I grabbed a bunch on virtex in the 80s...

Same thing I'm doing now... Keep using Bitcoin and learning about it, and exchanging outside of MtGox. Seriously. This whole story is ways overblown.

I was there ways before. The whole narrative is overblown. The price goes up, the price goes down... what's the big deal? What matters to me is that Bitcoin is growing, as more and more people find it useful for whatever purpose. Speculation, store of value, international transfers, tax avoidance, consumer tracking, financial audits, micropayments, macropayments, gambling, contracts, whatever. We should not focus on price fluctuations too much while forgetting to think about and work on the utility of Bitcoin.

I am assuming you say this because the price has halved over few days. Why didn't you say anything when the price doubled over few days?

You are contradicting yourself. Are bitcoins or gold always going to be worth more tomorrow, or did the price of btc just go down?

How about panic buying? If price drops suddenly, everyone is screaming and exchanges are shutting down to "cool off" - but no intention of intervening when the price surges up?!

How about we change the rules so only actions that actually happened or are ongoing are considered fundamentals, instead of announcements about supposed future actions?

I am the guy who met Ian in person in September 2012, after seeing his BAKEWELL anouncement. At the time all my funds were tied up, so this meetup was mostly an attempt to make sure he is for real - and yes, he was the person from the images he posted.

Few weeks later I did manage to come up with 30 coins, and decided to buy in.

GLBSE collapsed. Ian kept hashing with the two rigs.

He then abruptly anounced how we should "consider BAKEWELL a loss".  I did not like the sound of it. He also did not respond to my PMs, emails, and telephone contacts. I did not like that either. While I was too apologetic when he finally acknowledged the previous receipt of GLBSE data, I was left with the bad taste which only grew worse over days.

At some point, Ian voted with growth and maintenance shares, and stubbornly defended the idiocy of doing so. That's where I had enough. As a matter of principle, I try not to do business with people I dislike, even if it is or may be profitable. I sold all my shares - at approximately a 50% loss - and quit wasting time on Ian. In retrospect, it was one good decision I made.

As I have no more direct interest in this matter, I am simply writing to share my unqualified opinion about actions of shareholders and lenders whose assets Ian ran away with. There is no company to go after. There is only Ian, and his written (and archived, thanks to Theymos) commitments. What he seems to be doing is an indictable offence in Canada. I agree with repentance here. This is a criminal matter, and should be dealt with accordingly.

Finally, in case Ian reads this - I urge him to carefully reconsider the direction he took. There still is a little bit of time left for a U-turn.

I don't even care about today's price trends - I only pay attention to weekly average. I'll decide in a week or two if this was an irrelevant moment of mass hysteria, manipulation, concrete correction, or the beginning of downtrend. Whatever the case may be, fundamentals still seem reasonably solid. Price doubling every few days is not healthy anyway, so I will be glad if we slowed down to allow for the growth and maturing of the infrastructure and legal framework. All is well. I am happy, especially because I snatched a few more coins from panic sellers today. In the long term, I see no reason for Bitcoin to not keep growing. It works, and it is a useful technology. The risks are presently minimal, mostly related to the open-ended questions of mining economics.

I don't care; my limit orders were waiting for this, and I am now a happy owner of few more coins bought cheaply.

Listen to the wise words, kokjo! Sell the fraction proportional to the perceived risk of severe bubble burst.

There have been many bubbles already:

Just a thought: we don't know how Bitcoin will evolve in terms of block size, mining fees, and off-chain transactions. It seems likely that, if this experiment succeeds even more, most transactions will be performed off-chain, and "banks" and payment processors will use blockchain for occasional reconciliation of accounts. Proposals are already out there. If things unfold that way, blockchain transaction fees may be significant, to the point of rendering smaller savings from today uneconomical to spend.
If, on the other hand, developers manage to address scalability challenges (assuming they are willing to, which may not be the case for those who are also working on off-chain overlays), we might be able to use blockchain just fine.

I know museums and galleries coat photographs (silver or platinum/palladium prints on paper) with some sort of spray.

I think it's more simple: we are experiencing the effect of freely available fiat (banksters coming to play) being used to purchase a hard asset (btc). Due to stupid regulations, they can't just make up funny money and walk away home with it - they have to lend it / invest it, then take profits to walk away with. Bitcoin is a perfect vehicle.

Can you point to any documented examples of similar exploits? I am thinking about home inkjet or laser printers, not the enterprise copier/printer/fax/scanner networked machines.

Speaking of home printing, everyone should know that many home printers include steganographic serial number in the printout, but that is irrelevant for the tamper-proofness of he design.

Yes, you can only spend the entire balance associated with a private key. The difference between this and the actual payment is so-called "change" sent to another address (presumably the one that the client controls). Most wallets/clients do not make this apparent to the user - you only see your total balance. By the way: if you are concerned with privacy, you should not send round numbers as payments. Otherwise it is clear which one is the payment, and which one is the change (associated with the new address that now we know you control).

On the related (wording) note  - the exposed qr code is the public address, not public key. To avoid confusion down the line, it is wise to be strict about this distinction.

I sold a few things back in the days (2011,2012), always listed as "cash or bitcoin" - nobody ever commented or asked about btc. I'm sure this is about to change. I'll keep offering btc as an option whenever I'm selling, of course.

I was talking about the NYC company, you are talking about Memphis company.

I did read the story before posting. I still call bullshit. Half-baked. Their Website clearly states they accept MasterCard, e-check, and debit. There is no bitcoin. Why not? Why the manual setup? Why not even the mention of it on the payment page? It is hard to take this seriously.
Don't hate me for being this harsh. Bitcoin deserves better than half-baked PR statements and "contact the manager for manual processing". If and when their payment page actually includes bitcoin, I'll be happy to change my attitude and welcome the effort. The same goes to gogreensolar and the likes.