I am always astonished to see how little the "great businesses", in fact, know about their business. There is a whole industry out there failing to grasp the basics of how to reduce their cost of business and optimise their operations. These businesses range from TV and Movie Subscriptions to E-Book Publishers to Seminar and Learning Services and Online Stock Photo/Video Agencies (the latter are focused on in more detail below).

I have a somehwat better feeling an higher hopes when it comes to smaller operations. These include 3-D printing innovators, How-To publishers, and some other small providers of downloadables. Because of their size (and their degree of involvment) they may be able to jump on to this train sooner than the "big boys".

The entire online stock phot and video industry has failed to at all "get it" though. Very much in the business of selling for "micro-payments" (and that's even due to their own fault: ruinous price wars decimating per-image payments to pennies a pop!), none of them has even discovered Bitcoin (let alone all other Crypto coins or Alt coins) for their business.

Take Shutterstock, for example (because they obviously like believe they are the greatest one out there, fuelled by the ignorance of their customers/mainstream media, not the smartest people on the planet) who have run down this business to a point where images can be had for .35 or .23, sometimes even for free. Yes, they are most prominent -- when it comes to winning the race to the bottom. (The same goes for all other Microstock agencies from Fotolia to iStock to Pond5 etc. as well.)

Technology they know not, just have a look at whether or not they can fix known technical problems and issues in time (they usually don't), or at what kind of technical "goodies" they provide (counters, improved Social Media integration, better SEO, and other "novel" ideas). Not thrilled.

At the same time, they and all other agencies restrict payouts "because of payment processing fees" and similar reasons. If the just knew the first thing of true innovation, they ought to be aware of Bitcoin's problem solving ability for these matters. Of course, they have no incentive to care, because they are passing that (avoidable) cost on to their artists -- so why should they give a damn? Here's why: in order to not look even more stupid and outdated, and in order to stay abreast of developments.

Also, it would be nice to at least have those obvious users of Crypto coin technology finally waking up and get on board to finally have more "real-life business" and acceptance for Bitcoin and overall Crypto coins. That"s not the only incentive for me to write this post though, it's rather because it's vexing to see that these "pros" are totally failing to see the obvious and at least grasp the basics of their business!

It will be interesting to see whether or not at least those smaller operators, How-To publishers and 3-D printing operators will be faster to catch on to this and lead the way for the disnosaurs or "old farts" to finally get it, too.

It is quite astonishing to see how outdated and incapable of innovation stock image agencies, online stock agencies, or Microstock agencies really are: very much in the business of selling for "micro-payments" (and that's even due to their own fault: ruinous price wars decimating per-image payments to pennies a pop!), none of them has even discovered Bitcoin (let alone all other Crypto coins or Alt coins) for their business.

Take Shutterstock*), for example (because they obviously like believe they are the greatest one out there, fuelled by the ignorance of their customers/mainstream media, not the smartest people on the planet) who have run down this business to a point where images can be had for .35 or .23, sometimes even for free. Yes, they are most prominent -- when it comes to winning the race to the bottom.

Technology they know not, just have a look at whether or not they can fix known technical problems and issues in time (they usually don't), or at what kind of technical "goodies" they provide (counters, improved Social Media integration, better SEO, and other "novel" ideas). Not thrilled.

At the same time, they and all other agencies restrict payouts "because of payment processing fees" and similar reasons. If the just knew the first thing of true innovation, they ought to be aware of Bitcoin's problem solving ability for these matters. Of course, they have no incentive to care, because they are passing that (avoidable) cost on to their artists -- so why should they give a damn? Here's why: in order to not look even more stupid and outdated, and in order to stay abreast of developments.

Also, it would be nice to at least have those obvious users of Crypto coin technology finally waking up and get on board to finally have more "real-life business" and acceptance for Bitcoin and overall Crypto coins. That"s not the only incentive for me to write this post though, it's rather because it's vexing to see that these "pros" are totally failing to see the obvious and at least grasp the basics of their business!

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*) but, of course, the same goes for Adobe-Fotolia, iStock/Getty (yes, I know: Rockefeller-Fed cartel, but still), Dreamstime, Pond5, Envato, Videoblocks, Photo Dune, or whatever they call themselves

exactly -- this is human (mis-)bevahiour, don't blame it on "Bitcoin technology"... Also, the case is different from Bitstamp and others where "coins have gone" or are "in the hands of thieves" because at Cryptsy, user coins are in segregated accounts and showing until the site goes (went) offline as "user balance" or "account value" belonging to account holders.

These will have to be distributed 1:1 as individual user property in case of a bankruptcy, this is why a group lawsuit, bankruptcy proceedings, class action etc are needed  -- the quota fractions can only be distributed for the remaining lump sum (if any) belonging to Cryptsy's own assets to settle other creditors' claims (the landlord on whom Cryptsy moved out so suddenly and apparently without notice comes to mind here, etc).

It all depends on what kind of lawsuit there will be and if people are smart enough to drop that stupid Go-to-Jail thing long enough for the culprits to be available and forced to co-operate on the return of recoverable user assets.

oh, pleaeaease -- the jail-thing is not the top concern, though. More importantly, they should stay out of jail as long as necessary to make good on what they owe their users!

I don't know why people still resort to Lycnh-first-think-later behaviour -- like we were still in the 16th century. There are much better ways and legal solutions to that these days -- suing them and claim punitive damages, starting a class action, etc come to mind.

I actually hope that these -- more realistic -- scenarios come to fruition here and will be pursued instead. BTW equally painful to Paul Vernon and/or any accomplices.

you're right, totally understandable!

It is always hard though to succeed in court when it comes to trading mistakes. I had this very same problem in "conventional" markets with Futures & Options trading at PFGBest (=worst, in fact), and we also all know what happened to MF (Man Financial Group). So it is NOT a matter of that "bad-bad Bitcoin thing" but it happens in highly-regulated markets as well -- because government and authorities CANNOT and DO NOT EVEN WANT to protect you and me from losses like that (they're only interested in power games and war)...

So IMHO it will be very hard to successfully proceed with that.

So I have been mining Scrypt coins for some time on my rather humble, but reasonable when it comes to power consumption, little 20MH Astro minner. (This thing operates at 452 Watts with three fans running, according to my last metering, it probably could be lowered even further when disabling the center fan during the colder season -- anyone experience with that specifically?)

Anyway, after more or less successful operation even in light of developments over the lifespan of that miner (which have, of course, made it upfront "unprofitable" by now), I did some re-thinking of my overall mining strategy.

Having mined Dogecoin, Earthcoin, Fastcoin, plus a few others, I tried to stick with the "reasonable" and sustainable ones only. So far, I haven't been disappointed when it comes to that point. Particularly Earthcoin has turned out very durable and steady, has gained some kind of "tacit" widespread acceptance -- particularly among the Chinese, it seems -- and even came up with two (so far) significant price jumps that appeared to have taken place on the back of stock market drops in China and with people jumping on to "alternative" ways of placing their money. (Quite interesting but a bit off-topic here).

That said, with the significant recovery in Bitcoin-to-dollar prices of the latter months in 2015, chances of other coins increasing in value have become a lot more likely again. Peercoin, Dogecoin, Namecoin -- to name just a few -- have already proven so and increased in dollar-equivalent value significantly.

All this makes Litecoin particularly interesting again. Frequently referred to as "Crypto silver", Litecoin has a lot going for itself and its dollar-equivalent price when it comes to renewed Bitcoin price increases (irrespective of any short-term setbacks like the Cryptsy-induced drop to the $360 range this weekend).

Similar to the precious metals sector -- where silver bullion prices always lag behind gold increases but later get some kind of a jump start and increase significantly faster, percentage-wise, than gold bullion itself -- Litecoin seems to have similar attributes in the wider Bitcoin sector. Remember, that litecoins traded at up to $40 in late 2013 when Bitcoin hit its own high. Percentage-wise, this is a much more significant increase than is likely for Bitcoin itself, at least in the medium-term: going to $30+ would be roughly a nine-fold increase for litecoins! (Compared to this, how likely is it that Bitcoin reaches $3500 this year or next -- I'm not saying it's impossible, just not highly likely medium-term whereas Litecoin around $5 to $15 seems closer to reality and would mean four to five times today's price.)

Calculations -- or rather speculation! -- like that makes mining litecoins appear less "unreasonable", maybe even potentially profitable if mined litecoins are held until the right moment for taking profits. I remember reading a very long article from an early-days miner who set up a rather large Litecoin mining rig in Australia along very similar lines of thinking. He wrote, that he would "hit it big", if Litecoin only went to $5 or $6 -- would be interesting to hear if he managed liquidating his holdings when the time was right in early 2014...

I would be curious to hear if anyone here (still) has similar thoughts or if this "earlier wisdom" (like that from Down Under, of all wisdom pockets) has entirely been lost in the years after the 2013 Bitcoin hayday? Are there still significant number of others who feel similar and operate in a similar way?

Would be really great to hear some comments and your own views here!

exactly, that's a great -- or really the major -- part of Dogecoin's success and hopefully a microcosm for the overall Bitcoin community's development and "journey" to widespread acceptance for every-day transactions without banks or centralized (though un-elected) "keeper" institutions.

had the same question -- turns out, for Avatar images or "Profile pics" you cannot upload them until you reach Full Member status (120 posts) and, that way, kind-of have earned your stripes...

Dogecoin was the original fun coin. DOGE still is one of the very few coins that have a full range of proper accessories, from wallets for the widest-possible range of OSes, to paper wallet generators and paper wallets with great layouts and more.

Also, DOGE prices have been "healthy" for many years now. This is something you cannot necessarily say of many coins.

What's more DOGE's popularity actually makes this one of the few coins in an exclusive club to have something like a bread-and butter or REAL-world economy around itself. Therefore, dogecoins are accepted by many payment processors (on top of about ALL crypto coin exchanges there are).

The decision last year to peg Dogecoin mining to Litecoin's may or may not be such a good thing. At least it has not at all damaged DOGE or the overall popularity of the coin. If it achieved the hoped-for results of calming down mining is not known to me, but maybe the Devs could shed some light on that aspect as well.

So Dogecoin continues as one of the most popular coins which is something not even originally intended by the coin's developers. Using it is flawless, a lot of fun, confirmations are blazing-fast. Personally, I never had any technical issue whatsoever with dogecoins. Several spin-offs like Dogeparty, DogecoinDark and others will help developing DOGE in the future.

There's more to come, and it will be "many fun" to watch these stories developing.

more important than jail time would be the recovery of our funds! With Paul Vernon in jail, he would be a lot less valuable for users.

Rather than criminal law and lynching, smart people would support a civil law (company law) solution that involves piercing the corporate veil and personal liability of Paul Vernon for breach of duty and not disclosing Cryptsy's bankruptcy. In light of his deception and general way of acting, US law has some very nasty provisions on treble damages coming Paul Vernon's way (in case Paul Vernon does not come forward and honors user withdrawal requests soon).

THAT is how you claim this back.

exactly, @WENGER -- you are spot on.

By deceiving users about the years-old problem, Paul Vernon a. k. a. "BigVern" is guilty of criminal bankruptcy -- on top of full personal (civil) liability for running a bankrupt company, for which the corporate veil will be pierced in any court of law and all his personal assets apprehended to settle his debts to users who have their coins "frozen" inside the Cryptsy train-wreck.

Yes, the guy lied to me and to all  other users. If he returns our BTC funds, then no harm would be done and this thing would be settled. To save his neck, he should make up for the requested withdrawal amounts from his own BTC and LTC holdings. (Let us assume for the time being, that these are **not** identical to that earlier grab...?) To get our money back, it would be best for Paul Vernon to stay out of jail and be able and co-operate with settlement of those frozen balances. If he doesn't -- and soon -- then we will see our lawyers and force him to comply.

It would still be preferable for a takeover to materialize so someone more competent could continue Cryptsy -- which I'd personally love using for my trading in the future, I liked that outfit when it worked -- instead of going through all the hassle of a forced liquidation (with risk of significant loss to all creditors) and investigating Paul Vernon's blockchain-stored assets in order to apprehend the supposed lion's share of his true net worth...

@teddy5145 -- no, absolutely NOT: this is called covering up a bankruptcy. No matter what your "reasons" are for averting a bank-run or similar, a business person must file for bankruptcy the moment they become aware of it -- which in Paul Vernon's case was 2+ years ago, but he even deliberately kept lying to me and other users stating that this was a "temporary delay" and was "because of [certain recent] attacks" in order to keep us in the dark or even keep us depositing more trading capital into Cryptsy.

THIS is what Mr Vernon is (personally) liable for in Civil Law. It is up to himself to pay us back SOON in order to prevent people from filing criminal charges on top!