this entire discussion rests on the assumption that things will continue the way they are for some time......personally i don't think things will hold together much longer. The PetroDollar standard is in its death rattles, the US economy is NOT getting better, it can't, there is too much debt and something has to give. And every time throughout history, when fiat currencies collapse, especially world reserve ones, people will, for a while, revert to any form of money that serves them best. In Argentina in 2001 the people just started making their own money.

Bitcoin is useful, i know this because i use it. Gold is less useful, but has 5000 years of history behind it. Regulation is the least of our worries, the "people" that would be doing the regulating, will soon all be out of a job.

Or in other words, winter is coming.
Or in other other words, all this has happened before, and will happen again

interesting discussion. From what i understand, the mining rigs are already distributed, only the pools, which essentially are just software, are centralised. So if a pool goes down, surely they can just switch servers? What am i not getting?

"He's wrong though. Society would never survive with his concept of unlimited rights. Instead we have (and this is the point you are making) lots of privileges."

Yup. You have the privilege of owing hundreds of thousands of $ for debt the government racked up. You owe several hundred thousand more for the unrealistic promises made by your government to baby boomers. You have the privilege of paying your taxes to start wars all over the globe, face it YOU pay to kill brown people, women and children. You have more debt for the trillions spent on war to "protect your freedoms", despite the fact that you are a hundred times more likely to be killed by lightening, or peanuts, or snakes, than you are by terrorism. If you think what the government is doing in your name is OK, you are either a moron, or a coward. If you hide inside when it's raining for fear of being struck by lightening, then you are on the coward side. If you don't, and you agree with what the NSA is doing, then you are a moron.

All great societies start off free, but as the centralised power branches gather more and more power for themselves, they start to drain more and more resources. Like a parasite that goes from being helpful to one that destroys the host, all central governments eventually go the same way. Face it, the USA is totally broke, and the only way the government is going to be able to keep control as more and more of the population slips into poverty, is through oppressive means.

And all the good will the rest of the world had toward The United States of America, the greatest nation the world has ever seen, has been pissed away. When the other shoe drops, the dollar collapses, and you are all plunged into abject poverty, people that 30 years ago would have rushed to your aid, will laugh and say you reap what you sow.

SOLVED, thanks to everyone who helped out

Thanks for the help everyone, clearly i need to keep better records.

User error.

Ok so this is a strange one, not sure if i have missed something obvious but here it is:

3 days ago I was sending a few bitcoins through blockchain.info send shared and of the 5 or 6 transactions i sent, one of them was taking a long time to arrive. I wanted to buy something so I went ahead and bought it from the wallet the coins were going to be sent to. The last sendshared (3.81BTC) never arrived......BUT the last transaction, the one i spent, was for 18.1 BTC. However when i search blockchain.info, it shows that last transaction as being for 14.23BTC NOT the 18.1BTC i sent. Now if you add the missing 3.81 to the 14.23 blockchain has as outgoing, you get 18.1BTC (including fees etc). The thing is though, the wallet in question shows 18.1 BTC as the outgoing transaction??? So what my wallet says and what blockchain.info says do not measure up. I sent 18.1, but it seems somehow blockchain is saying i only sent 14.2, then it added the 3.81 i was supposed to get through sendshared, yet the full 18.1BTC is gone from my wallet!! Basically i am out that 3.81BTC, and would really like to know where the hell it has gone.

Any suggestions, have contacted customer support with blockchain.info but no reply in the last 48hrs.

Hi i have been a member for a few days and made quite a few posts but am still a newbie? Please help!!

ahh ok, will not start to worry for another day or so then, thanks

"I have an asus gaming laptop for sale.
Not sure if you're looking for new or used"

thanks for the offer mate, but am looking for new, and must have digitizer, i am going back to uni after 15 years in the real world, so want something light possibly with Haswell for the battery life, not much available at the moment, but hopefully in the next month or so. Always been a lenovo fan, my x220 is nice, but need a touchscreen with digitizer, hoping the x230t will get upgrade, otherwise maybe a surface pro2, anybody used the pro 1? Not sure i can handle typing on thier keyboard or not.

denzel!!!

In order for bitcoin to grow, we all need to be spending lots of them on actual products, not just hoarding/trading. Here in Australia buying a laptop can be expensive we pay up to double our US cousins some times....last lenovo i bought i had to set up mail forwarding, which is a pain and means shipping takes forever...now with BTC i would like to buy online for US pricing and have one shipped straight here.....anybody know any reliable, trustworthy PC vendors with worldwide shipping......or have i uncovered an arbitrage opportunity    ?

it was not that long ago it was under $20.......given all the interest and media coverage i think around $50 would be the floor these days, bitcoin really needs more infastructure set up around it.....I am trying to do my bit my spending bitcoins in as many places as i possibly can, spent quite a few on random stuff, it's also time for a new laptop, anybody know who ships PC's internationally for BTC. I'm in Australia, so it is one situation where it would be really helpful, because Lenovo Australia charge at least 50% more for Aussie customers, and setting up mail forwarding is a pain in the ass, done it before but buying with BTC would be WAY easier 

right there with you brother 

fellow newbie here.....waiting to be let out into the asylum  !!

welcome

they look impressive mate

hi 

not eligible but what you are doing is very nice

Just thought i would say hi, have been reading the forums for a while but never got round to signing up, here's hoping this time next year BTC is >$200