Because that is what he did before:

Something like the above.

If Poloniex wanted to play hardball. They have an email address linked to his account which could be used to track him down a la Dread Pirate Roberts.

I also remember paying 6.95 CAD per XBT in January 2012 and watching the price drop to 4.38 CAD per XBT in March 2012. It was painful.

I would decide on how much XBT to invest and then cost average over the next 24 hours or so. One can also monitor the trolls and when the trolling peaks then buy. I have observed a correlation between the intensity of the trolling and the price. I would also keep a close eye for developer announcements that could also impact the price.  This is likely to be a tumultuous couple of days so it is best to keep a cool head and stick to a system rather than try to time the bottom.

One thing is also possible. If the attack fails or is cancelled than there is a very significant chance that XMR/XBT will spike in a buying panic. One does not want to get caught short if this happens.

I would consider this a fairly conservative defensive portfolio in anticipation of of a Financial Crash. The USD providing the bulk of the defensive position while the short (S&P 500) and Crypto-currencies XBT, XMR and DIEM providing the growth part to offset the 1-2% decline in the purchasing power of USD. 

There is one part that leaves me baffled. Given that this is over 85% of the portfolio what happens if this happens sooner? Presumably the XBT, XMR and DIEM will skyrocket to compensate for the loss in value of the USD. The short (S&P 500) position will become worthless or have negative values since it is in terms of USD. I know there are very few alternatives but, still it is very hard to have a 85% USD position if one believes the USD is in such deep trouble.

It could also mean he is not sure if there is an exploit. BCX has a record of both successfully attacking coins and also of profiting from the FUD generated from failed attacks on coins.

Now that we are approaching the First Day of Fall 2014 (The Autumnal Equinox) in the Northern Hemisphere (September 23 at 02:59 UTC) http://www.almanac.com/content/first-day-fall-autumnal-equinox here is a suggestion to help the Monero project while helping to stay warm this fall and winter.

After starting bitmonerod (bitmonerod.exe for Windows users) enter:


So what does this do. In addition to providing some warmth during the fall and winter, it adds some extra mining hashpower to help secure the Monero network, every little amount helps, while sending any found XMR to the development fund as a donation. Let us spread some warmth during this fall and winter.

Technical note: The number 3 refers to the number of mining threads. I set mine to one less than the number of virtual processors in my CPU (4 for an Intel i5). To learn more about mining Monero please visit https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=653467.

Was there also something about Litecoin attacks? Then there is also using the attack to acquire a position if the coin survives, or even faking an attack in order to manipulate the price.

Edit: I am convinced that market manipulation plays a strong part here. Not in every case but in some cases.

This is all very true but I would add forked from a project embroiled in a major controversy over a massive premine / ninjamine, faked dates on white papers etc. In short a very legitimate project that in the process of its creation and development ruffled large quantities of very scammy feathers.

The danger with a very early boom bust cycle is that is can do a lot of damage to a coin before there is a strong enough community to deal with the aftermath. There are very few who can show a positive return and a large quantity of "bag holders". The perception then is that the coin is in terminal decline. An interesting case is DOGE that was launched very close to the XBT/USD peak. This has led to what is seen by many as a coin that has been in a bear market since its inception. My take in the case of DOGE is that this has less to do with the intrinsic merit or lack thereof of DOGE and more with the unfortunate timing of its release. Nevertheless the DOGE community has to overcome this perception. If the boom bust cycle happens when the coin is more mature then the recovery becomes much easier.

The ethical question I see here is that there is fierce competition among the CN coins so who does he release it to without picking favourites. If he releases the technical information to all the CN coin developers he could be providing the exploit to the attacker (black hat) as well as the defender (white hat). It is not as simple as a case where the white hats are easily identifiable.

Yes, but there is a critical difference. By the time Monero reaches a 70% mined rate it will a fundamentally different investment than it is today, for better or for worse. This means a vastly different risk vs return consideration for any investor. We are talking 8 or more years since the start of crypto currencies in 2009.

I am far from convinced that the fast emission curve of Monero relative to Bitcoin is a negative. In fact the market may be saying the exact opposite. If the XMR/XBT rate remains relatively constant or rises slightly this would indicate that the emission curve is about right particularly during the early stages of Monero when it is the most critical. Ideally during the early stages one wants to see a small steady rise in price rather than a speculative boom bust cycle, and an emission curve that matches demand is close to ideal. In this respect a slightly bearish XBT/USD market over the next few months may actually also prove positive for Monero in the long run, as this would delay a speculative bubble in the XMR/XBT rate driven by a speculative bubble in the XBT/USD rate.

I would like to see critical fundamental work such as the database and also a reference GUI completed before there is a sharp speculative spike in the XMR/XBT rate.

Yep. Reverse trolling is the strategy now.

+1 I suspect the reverse troll theory is the most plausible especially when BCX was targeted.

Here is an early reference to Namecoin's precursor BitDNS from 2010. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1790.msg28696#msg28696

BCX needs to post and either acknowledge or deny the messages. The alternative is to loose all credibility.

This actually makes sense. The PM messages are obviously fake. Why would BCX send a message to this account to communicate these messages anyway?

XMR over taking XBT may or may not happen. What is not the case is that XMR overtaking XBT means that end of crypto-currency, crypto-currency not becoming mainstream, or that those holding XBT will be left "holding the bag". The history of credit cards indicate the exact opposite is the case. American Express had a significant first mover advantage over VISA and MasterCard. This has not meant the end of credit cards, or credit cards not becoming mainstream. Furthermore those who invested in American Express in the early 1970s and held did very well. https://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AXP+Interactive#symbol=axp;range=my;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;