I love that no one sees that if indeed this was a cheat and/or inside job this is the ultimate way to disguise an exit. Things were getting too hot, how to maintain credibility and yet keep most profits? give back a bit, reinforce the red herring ideas that this was about max bet size, and keep the 13k coins you won while not affecting the credibility of the site.

Sorry, but this is hilarious to watch. I hope I'm wrong but expect this will end in tears for 'investors' that aren't part of the JD team.

Let me guess the next moves:

1) investors go back to making some slow but steady money again. Faith is restored. More money comes in to the pool (who doesn't like easy money?).

2) another whale or set of smaller but not trivial 'gamblers' start defying the odds and investors lose all of that money plus some.

and/or

3) suddenly all money is lost, no one ever hears from JD again. Who can do anything about it?

He seems very articulate, smart, and reasonable, yes. And again, I am not outright accusing him or them of anything, but those are all perceptions, and reality (the facts) is telling us there's something wrong here. Not even the PnL of this 'whale' but the fact that there's this gaping security hole/conflict of interest. A good con(fidence) man gains your (take a guess) CONFIDENCE!

W/E though, do what you will, tis your money.

PS Have I mentioned, I really, really like the site (seriously, except for that pesky problem mentioned above)

And yet the simplest explanation for this is that he knows how/what nakowa is doing and why...again, just sayin' here...why is it so hard to be somewhat conservative and pull your money from the site? Why are people so driven to ignore red flags? yes, it could be legit, or a shadow business operating with a giant conflict of interest and security hole, is indeed untrustworthy. Why risk it? for what gains?

GREED!

You're clearly a very intelligent and well spoken person, and I do respect the concept and execution behind the site, but it would be much better to remove this potential conflict of interest altogether. I don't see the necessity to have outside 'investors' since it's one of the biggest credibility destroyers about your business. Conflicts of interest are no good. Even if you're not cheating, who's to say someone on your team isn't?

Also, not saying this is the case, but all of this publicity, public speaking, etc can be a good source of red herrings to keep people believing longer (keep the con going) as well as bring in more cash.

Also, there would be no way to steal from a quiet account, it would be noticed and its silence would be even more suspicious. Putting a face to this 'whale' is far more convincing that at the very least 'cheating' isn't going on (another credibility destroyer). You also can't steal from a bunch of small accounts because that would make the game look systemically broken (statistically, versus a loss based on variance).

Again, I have no proof here, but the red flags should be a deal breaker for intelligent people. That you're able to continue operating despite this glaring security hole/conflict of interest, makes me believe that even if you are fooling people, you've earned it. If people have been warned and still do it, they're greedy and foolish, and deserve to be parted with their money.

Can someone explain to me why a site that allows the house to have both seeds/keys and can use that information against player money 'invested' in the bank's position, wouldn't be suspected of being a scam? Per your SD and other statistical analysis, it could easily manipulated by the con in several ways. One way would be to intentionally lose a number of bets to create a distribution to their liking and simply betting more less times.

To me it seems like a perfect setup for a con. I'm not saying it is a con, but if I were a betting man....

I think we're about to see a strong USD move based on inevitable game theory around Europe's situation. They, like Japan, will have to loosen monetary and even fiscal policy to stave off depression which will comparatively raise the dollar against the euro. Also, I wouldn't be surprised that as global growth slows gold is being liquidated to pay the bills, as is land. Energy supply is very high and has plenty of excess capacity (including in the US), so commodities are having a tough go.

I'd expect bitcoin to strengthen vs the euro on similar logic.

what are you basing this conclusion on? If you can predict prices of assets this well and with this much certainty than I should assume you are already a multi-billionaire

which perhaps is better lest they decide not to travel down the road otherwise. this thing needs numbers.

I hear you, but I guess I'm less worried about this monopolistic fragile state (despite the logical incentives you've laid out). Do we have any numbers on ASIC distribution/concentration?

I'm sorry but I'm failing to understand the principle concept the OP is espousing. Let me see if this is approximately correct: because regular people can't mine bitcoins trust will be undermined and the whole network will die.

Why? How is this a scam? Some people have resources to mine and some don't (as is the natural order of everything). The P2P nature of the payment system itself, the rate at which coin is produced, the security of the network and your coins are still fine. You just can't profitably mine them yourself. So most of the coins will be mined in China...and? How does that affect me as a saver/spender of bitcoin? It doesn't as far as I can see. I can't print USD or mine gold or anything similar now and it doesn't affect my use of currency at all. I still receive and spend as I like.

If the argument is that 2-3 players will control the market? really? why? what about competition? if I see my neighbor making a fortune with his ASIC factory, won't I build one too? And as the market floods with ASIC devices, so what? the rate of production will remain constant as is algorithmically determined.

If however the OP is right that only a couple of makers will stranglehold bleeding edge technology and hoard it, then truly all the eggs are in one scary basket.