I think that's reasonable to assume. They almost certainly underestimate because a lot of people live here full time and might not be considered tourists by the stats but they send their money from outside the country and spend it on things like rent, food, cars ect.

We'll see how the coup will affect the post April numbers. I think it might have a noticeable effect. In reality it's not dangerous for tourists to come but I think a lot of foreigners falsely assume that the Army is dangerous. I've personally seen quite a few people asking and being very worried about their upcoming trips. With some even canceling altogether.

Wow, that's quite a decline. Do you know what caused such a drastic decline in population over that timer period?

Dank has always been a character but a lot of people loaned him money because he had stated that his parents are upper-middle class. So people assumed that if there were problems and push came to shove Dank would get the money to pay the people back from his parents.

The thing is there isn't really anything happening. There's no violence any longer now that the Army has taken control. Even in Bangkok tourists would be safe. They might see a lot of Army personnel with guns and that might be frightening for them, but it's not dangerous.

It's very significant for certain provinces like Phuket where their economy is heavily based around tourism. But there are 77 provinces if you include Bangkok and there is a wide range of industry taking place across the country.

Well, that's arguable I think. If you're 100% sure computer wise then bitcoin is safe as long as you don't make any big mistakes like losing your wallet or sending to the wrong address, but these things seem to happen to a lot of people right now.

With credit cards if someone uses your card fraudulently they company will refund the money as long as you sign some papers. I had my credit card number stolen before and it wasn't an issue getting it cleared up. But of course you're paying for this safety through fees and interest.

I'm certainly not saying credit cards are better than bitcoin but at this point it's not necessarily clear that bitcoin is safer for the average person.

I wouldn't worry at all about coming to Thailand as a tourist. The curfew was an annoyance but now that it's lifted in Pattaya, Samui, and Phuket that's going to take care of a big percentage of tourists who are going to want to be out at night.

Thailand is a very safe country in general and with the Army in control it's even safer really. There's been minor peaceful anti coup protests but in reality the majority of Thai people support the coup and are happy to see Thailand back on track to stability.

The thing is this forum is operated in a "free market" sort of way so scammers and other undesirables are free to attempt to do as they wish and it's up to the community to get the message out on who is and who is not a scammer.

Even if this so called underground group did exist I doubt it would be possible to shut it down even if they forum wanted to or had a policy of actively banning or going after scammers.

In the long run it would still be much better to doing something to earn the money to pay your living expenses since it's much better to have that interest compounding and making your more money in the long run. If you just take it all out you end up costing yourself more money in the long run which you'll need eventually at some point in your life anyway since inflation is going to eat away at you year after year.

Yeah, personally I don't support people doing that at all. I just wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing with Electrum, because like you said the address it's self doesn't show up in any obvious way on the Electrum client. At least I couldn't find it...

Thanks for the answers everyone.

Uh no...Tourism isn't even close to the majority of the Thai economy. You should get your facts straight.

Also, the Army is straightening the country out. It needs straightening out in the political sector badly, first and foremost.

Most people assume automatically that the Army must be bad guys taking power for themselves, but in reality that's not the case at all.

 A lot of VC's like Y combinator invest in hundreds of start ups and hope that a few of them work out for the big pay off. So far it's worked out well for them, with companies like AirBnB and Dropbox just to name a couple.

The idea of playing the long shots and hoping to get all your money back seems to be a popular method of investing in Silicon Valley. You can't miss out if you invest a little in every reasonable idea would be their reasoning I would guess.

Usually companies are going to see a surge in bitcoin sales when they start to offer it as a payment option. In order for that number to keep growing bitcoin is going to have to be adopted as an alternative payment system by more and more average people who would otherwise use PayPal or their credit cards to purchase things online.

Maybe bitcoin is growing in that regard but the price isn't a great indicator of consumer adoption. I would like to see some good evidence showing that more and more people are starting to choose bitcoin over other alternative payment systems. I guess keeping an eye on bitpay is one good way to watch that.

One big advantage compared to payment companies like PayPal is the fact that you cannot have your account arbitrarily locked and your funds frozen/stolen from you by the company. PayPal is notorious for locking peoples accounts and not being receptive to customers who attempt to cooperate.

How do you figure it's unconstitutional?

Where are you getting these stats if you don't mind me asking?

I'm just a bystander in all of this but I find it very suspicious that you would post such an obviously inaccurate post. Anyone who has been reading bct.org for a while can plainly see that the way you presented that is false.

One thing I'm not clear on, I'm assuming by the exchange you mean GLBSE right? Obviously if you're talking about GLBSE I think it's safe to say closing and down and taking everyones money is "doing something wrong".

And as far as him creating "fake business" he had posted pics of a room full of computers full of gpus so obviously there was some mining equipment.

The sharecropping idea if I remember correctly was after pirate's ponzi had imploded so you're claim of him taking all this money from other businesses and putting it in to pirate doesn't add up. And I don't specifically remember him taking any money for that yet anyway. And there's no reason to think it's necessarily a bad idea to invest in something like that. It's different that's for sure, and I'm not saying I'd be lining up to invest on that one, but nothing wrong with new ideas for btc investment.

He operated a pass through fund for the known ponzi. So yes people bought shares through him to participate in in Pirate's giant ponzi. Everyone who had any idea of what was going on knew it was a ponzi. At that point half the forum was gambling their money in the thing anyway, he had what, like 550,000 btc at one point?

So it really comes down to a moral question of whether or not you think it's right to allow people to gamble their own money in ponzi schemes. Theymos and goat obviously think people should be free to gamble their own money. I've never seen any evidence of goat actually scamming anyone but there have been constant accusations over the years. I don't have all the information though, so if someone come up with some real evidence I'd like to see it, but no one ever has as far as I can tell. Just more of the same vague, incorrect accusations.

It's probably a case of no one is paid enough to care and no one wants to be the one who cooperates with the police.

Good luck. I hope it works out.

Please keep us updated. I really think there is a good chance you can get the coins back.

Also if they do have the private key and are able to access that wallet it's a good sign for people who have money at gox. So I'm sure people will be interested to hear what happens there.