Is it that difficult to convert USD to BTC? Is it so difficult that one would prefer to pay 6000% annually for BTC instead of USD's horrible 40-70% loan shark interest or 15% on a credit card?

If so come to me and I'll sell you as many BTC as you need at 10$/BTC this would save you tons of money. Ohh wait, btcinstant or bit-pay will do that for only 3-4% not 100% as I just offered.

The simple truth is that if one can make 10% per week, one does not need any investments really. One can take some relatively small loan at the most horrible possible rates and simply give it some time until power of compound interest makes one unbelievably rich. 10% per week means that you double your money every 7 weeks. Remember that fable about chessboard and rice grains?

IMO it makes no biz sense whatsoever to seek outside investments and pay 10% per week dividend unless it is a ponzi scheme or some kind or quasi/secondary ponzi scheme or otherwise an extremely risky venture.

There were a few last minute issues with the printer, so we all were misinformed a bit here. Also Adam probably implied whole handling and shipping process not the timing of it being picked up by the final carrier (USPS). We had quite a few surprises sprung up on us in the last second, like some strange USPS forms needed to be filed all of the sudden etc.

Guys, it was packed on Friday and picked up by USPS in batches earier this week. North West of USA should be the first to get it because it is close geographically to the shipping point, according to USPS the shipping estimate for US is 2-8 business days. My best guess is that Washington, Oregon, Idaho will have it on the doormats tomorrow or the next day following by other states shortly thereafter but most during this week. International customers are expected to get it sometime next week.

Based on email I received from this guy, he is not looking for investors, he is just promoting his affiliate program. Nice try. Goodbye.

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: Depends on the amount. For large amounts, no; for small amoutns see the rest of this thread. Also depends on amount of time you intend to save your bitcoins in e-wallets. the longer you keep it in there the more money you keep in there the more risks you take.

Guys, let make it clear. Intersango is just a contractor of Bitcoinica LP or Bitcoinica LP's owners. Yes it seems they screwed it up, but only those who do nothing do not make mistakes.

Ultimately, it is not Intersango's decision whether to return our money or not and and if return then when. It is Bitcoinica LP's decision. This is basically a question of whether Bitcoinica LP's owners want to cut their losses now or invest more money and protect their investment. As simple as that.

Considering how damaged Bitcoinica is now and that there are competitors springing up all around, it is quite possible that instead of paying up Bitcoinica LP will chose to close doors and/or sue Intersango and/or Zhou Tong for negligence. This is ugly. But since we are speculating while having not much information, it is a wait and see now.

If only I had a reliable solution of input/output i.e. how you deliver in game assets to the customers and how they deliver in game assets to you!

Give me the above solution (or idea) and I am on board for this project, otherwise seems like a waste of time.

I do not follow this "pirate" thing, nor do I know much about any GLBSE listed "assets".

However, please consider the following hypothetical GLBSE listed company.

Someone places BMMM IPO on GLBSE. The company does not disclose what they do, however they pay rather good dividends. Everyone is happy (for now).

What they do is the following, they convert BTC's into USD's and "invest" it into a piramide scheme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM-2011 run by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Mavrodi that reportedly currently pays up to 50% per month of "dividends". BMMM pockets 30%, pays out 20% to their "investors". They also hope that with such "profitability" they will be able to accumulate enough money to buy out the shares once the "master ponzi" breaks down.

see also (google translate if needed) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=77316.0
and read up on to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome it might get applicable.

The above is a ponzi scheme by proxy which BTW is pretty close to what all the investment banks out there are doing with the central banks and ultimately the fed being the "master ponzi".

Indeed, specialise in heating/cooling systems like that, make the FPGA/ASIC's modules, well, modular, publish specs, get me on the board of directors, lol. You got yourself a killer niche here.

I actually want to buy myself a few of those rigs minus FPGA modules.

Even if they could somehow magically "block" all bittorent traffic on the net it would cause about half of all the jobs created by ISP's vanish overnight too. Better first print more money for food stamps etc... first.

Just wait 2-5 years until most of the houses in say Canada are heated by Bitcoin ASIC based heaters, then try to block Bitcoin. There are some viable legal and technical attacks available to stop Bitcoin now. But this window of opportunity is closing fast.

1. Pick up some idea, they are dime a dozen.
2. Implement it.
3. Profit.

Discount? We are looking into rising some prices based on our better understanding of costs involved in production of a niche magazine. Cannot do it below costs for long.

The electronic version will be released a few weeks after international customers get their printed copy.

The above is not exactly accurate, but pretty close. 72 by the way is the number of pages. This thing is out of our hands by now and is in shipping/handling stage. We have not seen actual printed issue #1 ourselves just yet. Some West Coast based subscribers will get printed magazine pretty soon, likely even earlier than anyone on Bitcoin Magazine team. There is also a surprise coming up for those who likes collectibles but details on that will not be revealed probably until #2 is out.

Sorry about all the delays, but it takes time and money to turn a bunch of amateurs into a (semi)pro magazine team on a shoestring budget. It should be easier with #2 (which is being worked on now) and onwards. Still, #2 likely will take slightly longer than one month to push out. After that I hope we will be able to stick much closer to a monthly schedule.

Those who want to get the best ad spots in #2 do contact us now (we will give away free online and possibly digital edition ads to early print advertisers). Also check out our bulk pricing, with free shipping it is a very decent deal particularly for international customers (at cost or even a slight loss for us). Once we have the magazine copies in a warehouse we will be able to ship #1  promptly for all those ordering when it is "in stock".

Anyone willing to be a regional distributor in EU OZ NZ etc... do get in touch please. Writers and illustrators willing to contribute to Bitcoin Magazine please do get in touch too.

This is not an official statement, just some random rant.

Well, it seems, the initial line was that Intersango just have taken over Bitcoinica management two weeks before the hack and they implied that it is not their fault and therefore it is unfair that their name "is being dragged through the mud".

However, various later reports suggest that this episode is indeed a direct result of Intersango's mismanagement.

This issue is clear as mud. Intersango or "Bitcoinica LP" should really start talking, silence is deafening. Zhou's statements are not enough until it is acknowledged that he is an official company spokesman.

For all we know Zhou Tong is a FORMER developer and owner and employee of Bitcoinica. Hence we have to assume that whatever he said publicly about this incident is unofficial and no official statement by Bitcoinica LP (NZ) owner and operator of Bitcoinica.com has been issued yet.

Dear Bitcoinica LP, while you are silent the public is quite justified in making the worst possible assumptions and drugging you through the mud.

If ANY Bicoin related service has a problem with maintaining an announcement page on their website (say, because it is hacked). The owner of the service can always contact me, give me HTML or text of announcement for status page. I will quickly set up a static web server listening on a dedicated IP address, and all they would need to do is to point their DNS to a given IP address temporarily. The result will be static status page on their website. Once ready to resume the service, the DNS can be changed back at any time.

Or did you guys lost control of DNS as well?

Or one can use a service like "google sites" for this.

There is no excuse for not communicating with users via the website (domain name) whether it is hacked or not.

The only explanation of lack of communication is that they do not want to tell users anything just yet.

Also if the SSL cert was not encrypted, perhaps it makes sense to revoke it and get a new one. Most CA's will do it for you for free.

Most  people are brainwashed to think that "currency" is an equivalent of "fiat currency", while in reality "fiat currency" is a sub set of "currency". I.e. "Currency" includes "fiat currencies" and "non fiat currencies".

That Kenneth Bromberg, "lead programmer of Bloomberg's", is arguing that Bitcoin is not a "fiat currency" but uses term "currency" because he is as brainwashed as the rest of the population to think that "fiat currency" is the same  thing as "currency" (or just a shill).

Logically, if the above is true, then his argument (whatever it is) is utter nonsense.

This is a logical fallacy. Even if he has proven that Bitcoin is not a "fiat currency", it does not mean that Bitcoin is not a "currency".

Let me give you an example. There are two subjects a man and a woman. One could use word man when he refers to either "a man" or "a woman" (i.e. instead of "a person"), then prove that some "third person" is not "a man" and conclude that the "third person" is not "a person" (and not "a woman"). If true, this means that "a person" is not "a person" and not "a woman" and "not a man". This proves presence of  a logical fallacy.

If anyone will be there on May 14th, Ask him whether "currency" and "fiat currency" are exactly the same thing. If yes, then you will demonstrate that it is not true and crush his faulty logic. If not, then he has to prove that his definition of "currency" is correct and not actually a definition of "fiat currency".

According to wikipedia:

note that that "fiat currency" is a physical representation of "fiat money".


One valid argument in favour of Bitcoin not being a "currency" is that Bitcoin is not a "medium of exchange". This seems to be obviously false.

Another valid argument would be that Bitcoin is not "generally accepted". But what "generally accepted" means? I would say "generally accepted" means "generally accepted in Bitcoin community". If you want to argue otherwise please prepare to explain how Mongolian Tugriks are not a currency.

It is probably more along the lines of "those who do nothing make no mistakes".

You have reasonable point here, and I do not think that either myself or doc are directly arguing it with you. We are just a bit more relaxed and not so much concerned with short term noise.