Why is nobody taking part of our joy??!? 

We have procured a water-pipe, and despite the unlucky finishing of both Dom Perignon and Caviar, there is still plenty of Foie Gras left, as well as every kind of wine imaginable...

Earl David has been granted a haw right to the south from his church, and the tailors are busy filling the orders from our kingdom. So everything is fine. Citizens, rejoice with us! 

You are reading into my quote. I am not justifying these government actions and being an anarchist I certainly have no illusions about their ill intentions towards bitcoin despite how many times I hear them praise blockchain technology.

This is a war of ideals that is being fought right now and the quicker our community builds up an immunity to these expected attacks the better.

Using centralized mining pools is a security liability regardless if its an individual , gang, or government attacking.

Bitstamp is sidechain controlled by central server. Is bitcoin from bitstamp worth only $100 ?

For something that's dying??
You are looking like this at the moment

With one aspect this is great news as it may inspire more miners in the US to use p2p mining instead. Hopefully, this will inspire the development of more decentralized pools.

lmao!  oh well hell, if he said that!  Don't get it confused, just because Lawsky say's something today doesn't mean it can't be squashed the very next week with additional BS rules and regulations.

What's this going to do to BTC in the states?  My opinion is fee's for places like Coinbase, etc. will increase dramatically, eliminating any benefit BTC might have been useful for in the past.  Most of the exchanges will likely simply refuse to work with US-based customers and unless customers are willing to break the 'law' by using non-authorized outlets we will see bitcoin ultimately die the slow death or eventually get taken over by the central bankers and hedge fund masters to be used as the underlying replacement to the USD for international trade.  Specifically for oil I'm thinking.

Bitcoin might not be the 'Peoples Currency' for much longer.

Agreed. The only way that the network would lose percentages of hashing powers would be if BTC Guild operated their own mining equipment and then chose to shut this down. Otherwise members will only switch to other mining pools.

However, I think they're giving up too easily in this case. If they're profitable, and have amassed some funds, the first thing I would've done if I was them, if they truly believe in the concept of bitcoin, and are not just into it to make money, would be to move operations abroad. They have all the source code and knowledge, so they could establish themselves offshore, and in addition it would be possible to renounce their US citizenship to make their stance.

There's always the negative and positive consequences of every action, and if they chose to give in now, one can only assume that they chose that option, because it's the option that they think is best for them.

In my view however, although I don't at all like the regulatory environment that seems to become a reality, it's not the regulations that is shutting them down, but rather they're shutting themselves down because they can't or are unwilling to adapt to the new reality.

Heck, surely, if I personally had funds to set up shop offshore, and had to leave my current country because of regulatory uncertainty, I would do so in a heartbeat. However, if I did not believe so much in Bitcoin, I would rather shut it down and jump into any other business where I could make money.

As it's hard to know all the reasons why BTC Guild is deciding to shut down, pointing to the govt. and saying it's their fault we need to stop our business operations, is in my view giving up a little bit too easy.

Alarm bells went of in my head when Gavin visited the CFR and would not commit to transparency.  Then when he got back he wouldn't even give a debriefing about what went down.

Long before that alarm bells went off in my head about Hearn (who you seem to have  a man crush on for some reason) who has tried every thing he can to get Bitcoin under control of TPTB.  Unlimited growth, 'red'listing, positive ID through mainstream passports, etc, etc.

When Gavin newly proposed exponential blocksize growth that sealed it for me.  He did some good stuff back before he became 'principle scientist' and started the Bitcoin Foundation, but I've seen nothing since then.  Even his dev priorities when he did seem to have his head in more or less the right place have done very little to actually strengthen the solution.  I dunno what his trip is, but I'm convinced that it is not good for Bitcoin or my stash.

As for the Blockstream guys, making a living off an open-source project is very common and most often benefits both the community and the clients who will pay them.  You may be serious in trying to spin this thing as something nefarious, but in that case you are just showing more of you ignorance.

The US is on the process of finding the best way of regulating bitcoin, from a a digital “property” for taxation purposes to a digital “money” for regulatory and licensing purposes. It will boost the development of bitcoin and set up an good example for the other countries.

i don't have a problem with any of those relationships.

i said it earlier, i wouldn't mind the current bunch of guys proposing SC's be employed by individual companies like Garzik.
it's the banding together under one company that can cause a block of competitors and monoculture.

Gavin's in a special category more pristine under TBF as i'm sure he isn't being paid the big bucks, let alone have equity in a for profit. 

Satoshi should dump once Bitcoin turns corrupt.

Fun fact: This statement is not true.

bid 8 million for F3  and 8 million for F4

while i was speaking at the American Banker conference on digital currencies in NYC in July 2014, i made the argument for how blockchain technologies actually allow for more safety and automation of regulatory rules for trading securities which is good for investors as well as good for gov't regulators to not  have to an open view into the software and network to know that certain rules function as they should, are enforced and are transparent to all market participants.

i mentioned how we had a system in place now that is not transparent built on the work of a guy who was chairmen of one of the major exchanges who defrauded people of billions.

there were people there from the NY DFS and the Federal Reserve, and while I am not a mind reader I think some of them found it interesting that it is possible to build a public resources and infrastructure to encapsulate certain rules to ensure that everyone is playing on a level field.

Server time says the bid came too late.

Sir Joseph wins the auction with a bid of 55 million.

What is the reason to stop at 20MB?  That just seems to be pushing things further into the future to make the decision.

It does mean that the 32MB message size limit wouldn't be a problem though.

Why would fincen waste time going after miners.  If they manage to regulatory sink btc a a viable financial instrument in the public's eye then they managed to kill two birds with one stone.

I suspect mining regulations will soon follow if they end up determining that bitcoin needs another nail and its proverbial coffin

But they are not saying that in the way you suggest they are. Their point is not that Bitcoin the blockchain doesn't need "bitcoin" the asset but that the asset should not have to be tied only to the Bitcoin blockchain but could, conceptually, be used on other blockchains.

I like to think of this topic as a type of Doomclock. When it reaches 10.000 pages, Bitcoin will be decimated.