There's another post on reddit today of someone who had 35 BTC stolen from "secure" wallets.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/295las/35_of_my_btc_gone_pc_not_compromised/

Certainly it seems like this guy knew what he was doing, but still somehow managed to get his BTC stolen....

I myself have taken all my bitcoins off of coinbase except for small amount. Except for a few donations, I haven't spent any this year.
I'm wondering, if investors put most of their bitcoins in cold storage (and subsequently, not use them for currency), what will be the result?

On one hand, they become more rare and they are held more tightly, which would seem to make them more valuable. On the other hand, they won't be used very much, which might mean they don't have as much value.
I'm not sure what to conclude. There are a lot of very smart people here and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

 

not sure what to make of it, but thought the community here should know. sorry if it's in the wrong section.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/23a26k/breaking_remove_your_btc_from_localbitcoins/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/12/us/banks-say-no-to-marijuana-money-legal-or-not.html

This is a very interesting development in my opinion. It's also interesting that marijuana legalization is also in it's beginning acceptance stage, like BTC  

I've noticed that the forums have become somewhat bearish since hitting 1000. "This can't last very long" seems to be the underlying current of some of the posts.

It's important for people to remember we are still at the beginning of professional money coming into BTC. The ETF's are coming, and the major investment groups are only now starting to consider BTC. Just a few days ago I saw a story where wall street investors are asking their brokers about getting into BTC with their private money. These are smart guys who spend billions on investing and they are taking BTC seriously - finally. We've reached a huge goal in legitimacy.  

It's possible that many people bought in early (anything below 150 seems early now) and at this point feel that they are (subconsciously) making more money than they are comfortable with. God knows I've been struggling with this lately. I've never made more than 10k investing in a year and now I'm looking at 30k in taxes alone from cashing out some BTC as we've doubled, tripled, quadrupled, etc. It's been a blessing and a cause for stress - much like having a baby.

I'm writing this post to remind others and myself that we are deserving of wealth and don't need to think "this is too good to be true". Supposedly 70% of lotto winners are broke within a few years, because of "bad decision making". That "bad decision making" comes about because many of the winners don't feel comfortable with the money they've won. They do stupid things with it because on the inside they are still "poor" so they find subconscious ways to get back to what feels normal.

For those who are feeling uncomfortable with this unexpected windfall, you are not alone. While it's true that corrections (major and minor) will probably happen, don't let fear rule your decision making. We are all deserving of more wealth even though we may not be used to it - yet. It takes time to get used to a new way of life. Be grateful that you saw the possibility of Bitcoin before the moguls of Wall Street did.

Happy Thanksgiving
 

with Christmas season approaching, more people will have money on their minds, both in spending (gifts, donations, end of year tax purchases) and receiving (Christmas bonuses, monetary gifts, etc.). The media is keenly aware of this and will probably be talking quite a bit about the economy and subsequently, Bitcoin - as it's outperformed every other investment opportunity this year. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear more of the "got rich quick on bitcoin" stories surrounded by ads of expensive cars, diamonds, and other goods most people go into serious debt for....     

Also keep in mind the amount of parties happening from Thanksgiving (US - Nov 28th) to Christmas. I would think many who talk about finance at these parties would also be talking about bitcoin, as they did when the dot coms were taking off. So, although there may be some selling off before christmas, I do think we are going to get a lot of new buyers in the next month through January. I'm open to being wrong, but my gut tells me this is going to go really viral and the numbers will be around $800 or more by Christmas.

Just some ideas I wanted to share. Any opinions?

This is a large meetup group in NYC who have done very well with their investing. On Nov 7th they will be discussing bitcoin in depth. I thought some of you might like to know and attend if you are in the area. Here's the announcement....

Hello Everyone,


If you haven't already done so, please RSVP for the November 7th meeting.
We will be having 3 talks. The main one will be on the new area of Bitcoin
investing. We will be having a shorter introductory talk on Farmland
investing and in the State of the Markets talk we will be discussing the
Twitter IPO as well giving our usual review.


In our October meeting, we ran out of seats and had to close off registration,
so please RSVP as soon as possible. To RSVP and see the full description of
the meeting, go to:
http://www.meetup.com/nyinvestingmeetup/events/114425582/

Date: Thursday, November 7th
Time: 6:30 to 8:30PM
Venue: Estonian House, 243 East 34th St.
Admission: $10

So far we have three sponsors for this meeting and we encourage you to
consider their services (having sponsors allows us not to charge $20+
for admission). You can click on their ads which can be found on the
left panel of our webpage:

Ginsburg Flights: Offers large discounts on Business & First Class seats
(guaranteed  to beat Kayak.com). For more info please call: 347-559-1077
or email: MattanyaGinsburg@gmail.com.

Crowdfund Productions: Will be hosting the Midwest Crowdfunding Conference
on November 15th in Chicago. Morning and afternoon sessions for $70 total
(an incredible bargain). Go to the website: www.midwestcrowdfunding.com
for more info and to reserve a place.

Grasslands: Farm investments are hard assets that provide dividends. Grasslands
also offers diversification outside the United States. It's offering can only be made
by formal prospectus to accredited investors. Email: info@grasslands.com or go to
their website: www.grasslands.com.

Looking forward to seeing you on November 7th.

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer, New York Investing meetup
www.meetup.com/nyinvestingmeetup