Your opinion on MNW's motivation to bet 10,000 BTC (one post per forum member)

[finkleshnorts]

This is not a discussion or a troll thread, so please ONLY POST ONCE here (of course, feel free to edit your post). I would like to hear the opinions of other Bitcointalk members on this incredible wager that is unfolding as we speak. What do you think about this situation, and more importantly, why?

I don't know what to think, other than that I trust he will pay if he loses. I will pay if I lose my 65 BTC end of the bet.

This isn't meant to be an inflammatory or a redundant thread (I don't think it is), I am sincerely curious.

Bet thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101751.0

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[Cluster2k]

It would help if you posted a link to where the bet was made.

EDIT: Thanks for the link

[Killerpotleaf]

pirate has lied to MWN like everyone else, but MWN believes him.

Come on pirate pay everyone back soon this is getting annoying

pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate pirate

hey look an other pirate thread YAYE! 

[VelvetLeaf]

Someone paid a lot of money for ads or the next move, this time up to 10,000 BTC, that's all.

[dust]

Voted "He WILL pay up: He is teaching the forum an expensive lesson", because that is the most likely case (pirate paying back is also a decent possibility)

However,  I think many of the other options are POSSIBLE and bettors should consider these as risks when betting.

[ruski]

You forgot another option - he has more than 10k BTC waiting to be repaid by pirate, if there's a default he will still get paid, if there isn't, he'll take the hit and be happy he has the rest.

[RoloTonyBrownTown]

Both option 1 and option 2 for me.  I'd do the same if I had the coins and the cajones.

[556j]

I thought the chances of him paying were very high until that guy brought up Matthew saying the funds were on casascius gold bar(s) but if you look here http://casascius.uberbills.com/ there's only BTC6,000 unopened. He says funds are his but refuses to provide signed address or picture on the bar(s). Refuses escrow. Seems out of character for someone always calling people out over transparency. Lots of hostility between him and his colleagues (Bitcoin Magazine) over this pirate stuff lately as well.

edit: respecting bob here, don't want to argue or multi-post. Here's backing of hostility claim in Matthew's own words, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101751.msg1124864#msg1124864. Or just look at any exchange between him and Vlad these last couple days.

[Matthew N. Wright]

I thought the chances of him paying were very high until that guy brought up Matthew saying the funds were on casascius gold bar(s) but if you look here http://casascius.uberbills.com/ there's only BTC6,000 unopened.

Did anyone say it was on a coin or bar for sure? Did anyone say it wasn't spread across more than one coin or bar? 

He says funds are his but refuses to provide signed address or picture on the bar(s). Refuses escrow. Seems out of character for someone always calling people out over transparency.

So keep calling me out on my lack of transparency. I don't think anyone is listening, but carry on.

Lots of hostility between him and his colleagues (Bitcoin Magazine) over this pirate stuff lately as well.

lolwut?

[Matthew N. Wright]

If you do in fact have 10,000 Bitcoins in Casascius products, you personally account for 1/4 of all the active wealth inside them, as a fellow collector I find this extremely interesting.

If you were a collector, you should know about "Roll your own coins". I do not need to own 10,000 individual 1Ƀ coins or even 2,000 individual 5Ƀ coins. I can own a 0.3155111Ƀ and 9 separate 1,111.11111111Ƀ coins if I wanted to (TL;DR? I load my own coins.) Now, part of the reason I'm being purposely vague is for my privacy and protection. The other is because the conspiracy theories are fascinatingly entertaining for me.

[CoinCidental]

I think MNW thread is a great solution for people who feel destined to lose their pirate deposits + also  the entertainment value is priceless if your life savings are not at stake

ok ,some people are into pirate for 25,000 -100,000+usd and they are most likely screwed if they
bet invested money they couldnt afford and pirate is already in jamaica drinking rum with
no intentions of coming back ....

everyone hassling matthew about his funding or how many caucausius coins he owns should lay off

if you dont trust a few coins of risk in a bet just  keep them in your wallet cause gamblings probably not for you anyway

the only concern i would have is that pirate is funding this bet since hes the only one who can really influence the  outcome   ?

[jl2012]

Maybe MNW is pirate. Therefore he is so sure that he will pay the investors.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Maybe MNW is pirate. Therefore he is so sure that he will pay the investors.

Brilliant! I'm also Zhou Tong, Atlas, and Tom Williams. I'll buy you a house!

[muyuu]

Notoriety. That's him.

[salty]

I don't have a clue what he's up to! He is trying to make some kind of point for sure, otherwise why not just use betsofbitco.in? It's going to be a total mess.

Edit: Oh yeah and popcorn.

[Inedible]

First of all, whatever happened to one post per person?

I believe MNW will pay if he loses.

He might be a lot of things but he doesn't appear to be dishonest.

Does he rub you up the wrong way? Maybe.
Is he vocal about things? Sure.
Is he passionate about his beliefs? Absolutely.

There's little to suggest he'll default and a default would cost him more than 10K of Bitcoins longterm.

You could also consider he may know more than you or I know (this is pure speculation before someone jumps in with some conspiracy theory*). This is what I believe to be his reason for betting but I have no proof of this. The only other reason I can think of is that he believes a person is innocent until proven guilty BUT - this isn't the same thing. This bet is saying that not only is someone innocent until proven guilty but that Pirate will indeed pay out and to be so confident about it would require additional information.

* MNW is Zhong Tong so can afford the 10K as soon as his friend Lord Lucan has his assets unfrozen from the AML investigation. He currently resides in North Korea with Kim Jong Il who is not dead as many believe.

Edited - Provided what I believe to be the motivation

[JoelKatz]

I think either he's crazy, he has a backer, or he has a crazy backer. Or maybe he's hedging. Or maybe he has a backer that's hedging. Or maybe he's a true believer.

Personally, I find it baffling. In any event, assuming he doesn't default if he loses, he can do what he wants with his money. It has certainly made this entire event an order of magnitude more entertaining. For that I thank him.

In any event, I don't think many people have enough facts to make a real judgment as to whether this is Matthew being a genius, Matthew being an idiot, or something in the middle. We'll find out eventually, I think.

Now I'm going to go get some more popcorn.

Update: MNW has denied having a backer.

Update: I think I figured it out! MNW has invested millions in popcorn futures.

[zebedee]

I think either he's crazy, he has a backer, or he has a crazy backer. Or maybe he's hedging. Or maybe he has a backer that's hedging. Or maybe he's a true believer.

Personally, I find it baffling. In any event, assuming he doesn't default if he loses, he can do what he wants with his money. It has certainly made this entire event an order of magnitude more entertaining. For that I thank him.

In any event, I don't think many people have enough facts to make a real judgment as to whether this is Matthew being a genius, Matthew being an idiot, or something in the middle. We'll find out eventually, I think.

Now I'm going to go get some more popcorn.

Update: MNW has denied having a backer.
himhim

I believe everything is just as MNW says, and also that he will cough up if he loses.

Yes he's gone nuts about this but I also think his instinct is right and he's going to end up the winner.  Like him, I have my own reasons, just from observation of what's going on.  I have no clue what pirate was/is doing either.

Pirate is playing the doubters like a highly strung fiddle, and beautifully so.  And MNW's appearance in the game has just incentivized pirate to delay even longer than he might have done otherwise, for pure entertainment value if nothing else.

First rate enertainment.  Though I don't relish nor enjoy the pain of the losers, whoever they are.

I just hope the "community" moves on whatever the outcome towards the goal I believe we all have in common.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Code:

[22:35] <Vinnie_win> Did anyone get paid yet?
[22:36] <Isokivi> pirate did!

[Vladimir]

* MNW is Zhong Tong so can afford the 10K as soon as his friend Lord Lucan has his assets unfrozen from the AML investigation. He currently resides in North Korea with Kim Jong Il who is not dead as many believe.

I've got a better theory.

NMW is Satoshi and he finally found a good use for his wast Bitcoin fortune. He will from now on use this fortune of his to help the community through this scam infested period of time by making that kind of wagers and hedging opportunities to soften the blows while making the community using longer sentences.

i.e. from now on anyone on this forum instead of "this is a scam" must say "this is likely a scam". This will please Satoshi big time.

[muyuu]

Pirate is playing the doubters like a highly strung fiddle, and beautifully so.  And MNW's appearance in the game has just incentivized pirate to delay even longer than he might have done otherwise, for pure entertainment value if nothing else.

You do realise that a 7%/week of ~500KBTC goes for ~5K/day, right? That would be the cost of 1 day delay and it's been a few already. I'm not totally sure of the composition of his trust, assuming a 7% over the whole thing. I'd appreciate if someone confirmed or corrected this.

[Bigpiggy01]

Did anyone say it was on a coin or bar for sure? Did anyone say it wasn't spread across more than one coin or bar? 

Not "for sure" but in the interview you recently did with Bryan, when directly asked about escrow, your reply was that you did not want to ruin a hologram on a Casascius product.

You also said you would be willing to move the coins to a viewable address should it come to that.
This is not needed if they are currently in a Casascius product, the windowed bits will allow a search easily.

If you do in fact have 10,000 Bitcoins in Casascius products, you personally account for 1/4 of all the active wealth inside them, as a fellow collector I find this extremely interesting.

People can learn for themselves, my initial posts in Matthews thread start here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101751.msg1125563#msg1125563

Part of the interview I am speaking about begins at 20:50 in the podcast quoted below.

DonkDown Radio: Bitcoin Magazine Matt’s 10k BTC bet on Pirateat40 Ponzi, Poker is Skill (it wasn’t just bad luck all these years) & Crazier Mike

http://www.donkdown.com/donkdown-radio-bitcoin-magazine-matt-pirateat40-ponzi-poker-is-skill-it-wasnt-just-bad-luck-all-these-years-crazier-mike/

If you do in fact have 10,000 Bitcoins in Casascius products, you personally account for 1/4 of all the active wealth inside them, as a fellow collector I find this extremely interesting.

If you were a collector, you should know about "Roll your own coins". I do not need to own 10,000 individual 1Ƀ coins or even 2,000 individual 5Ƀ coins. I can own a 0.3155111Ƀ and 9 separate 1,111.11111111Ƀ coins if I wanted to (TL;DR? I load my own coins.) Now, part of the reason I'm being purposely vague is for my privacy and protection. The other is because the conspiracy theories are fascinatingly entertaining for me.

I do not know why you chose to bring the denominations into it.
What you choose to put onto a Casascius product does not change the fact that it goes onto a known Casascius address.

Sure having multiple may make it hard for you to share a single firstbits for confirmation, but none the less, the coins would be visible in the trackers.
The trackers are showing 40k active, you are claiming 10k.
 
Privacy and protection ...
hmmm I suppose that is vague enough to seem reasonable, god knows there would be no way to safely hide those coins again should they ever be found to exist.

This is the product Matthew is speaking about if anyone is curious:

I just thought of a new product I'd like to offer, and you can order it right now on my website for 0.13 BTC.  I will automatically treat any order of 5 or more "broken" coins as an order for roll-your-owns.

The "roll your own" Physical Bitcoin is simply a real Casascius coin without the hologram and without any funds.  Instead you get a fresh private key circle (so you can fund it) and a gold foil sticker to cover the key.

The big advantage?  CHEAP.  Especially in quantity, if you don't care about there being a Casascius hologram.  Perfect if you are trying to give BTC for birthdays or as freebies to others at the lowest cost, to someone who won't care about the lack of a hologram.

Simply order 5 or more of my "broken 1BTC sample" on my website.  Rather than receiving coins with a torn hologram, you will receive brand new fresh coins that have never been stickered.  You'll receive a sheet of gold stickers, and a pack of pre-cut private key circles to fit.  (I will typically provide a few extra stickers and keys than you paid for so you can feel free to test/ruin a few).

The circles are laser-cut and have the private minikey on one side and the firstbits on the other, and each one is unique.  To fund it, you look up the full bitcoin address via the firstbits from https://www.casascius.com/fulllist.txt.  Same policy as on my other keys - I do not keep the private key, for each key you get, it is the only copy that exists - you're also welcome to create your own keys if you feel inclined.

  Weak sauce is weak.

[P4man]

To be fair, his exact words in the interview were "Rip off the seal"

I used the word hologram in my post as that is what is common for Casascius products.
Matthew could have been referring to the gold foil sticker that comes with the roll your own product.

So he is not concerned about betting $100.000,  but to show that he actually has the funds to back up his bet, he doesnt want to tear a a 0.13 BTC gold sticker? Matthew, Ill buy you a new roll-your-own coin if you want.

[muyuu]

To be fair, his exact words in the interview were "Rip off the seal"

I used the word hologram in my post as that is what is common for Casascius products.
Matthew could have been referring to the gold foil sticker that comes with the roll your own product.

So he is not concerned about betting $100.000,  but to show that he actually has the funds to back up his bet, he doesnt want to tear a a 0.13 BTC gold sticker? Matthew, Ill buy you a new roll-your-own coin if you want.

He did say he was uber-long in BTC. LULz.

[Matthew N. Wright]

The only way I'm going to show you guys my coins is if you bet that I don't have them because:

A) It's none of your business
B) It doesn't reflect the existing bets regardless
C) Gotta collect the FUD tax

[SaltySpitoon]

If you were a collector, you should know about "Roll your own coins". I do not need to own 10,000 individual 1Ƀ coins or even 2,000 individual 5Ƀ coins. I can own a 0.3155111Ƀ and 9 separate 1,111.11111111Ƀ coins if I wanted to (TL;DR? I load my own coins.) Now, part of the reason I'm being purposely vague is for my privacy and protection. The other is because the conspiracy theories are fascinatingly entertaining for me.

I think, Pirate decided to give back the $ to everyone else, but as a way to supplement his income, he and MNW are working together to make these huge bets, so when Pirate does give everyone their $ back, instead of being down 500K BTC, he can be down 495K BTC (He and MNW will split the BTC) and Pirate can walk away with a cool $50K.

With that $50K, he will then move to Somalia, purchase a ship, and become a real pirate. Or if he screws MNW on this deal and walks out with the 500K BTC, he will buy an even BIGGER ship, and maybe even some gold from Coinabul to get his collection of booty started.

But that is, if Pirate isn't actually the Feds trying to monitor the flow of BTC, and have now decided that 500K BTC is the proper "Tax" to levy on the BTC community as a whole.

[Matthew N. Wright]

If you were a collector, you should know about "Roll your own coins". I do not need to own 10,000 individual 1Ƀ coins or even 2,000 individual 5Ƀ coins. I can own a 0.3155111Ƀ and 9 separate 1,111.11111111Ƀ coins if I wanted to (TL;DR? I load my own coins.) Now, part of the reason I'm being purposely vague is for my privacy and protection. The other is because the conspiracy theories are fascinatingly entertaining for me.

I think, Pirate decided to give back the $ to everyone else, but as a way to supplement his income, he and MNW are working together to make these huge bets, so when Pirate does give everyone their $ back, instead of being down 500K BTC, he can be down 495K BTC (He and MNW will split the BTC) and Pirate can walk away with a cool $50K.

With that $50K, he will then move to Somalia, purchase a ship, and become a real pirate. Or if he screws MNW on this deal and walks out with the 500K BTC, he will buy an even BIGGER ship, and maybe even some gold from Coinabul to get his collection of booty started.

But that is, if Pirate isn't actually the Feds trying to monitor the flow of BTC, and have now decided that 500K BTC is the proper "Tax" to levy on the BTC community as a whole.

This, in it's entirety is the most likely conspiracy theory out of all of the ridiculous conspiracy theories, because it shows me doing something adventurous. Come on guys. You can do better than that....  Nothing so far even shows any imagination for christ's sake. What if I just took a loan from Pirate for 10,000BTC? Wouldn't that explain my confidence? That's not the case but -seriously- lacking imagination trolls. Keep trying.

[Duderin0]

He WILL pay up: He sincerely believes Pirate will not default.

[rjk]

I hereby use up my one allocated post per forum member in this thread. Thanks for all the fish.

[julz]

Whenever I tell people about having met a particular sociopath - invariably someone will tell me that they can just 'spot them'.

I think Matthew is the sort of person who *thinks* he can spot a sociopath.   Many of them don't bother to hide their identities - consequences are just something to be weaseled out of later.

You don't truly understand sociopaths, until you realize that you don't understand sociopaths. They can often mimic emotion and empathy - or they wouldn't be good at what they do.
(I suspect that even sociopaths don't understand sociopathy - it just works for them)

[Matthew N. Wright]

Whenever I tell people about having met a particular sociopath - invariably someone will tell me that they can just 'spot them'.

I think Matthew is the sort of person who *thinks* he can spot a sociopath.   Many of them don't bother to hide their identities - consequences are just something to be weaseled out of later.

You don't truly understand sociopaths, until you realize that you don't understand sociopaths. They can often mimic emotion and empathy - or they wouldn't be good at what they do.
(I suspect that even sociopaths don't understand sociopathy - it just works for them)

YOU CALLIN' ME A SOCIOPATH!? haha just kidding.

[julz]

Whenever I tell people about having met a particular sociopath - invariably someone will tell me that they can just 'spot them'.

I think Matthew is the sort of person who *thinks* he can spot a sociopath.   Many of them don't bother to hide their identities - consequences are just something to be weaseled out of later.

You don't truly understand sociopaths, until you realize that you don't understand sociopaths. They can often mimic emotion and empathy - or they wouldn't be good at what they do.
(I suspect that even sociopaths don't understand sociopathy - it just works for them)

YOU CALLIN' ME A SOCIOPATH!? haha just kidding.

LOL. For the record.. no... I'm referring to pirate, but hey, I can't spot a sociopath until 30 minutes after they've ducked out of the restaurant to grab a smoke
I actually haven't put any money into pirate's scheme, nor made a bet one way or another.

I do lean towards him being a sociopath though - but that's the danger of having encountered them. You can start to think you see them everywhere!

I suspect he may pay back - but only because he's found some way to rustle up a few million and use that goodwill to pull off a much bigger ponzi next time!
I won't be investing in his next scheme no matter what.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Whenever I tell people about having met a particular sociopath - invariably someone will tell me that they can just 'spot them'.

I think Matthew is the sort of person who *thinks* he can spot a sociopath.   Many of them don't bother to hide their identities - consequences are just something to be weaseled out of later.

You don't truly understand sociopaths, until you realize that you don't understand sociopaths. They can often mimic emotion and empathy - or they wouldn't be good at what they do.
(I suspect that even sociopaths don't understand sociopathy - it just works for them)

YOU CALLIN' ME A SOCIOPATH!? haha just kidding.

LOL. For the record.. no... I'm referring to pirate, but hey, I can't spot a sociopath until 30 minutes after they've ducked out of the restaurant to grab a smoke
I actually haven't put any money into pirate's scheme, nor made a bet one way or another.

I do lean towards him being a sociopath though - but that's the danger of having encountered them. You can start to think you see them everywhere!

I suspect he may pay back - but only because he's found some way to rustle up a few million and use that goodwill to pull off a much bigger ponzi next time!
I won't be investing in his next scheme no matter what.

Good on you mate. Don't invest in high risk bullshit. I don't know what he's doing either, but I these people are throwing thousands of bitcoins into it expecting a profit. I expect my money back, but profits? Pff. Best just trade on the market.