http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/11/is-it-time-to-boycott-all-us-bitcoin.html

As of today, the efforts of Bitcoin Foundation and others who have told us that Bitcoin should be altered to make it more acceptable to the regulatory apparatus has finely bore fruit. A group of investors announced Coin Validation, a service designed to remove all possibility of financial privacy for Bitcoin users.

This service will work by asking Bitcoin businesses to voluntarily (at first) violate their customer's privacy by providing them with a list of every bitcoin address known to be associated with that customer. The list will be used to create a database of "clean" addresses, where clean means tied to AML/KYC information, with the ostensible goal of allowing these businesses avoid "tainted" Bitcoins.

The first thing to note about this plan is that it will in no way remain voluntary. Regulators in the US and possibly other countries are waiting for such a database to exist so that they can require all companies in their jurisdiction to only accept payments from customers whose identities can be fully tracked. So far they have not been able to require this because the technology does not exist, but Matt Mellon, Alex Waters, and Yifu Guo are apparently willing to build it for them. Now you who to thank for selling out your financial privacy.

Countermeasures

Use and create non-US alternatives:

It's virtually certain that every US-based Bitcoin company, as well as any company backed by venture capital firms, as well as any currency exchange which deals with USD is going to sign on to this plan. Bitcoin users who which to retain their privacy should avoid dealing with all of these companies, as well as create alternatives that are based outside the United States and not susceptible to political pressure.

Mobilize the international Bitcoin community:

Non-US Bitcoin users should demand that Bitcoin companies in their countries respect their privacy and refuse to participate in this or any other surveillance scheme.

Use privacy-enhancing technology:

Protocols like CoinJoin, if properly implemented and used,  can render the information in this database useless. Anyone who cares about financial privacy should ask the developers of their wallet software to implement this ASAP.

Practice good Bitcoin hygiene by never using the same address twice.

Abandon traditional businesses:

There's no point in lobbying traditional businesses based in the US and other repressive regimes to resist this kind of pressure. They are too vulnerable to pressure and are going to do whatever the regulators tell them to do.

They are, however, in no way essential to the future of Bitcoin.

The economy of the future is System D. Traditional businesses with their physical offices, corporate charters, bank accounts and licenses are holdovers of a dying paradigm. We should focus instead on creating tools to empower individuals to create censorship-resistant business models.

We will not build a bridge to the future by conforming to the past. While it's unfortunate that traditional Bitcoin businesses are trapped in a position where they must cripple the features of the currency in order to be allowed to operate, we as a community must continue to move forward even if it means leaving them behind.

Absolutely:

http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/11/is-it-time-to-boycott-all-us-bitcoin.html

In 2010 an ounce of gold could buy 20000 bitcoins.

Now it can buy less than 4.

Edit: Fixed typo

Here's a pretty graph:

Price is moving so quickly that those numbers quickly become obsolete.

You're safest if you assume all trading advice you see on an internet forum is the opposite of true.

Someone who is taking a short position, for example, might try to scare other people into selling. Likewise for long positions.

Also the spread is roughly the same as it always has been in percentage terms.

What about a Goldstein?

http://www.cryptocurrencycon.com/speakers/michael-goldstein/

Gox and Stamp moving in opposite directions.

That is certainly true. If the community cared about honesty you wouldn't be allowed to post here.

Coinfloor? (when it opens)

Kracken?

Even though this should should be more properly thought of as Microsoft's problem, not Bitcoin's problem, there are people gearing up to use it as an excuse to introduce blacklisting.

Those graphs are obsolete since they don't include all relevant exchanges and also don't group multiple currency pairs on a single exchange together. This is a more accurate view:

http://data.bitcoinity.org/#caaaabegaa

There's nothing like rising exchange rates to get the trolls out in full force, rehashing the same discredited arguments over and over again.

They said that about the USSR too, right up until the day before it no longer existed.

Why do you take it as a given that this can't happen?

Use Armory.

Just make sure the Senators understand that possibilities for untraceable bribes and kickbacks exist with Bitcoin, and we'll never have any more problems from Washington again.

Is TradeFortress one of the trustees holding forum donation money?

25% daily swings in the price of Bitcoin are normal.

It's happened at every price level, from sub-$1 to almost $400.