I think Amazon accepting Bitcoin will result in a massive peak. That's what a lot people are waiting for.

There's a good chance that someone who owns 10,000 coins either mined them or paid $100 for the lot. It would be sucky but that's still not a bad return. They would also have to be a bit daffy not to have pulled some money out when prices were higher.

If serious money was paid for that amount then that implies they're pros so should know better.

BitGold members with bank accounts at Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi, US Bank, USAA, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Capital One and American Express will now be able to instantly deposit money from their bank account into Bigold, and vice versa.

Don't you think that's just a touch hyperbolic? Godwin's Rule is already in play?

You get Austrian cred for quoting Hayek, but nobody is using, threatening or advocating physical force be used or initiated.  Leading is not the same as ruling.

Yet, though the road be long, it is one on which it becomes more difficult to turn back as one advances.

It doesn't change the fact that the core devs have known about this issue for years and can't even come to an agreement on the direction much less the implementation of the scalability issue. Some are even arguing that we don't need to scale bitcoin at all because we can work around the limit.  

Consensus only works until it doesn't. Then leadership is needed. I'm as anti-government as it gets, but this conspiracy crap is getting ridiculous. It's trivial to flip the switch that allows TOR routing, so individual nodes can turn it on or off depending on their security concerns.  

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, y'all are aggravating. I understand exactly why Gavin and Hearn released XT.

maybe Maggie Thatcher was right when she said "Consensus is the abdication of leadership."

We must here return for a moment to the position which precedes the suppression of democratic processes and the creation of a totalitarian regime.

In this stage it is the general demand for quick and determined central government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic processes which make action for action's sake the goal.

It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough to "get things done" who exercises the greatest appeal.

"Strong" in this sense means not merely a numerical majority - it is the ineffectiveness of parliamentary procedure with which people are dissatisfied.  What they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants.

bring back goat

I am all over this XT-bashing-threads, I read most of them. And again, I was in this thread before you. And again, I can just beg you, to stick to the facts.

Why do I support XT? Because there is currently no better solution. If another solution arrives(in code not just endless talk), I might jump ship. I am not really that big of a fan of Mike Hearn and I don't like the position, that I have to defend BitcoinXT, but I just can't stand the bullshit, that is all over this place.

He's going to be out all season, something about a burn injury.   

I beg to disagree, unless you're talking about the monthly chart and very long timeframes. One could argue that the 2013 $266-$60 action was reaccumulation, but there is little doubt that heavy distribution occurred in Nov/Dec 2013 which unraveled nearly 100% of that bubble.

I don't think many fund managers even own Bitcoin nor is it on many institutional radars yet. If they don't have bitcoins to sell they probably won't all rush in to sell short during a bear market, especially after a year long downtrend and a weekly double bottom. For that reason digital currencies seem to me a bit detached from existing markets. On the other hand, worldwide economic fear is what has "driven" many of the past price increases in Bitcoin so a worldwide slump could bump up demand... and in a market dried up from selling after a year of it, that could launch a big trend.

Ok, now I understand. You're a nutter. Damn you internet!

Depending upon the definition of relevant actors.
I seriously doubt that "we", "the community" will be regarded as most relevant.
There is no "we, the people" in business.

I'm personally 'out of the game' as someone who took my position in an earlier generation.  I'm mostly just trying to give an honest appraisal of how I would be reading the card deck now.  I could be wrong...I often am.

... and he will include a link to the new code fork on his pages.

That is all they got in the 0.022 years since the 8 MB XT code was released.  They have only  316'000 minutes left before the end of the year.  What a flop.

I think the longer this debate continues the more toxic it will be for Bitcoin. One of my main interests in Crypto right now is as a counterbalance to financial instability I'm anticipating in September/October of this year. If there is a big market crash and/or US Dollar devaluation then Bitcoin may not stand to benefit at all if this debate isn't settled by then (and it looks like it won't be, what with conferences in September and November/December about this scaling issue). There is no such uncertainty about a contentious fork lingering over Litecoin for instance, so if Bitcoin looks to be in shambles throughout the rest of 2015 then don't be surprised if an altcoin might just overtake BTC in terms of market cap. The XT implementation doesn't seem like a big deal to me, although I would prefer it if the alternatives to XT were more clearly defined.

can we have a sort of crowdfunding to pay core devs? like "put your money where your mouth is"? where is the Bitcoin Foundation when you really need them?