is it impossible for a private entity with 4 million bitcoins to roll up and 'buy them out' last minute, make good, be a hero and then make more money?  Maybe Satoshi himself

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/03/fascinating-number-bitcoin-mining-uses-15-millions-worth-of-electricity-every-day/
http://coinmarketcap.com/

is $15 Million of electricity per day, for $24 Million daily trade volume really the best we can do? 

I can also say coinbase works.  When I decided to cash out of bitcoin I sent a little bit to several different exchange sites, ranging from possible to impossible to successfully sell at a decent price with reasonable commission and smooth bank verification and relatively short transaction time. 

As for mtgox, remember every 'investment' involves risk and it is up to you and only you to understand the risks involved.  that said going into mtgox is very risky but has a higher rate of return for when they fix the problem and the panic disappears and the price skyrockets to new highs.  I read they are allowing BTC deposits again and cash (not USD) withdraws again. 

So perhaps another week of "smart money" buying into the insane low price, they will have enough cash and bitcoin to accomodate just enough demand to continue the ponzi

they just did it again!

I didn't think about that until now.  Of course.  Like with PrimeCoin you could determine the next prime number after the next prime number and use that to snoop the blockchain and doublespend a million dollars or something ridiculous.  I see it now.  It is necessary to have random meaningless hashing after all.  Which is really disappointing. 

"the security of the network can not be incredibly tiny compared to the market cap*
* yet another reason we need a CPU-only coin, so the currency users (i.e. spenders) are the miners.
[/quote]

Yes!!!  I THOUGHT OF THAT TOO!  In the future all of us will be mining solo or pools and or acting as nodes to keep this whole thing together.  Additionally, I believe that mining of bitcoin is unsustainable and the 'next altcoin' will have a feature in which the mining SERVES A PURPOSE similar to PrimeCoin or the proposed CureCoin.  SETIcoin.  Whatever.  There will be dozens maybe hundreds of altcoins that serve a purpose due to the mining and that is where the VALUE is created and makes all of this something bigger than a zero sum investment ponzi.

first post.  i've been lurking here for too long