I have listed my complete set (red, yellow, blue, green, black) of Crypto Stamps that were bought from the Austrian Post Office "On Chain Store" (OCS).

Only 500 of these stamps exist, and only three red stamps were ever sold from the OCS, which makes this set particularly rare. The stamps remain in "Sold" status, which means the buyer can submit their shipping info after purchase and receive delivery directly from the Austrian Post Office.

The listing is on Opensea, in dutch auction format, here: https://opensea.io/bundles/complete-set-of-ocs-stamps-unshipped

Price starts at 50 ETH and will drop to 15 ETH over the next week.

Thanks and good luck!

Here we go again: http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aeco/201511020025.aspx

This source indicates that Bitpay just laid off nine staff: http://qntra.net/2015/01/bitpay-lays-off-9-employees-today/

Given the reports from the Bitcoin Bowl, almost no one is spending their Bitcoins with brick & mortar merchants.

In other news... Ripple is hiring! https://www.ripplelabs.com/careers/

[There's significantly less incentive for someone to speculate on Bitcoin today]

For the record, I just sold all of my Bitcoins.  I bought my first Bitcoins in June 2011 at around $28 and continued buying all the way down to $2.  I actually bought about 8000 BTC around the time I made this post: http://www.thebitcointrader.com/2011/10/im-calling-bottom.html.

Needless to say, my return on investment was massive. We're talking 25,000% plus.  For someone to see that kind of ROI today, Bitcoin would have to hit $125,000 each, or a market cap of $2.6 trillion on 21 million coins. Which brings me to my first point:

There's significantly less incentive for someone to speculate on Bitcoin today. To see a return comparable to what we've been seeing over the last couple of years, the amount of capital that would have to be injected into the markets is exponentially more than it was just over a year ago. This is going to cause investors to really do their homework before buying Bitcoin, and recent news events are exactly the sort of thing that will deter new investors.

Next, the vast majority of merchants are using Bitcoin as a protocol, not as a store of value. Anytime we hear of a new merchant choosing to "adopt Bitcoin," what they're actually doing is two-fold. One, they're getting free advertising for themselves, especially local businesses that find themselves on the front of the business sections of their local papers. Two, they're not adopting Bitcoin, they're adopting BitPay or Coinbase. These merchants care about lower fees and irreversible transactions, not so much the value of a Bitcoin itself. There are a few exceptions where the merchants retain some or all of the Bitcoins, but they're the minority, by far.

Third, Bitcoin early-adopters are cashing out. When you hear about Overstock, TigerDirect, Fancy, and others doing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars of business in Bitcoin, those are old Bitcoins that are being sold. No one is going out to buy Bitcoins so they can make purchases they could already make with PayPal. It's inefficient and expensive.

Finally, there are better protocols that are being derived from and have improved upon Bitcoin. If Bitcoin is more useful to businesses as a protocol, then why wouldn't a better protocol oust Bitcoin in the long run? The Bitcoin 2.0s of the world (Ethereum, Open Transactions, Ripple, etc) will eventually unseat Bitcoin. Some say that Bitcoin will remain an ideal store of value, and the other technologies will become the ideal "payment rails," but is Bitcoin really a good store of value if 35% of Bitcoins are held in only 500 addresses?

Anyway, suffice it to say that I'm not done in the crypto-currency space. I've divested into Bitcoin 2.0 technologies, and look forward to seeing the space grow. I expect to see better returns on those investments than I would if I simply held Bitcoin.

The oldest and most successful Bitcoin gambling referral site, operating for over two years, is now for sale.

This sale includes the following:

- The domain name betwithbtc.com;
- All site content;
- All affiliate accounts, including many with several hundred referrals.

Thanks to being the first mover in this space, BetwithBTC.com is at or near the top of every Google search result related to Bitcoin gambling.

The site already brings in substantial revenue, which will undoubtedly grow as Bitcoin continues to gain traction.

Serious inquiries only (please PM).

http://ripplesucks.com/

As a result of the decision made by betsofbitco.in in this thread, I believe I have no choice but to remove betsofbitco.in from the betwithbtc.com directory.

This was the bet:

This bet concerns the 3 Butterfly Labs Bitforce SC products announced here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=87934.msg966886#msg966886

For this statement to be false, both of the two following conditions must be met:

• Before April 1st 2013, at least one BFL customer with a bitcointalk.org forum account established prior to the bet's opening date shall post detailed and credible photos of the device on the forum, including photos of it operating, and report its hashrate. This customer cannot be a BFL employee.

• The device must achieve at least 75% of its advertised hashrate.

This was the decision:

We have carefully examined both sides of the argument. First of all, on our site title is definitely part of the agreement. We do not count the current status as BFL "shipping" the products, therefore other bets are still open. On the other hand the conditions in the description are met. Unfortunately the statement description, as it is written, can be interpreted as complementary conditions to shipping for more clear evidence or the definition of shipping. As much as we would like to settle the bet on one side (as we would earn a significant commission) we do not think that the situation is unambiguous under these circumstances which would be very hard to foresee at the time of statement initiation. As we have been doing before, we will continue to call a draw if there is a such an ambiguity. All the bets will be refunded without any commission.

The reason why I'm contesting this is because it was never shipped.

It's quite obvious that steps were taken to ensure a certain side of the bet was won, via a technicality. Anyone in their right mind who understood the spirit of the wording in the bet would have awarded the "will not ship" side.

Unbelievable.  

This auction is definitely relevant to the gambling community: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=158115.0

Thanks for checking it out.

• Auction will end March 31st at 23:59:59 GMT (no, this is not an April Fool's joke);
• Bid on each domain separately, they are not being sold as a batch;
• The auction includes the associated Twitter accounts, @bitcoingame, @bitcoingames, @bitcoingaming;
• Please place your bids in this thread.
• This auction has an undisclosed reserve.

I was reading through the Bitcoin thread over on the 2+2 forums and stumbled across this post.

I put together a short write-up here.

[Update: I received an email response. The withdrawal requires manual verification due to its size.]

Anyone had any issues withdrawing from Bitino?  I sort of had a big win and when I go to withdraw, I get nothing. My deposit has 10 confirmations.

Update: I received an email response. The withdrawal requires manual verification due to its size.

Keep things in perspective, folks:

The hardware supporting this mining operation will come online upon delivery of Butterfly Lab's first shipment, sometime around the week of 22 Feb.

9936 shares for sale at 9Mhps each.  Ideally I would like to let them go in a single block, but I am willing to accept multiple smaller bids as necessary.

Dividends will be paid for nine months only.  After nine months, these shares will be worthless, so consider that when bidding.

If you require more info, please PM.

Auction ends Sunday, 16 Feb, at 00:00 Atlantic Standard Time (GMT-4) (i.e. Saturday night).  Reserve price will remain hidden.

Mods please delete.

http://www.thebitcointrader.com/2013/01/253-btc-3577-usd-bet-that-butterfly.html

I wonder if this bettor has inside information.  That's a lot of money to put on the line without some sort of information to back it up.

(reserved)

I own a rather large quantity of GIGAMINING bonds, and watching them depreciate over the last few weeks has been rather painful. That being said, I think they're a hell of a bargain right now and I have considerable faith in the fact that they're worth considerably more than their current valuation on GLBSE.

The last round of dividend payments was 0.013075 BTC/bond or 2.14% of their 0.61 BTC/bond valuation. Each bond pays out earnings from 5MH/s of mining power.

The upgrade program, to TERAMINING, will cost 0.29 BTC on top of the current 0.61 BTC/bond cost, though you will receive 4 x 22.5 MH/s bonds for your investment.

That's 90 MH/s for 0.9 BTC vs. 5 MH/s for 0.61 BTC, today. In other words, you'll be getting (90/5) x (0.61/0.9) = 12.2x more hashing power for your investment if you choose to upgrade.

So, the question is, will the difficulty stay low enough (and will Gigavps get the hardware fast enough) to actually realize a 12.2 x 2.14% = 26.1% weekly dividend return on your investment, post-upgrade? Definitely not, but how high will the difficulty have to go before the benefits of the upgrade are negated?

The last dividend payout was for a difficulty of 2.7 million. What if difficulty hits 10 million? And if we throw in a consideration for the reward halving (pseudo-difficulty of 20 million)? Even in that situation, you'll still realize 12.2 / (20 / 2.7) = 1.647x the current GIGAMINING dividend payouts, meaning GIGAMINING bonds should be worth  0.61 x 1.647 = 1 BTC well into 2013.

Perhaps someone could try to speculate on how long it will take the difficulty to hit 10 million to gain a further appreciation for the true worth of GIGAMINING bonds?

Edit: here's an analysis that speculates ASICs will drive difficulty to 15,336,055 (or a pseudo-difficulty of 30,672,110 taking into account the reward halving). If that turns out to be the case, then GIGAMINING bonds should currently be worth 12.2 / (30.672 / 2.7) = 1.07 x 0.61 = 0.65 BTC, which is pretty close to what they are right now.

Interesting.

Hey folks - check out the thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81589.0

We're starting the first race in 15 mins (1715 UTC).

[Make sure you also install BRChat and join channel "Bitcoin" (/join Bitcoin)]

I will be hosting a race using a game called "Uniball."  The winner of the race will receive 2 BTC!

Download the game here: http://www.uniballhq.com/

Join the game called "Bitcoin Race" (password: juiced)

We will start at 10:00 PST (1700 UTC), or whenever the game fills up (16 players max). Feel free to join early to practice your racing skills.

I will be the referee (GoWest) and will not race.

The race will consist of two laps around the track.

Make sure you also install BRChat and join channel "Bitcoin" (/join Bitcoin)

Good luck!

Edit: if you're having trouble with the display, follow these instructions:

1) Before you login, click on "Uniball configuration."

2) Choose your preferred resolution.

3) Where it lists the patches, click on "properties" and turn off starfield and grid and click "hide background."

That should help.

What would happen if Planetary Resources stumbled across an asteroid or two with significant gold content?  Would that not dilute the gold market significantly?  What if there's a near-Earth asteroid that's solid gold?

Suddenly, precious metals aren't looking like such a great investment, especially 10 to 15 years from now (i.e., not that far into the future).

Discuss!