I rarely find something extraordinary these days but the Lumiere Virtual Shop is the coolest thing I've seen in a while. It's a sort of collection containing virtual shops from all sectors like clothing, electronics, cars and furniture. You can even take the furniture and place it in your room to see how it looks. This will surely be the next big thing in online shopping.
If you're a beta tester as well please hit me up so we can play around the rooms in the same time.

I strongly recommend everyone who owns a VR to join the beta testing program and test out the features: https://l-os.com/beta-testing-program/  
If you don't have a VR already, you can join the program and purchase an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive and have it shipped in a few days which is unbelievable considering the waiting periods on the official oculus site. I joined the program on Monday and received my Oculus today.

Because Bitcoin is so young, it could still go to zero. Many mainstream economists argue just this. And many opponents are trying to make this a reality.

It is still a speculative investment.

If this is true then the following shouldn't be subject to capital gains taxes until they are either spent or sold:

1.  Pay in Bitcoin
2.  Mining rewards

Edit:

The premise of this post is actually incorrect. Risk alone isn't necessarily reason to avoid ordinary income tax.

A better way to make this argument is that payment in stock options (also property)
 can be structured to avoid ordinary income tax while Bitcoin pay and mining cannot

The IRS seems too want to have it both ways here. Tax it as money when paid (unlike other property like stocks options as I've demonstrated) AND tax it as capital gains when spent or sold

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/taxing-stock-options-other-equity-070055008.html

this is a big deal.

http://playwithcoin.com/a-land-based-casino-in-cyprus-is-now-accepting-bitcoin/

The Bitcoin train is leaving.

Choo Choo!

The logic goes something like this:

If Las Vegas casinos can take Bitcoin then,

Indian casinos can take Bitcoin.

If Macau casinos can act as yuan/USD exchanges then,

Indian casinos can act as BTC/USD exchanges.

If Indian casinos can act as BTC/USD exchanges then,

Indians might as well set up Indian reservation exchanges.

This is how they do it in Macau:

http://qz.com/49870/is-wynn-macau-casino-a-victim-of-the-latest-chinese-corruption-crackdown/      

This way they avoid the Bitpay fee and essentially act as exchanges.

Well, if that's the case, we better get going.

As I recall, it was supposed to be from increasing centralization:

... of BTC ever to be made.

During public interviews.

[Tension]

Bitcoin's Tension is the term i've used lately to describe the inexplicable rise of this new bad boy on the block.

just what is Bitcoin?  the masses don't seem to know.  unlike a traditional security there is no CEO, there is no Bd of Directors, there is no corporate office, there is no address, there is no prospectus, there are no financial statements.  no one is backing the darn thing.  then why would any rational person put money into it?  answer:  b/c the price is rising like a bullet, the thing won't die, we are going on a half decade of longevity, more and more famous ppl are climbing on board, central banks seem to be fearful of it, and the FBI has just completed a massive effort to gain control of it.  therein lies the Tension.

you can literally hear the gnashing of teeth as the price goes parabolic to dizzying higher highs followed by the inevitable crashes to higher lows.  "why oh why?" screams The Money Honey (Mario Bartiromo) and her CNBS BS'ers.  what could possibly be behind this here Bitcoin?  simple answer Honey; it's The People.  what a scary thought.  hence moar Tension.

which brings me to the FBI.  the mere fact that they have made such a massive effort to gain control of DPR's BTC stash is all you need to know.  the effort alone is enough to alleviate a great amount of Bitcoin's Tension.  it's like taking 2 Vicodin after a splitting headache.  oh, it feels so good.  why?  b/c it doesn't matter if they hold it or sell it.  the mere effort means they value it.  if they value it, then why wouldn't you?  after all, we're talking about one of the most powerful governmental organizations on the planet who's mission is to only do good for our nation and our people.  

which then brings me to what are they going to do with it?  as i just said, it doesn't matter to Bitcoin either way.  if they sell, they will just be distributing all those coins to enthusiasts who are eager to get their hands on difficult to obtain BTC.  it will serve to distribute those coins far and wide which will only help the Bitcoin economy and move alot of those coins offshore.  if they decide to hold them, they will be able to use them for all the benevolent US centric activities they engage in, not to mention benefiting from the further upcoming price increases.  i feel moar Tension.

if i had to bet, i think they'll hold onto a greater part of their new found stash.  after all, what's a measly $28.5 M in fiat compared to its BTC equivalent and its future potential?  not that it matters.

the headache is coming back.

[Order #1]

$5000 (by wire or bank deposit) or at the bid BTC per BabyJet.  Or best offer.

Example:  current Bitstamp price is $125.76 at the bid, therefore $5000/125.76=39.758 BTC.  Of course this will vary depending on when you place your order.

I am more bullish on HF than ever but do not have the capacity to house this many units plus the expected 36 more chips coming after 3 months.  Note that when I first ordered these, it was expected that my 4TH would come in 4 machines.  Now, due to redesign,  it's 10 and with the MPP, introduced after I bought, a potential 25 machines!   This was a generous thing for HF to do but I literally don't have the space or capacity to house this much.  Of course I was originally going to install the capacity but it's going to be too much for me now.  Hence this sale.  Also note that I am holding back 1 machine from my original order for my personal mining use.

For those who have the capacity and who specialize in this sort of thing, this is a great opportunity.

Expected delivery from HF late October.  Note that this is Order #1 and will be the first BJ's to be shipped out.

Shipping and taxes included.

PM me.

$5000 (by wire or bank deposit) or at the bid BTC per BabyJet.  Or best offer.

Example:  current Bitstamp price is $125.76 at the bid, therefore $5000/125.76=39.758 BTC.  Of course this will vary depending on when you place your order.

I am more bullish on HF than ever but do not have the capacity to house this many units plus the expected 36 more chips coming after 3 months.

Expected delivery from HF late October.

PM me.

trying to download blockchain using DSL modem.  Speedtest.net says 2.77 Mbps download speed.

is this why i'm not getting any connections or something else?

windows 7, 3.5GB RAM, UPnP enabled

note the shift of hashing dominance to Europe.

the US is being deprecated:

http://blockchain.info/nodes-globe

How many wars do we need to go through before the American people realize that we have a gov't gone mad?  When will we realize that special interests are controlling this country, namely the banksters and military industrial complex?

Ask yourselves what have we accomplished in the wars of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and potentially now Syria?  The first 3 are in utter chaos with the violence and killing even more extreme than ever.

A "surgical" pinprick consisting of cruise missile strikes in Syria is naive at best and terribly dangerous at worst.  We risk a much wider boots on the ground confrontation that the Obama Administration refuses to even consider.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin?  Everything.  Without control of the printing press, our gov't would be incapable of carrying out such "exceptionalism".

http://www.acting-man.com/?p=25931

Make sure you view the video of Congressman Alan Grayson.

I see what is happening now, this is playing itself out over on Reddit.

What the insiders want is someone who will not rock the boat and just go along with the flow.  The Bitcoin Foundation now wants to have "chapters" instead of forming independent groups that collaborate.  They have created a new meaningless buzz word (don't all politicians do that) called "Organized Decentralization."  http://elizabethtploshay.com/organized-decentralization/

Folks, people like Theymos are taking you for a ride.  It is like the donations to this forum which total over $600K.  Theymos has been given advice time and time again about how to secure this web site against attacks and hacks.  He never takes the advice and refuses to take even basic steps to run this site properly.  He also gives elevated status to people running obviously illegal services.  He is apparently holding on the $600K in case he needs some kind of legal defense.  

i have to agree with this as well.

theymos lets his global moderators run wild deleting posts of anyone challenging their moderating decisions.  this has been a great disappointment to me, censorship.  
right now, i am the victim of a moderator who is unilaterally deleting my posts and enforcing a once per day posting on my subscription thread based solely on a complaint/recommendation of a competitor, no discussion from me allowed.  i was banned from posting on the forum for 2 days just b/c of bumping my thread more than once last week after not having bumped at all for several days from travelling.  imo, this is just retribution from a moderator who i've had personal disagreements with in the past.

power corrupts even at this level of a forum.  this post will probably get deleted and i might end up "disappearing" once again.

[Gold: I Smell A Trap]

My Fellow Bitcoin Advocates,

I am pleased to announce that I have been selected as a paid sponsor for HashFast Technologies LLC.  I have also been asked to join their Board of Advisors.

As most of you know, I have been involved in the Bitcoin community for a long while now.  I have made my contributions here on the Forum mostly in the form of economics, investing, and Bitcoin theory since early 2011.  I have given my perspective in countless debates, mainly in my two epic gold threads beginning back in August of 2011, Gold: I Smell A Trap: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=35956.msg443129#msg443129 and Gold Collapsing, Bitcoin UP: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68655.msg799814#msg799814.

The following academic paper and it's authors believe that I have had a significant impact on how the community thinks:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2263707

Selected quotes:

Breaking Out of the Bank in Europe - Exploring Collective Emergent Institutional Entrepreneurship Through Bitcoin

" Among the most influential individuals in the Bitcoin community are the mysterious founder, Nakamoto, and the five influential individuals in the community, for whom we could not find any identifying information on the Internet. It seems that an individual’s “real world” identity is not required to take an active role in the informal organization of Bitcoin. "

" As highlighted by scholars studying institutional entrepreneurship (Battilana et al., 2009; Dorado, 2005; Lounsbury & Crumley, 2007; Rao et al., 2000), some actors drive institutional change through their conscious action"

Some of you know that I have a very successful Bitcoin-only newsletter, "Financial Risk Analytics", that has been active on this forum since April 2012.  Within that letter, I give my views on Bitcoin, gold and silver, and the stock market.  I believe that Bitcoin is playing a significant role in shaping the world's financial economy, it's just that most people don't realize it yet.   But from an active Bitcoin business perspective, I have always stayed in the background to preserve my anonymity and because I never saw an opportunity that truly sparked my interest.  I am an active professional in a totally different industry and don’t need Bitcoin for my future security. That desire to stay uninvolved changed this past week.

When HashFast announced that they were open for visits something compelled me to jump on a plane and investigate personally their physical headquarters last week at Uniquify.  My intent was to evaluate their legitimacy with the goal of buying their mining hardware as I have been an active miner since mid 2011.  What I came away with was the impression of a hardworking, legitimate team of dedicated people trying to realize a vision.  A vision to become the top ASIC mining development firm in the world.  Having spent 9 yrs of my own higher educational life in the Bay Area, a new Silicon Valley/Palo Alto based mining development team peaked my interest. These people are doing what I believe to be extraordinary work.  I was there only a day but have been in communication with them almost on a daily basis since.  I had the opportunity to walk around the office and interact personally at great length with the principals involved, not only in HashFast, but with Uniquify.  I am convinced that being embedded within Uniquify affords significant research/business advantages.  

The fact that HashFast itself is composed of Simon Barber and his team of 4 scientists makes them a force unto themselves from the development perspective.  The fact that HashFast has direct access to the team of 28nm world renowned scientists from Uniquify to design the physical layout of the chip makes them a combined force to be feared.  Simon is an academic from Cambridge University and has been involved in the Bitcoin community from the beginning. How many ASIC mining companies have an engineer employed at PARC? He has written a seminal paper on Bitcoin theory and economics which has contributed greatly to our understanding of just what is Bitcoin.  He has been working on his proprietary version of an ASIC chip for almost 2 years.  I believe this form of long term involvement with Bitcoin, such as I have demonstrated, is critical to understanding how to design a properly functioning chip that will be fast and efficient and deliver to small and industrial miners the return on investment that they deserve.  

Eduardo de Castro is their CEO and visionary.  He has an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.  As I have worked with him closely over the last 2 weeks, I have come to believe that Eduardo is a man with integrity, driven by the goals and beliefs of a true Bitcoiner, i.e., a belief in transparency, openness, honesty, and hard work. He believes in free markets.  I believe that Eduardo's goals are noble and that you will believe this also once he announces publicly his plan for buyer refunds and the Miner Protection Plan.  

These two principals are guiding the company's vision to be the best in industry.  I happen to think they have a great chance at achieving that.

The HashFast "BabyJet” ASIC mining machine will be a first-of-its-kind technology (400GH/s per ASIC chip, significantly less than 1 Watt per GH/s) slated for delivery by late October. Speeds greater than 400GH/s are being achieved on extensive industry-standard testing with 28nm ASIC physical design leader Uniquify.  Under 350W power draw.  Their goal is to under promise and pleasantly surprise.  The extensive testing being done has been consistent, repeatable, and surprisingly improving to extraordinary levels just in the last two weeks alone.  And let me not forget one other significant thing; this unit has water cooling.  NO MORE NOISE.  There is a God!

I have had the opportunity to look into the eyes of the principals involved as well as shake their hands.  I have worked with them closely for the past two weeks.  I believe that these people will make a full faith effort to deliver on their promises. Whether or not they are actually able to deliver working units by November, I can’t absolutely guarantee.  But, I believe that they have the talent and work ethic to make that a distinct reality.  


Long Live Bitcoin,

cypherdoc

hashfast.com/shop

is this possible after exporting from Bitcoin-qt?

i've been waiting for this.

wow, that's the absolute worst performance i have ever seen come from Jim Rickards.  talk about fear mongering.

and then, he didn't even have his facts straight:

1.  oil never hit $400.  max was $149 in 2008.
2.  there has never been a billion counterfeit Bitcoins created.

http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2013-06-18/malka-rickards-debate-bitcoin-utility-longevity

my respect level for Rickards just went down at least 2 notches.

Rickards claims Satoshi doesn't understands economics.  i'd say Rickards doesn't understand game theory.  which is quite surprising to me.

this is not good; for the US.

http://www.thegenesisblock.com/china-climbs-to-top-spot-in-monthly-bitcoin-downloads/

...not directly, but indirectly.

listen carefully to what he says.  i'm paraphrasing:

1.  banks tend to get overleveraged and need to be bailed out.
2.  we are suspicious derivatives represent a hidden form of leverage.
3.  savers and fixed income investors had to be sacrificed.
4.  high frequency trading is a legalized form of front running.
5.  he and Charlie agree that banks need to have limits that don't exist today.
6.  Bernanke has his foot on the gas pedal and purposely has dropped interest rates to almost nothing.

it is my contention that these facts alone, from the greatest investor of all time, validate everything we're doing here and can only mean one thing:

Bitcoin will succeed.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100708111