I get your point after a Google image search for it, I didn't know how famous that picture is. That picture's used by hundreds of websites to depict a computer nerd. There's an artist who reproduced it as a painting entitled "Nerd in the Basement" which he's trying to sell on Amazon for $2,775.00. The artist says it's based on an an Internet meme image.


http://www.amazon.com/Nerd-in-the-Basement/dp/B00L849CSS

Rose Briccetti
Nerd in the Basement, 2007
 
Oil
Unique Work
Size : 44 x 46 x 2 in.
Price:   $2,775.00
Sale:   $2,220.00 & FREE Shipping

That's a picture of BitPop. Shroomsy started out on bitcointalk by selling mushroom kits for Bitcoins by mail order from Holland. That picture of BitPop doesn't look like someone who's into hallucinogenic mushrooms. Are you saying Shroomsy the bear is BitPop the bull who started off his own BitPop coin?

This is another good article about the changing attitude of the Chinese government to Bitcoin policy. It was buried in the press section and nobody has replied to it yet so its almost sunk to the bottom of the first page. I think there's a new way for Huobi customers to get money into the exchange, and it's probably allowed due to the changing government attitude.

My heart sinks if I've just sold before the price goes up, if I'm still holding then I'm happy. I always regret not buying a load early on when they were really cheap but most of us probably feel that way. I'm involved this time so I'll be happy if it breaks the ATH again, I only regret not getting involved before the last ATH.

The Kraken exchange is linked to Bloomberg terminal so you could trade Bitcoins on the Bloomberg electronic trading platform, which is typically used by stock brokers for large trades. The only downside is that the Kraken is not a very high volume exchange, but it's got a reputation as being more secure than most others. It's been chosen to handle electronic claims for the MtGox Bitcoins in the court case.

It's been discussed in the Wall Observer thread together with the other good news. I can't find any threads about it in the press section, and although I assumed there had been threads about it in this section I can't find any. There is a thread about Huobi discussing the Chinese governments attitude to Bitcoin relaxing, but nothing about this story in particular.

When the Chinese wake up it might go over 300, but that will be early tomorrow as defined by bitcointalk time. Maybe it will happen sooner because the volume has gone down significantly for the last few hours, and when it picks up it could smash a few walls. We had lots of pushes upwards since early today, and one more push should do it.

I don't think charts are any use for a market as small as Bitcoin. There are too many events that come out of the blue and sway the price. Charts might be useful for stock markets and FX because there is higher liquidity in them. Chart patterns like head and shoulders or cup and handle are only applicable to higher volume markets, not Bitcoin.

If you only want a reliable block explorer you could use https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC or also use blockchain.info and cross reference the results of both explorers to assure the information they provide is reliable. I prefer the look and feel of blockchain.info but blocktrail is a perfectly good alternative, even if it's not as aesthetically pleasing.

The current poll is confusing because nobody expected the Chinese exchanges to be $10 higher than all the others for the last month. $300 got broken ages ago on the Chinese exchanges, and the others are still in the $290s. Should the next poll ask us to guess the averaged price across all exchanges, or the highest price on any, or another option?

It has had problems from time to time, but it's still good to go now as far as I know. There have been periods when nobody could log in, and there was a coding mistake that made it insecure for a brief time. Those problems have been fixed and I don't know of any new ones. Nevertheless I wouldn't trust any online wallet with large amounts of Bitcoins.

The Chinese have led this rally but we eventually catch up to their last step up in price at about the same time they have another step up. As 300 is already broken in China it will get broken here, by which time it will be 310 in China. When their banks open on Monday morning the price could go up at dizzying speeds as money hits their exchanges.

Why is the mempool increasing in size so quickly if the attack is now stopped? It's now 909.7 MB which is the largest size I've ever seen, not that I regularly keep a track of it. It's the largest size in the lat seven days according to tradeblock. Something must be causing it, and it's not unconfirmed transactions this time. I thought its size would reduce after the attack stopped.

Strangely the price pumped during the last spam attack, and that one delayed transactions, unlike this one. I expected it to crash the price, but Bitcoin often does the opposite of what the majority expect. Maybe the last spam attack generated enough publicity to get people interested again, and that started them buying. I hope this less effective spam attack does as much for the price.

It wasn't shit jewelry, it was rolex watches, and jewelry of a comparable price range. The Macau/union pay loophole amounted to $16.77 billion between January and April of 2012, and 90% of that was in luxury watches, and jewelry. The Chinese who bought Bitcoins in Macau could have made big profits taking them back to the mainland to sell for a premium, or used them to smuggle money out of China.

The Chinese bitcointalk members could be reluctant to talk about it, partly because bitcointalk is banned in China, and partly because they don't want another loophole closing.

It's sometimes complicated explaining some loopholes. I understood the voucher one straight away, but the Macau one was harder to understand. They had to visit Macau, then make a fake purchase of a expensive jewelry, or watches using a union pay debit card because there was no limit on purchases they could make with it in Macau. The shop keeper then deducted his fee, and handed them a bundle of cash. After that they could buy Bitcoins through one of the Macau Bitcoin ATMs.

Whatever loophole they use now could be even more complicated than the Macau one.

We only get to hear about the loopholes they use after they have been closed down. They had a way of funneling money through vouchers they could swap for credit on exchanges, but I only found out after it had been stopped. Later they were funneling money through Macau because their debit cards let them send as much as they wanted to it. Again I only found out after it had been stopped.

Whatever loophole they are using today will probably remain a mystery until after it gets stopped. As you say, considering the volume on their exchanges there must be gaping loopholes in their system.

@Hellacopter

That avatar's probably only intended for Marco so people can easily spot his posts. He made that clear in the quote below.

You can pick any other avatar you like and add the Bit-x logo to the bottom of it (like I did with mine), or add the logo to the side of it. I modified my avatar using photoshop, but I don't think you need a special avatar to join the signature campaign. You can join without using an avatar.

Hi Marco,

I want to join.

Userame: HI-TEC99
Bitcointalk UID: 325680
Activity: 273
Post count: 273 (including this)
Position: Sr. Member
Bit-X BTC address: 3PnFKx7rjPo4DdifWE87fActVRuyySz3h7

Thanks

I'm certain the exchange's price will be displayed at https://winkdex.com/ when trading starts because the Winklevoss twins started that site to track the price of Bitcoin across exchanges. Their Gemini exchange will also have a page showing it's current price, plus the bids and asking prices. Trading starts tomorrow at 9:30 am in New York time, which is when people get home from work in China, so the Chinese will have a chance to send Bitcoin to the moon before they go to bed.