Was not Dash at or very close to its all time high when it was added to Bitfinex?

Edit: Take a look at the 3 day chart for Dash on Bitfinex to see what I mean. https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/bitfinex/drkbtc

Given the topic of the article what I find interesting is the scammy business model of getting someone interested in an article and then attempting to "force" them to register midstream in order extract personal information for commercial advantage. This is accomplished by manipulating the html code and like most forms of DRM can be defeated. In this case a fast Edit > Select All does the trick after changing the page number in the url.

The attack on privacy and freedom by the business model of the publisher seems more relevant to me than the content of the article.

Edit: It is not the regulators who have to worry about Monero, it is businesses who use deceit to collect people's personal information and then traffic in it for commercial advantage that have a lot to worry about Monero, starting of course with the publisher of the said article.

I doubt the SEC is going to give guidance here. We must keep in mind that they argued Bitcoin was effectively money in the Trendon Shavers' (pirateat40) case. I do not see how they can argue that a de-centralized (FinCEN definition) is a security. Who is the issuer of the said security? As for centralized virtual currencies I see an Administrator who is not registered as an MSB having serious problems first with FinCEN, In addition there may be problems with the SEC.  

Edit. If I feel a crypto currency is a centralized virtual currency as per FinCEN I avoid it, so I do not get to the point of evaluating if in addition there are also issues with the SEC.

Yes, that is how I understand the guidance.

The word "pre-mined" was used in the Ripple case https://www.fincen.gov/news_room/nr/pdf/Ripple_Facts.pdf

Time will tell. One big question I see with Ethereum given its market cap and history is FinCEN. I just cannot see this regulator ignoring Ethereum with its premine.

A simple formula is to follow the FinCEN guidance. https://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html
If
1) It is a centralized virtual currency
and
2) There is no MSB registration by the "Administrator" making the currency non-compliant
then
3) Run

As for incompleteness Bytecoin was and is very much far from complete. For starters the lack of a database. One only has to look at the changes that have taken place in Monero and the changes that are in the pipeline and planned for Monero to see this. As to which coin is more incomplete Bytecoin or Ethereum that is a very interesting question. What can happen with an Ethereum fork is in many ways similar to what has occurred with Monero. It starts as a fork but then there is a strong divergence in the codebase as the fork completes the missing parts.

BCX also went after LTC. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=96186.msg1060442#msg1060442. Here is some history on LTC https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=47417.0 Now what do LTC and XMR have in common? They are both solid FLOSS projects with no premine. Now what else do LTC and XMR have in common? Well LTC was forked from Tenebrix and XMR was forked from Bytecoin. For that matter what do Tenebrix, Bytecoin and Ethereum have in common?. Premine. Yes I know that Bytecoin supporters claim is that it is a ninjamine rather than a premine but the evidence does indicate premine. http://https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=740112.0

My theory is that if someone forks Ethereum into a clean FLOSS project with no premine there is a good chance BCX would try to go after the fork. As for BCX going after Ethereum itself it just does not fit the pattern.

BCT-E apparently has also been targeted. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1396928.0

Or maybe this is due to transactions taking up to a day to confirm due to the 1 MB blocksize limit in Bitcoin. How long is Microsoft supposed to wait for blockchain confirmation? Until GNU/Linux becomes the dominant OS on the desktop?  

Edit: I find it hard to blame Microsoft here.

This makes an excellent case as to why DRM (Digital Rights Management) is pure evil. The reality today is that the United States has been pushing worldwide at the behest of organizations such as the MPAA, RIAA and (big content publishers etc.)  anti-circumvention laws that would make everything described above illegal and subject to civil and criminal penalties. Given that the United States is the country that is pushing for a world where tinkering with anything will be a criminal offense, it is very unlikely that America would become great again and another country or countries will take its place.  

Or Monero becomes the most liquid market for Dash. That could happen.

It comes down to the question of whether a crypto currency is a security. For decentralized virtual currency (FinCEN definition) I argue the answer is  no, since by its very nature a security requires an issuer (the person who is required by law to register or cause registration to occur). For centralized virtual currencies this is where it gets interesting. In this case there is an issuer; however that does not mean there is a security. Take Ethereum for example. In this case there is a very good case that unregistered securities were issued in the IPO / ICO. The more interesting question is was the security the Ether itself or the promise to deliver the Ether at a future date before it was created?  I say the latter.

When it come to fitting certain members of this forum for an orange jumpsuit in the United States, my bet is on FinCEN over the SEC. FinCEN needs to prove in court is that the virtual currency is centralized , the SEC in addition to proving in court the virtual currency is centralized also has to prove in court that it is a security.,

Edit: I believe it is only a matter of time before FinCEN makes a move on Ethereum.

It is also a question of familiarity. Many people would not vote for example for Factum simply because they haven't spent the time to analyze it. All I know about it is that it is highly centralized. that is enough for one to eliminate it as a possible investment. It also means I would not spend any further time investigating it. My approach to Ethereum was similar. After I saw the pictures of spinning diamonds in their lavish marketing campaign that was enough for me to say no. So why spend the effort to investigate it in detail?

I would say many Moenro supporters would list Bytecoin at the top of the scam list on the basis of an 82% premine disguised as an 82% ninjamine. Dash has attracted a lot of attention among Monero supporters because at one point it was seen as direct competitor to Monero, so one spends the time on the competition. I must say that by any objective measure of scamminess Dash does not come close to been first on the list.

I agree and have voted accordingly.

I do agree with the theory of a long term bear market in Bitcoin. I see this because of the following:
1) There is a widening chasm between the promise of Bitcoin,  a digital and fungible currency that can be used by anyone in the world to pay anyone in the world without the need of an intermediary and the reality a digital non fungible currency that can in practice only be used as a settlement layer between the intermediaries Bitcoin was supposed to replace under the promise.
2) The macro economic factors identified by Dent and Armstrong, namely a 30s type deflationary depression. What Dent got wrong is he failed to take into account the impact of the massive quantitative easing or money printing by the central banks since 2008. This would make a strong fiat currency such as USD attractive.

In the scenario above one would expect an overall bear market in crypto currency; however just as was the case during the 1930s with stocks there will be exceptions that buck the overall trend. Identifying the latter is where the real long term opportunities lie. Monero could very easily buck the trend since objectively it is very well placed to become the promise of Bitcoin. What this would point to for Monero is very strong long term prospects combined with extremely high short to medium term volatility and risk. My personal position is almost exclusively a combination of CAD and XMR with no debt. A convertible fiat other than USD can make sense where a person's expenses are denominated in that currency.

This kind of post I take as an indicator of an upcoming crash in Ethereum. It reminds me of stories about shoeshine boys speculating on stocks just before the 1929 crash. It also leads to an idea involving crypto currency and real estate. 1) Buy a crypto currency with strong long term fundamentals. 2) Hold until the market recognizes the fundamentals. 3) Sell a small portion once the market has recognized the fundamentals. 4) Use the proceeds to purchase real estate for cash (no mortgage), by making low ball offers on properties in foreclosure or about to go into foreclosure.

The evidence is otherwise. Ethereum to put it mildly is a sitting duck for FinCEN. Search for "FinCEN Ripple". Apple is fast loosing market share to the Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) Android, apart from the fact that both Mac OS X and iOS contain large amounts of FLOSS. RedHat is as FLOSS as many GNU/LInux distros including Ubuntu, Mint, CentOS etc. Microsoft has lost or is loosing virtually every market from Supercomputers to Mobile to FLOSS. Even on the desktop it is slowly loosing ground. What many forget about FLOSS, is that FLOSS is a multi billion dollar business.

Edit: Proprietary Unix has basically lost the server market to GNU/Linux (including RedHat) over a decade ago.

Yes, I remember SolidCoin literally the original scamcoin. It is the one case I know of where someone actually pirated software under the MIT license. https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT, and was subject of a legitimate DMCA takedown notice. Pirating software under the MIT license can be done but it takes a real effort as a scammer. The other case I know, involving pirated FLOSS and DMCA takedowns, was the MPAA pirating a version of Ubuntu, about 9 years ago, and also being the subject of a DMCA takedown notice; however in that case it was GPL code that was the subject of the DMCA takedown.

Edit: At one point I looked into selling SolidCoin short, and there is an old post in BCT where I inquired about the possibility.

This is a very interesting idea that is worthy of further research.

Edit 1: Multi signature transactions and sidechains are already identified in the Monero Design and Development goals http://https://getmonero.org/design-goals/

Edit 2: If this were to be implemented in Monero it would be in addition to and not in lieu of RingCT since RingCT will be mandatory for Monero transactions. The base coin, Monero, would be using RingCT.

Edit 3: By the way this concept has already been proposed by Shen Noether (with zk-snarks implemented on top of RingCT) and I have had some prior discussion on the subject with him. It should be considered at this point the subject of research, in particular with respect to my edit 2 point above, namely implementing zk-snarks on top of RingCT. RingCT is a must here since it would be needed for multi signature transactions in Monero.