I'm pretty much with you. My realistic outlook, while also being very optimistic, is still far lower than that as well. But it's the premise of replacing M0 I find extremely unlikely. I'm just saying that if we take that premise as a given, I believe a few trillions of precios metals market share, other inflation protection investments and definitely some trillions of the broader money supplies are a given as well. So I would put the upper limit of that scenario a bit higher than you did, unlikely as the scenario may be.

You missed a zero I think.

And I believe the "take over the world"-price is higher than that still. Bitcoin is a potential substitute to more than just the monetary base. At that point it would be a substitute to M2, precious metals and stocks (to the extent people use them to avoid inflation) as well to various degrees.

They need at least 55,000+ in order for the math to add up with their 15 million USD invested statement.

I wonder if they are running behind on acquiring bitcoins or if the 34,700 BTC figure has become that out of date in only a few days.

Yeah, that's hilarious.

Am I right in understanding that those who buy bitcoins through SecondMarket won't be able to sell them again for 329 days (that being what the stat on the right says)?

If so, this is extremely bullish. If they keep selling bitcoins at even a fraction of their current rate, it would mean hundreds of thousands of bitcoins would end up out of circulation and exchanges for everyone for at least a year.

I would say that Coinbase having a substantially higher price than the exchanges is an indication of a shortage on their end. My guess is that they are buying on an exchange or have a private deal of some sort.

I believe I stumbled upon some interesting numbers here.

According to SecondMarket's investor presentetion here (page 11), they owned 37 500 BTC as of November 5th:
https://www.secondmarket.com/company/bitcoin-investment-trust

However, according to the end of the following news clip, they have already taken in 15 million USD in investments (more than expected).
http://finance.yahoo.com/video/bitcoin-rally-213700257.html

If we were to count with an average price of 200 USD/BTC for their sales, that would add up to 75 000 BTC. Even if we assume all their sales were at the current prices, it would add up to 56 000 BTC. Regardless how you cut it, the math doesn't add up. So my conclusion is that Second Market already are, or soon need to be buying BTC again in other markets in order to keep up with demand.

Your thoughts?

Or he is one of the buyers on bitstamp. If Gox has liquidity difficulties he may have had problems withdrawing his coins. So he deposited at Bitstamp, buys there and sells his Gox coins to unsuspecting buyers, while not really losing anything himself. It would explain why he is not being more stealthy with his sale.

I can come up with lots of other scenarios as well but I think that he just wants out is still the most probable one, Occams razor and all.

This is the best idea I've heard.

Sign me up.

That is a horrible answer. Bitcoin as a technology gives them the possibility to make their holdings 100% transparent and auditable at almost 0 cost and they simply choose not to for a made up security reason.

I think you misunderstand. First, some innocent people could lose a lot of their wealth as well, say someone who has worked their entire life and been saving in fiat. That is bad and unfortunate. Second, if the way towards a bitcoin world is very chaotic then the political fallout could lead to some very bad actions from powerful people with the support from regular people who simply were on the losing side of the wealth distribution. In the long run, a bitcoin world would bring a lot of good to the world, I'm saying the road there could bring out the worst of some people.

And for those that has coins, even though everyone know we are going to the moon, no one knows exactly where the moon actually is.

I'm not saying you are wrong but I do believe there is still some merit to OP's concerns. Best case scenario for Bitcoin is that it takes over as the currency for all world wide exchange (I'm not speculating in the likelihood of this scenario, just saying it's the best one possible). If this where to happen I can't see how this would not be very chaotic towards the end. Once it hits the tipping point it becomes a race to the finish line and a alot of people and organizations stand to lose a lot of wealth if they are the last ones in. I simply don't see any orderly way to reach world adoption, and this could lead to a lot of world wide political turbulence.

Difficulty adjustment is based on block count, not time. With half the miners gone, difficulty will take 4 weeks to adjust. And when they double the hashing power again, it will take 1 week. So essentially, the result will be that it takes 5 weeks to mine the blocks that usually takes 4 weeks.

Zoom in:
https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=bitcoin#q=bitcoin&date=today%2012-m&cmpt=date

It seems related to the Silk Road bust.

Not necessarily a fake wall, could just as well have been a change of mind considering the current trend.

If they would allow shorts, they could try to match the amount of long positions with the amount of short positions. This would make the exchange indifferent to changes in the exchange rate, although they would need collateral from those who want to short. There is still a risk of a big short squeeze where the short positions can't be covered fast enough though.

Well, re-using keys makes you vulnerable to flawed RNGs.

Here is the entire interview, not just the article:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/08/14/an-interview-with-a-digital-drug-lord-the-silk-roads-dread-pirate-roberts-qa/

If I understand you correctly the answer is: no your bills could still be counterfeited.

I think you are looking for something like firmcoin. These are digital bills that can confirm for the user that they have the private key to an adress without showing it, even offline.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=232898.0

I believe the M-Pesa model is the way to go. One company stores the bitcoins and allows the people to transfer ownership by whatever way they are used to do banking there already. Somalis using actual P2P transfers probably won't happen with their current infrastructure.

From the company's point of view it should be very attractive, since they would have a lot less overhead by not having to deal much with cash in a very unstable society. He could easily store his bitcoins abroad if he partners with some business savy person. This would allow him to undercut his competition.

It would also be highly beneficial to the somali people, ending inflation, most of the remittance costs from relatives and getting access to a cheap international payment method.

Mr Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf seems to have the entrepreneurial spirit and the infrastructure in place.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704608104575220570113266984.html

I wonder if he knows about Bitcoin...

I live in Sweden. We have plenty of Somalis here and don't suffer the same fate as the UK.

I think you are overlooking the actual state and growth of internet and cell phone coverage in Somalia. There is a very real opportunity for a bitcoin start up in Somalia that could become a major player in 5-10 years time, by undercutting all their competition.