Blame the criminal organization which hands out other peoples' stolen money. Don't blame Wall St. for taking that money when offered to them. Remember also that some financial institutions were FORCED to take the money, so that the vulnerable ones would not be known to the public. The blame lies squarely with Washington, or perhaps with the people who vote those fools into office.

I'd rather not provide my Slave Number to use the service.

Priced reduced to .45 btc.... any takers?!

I'd support a protest at The Federal Reserve. Those protesters are mad at the wrong enemy.

+1

Well someone is being snippy, but it's not Steve.

He was making a point about Bit-pay being a business, not a hobby, and thus the necessity to rightly seek profit, not merely cover costs. For a start-up company, offering currency conversion services between USD and an incredibly volatile, unpredictable currency known as Bitcoin I'd say 2.99% is pretty darn attractive. What does your employer, First Data, charge for conversion between USD and BTC?

I don't see legitimate grounds for your antagonism, Smalleyster.

I'm not sure many (if any?) people actually lost coins... who are you referring to?  My impression was that, at maximum, 1-2k coins were missing, and it was all from the one large account that got hacked. There was not some vast swatch of account holders who lost coins. Am I mistaken?

They're working fine for me...

OMG it's hypnotizing... I've been staring at it for 20 mins. 

Does anyone know - when transactions occur, is the node from which they originate known? Basically, would there be a way to visualize when a coin is "sent" from one location on the globe to another?

I imagine they've given this more than a cursory amount of thought... and they're probably not doing for reasons of "karma"

Awesome

Hello all,

[price reduced]

I've got a Steam Code for S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat.  Willing to sell for .45 bitcoins. I'll send you a jpeg image with the redemption code on it.

Current market price for this is $19.99 on Steam. Selling this one for only .45 btc!!

First come, first serve! Thanks!

Every successful Bitcoin venture will increase "centralization" to a certain extent and there's nothing wrong with that. The great thing about Bitcoin is that centralization is not inherent - it's not structurally built into the system as with national banking systems and central banks, etc.

A free, decentralized market will necessarily coalesce around vendors of strength, as it should. To the extent those vendors start dissapointing customers, a dozen competitors are welcome to enter the market and try their hand.

Don't poo poo Mt. Gox's move here, I think it's both smart for them and a great relief to the btc community.

It's not a bailout when done with private money. It's just an acquisition between voluntary parties. Bailout is a terrible concept/term and is best reserved for the wretched government practice.

The important point here is that Bitbills, and other similar physical manifestations that will surely spring up, allow for even greater anonymity.

When a Bitcoin can change ownership with no transfer in the block chain, then it renders the blockchain ineffective for proving transaction histories. This is a great thing... for it means anonymity can be even greater for those who seek it. Imagine a court trying to prove ownership or transfer of X number of coins- all the defense need do is introduce the idea that transfers can happen beyond that block chain and the whole case falls apart. Bitcoin really does become as anonymous as cash.

There will never be a "last block." Blocks will always be generated, because that's where new transactions are processed/confirmed. However, after the 21m coin limit, there will no longer be coins created in the block. Instead, those still mining earn money from transaction fees... which, if Bitcoin is successful, will be very large in the future because each block will represent tens of thousands of transactions.

Except zero chargeback risk... that's a huge consideration.

So you're saying that the US credit rating got downgraded due to the one political faction in America that is actually the most vocal about debt reduction? And then you compare the entire faction to a potato - ignoring the probably reality that such a large group is necessarily composed of people from a wide range of intelligence, background, and character?

The US credit rating got downgraded because the US is not credit worthy. It's pretty simple. The downgrade should have happened long ago, actually. The amount of debt carried by the US Federal Government cannot mathematically be paid back without printing the money to do so (which they've already started doing via "quantitative easing").

You seem to suggest that the creditworthiness of the country would be improved if the group advocating for "smaller government, less spending" was gone, thereby leaving more people who support higher spending levels? Perhaps you want to rethink your opinion on this.

LOL if a 600 single day drop in the Dow is a "meh" day, then you must live in a scary world!

There will be numerous bubbles... probably 1-3 per year for a number of years. Bitcoin is so revolutionary, and it's true implications lay somewhere between "gonna collapse and nobody will use it" to "it will totally change the world and dominate international finance." 

With a range of outcomes like that, and extremely liquid global marketplaces for bitcoins, nobody should be surprised to see wild swings in price while humanity tries to discover the "real" value of this new invention.

The true value of Bitcoin is unknowable... it is something the marketplace is trying to figure out.