or a helpless group of 10 people who has 35 less btcs. I hope someones got the balls to find him face to face and duke it out and maybe upload a video for viewing pleasure, but we likely won't see this happen. Not that I condone such act of course.

To me what is more important than fixing it is the fact that this happens often and does anyone actually verify all the blocks mined and so on. No to accuse any operators, but these are the important questions that the participants need to ask then followed up with to ensure that everyone is doing the right thing. Blindly thinking that everything is fine is the fast way to be taken advantage of in many situations.

I agree. I highly doubt that even in the worst of case when/if the fiat currencies start to collapse in itself, entire network of internet infrastructure will be offline for a prolonged time to effectively stop the bitcoin trade long enough to bring it's value to nil. I'm seriously hoping for a new type of technology to develop where we can connect to the internet via p2p or open wireless type of structure without central nodes. That would 100% insure the bitcoin network never going offline without an ounce of doubt, but the technology in development may be bit more down the future. Namecoin is definitely a start in the right direction in that aspect. If anything, the signs of terrible things to come in the events preceding the possible collapse should urge the general public to seek out and develop such technology out of necessity.

 

You are right that the hardware cost is a factor. But if you are looking at buying and holding long term, the small dollar amount invested for hardware initially becomes less and less important as the value goes up higher over time.

I will never trade at tradehill because of their use of referral policy and every damn member spamming it every possible chance they get. They single-handedly increased the amount the junk threads and spam on the forum more than any one person or business. Not to mention every blog/video/article/etc that has a comment section littered with trash from tradehill. This approach to marketing definitely doesn't appeal to me one bit and I will never use their services. They are only contributing to people posting more useless crap on every possible news outlet reporting on bitcoin and it reflect badly on the entire community as being associated with spammers. Not only that it encourages the act of spamming by the true nature of the marketing approach. It's despicable.

rly.. is that your idea of thinking big? 

He's already telling everyone he isn't planning to pay back. He is outright lying about this obviously imo. I wouldn't trust this guy. I knew it was going to end badly when I saw the ad. Too bad people lost hard earned btc over this. I'm 100% sure he isn't paying back anyone.

Every transaction on the network gets recorded in the block chain and stored on every node.

This is the very issue that comes up when miners think about reinvesting btc back into mining rigs to produce more btc. People insists on reinvesting and selling bitcoins to buy more equipment when the math says that the new equipment will never mine more btc than the amount of btc you've put into it. If the goal of the miner is to have as many btc as possible, buying outright likely will yield more btc in total. The hope of the miner is that the value of btc go up enough to give return in terms of USD to pay back the initial investment where their hardware is paid off. So 2-3 months down the line you may have made enough USD from your rig to cover up your initial cost of btc reinvested, but you've only been able to do this because the price rose to make up the difference of # btc mined vs spent. On the other hand due to the increase in difficulty, you will never be able to mine the same amount of btc you originally spend.

I predict that we will hit $30 mark before we hit the end of the 7th day after MtGox opens likely sooner. I really doubt a huge sell off out the gate because of the fact that other exchanges are holding prices above $10+ easily. Even if there is a selloff right out the gate, the prices will recover past $30 before the end of 7th day of trading after reopening.

Bitcoins are in fact like religion because the faith of the people who believe in it give bitcoin it's value. In that aspect bitcoin is very much like a religion. Only difference is that this religion will actually save lives when the world's fiat currencies start collapsing whereas others will tell them to pray for a change.

This is the reason why some people like Steve Jobs are called visionaries whereas ordinary people buy his ipads instead.

1.Bitcoin client is being audited by independent 3rd party all the time because they are open source. If you want to do  your own audit, you may.

2. The deposits held are in the record of every single one of the clients blockchain. Every user holding the same blockchain you have are essentially serves as witness to you holding w/e amount of bitcoins that you do. This blockchain always will be the same on all clients therefore you don't need trusted third party to do any accounting to guarantee your holdings. What could be better than having the entire "jury" agreeing to the same facts that your claim are true on your accounting books? Because that is literally what is happening when bitcoin transfers ownership from one to another and is recorded on the blockchain ledger so to speak. Encyption is on it's way to be in the client itself shortly, but the option is already available if you seek to perform this function yourself via truecrypt or similar software available for free.  

3. You have a choice to not use any exchanges if you don't want to. You are not investing in an exchange, but in bitcoins. Due to bitcoin being still at in infancy, exchange services providers have yet to come up with a bulletproof solution as of yet it seems. Not worried as growing value of bitcoin will simply demand a better exchange and free market will surely respond and meet that need at the right time. For now, I just consider all hick-ups at exchanges as early growing pains.

4. If you could actually provide the evidence that 99% percent of all economic activity of bitcon is generated by exchanges or miners, I will acknowledge this as a valid question rather than a troll attempt. Just as a quick reply, bitcoin is still at it's infancy and there is still a valid need to exchanges currently. This obviously will change as the acceptance of the currency grows with time and more and more business accept bitcoins directly reducing the need to exchanges altogether.

5. This comes down to your own level of risk tolerance. One thing for certain is that the code is open and transparent. If you are like me and others that are accepting of the risks, then you can give yourself the option to participate early in a new currency that was just created. If you also have the technical knowledge, you can easily see that the core functionality of the currency and it's cypto are very secure. Of course you should take responsibility of your own security at all times regardless of involvement in btc or not. Somehow I have the feeling that even when the beta tag comes off the official client, that it will still continuously be updated and supported. I don't see how this is any different than how it will be for the rest of it's existence.

This doesn't surprise me as I expect the price of btc to start it journey back up as soon as trading resumes at MtGox for USD as well. The crash didn't actually do any damage other than to MtGox and their reputation. Btc, as a result of the Sunday's debacle, received huge amount of media coverage to spread the word of btc's existence. Problem isn't that we get negative coverage, but that we don't get enough coverage as the intels of the world will easily recognize the real opportunity behind the smoke and mirror that media throws in with their reporting.

If there are smart people out there that have seen the recent media coverage, they will surely have taken the time to search for more info and are rdy to jump in asap. Personally all it took me to look into bitcoin was someone mentioning that they would have to exchange this new digital currency it to paypal dollars to buy some computer equipment on a forum thread way back. I've never heard of bitcoins at the time and that was all it took to pique my interest. It wasn't anything more than an ordinary comment referring to bitcoin. I'm sure it won't take much to excite people who already have their radar tuned in for new opportunities such as this already.

Although there is a bit of difference in the amount of coins that each user may own at this point in time, it is absolutely important for everyone to remember that Bitcoin is still at it's infancy. We are all early adapters at this point. There are just a few mega early adapters is all.

Don't kick yourself in the ass by not being involved sooner rather than later. At the end of the day, it's about YOU protecting YOUR wealth in a vehicle of YOUR choosing. Worrying about who has how much of what is as irrelevant as weather it will be btc, gold, usd, land, properties, pm, stock, or whatever else YOU decided to store wealth in. Reason is simple. It's because at any point, current price dictates how much wealth can be stored at 1 btc. What is important is that it will hold it's value and continues to do so as long as you are invested in it rather than lose it like fiat currencies of today.

I bet the op has no idea where the "silk road" reference even comes from to trying make a joke by swapping it out.. You are only make yourself look foolish here imo. Just don't post crap anymore and go away altogether.

I always new that the best and fastest way to legitimize btc transactions worldwide to the average people would be for major charities to get involved and accept bitcoin. It would obviously make sense for a non profit to accept payment in any shape and size they can if it has any value and it is liquid. This ease of entry vs a normal business is pretty big deal not to mention the publicity that comes from this will reflect positively.

I appreciate your efforts to become an advocate of bitcoin to charities and helping them setup a way to accept them. I only see this as win win for everyone and the community should help drive traffic to this site any way they can. Once the charities all over the world realize how real btc is one by one, btc will become that much closer to becoming a world wide currency for the people.

I would love to see this implemented as I hate having unsorted workers and this problem remains for other majors pools as well. This feature would set apart BTC guild for me from the rest making even better than it already is.

I was also able to fill out and submit request before the site was having trouble loading again. I should be part of the first batch and I haven't received any confirmation email. Patiently waiting for the sunny trading days