People are against monopolies. Rename them. They are now called "property". People are now in favor of monopolies.

He would be found and killed ten years later, and his body thrown into the sea (no pics).

The point has already been made that BitCoin is in fact a commodity, there's no need to make it a commodity. And probably one of its most valuable intrinsic qualities is decentralization, so in a sense Forp does a have point in being all suspicious: But he's not considering that single guy doing something for the first time is not forcing centralization. Even if MtGox was the most centralized part of the BitCoin economy for a while, recent events are making the community go to new exchanges, making BitCoin more and more resilient.

So basically what I'm saying is that I hope competition will eventually come up guaranteeing 1gg for 2.99 BTC, and that BTC for Gold exchanges become decentralized. In the meantime, Gongcheng, I wish you luck and hope you make a good profit for being the first one to take the risk.

Not op's pic, but meh...

I'd probably say that their attack (if it was in fact them) was a good thing for BitCoin in the long run. It's not really helpful to have the value rise if people don't take security seriously, and if the economy becomes heavily centralized. If in the future there are lots of small exchanges, with good security, the value of BTC's will go up, but this is in a time frame of years, not weeks

I propose backing BitCoins with their own awesomeness.

I lold so hard at these.

I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but you lost them all. If you can't get that wallet.dat back, then that's the end of them.

I wrote all of my views about exporting culture and stuff before actually reading your blog post. It's a very good post, and again, the situation in Mexico is similar. Lots of humble people are absolutely dependent on Western Union and get constantly ripped off, and again Bitcoin comes to save the day.

A factor to consider is how soon will bitcoin be illegalized. Bitcoin is clearly a threat to banks and money transfer services, so they will be lobbying hard against it. I'm sure it will be a different scenario if the exchanges start popping out now, while it's still legal, than if they do after BTC's illegalization. People might more easily switch to an illegal way to transfer money once they've felt the advantages of it, than try out for the first time an illegal thing (I'm sure there will also be fear mongering tactics by the media). So I'd say that anyone thinking about setting up an exchange, should be quick.

I've been thinking for a while about doing something like that here in Mexico, there's also some very good music around. I'll most likely be living in Germany by the time BTC becomes mainstream, but will come back yearly, so I might do the recordings during those trips. But for the moment it's just an idea, and I've got to much stuff to do right now to start.

Anyway, I do hope someone starts doing similar things. I really think that selling cultural goods can pull the third-world* out of poverty, and that bitcoin overcomes many of the obstacles for that.

* I've been convinced that this term is obsolete, but it still functions for communication

I remember reading an article some months ago (can't find it anymore) about internet penetration in Africa. It predicted that in most African countries, mass internet access would most likely start mobile (instead of beginning with desktop computers and then develop to mobile).
EDIT: Since writing this I got the "2 replies have been posted, you may wish to review your post" and NielDLR has just confirmed this

I really do have a big hope for BTC in Africa. What the continent needs is free people trading as much as they can, without government imposed obstacles.

I have a particular fondness for Zimbabwe (specially because it music is so fucking beautiful), and the country is being sunk to hell by a fucktard. The music thing is important, I think there's a big export opportunity there for all of Africa.

So here's how I would imagine a small scale business:

1. Wait for the bitcoin economy to grow enough to have enough worldmusic-heads to make this profitable.
2. Wait for this to get done, pledge if you can.
3. Get good quality, tough field recording equipment.
4. Crowdfund a project.
5. Go out there to record some amazing Zulu singers or something, give half the money to them, keep half.
6. Release under a liberal license so the recording flows and works as promotion for the next recording project.

Loop 4 - 6

The copyleft, fund-before-release approach is essential because this music is for a very small niche. Most indy labels don't realize yet that file-sharing benefits them (as opposed to Lady Gaga).

Ja! Perfecto. Pues ahí nos vemos.

Pues yo probablemente sí voy a ir, pero pues si confirma más gente seguro voy.

I lold.

LOL

If a nickname is going to come up, it will on its own. I don't think that 'quid' and 'buck' were invented by some one consciously trying to come up with a hip name.

Anyone is allowed to use any word they please as long as they can communicate efficiently. I, for one, will be sticking with CoolCoin.