Yes they are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve

Are you ready to give yourself a good pat on the shoulder, that there probably are also a lot of secret gold storages that was digged by The Annunaki while enslaving the human race, and therefor... gold is just as fragile as bitcoin! What makes gold especially as fragile as bitcoin, is that it also has lot's of intrinsic value in electronics and jewelry.

I bet all the big shots in Wall Street see the things just as you.
So, nothing to see here, nothing to worry about. Bitcoin is as strong as gold or god, or an golden god!

I think that mister Hercule Poirot could solve the dark mystery on what you believe in. Some could say that you believe in bitcoin, but it doesn't show at all!

You are comparing the best known precious metal, that has a history of thousands of years of ownership and that's biggest stockpiles are registered, to an cryptocurrency with a history of 5 years with most of it involving drug trade and without virtually any registered ownership.

When you seriously believe that it's a suitable comparison, then try to read the same thing over couple of more times. If that doesn't help, then give yourself a good pat on the shoulder and rest with certainty that gold is just as fragile as bitcoin.

Yes, all extremely funny. I bet that you are banging your fist on the table out of pure laughter on how funny it all was. Now you can rest in peace with certainty, that all the people from Wall Street are indeed people with intellectual disability, and they will buy bitcoins just to make your coins more expensive.

And you didn't understand that the whole point was, that you can't prove who are the owners of the coins in existence. The owners could be vampires, they could be aliens or they could even be squirrels with high levels of intelligence, caused by mutation from nuclear waste.
The point here is, that most of the bitcoin owners are not known. And when considering bitcoins history, then there is a strong probability, that the biggest holders could actually be criminals, who earned BTC by their criminal activity.
Taking this probability into account, is a justified risk assessment that will be made by anyone who is any good with investments.

Not all people see that bitcoin as the god's cure for finance and how it will last for tens or hundreds of years. Some people see bitcoin as an temporal phenomenon, and could just be waiting for the right time, when they see that there is no more potential for growth, and then they strike to take it all.

When you're emotionally attached to bitcoin, then you don't see these risks. But when you care about wealth in general, and have basic knowledge about dealing with wealth, then you will surely care about these risks.

Because BTC is too bloated and fat to be pumped by the local crypto-whales, and the more serious people who would have the money, have no interest towards an high-risk, low-reward investment.

Half of the bitcoins that will ever exist, have been mined in the last 5 years, the other half will be mined in about 120 years.
I'll let you decide if you're early or late...

I probably missed something, that was both intelligent and original at the same time.

Because the religious jackasses are slowing down the evolution of both technology and finance.

Yes! Especially because you can easily account the ownership all the existing Bitcoins (12,530,375 and counting). That is the reason why you can be absolutely sure, that 1mil.+ bitcoins aren't owned by a single successful drug dealer from Silk Roads. Especially because you know how most of the drugs were sold by many different individuals, without a single entity using different users accounts. And also, knowing that Dread Pirate Roberts made at least 174,000 BTC with commission, then it couldn't be that someone made even more with sales. And anyway, it isn't possible that the 174k coins were only those that were found by FBI, because it's especially hard to hide your private keys.
How the hell could someone take this into serious consideration. Maybe if someone is not an bitcoin cultist and has the ability to think? Could be.. could be... who knows... who knows..

I think that you probably felt physical pain when you imagined this scenario.
It's alright *in an comforting voice*. Bitcoin will succeed with ETF, and the entire world will start to invest in bitcoin. You'll be rich beyond dreams, and all while having no education or even having to do any work. Everyone will buy bitcoins because they are just so stupid, that they like to make your coins more expensive for the sheer fun of it. People just will be this dumb, that they can't figure out that they can actually start using alternatives, that doesn't include filling your pockets. It's alright, boy.. it's alright.. there's no pain anymore..

I think that ETF will be the final hope for bitcoin cultists. The final hope that there still is a reason for the price to rise. This hope will probably diminish painfully slowly. Bitcoin will probably not succeed in Wall Street and the reason is simple: most of the bitcoin owners are not known, and with all probability are criminals like drug dealers or computer crackers from the Tor Web days. Regulators will never let this go through, because when some "early adopter from silkroad" dumps 1mil BTC, and the price drops to 1 cent in minutes, then what will people do? Of course blame the regulators and the government for enabling criminals to infiltrate an honest exchange.

I recommended to buy already about a week ago.

a) All cryptos are just pumps. Those win most who understand the pumps.
b) Opening at new markets, that have large volume, is THE thing that brings value to cryptos.

Oh, it's great to see how the "building my castle" soon turned into "serious business project of creating an hotel".
Have you actually done any market research for creating this kind of an Hotel to this specific location? Do you have any knowledge or experience with tourism and accommodation? Do you even know what kind of future plans are made around Kunda and on how does it fit to create an Hotel in the middle of it?
You didn't buy this manor because this is an serious business project. You just bought it because it was the only option what came up, that helped to comfort your inferiority complex. That is the reason why you come here to talk about "your castle", that is the reason why you are as vain as an 10 year old girl, and that is the reason why you aren't able to do anything serious with money. We both know about the reputation you have both in Finland or Estonia, and what disturbs me, is that in this forum you are actually playing the role of an dignified analyst. And we both know that it's all for fishing out new naive people who would "invest" into your "projects".

Who would have known that people didn't start visiting this hotel?
Who would have known that leaving an unsecured laptop unattended can be dangerous?
Yeah right.. Con artists will always blame their tricks on incompetence and beg for pity.

The overstock news have been a gimmick when considering the price anyway.
People buying things through bitpay -> bitpay converting BTC to dollars -> BTC price lowers.

It's not healthy to create illusions that crypto price has currently much to do with utility. The main attraction and the main factor for the price is speculation. Price rises because people buy and people buy because they expect the price to rise.

There will probably be couple of days with BTC rising in Bitstamp, because people will start throwing in some fiat to transfer to other exchanges to acquire LTC.
This time period will be the sweet spot to move out.

Thank you. The irony with my name, is that I consider myself as an optimist. Visiting this forum makes me feel like an pessimist though, because I constantly want to balance this overly optimistic enthusiasm that is shown by most here about BTC.
They think that them forcing this optimism towards BTC is helping to spread BTC, when I think that it is actually slowing down this entire process of financial evolution that started with BTC.

What most bitcoiners don't understand, is that the network effect or starter advantages only apply with certain products or services, where bitcoin doesn't fall under.
For instance facebook or coca-cola are highly dependent on the network effect and starter advantages. With products that aren't very important to people, then people don't think through what will they buy/use. They will buy/use whatever comes up first.
Cryptos in another hand are simulations of money. And people who have money, treat money mostly as serious as cancer. Meaning that they care if there are advantages in their wealth safety or transaction speeds. They won't just stick around with bitcoin because they are too lazy to switch products. People only continue to use products or services by habbit, that they don't care about much.

And I bet that you whine a lot that the state unfairly takes the money from you... people like you always do.

The problem is that you don't understand the relation between global trade and debt. Most of the developed countries are in debt to each other or to their own people. Don't get your knowledge from schizophrenic youtube videos on how everyone are in debt to IMF that is owned by evil bankers/reptile aliens. Sure the bankers are skimming profits, and sure there a lot of crooks in banking, but most of the debt is actually created between countries that have close trade relations.
I will give you apples, you will owe me for these apple.. you will in turn give me oranges and I will owe you for those oranges, with the debt constantly changing in relation to the current trade needs.

To simplify things more:
what matters the most is how the majority of the population feels that they are valued by society. When everyone feels that they are valued fairly according to their education and workload, then everyone will work more efficiently. When people are undervalued, then they lose motivation to work and get educated, just as people lose motivation to work and get educated when they are overvalued.

The main thing that went wrong with communism was central planning. Markets are just too complex for a single building full of people to regulate fairly. The Soviet economy for instance was highly abused by the top officials and the rest were too incompetent to understand supply and demand. This is the thing that created an highly inefficient economy that was constantly plagued by product deficit or oversupply.

I think that both of them aren't good long term investments.
When you are investing into something, that only holds value by it's holders not selling, then you're a fool to trust your money to stay there without constant supervision.

LTC currently has more potential, because of opening new markets, better history and better technical properties. It's much easier to create a new boom with LTC then BTC, thats name has been smeared by all the fiascoes.
Just remember to keep your eye on the development of the markets and the movements it causes. This isn't like 2013 anymore where you could just buy and hold. 2013 was the turning point where cryptos moved from "magical internet play money to buy drugs" to more serious financial fields. Now things are more complex and you have to consider more factors then just drawing lines on the graphs and expecting that the next year will be the same as previous.