So basically, Bitcoin was really awesome until people started actually using it.

You sound like the kind of hipster who loved fixed gear bicycles and Pabst Blue Ribbon before it was cool.

Seriously?

Quit your bitching.  Libertarianism is easily the predominant thread among Bitcoiners.  You sound like some whiny-ass Christian claiming you're being persecuted for your religion in a 90%+ Christian country.  Get over yourself.

Where the fuck you think you are, in America?  Cause this sounds like America to me! ;-)

Keep up the good work.

This, I think, is precisely why he doesn't recommend it and, in fact, is hostile to it.  As an investor who almost entirely relies on fundamental analysis, he looks at something like Bitcoin and there is nothing there for him to get a grasp on.  I think he's entirely right with respect to his own investment model (at which he has been more successful than almost any living human), but where I think he is wrong is in generalizing and saying Bitcoin isn't a good investment for anyone.

He's been pretty consistent about this.  He doesn't like hedging his bets.  He generally assumes he's made the right decision and is not going to bet against himself.  

It is actually one of Buffett's greatest strengths as an investor that he sticks to what he knows and doesn't delude himself into thinking he's an expert at something he doesn't understand.  I think he is wrong in this specific case, but his general strategy is sound.

He's not "attacking" it, he's just having a different opinion about it. 

"Attacking" Bitcoin would involve something like lobbying to have a law passed against it.

It just does not fit into his model of investment, like gold doesn't.  He is a highly traditional investor, and one of the best of the breed.

And particularly near the end of his life, when he is making investments, he is taking a "long/hold" position where if he dies tomorrow, the people who trusted him with their money can rely on the fact that if they just leave it alone, they'll still be in okay shape in 30 years.

He doesn't know what's going to happen to Bitcoin in 20 years, and frankly, he might be right that it might not exist in 20 years.  It's entirely possible some other cryptocurrency will be so vastly superior to Bitcoin that it will replace it.  If it did, he wouldn't be around to make a decision about that.

So while he might ultimately be wrong about Bitcoin in particular, nobody in their right mind would claim that his general policies on investing are not sound.

By the kind of "reasoning" I've seen in this thread, I could grab a few posts from BCT and claim as accurately that everyone who has any Bitcoin at all is a child molester, who huffs jenkem while shooting krokodil and ordering mass murders from assassination sites, runs a Ponzi scheme and an illegal and rigged gambling site, and is also, worst of all, an adult male fan of My Little Pony.

This is what Bitcoin actually believes.

You really need to face reality!  A Ponzi is inherently a scam, and if it isn't, it's something other than a Ponzi.

It's utter lunacy to defend this crap.  Do you think shit like this makes Bitcoin look good?

Bullshit.

When you say "provably fair" the burden of proof is on YOU at that point.

Note:  the legal implication of this is reflected in a theory called "deepening insolvency."  This is that the knowing continued operation of an insolvent business operation itself creates a cause of action and this cause of action can be against the PRINCIPALS.  Basically, in this case, that would be anyone in sight with money in their pockets. 

This is the kind of cause of action that can pierce the corporate veil, or even directly go after directors and CEOs, possibly without even doing that first. 

Corporate lawyers will find this kind of cause of action very cutting edge and juicy.  Unfortunately, I'd also imagine they'd consume a lot of billable hours pursuing this very nifty, fun, edgy cause of action.

I now regret that I hate corporate law.

Okay.  Then fuck Salon.  It certainly isn't their first stupid headline.  Apologies to OP.

I have never been on a supposedly "moderated" forum before where I routinely encounter full screens of "This user is currently ignored" and where I have been repeatedly infracted myself for absolutely fucking nothing while outright scammers operate with impunity.

Considering this site is what noobs and media first see when they look into Bitcoin, it's hard to blame even scummy, lying corporate media for being horrified and thinking Bitcoin is nothing more than a ditch of iniquity.

If you claim you're "provably fair" and your response to "prove it" is to censor the thread and act like an asshole, you are probably not provably fair and you are probably a fucking fraud.  This site should be listed as a scam site and so should you for advertising it.

Yes, the main issue isn't really one of the morality or legality of Ponzis, but the fact they're off-topic in this forum and should be moved to a relevant forum, preferably some shit-pit toilet where they can swim in turds, choke on them and die.

Whoops, got emotional there at the end.

Incidentally, there is nothing at all inconsistent about libertarians despising Ponzis.  The fundamental principle of libertarianism seems to me to be the non-aggression principle.  Fraud is a species of aggression, in that it seeks to undermine the free and uncoerced choice of the victim.

Open Ponzis arguably do not fit in this mold, and I can imagine a kind of Ponzi that could be played as a game, if it were provably fair, i.e. the end of the Ponzi where profits are taken is actually determined by a known algorithm.  But "whenever Slick Eddie runs off with the money" is no such thing.

Also, such a Ponzi would still probably be illegal under lottery laws, but again, not relevant to this thread's issue.  Which is that the Ponzis that ARE being posted here are off-topic.  They are not gambling.  They are HYIP.  FUCKING MOVE THEM.

Well, except under the Lottery Act, at least some of the illegality of a ponzi would evaporate given full disclosure.  However, that doesn't exist.

Not really interested in a lengthy legal argument on the subject, though, since the main issue is this fucking spam has overwhelmed the gambling forum to the point of making it useless, and it needs to be kicked the fuck out of here to somewhere else or, preferably, to the curb.

If not to the curb, the suggested solution of the Games & Rounds trash can is fine by me.

"Bumhunting" is a completely legitimate poker strategy.  It basically means you're lurking watching tables waiting for someone you know to be a loser to join the table so you can pick a seat with a favorable position to them (usually acting after them), and then basically hustle them.  One method I call the "ant-lion" strategy is the guy who sits at every imaginable heads-up table waiting for someone to join and then takes their money.

The "bumhunting" strategy here, though, would be just waiting for someone to start a table and then joining.

The people who do this are quite often very good players who are looking for suckers.  (Sometimes they just think they are and the "bum" they are hunting is nothing of the sort.)

However, this is not what people are complaining about. 

It is particularly that when a collusion operation is going on, the perps all instantly join any time someone starts a table, they are always new IDs nobody has ever seen before, and the table instantly breaks the moment the one real player parts.  It isn't speculation that this has happened on Seals.  Seals has more than once refunded players when colluders get caught, and the main game where this has occurred on Seals is PLO.

This has nothing to do with the integrity of Seals, and anyone who has played online has seen similar behavior even on the big sites like Stars.  The difference is that Seals is a pretty small site, so it is more glaringly obvious when it does occur.  On Stars, if you saw something weird, you could generally just jump to another table (after reporting it if you were sure).  There were lots of tables.

On Seals, it really only takes a few bad apples to ruin a game where there are usually only one or two tables.

The subject line is retarded.  It's like if you said "Everyone hates Republicans" despite the fact that at least 30% of Americans identify as Republicans and the 40% or so who are "Independents" universally hate them.  Even if you assumed all Republicans hate all Democrats and all Democrats hate all Republicans, which isn't true either, that is flat out stupid.

Because it's utter bullshit.  Ponzis are illegal for a number of reasons, deception being only one of them.  For one matter, a Ponzi is, as a matter of law, a business operating while insolvent.  For another, fraudulent schemes depending on the behavior of others have been considered violations of the Lottery Act, as they have all the criteria (chance consideration and reward).  The policy considerations are that Ponzis invariably collapse eventually, and often create havoc when they do, with bankruptcies that go on for decades costing enormous amounts of court time and money.

If I corrected and spent time arguing with every fucking moron who said something stupid, I wouldn't get a lick of work done, or any sleep, and I'd be in a constant rage 24/7.  At some point you have to decide where to pick your fights and when to let morons be morons.

Hasn't the Bank of Mexico been associated with money laundering for the most murderous drug cartels in the world?

Why, it has!


Drug Politics by Al Giordano

Indeed.  I'm not sure, though, that the original black hats actually distributed the malware along with the information.  If so, they suck.

But it may be that they did originally distribute the information obtained from the hack and later someone else redistributed it with malware attached.