That's not entirely true. Fiat has an unfair advantage which is legal tender laws. If you run into someone's kid and get sued the court will order damages paid in fiat. If you have none you need some. Same with tax liabilities.

This is why the U.S. Constitution mandates the States make nothing but gold or silver coins legal tender. If paper can become legal tender, as it is now, then it can have market value even if it wouldn't normally. This gives those in control over the fiat, banks and politicians, exceptional power.

This is why historically governments that desire to be corrupt prefer its citizens not use gold/silver. Bitcoin has the potential to rein in and regulate government as gold can, although fiat can still have some value as long as it remains legal tender.

You might also try the Lending section.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0

Dude, you should seriously think about getting some professional psychiatric help. I'm being very serious.

Hey man, it's your blood pressure and stroke.

I'm just trying to be logical and helpful. It doesn't look to me like you have the temperament to be involved with Bitcoin at this stage. This is not an established technology nor industry nor business model, which is further complicated by onerous government action. However, you don't seem to care about that.

I will tell you a few facts, though. First, as I said before I've been here since before CampBX launched. I've personally never had a problem with CampBX and others have said the same. I've never seen anyone react to an issue the way you're doing, not only with CampBX but with anyone, and I can tell you people have lost a lot more than $1,500. I'm talking about actually lost, not something which they could conveniently demand a refund for like you can.

Like I said good luck with that stroke.

DealMaker - you're saying he is lying, but you don't know he is lying. Unless you yourself watched him deposit the MO with his bank, then you can't know for certain he did.

There are other possibilities. It could be that the Moneygram system has incorrect information. Or it could be that someone else deposited the MO. I can tell you for a fact there have been employees working for the U.S. Postal service that have stolen items from the mail. I'm not saying that's what happened here. I'm just trying to show you how much of a one track mind you have regarding this issue. You're not even considering other possibilities. It could even be a rogue employee at CampBX messing things up so far undetected.

As an outsider I certainly don't what the actual situation is, but I do know you don't have enough factual proof to say the things you're saying. You could be absolutely right too, of course. As I said I don't know. My advice is contact Moneygram and cancel the MO as advised in the email, that way you get your money refunded and can go from there.

Yes, those links show back doors being found which is the benefit of open source code. There may be a delay before malicious code or bugs are found but they are generally found eventually depending on the nature of the application. With something as financially critical as Bitcoin, which has special upgrade considerations, problems would probably be noticed pretty quick. The recent Android bug is a good example. Were it not for Bitcoin the random number issue might have gone unnoticed far longer, maybe indefinitely because its importance otherwise would be so low.

Yes, I believe your concern is valid. Your account is new so you're probably not aware this has come up in this community. I've posted often on what I think the resolution is. In fact I outlined my thoughts just yesterday. To bring you up to speed you might read my post here Bitcoin vs LiteCoin vs ... other cryptocurrencies.

excerpt:

Nope. It's highly unlikely anything would be missed.

Generally speaking open source code will be your most secure, and often best performing code. It's the reason for example the Apache server became the most widely adopted deployment server over Microsoft's IIS, and Firefox beats out MS IE for security and increasingly usage, why Google chose an open source approach to its Chrome browser and Android mobile OS. It's why Linux is seeing a surge in popularity and recommendation as compared to the 90s.

The only problem with open source is the motivation of developers to work on it can be spotty, because it's not profit driven by default. It's usually a labor of love, but of course that can produce the best results.

With open source code, especially at the core of something as important, and financially relevant as Bitcoin, though, you can bet everything will get scrutinized, and more so the bigger it gets. It's how the recent Android bug for random numbers was found and patched before real disaster struck.

Contrast that with something like Microsoft software, which despite many billions in backing loses out to free software as noted above. Software which is closed source, proprietary, and increasingly developed in a compartmentalized way, a way which makes it quite easy to for example include a back door for the NSA which Microsoft has been shown to work with.

You mean make sure nobody uses Bitcoin in a transparent "legal" way in the United States again.

They can't stop people using it. The cat is out of the bag on that one. They also can't stop other countries making it perfectly legal, which Germany is headed in the direction to do and Finland seems to certainly favor, which makes them look like fools and tyrannical ones at that.

You're right that they have to be careful how they play it. If they're smart they will realize Bitcoin already checkmated the system and whether it's the current version or something later on which succeeds wildly the concept and methodology are here to stay; so they instead should frame themselves in a flattering light. As the saying goes if you can't beat them join them.

As for relation to the dollar et al. that's what markets are about. Many people will still have reason to value the dollar and other fiat, just as they have reason to value precious metals. The difference is fiat no longer gets a free pass. Politicians have to actually be responsible for fiat to stay competitive.

No, a bank keeps your money too. It's only theft when they won't give your money back.

As I said Mt.Gox can give anyone their money in the form of bitcoins instantly. Nobody has refuted that. They can probably give anyone their fiat money within the same day who claims it locally (Japan); nobody has refuted that either. They have been shown to give people their money back, though after some delay, via the original wire request.

That is far from theft.

That's because there is no issue withdrawing BTC.

OP, I suggest you contact support MtGox by live chat. There is probably a miscommunication somewhere.

What part of they don't control the entire transfer process don't people understand? Mt.Gox must work with other banks to transfer fiat. The old legacy banking system is lethargic, inefficient, cumbersome and over regulated. That's a reason Bitcoin is so valuable.

If you want to transfer bitcoins to/from Mt.Gox, something they can completely handle without middlemen, what is the timeframe? Nearly instant.

I suspect if you are willing to visit Japan and request fiat in person they can accommodate you in speedy fashion too. Apparently Japanese withdrawals are processed in a single day.

Yes, there is a reason to support Litecoin.

I've posted my thoughts on this often, but I'll reiterate them. In the earliest days there was only Bitcoin and a growing number of supporters. Since Bitcoin is not centrally controlled the opposite is true: no one owns anything about it. The code behind its implementation is open source. Anyone can view, modify and use (or re-use) the code and protocol. After Bitcoin began to gain notable value, around $1, it didn't take long for imitators to pop up. I believe the first was IXCoin.

Many of us in the community at the time predicted such as inevitable, but were not worried about it. The reasoning was that although anyone could easily copy the implementation of Bitcoin, they could not easily copy adoption and support. This is because there is nothing to stop a competitor challenging the new competitor, ad infinitum. Rather than always chasing the newest copy it only made sense to stay with the one with earliest market lead, which would have greatest network effect, number of holders, businesses accepting etc. To beat an established coin a competitor would need to bring true value in some way, something the established coin didn't have.

Our prediction proved correct. IXCoin gained little value and never any real traction. More alt-coin versions popped up, some deviating much more widely from Bitcoin than IXCoin which changed little. One was Litecoin. This coin seemed to be the first where the creators truly tried to improve how Bitcoin worked. You can read up on the differences, but among the main ones are a lower time between blocks and different hashing algorithm (Scrypt) to change who could most efficiently mine the coins.

Litecoin gained little traction, just the same as the other alt-coins. People just didn't see any coin as offering enough of a compelling reason to leave Bitcoin. I was among the group that pooh poohed all alt-coins and paid them little attention.

Then came the community disruption of the announcement of a new Bitcoin Foundation. Needless to say the apparent move toward centralization of power in a community believing supremely in decentralization caused a huge uproar. I was among those strongly raising objections with concerns over unchecked power. This issue challenged the entire project with talk of hard forks and more.

It was during this period that it dawned on me alt-coins could serve a real purpose and have a value Bitcoin never could: by providing alternative. If there was only to be Bitcoin forever, then any single group with growing influence and power could steer it for better or worse for all involved. I saw alt-coins as solving that problem. As a natural part of the free market Bitcoin relied on they could regulate unwanted behavior as free markets do, by providing options and competition. I outlined all this in a post here:

Solution to The Bitcoin Foundation (the announcement)

I vowed to promote Litecoin, which had the most traction at the time, and it has gone from about $0.04 to about $2.30 currently, down from an all time high of around $5. I continue to believe alt-coins like Litecoin can provide value and strengthen the cryptocurrency community overall. I don't believe it's possible for every new coins to have similar success as that means infinite inflation. I do however think there will be a select few coins valued above all others, until such time as a new coin offers something truly unique and valuable in some other way.

I didn't mean FinCEN made the initial invitation. That may have happened, but I don't know. I meant FinCEN was more of the lead agency orchestrating the meeting. Whether it was the Bitcoin community or regulatory community that reached out first I don't know. I don't think that really matters as both would have motivation for such a meeting to happen.

I read a couple news articles on this. I believe everyone was invited by FinCEN. One news article said the Foundation was 'host' which fits with MSantori's account. The Foundation was essentially presenting information and answering questions about Bitcoin to a regulatory community very much curious about and new to it.

I think this course is the only chance we have at softer interaction from the inevitable collision of the two communities, and therefore entirely appropriate. Your post puts a huge grin on my face, though. 

+1


I'm particularly glad you emphasized this.

Yes, I considered editing that line out knowing someone would call me on it reasoning exactly as you did.

I left it in because Mt.Gox does still allow the exchange of BTC for fiat. That's not the part of the process that broke. Moving that fiat via certain channels is where the problem arose.

Yes, that's my point. You cancel your withdrawal request and get USD/EUR back into your account. You then buy BTC and move BTC somewhere else to sell. Before it made little sense to buy an asset with falling price, but now the price is rising and it's more favorable to own BTC.

Mt.Gox doesn't owe anyone the ability to sell BTC for fiat cash. If someone bought BTC then that's their decision to invest in that asset.

DeathAndTaxes already tried to explain logically why the situation can be delayed from CampBX's perspective, but you don't seem to understand what he's saying.

Instead you seem to be interested only in your side of the story and your expectations. Anything that runs counter to that is met with hostility. That kind of thing won't work well with this fledgling Bitcoin community/economy that's trying to survive and grow.