I also got this email, and I have never been on the Coinbase website.

I have been on Localbitcoins, but I never registered there or shared this email address there. Editing this because I just checked past emails and I did use this email address with localbitcoins in June 2013. So they must have gotten my email address there.

 - - - - - - -

In This Issue:
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Please note: Initial deposit amounts exceeding +30 Bitcoins will qualify your membership for a 2nd level upgrade.
 
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Do not reply to this e-mail

 - - - - - - -

Thanks for the info S4VV4S. I didn't notice that. Guess I've spent too much time in one sitting and am starting to get far too tired to continue for now.

Hi all. I visit this site often, and today came across this puzzle and the amazing work everyone has accomplished. I have an idea that came to mind that I decided to share, in case it somehow can help. If this has already been discussed, I missed it. And I did try to read the entire thread.

When I first studied the image I noticed the 'illegal' O and I. As I followed through the discussion I saw where the public address ends at the O. At that point I began to believe that the I is somehow related to the private key, possibly where it ends.

Then I got the the Morse Code solution. I believe that the OP has confirmed the message is:

THEY CAN NOT ATTACK WHAT THEY DO NOT SEE

and not

THEY CAN NOT ATTACK WHAT THEY CAN NOT SEE

However, I wonder if even though the OP corrected an obvious mistake (because the letters spell out the DO NOT and not the CAN NOT), they did not confirm that is the end of the Morse Code message.

Say you change the words:

IS
TOP

to

I
STOP

Could that be telling us that somehow the private key ends (STOP) at the I?

Just a thought.

Hope I have enough posts. Been using bitcointalk for two years, and registered in March or April, but don't post much. In fact, I just made my 4 hours a few mintes ago. I usually did not log into my account when I came here, so all my hours here were not logged.

Anyway, very nice effort on your part! Here is my address:

1KTTX9jjjLuaPQC4KDXarJghwx7N5tZerC

While bitcoins were climbing SLOWLY from a few dollars to around $25 US, everything was great. I expected to have to wait for two to three years for them to reach $100. After bitcoins skyrocketed from the mid twenties to over $250, I couldn't believe the rapid growth in vaalue.

Then came the fall to around $60, and I felt sick. The price came back, and climbed to over $150 again. Once again, all was good.

Then came the SLOW decent. Each week the price seems to drop a little more. So if you compare the value today to $260, it appears to be in a rapid downward trend. However, if you consider the value on January 1st, 2013, today's value is 400% to %500 what it was just six months ago! That is still awesome growth.

Even it the value drops to $50 by December 31st, 2013, it would still be over %100 return in a year. A great profit compared to almost anything else you could have invested in this year.

It was nice to see the value go up each day, or hour. And it hurts to see the value gradually decay. Sometimes I thing the best thing to do is just ignore the price, and sit back and wait, expecting gains over the long run.

Two years ago when I discovered BTCs I believed that at some point in the future they could easily be worth over $100,000 each. I wanted to invest a considerable amount in them, but am retired and my wife needs to agree to large investments.

In late 2011, when bitcoins were valued between $2 US to $3 US, I tried to talk her into investing, but she believed the risk was too high. In early 2012 the price reached over $5 US, and I explained how we could have doubled our investment in less than six months, had she allowed me to invest.

In August-September 2012 when the price sank to around $10 US, I explained again that had we bought when I first mentioned it we would have multiplied our investment by four, and had we invested the second time I brought it up we would have doubled our investment. I didn't mention that bitcoins were over $16 a month earlier. I also gave her a four hour course in the state of the fiat currencies around the world. This time she woke up and realized the potential, and allowed me to invest about a quarter as much as I hoped to, yet still a considerable sum.

At that time, I told her that in two or three years bitcoins could reach over $100, and that in five to ten years they could easily be valued at over $1,000, maybe even $10,000 or $100,000 each, depending on what happened to the fiat currencies in the world, and more specifically in the U.S. Since she now realized the financial state of the U.S. and the possibility the U.S. financial system could collapse, she believed it.

In March when the price of bitcoins went over $200 each, we were both shocked! We had no idea they would reach that value so quickly. On the day they reached their high of over $260 each, she thought we should sell enough to recoup our investment, and I agreed. I found a person willing to purchase the bitcoins, but that person only would offer 8% less than the MtGox price. She thought that was too high of cut for them to take, and while we argued about that for two hours, the price plummeted to below $70.

In April the price recovered to about $150 each, and we sold enough bitcoins to recoup all we had invested in bitcoins, precious metals, and other investments. Since selling those bitcoins, the price has never reached $150 again.

Short term, I believe the price could go either direction, depending on the state of the world economies, the pressure to regulate the bitcoins by the U.S. and other countries, the falling precious metal prices, and whether or not tracing bitcoin transactions becomes a part of the 'system'. If too much negative influence develops over the next year, it may kill bitcoins altogether, except for underground use. However, I believe the bitcoin 'system' is robust enough to survive all that it is up against, and eventually will become the 'seed' of the future 'monetary system'. As such, each bitcoin could be valued at over $3,300,000 U.S. (today's dollar value), because it is estimated that total fiat value is currently $70 trillion, and maximum bitcoins mined can only be 21 million, so $70 trillion divided by 21 million equals $3,333,333.33.

How many years this will take depends on how quickly the systems in place today collapse. I believe our current fiat systems are already barely hanging on by a thread, so I predict this will all happen within the next two to five years, maybe even sooner. I cannot accurately predict when these system will collapse, but I can accurately predict how long the collapse will take once it begins. When our current systems began to fail, it will only take minutes to hours for total collapse, not days to weeks. With the real-time media of today, once the lines began to form at EVERY bank, credit union, and savings and loan, ever person that has any money in these institutions will stop whatever they are doing and go and stand in line. After these institutions pay the 1% to 2% they have available funds for, it will be over.

That is my best guess!

Well, it is not as though it is an entire day, or week! I've spent the past two years reading this board, and joined on March 12, 2013. However, I made my first post a few minutes ago. So I guess after this post I'll have to make three more posts, and then will I have to wait five hours?

What everyone else already said:

Do NOT invest what you cannot afford to lose.
Develop a relationship with several bitcoin 'dealers' from bitcoin-otc, localbitcoin, etc. When you need to SELL, you'll have contacts.
If you bought in when the price was relatively low, sell enough to get back your investment. If the price falls to zero, you lose nothing.
Promote BTCs so that the price will not collapse.