The appcoins are further along because that's their angle--that's the value proposition they use to monetize their proprietary tokens.  What I'm arguing is that if any of these apps prove useful, then if it is possible to create the same app but using bitcoin as fuel, then someone will create that app, and it will tend to outcompete the proprietary token.  The example you gave about the decentralized BITUSD assets is interesting and a potentially useful product.  But I don't see what's special about BitShares other than it was the first to do this.  This functionality could be built on top of bitcoin (no protocol changes), and, by learning from the BitShares experience, probably executed better. 

I don't think the bitcoin core devs should do anything in the way of "more features."  Bitcoin is just better money.  Any truly useful apps can be implemented on top using oracles, sidechains or open transactions like you said. 

I see this as a vastly more robust solution than some hodgepodge cryptocurrency with a feature set that changes from week to week.   

SMBIT is an excellent contrarian indicator.

Smart money is dumping btc on exchanges to hold down marks for contract coins.  This much I know for a fact.  I then speculate:  When that dam breaks, there will be a mighty wave.

I personally think bitshares x has a better product than nxt with a truly decentralized AND collateralized market.  I believe this achievement is being overlooked because this is the first time in human history that any asset on earth can be traded with actual collateral backing up the trade (btsx) and enforced automatically by an algorithm instead of people.  This is NOT an IOU for an asset, which has been the only option in markets until now.  Also, the DPOS model will be great if it stands the test of time because of the 10s confirmation times. 

Bitcoin and nxt have both been tested with bailouts/qe/inflation with Mt gox and bter repectively and both have passed the test.  The question remains; is work truly required to give a money it's value?  This is more of a socionomic question and a bit harder to predict but I don't think so.  I believe we will see 3 to 5 dominant chains emerge with Bitcoin being the primary POW, or digital gold.  Other chains will provide other uses but their associated currencies will act as money in many cases.  The alternative is for Bitcoin to survive as the sole form of money with open transactions, side chains, or some type of m of n oracle system to provide collateralized markets with Bitcoin being collateral. 

What if we had no need of speculating about this and could look up historical action of one particular BTC fund? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=337486.0

What if we could use this as an indication for other funds where we do not have the data?

What if the people pumping/hyping GABI had confronted reality and done this, maybe they would have been less disappointed now? 

Pile of Shit coins can not go anywhere because you can not stop progress. Daily superior technology hits the market endlessly diluting the market. Software is cheap and easy to replace starting a new chain is no effort. It is akin to a parallel system, start again and again.
With Bitcoin progress is made too with new better miners hitting the market the technology is hardware based the chain stays the same, akin to a serial system keep building atop of the foundation.   

New target 350+-20

So anyway, we're just a few days away from an event that should begin to provide buying pressure to Bitcoin.  Still a chance we could go a great deal lower until this happens.  After that, I expect the ramp up that began on 10/2/2013.  I'll let you know when the day hits.

So... weekend is over, bitfinex offer 3 months mining contracts that you can short, litecoin has taken a dump, Silk Road 2.0 is under attack.

From Hal Finney to anybody that wants to buy.


He could have a hundreds of thousands.

600 dump on Stamp, 500 on Finex and tried to push down the price on Huobi, same old story every other day. Whale buyer is still on Finex, supporting the price and no one seems to be following the dumpers on other exchanges. Huobi determined not to let the price cross 2,920. Rinse and repeat really, going nowhere fast and some mysterious dumper having a seemingly never ending supply of coins.

Let me elaborate a bit, why this seems like a problem.

TF design has a "built-in" race condition (which in my opinion is a consequence of its inherent fragility) and this race condition can lead to double spends.

It's one thing when you need 51% of stake or PoW to double spend and quite another when it's a race condition in your forging algorithm.

Which you don't even intend to fix, but instead tell people "oh, just wait 10+ confirmations, you'll be alright".

If we give up 51% requirement so easily then anyone can do "instant transactions". They just won't be worth much.

Or maybe, all week, BTC prices will stay between $465 and $485, which does NOT seem to be too out there as far as possibilities?

We know how that one ended up.