Posting in rally thread!

Well, it is a notable up-swing. And what's more, there is little media or hype ruckus to cause it. Seems like there are some people who have increased confidence in Bitcoin even without the public's attention.

IMO, the time should allow an even stronger rally. I mean, come on, everything is breaking down in the fiat world. Greece is literally burning, but the EU is still watching as Portugal and Spain line up for round two, but the ECB might give in and devalue the Euro any moment now. The USA have managed to get their debt up to their own annual GDP. Japan is trying to top that by a factor two. Even China is into the stimulus nonsense now! And the precious metals have managed to somehow maximize their instability while looking like a classic bubble.

People just have to notice Bitcoin as a viable diversification. It's not stable either, at least not yet, but its outlook should compare well to the other outlooks that read "imminent doom".

Bitcoin is high risk. Many things could go wrong at this point. A simple failure to reach critical mass, scaling problems with the block chain, loss of faith due to some large theft (e.g. a security breach in some widely used software causing a large fraction of all online wallets to be emptied) ... there's a lot that can cause trouble.

If it were not high risk, we couldn't possibly be around 5 USD/BTC.

I think this is the main point. Bitcoin is high-risk, but has positive expectation value because it just might appreciate in value more than tenfold just like that. With that, why would a speculator exit Bitcoin completely? If enough people realize that, it only boils down to the development of a halfway decent scaling with block chain size, and that should be possible.

Thanks to everyone who helps making this work!

I know I will need it, and I'd be happy to have a real CLI project instead of BitcoinJ on IKVM.

I actually am.

*rises from a slumber of months*

Bitcoin has been a little too sticky to that 5 USD mark. It's about time for some movement. Personally, I think the fact that it has recovered from a series of problems and most people stayed sane during that time is a positive indicator. I wouldn't be surprised if it climbs up a dollar once people realize there's no real reason to trade around magical numbers.

The psychology of this is strange. I know quite a few people who somehow want to hold Bitcoins just in case, but don't actually buy them unless something is happening. Hard to tell how such people will act.

Why do you guys care so much?

Dunno if it's real or not, but I'd assume it is, since a troll would be wasting his time producing a paper of medium quality that doesn't really make any statement. Apart from the obvious, anyway.

Basing forecasts on the 2011 price fluctuations alone suggests economic cluelessness. But one way or the other, this text thingy makes no difference. Government is gonna govern its own paperwork as always, lots of blabla will be had, bad events will be given fancy names with an evil ring to them, business as usual. If there weren't a multi-page-thread on the topic, I'd not feel any urge to comment.

If they'd go rampage and attack us screaming "OMG THOUSANDS OF ANARCHIST MONEY LAUNDERING CYBERCRIMINALS," admittedly there'd be reason to think of something. Not the case though.

I wish the C# version were still active.

Well, there's IKVM to convert Java bytecodes and that source code converter Xamarin used to port whole Android to C#... I guess I'll manage somehow when the time comes. But it would feel better if someone was maintaining and securing a Mono/.NET Version.

It's sad how many industry people are oblivious to the Mono/.NET intersection as a platform. Google should never have chosen Java for Android! But even now that Oracle is annoying as hell and Xamarin places an alternative right in front of them, Google doesn't seem to even think about it. Just because Microsoft originally specified it, it can't be good. Nobody gives a damn that C# is an independent standard now, while Java is Oracle and Oracle likes excessive lawsuits. And since the management goes this way, many miss out on the one closer look that shows just how far behind Java is these days.

TL;DR: Want me to develop with something? Then CLI compatibility is mandatory.

I like how all the "BTC is too volatile to ever be used, the coins make volatile it dun work!!1" statements disappeared.

Even if another rollercoaster goes off, it's not reasonable to expect it to be as insane as in the past. It's a pretty expensive stunt for those who cause it. Be happy about it, keep a few coins in case the price goes over 9000, yay increased stability. Jumpy prices will come back soon enough.

+1 for an implementation in a safer language.

I keep saying the same thing; it's just absurd to use a highspeed-hacker-language for financial transactions.

We need another client for broad usage. If everyone hates Mono so much, well then use Java or something, but not something that cares little about type safety, operates directly on memory pointers etc. Think aspect-oriented programming, contracts, this is the kind of stuff we need, and it's as far from C++ as you get.

Guess I wan't there early enough for that yesterday?

I've been thinking the same thing since New Years, but got too little time... the "Munich Minting Cut Party" would be awesome!

That. Though I would use slightly different wording: the market is a tool that needs to be set up correctly, otherwise it will develop undesired behavior.

Since anyone understanding that should hate the broken dynamics that appear in both centralization of the economy and problem-solving (socialists) and insufficient rule-sets (anarchy). So there are only two correct answers:

"other" or "libertarian," depending on how flexible one defines libertarianism.

Sadly, the world doesn't give a shit about correct answers. Very especially if the relevant time-scale exceeds a few years.

Yea, the website really lacks photos... of this one, I can't find any photos at all.

@Matthew:
So now, it's about... hiding facts to stay within an insurance policy? That's fraud! Yes, I understand, it's not about morals, just about getting the most money for one's own position/company/whatever. But if this is the only purpose, where is the difference to the thief? (At the girl example, I don't see why one can have an obligation to tell anyone about a private relationship. Unless you like slavery, and someone "entrusted" someone else with the girl... otherwise, I don't see the analogy.)

I'm not actually a kid. But maybe my ideology is stuck with that of an 18 year old, I dunno. I have never been so desperate for money that I'd trade it in.

@lonelyminer:
That's interesting... so, if I got this right, the password reset requires information an outside attacker should not have? I don't know how Linode handles administration, but that sounds quite important.

I edited this; of course Linode doesn't steal *as a company*, I didn't mean it that way.



The hell? Yes, I expect them to say exactly that. So the "grownups" are to not speak the truth these days? Hide it between dodgy wording? I prefer not to be classified with them in this case, thank you.

Yes, I expect people to tell the outright truth, or else I expect they have facts to hide or twist. And even though profit seems to be the measure of everything these days, I don't see how going with that flow is grown up at all. Keh. Court games, involving simply not saying the most important fact. Makes me sick.

Sure, the company couldn't spend the BTC anyway. However, the company can spend the savings from less effort on security... and there's no way to tell what position the thief might have inside the company. The problem is: a customer should not have to care about the internal structure of a company he trades with. Especially on a free market, there needs to be someone responsible.

Linode is clearly responsible here. I would demand that they either prove that their security handling was appropriate, e.g. it was a hard-to-find flaw or a flaw in a system usually expected safe, or else pay the full amount. We can't have a market in which people can just write a post containing "lol I got hacked" and have other peoples' money disappear. That press release is insufficient, more of an insult if you ask me.

Just as a disclaimer, I'm not involved in this, just an external observer who finds the behavior absurd.

If I entrust A with X, and X ends up with some random person somewhere else, I demand a very good explanation from A. I advise that everyone demand a very good explanation from Linode.

I wonder why everybody assumes the hacker is outside Linode.

Isn't the most likely person to know of such security issues someone within the company? I didn't even know Bitcoinica was hosted there. Also, it reeks of sloppy admin password policy:


IMO, Linode is responsible, either by using the typical ridiculous internal security, or directly (admin, higher-up person, etc.). Anyone serious about their reputation would pay back what they likely took.

Also, their press release is a joke. "Only eight accounts were compromised," no mention that it happened to be exactly the accounts the thief needed.

Are people still on about this... the guy who pulled it probably already has the next "project" halfway finished.

Either start hunting or give up, but by now, "maybe it wasn't a scam" sounds ridiculous.

I actually used this system for a bit, just with different constants, and of course symmetrically for both buying and selling. I guess a few bots run on similar mechanics, too.

In theory, it should yield profits if done right, just because Bitcoin is so volatile. But it leaves you quite passive, and I found it hard to keep track of its balance while doing analysis-based trades simultaneously. It's also vulnerable to large trends, which do happen in Bitcoin, leaving you totally one-sided at times.

On the long run, it is appealing: it's a rational, objective method that just dampens swings. Methods like the one Goomboo uses are defeated by such a system, since it cuts trends hard at random, not with an offset at the turnaround points.

Generally, I like this approach. Beauty of simplicity, should yield profits, and not to forget, greatly stabilizes Bitcoin against crashes by leaving funds ready at the very low and very high prices. If many trade like this, the "below 1 USD" doomsday scenarios are borderline impossible, and similarly, the June bubble would have been capped by additional sales if the system is used both ways.

And even that only helps if they can sustain it during and following their attack.

In effect, this is just one special case of the question of insurance mining to secure the network after multiple minting cuts. And as it is one of the more likely attack scenarios, enough people know of this issue already.

Also, if I read "the inevitability of collapse", I smell someone lacks attention.

I thought this was debunked as a hoax. Also, I do not read this conclusion at the source given, just some ambiguous sentence about banking partners.

AFAIK, Paxum explicitly stated that it was not MasterCard who caused the trouble.

Please verify, and if it proves wrong, rename this thread. It's not nice to spread wrong accusations about others, be it a person or a company.