They've been threatening to launch for quite a long time. Perhaps they've finally gotten somewhere.

I'll be interested to see what their pricing is. A lot of attempts at UK exchanges have usually been way above the localbitcoins price.

The UK initially came out with some pretty stupid ideas about crypto taxation. After talking to folks they revised that to something more sensible. Perhaps the same will happen here.

I've no idea and I wouldn't give a flying fuck about the short term price if it means thousands upon thousands of people are saved from Bitcoin ruin.

Well, these offers are at least an encouraging sign of belief from non stakeholders. It'll be fun to see what transpires once some proper heat builds up.

That is one seriously impressive lineup.

Multi sig and insured wallets plus exchanges run by people whose job it is to make money rather than steal or be stolen from is what 2014 is going to be remembered for.

Maybe the price action will be pathetic compared to previous years. What really counts is that the building blocks are being laid for a system with some credibility and sustainability. That's what people should be caring about right now. Once that's in place the gains will flow.

All Time High.

While it's admirable that they're trying to earn back their losses, folks can go and do business with other exchanges which aren't empty shells (yet). 

Nope. 'Casascius' embedded repeatedly in small writing on the rear hologram is mispelt 'casacius'. It was rectified in the second run of 2011 coins.

At what demonstrable level of distribution would people be happier with NXT?

I haven't heard that many people claiming $1 million a piece.

As for becoming a global reserve currency, it may never be a governmental thing but that wouldn't stop general populations voting with their feet if it inspired them enough. The dollar is in plenty of pockets where local governments don't want it to be.

Gox themselves confirm they have 200,000 coins

https://www.mtgox.com/img/pdf/20140320-btc-announce.pdf

As long as there's boat loads of money to be made I really don't think they'll mind too much who they're giving it to.

As others have said before, it'll take one reasonably sized player to break from the herd and then others will come rushing.

Because he says so.

Here's some reasonably sexy news - SecondMarket is trying to open up their fund to regular mortals.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304026304579449782511589924?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304026304579449782511589924.html

SecondMarket Inc. is racing to open up a private bitcoin investment fund to ordinary investors as soon as the fourth quarter, potentially beating a rival offering by two investors best known for their lawsuit against Facebook Inc.

SecondMarket, which launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust last September to cater to wealthy investors, has started lining up lawyers and investment banks to help with the process.

The Bitcoin Investment Trust buys and sells bitcoins, allowing investors to place bets on the digital currency without owning it directly. It held $54 million in assets under management as of Tuesday, according to its website.

The trust would compete with the Winklevoss Investment Trust, an effort sponsored by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who won a $65 million settlement with Facebook's Mr. Zuckerberg in 2008 over their claim that he stole their idea for the social-networking site. The Winklevoss brothers have applied to create an exchange-traded fund specializing in bitcoin.

SecondMarket, primarily a marketplace to trade shares of nonpublic companies, is taking a different route. It wants to take its existing fund, which is geared toward investors with more than $1 million in assets and annual incomes above $200,000, and make it available to ordinary people. It plans to list the fund on OTC OTCM +0.61% Markets, an electronic exchange.

SecondMarket is seeking approval from OTC Markets and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a self-regulatory body, to market the trust to investors. The New York firm is lining up investment banks that would act as market-makers, or make commitments to buy or sell shares in the fund, and is screening law firms to act as a securities expert.

If OTC Markets and Finra approve the plan, the fund's shares could become publicly available as soon as the fourth quarter to investors with less than $1 million in assets and annual incomes below $200,000.

SecondMarket's move comes as other firms ramp up efforts to build a more robust investment infrastructure for bitcoin and other digital currencies.
On Tuesday, Pantera Capital said it had joined forces with fellow hedge fund Fortress Investment Group FIG -0.75% and two venture-capital firms to form a fund solely dedicated to bitcoin investments.

Other initiatives, including one led by telecommunications provider Perseus Telecom and a separate venture by SecondMarket, aim to develop fully regulated, high-tech bitcoin exchanges for professional investors.

The Winklevoss fund applied in July for approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to be classified as an exchange-traded fund, a lengthy process.

Evan Greebel, a lawyer at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP's New York office who is handling the Winklevoss application, said it is "going smoothly and we don't anticipate any problems." Citing SEC rules, he said he couldn't estimate a timetable for completion of the approval process.

By circumventing the SEC approval process, SecondMarket expects to be the first firm to bring a regulated bitcoin fund to the general public.
Until now, ordinary investors have been able to invest directly in the digital currency only via one of many loosely regulated online exchanges. But that strategy carries risks, as highlighted by last month's collapse of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which said in a bankruptcy filing that 850,000 bitcoins had vanished from its coffers.

The Bitcoin Investment Trust pitches itself as a safer vehicle, with its obligations to investors denominated in dollars, not bitcoin, and with regulatory oversight giving investors a greater deal of confidence.

It is unclear how deep such demand for bitcoin runs among the general public. In December, The Wall Street Journal reported that mainstream financial advisers were recommending that their clients steer clear of the highly volatile digital currency.

In keeping with the volatile moves in the price of bitcoin versus the dollar, the SecondMarket trust has seen big swings in value. Since it started trading in September, it is up 371% but is down 20% this year.

OTC Markets is an electronic successor to the decades-old Over The Counter Bulletin Board, also called the "pink sheets," an unregulated market for stocks that don't meet the listing requirements of the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq NDAQ -2.60% Stock Market. SecondMarket's fund is applying to list on a part of OTC Markets known as OTCQX, which has more rigorous financial disclosure requirements and includes big-name foreign companies such as Canada's Bombadier Inc. and Japan's Yamaha Corp. 7951.TO +0.15%

Tyler Winklevoss argues that his fund, which would trade on a fully regulated exchange, is a safer option. "Because the [SEC] hurdles we are going to have to jump are higher and because it's a more rigorous process, the idea is that it is going to be more viable and open to mainstream investors," he said.

Bitcoin has primarily become for me the most exciting show on Earth. I do have some but I've mainly been glued to the constant developments.

On a financial level I find the complete decoupling from the existing financial system the most appealing aspect.

Stranger things have happened. $10,000 this year would be rather strange, though. If it wants to hit that level this year then I'm not going to try and stop it.

Well, if you'd popped back to 2011 and told everyone what was transpiring a piffling 2-2.5 years from then - VCs, hedge funds, professional investors, thousands of merchants, governments sitting up and taking notice, exchanges on the horizon which might actually not steal your money - people would think you were utterly deranged.

The combo of all that weight, all the beatings Bitcoin has taken and it's still growing and yet only a few tens or hundreds of thousands own a complete coin makes right now a pretty miraculous time to buy in.

I presumed it would be a multi-year deal. That's fine with me. There'll be many, many more lulls, scares and explosions. In 2016 you'll be a veteran who's seen it all and thrived.

You appear to be a bit dispirited today. 2009-2012 types are sub micro stealth adopters.

I've no idea about orders of magnitude higher, but when one ATM machine arriving in an entire country still gets people excited I think we can assume it's still unbelievably early days.

There's a universe of difference between a regular person hearing the word Bitcoin, then actually vaguely figuring out what it is, then deciding it's worth taking the plunge, then creating a wallet and buying some or being paid some. That might be a process of several years for most.

I'll state it again - if you're posting on here you're so attuned to Bitcoin that it's very hard to conceive of what the non-infected world makes of it. It's still a drip in a swirling ocean.