I think most of ya'all are wrong on this.

The annexation of Crimea by Russia will have a noticeable price affect on bitcoin.

Why? Because Russia is going to get hit by more sanctions, their economy will take a hit, and the smart rich in Russians will look to bitcoin to try to get out of the ruble or to move currency out of the country.

Ya that's a really great idea you should set that up.

Can't talk about every coin as there are just too many, but for the 5-6 alt-coins I trade in, all of them are down. Alts in general are just not doing well these days. Maybe after the 200th scam coin / copy'n'paste coin came out the market is just too saturated now, while bTC price looks healthy.

They aren't 'a big scam' as you say.  There are many that are innovative and superior to bitcoin in some more many ways.

Unfortunately the goods coins are in the minority though. For every 1 good new alt coin that comes out 10 dumb -copy-and-paste coin comes out, usually only made to appear different by some cosmetic thing or marketing,  like PotCoin or any of the hundred.

As far as I know there is no graph that plots how many coins there are.

Invite please ! Sounds interesting.

    ya that worked out well for the mt gox people.

Regarding the government agencies involvement that sounds like a big heap of bullshit.  If government agencies were involved there would be no reason why he would not be able to say that they were involved.  He'd not be able to reveal details if there was a criminal case, but he could say they are involved.

The fact is he said nothing of substance of what happened to the over 8000 btc between the money owed to WeExchange users and his loan he has defaulted on. That's over 5 frickin' million dollars. I also don't see how people can be calm about it.

You know what else is ridiculous?

You don't hear it mentioned much but the the Federal Reserve gives themselves a 6% profit from all the money they make out of thin air.

It's almost unbelievable.  Basically what happened is the banking cartels took over production of money. And they make a massive 6% profit from every dollar they make. It's an unfathomable amount of currency made for .... printing currency.   These vampires make money from making money which they then use to buy real assets such as islands, plans, politicians, mansions, Bentleys and private jets and other goods.

I don't think people would believe it. But it's true. Google 'federal reserve 6% dividend' .

These banking magnates effectively have the American people in choke hold and siphon an almost uncountable amount of money into their own pockets. It's all the money from the middle class flowing upwards for all these decades and will only lead to collapse, it is unavoidable.

Ya I know all about that. Having had a 15btc 15gh share of an avalon gen 1 3 months late, and having invested in asicminer in the summer thinking the chips were coming in September or October.           But it really it does look to me this time that the new asicminer chips will be coming sooner rather than later, finally. And f-cat is not one to post inaccurate specs.

Fair enough points.

Personally I don't trust Ukyo at all, he doesn't seem trustworthy to myself. This why I don't put much stock in his technical problems reasons.  Again I just don't buy it: for what possible reason could he not even explain the nature of the technical problem to us?  What technical problem could take more than a month of full time to resolve (yes I know it is possible, but I don't think likely). Why would he not enlist the free help that offered by some members of the community to fix said technical problem?  

Ok so let's say it was a technical problem.  Why would Ukyo:

a) be aware of the technical problem that caused him to lose btc or be unable to withdraw their deposits

and then

b) why would he continue to accept deposits for over a month knowing that he had the problem and he was unable to let people withdraw?

That just does not add up. It took a lot of badgering for him to even post on WeExchange that he was having the technical difficulties.

Because he has given next no details on anything at all, I'm forced to do guesswork. But the the most likely scenario that I can establish without much question is that something illegal happened and he has not been forthright with his on the reasons why all 'of our coins are gone'.

It's all been gone over so I'll save everyone the boredom but I think the timing of his massive loan is also quite suspicious.  (I mean how could I not see it as suspicious, really. )

I respectfully suggest that you are not going to get any information outside out of court case though.

It's been many months and he has said nothing of substance about what happened, and has lied (remember that for the first 2 months or so he said this was a technical problem solely), so I don't think he'll really offer all of bag-holders unless he is in some sort of trouble. Right now he's probably just sipping margaritas in Tahiti laughing with how he got away with this. It's pretty easy to ignore pms and emails. Especially if you did something illegal and don't fear any repercussions from having done so.

I think getting money out of court case would be difficult but at least a) it'd be nice Ukyo had some financial hardship over this (like the hundreds he stole from) instead of presumably benefiting immensely     b) in a court case at least we'd finally hear non-bullshit from him    c) there is a very good chance it is looking like he did criminal things here, and he should get some justice for this.

I can only speak for myself but I'd be willing to give my share of BTC claimed to a court case and lawyers. Maybe all of his assets are only $500,000 out of the 5 million owed. But if more of us 'signed over' our 10% return (or whatever it is) of our lost money to go to the lawyers fees I'd much prefer that than nothing happening and the money being gone, which is likely what's going to happen with further inaction.

As I guy with a measly 1 btc in this though it is up to you bigger bag holders to decide what you are going to though, of course. I do recommend doing anything though, I think finally, now months later, people are finally starting to face up to the fact they are highly unlikely to get any money back from Ukyo. He currently has hardly anything to fear, and is living comfortably off of his thievery, so has little motivation to return his stolen proceeds.

So basically Ukyo has stolen (until shown otherwise) over $5 million USD in today's fiat price of bitcoin.

After my batch 3 gen 1 order was over three months late and they showed a lot of evidence of a lot of pre-mining before shipped...ya think I'll stick with Antminer, Bitfury or Asicminer gen 3 thanks.

I'd say the chances of gen 3 being a disappointment are pretty slim.  Quite counter to that, all the posted specs look like it'll be one of best options around, certainly in the top 3.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/20aocz/rockxie_minerasicminers_gen3_chips_is_coming_now/

Asicminer will be back, in a big way, with specs like that.

Personally I'd love an Asicminer Cube ][

Ukyo is that you?

Thanks for the updates tokyo. Illuminating, as usual.

Also wanted to say the Hobonickels 1.4 wallet looks fantastic. Tranz really does put alot of dev work into his baby.  As far as I know it is the best PoS coin wallet around.

Guys you are missing the point.

It's a lottery IPO.  In other words, your chances of making profit off of these shares has to be comparable to the odds of winning a lottery. It's sort of meta. If you don't get it you obviously did not go to universities.

If you want a really good investment, you should invest in my 'Security Security' security IPO going on cryptostocks. I analyse securities. I'm only asking for 5 million dollars to get my business started. I wrote a really good plan out on a napkin somewhere around my desk area.

OP as someone who actually knows about bitcoin, you should take it upon yourself to dispel the wrong notions people, like your co-workers, have about bitcoin.  It really does help the bitcoin economy if we clear up all the FUD people have.

Its an uphill battle sometimes, when even a lot of the news stories on bitcoin are often wrong or hit-pieces, but our efforts do add up and they count.

For myself, in any given 10 people I tell about bitcoin:  5 of them, it will be completely over their head, 4 will not be interested or be convinced it must be some sort of scam, but about 1 of the 10 will be really intrigued and become a supporter, or at least interested enough to read a up on it and figure it out.  

Wow 50 days.  Probably not a factor but I'm going to ask anyways: you don't have your wallet locked do you?

50 days seems really extreme, even for difficulty like it is now.  

As noted, the PoS difficulty really did a huge, 45 degree change in the last while. I think maybe 'the cat is out of the bag' about PoS whereas before not as many people knew how it worked. But maybe it's something else, hard to say.

Not bad idea unfortunately. I got screwed out of BTC by Jon Montroll of WeExchange, like it says in the sig. Just took everyone's deposits for almost 2 months and never allowed any withdrawals for yet unexplained reasons.

I like Havelock and I trade on there, but not as much as I used to.  Just be aware of the risks.