Does anyone on this forum actually know how to read? The author says, in plain language, that bitcoin is NOT a scam. The way bitcoin is being marketed is the scam.

The author postulates that people (like the cheerleaders on this forum and elsewhere) are presenting this computer generated number as if it has some intrinsic value. That is the scam because it’s simply not true.

Cheerleaders on this forum would have you believe that the US dollar is not backed by anything either and that is simply not true. The US dollar is backed by consumer confidence in a government with the largest military infrastructure in the world that is willing to fight to ensure its survival.

Bitcoin is backed by the belief that no one will change bitcoin at some point in the future to have more than 21m coins (which may or may not be true). They tell you that scarcity creates value. If scarcity creates value then let me sell you some of my belly button lint. It’s pretty scarce so it must be priceless.

His argument is: If you don’t fall for the “short supply makes it valuable” argument then bitcoin is just a number like any other number. It has no value.

I don’t know how to make it any more clear for you people.

You think this person might not be a scammer?

Ask yourself this, what reputable charities are on this forum begging for money? Most reputable charities don’t know about bitcoin or how bitcoin works so why would they beg for bitcoin? What reputable charity have you ever seen go to a public forum and beg for money? What reputable charity does not have a website? Why would a respectable charity that may know about bitcoin know about Ethereum and ask for donations in that too (maybe Litecoin but not Ethereum)?

If your still not convinced, Belarus requires all charities to register. Ask for the registration number. If you really want to help sick children in Belarus then contact the Belarusian Children’s Fund here: http://www.bcf.by/en/

Whatever you say Roger. Just keep on truckin scamin.

Roger Ver thinks insider trading is not a crime. I suppose you support that as well?

Roger Ver tweeted: Since Bitcoin Core is no longer usable as a currency, we should no longer consider it to be a crypto currency. Is that your opinion too?

You are obviously a loon yourself or in collusion with Ver.

Edit: I just realized that you could be Roger. He did buy tons of accounts for astroturfing.

You should just buy and hold it forever. Just keep buying and buying with every dollar you can come up with. Let me worry about cashing out. You just buy and buy.

I’m confused why anyone would still trust Roger Ver about anything.

He was caught selling counterfeit computer equipment at MemoryDealers made by Donald Cone and Chun–Yu Zhao who were convicted of various charges under an indictment arising out of a scheme to import and resell counterfeit pieces of computer networking equipment, some of which bore the trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. While Ver was never prosecuted for it I would never buy anything at a business Ver controlled.

He is a felon that spent time in a federal prison for online sales of illegal explosives.

He lied about MtGox costing people millions of dollars by keeping them from acting sooner. “I'm Roger Ver, long time Bitcoin advocate and investor. Today I'm at the Mtgox world headquarters in Tokyo Japan. I had a nice chat with MTGOX CEO, Mark Karpeles, about their current situation. He showed me multiple bank statements, as well as letters from banks and lawyers. I'm sure that all the current withdrawal problems at MTGOX are being caused by the traditional banking system, not because of a lack of liquidity at MTGOX”

He Astroturfs and buys forum accounts to push his agenda. He is a sociopath that renounced his citizenship to run to another country (a country where pedophila is not a crime btw, no proof-just sayin).

Is there some unwritten rule that you have to be a complete lunatic to be a major investor in cryptocurrency?  

Exactly right! I was wondering if someone was going to give an honest appraisal of the article instead of just doing what the Legendary staff members want people to do and: “suggest no one read this article, you will be wasting your time.” I would be embarrassed to be a supposedly respected staff member of this forum and give that kind of self serving advice to forum visitors. Shame on you. Let people find out for themselves.

Yes, you should buy. Buy right now! Buy until your nose bleeds and you live in a cardboard box with a pocket full of paper wallets.  buy buy buy

That was such a touching story. Considering that there are never any scams that originate from former soviet block countries I just sent you all my money. Please use it to help those poor children.

This poor little Ukrainian girl needs our help too!

That is too funny, he reduces bitcoin to rubble in just a few paragraphs:

“At the outset, let me clarify that Bitcoin itself is not a scam, but how Bitcoin is being sold is a scam. More about that below.

To start out, it is important to understand what Bitcoin really is. It would be easy to bore you with a discussion of the technology, about peer-to-peer servers and sophisticated algorithms, but that is not what you need to know.

What you need to know about Bitcoin is that distilled to its technological essence, each Bitcoin is simply a number. That's it: A number. It is simply a series of digits, with each number being assigned to each Bitcoin.

To illustrate, I'll randomly pull a $1 bill from my wallet, which bears No. L88793293J. Assuming some minimal level of competency by the U.S. Treasury, no other bill bears that number.

The face value of a $1 bill is, of course, just $1 dollar. But two people could privately agree that No. L88793293J is actually worth $5,000.

To illustrate Fred wants to buy Joe's golf clubs, but Fred doesn't want his wife to know -- at least just yet -- that he spent $5,000 for golf clubs. So, Fred and Joe agree that No. L88793293J is worth $5,000 and Fred gives No. L88793293J to Joe. Fred then tells his wife that he bought the clubs for the $1 bill. At some later time, when Fred's wife doesn't care so much, Fred pays $5,000 to Joe for No. L88793293J, and gets the $1 bill back.

The only difference between Bitcoin No. ABC123 and $1 Bill No. L88793293J is that at the end of the day, the $1 bill physically exists and has a face value that is worth something, i.e., Fred could take the $1 bill and buy something off the $1 menu at McDonalds.

By contrast, Bitcoin has no intrinsic value -- it is just a number. The number may have an agreed value between two parties, but the number itself has no value. Consider a bank account number, such as Wells Fargo Account No. 456789. The depositor and Wells Fargo essentially agree that the account designated by No. 456789 has the value of what the depositor puts into it, less what the depositor takes out. But the number itself, No. 456789 has no value. The same situation occurs with credit card transactions, whereby the credit card processing company assigns are unique value to each transaction, but the number itself has no value.”

I don’t know why you are all so upset. There is not one lie in the article.

That’s exactly right. They created the problem that placed them where they are in life. Even if they were born into it and want out, that means they’re too lazy to fight for themselves or god hates them. I hate lazy people and I won’t go against gods will so fuck them.

Ba’al is the one true god..

Well Tom, I can see someone has a mancrush.

You should buy as much as you can afford right now. We need new blood to quench our thirst for profit. Buy buy buy

No reason for that, to some people a $25 loss is a lot of money, to others a $20k is just a bad day a the casino.

I agree with that too but we don’t have any way to prove it.

While I agree with what you said, I’m not sure that speaks to the topic.

Try something like this instead:

Stop being ridiculous and comparing the former U.S. fiat “gold standard” to bitcoin. Neither of them is currently backed by anything but the confidence of fools, smoke and mirrors, and being able to control the money supply (bitcoin fixed, dollar adjustable).

Further evidence that you’re clueless is the fact that there is no way to know that your “buying power” (that’s the phrase you should have used btw) will increase over time. The only historical evidence available about bitcoin clearly shows your buying power will go up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down.

It’s funny that you should use those two as examples.

Bill Gates left Micro$oft in 2008 before bitcoin was known to more than a small handful of people. Bill Gates said about bitcoin:

“Bitcoin is an exciting new technology. For our Foundation work we are doing digital currency to help the poor get banking services. We don't use bitcoin specifically for two reasons. One is that the poor shouldn't have a currency whose value goes up and down a lot compared to their local currency. Second is that if a mistake is made in who you pay then you need to be able to reverse it so anonymity wouldn't work.”

He also said:

“There’s a lot that bitcoin or Ripple and variants can do to make moving money between countries easier and getting fees down pretty dramatically. But bitcoin won’t be the dominant system.”

John McAfee has proven himself to be a complete nutter. http://yournewswire.com/john-mcafee-bitcoin-scam/

I’ve seen dozens of news stories about the climbing price of bitcoin lately. It seems to be all anyone can talk about. The news is the news. Shock and awe are standard business for the media. Would you read a story that said, “Jim drove to work today and nothing happened on the drive. He bought a Big Mac on the way home. Film at 11.”

The original posters in this thread have probably already cashed out or bought everything their going to buy with bitcoin. allinvain lost a vast bulk of his btc because of a hack that stole them from him, hugolp (a once respected member) most likely sold his account because it’s being used by a scammer today, and piuk (of blockchain.info) hasn’t been to this forum since June 19, 2015. These old timer threads are interesting because it shows how many people moved on to something else, scammed someone (like DeathNTaxes), or were community victims (like allinvain).

That may actually be true. You need to modify that statement slightly though. Current holders with a vested interest are highly motivated to attempt to keep the bubble from popping as much as possible.

You need to remember, there are roughly a million stolen bitcoins being controlled by people that have no vested interest in maintaining the price. A large percentage of the entire economy is controlled by people that don’t give a shit about bitcoin. Satoshi has over a million bitcoins that will eventually enter the market. Millions of bitcoins are also controlled by people that mined bitcoins at the very beginning when they were worth almost nothing. These people can sell at any reasonable price and become famously wealthy. What incentive do they have for waiting 20 years to sell? They’re not going to wait until they’re old and can’t enjoy the money.

The current group of venture capital and private equity fund investors with a risk-seeking attitude are clearly crazy. Their whole world can come crumbling down around their feet because of the huge group of people listed in the previous paragraph.