The deeper crypto companies get into partnerships with conventional finance the less likely the whole thing is to be ravaged by knee jerk laws. That's the best aspect of this news.

Mass adoption? Not really. It feels a bit like merchant adoption. That adds more convenience for existing customers rather than drawing new ones in.

All of these US auctions are from the proceeds of crime as far as I can tell.

Gox is the obvious alternative. People will get some money back eventually.

Other than that I've hardly ever heard of a hacked exchange having funds recovered from the person who hacked them, let alone given back to customers.

I seem to remember the UK police attempting to contact people who were on Mintpal to return funds to them but it seems like a pretty rare occurrence and that was straightforward recovery from the piece of shit who ran it.

As for BTC-e/Wex since it's in Russia it's not as if you're going to get any justice or honesty. Some seem to think the FSB helped themselves to that and it's probably impossible to tell which funds are honest and which were laundered anyway.

I would've thought so. But the gist I get from this, and I might be wrong, is that he created this service for no other reason than working with dark markets. He was also running some sort of drug search engine too.

That's rather different from another centralised service being used by all and sundry.

I expect all centralised mixing to become too hot eventually but this is a specific set of circumstances not repeated elsewhere.

According to this - https://old.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/f6s07m/lone_bidder_purchased_3991_of_the_4041_btc/

One buyer bought 3991 of the 4041 BTC for sale. I presume the address is known rather than it being a pure guess. It hasn't hit Yobit yet but I'll be watching like a hawk.

"This indictment underscores that seeking to obscure virtual currency transactions in this way is a crime"

That's what stands out to me. He was actively facilitating money laundering. That was his whole raison d'etre. He'd be just as nailed for doing the same thing in any other form.

It's a rather different proposition to some average person doing a Coinjoin type thing.

Have they ever been a good business?

I'll guess that the 'actively managed' ones have done much worse than the ones that simply sat out the crappy times. Traders rarely beat the market in mature markets, let alone one as deranged as this one.

Depends on where you're at in your Bitcoin 'journey'. If he were spending BTC obtained in December 2017 that would be a very different deal to BTC obtained in 2012/13. In that scenario I'd very happily get rid of a portion to make today a more pleasant place and I've done the same myself.

I've spent plenty and have tat and experiences I otherwise would never have had. I'll be a vegetable and then dead soon enough. I'm not going to sit in the dark denying myself everything until some mythical price level.

Some of my spending in the depths of 2015 has been appalling but I have very few regrets about it in the main.

The track record of crypto businesses is genuinely disgusting. No way would I ever, ever, ever, ever put money into a crypto business. Almost every single one has failed or disappeared. If a hardened crypto fan feels that way do not expect any conventional funding route to feel differently.

The few crypto businesses that do make money tend to attract heavyweight funding completely separate from banks or pipsqueak investors.

As mentioned above there's a section here to look into funding. You will get much further offering collateral. There's a lot of money swilling around. Plenty of it will be demanding.

Why?

The chances are that wherever most of us live taxes people who trade in currencies, stocks and other financial thingies at similar rates or higher. Why should crypto get an exemption from that?

This is a jolly good call. They lurk together in real life by the sounds of it and have communities elsewhere too. I'd prefer it if they were scarier though. There's not really enough venom on display. One of them needs to do the right thing and do a driveby.

I found their attempt to add BCH agonising with all sorts of weird talk about downloading modules that turned me off completely. I hope they've done a better job with this implementation.

Much of the world would love to get rid of American influence. It hasn't exactly benefited many other countries.

They should be looking at attempts to unseat them with other fiat currencies and if they can't figure out that driving Bitcoin out into other countries could wind up nailing them up the botty too then they're even stupider than they look.

If it were a big ticket item I'd simply show up in person, albeit heavily armed if necessary.

The problem with reputations is that people are patient enough to build them and willing enough to trash them if the payday is big enough.

To enter my gang, which you'll be immediately ejected from, there is one trial that must be passed.

I send a polaroid of myself waving on the toilet.

The initiate has to blast their toilet area with an air conditioner for ten minutes set to the lowest temp possible, and then film themselves getting fully aroused by the polaroid with no manual stimulation at all. It also has to be a 360 degree video so I can be sure there's no other arousing material in the room.

That's my carefully engineered comment to reflect on the intellect of the people who write 'Omigod they buying millionz of coins to dump on us. We all gone die.'

There were a shit ton of those threads around the first Silk Road auction. Looks like it's still not a dead idea yet.

Auction ends in a few minutes. As ever nothing has happened and nothing will happen. We may never find out what was paid either. That's down to the winner to declare it.

I'll be watching Yobit like a hawk in the coming days as I'm sure that's where those psychobear dumps will take place.

When I am living Full Monk in a post-apocalyptic flooded world my Bro Yacht will be named Fat Legs in memory of the moment of the tipping point being called. The tender towed behind it shall be named Cankles.

They get a mention from Bones261. It's possibly the gang that will prevail long after all the other ones have gone mad and gone down with their seasteads. I can foresee the hats being handed down to their descendants.

WHAT?

In that case I'm going to have to start my own.

You're all welcome to join. As soon as you do you'll get a PM from me telling you now I gotta turn my back.

You'll be cast adrift to fend for yourself. Consider it a form of money laundering of the soul.

You'll never catch me in a gang. No, sir.

The most powerful gang of all is the one pitted against each in their interminable trust battles. I've never been able to discover what they actually don't trust each other about as zero business seems to take place between them all.

If one side capitulates I expect them all to go in a Jonestown-esque mass suicide when their purpose in life evaporates.