Thanks once more for one of these Chalkbot. It hasn't 'got me' in the same way as the last one you did but love it all the same.  Looking forward to buying the book of them in due course:  'The rise of the Bitcoin price to $1000 in wall-chart doodles'

+1 (well, + the sum of my Bitcoin actually )

You sure about that with the favourable Matonis write-up in Forbes?

I was just thinking I'd bought just in time.  Thanks for your timely nicely timed response Erik, btw to my questions

It doesn't necessarily need to be tax free.  As mentioned above the tax deduction can be paid in fiat with the remainder paid in Bitcoin.  Not the long-term solution but it protects the employees from half of the double-whammy income tax and inflation.

I personally wouldn't mind a bubble right now.  Having decided there's too high a risk involved for me in short-term trading i.e. timing the buying and selling of fiat thus depending on catching the against-trend increases in relative fiat value I'm happy to sit the bubble out (or in as is the case for me).  The respite from buying BTC even gives me a welcome opportunity to recover my GBP position!

People, to the extent that they even think about the underlying principles of the currency they are using, may not, as is your experience, in theory like what Bitcoin represents.  But I really don't see that as a significant barrier for entry further down the line, especially not to the extent that it becomes the primary factor in preventing Bitcoin from getting bigger than Paypal.  The vast majority of eventual users I suspect won't care nor understand how and why it works as a currency but if their experience of it is that it is a more efficient means of exchange and better store of wealth than their local currency then only the hard core of the 'I won't participate because I refuse to support a system that goes against my values' will not jump on board.

Pedantic correction:  English isn't an official language of Great Britain - just the de facto language.  Interestingly it is an official language in Wales though

Last chance for a while to get Bitcoins at less than £10?

If anyone has GBP on mtgox right now before the Japanese banks open up, anything over £58's worth is available for £9.66 (up to £1233)!

Edit: Doh - novice error - I just got that totally wrong!!  What the orderbook actually says is if anyone wants to sell more than £58's worth of BTC for GBP they'll only get £9.66 for that portion over £58.  Tempted to delete the post but I shouldn't fear looking stupid!

I'm not intending to say I think one is more likely than the other (although it's not hard to guess which my money's on).  In terms of black swan events though, as far as I can see nothing other than 'more of the same' is required for Bitcoin to continue on a trajectory towards widespread adoption whereas something else (either one of the possibilities being talked about or something entirely different and unforeseen) would be required for Bitcoin to fail and lose all of its value.

One of the characteristics of black swan events (as I understand it from the Wikipedia entry) is that it's not easy to calculate odds of an event (not a specific event but any event that would have the outcome being assessed) occurring.  I don't think one of these is necessary for Bitcoin to succeed to the extent implied in CurbsideProphet's post whereas I do for it to fail.

I can't remember who it was said 'All big decisions are made with insufficient data' - the argument being if there was sufficient data it wouldn't be that big a decision!  

Thanks for introducing me to the 'black swan event' concept.  I'm far from understanding it properly but reckon it's worth getting Taleb's book to check it out properly (would you recommend the original 2004 book -which I like the idea of because it was prior to the 2008 financial crisis - or the later 'The Black Swan'?).  It sounds to me like one of those concepts which at first seems to describe nothing new but could well be a concept that draws to itself enough distinct characteristics so as to give the concept the power to allow us to see and understand certain things better.

Your use of it in the case of Bitcoin is intriguing me in that you're saying 'It will likely take some sort of black swan event in order for Bitcoin to reach [high] numbers'.  An example from the Wikipedia entry of black swan events is the rise of the internet yet it is also talking about these things from the perspective of 'the observer'.  To those who were around the net and playing with html in 1996 I would say the rise of the internet was not a black swan event (it was neither one prior to that because it hadn't had the global impact nor since because to those who were around its rise was not unexpected).

I'm guessing if Bitcoin rises as the internet did, with respect to the financial and political worlds who know very little about it, it will indeed be seen to have been a black swan event, yet to many of us here now there would be no major surprises were it to become massive and have huge implications on the way the financial and political worlds work.  And should it do so then Bitcoin being valued at $100 and $1,000 USD are merely markers predicted and expected to be passed along the way.

From this perspective I would say it's getting to the stage where a black swan event such as large-scale unprecedented actions by financial/political powers or out-of-the-blue technologies would be required to prevent this from happening.

Again, I stress I am new to the concept but from what I do understand I read the Bitcoin situation very differently from you so would appreciate any further comment you'd like to make on it with respect to the black swan theory.

Have you PM'd lightbox?  Maybe a downside of it being a bricks and mortar outfit is that it's likely they have weekends (or Sundays at least) off and are unaware that there is a problem?

Lack of new fiat going into the exchanges does change the circumstances but how on earth can you derive 'Economics no longer apply' from that?  The market is still the market and the circumstances are known creating opportunities to those who want (for instance by keeping some fiat on the exchanges specifically for the purpose) to take advantage of the lack of buying pressure from new money for themselves.  The Bitcoin to fiat markets are immature in terms of many of the self-correcting aspects that happen in well-established markets but it's getting there.  I am given to understand depending on the 'weekend dip' to buy low is no longer as profitable a strategy as it used to be.

Circumstances may be different but principles don't take a weekend break and the idea of even wanting to see markets close to suit our own vision of how they should behave seems to me to be the antithesis of the principles of Bitcoin.

Your belief that you've 'figured everything out' is the first clue that you're a very long way from having figured much out at all!  I suspect you're going to need to take a good few more walks to make sense of all this.

Your idea of what a Ponzi is seems pretty mixed up to me.  May I suggest you take some time thinking about what makes a Ponzi a Ponzi to you.  What are the disparate elements and how do they fit in with what you consider to be ethical or legal?  Once you have done this then look at Bitcoin again you can see what does or doesn't fit the model and why.  As long as you continue to mush the mathematical, the moral and legal aspects your 'concept' of what a Ponzi is I believe you will continue to make it impossible for you to come to a reasonable understanding of what is going on.

At least until then I'd highly recommend holding back from accusing people of acting immorally by their Bitcoin-related activity just because they don't conform with your mixed up ideas of what's what.

+1

I think the best outcome of this experiment for you in the long term would be if the poll said yes; you then followed it, invested all and subsequently lost it all.  I am not saying this out of malice but because my fear is the more times this kind of thing works for you the more likely you are to think it's a good idea.  If a sharp shock is what it would take you to realise how crazy this plan is then that is what I wish for you.

Unfortunately for you I suspect if the majority said yes and you did follow the advice you would do very well from it if you were prepared to ride out subsequent temporary dips.  But there are also some circumstances the consequence of which would be a non-recovering plummeting Bitcoin value in relation to FRNs.

Some more reasons not to base your decision on the poll results:

• I suspect a significant number of those on this forum whose judgement you may most highly value won't participate.
• Those who do may vote in a way that serves their best interest or purely out of mischief
• As some have pointed out there is no indication in the OP as to your personal circumstances e.g. whether you have dependents, what the ratio of these savings v. the your income (i.e. how long would it take to save the same again), how you personally deal with risk both for your emotional well being for the duration of the highest risk period and for the likelihood of your sticking with your decision if/when the going gets tough.

May I strongly suggest you add a third option to your poll to say:
"Don't be so ridiculous.  Do what you need to do to learn enough about the subject to make your own informed judgement and more importantly do what you need to do to trust your own judgement over random others'."

That's where my vote would go.

My guess is that the vast majority of early adopters did sell the vast majority of what they had long ago.  However I read something somewhere saying there's a good few big chunks of Bitcoin that haven't moved since day 1.  Whilst I can accept most of that is likely to have been wiped from disks or forgotten about it is not inconceivable to me that a few may have held back what to you and me is a large sum with the intention of selling when the value has gone up sky high.

My reason for thinking it's unlikely they'll have much of an impact on the market in the current flurry is if they've held out so far they're likely to be holding out for a lot more than $16/BTC and are more likely to dump (as quick as they can without bombing the price) at $100 or $1,000/BTC - and by then (if we ever get there) it's just as likely they'll be paying for their cars/houses/yachts etc. directly in BTC than having to sell for fiat in order to do so.

Just another opinion to throw into the mix.

There's a good chance some of the Bitcoin kid-operating-out-of-basement outfits will become very successful in due course but it's somewhat reassuring to know that at least this part of the process is a bricks-and-mortar established business.  I'm getting the sense that not all are happy to entrust their trades to MPEx but that's not a reflection on Havelock Investments.

If my understanding of the relationship between Havelock, MPEx and S.DICE is correct this is a weakest link scenario.  So whilst content enough to go ahead with some shares - even if it's just to say a silent thank you to all the players when when I see the bets piling through on the block chain - it is my assessment that the whole picture is a bit precarious for me to be looking at investing substantial sums right now.

I have made a small investment in S.DICE in recent days through Havelock on the basis of the conversation that was going on this thread.  No problems so far but I've not tried to sell, nor have there been any dividends so I'm not in a position to vouch for them much other than to say it was straightforward.  The web service seems to do what it says on the box!

Thank you.  Happy to be corrected and to learn something from those who understand these things better than me

I don't know if I'm being sensibly sceptical or whether hanging out in Bitcoinland has made me overly suspicious and cynical but...

Couldn't our 'whale' have just randomly picked an address from here to claim as his/her own in attempt to support his/her username persona as 'loaded'?