Fund, a Zurich-based private-equity fund that on Tuesday plans to invest $200 million in Avalon, a company that makes computer servers aimed at creating bitcoins, according to people familiar with the situation. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that exists online and isn't backed by any government or central bank. Bitcoins were invented in 2008 by a computer programmer who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, who describes it as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. The Phoenix Fund's investment in Avalon reflects the growing popularity of virtual currencies, which are also coming under scrutiny from regulators. Other bitcoin enthusiasts include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are best known for their role in the creation of Facebook Inc. FB +1.50% They have proposed an exchange-traded fund that is tied to bitcoins. Bitcoins are created through a process called mining, in which computers solve complex mathematical algorithms to earn the bitcoins. The total number of bitcoins that can be mined is limited to 21 million. There are now about 11.5 million bitcoins in circulation, according to Blockchain, a website that monitors bitcoin transactions. The Phoenix deal will also involve Taiwanese microchip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., 2330.TW +0.50% which is set to supply the state-of-the-art microchips that will power the hardware. The Phoenix Fund was set up this year to invest in bitcoin mining-hardware companies. It looked at several of Avalon's rivals in the sector, including Butterfly Labs and KnCMiner but decided against investing, according to a person familiar with the private-equity firm's strategy. Investors in the Phoenix Fund, which includes a small number of individuals who made their fortunes in currency trading, believe that the currency will become more stable and popular if more parties are involved in the mining process, this person said. Mr. Lewis moved into currency trading in the 1980s and 1990s. In September 1992, Mr. Lewis teamed up with Mr. Soros to bet on sterling crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, an event that was later named "Black Wednesday." Mr. Lewis didn't respond to a request for comment. Mr. Lewis had big losses investing in U.S. brokerage firm Bear Stearns Cos, in which he began amassing a stake during 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Mr. Lewis is the main investor in an unlisted company called Tavistock Group, which has investments in more than 200 companies across the globe. Tavistock Group includes ENIC Group, which has a Bahamas-registered subsidiary called ENIC International Ltd., through which Mr. Lewis owns 85% of the shares in U.K. soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. The Phoenix Fund is independent of Tavistock. The bitcoin deal was put together by Andrew Laurus, a former government-bonds salesman at Lehman Brothers who is also an investor in the fund. Avalon was set up by Yifu Guo, a pioneer in the bitcoin-mining industry. He was part of the team that developed the first ASIC bitcoin mining hardware. ASIC stands for application-specific integrated circuit, a type of custom-designed microchip. Mr. Guo couldn't be reached for comment. Separately, Coinflash, a company that planned to set up kiosks for bitcoin enthusiasts to buy the virtual currency, is shutting down before it even opened its doors. "Due to an unforeseen change in our personal circumstances, we've made the difficult decision to suspend Coinflash's services indefinitely," the San Diego-based company said in an email statement. Coinflash was established earlier this year and had planned to open the bitcoin kiosks in California and New York this summer. As part of the deal, Avalon will gain access to TSMC microchips based on 20-nanometer processes, which are much faster than other chips. TSMC recently won a contract to supply chips to Apple. The increased processing power should give Avalon an edge in solving the algorithms that control the supply of bitcoins. —Robin Sidel contributed to this article. Write to Harriet Agnew at Harriet.Agnew@dowjones.com 'You mean I can't just buy Bitcoin?'
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.htmlJoe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin. Mr. Lewis leads the Phoenix Fund, a Zurich-based private-equity fund that on Tuesday plans to invest $200 million in Avalon, a company that makes computer servers aimed at creating bitcoins, according to people familiar with the situation. Bitcoin is a virtual currency that exists online and isn't backed by any government or central bank. Bitcoins were invented in 2008 by a computer programmer who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, who describes it as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. The Phoenix Fund's investment in Avalon reflects the growing popularity of virtual currencies, which are also coming under scrutiny from regulators. Other bitcoin enthusiasts include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are best known for their role in the creation of Facebook Inc. FB +1.50% They have proposed an exchange-traded fund that is tied to bitcoins. Bitcoins are created through a process called mining, in which computers solve complex mathematical algorithms to earn the bitcoins. The total number of bitcoins that can be mined is limited to 21 million. There are now about 11.5 million bitcoins in circulation, according to Blockchain, a website that monitors bitcoin transactions. The Phoenix deal will also involve Taiwanese microchip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., 2330.TW +0.50% which is set to supply the state-of-the-art microchips that will power the hardware. The Phoenix Fund was set up this year to invest in bitcoin mining-hardware companies. It looked at several of Avalon's rivals in the sector, including Butterfly Labs and KnCMiner but decided against investing, according to a person familiar with the private-equity firm's strategy. Investors in the Phoenix Fund, which includes a small number of individuals who made their fortunes in currency trading, believe that the currency will become more stable and popular if more parties are involved in the mining process, this person said. Mr. Lewis moved into currency trading in the 1980s and 1990s. In September 1992, Mr. Lewis teamed up with Mr. Soros to bet on sterling crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, an event that was later named "Black Wednesday." Mr. Lewis didn't respond to a request for comment. Mr. Lewis had big losses investing in U.S. brokerage firm Bear Stearns Cos, in which he began amassing a stake during 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time. Mr. Lewis is the main investor in an unlisted company called Tavistock Group, which has investments in more than 200 companies across the globe. Tavistock Group includes ENIC Group, which has a Bahamas-registered subsidiary called ENIC International Ltd., through which Mr. Lewis owns 85% of the shares in U.K. soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. The Phoenix Fund is independent of Tavistock. The bitcoin deal was put together by Andrew Laurus, a former government-bonds salesman at Lehman Brothers who is also an investor in the fund. Avalon was set up by Yifu Guo, a pioneer in the bitcoin-mining industry. He was part of the team that developed the first ASIC bitcoin mining hardware. ASIC stands for application-specific integrated circuit, a type of custom-designed microchip. Mr. Guo couldn't be reached for comment. Separately, Coinflash, a company that planned to set up kiosks for bitcoin enthusiasts to buy the virtual currency, is shutting down before it even opened its doors. "Due to an unforeseen change in our personal circumstances, we've made the difficult decision to suspend Coinflash's services indefinitely," the San Diego-based company said in an email statement. Coinflash was established earlier this year and had planned to open the bitcoin kiosks in California and New York this summer. As part of the deal, Avalon will gain access to TSMC microchips based on 20-nanometer processes, which are much faster than other chips. TSMC recently won a contract to supply chips to Apple. The increased processing power should give Avalon an edge in solving the algorithms that control the supply of bitcoins. —Robin Sidel contributed to this article. Write to Harriet Agnew at Harriet.Agnew@dowjones.com'You mean I can't just buy Bitcoin?' |
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Bitcoins market seems to be seasonal. My guess is this fall we will at least get near $200. By November probably.
Interesting. Any ideas why this is? Will that mean that around next April is when we might see $1000? Discounting major spikes again, I'd say no. IMO $1000 won't be stably reached until late 2014. I am perfectly fine with late 2014. i'm not, i have a small country to start up :p |
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Cliff notes: Investing $200 million into Avalon giving them access to 20 nanometer chips. Get those difficulty over bets in. someone please quote the text, i'm behind a paywall |
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If i remember correctly there was a type of tormail you could use that did not use javascript when accessing your email
You had the choice between http://roundcube.net and http://squirrelmail.orgI think Squirelmail don't need JS. you're right, that one didn't. |
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A few people own a lot of the coins. The process of the last year has been testing their hands to part with a % of those holdings. If you held 50k bitcoins then selling enough to retire is pretty much a no brainer.
you don't even have to sell enough to retire, just enough to live on. If we assume a doubling of price every year, then you can spend up to half your coins each year and retire. but a doubling every year is too much to assume to retire on |
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For your edification. This shows total BTC minted versus total $Volume on Gox. The pink marker is where the halving occurred.  Interesting Interestingly the two notable increase also coincide with an exponential increase in difficulty. Because improved mining tech suddenly allows miners to buy hardware which has lower marginal electricity cost and thus is very profitable to operate, miners start to rapidly push up difficulty and being hyper-bulls by nature they wish to keep as many as possible. Miners begin selling less coins into the exchanges which dries up supplies after about a month or two. As supply dries up price rises and it becomes a self perpetuating cycle as miners hoard even more coins during the bubble run up, media hype brings in new buyers as well. Eventually old coins are enticed to cash out and pop the bubble and or the supply of new buyers runs own. 2011 bubble was clearly driven by GPU adoption, this bubble seems to have been triggered by the block reward halving but their are certainly some ASIC technology elements at play as well. It may be that the first movement from $15 to $30 was the response to reward changes and everything after that was the ASIC bubble. It will be interesting to see what we get at the next reward halving, will price go through a gradual 2-3 month doubling (presumably staying stable after that) or will it be a wild double exponential bubble? I'm leaning towards the former, that block halving alone don't set off wild bubbles, only mining hardware dose that. you guys also should remember that during the first block rate halving (I don't know if you guys were there), we never had one before and didn't know how to take it. We didn't "feel" the supply get cut, til months later when the demand picked up for one reason or another, because the market was still relatively immature at that point. By the time this next one comes, we'll be fully ready for it. |
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If i remember correctly there was a type of tormail you could use that did not use javascript when accessing your email
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^ We have not yet broken out
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