Anyone who entrusts Mt. Gox with more value than they can absorb as a loss, OR more value than they need to get a particular job done is, IMHO, 'a fool'.  This stands as a statement I believe before or after the aforementioned hack.  It also is not specific at all to Mt. Gox and in fact (again IMHO), Mt. Gox is the most proven and probably reliable entities in Bitcoin-land.  They are also one of the largest which makes them a target for some of the more threatening types of risk though.

There are all kinds of calculations which go into deciding how to place assets, and laziness is a valid one of these.  Lamentably it remains a weakness of Bitcoin that one really should be fairly bright and have a broad range of knowledge if they are going to be doing much with it.  I do hope that this changes.

I'll probably not need to start converting my PM's for 10 years or so.  The main danger of them falling significantly in price through the comming decade is that I may be tempted to deploy my working capital (or my speculative stash of Bitcoin) to take advantage of the situation.  Other than that, it makes no difference to me what happens in this interim period.

I would agree and have always retained this as a baseline concept, or tried to, but would add several things (which are my own personal opinions and projections):

 - It has the best risk/reward ratio of anything I've run across.  (e.g., gambling, precious metals, etc.)

 - The chances of capitalization or loss will be modulated greatly by background skill sets that an individual may or may not have, and also to some extent the structure of the political system which one lives under.

 - It is an opportunity to participate early in a technology which is truly revolutionary and has great potential to have a lasting impact on society.  No matter what the future of Bitcoin itself, the concepts it has introduced more broadly will almost certainly grow and evolve.

He's been 17 for going on a year now it seems to me.  My hunch is that he won't be sued for other reasons though.

I really really like Bitcoin (and more generally the idea of p2p crypto-currencies) as evidenced by more than a year of being almost non-stop interested in it.  This duration of interest is unusual for me.  My tone is often probably mis-interpreted as negative toward Bitcoin but in reality, in my mind at least, it is doing someone/something more of a favor to call attention to weaknesses and dis-advantages than to stay mum about them.  In most cases.  I did moderate my critiques during the one time when I felt that Bitcoin may have been on the ropes.

I like Bitcoin much more than gold in fact, but I feel that each have their niche and it is unwise to ignore the respective strengths and weaknesses of the two, particularly in today's economic and political climates.  Today's very welcome super-$8/BTC and significant recent out-performance of gold is no surprise to me.  I consider BTC to be much more volatile (and could fall off just as easily.)  Bitcoin will really start to impress me at around $100-ish/BTC, but I expect that the marker will be associated with many hassles of various types which I won't have to worry about with PM's.

In their (the user's) defense...since I always like to take the opposite side of an argument...there were really no other options for one who wanted to play Forex hot-shot with non-trivial sums.

I can, and do, call people who bought homes in the obviously inflated 'ownership society' market fools.  But on the other hand the only realistic option was to defer buying a home in the decade it took for things to implode and in our society (the US) one can understand how relatively few people had the combination of fiscal flexibility and analytic capabilities to avoid becoming basically entrapped.

I retain my next-to-zero empathy for anyone who lost more in the Bitcoinica goings-on than they anticipated were possible.  I personally remain willing and able to lose all of the value I have stored in Bitcoin generally, and specifically those which I have entrusted to other people (e.g., Instawallet) so my sympathy for those who differ in their mindset is minimal.  Even the core developers will tell you that Bitcoin itself is an experiment and a cursory glance at the history entities who helpfully hold Bitcoin (or other denominated value) on a user's behalf should be enough to instill a high degree of wariness.  If not, or if a person sunk large amounts without significant research, how can they deserve much sympathy?

I'm not a network engineer, but I play one at work.  Most people can figure out how to skim the stuff which doesn't interest them.  Go.

NAT is the answer to limited IPv4 addresses in a similar way to buses being an answer to not enough automobiles.  Buses work fairly well, reduce the pain of lack of transportation, and have some advantageous side effects, but at the end of the day there are some significant annoyances, complications, and lack of flexibility.  In network-land these are particularly noticeable today's (hopefully more) p2p-centric environments.  Ah well...after several decades IPv6 seems to be gaining some traction.

I think it was that:

Instawallet is/was one of the few designs which I trusted as it made no pretenses of mining for more personal data than it needed to do it's job.

JAV seemed like a straight-up guy, and (iirc) handed things off to you.

Last I checked, my 50-ish BTC was still there.  But that was many months ago, and I'm only going by what the UI told me.

This sort of reminds me of the guy who said that the worldwide demand for computers would be four or five, and they guy who decided that 4x10^6 IPv4 addresses should be plenty.  The chief difference is that the guys who made these two mistakes give every indication of having been clever people who understood the technology and the market space.

But thanks for reminding me that I would prefer that I would like my store of wealth to be more reliable than my cell phone service so my speculative bet is in Bitcoin and my nest egg is something else.

And I suspect that Mr Dotcom will have as little trouble as almost anyone at assessing the pros, cons, possible risks, and likely rewards of adopting Bitcoin.  But it won't hurt to bless him with your wisdom I suppose.  Maybe he'll caught up a consultant's fee out of thankfulness...but don't hold your breath.

You are one of a handful of people I would trust with non-trivial amounts of Bitcoin.  Cannot quite remember the reasons why though.  After a few hours of piddling with Bitcoinica I lost interest.  If I do such gambling again, I have enough stock to risk my own funds and not pay the premium so that's what I would probably do (vs. using some Forex style platform.

As for trying to make Bitcoinica's victims whole, I see utterly no point (and I'm one to the extent that I planned, BTW.)  I'd rather see MyBitcoin folks receive a little relief as they were just trying to find a convenient way to store their wealth vs. trying to capitalize on one another's misfortunes.  It seems to me to be much more in the interest of Bitcoin to designate any profits toward future legal and lobbying efforts and that sort of thing.  Were that happening reliably and transparently, I might be tempted back into the casino should I find myself with some time and money to kill.

Sure, but then what?  Bitcoin has not yet been worth enough and/or held by the right sort of people to take any particularly meaningful action...as far as I know anyway.  That's something of a blessing for those of us who hold some (and know enough not to lose them) and don't really want Bitcoin's reputation to be unduly sullied prematurely with juicy mainstream news stories of extra-judicial actions.  It's got enough PR issues as it is.

My interest in exchanging value between USD and BTC fell off a cliff about the time bitcoinity.org went dark (and Tradehill also for that matter.)  I'm not sure what the relationship may have been.  I'm glad (and surprised) to see things back though.  Bitcoinity.org was really really useful when I was accumulating.

Did'nt vote...no options were ones which I could honestly choose.  My 'expectation' and my 'hopes' are two entirely different things.

My expectation for the trajectory of Bitcoin is that it will have precious little to do with Bitcoin itself, and almost everything to do with the alternatives (USD, gold, etc.)  If the likes of Kim Dotcom find it solved their problems then the likes of me (as someone who holds them in some quantity) may end up fairly well off.

If Bitcoin finds it's legs (again, for reasons that have little to do with Bitcoin itself) I expect that it will become a different beast than what initially attracted me.  I sense that relatively little thought was put into how to deal with what could turn into it's biggest challenge.  Namely over-popularity.  Bitcoin 'peers' as I define them will be 'peers' in the same way that the chartered banks are peers in the SWIFT system in today's economic climate.  The only realistic way to moderate usage will be to impose fees/quality-of-service which will make those who can manage to be 'peers' very happy and very wealthy.  On top of that, many parts of the world will likely quash 'threats' by managing internet traffic which will further constrain the count of people who can be 'peers' and further increase their earning potential.

My 'hopes' for Bitcoin are along the lines of it inspiring smart people to continue to harden it against various threats or mal-evolution and/or develop similar solutions which are by design less subject to the unpleasant warts which Bitcoin may (or may not) develop.

Pretty well said vis-a-vis your rationals (since they largely capture mine I guess.)

Crisis tend to produce opportunities of their own, though one must sometimes be somewhat heartless to capitalize on them.  More interestingly, the periods following tend to be pleasant with a rising tide floating all boats.  I have some hope that my golden years may still fall largely within one of these periods.

I do have an unpleasant feeling that this time may be a little different since we seem to be at some 'peaks' in important things.  Like Martenson points out, we are at a unique point in human history where we our future will be one of making more with less in terms of energy...and is synonymous for all intents and purposes with a lot of other terms...like 'food', 'raw minerals', etc, etc.  That was not the case coming out of the 30's; at least not for the US.  In the back of my mind is the nagging feeling that a depopulation event is the most 'natural' and effective way that this marker will be approached.  I hope I am wrong as have been many people to this time.

Full disclosure:  Major-ish purchase of phyzzz today (Au this time.)  Lost $50/oz by being 4 hours to late accd to my dealer's whiteboard.  ($1648-ish @ 1600 spot and 1oz KRs for those who are interested.)  Oh well...I never really try to time these things with any sort of precision...just when things line up and are convenient I'll soak up some more.  Good move?  Bad move?  Time will tell.

My tricks to avoid hassles with cops:

 - Be white
 - have a haircut
 - donate $25 to 'cops helping kids' to get a bumper-sticker.  One of the best investments I ever made (excepting PM's and hopefully BTC.)

I grew up mostly in rural areas and am comfortable with them and mostly prefer them.  I get bored and ready for a change no matter what my situation, and my latest major vocation has been software engineering so it works well do alternate between the boonies and the Bay Area.  I had a long string of opportunities which were to good to pass up so I went to long away from my country place (which has been in the family since it was homesteaded) and it's awfully nice to be back for a while.  I still have duties which will bring me back to the Bay Area from time to time so that is a really good compromise.

As for civil unrest, it is something I have mused about but has not been a major factor influencing my life decisions.  I do imagine that major population centers of the US and other parts of the developed world would collapse with stunning speed were supply chains to be disrupted and I would certainly rather observe that from afar.

Oh ya.  That silver-v-bitcoin battle was winding down about the time I got interested (@ $16 and falling.)  Rawdog was the preeminent silver-bug imbecile at the time, but that other who's name I forgot...'lizardfuel' I guess...was well represented as well.  I guess those guys decided that Bitcoin was not going to dry up silver demand and moved on.  Will be interesting to see if they come back should Bitcoin continue it's rise.  Or maybe they've been at it all along...I stopped paying much attention to them or to Youtube vis-a-vis Bitcoin or PM's.

Your (YoYa's) picture thingy is second only to Chodpaba's Bob Dobs as my favorite here.

Likewise on the OT, but this thread has a history of divergence...a not-insignificant amount of it being _my_ bad personally...

A noticeable part of my selection for some property in town for an office and investment was that it was favorably located both to avoid a tsunami and to make long-distance wi-fi a possibility.  It's about 15 mi crow-flight from my country place.  No direct line-of-site, but there is a point where if I could put a single repeater in, I would have two line-of-site paths with good ground clearance (one needs a diamond-shaped clearance...I forgot what it is called.)  That point is in a state forest.  If I could convince the authorities to let me put in a solar powered repeater, it might work.  They would be necessarily concerned about fire issues, and I would be necessarily concerned about vandalism ant theft.  This is one of my many projects to waste money in the future.  Hopefully Bitcoin will pay off, and wasting money will not be a concern...I've always felt that Bitcoin is the one thing which _could_ make me stupidly wealthy and while the possibility is quite remote, it's vastly higher than winning the lottery (even if I did play the stupid thing.)