OK, it's back up now. Thanks.

"BMMO" isn't even listed on the GLBSE.

It was time to solo mine around January 2011.  Now it's too late.

Is there a historical and current difficulty vs time chart anywhere? "bitcoin.sipa.be" is dead. Thanks.

Then you are not committing to anything and your "contract" is worthless.

We issued shares representing 1 MH.  They are being sold on the free market.  These are not company ownership shares, they are a share of our mining capacity only.[/quote]

That raises some interesting issues. The seller is selling the right to receive a service without limit of time. In other words, you get the service forever.

They can't change those terms retroactively for people who've already bought. Since they haven't published terms, they're bound by their advertising.

Of course, the people behind this are trying to hide behind a domain anonymization service run by Enom, so they think they can just disappear. But there are ways to get through that anonymity. (If you need to do this, "WHOIS PRIVACY PROTECTION SERVICE" is a Nevada corporation which is a front for Enom. D&B has contact information for that company.  If you file a lawsuit, name Enom as a co-defendant; they'll immediately cave and disclose the actual party behind the domain.)

Check your math:

  1.2 btc / 0.02btc per month = 60 months = 5 years.

Right.  Go read High-yield investment program on Wikipedia. This scam isn't unique to Bitcoin. See this long list of failed High Yield Investment Programs.

This is why there's an SEC, with required 10-K filings, so you can see where the money comes from.

Before investing in Bitcoins, you should know at least 1) the history of Tulipomania, 2) what happened to the South Sea Bubble, 3) the story of John Law's bank, 4) how Enron blew it,  and 5) how Madoff did it. It's also worth understanding what happened to DigiCash and Beenz, and, conversely, why the currencies of Facebook, iTunes, and Zynga are successful.

Right.

The last few days may have looked like a rally to some. But the usual pattern of no more than three 'up" days before a drop persisted.

Volume in currency has been declining. Current volume levels are comparable to late April 2011, when the rise was just beginning. There are more 'bots making fast trades now, so the buys that aren't sold within minutes are probably much lower.

As Bitcoin winds down, the long, slow slide continues.

It's not clear how much of the volume is the same money going around and around. With all the bot activity, some of the market activity has to be that.

Just because the manufacturing cost exceeds some value doesn't mean it has that value to a buyer.

Yes. Bit-Pay has two customers, one of which is owned by the people behind Bit-Pay. This is the other one.

Since buying new hardware for Bitcoin mining is currently not profitable, where are the dividends coming from?

What's wrong with this picture?

The fact that a lot of people over a period of months have reported problems getting money out of Mt. Gox is a major red flag.

Given their exposure to volatility, they have to have huge spreads.

Um.

GBLSE has a blind pool which invests in scams. What's wrong with this picture?

Right. The volatility is so high that merchants operating on normal merchant-sized margins can't afford to hold Bitcoins for more than a few hours, if that. Especially since the long term trend is down by $4 a month.

What did you expect to happen if you bought on margin?

In case you haven't noticed, Bitcoin hasn't had more than three consecutive up days in the last 3 months. Buying on the third day at 6 was dumb. Buying at 6 on margin was dumber.

Someone is trying to find others dumber than they are.

It's clear that there are some active traders with programs trying to profit from small swings. But averaged out over a month, they have little effect.


Bitcoin, down $4 a month every month since June.

On the scale of days, there are lots of little "rallies" and "crashes". But few exceed 3 days, and at the end of each cycle, the price is down. Each time there's a "rally", after about two days the market depth on the buy side dries up.  We're watching a thinly traded market being played by short term traders, probably with the same money going round and round.

This brings up an important legal point. When you have "deposited" something with a depository institution, are you a creditor with just an IOU?  Or do you still own the thing and they're just storing it for you?

There are laws in this area, and what happens varies with the type of institution. For a bank, all you have is an IOU.  That's why banks are so strongly regulated.  For a US stockbroker, though, stock in your account belongs to you. Even if the broker goes bankrupt, the stock still belongs to you, and it had better be there. That's why Bernie Madoff is now Federal Prisoner #61727-054 and is sitting in a prison cell right now. That's also the law on money transfer firms in Japan, which is where Mt. Gox operates.

Even where assets are aggregated, as in a grain elevator or gold vault, you can still have actual ownership. There's a whole system of warehouse receipts for that sort of thing, and the law of the Uniform Commercial Code to back it up. That's been settled law for a century.

So you have more than an IOU. You have ownership of the asset. A non-bank depository institution which takes it is guilty of theft. Bankruptcy does not relieve them of that responsibility.