Large buys or sells in the market should not immediately elicit cries of market manipulation. Some people have reasonable amounts of money and they buy and sell accordingly. A professional forex trader could easily buy or sell $100,000 worth of Bitcoin and not have any intentions other than, like all of us, simply trying to profit, speculate, or invest for the long term.

So you're "officially out of the bitcoin world" because you lost $180 of wealth?  You've posted almost 500 posts... isn't that a bigger investment?

I was shaking, curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor.

Zhoutong... I'm very impressed with what you've created so quickly. People are understandably skeptical, but I'm sure you'll be proving yourself over time. Bitcoin is much stronger because there are ambitious people like you building new systems. Keep it up!

If my Dwolla clears into MtGox today I might try out some of this margin stuff on your site

OP - great idea.  I think you should approach the top exchanges (including Ruxum) and see which of them would sponsor your project or hire you specifically for this implementation. MtGox might do it because I bet they made enough to pay for it just from commissions today =)  Other exchanges obviously need a way to steal marketshare from MtGox and thus might be interested.

I'd imagine an exchange that offered a FXCM plugin would be very competitive.

Oh cool!!  I have an xbox and the normal version of Monopoly for it (4 players). Hmmmm Blackout how hard would it be to make a simple website to coordinate games and bets?

Well that's nice of you but I'm not a developer... though I do know how to make text bold or italic in HTML 

False. Having +1 over 50% does not grant you title like that. This is a common misconception. Rather, the more of the hashing power one controls, the more likely it is that he/she can fork the blockchain and alter things. It's a gradient with a focal point at the 50% mark... but the 50% mark is not a guarantee of takeover.

The rate of printing coins is one of those constants that, if tampered with, would undermine confidence in the entire protocol. Very bad idea to even think of tinkering with such a thing. The market price is the variable, and the market decides what it will do.

And suppose the price started rising rapidly, would it then make sense to increase the speed of coin printing? No.

The market price of Bitcoin is what it is. We ought not try to "tinker" with the rules just to hold it higher than the market otherwise prefers.

To anyone who believes in Bitcoin, a falling price is a godsend opportunity to acquire more. It certainly does not indicate that the core constants of the protocol ought to be messed with.

I had something posted and received three messages from people saying the payment system at ForBitcoin wasn't working, so I arranged payment manually with them. I assume if 3 people messaged me about it, even more would have tried to pay and been denied without mentioning it.

I've sent ForBitcoin messages 2-3 times on this issue, both on their site and in the forums here, and never had a response about the issue. Their site looks great and is full of content now, but no customer service at all.

I would LOVE to play monopoly with Bitcoin! 

That was nice, OP =)  Thank you too!

Okay OP... are you willing to make a bet then? I'll bet you that on Christmas day this year, the price of a Bitcoin will be greater than $6 USD. If not, I'll send you $100. If it is greater than $6, you send me $100. Are you man enough to stand behind your prediction, or do you just post crap on forums with no accountability?

Now if you agree, how should we send the money? We could use Paypal and lose 3%... but do you even want USD? Are you in another country and need some other currency? Hmmm maybe a wire then? But wait I don't want to give out my bank account info, and it would take a week, and at least $15 in fees would eat up the winnings. If only there were a way to instantly pay with zero fees to anyone anywhere in the world... 

Joke or no joke, the point he was making is that "destruction and war cause economic stimulus" and this is one of those great economic fallacies - as Bastiat labelled it, "The fallacy of the broken window"

Krugman is abhorrent in his economic reasoning. True, he is a Nobel laureate, but so was Hayek, and they have 100% contrasting views. One of them is wrong... and perhaps it's the one who recommends an alien invasion and war to stimulate growth. He said similar comments in the 9/11 attack (that it'd be "stimulative" to rebuild Manhattan) and again in the Japanese earthquake.  Krugman is that worst kind of economist... the kind who gives politicians the academic veneer behind which to hide as they spend and tax society into stagnation.

If you want to read more of my commentary on this guy, here's three posts on my blog dedicated to him specifically:  http://evoorhees.blogspot.com/search/label/Paul%20Krugman

I'm not saying this as a joke: Krugman's antagonism toward Bitcoin is the best endorsement of the protocol yet.

LOL he commented again and said, "Okay, I'm convinced"  Hahaha I think critical mass has now been achieved.

Depends on the timeframe you use. If you measure from the price peak, then transactions have fallen. If you measure from the beginning of the year, transactions are up significantly. Stats are always deceptive =)

On the transaction point, it's important to realize that as services consolidate the transactions visible to the blockchain may fall even though real transactions increase. For example all the trades between mtgox or instawallet or flexcoin accounts won't show up on the chain.

So then isn't it a positive thing that a new high-profile pool is coming online?

OMG!!!! Krugman wrote an article on Bitcoin!?!?!?!

That is actually serious news! And rejoice Bitcoiners, for this is the same "economist" that still doesn't understand Bastiat's broken window fallacy. 

If Krugman's against it, Bitcoin must be absolutely amazing!! 

When I got that email my thought was, "this is good for Bitcoin" now that yet another market entrant is going strong and continually offering new services.

Yet, you think it's a "real threat?" Would you rather there be fewer mining pools, and fewer exchanges?

Ruxum is subtly developing a very powerful platform and I'm quite impressed with their professional work thus far.

If anyone needs a Ruxum beta invite, PM me! =)

I've purchased with Bitcoin online and it's a freakin' breeze.

Instawallet + green address = transactions in less than 30 seconds. Honestly, I've found btc easier on occasion, as I don't have to go hunt around my house for my credit card.  Now, the OP is correct that a newb might get bogged down in Bitcoin and it would seem like a huge hassle. Newbs should not be using the client though... they should use instawallet or mtgox or flexcoin, etc.