I'd prefer NSABook to just die in a large raging viking funeral-pyre kind of fire, but I guess this is something. I doubt they'll be viable for much longer, as most of the younger generation have left them and they're currently stuck with parents and grandparents, who aren't exactly big spenders in that space. (Youth having more disposable income in terms of not worrying about rent/mortgage, etc..)

You might want to read this over at ars technica:

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/01/ars-deathwatch-2014-companies-on-the-edge-of-relevance/2/ (scroll down a bit.)

Money quote:

The number of people playing Zynga’s games on a monthly basis has dropped by 57 percent from last year—as older games lost players, newer games failed to make up the difference. That means fewer farmers buying virtual things, and in the first three quarters of 2013, Zynga’s revenue was only 64 percent of what it brought in during the same time period in 2012.

It seems more like a move to jump on the bandwagon of something that is "hot" so they can try to gain relevance again. Good luck. And by "good luck" I really mean "die in a fire". I detest in-game purchase monetization strategies. The whole "Freemium" trend needs to die.

Disastercoin - perfect.

"Trust us, we're going to take a decentralized system and put a centralized escrow-balanced encoded trainwreck on top of it. Of course it will work, you just have to reverse your stance on trustless sytems and trust every one of the MSC board unconditionally."

Yeah, sure guys. Ripple called, they want their defective premined monopoly back.

India is piss-scared that people will use Bitcoin to circumvent their capital controls. They're already crapping bricks about people smuggling gold into the country, and the last thing the rupee needs is a bunch of people running Bitcoin nodes so they can easily convert and shuttle wealth out of the nation.

This isn't about tax primarily, its just the ruse they're using to collect as much information as possible, and as usual the spineless companies located in this region are bending over backwards, thinking they'll get some kind of ruling/reward from it. Its just the regulation blood-suckers getting attached, if they allow it at all.

When someone in the government says they're going to help you, that's when you run like hell.

I don't get the furor, except from the Litecoin guys - who are rightly terrified that their tenuous status as "sliver" to Bitcoin's "gold" is being threatened. Yes, it is, welcome the darwinian thunder-dome of alt-coins. It may kill them actually, as the miners fragment to mine their favorite one.

As for the rest, they have the market penetration of a wet piece of cardboard against a granite block, so I wouldn't be too worried about it. Unless you're not number one, of course.

You might want to read this over at ars technica:

http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/01/ars-deathwatch-2014-companies-on-the-edge-of-relevance/2/ (scroll down a bit.)

Money quote:

The number of people playing Zynga’s games on a monthly basis has dropped by 57 percent from last year—as older games lost players, newer games failed to make up the difference. That means fewer farmers buying virtual things, and in the first three quarters of 2013, Zynga’s revenue was only 64 percent of what it brought in during the same time period in 2012.

It seems more like a move to jump on the bandwagon of something that is "hot" so they can try to gain relevance again. Good luck. And by "good luck" I really mean "die in a fire". I detest in-game purchase monetization strategies. The whole "Freemium" trend needs to die.

Correlation does not equal causation.

But good luck convincing alt-coin pumpers otherwise.

Techcrunch is becoming the Gizmodo of article-writers.

Seriously, its all clickbait idiocy.

Is this isn't a forum for self-promotion. Also, a one page .pdf with "maybe last edition" doesn't really inspire a lot of confidence.

Why is this even here?

Not really surprising, I mean - they are asking people who are personally vested in Bitcoin if it will do well. I think it will be just fine of course, but I had to comment on the sillyness of this poll. Sure they're going to say higher, hardly anyone ever says "This is the year of the slide back to $100".

You should read this:

http://www.osnews.com/story/27416/The_second_operating_system_hiding_in_every_mobile_phone

I suspect what they really compromised is the baseband OS, which sits below the phone OS. It would explain why it would have persistence qualities, stashing some binary where the OS can't even see it. We need open-source hardware verification and open OSes on our phones. Its becoming insane trying to trust any commercial hardware/software company now.

Krugman is a bottom-feeding media attention-whore who has no business distributing his fetid little "gems" of thought and expositions on technology. But the media cater to him, because he's one of the "old boys" that fights every possible advance with his rank coffee-halitosis exhalations, backpedaling like a passive-aggressive office snitch when he gets caught out in a fabrication.

He's the epitome of the backstabbing office drone, the kind that will kiss up to the boss - making sure to schedule synchronous lunchtimes so he can brief his superior on all the trivial goings-on in the workplace. He's the guy who would make note of you being three minutes late, smile and shake your hand, then go behind your back to sabotage your performance review.

Every smarmy smile, clammy handshake, hey-I'm-just-kidding-but-no-not-really utterance underlines the falsity of his entire being. He's the culmination of every failed business policy that encourages psychopathic behavior, distancing ones self from the feelings of others, in order to make a buck, or step on the face of someone else to just get ahead.

He's the embodiment of what is wrong with our "profit over all" society, and when I hear him speak, all I hear is the hollow lies of all the tyrants, billionaires, politicians and other jaded seekers of power who have no other identity than the title they hold, and the ability to inflict suffering on those they deem less worthy.


Or I'm just "joking", you decide.

Just to be clear, I accept that all of the usual bad actors in the legacy financial world will be involved with Bitcoin at some point. This however doesn't mean that I'll be running to them to manage my Bitcoins in any way. Shouldn't be a problem for me personally, the only real tragedy will be the clueless newbies who see the legacy "bridge" as the only safe way to use Bitcoin.

I can't help those people, they were the same ones who no doubt yelled "ponzi" when they first read about Bitcoin in the first place, and in a way, they deserve to pay for their ignorance.

More likely, they did their homework and realize that there's money to be made. Yes, there will be a lot of revenue to be had before all the old "bad" money is converted into "good" Bitcoin money. They're also hastening their own demise if they don't switch over as well.

Funny how Mike "It'll happen eventually" Hearn doesn't like it when someone does something that would happen.... eventually. Interesting how that worked out, isn't it Mike?

Google Translate:

Controls suspend trading in Bitcoin

Business with Bitcoin currency are not permitted under local law on foreign exchange. AFP

It is not permitted to engage in foreign exchange of electronic currency Bitcoin under Icelandic law on foreign exchange. The written response from the minister of Morgunblaðsins stated that the Exchange Act is provided for general restrictions on foreign exchange and capital movements. "It does not seem that the provisions of the Act which exempt goods and services from the foregoing limitations may not apply to transactions with Bitcoin or other exemptions from the restrictions of the Act apply to such a transaction," the response rate.

The electronic coin Bitcoin has been much in the news in recent weeks due to a sharp rise in the exchange rate. When the peak of last month, the exchange Bitcoin sections of 1,200 U.S. dollars. Since then it has been depreciated and Bitcoin now costs around 875 dollars.

-------

So, looks like another government is fearful of capital controls being routed around. Hardly surprising, sucks for the Icelanders though.

Sure, the central bankers won't like it, but they'll be hard-pressed to actually kill it in its tracks. That time has come and gone. If they wanted to stomp out Bitcoin, they should've done a 51% attack back in 2009 - 2011. Its WAY too late to even try that now.

They could try - as some have suggested - to buy up bitcoins to screw with the market, but honestly, everyone is so used to the volatility by now, most traders would LOVE that.

They'll go the way of the RIAA/MPAA fighting BitTorrent, grumbling old dinosaurs that can't quite stuff the genie back in the bottle.

I think this is why we get so much resistance.

Down deep, people don't like creative types. Geeks are creative, their canvas is a processor, their paints are the higher-level languages that tell it what to do. Geeks understand the abstract. You have to, just to visualize how functions work and how to make programs flow the way you want them to.

Regular people don't like creative people, because it takes insight, some smarts, and just general ability. Even if you don't brag about it, just the fact that you can DO the things you can makes regular people uncomfortable. It usually manifests in the stumbling awkward admission of "...well, I wish I could do what you do..."

The "norms" believe that learning abstract concepts is out of their reach, so they resent someone who grasps it easily.

No wonder the first thing that leaps from their lips is "funny internet money" and "tulips" and "I'll make BOBCOIN, LOLOLOL HERE'S 100 BOBCOINS FOR YOU". It's the easy-and-obvious way to strike back at someone that has this idea that they can't immediately grasp. They don't even try to.

And frankly, after trying for a good amount of time, rebutting every FUD piece, writing scathing replies to those that openly attack Bitcoin, I had to scale back. That was just my personal decision, but its also a very geek-oriented one, isolating the problem and routing around it.

And that's where we are - in the middle of routing around all of these people who think Bitcoin is inconsequential and useless. Imagine their surprise, when they are smacked with it front-and-center, intruding into their lives. Perhaps it will be the full "wrap" advertisement on a Bus, or the fact there's that funny "B" symbol on their dinner menu. Even better, if during a job interview, they're asked a random Bitcoin question, just to see if they're keeping up with current technologies.

That's when it will be driven home, that sinking despair that perhaps the geeks weren't wrong, every mocking word now a chained weight around their neck, submerged in the dark waters of regret.

Good point, and it is interesting.

From my limited experience, it seems the asian way to deal with an enemy is to keep smiling and talking, all the while you're slowly pulling your weapon from its hiding place. Its perfect in execution, as the foe has zero idea what is coming until it is far too late. In that sense, Bitcoin is enjoying the same benefit - with pending regulation and laws - all the while the network makes inroads and disrupts business models across the globe.

My only concern, naturally, is if we can gain enough critical mass before the danger is perceived by those who would be threatened by it. This is one of the reasons I'm a bit pissed at the Bitcoin Foundation for basically shouting "OVER HERE" to the government's Sauron-like gaze. It seems they shortened the timetable considerably with that foolish act of trust. However, we have a good chance to prevail, whatever iteration of the Bitcoin protocol survives.

This is one of the reasons I like Bitcoin.

It doesn't matter if they destroy Bitcoin 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 - the idea is out there, proven to work on a global scale at a given transaction rate (which isn't trivial, all things considered) and hasn't been actively stomped out of existence for four years. That's an impressive bit of technology.

So, the massive glacier that is the Bitcoin protocol is advancing, and there's nothing they can do to stop it or a variation of it from proliferating and thriving. Its going to keep inexorably grinding on until all of their objections, regulations, laws and bans are pulverized to irrelevance.

And it is the only hope for the world, because of this property. Old networks need to be purged and power-broker connections disrupted to allow advancement, and Bitcoin is a catalyst for that kind of change. It is one of the few bright spots since 2008 cratered the world's economies.

I don't even care about the fiat valuation - just the fact these greedy bastards can't use their "influence" and "power" to corrupt it. Granted, dirty tricks will be attempted, but I'd like to think we can push through such things.