Isn't bitcoin backed by speculation?

In talking with some of the people I bet with, I learned of his unfortunate circumstances (which I hope were not due to mining rigs). We all think of this community like a small town, but unlike a small town, we can't directly see what is going on with our neighbor unless that neighbor tells us. I would like to help share the story of one of those neighbors.

http://bitcoinbasics.wordpress.com/tag/crosby/
http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/7-people-homeless-after-vanier-blaze-1.1108019

I have grown fond of this proposal due to the simplicity and ability to type it almost anywhere. http://www.ecogex.com/bitcoin/

My girlfriend actually does know Yoon, but that's a stretch to call her my girlfriend.



Unfortunately, I have been a part of a couple "scammy things". My eagerness to work with people (anyone) without doing due diligence in the type of people I was working with has put me into more than a few situations that I still can't explain away. This community is pretty small though (think of it like a really small town). All it takes is one person seeing you with a girl late at night and now the whole town has made up a story that you probably have AIDs.

@OP: I feel compelled to post here on an additional vector that is not often discussed-- inadvertent scamming. Many people who have had all the best intentions (fund operators, business owners, etc) but have been screwed by others due to bets, loans, or just their own bad business practices have been labeled as "scammers" as well. The label itself isn't so important I guess as it is that people may have trusted them, depended on them to pay on a certain time, and were subsequently let down and unable to handle their own finances as a result. This is may not be intentional scamming, but I would say in addition to outright scammers, something to watch out for would be:

• Talking about work more than they actually work
• Little preparation involved in the work around the request, but much preparation in the request itself
• Desperacy
• Arrogance
• Ease of assurances / eagerness to give guarantees

In my personal life and in experiences dealing with others, I have found that most of the financial difficulties I've experienced first hand were preceded by one or more of the above. It's obviously not a sure fire list, and many people are just not people persons, but in a community where 13 year olds are trying to run their own "investment funds", and 18 year olds who have been to jail for possession of acid who ask for millions of dollars, it's important to look into these personal qualities carefully.

Disclaimer: I have met more than one of the above at least once in my life and I too have let people down financially more than once in my life.

I don't want to make this thread into a speculation thread of my mental health, but I would say that I spread myself too thin, was unrealistic in my expectations and valuation of myself (delusions of grandeur perhaps) and that this experience was inevitable as I was due for a humbling, unfortunate that it was such a public one. I needed to be knocked down a notch, and I still need some time to get back on my feet, but I have not forgotten the experiences of the past year, making a show about bitcoin, a magazine about bitcoin, a service to sell bitcoins through SMS, an attempt at a device to use bitcoins. Looking back I am just disappointed in myself at how much I did, but how little actually got done. I'll apply myself to this first, then I'll start planning ahead more for doing something people can actually use.

I actually do owe many people apologies for the rude behavior I had over the past year, not just you. Looking back I see I was out of control. I am no longer here to judge anyone.

I'm sorry for your losses Leo, I know you tried to bring a service to the community and I am aware that you and your wife have had difficulties in doing so, that you have shared similar failures as I have in the very difficult world of start-ups. I had a talk with Charlie Shrem of BitInstant about you a while back, and I remember him speaking fondly of you. I think the main issue, as I've come to learn, is that people, myself included, like to assume that what other people do is who they are and not just what they do. I see now the obvious market manipulation attempts, the SEO assassination attempts, and faux interest all around me that perpetuates the bitcoin 'community'. I see this forum is being used against people just as much as it is for people. The difficult part is that I also saw myself as being a part of that mess. I went too far though. I'm just sorry I didn't have the sense to realize it until I had already disappointed so many.

The point of this thread was to spark some minor discussion into what could be done about my past inappropriate behavior. You have come to add to the discussion and I thank you for that. I wish you the best of luck on future endeavors.

Couldn't companies like Paypal and Western Union just piggyback on the Bitcoin network, thus causing Bitcoin to increase in value yet no one even knows about Bitcoin at the same time? Why does it feel like that is a more likely future than everyone using long addresses and QR codes to do transactions?

Good to see nothing's changed since I left.

I'd also very much like to know this information. As 3D printing becomes more mainstream and cheaper to do from home I'd like to participate and learn as well. Here in Korea a hackerspace has opened up and 3D printing seems to be one of their main attractions.

I do, but not everyone had contact information (you realize some people were making the bet with intentions to scam me), hence the thread. I am beginning to talk to people about what I can do to make things right.

I hear your sentiments, but one of the lessons I learned in all of this is that this community is one obsessed with money (no kidding!) and that when you make a mistake financially, you have to rectify it financially. Some people might take a few bitcoins from me just to give them right back as a test of my intentions. Some might use the opportunity to make a quick buck, whom would otherwise not have paid at all. That's not for me to discern at the moment though, my task at hand is just making sure that I make amends so that I can continue living in a world where actions have consequences. It's an issue of mental health if nothing else. I have to stand up for myself when I am being abused, but also against myself when I have abused others.

The intended meaning was that no one deserves to have their problems ignored by the person who caused them, and that the proper response isn't to simply change identities/go underground, rinse and repeat, but rather to stay above ground, find resolution, and then decide what to do with oneself once all has been handled.

All has been forgotten and forgiven. I don't hold any hostility towards anyone here any longer.


I am in the process of rehabilitating, but not in the sense I think you mean (prison? hospital?), just months of hearing other people's points of view on life and realizing how blind, uneducated and self destructive I've been. As a result, I am finding it harder to argue my significance to myself (read: learning humility), but I posted here tonight to insure that that did not become an excuse for my previous actions.


This is true. My original defensiveness held for a few weeks, but after that I could no longer deny to myself that I had caused real damage. The only question then was how to approach resolution. I knew I couldn't do that without changing my attitude and some of my personality in the process, so I began to read. In reading, I have come to understand a bit more about why bitcoin is useful, not just as a tool, but as a political wedge for the future. I have never believed the governments are inherently wrong, evil and against us, but the more I see corruption and deceit around me, and the more I stumble myself, the more I realize that man himself is fallible and the future of mankind should be one that relies on science, not emotions. Bitcoin, even if it is not perfect, is a great example of a proof of concept to use science to handle financial transactions. It doesn't fit currently popular ideals for economics, and it may never at that, but I would never be able to live with myself if I let a movement like bitcoin suffer because I was too embarrassed of my own mistakes. I don't want to be someone everyone depends on, I make mistakes. I want to be useful though, and I can't do that if I'm not learning and fixing my mistakes.

I've been very well known in bitcoin as both a  troll and a developer and made a public stunt bet that something wasn't a ponzi that turned out to be a ponzi, but so many people had gotten involved into it that the heat normally intended for the ponzi operator came crashing on to me partially as well. Lots of anger. I was known as someone who was energetic, but I didn't know when to stop and went way too far into an area I had no experience in (finances) and it's something I want to correct. I'm here to try and make things right directly with the individuals whom I have wronged with my bad behavior.

As you know I've taken a leave from Bitcoin to focus on my life, and in doing so a lot of facts became clear to me about the last year of involvement in bitcoin. I wanted to share those with you and ask you for some advice as well.

The first thing I want to address is my work in the bitcoin community developing products, services and businesses with others. Being homeschooled and sheltered throughout my childhood, it had never occurred to me that I could truly just be one of the crowd, whether neutral or positive. I have always felt I was fighting against someone, somewhere to break free of something. This is what has given me such tremendous energy throughout my life and allowed me to always feel like I was racing someone to some goal. Throughout the year in bitcoin, I felt I was constantly in a race to create something no one else had created yet. It hadn't occurred to me to participate, ask questions, respect others for their knowledge, or even admit defeat on some topics. Looking back with a clear head, it is obvious I was interested in only three things: attention, get rich quick schemes, and entertaining myself. I may or may not have even suffered from aspergers (although I believe it was probably just social ignorance from working alone my whole life and never really being a part of anything until now).

I feel I have made some very trivial additions to the community, but most of them were "A for effort" types and I ended up with a negative sum. I'm certainly grateful for the experiences I have had though. I was completely unaware (and mostly still am) of any political, economical or philosophical ideas before coming here. I believe my biggest mistake was not taking time to learn the lessons that were right in front of me, and feeding the mentality that anyone who didn't automatically accept what I was doing must have been "wrong" and therefor not important. I've survived entirely on bitcoin for a whole year. I have been a part of some really interesting projects, and I've inspired a whole lot more. That said, I do not currently hold any stake in anything remotely interesting or useful to the bitcoin community as a whole, and that pains me when I look back at all the scattered efforts I mindlessly poured into project after ill-thought project. That is the first thing that has begun to change in my life. I am no longer looking for the hit-and-run get rich quick scheme, I am considering going to college and learning how to be better at the job that I enjoy doing, regardless of the pay involved, and am starting to realize the importance and international political implications of bitcoin.

That brings me to the next thing. My awareness of why bitcoin is so important and why it doesn't need any "clowns" like me. I cannot rightfully walk away from an event where I have caused damage and ignore it for the rest of my life. Nor can I rightfully explain it away or solve it easily. I won't lie, I've popped into reddit almost weekly to see what's been happening in bitcoin, and for once, when I wasn't doing the talking, it become clear why we actually need bitcoin in the first place. It gets a lot of flack for being a criminal currency, an "illegal" black market currency, and frankly I still wholeheartedly believe that SA goons have this community downpat as being one of the wackiest group of tinfoil spergers ever to exist, but that doesn't change the fact that bitcoin itself is amazing. And it hurts that I didn't realize that until after pulling a stunt that caused everyone to think I hate bitcoin and want to hurt it.

That brings me to the final point. I initially intended to teach the community a lesson about trust, I did not expect anyone to really take the bets and thus I did not expect to keep any profits. As the bets grew though, I was tempted with greed and I fell into a trap. I flipped back and forth between playing a prank (as it was intended) and actually trying to solve my financial situation (which was becoming dire). I did truly believe that Pirate was going to pay back and I fell for it. I also believe that I intended to pay anyone I lost when it was around 1000 BTC, but as I flip-flopped on my own reasoning and was enjoying the entertainment/trolling so much, I lost control and couldn't stop myself. The attention was just too entertaining and now I will go down in history as the retard who went full retard on the forums-- but I will not go down in history as the guy who ran away from his responsibilities. During the betting process, I hadn't considered people would actually lose money (I seldom plan ahead) and it hadn't occurred to me until shortly after the bet was over that I had actually cost people money/opportunity in large amounts. This depressed me a lot. I won't lie, I cried exactly once, but not at the lost money (I have never had much respect for money), but in reading the many people whom I never even knew knew I existed say so many things about how they actually liked me before I went insane. That killed.

I could easily disappear and continue working behind the scenes, but I don't think that's what I ever wanted, and it's not what anyone else deserves. I'd like to ask some advice on how to make things right. I'm not coming here to get sympathy, and I expect many people will want to start an argument with me, but I can't let it end like this. I obviously don't have millions of dollars in bitcoins to dish out, and I'm also not the inherently dishonest type to try and look for schemes to buy my own debt back at a reduced price. Basically, I just want to know what my options are. I'd like everyone who I have wronged to personally email me at jindq1@gmail.com and explain their story. I want to personally take care of my situation with that person and do my best to make things right, no matter how long it takes.

I know I said I was "leaving", and in a sense, I have. But 2013 is a year for work and self reflection, and I don't think ignoring people, running from problems and hiding behind trolling suits me anymore.

Please help me help myself, and let me start by making things right with those I have wronged.

M.

In hindsight, I no longer see this bet as being funny and I think it was in horrible taste. The community members who were my friends who are standing up against this are right in doing so I and I have no place in the bitcoin community as I clearly don't take it as seriously as everyone else. I am happy to have learned so much from Bitcoin and I'm glad to have shared in many experiences as well, but I cannot discount the claims that I have some issues with manicism as there is no other explanation for my often irrational behavior. I'll be seriously looking at my life and exiting from the community with my sincerest apologies.

Mihai Alisie will be speaking for the Bitcoin Magazine at the London conference. I am in the process of exiting the company completely equity and all in addition to already having resigned as a director and Editor in Chief, as it seems the right thing to do for the future of the magazine.

Ellet's IP is being handed over to a more capable party and I will be exiting any involvement with it.

DCAO is being dismembered and the existing heads will start another organization a bit more seriously toned.

I will not be involved in any businesses in this community any longer. It is clear my immaturity is hurting the community more than I am helping it, and the position I have been in has only resulted in hurting myself and those around me. I'm glad to see that many people did get my joke, but I ask that they not defend me as even I see now that it was crossing all sorts of lines that should never have been crossed and I have absolutely no excuse for it.

I'm sorry I let so many people down that I never even realized actually cared and I hope I can somehow serve as an example of what not to do so that all of this was not a complete waste.

I will now leave how I came.

And farts on occasion! Oh my!

ROFL. I'm putting this on facebook.