I would give one of my kidneys to be able go back in time to June 2011, and dollar cost average my entire life savings from $30 all the way back down to $2.  And then HOLD all my 1000's of coins all the way to today.  Of course I would have been laughed at by family and friends, and the troll day traders in 2011 would have told me I was a complete fkn idiot.  I would of course kept on buying more coins even at the lowest points because I am stupid, all to the laughter of the bears, naysayers, and trolls.  All would have had pity on me in 2011.  Children would have pointed, laughed and spit on me as I passed them in the streets.  

Based on what has transpired since then, I don't think I'd be alone in my time travel fantasy.  And those that don't think it will happen again in the next 2 years should really get out of bitcoin now and go do something else.

Thanks for the reply.  I guess in the West we really do see things differently, as here we hardly see bowing down to the government or authority as "putting up a fierce fight."  Quite the opposite, we see it as cowardliness, as fear, as giving in.  Survival at the expense of freedom (that is, not having so many severe restrictions that daily business becomes impossible) is not survival at all.  It is oppression.  It is living in a prison.

Also in the West, our government would NEVER allow pro-bitcoin infomercials to be run on national/state television, thus giving stamp of approval encouraging our people to buy it, and then turn around 6 months later and basically outlaw it.

Yeah, well tell this to zhangweiwu.  Maybe he can share this with his Chinese bitcoin friends and break them out of their stubborn denial.

I've thought about and debated this in my mind as well.  I'm in the same boat, whether to sell a large chunk of btc on the next run up (and the next, and so on, ad infinitum) vs. just taking out a monthly/bi-monthly withdrawal to cover living expenses as time goes on, etc.  I haven't had issues with my bank so far, but I've heard others have depending on their bank (Chase seems to be one culprit) and the specific amount that the bank 'flags' as suspicious.  For those of us who want to continue to increase our btc holdings while the bubbles last, being able to sell large amounts of btc at the bubble tops is kind of a necessity.

Hey, thanks for the articles.  Very nicely written.

On the second one though, I have to debate you on a few topics:

"Even Bitcoin’s global events seem to support this vast ego. China was the reason for the last bitcoin peak, and it’s the reason for its fall. Western news still maintains that 83% of bitcoins are traded in USD. ‘It must be fake’ say the Chinese bitcoin players. ‘The West faked their trade volume. The truth is that 83% of bitcoins are traded in CNY and USD traders are just following our lead, over-reacting to our market movements from time to time.’ Facing the Bitcoin Foundation’s failure, the Chinese started Bit Foundation, and although the imitation version is rarely mentioned in the west, the original was rarely heard of in China. And when the west is sick of China crying wolf about the ‘ban’, the Chinese are sick of westerners ‘spreading rumours’. ‘Trust no more English sources please’, one person said at a Bitcoin event."

This is just laughable.  Do Chinese bitcoiners really believe that the West is just overreacting whenever a Chinese news source prints FUD of another 'ban', and it's clearly Huobi, OKCoin, and BTCChina LEADING the sell off, not Bitstamp or Bitfinex?  Do Chinese bitcoiners really believe that they can't trust English news sources on bitcoin, but CAN trust Chinese news sources? (if so, then wow).

Can you also tell me why Chinese bitcoiners trust the Chinese exchanges so much over the Western exchanges, when none of the Chinese exchanges have submitted themselves to an unbiased proof-of-reserve audit of their holdings?  Just blind trust, huh?

"...Americans talk of alibaba as yet another Chinese imitation. Yet Alibaba win a PR favor in China by never touching morality topic, never shy away from a fierce fight – with such an image a western company is doomed to fail, in the West."

What does this mean?  And if means what I think it means, then tell me how the Chinese exchanges are not just bowing down to the PBOC and not shying away from a fierce fight?

BitChick classing up the place, showing how it's done.    Can you pls then teach these immature 'boys' on this forum how to hold their wad for more than 5 friggin' minutes?  Lol.  

I'm so glad I'm not part of this stupid "GenY-ADHD-things-aren't-happening-fast-enough-something-gotta-be-happening-every-second-or-life-sucks-oh-snap-something-big-going-down-on-Twitter" generation.  #millenialsaredoomed

Don't believe the faked volume.

The Beijing Bitcoin Summit underlined just how small their involvement/participation really is at this point.  For a country that is *supposedly* doing 12-15X more bitcoin trade volume than the U.S. or any other country combined (if you believe the fake Huobi numbers), only a couple hundred people showed up to their Beijing bitcoin conference.  We've easily had 2-3X that many attendees at any ONE of the MANY bitcoin conferences here in the U.S. in just the last year alone.  If there were really that many more Chinese bitcoiners than the rest of the world, there should have been at least a few thousand in attendance in Beijing.

I'm beginning to smell rat.  China's involvement in bitcoin today is WAY overhyped and overblown.  People need to stop thinking that they dominate and control the market, they don't.  Not by a long shot.

HFT is not real volume.  Huobi fake volume is fake.

Plenty to discuss.

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/volumepie/

According to this chart, CNY accounts for only 7% of World bitcoin exchange market.  84% is in USD. 

Discuss.

FTFY

Bitcoin apparently rewards the most patient of all, and punishes the least.

OMG T. Stuart, has the bitcoin bull now turned permabear?

...yet.  Right now, the bitcoin economy market cap is just too small for them to care.  When bitcoin adoption and thus the price grows orders of magnitude from here (and it will eventually), don't put it past the Chinese gov't to do something that grave and stupid.  Just like Russia, they will pull out all the stops they need to pull in order to try and regain control.  They'll probably start seriously caring with the market cap hits ~$50B USD.

The only reason they haven't completely banned bitcoin exchanges in their country is
a) they want to keep the final trump card in their back pocket, in order to keep the FUD going as long as possible (since it seems to be working for now), and
b) they don't want to look like draconian N. Korea to their people, and
c) because they know bitcoin can't be extinguished because it's decentralized and global.  So they'd look pretty stupid going to that extreme.  It would just push it into a black market, and continued growth would them make them lose face to their people.  But they still have plenty of other means of FUD at their disposal.

But ultimately it is a losing game for them, because bitcoin is global.  No one country can control it, not its adoption/growth, it's price, nothing.  It would be like the Chinese government trying to ban Linux usage on a global level, or Tor, or BitTorrent, or the entire internet globally.  Just not possible.  The more they try, the more stupid they look.

EDIT:  BTW, China exchange volume makes up only 7% of the world's bitcoin exchange volume.  ONLY 7%!!!
http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/volumepie/

Yes, you get the idea.  There is another thread here somewhere that predicts bitcoin can easily support a 4-5x increase in price for every 3.2x increase in the user base.  If this trend has validity and we are at say ~3M users/consumers now, we should see 16-20x price by the time we are at ~30M users.  Could this happen within a year?  You bet your ass it can, easily.  Exponential growth can happen VERY fast.

Oh rly?

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=brk-a+Interactive
Click on 'Max'

This is cool news.  I hope they can get past that silly $100 limit.

"We have to balance a desire to accommodate innovation, which is a good thing, with a concern that we continue to protect transparency in the system and ensure that foreign money doesn't seep in."  Yeah, fat chance on that. 

Savvy campaign contributors might look to buying bitcoins now, in the hopes that their investment grows.  Then donate to their campaign du jour when the time is right.

I watched in awe back in early November as the price went from $200 to $400 in what seemed like a week.  Then it just kept climbing.  At that time I remember thinking, "Never again will I be sitting in full fiat before a run up.  I'd rather be sleeping in coins that I might have overpaid a little for, than miss the next rally (and the next, and the next, etc)."

You never know what is going to happen in this market, and it is still absolutely miniscule in size.  So much runway left over the next 5-8 years it's ridiculous.  The bitcoin "craze" that will sweep the world could still be years away.

Of the people on this sub that I feel truly have the interests of bitcoiners at heart, I can count maybe about 5-6.  These folks have been around since at least 2012 or early 2013 if not before, and are willing to share their time and experiences here.

1. Be wary of anyone that has signed up since the Nov 2013 run up (I guess that includes me too, but please know that I have been lurking since July 2013).  Anyone who has signed up in the last 3-4 months, don't trust at all.

2. Be wary of anyone that has not been through at least 2 bitcoin bubbles.  Those that have know the possibilities of this market better than anyone who hasn't.

3. Be wary of anyone that seems a permabear, or that only logs in to tell everyone that bitcoin is doomed/going down/going to $0.  They are either an idiot day trader trying to influence the market, or just a miserable troll that has no business on a forum dedicated to bitcoin.

4. Be wary of anyone that just logs into the Speculation sub forum only when bad news in the bitcoin world is happening, see reasons #3 above.

5. Be wary of anyone that boasts that they know what they are doing and know Bitcoin TA like the back of their hand, and then you go back and read their sub thread history and learn that they were always so full of shit and all of their adamant, superlative predictions never came true.  These people are just egotistical grand standers that demand everyone's attention, and like the majority have no formal finance or trading background.

6. Be wary of anyone that has been in the bitcoin market longer than 2 years and are still doing poorly at this from an investment standpoint.  I'm fully convinced that even a savvy, poor person could have played this market decently with a modest sum of money from 2 years ago, and be well on their way to a fantastic retirement fund by now.

I'm getting the feel that nothing significant will happen on May 10th. Perhaps even a rise after the weekend.  However, we've heard that the PBOC is concerned about bank accounts being used to purchase bitcoin (which makes absolutely zero sense, as it is legal to own and the Chinese have to use Yuan to actually purchase it, duh).  If the PBOC perceive a rise, ANY rise in price, as some kind of threat or against the spirit of their wishes, they will try to exact further measures with more FUD and threats to the Chinese exchanges.  And this could take weeks to play out, as the PBOC does everything on a delay.

The only real question remaining is a) how many total bitcoin is owned by the Chinese out of the total out there in circulation, and b) of what percentage are these folks willing to sell on more China bad news (i.e., possible Chinese exchange shutdown).  My guess is not many left.  Those with the most fear of the PBOC or the weakest hands would have sold long ago.

My feeling is the amount of bitcoin owned by the Chinese is now a much smaller subset of the total bitcoin in the world, than it was back in November.  And so, this has now become an elaborate game of Chicken.  Can a Chinese selloff affect the price that much from here?  My bet is nay, maybe $50-75 at most.  The PBOC cannot hold back the tide forever, because bitcoin is global.

Yep.  

But screw phones, imagine a (not too distant) future where you have a watch with an embedded hardware wallet.  You're in a store, and as you pass your hand/arm across the embedded barcode of the item you wish to purchase, the price comes up.  You push a button on your hardware wallet and the price is accepted in your queue.  The item is queued up for purchase in the store's app payment system.  You put the item in your shopping cart.  You continue shopping this way until you are done.  At any point in time, you can remove something from your payment queue.  Once you're ready to leave the store, at the door the store's payment & security system "scans" your cart to verify that you have queued up all the items for payment that are in your shopping cart (compares payment queue with the items' embedded barcodes), and asks you "Are you ready to checkout?"  You push 'yes' on your watch's wallet payment system, and you just made your purchase in bitcoin (or some other virtual currency).  The store's door payment system validates your payment, and the door security system gives you the green light to leave.  You walk out the door with your purchases and your electronic receipt.

No long lines to check out, no POS workers to deal with at all.  

Still not getting your point.  China gov't doesn't recognize bitcoin as a currency, they recognize it as property, aka collectibles, aka "goods".  So you should be able to "buy" them with Yuan any way you wish.