crossposted

B&N saga is just beginning. It is not an instant thing. We have an agreement in principle with them and negotiating a few finer points now. We expect to have signed exclusive 2 year long contract with them imminently. We do not know yet which stores it will go in and we do not know yet how many copies they will request us to print. Could be 10k, could be 100k, could change over time. They told us "your title is a bookstore title", whatever that means. I am rounding up finances to be able to print 20k of #3.

Once thing is known, you should not expect to see BM  on the shelves before 1st of September, it will be either #3 or #4. This is just how long it takes. But still go now to their stores and bug them and tell them to make sure that they stock it once it becomes available. It helps a lot.

No guarantees here, but advertisers do take notice that you can book now up to 6 month of the most valuable advertising real estate in BM (some have done it already) and potentially get huge exposure in B&N distributed issues at silly low prices. One advertiser, for example bought some full page ads in the very beginning for 3 first issues for some champ change, like 150$. And now he will get not just #1 ads, but #2 and #3 ads too (potentially with big print and in B&N stores). Likewise you still can book ads for up to 6 month in advance now for just a few thousand dollars (we even give decent discount on long term deals). Some advertisers have seen this opportunity and locked in the most valuable spots for many month in advance. As soon as we know how many copies we need to print to cover B&N order, the ad prices are going to skyrocket again, most likely.

There also will be minor pricing changes. The prices in stores will be higher than what one can get on subscription or direct from us. Overall price of one copy will also be increased slightly for some regions. Naturally people who subscribed already are not affected by any of this.

Also it is highly likely that starting from #2 we will print in UK on the same presses that Wired and their ilk are being printed on. We will have much more robust logistic solution and shipping to both EU and North America will be much quicker starting with #2.

B&N saga is just beginning. It is not an instant thing. We have an agreement in principle with them and negotiating a few finer points now. We expect to have signed exclusive 2 year long contract with them imminently. We do not know yet which stores it will go in and we do not know yet how many copies they will request us to print. Could be 10k, could be 100k, could change over time. They told us "your title is a bookstore title", whatever that means. I am rounding up finances to be able to print 20k of #3.

Once thing is known, you should not expect to see BM  on the shelves before 1st of September, it will be either #3 or #4. This is just how long it takes. But still go now to their stores and bug them and tell them to make sure that they stock it once it becomes available. It helps a lot.

No guarantees here, but advertisers do take notice that you can book now up to 6 month of the most valuable advertising real estate in BM (some have done it already) and potentially get huge exposure in B&N distributed issues at silly low prices. One advertiser, for example bought some full page ads in the very beginning for 3 first issues for some champ change, like 150$. And now he will get not just #1 ads, but #2 and #3 ads too (potentially with big print and in B&N stores). Likewise you still can book ads for up to 6 month in advance now for just a few thousand dollars (we even give decent discount on long term deals). Some advertisers have seen this opportunity and locked in the most valuable spots for many month in advance. As soon as we know how many copies we need to print to cover B&N order, the ad prices are going to skyrocket again, most likely.

There also will be minor pricing changes. The prices in stores will be higher than what one can get on subscription or direct from us. Overall price of one copy will also be increased slightly for some regions. Naturally people who subscribed already are not affected by any of this.

Also it is highly likely that starting from #2 we will print in UK on the same presses that Wired and their ilk are being printed on. We will have much more robust logistic solution and shipping to both EU and North America will be much quicker starting with #2.

I am quite certain that Bitcoin will be alive and kicking well past imminent (or eventual) Euro demise.

fair enough.

BTW, all your numbers are based on one assumption, which is that Bitcoin price will stay at 6.5$ forever. Since this assumption is obviously wrong, there is no need to even look at the rest of your reasoning as it is a logical fallacy already.

Anyway, if you are an investor in Bitcoin, diversify your portfolio, 50% BTC and 50% mining hardware sounds as a good start. Rebalance the portfolio from time to time, maybe add some gold and dividend paying equities and real estate in the mix and you are already doing great. Nothing new here, standard stuff.

gyverlb,

You got me wrong, my friend. My post was not from point of view of a miner. But from point of view of an ASIC manufacturer. All I said is that they need to sell 1000 of 30,000$ rigs 1 Thps each to break even on hypothetical (educated guess) 30,000,000$ costs of full custom chip design and manufacturing. Are you going to argue my arithmetic skills here?

So if you are going to argue with me here you really need to argue the above numbers. I said nothing else except  that 1000 of 1 Thps rigs would bring total hashing power of Bitcoin to PHps range, which is also indisputable. 1000 x 1 Thps = 1 Phps, last time I checked.  Hashing power above Peta Hash is better for Bitcoin than that of 10 Thps and this is indisputable as well.

What you are talking about is an investment case of either investing or not into that hardware. And one thing I know for sure is that I do not know whether it will be profitable or not.

But whoever buys those rigs I will provide them option of having those rigs managed and hosted with both physical and information security done professionally. That's all.

If they really going after full custom ASIC's with a price tag of about 30 million $ they would need to sell only about 1000 of those 1 THps rigs to break even.

If so and if they really will ship it to multiply users in one go this could be the best thing that has ever happened to Bitcoin.

Prepare to start measuring Bitcoin hashing power in Peta Hashes.

When these things come out, I'll have an ISO 27001 certified company ready to host these babies in ex nuclear NATO bunkers, with physical security up to military standards and with DDOS mitigation plans in place. Give me a whistle when you are ready.

Perhaps you thought wrong.

Here is Vladimir's axiom.

"Bitcoin adoption is not viable for individuals and businesses with market capitalisation higher than that of Bitcoin itself."

Meaning that Bitcoin is a playground of those who worth less than 50 million USD (so far).

IMO they are just bluffing

Hmmm... perhaps I know something that you don't.

GPU and FPGA cockroaches are running for the cover and demanding a fork to protect their hides. How hilarious!

Here is a news for you. You can make that fork yourself right now, no need to beg any devs. Just pledge a 50 BTC bounty and someone will make that fork for ya. So stop whining and do the fork I dare you.

The rest of us will stay with Bitcoin that will enjoy Exahashes of hashing power securing it's transactions.

BTW. Consider applying for Whiner in Chief job at RIAA, they will surely understand your angst.

“I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

Blaise Pascal

And it is not working.

I have to agree, that BFL announcement seems to be a tad too optimistic. Unless they got 30+ million USD venture funding, which seems to be rather improbable.

- metric system is used worldwide
- base unit of currency is Satoshi or "S", also kiloS, megaS, gigaS, teraS etc are widely used
- Bitcoin is just a debt settlement currency and blockchain is widely used for interbank exchange and as a meta currency to enable any-any via Bitcoin currency exchange
- Variety of merged mined blochains are used for a variety of applications such as real estate deeds, contract signing, notarial services etc...
- there is a large number of various currencies in use, starting with various fiat and corporate currencies which come and go, goldgramms etc..,  oilbarrels, ricegrains etc.. all of those are easily exchanged to each other via bitcoins and all of them are traded on automated exchanges in pairs to Bitcoin and rarely otherwise.
- all equity markets, futures, commodities, options and other financial instruments are denominated in bitcoins
- Bitcoin is legal tender in most countries, except some rogue states such as "washingtondc" and "north zimbabwe".
- most large transactions such as real estate and large contracts are usually being negotiated in Bitcoins.
- ripple-like systems using  large variety of fiat, corporate, commodity, local, virtual, and crypto currencies are used for money creation and self regualtion of debt levels and interest rates.
- there are no traditional banks left, Banks are not allowed to practice any form of fractional banking anymore.
- there are no private central banks
- Bitcoin Party won a parliamentary election in New Zealand, formed new government and amended the constitution via referendum (1 million BTC cost). Auckland is now the financial capital of the world. NZ is now the most prosperous and powerful country in the world. NZ practices new form of government "social democracy". Only uber rich or influential people, those who can demonstrate via blockchain fund movement that they control more than whooping 2100 BTC, can run for parliamentary elections. Otherwise NZ practices direct democracy, where population using social voting on every issue. (When people do not want to vote or do not not feel themselves competent in any given area, they nominate another person (who they they think will represent them on this issue the best) to use their vote, votes can be nominated to other people on issue  by issue basis or less granularly). Other nations take notice. NZ immigration program now is very simple, just a few standard health and criminal checks and one time payment of 1 BTC per family buys a permanent resident permit.

- North pole ice got completely melted by countless nuclear powered ships and platforms full of 15nm asic based hardware.
- the hashing algo is still double SHA256.

Community as a whole is doing just fine. It is just some guys who ignored the warnings and spent too much on their brand spanking new FPGA's are begging for special treatment now. Well, tough titty, your pleas will fall on deaf ears.

Now tell me did you really think that FPGA's will last for 18-24 month?

Yep, and let's put Ben Bernanke in charge of timing of block subsidy as well as network difficulty selection for the next two weeks while we are at it.

great work!

The simple truth is that Zhou is just an employee at most and a former owner and 17. Those who are trying to go after him are just not seeing things clearly.

However, Bitcoinica LP, and its general and limited partners and whoever are behind those corporate shells (which could  be declared as shams considering circumstances and offshore character and extremely short timespan between those shams getting their hands on management and money vaporizing) are potentially in so much hot water legally that they really should be trying to sort this all out amicably ASAP instead of trying to scare their victims by their legal fees which supposedly will leave nothing to be paid out. They should really think more about their personal BK's and legal fees both in UK and NZ if things go real bad.

If a few mid-size  players get litigious here their lawyers will unravel this and will go after assets of beneficiaries behind the corporate shells.

Also, while you and me could find all the relevant hacking claims being fairly plausible, this will be much more difficult to sell to courts and lawyers in absence of timely police report. It is possible that this matter would be recognised as gross negligence (if not fraud) committed by bitcoinica.

Let me put it this way. Banks create money not out of the thin air. They create money out of yours and mine signatures on the mortgage applications and on credit card applications and on loan applications etc... Now, when you an I tell the bank to go and take a hike because we gonna default, the money created out of those signatures are magically disappearing.

What do you think central banks were so busy with lately? Yep they were busy resigning all those debt applications which went bad into their own name. This process has been called many names TARP, QE1, QE2, QE3 etc.... The moment they stop doing it we will have humongous deflationary collapse i.e. lots of the money created out of debt will simply disappear, causing more defaults and more disappearing money. This is kind of a bit too scary for the central banks and their puppet masters, so they hope to be able to take over all those defaulted debts in order to preserve money.

Amount of money they create this way is only limited by amount of new debt the system able to consume. This is exactly why the only way to fix the debt problem is by creating more debt. And this pyramid is mathematically certain to come crushing down eventually even if the eye on the top wants to do it's damnest to postpone it for another day.

Of course, there is also zimbabwe route. Just start printing paper notes with a few extra zeroes on them. 6 or 10 will do the trick perhaps. Also need a few helicopters to deliver it all to the population. Problem solved.