This is utter bullshit. I bought into Bitcoin with a very small amount of money, by the time I finished buying I was up to $1000, still a small amount of money. I dunno if you live in your parent's basement or what, but for grown ups $1000 isn't usually that much.

The investment became worth a comparatively large amount of money, not because I appreciated the concept that its best use is for illegal activity, but because I got really lucky.

I'm not preaching anything, I'm not talking about the "best destiny" of Bitcoin.

You've just pulled all that out of your ass.

I think that you might be a little dense. You haven't debated me at all, you've just called me a liar about a fact I mentioned in the OP which has no consequence to the debate, and accused me of being a troll. Here's a newsflash for you: sometimes people have contrary opinions to the ones that you have. Sometimes they even say them out loud. I am sorry you can't deal with that and you take it as a personal affront, and an insult to everything that you hold dear. Just because you are a baby doesn't make me a troll.

I'm also sorry you can't accept the fact that I made some cash with Bitcoins. I didn't mention it to boast, I just mentioned it to say that I have had some good results with Bitcoins, I am on the side of Bitcoins, and I still have some skin in the game. Ironically it was to stop people from thinking that I was trying to attack Bitcoin. To be honest I thought it would be a miniscule amount compared to what most people here have probably made, but from your jealous attacks I guess not.

You made a lot of bullshit claims, told me to do my research about them when I questioned them, I did my research and came back to tell you that I couldn't find a scrap of truth in the bullshit you are spewing, and yet again I get a personal attack. I think I can reasonably walk away thinking you are probably an idiot.

I heard this, but apparently there is still a bit of doubt about whether or not that is his real name.  Or it could be Lazlow's real name too.

Haha, I wasn't trying to convince you, but I think it's quite rude to call me a liar considering you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Luckily I don't care what you think.

I had a look at that list and I didn't see anything worth a fuck that either isn't an exchange or doesn't deal mainly in cash with BTC transactions offered as a little thing on the side. If I am missing something feel free to point it out.

A currency can't survive on speculation alone, at some point you have to exchange it for goods or services.

(Sorry if this is posted in the wrong place, but I looked around and this seemed most suitable. I for one would support a subforum purely for discussion of this matter, as I am sure it pisses non-interested parties off.)

I've been chatting on IRC for the last week or so with a number of people in the Bitcoin community. A lot of you are on this forum, hi!

Now, one topic that frequently comes up is Pirateat40. An interesting rumor that I have heard from two people independently is that Pirateat40 used to be known on this forum as Lazlow, who as most of you know is famous for paying 10,000 BTC for some pizza, years ago.

I'm definitely not saying I have any proof or real knowledge of this, I am just reporting some hearsay and putting it out there for discussion. Has anyone else heard this?

This paragraph is baffling. My big profit came from coins I sold last summer. I didn't buy them last summer. At no point did I say that I bought them last summer. I did indeed buy into BTC when the price was a fraction of a dollar.

As for the rest, I thought your post was very well written, if slightly zealous, but I don't think anything you have said has any impact on my argument. You speak in rousing terms about young intelligent people getting together to start Bitcoin businesses. Where are they? Where are the successful Bitcoin businesses that aren't exchanges or money movers of some kind? The fact that the only legitimate successful businesses are in the business of moving Bitcoins from national currencies and back merely serves to underline the fundamentally auxiliary nature of Bitcoin.


Someone else mentioned this type of thing earlier and I wanted to comment. Very cool thinking and it appeals to me a lot. Is anyone actually trying to put this into action?

Hahaha. You've misunderstood me. The Ford comment is a criticism of a Chevy. I'm not criticizing Bitcoin, quite the opposite. I am sorry you thought my comment was a derogatory one about something you feel strongly about. It wasn't. It was pointing out a strength, not a weakness. It's a shame you don't see it that way.


I don't think anyone who is currently involved in Bitcoins is normal by definition. It is a very, very niche thing that most people are completely unaware of. To even be aware of Bitcoins is unusual.

I'm not under the misapprehension that my Bitcoin profits are a reflection of any talent. I took a gamble with a thousand bucks and got very lucky indeed. The same with future profits.

I also don't really see hoarding Bitcoins in the hope of them raising in value as a "use"

I paid every penny I owed in taxes as I do with all the money I earn on investments, I have no idea why you are even floating the possibility that I might not have.


I said those things because I believe them, not to inflame your sensibilities. I don't have any interest or motive for getting you all riled up, and to be honest I'm surprised things have gone that way.


What exactly do you use them for?


I'm not quite at the level of involvement to call myself a Bitcoin enthusiast myself, but I do have nothing but good things to say about them. I'm sorry that you are so pissed off by me stating that the vast majority of Bitcoin investment vehicles have turned out to be scams, and that there isn't anything to buy with them (other than drugs) that couldn't be bought more simply, with less risk of fraud and more easily with whatever the local currency is. If you find that inflammatory, it is a shame, because to me those are incontrovertible facts and putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "TROLL" isn't going to change that. For me a discussion takes place around the facts, not in denial of them.

Hi. I was talking about society as a whole. The point that I was trying to make is that I don't have a political agenda for using Bitcoin. I don't really see trying to get the price up as anyway similar to a pump and dump.

I'm not sure why you think this is a troll thread. Because I hold opinions that are different to the majority of people here? Tough shit man. If you want Bitcoin to be a currency to be widely adopted, you're going to have to accept that it's not a social club for people who all think the same. I'm happy to respect your opinions if you want to chime in. To be honest I think you are the one trolling, because you are doing nothing to contribute to the discussion. Feel free to contribute intelligently and prove me wrong.

That goes for the other guy who posted just to accuse myself and others of being trolls too.

Publicity and the lure of the illicit.

Thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate everyone who made an intelligent point joining the debate, whether we agree or not. I'm pleased to see that many people do agree with me. Here are some words for those who dont:


Spend them on what? There's nothing other than drugs to spend them on.  If you want to buy literally anything else (and drugs too), you'll find EUR and USD absolutely perfect for your needs.



Hahaha. I am good with dollars, thanks. You can buy things with dollars, plus invest them in legitimate things. You can't buy anything with Bitcoin, and 90% of Bitcoin investments are a scam.


I'm suggesting that only those who wish to break a law, rule or regulation have a good reason to use bitcoin.

Also, with regards to your points.

1. What utter nonsense. The dollar has been pretty steady against the gbp for 2 years now. Bitcoin has been up and down like  a yo-yo. It's the least stable currency  in the world.

2. It's only low until all the coins are mined.

3. There are no monopolies with banks and credit cards. I agree that Paypal has a ridiculous monopoly but there's no need for another currency to stop them, just a better system.

4. See point 1.


Why the fuck would someone go to the hassle of converting USD into Bitcoin when they could go on amazon and buy any of that instantly with their credit card?


This is the only decent counterargument I've seen. However the fact remains that you can't eat gold, silver or Bitcoins. If you want food or to pay your mortgage/rent, you still need to turn it into government backed currency. I also think the price fluctuates way too much to make it useful for this purpose, but I guess as a wildcard hedge in a basket of commodities it kinda makes sense. Kinda. But I honestly don't think many people are interested in doing that. Most people see inflation as a fact of life, not something to wage a life long battle against. That might be unwise but it is the prevailing attitude.


Simpler? Than going to a bank and doing an IBAN transfer? Man, cheaper maybe but not simpler. Getting money in and out of Bitcoin is an extreme hassle for most people. I don't think, for most people, it's a substantially better way to transfer money internationally. It's pretty slow, there is a hassle getting money in and out the system, and transfers won't be free forever.

Plus, for people to use Bitcoin to transfer money, they need to be aware of it, and they need to make a special effort to use it. Why would anyone spend money in order to market the system like that? They would need a reason, and that means exchange fees.

As to your 2nd point, if Bitcoin is made illegal somewhere then the value will soar. And of course people will be able to use it legally in another country.

Like many of you, I hold a substantial number of Bitcoins. I am interested in seeing the value of those coins go up vs. the USD so that I can sell my coins for USD in future. For me, there's no other reason to have them.

I actually think that the more able members of our society have a duty to help the weaker members, so I don't have any weird libertarian fantasies. I'm just in it for the money. The actual, folding, bank account, Visa card money.

So how can we push the price of Bitcoin up so that we can sell our coins for more? As everyone knows, in order to increase prices we need to spike demand. So why would anyone want a Bitcoin?

When Silk Road became popular last year, everyone saw how it pushed up the price of Bitcoin. I haven't actually seen many people on this forum acknowledge the fact that Silk Road is driving the Bitcoin economy. There's simply not much else to buy with Bitcoins, and unless you are a currency speculator or a Bitcoin devotee there is no other reason to turn your government backed cash into Bitcoins.

I sold a lot of coins last summer, and I made over $100,000 clear profit from an initial $1000 investment, and that was from only about half of the coins I bought for that $1000. I still have the rest. I am sure a lot of you cashed out too, for even bigger profits.

I am sure that the increase in price that I profited so much from is down, mostly, to demand spurred on by Silk Road.

There is only one reason for a normal person to want a Bitcoin - to break rules, laws, and regulations. This is the future of Bitcoin, this is what will drive the price up, and I think this is what we should all be focusing on.

I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts and ideas about this. I think that gambling in the USA is an untapped market but there may be other laws that we can help people break with Bitcoin too.

I definitely understand where you are coming from. He can be quite rabid. He seems to be on a well intentioned, but ill judged crusade against Bitcoin scamming. I can see why he is so virulent though. Bitcoin scams are a really destructive influence on the whole system. I've already made my initial and only cash investment into Bitcoins back many times. I still hold a lot of coins, but even if the system disintegrates totally I am coming out a winner. However, I can see that if someone had a lot more to lose they might be quite acrimonious when dealing with scams of such a huge magnitude that they could destabilize the system.

To put it more simply: Bitcoin is a tiny, tiny economy in real terms. It's easy for people to move the markets with transactions that would be miniscule in the real world. If someone pulls off a huge scam then it could easily negatively effect the price of everyone's coins. So because a lot of dumb fucks don't know the meaning of due diligence, we all end up losing money. When you take that into consideration, I think Micon can be forgiven for foaming at the mouth a bit.

I agree with you though, the guy should have toned it down a bit.

With regards to Vescudero, I made my point in the thread about how I felt. I don't agree with Micon that he is necessarily going for a bigger con at a more auspicious time, but he has definitely behaved suspiciously. He's run a loss making enterprise, seemingly for the purposes of gaining the trust and goodwill of the community very quickly. I am not saying he necessarily has nefarious motives, but he behaved suspiciously and future enterprises of his should definitely be treated with suspicion and not renewed trust. No one should be allowed to buy trust like that. Pretty tricky to get that into the heads of those who have the lovely sweet taste of free coins in their mouth though.

I'll get out of this thread now, but a final point: Bitcoin is anonymous and irreversible. We all know this. At the moment, because of how people are using it, it is its greatest weakness. It should be its greatest strength.

I don't even know who that is.

FIrst off, I'm not Bryan Micon. If you want to get an admin to confirm this via IP then go ahead. I'm not connecting through a proxy, either open or private, just a normal ISP on a different continent from where Micon says he lives. Also I checked and my account is older than his, so I think the fact I'm not him should be obvious to most. I only know of him from his posts on this forum and I haven't even spoken to the guy.

Secondly, to compare your situation to someone in a car accident is incredibly disrespectful to anyone who has died in a car accident. Do you honestly think that investing in high yield investment schemes, with pseudo-anonymous individuals, using a completely unregulated currency, in what amounts to a shadow economy is comparable in safety to driving a car? Are you genuinely comparing the two?

Let me guess, you just got unlucky and the car you were driving got into an accident. Well, several accidents. Well, actually, every time you ever drove a car you got in an accident. But cars aren't at fault, you were just unlucky, right?

I do enjoy mocking you, not because you are in an unfortunate situation but because you completely fail to understand why you are in that situation. If you had learned a hard lesson I would feel sorry for you and I certainly wouldn't be rubbing it in, but your complete lack of contriteness shows you haven't learned a thing. I'm not mocking you because you were dumb enough to be scammed. I am mocking you because you are so dumb that you don't seem willing or able to analyze that situation, realize where you went wrong, and learn from the experience. I don't just think you are stupid, I am blown away by your staggering inability to think. The great thing is that you are also arrogant, which allows me to give myself permission to find it hilarious without feeling like a vicious and mean bastard. The only thing that would make it unfunny is if you were responsible for anyone's welfare but your own. That would just be deeply sad.

This is precisely why you are such an idiot.

Again, I think it's ridiculous that you have the balls to call me a retard when you have willingly handed your money over to so many poorly run investment schemes and outright ponzi scammers. I had the same knowledge as you. I made a different choice. I suspect this is due to wisdom and intelligence. You have been absolutely raped by obvious scams that I saw a mile away. I haven't lost a single satoshi, yet you call me a retard?  Like I say, I think lashing out is your way trying to hold on to a little scrap of dignity. Aww, poor you. Haha, you are doing about as good a job of hanging onto your dignity as you did at hanging on to your coins.

It's funny how you insult people by calling them "inbred", implying some kind of intellectual deficiency.

Don't you see how ridiculous that is when those you insult still have all their coins, yet you were dumb enough to invest in every single ponzi available?

If you had listened to Bryan Micon instead of insulting him, you would still have your coins. Now, because you were so ignorant and unwise, you have lost god knows how many.

Micon is a little bit crazy. Most pro poker players are. However, he had the wisdom, the foresight and the kindness to warn everyone about these ponzi schemes. The fact that you chose to ignore him is testament to your own lack of wisdom. A fool and his money are easily parted.

I just can't believe that, considering the embarrassing position you have put yourself in, you have the audacity to insult him or anyone else. Maybe it's some pathetic way to regain some dignity in this situation? I can't believe that you have lost so much money and instead of thinking "Fuck maybe I should have listened to that guy who was telling everyone it was a big scam" you are like "I am going to insult a guy who tried to warn me." It's beyond juvenile and beyond stupid.

It actually makes so little sense that you have me wondering if your parents actually are related in some way and your comments are some kind of projection to deal with the shame of losing money in obviously unsound "investments" and the worry that it might somehow be connected to the fact that your folks were 2nd cousins or something. I don't know, I am just speculating about why you are acting in such a bizarre and obnoxious way.

Hahaha you invested in THIS one too? Man alive, you are a retard.

Haha what do you mean it's hardly surprising? It's hardly surprising that after a year of looking after my newborn baby I went back to my well paid job as planned? Yes, I agree. I wasn't surprised either. I wasn't even writing for pocket money, man. I was offering cut price services on a very small scale to try and help Bitcoin businesses. I was then spending the coins directly on other people's products to help spin the wheels of the Bitcoin economy.

You talk as if my foul mouth ruined my amazing plan to build a business writing for Bitcoiners, when in fact all I was trying to do was keep my brain active while my child was napping and do my little bit to grow the Bitcoin economy.

You've just made yourself look like an idiot who is trying to smugly comment on a post he clearly didn't read and a situation he clearly didn't understand.

But even though it was just a little hobby, of course I didn't talk to customers or potential customers like this. I reserve this tone for mouth breathing, knuckle dragging, thick skulled evolutionary throwbacks like yourself.



If you are so happy go lucky about it, why are you in this thread speculating about the kid, talking to me, and getting all haughty and pathetically trying to insult me when I point out the stupidity of your actions? If this was really such a casual gamble for you then we wouldn't be conversing right now.

Despite the clearly vast intelligence differential, we do have one thing in common: people on here never cease to amaze me either.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand the role of the SEC. Part of their remit is to deal with unregistered securities. If they had an interest in GLBSE, it would be related to that. The fact that the SEC doesn't want unregistered securities to be sold is in no way an a US government endorsement, acknowledgement or recognition of Bitcoin as a currency, a commodity or a financial instrument. I can't believe I'm having to explain that to you.

Do you think that if the SEC shut down an unlicensed securities exchange that was selling securities using pokemon cards as a currency, that would mean the US government officially acknowledges pokemon cards as a currency? C'mon man, you're not that dumb, surely no one is!

Furthermore, I don't actually believe that the SEC has been involved in GLBSE. GLBSE is based in the United Kingdom, and they are outside of the SEC's jurisdiction. They would be governed under the rules of the UK's Financial Services Authority, but in all honesty I don't think they are involved either. I think that it's most likely a taxation issue of some kind, although no one knows at this stage.


I'd imagine so. Until you actually explain what Bitcoin is, and how it is supposed to be worth $25k.

I think you might get an answer along the lines of:

"I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound like it could be worth any money, and if anyone does pay that type of money for "Bitcoins" then they are an idiot. Thank you and goodbye."

Honestly, how would you explain what Bitcoin is and how their son has stolen coins worth $25k to someone who had never heard of it before? You think they're just going to take your word for it without fully understanding what it is?

"Yes they are a decentralized peer to peer irreversible, anonymous crypto-currency invented by a mysterious japanese guy who no one has heard of before, or since. They are worth nothing to anyone other than a very small number of computer geeks who seem willing to pay good money for them. They have no practical use that is legal. No business accepts them except one guy sold some beef jerky once and a restaurant in NYC used to take them but in practice it usually wasn't possible to pay with them."

Honestly, any sane person would tell you to fuck off. And I like Bitcoin, I think it is a neat idea, a fun gamble, and I currently hold roughly 5000 of them, but do you have any idea how stupid it sounds to everyone else in the entire world? And you want to phone up some guys parents and tell them that their son stole $25k worth of meaningless (to them), thin air Autism kroners?

If you think any regular person is going to take that phone call seriously, think again.

If something is intangible, non-physical, has no practical use, is unrecognized as a real thing by a court of law, can only be sold to a very small pool of people, and isn't money, then most people would have no problem writing it off as nothing of value. For a lot of people it would be written off as nothing at all, just incomprehensible nonsense.


Again, you fundamentally misunderstand the role of the SEC. If you think they are going to have an interest in an Australian teenager who tricked foolish people out of their Bitcoins, you are sadly mistaken.


I don't condone scamming, but c'mon, this is Bitcoin. It's the wild west of currency. People need to learn that they can't run to the government to help them when they lose their coins. But people CAN run to the government if someone tries to be violent, harass someone's family, or otherwise apply that same lawlessness to another situation. If you lose your coins, they are gone. That is Bitcoin. That is the whole point of Bitcoin. If you want government protection, there are lots of government backed currencies. Why not use one of them?

Haha anger? Why would I be angry? I have all my Bitcoin.

Surely the angry ones are those who are planning to turn up at this young man's door?

I don't offer those services anymore (I am back at my full time job), but if you think that my post is badly written then we will have to respectfully agree to disagree. To be honest I think you are desperately clutching at some non existent straws, in a bizarre attempt to criticize or possibly insult me.

I am sorry you lost coins. I think you should take this as an expensive lesson about your own shortcomings and lack of wisdom.