Problem: central banking
Solution: currency without central banking

What's the issue... unless you mean that those protesters would rather enjoy the coddling and convenience of corrupt institutions instead of working to build new institutions which are not yet as convenient?

Anyone down there at the protests who complains, yet pulls money from the nearby Citi ATM and won't at least consider the opportunities presented by a peer-to-peer currency is unworthy of the change they seek.

You can short with Bitcoinica, right?  Why not do that with no interest paid?

Hehehe yes I know the future value of the US dollar, and thus I'd put the exchange rate closer to $1 billion / btc ...  Of course, it may also be $1 billion/potato as well =)

A good currency is a commodity - it is that commodity which is most widely desired and accepted in an economy. Currencies and commodities are not mutually exclusive, the former is simply the most widely desired latter.

Bitcoin in its current stage, and for the foreseeable future, will be in a volatile period of price discovery. The market is figuring out what these weird things are worth. We know they're worth somewhere between $0 and $1 billion each, right? Well, where exactly is the correct valuation? It will take much time, much speculation, and much correction both up and down before the volatility subsides.

The volatility of Bitcoin is not a bug, nor does it preclude ultimate adoption. It is an expected attribute of a commodity so revolutionary, uncontrolled, and new. Volatility will fall over time, with the Bitcoin being valued at $0, or something above that.

::sigh::

When price is rising, people complain about "deflationary spirals" and the failure of Bitcoin to not match up with demand.

When price is falling, people complain about inflation and the failure of Bitcoin to not match up with demand.

Are we so enmeshed in a centrally-planned, price-controlled economy that the first sign of true free-market price discovery simply scares us to death?

Bitcoin  is/will be the most volatile asset the world has ever seen. Set your expectations accordingly. Relax.

Is there any word on how long this protest will continue?

Okay you're right  , the rate is constantly changing, but the quantity of new coins per day is not changing. However, this further proves my point - for the meteoric rise in price occurred under a higher rate of inflation than what we're currently experiencing.

Thus, The Founder ought to stop preoccupying his concerns with the inflation rate...

Extremely false.  Consider a hypothetical to illuminate the folly of that statement.

Suppose tomorrow, Bitcoins suddenly became perceived as wildly valuable (maybe Australia decided to make them national currency). Immediately, sell orders would disappear all the way up to, say, $1,000 per Bitcoin.

At that moment, when the MtGox price of a Bitcoin is $1,000, there is suddenly a "market cap" of $1,000 X 7,300,000 = $7.3 billion dollars.

Question, Founder - Did "everyone spend" $7.3 billion?

If the question is still unclear to you, take the example to an extreme - suppose an alien civiliation was to make Bitcoin the galactic currency. Suddnely, nobody would sell a coin below $1 gazillion each. MtGox price is now $1 gazillion per coin. Did we all spend $7.3 million gazillion dollars?

No.

Founder - I gotta refute this stuff.

Yes, your figures are 100% accurate. Nobody is refuting the numbers. Rather, it is the implications you're drawing from those figures which are problematic.

- A $100,000,000 fall in the market cap of Bitcoins is not correctly described as a "$100,000,000 loss".  The aggregate value of all coins fell by $100,000,000, true, but only after rising by more than that immediately prior. Just as if you bought Apple stock for $100, and it rises to $200, then falls to $130, it would be misleading to say that one's investment brought about a $70 loss. What you're doing is taking the potential loss of a person who bought at the peak, and applying that to the entire bitcoin community, and claiming a hundred million dollars have been lost.

- And I've seen you post frequently on the topic of inflation. You seem severely against the fact that coins are created so quickly - and you ascribe the loss in market value to this inflation rate. This too is misleading. Remember, the inflation rate HAS NOT CHANGED at any time since Bitcoins were worth less than a penny to when they were worth $30. The fact is that their meteoric rise earlier this year occurred in the exact same inflationary environment. In other words, the inflation rate is not the primary driver of market price. Rather, it's the sentiment of individual buyers and sellers which is the primary driver of market price. If sentiment changes, the price can quite quickly skyrocket again, regardless of the 7200 coins printed each day.

- Finally, you said, "the whole bitcoin economy is decreasing value so fast."  This is utterly false. You are again confusing the market price of a Bitcoin with the value of the economy.  Just as the market price of a dollar doesn't determine the value of the USD economy, neither does the market price of a Bitcoin determine the value of the BTC economy. Similarly, just as the value of the dollar has fallen continually for the past 80 years, the value of the USD economy is vastly larger now than it was then. Same with Bitcoins - just as the value of the Bitcoin has fallen continually for the past few months, the value of the BTC economy is larger now than it was back then.

Confusing the value of all the economic behavior and production of the Bitcoin world with the current spot price of a Bitcoin is folly, and I can tell it's bringing you great distress. The Bitcoin economy is getting more valuable, productive, diverse, and secure with each passing month, and a falling spot price of Bitcoins does not in any way refute this claim.

These are pretty misleading figures.

You're basically taking a wildly volatile new commodity, looking at the highest peak price on one day and comparing it to the price today. You cannot say that $200m has been lost, without acknowledging that $200m was first created, and in fact the aggregate value is still massively increased this year.

Also - don't confuse "market cap" with the value of the bitcoin economy. The market cap of Bitcoins has fallen substantially since June/July. However, the value of the bitcoin economy has risen. More merchants and many more tools. Greater security after repeated vulnerabilities have been attacked.

Again, people concern themselves too much with the current market price of a Bitcoin. It is related to, but not synonymous with, the value of the Bitcoin economy.

I'm sure a novice programmer could make a quick script to create those pages, record the URL's in an excel file, and export as CSV. Then create a new script to send .01 btc to all those addresses, maybe all done through Instawallet to remove all transfer fees (send 100 btc to instawallet, then .01 to 10,000 Instawallet addresses)

Here's an idea... any takers? I'd be willing to donate a bit to this.

1) Create a few thousand instawallet.org pages/accounts. Record the URL's
2) Feed each account with, say, .01 bitcoin
3) Print cheap business cards or flyers with the instawallet URL address (one on each card)
4) Hand these out at the OccupyWallStreet protest.

The flyers/business cards should say something like "Here's free money that neither Wall St. nor the Fed can manipulate"

I think that'd be quite successful.


UPDATE:
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DONORS - thread continued here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45943.0

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Was via ACH

I've had trouble with Paxum in general - after sending deposits to them it has taken up to ten days to show up. Really frustrating, I don't like Paxum at all. So perhaps your issue is the same? Not a MtGox problem but a Paxum one?

I'm a marketing, design, brand development, and writing consultant. Would love to help out some other companies in this area... maybe I should post on the wiki =)

One problem is that many of these startups are offering very paltry "bounty's" for the work that needs to be done. I'm happy to offer discounts off normal market prices for this work, but people still need to be prepared to pay for quality.

I've noticed there seem to be fewer trolly/negative types and more productive conversations occurring here lately. It's nice

I'm selling BitcoinBooty.com - 15 btc =)

BitMagic - stop being a douche. lol

It is a group of people... not sure how many.  I also don't know if there is one "primary" guy and a bunch of subordinates or if it's just a pool of writers.

And his suggestion is to buy US gov't bonds???