Any truth to this rumor?

[raspcoin]

government cant "solve the bitcoin problem" by buying them all and destroying them or locking them up. they are far too divisible, all they would do is drive the price up which would be exactly contrary to their interest. it is however possible that they have been buying them up with the intention of pushing bitcoin someday.

as far as the chinese government is concerned this is probably exactly right.

Banks are greedy, but not fanatical. Your proposition sounds like the best possible investment a bank could imagine. Yes, it would render banks obsolete, but they would still control a large share of the economy.

[BRADLEYPLOOF]

here's the deal (and by the way i've had much vodka to drink, but it still makes sense):

1. Governments want to control the "money" aspect of everyone' lives
2. Digital currency makes banking (and the FED) obsolete
3. If the FED could create their own digital currency that's widely adopted (but still centralized) then bitcoin is still going to be the shit
4. Any centralized digital currency is doomed to fail because nobody wants to depend on a few people to tell them what their money is worth

[metaverse22]

Hedge funds could be driving the BTC price.

[tarena]

Dont discredit something because it was read by the OP on facebook just because it was read on FB. Especially when people are always attempting to parallel the growth of bitcoin to that of facebook. Bitcoin is nothing but speculation, albeit based on great concepts. Don't discount the fact that governments, and banks are not new to the idea of market manipulation, in fact it can be argued that they invented it. They are not a bunch of nerds with no experience in bull markets. They take calculated, systematic approached to reaching their goals. Moreover, they are flooded with cash to invest in destabilizing or manipulating bitcoin as per their own interest. Even those early adopters of bitcoins who are now millionaires cannot compete with the billions of dollars the governments and banks are able to invest towards buying up bitcoin either for attack of the network, or whatever they intend to do.

As for china, they invest in everything and are major players in every market. Gold, check, Bonds, check, Scrap metals, check, Bitcoins, check, they'll invest in anything and they exercise the forethought to be successful in all their investments. It's just in their nature, get used to it.

[PenAndPaper]

People that are looking for conspiracies can find one everywhere. Bitcoin is conspiracy friendly anyway because we don't know the identity of Satoshi and because of other things that came to light like crypto algorithms being potentially rigged by the nsa.

[serves-two]

A little unfair if my bitcoins have to compete with a bank ...

Not really, since your Bitcoins already do.

... and can guarantee my balance if they get lost or stolen

Independence comes at a price.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/There-s-An-Electronic-Currency-That-Could-Save-4999475.php

I'm genuinely stunned by how shamelessly unattractive and dishonest that proposition is; it's openly a method to force negative interest rates on you:

Right now, your $100 bill is equal to the $100 in the bank. If you're bank account has a 5% interest rate, you earn $5 of interest in a year and that $100 bill is still worth $100. But what would happen if that interest were -5%? Then you would lose $5 over the course of the year. Knowing this, you would rationally withdraw the $100 ahead of time and keep it out of the bank.

...

"You have to do something a little bit more to get the negative rate on the paper currency," Kimball said. "You have to have the $100 bill be worth $95 a year later in order to have a -5% interest rate.

...

Got that? After a year of a -5% interest rate, $100 dollars are equal to $95 e-dollars. This ensures that paper currency also faces a negative interest rate as well and eliminates the incentive for savers to hoard dollar bills if the Fed implements a negative rate. Presto!

Something tells me you'll be much happier with your (currently mildly inflationary, but soon) static/deflationary Bitcoins.

st

[Ltsknnr]

BTC prices are in a bubble. The question is, where in the bubble are we, and when is it going to burst  (because it will). The current meteoric rise cannot be sustained, and the levels will diminish.

Right now its a "hurry up and wait" scenario where people are piling in trying to get on board, eventually the bubble will burst and fortunes will be made (and lost) depending on when you got in.

[atc1]

There's enough demand for BTC right now to ensure it's survivability in the short run. But with such high volatility combined with the fact that,as of now,BTC only satisfies it's potential only when converted back to the dollar,makes it a risky gamble. China has been taking unusual interest lately,so it's very likely that the present boom will end once the demand there stabilizes.

[stereotyyp]

People that are looking for conspiracies can find one everywhere. Bitcoin is conspiracy friendly anyway because we don't know the identity of Satoshi and because of other things that came to light like crypto algorithms being potentially rigged by the nsa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2
SHA-2 is a set of cryptographic hash functions (SHA-224, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512) designed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and published in 2001 by the NIST as a U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS).

So yeah - NSA designed SHA256 hash function that BitCoin is using. Strange.. Sure - hash functions might be rigged by them somehow.
Im not expert on cryptographics so i dont know how they could use it against Bitcoin..

[PenAndPaper]

People that are looking for conspiracies can find one everywhere. Bitcoin is conspiracy friendly anyway because we don't know the identity of Satoshi and because of other things that came to light like crypto algorithms being potentially rigged by the nsa.

So yeah - NSA designed SHA256 hash function that BitCoin is using. Strange.. Sure - hash functions might be rigged by them somehow.
Im not expert on cryptographics so i dont know how they could use it against Bitcoin..

That's well known and not strange at all. It's like saying that everything that uses a Sha functions is built by the government 
Rigged algorithms nevertheless might be a real issue.

[stereotyyp]

People that are looking for conspiracies can find one everywhere. Bitcoin is conspiracy friendly anyway because we don't know the identity of Satoshi and because of other things that came to light like crypto algorithms being potentially rigged by the nsa.

So yeah - NSA designed SHA256 hash function that BitCoin is using. Strange.. Sure - hash functions might be rigged by them somehow.
Im not expert on cryptographics so i dont know how they could use it against Bitcoin..

That's well known and not strange at all. It's like saying that everything that uses a Sha functions is built by the government 
Rigged algorithms nevertheless might be a real issue.

I dont know why Satoshi decided to pick SHA256 - it might be problem or might not be

I dont want to say that USA government is behind of BitCoin - that may be another topic (that Satoshi actually means something about new world order or he/she was government agent and so on..)
 
All i want to say, that everything that uses SHA functions MIGHT NOT be secure at all. It might be easily breakable by NSA.