I would like to get to about 100 BTC.. .  b/c currently, I only have about 50BTC...   Of course, more would be even better, but it is NOT easy to keep setting this money aside.. .. at least for mere mortals, which currently, I am claiming to be a mere mortal.

I wished that we could fix these decimal places.. it is too complicated to count 8-ish decimal places.

For some reason, my brain starts to swim after about 4 decimal places.

Currently, there is NO real replacement for bitcoin, and Bitcoin is NOT going to zero any time in the next couple years.. absent some major bug...   The mere fact that there may be some issues with China and some other countries interfering with bitcoin will not be enough to push bitcoin down that much.. and.. even in these bearish case scenarios.. maybe we will get some downward trajectory for a more extended period.. but we gotta have some real additional negative news to really drive BTC down into sustainable double digits territory... .... ..

Anyhow, those very negative bearish scenarios seem way too speculative given the current strength of the network building and various strength of bitcoin fundamentals and also the fact that some governments, including the US government have NOT really yet gone on any kind of meaningful attack on bitcoin.. yet....

Figuring out who is jailed or NOT is far from over... they may have trouble getting Karpeles to appear in the USA.. and then if he does will he be detained.. Maybe he would be, and for that reason, if he has counsel, they probably would be advising him NOT to show up in the USA.... .. And  Shrem is really being screwed with and the SRoads guy is in jail, no?   They are much more likely to be tough on the bitcoiners, it seems as compared to these cadre of connected wallstreet peeps...... some of the wallstreet peeps go to jail, but there are way too many examples of them NOT going to jail for way larger stealing of various public investor moneys.

I thought that rallies were coming less than 9 months apart.. and we were expecting the next one to take place sooner.. though maybe it will take 9 months.. maybe a year... and maybe we will go below $400... I think that it would take stagnation for quite a while here (maybe a month) in the mid $400s to maybe cause enough pressure to get us below $400... NOT saying it is impossible.. but I am somewhat with Chestnut and KFR and Seleme.. and maybe a few other "brainwashed" bulls.. he he he.. in thinking that it is quite unlikely.. even though possible..... but seems like we could get some upward departure at any moment... .. I even have a hard time seeing us get below $430.. b/c it just does NOT seem to wanna go back down there in the last couple of days - including that this should have taken place over the weekend, if it were going to take place.

Yes, I agree that there is a theft component that exists as well.    The behavior that I am talking about, though, is that they are holding themselves out as if they have 100% coins, when they really only have less than 25% coins.  We could call that fraud and deception, but I think that we could also call it manipulation of the BTC market b/c they are creating the appearance of 650,000 BTC that is NOT in their possession (or they have increased the BTC supply by 650,000 until they are caught with their pants down).  I am thinking that is an additional unmentioned form of manipulation.. even though it may have other names as well b/c the conduct overlaps into other areas besides just the projecting that you have 650,000BTC that you do NOT have.

Yeah, but what about the example in which an exchange takes your bitcoin and then gambles with them, and then gets into such a hole b/c BTC prices go in one direction while they are betting in another direction, then even though they intended to pay you back, they do NOT have sufficient funds.  That is NOT exactly stealing of the coins..   They were borrowing without permission and then they fucked up..   If we give the benefit of the doubt to GOX, that may have been what they were doing.  I call it manipulation b/c they are presenting themselves to the public as having all of the coins when they only have less than 25% of the coins.  Manipulation?

If Ayn Rand had a dick, it would only be 2 inches in total.. .so your hypothetical is giving too much credit.      

I believe that your initial point ( I believe it was yours) that I was responding to had something to do with the question about whether we were all being manipulated.. and that there were more coins than we thought (12.5 million or whatever our current quantity is).  I suggested that exchanges may be doing this, too.. working outside the original intent of bitcoin and the blockchain. 

I doubt that a long term and meaningful solution needs to be regulation or regulated exchanges.. b/c that would likely lead bitcoin back down the slippery slope of fiat money and the whole printing problem.

I am no fricking expert, but I am of the understanding that there are various kinds of decentralized exchange solutions in development, including through mastercoin, and colored coins and Nxt that would potentially address these kinds of exchange issues, so we do NOT have to work off of the blockchain and we do not have to give up our coins to third parties and lack of transparency.  Whether these kinds of solutions will be sufficient or solve more problems than they create may be another story.. but it will likely take some time for adoption of these kinds of decentralized solutions.  Others here probably can speak much more eloquent to the point than me, that's for sure.

Various solutions are evolving regarding this wild-wild west, and maybe in time, there will be decentralized solutions that solve some of the problems of people running off with coins, for example... Hopefully!!!  I know during innovation stages, there are going to be risks.. but I would hate to lose all my coins b/c some smart 16 year old figured out a way to hack into my wallet or to divert my transaction or something like that.

These are all very good points, yet they are even above and beyond the point that I was making.   I was saying that most of the exchanges or even some services like silkroad or some other service allows you to create an account.  Thereafter, those transactions within the service are taking place off of the blockchain, and allows for manipulation of how many BTC are being used to employ the services of the business.. and whether they even have as many BTC as customers have given to them.  And, that causes a manipulation of potentially creating more than 21 million BTC b/c these kinds of entities could be engaging in a form of fractional reserve... .and we may NOT be able to know or detect such fractional reserve practices until we want to get our coins from them (or everyone wants their coins).

If you are referring to me (since my post using the term "manipulation" is immediately preceding your quasi-incomprehensible rant of a post), I will entertain you with a brief response.

First:  why is it that you seem to have some kind of cork up your ass and you seem to want to argue... Maybe you have a little time on your hands, since the market is NOT moving too much?

Second:  You seem to either to have NOT read my post, or you are getting it all out of context.  Surely, there are a lot of ways to discuss manipulation, and I have used the word in a variety of ways in the past.  In my above post, I used the term manipulation to refer to what seems to have been a real dynamic concerning what was going on with GOX.  In reality, even today, after a couple of months of their being shut down, the evidence in the public is fairly unclear about what was going on at GOX; however, there seems to be considerable consensus around the point that GOX was engaged in some form of manipulation of the quantity of BTC that they had and the quantity of BTC that they were allowing to be traded.  In that regard, if those BTC do NOT exist then GOX should NOT have been allowing them to be traded.  Surely some ambiguity whether they broke any laws or NOT, but there is a certain amount of risk that takes place when owners of BTC entrust their BTC to a third party, outside of the blockchain.  I believe that there are a variety of solutions that are being considered and worked on in order to allow for decentralized exchanges... in order that owners of BTC would NOT have to entrust their BTC to third parties (at least NOT as much as what seems to be taking place under centralized exchange systems).

Third:  your reference to other kinds of manipulation that may be taking place by whales on exchanges were NOT a part of my earlier post, so it seems to be a rant without any immediate foundation.  Although I have brought up that subject in previous posts, i have NOT mentioned it in recent posts.  If you want to go down that avenue, then probably we need a context, rather than you merely creating some kind of lack of context argument that is difficult to pinpoint b/c it seems to be a fiction of your own creation, even though definitely it is a worthy topic.

Fourth:  Your several times retort about wanting to me to go away is a little bit hilarious  - like you are all emotional about some infliction that I supposedly caused.. and the solution is that I should supposedly go away.  This thread should be big enough for all of us, no?  I just cannot agree that I am going to only post items that are within your tolerance and acceptance.. or that my BTC investment perspective is sufficiently aligned with your values, if you have any.. they have been difficult to pinpoint recently.

Fifth:  If there is some personal matter that you want to discuss, then I am open to PM.... Don't want to bore folks here with matters that may end up having some personal concerns about style or courtesy or whatever...

I have a couple more points, but I will save them for later, if needed... Hopefully, my points above are sufficient to respond to your concerns and to help to clarify matters to some extent.

Well, we already know that once BTC is off of the blockchain and the transactions are taking place off of the blockchain, then much manipulation is possible, including increasing the number of BTC that are supposedly in existence within that sphere.  Gox seemed to have been example of precisely that b/c Gox  seemed to have been knowingly and willingly trading with BTC that they knew they did NOT have.  Will be interesting if anyone is convicted for any crimes (such as fraud) concerning that behavior.

There are other people like you...     OM  F'ng G!!!

Yeah.... I really do NOT mind constructive criticisms or pointing out potential flawed logic, b/c maybe we could learn from that.  However, bare mudslinging... seems to have NO real purpose - except to maybe just to make the poster feel good for a short time. 

Also, even throwing out a term, such as exposed value, may need to be explained in a context by use of an example.  exposed value would likely have something to do with risk taking - but investors vary a lot in this regard NOT only in their risk aversion but their knowledge or even desire to recognize risk.  I'm sure mine differs from yours for example.. but if we talked over our decision-making and preferences, we would likely be more informed thereafter about how to proceed with our future risk allocation(s).

Explain the bare essence then. 

By EV, I expect you mean expected value?

I see various forms of dollar cost averaging going on with various expectations that Bitcoin will acquire some additional value based on taking market share from remittances, store of value, currencies and hedging against irresponsible monetary policies.  There are other motivations and theories as well, including various forms of speculation on price direction based on charts and lines. 

Any special perspective or insight you can drop upon us cave dwellers?

The starting unit can be any unit.. you can start at $100.... and each time you win you start again at $100.. so then you are accumulating $100 for each series.. yes, you may have a 7 time losing streak that results in bets of $6,400.. but that would be rare.. you are mostly going to stay in the $100 to $1600 territory... and pocket $100 each time... and yes, if you go there starting at $100, then you will likely need to bring a pretty big bankroll in the unlikely event of a losing streak of 10 that brings you to the $51,200 bet... that way it may be better to start with a $1 or a $2 or maybe at most a $10 bet...just in case you have a prolonged negative streak.

So, maybe we are engaging in a form of speculative futility with few real world application(s)...  ... Unless we think that we are projecting such 50/50 odds in the BTC trading arena.  Sometimes we are NOT sure about what to do, and we may calculate the odds to be 50/50.. we may error.. but it may be the best that we can do, under the circumstances.

I would think that if a person is in control of it.. then s/he would always be able to ensure that s/he walks away at a profit... and then it becomes a sure thing that s/he would make at least that $1 of initial bet amount.

I was NOT trying to accuse you of anything. 

Nonetheless, I stand by my assertion that the mindset and the reasoning and motivations of investors are going to differ depending upon when they got in and their time-line expectations.  So in that regard, there is NO loss or gain if the investment is still in its early stages - before the running of the timeline.  Even if someone invested one or two years ago, you could give an "on paper" assessment of the current status of his/her investment, but if, for example, s/he invested for a 10-year period (absent some catastrophic need to draw upon funds or change in the asset), then neither the losses or gains have been realized and they are only "in-theory." 

Surely, there still can be some value to your description of the current status of BTC portfolios... but need to be considered with a grain of context variability.