Richard Branson to Host Bitcoin Summit on Private Island

[countryfree]

This is good for BTC. The more successful entrepreneurs like Branson organize BTC parties, the better. It's just good PR.
I'm not afraid of anything coming from this.

[romjpn]

Yes, it's possible, so why don't they want to make that much profit? Is there some law that says Richard Branson cannot trade BTC on exchanges, upon penalty of immediate execution without trial?

Why are you afraid of your satoshis being worth 1 US cent (or more) each? BTC is not sold only in whole units.

Maybe because that would not be good for their image and Bitcoin's image to manipulate it so heavily.

[TheButterZone]

Yes, it's possible, so why don't they want to make that much profit? Is there some law that says Richard Branson cannot trade BTC on exchanges, upon penalty of immediate execution without trial?

Why are you afraid of your satoshis being worth 1 US cent (or more) each? BTC is not sold only in whole units.

Maybe because that would not be good for their image and Bitcoin's image to manipulate it so heavily.

Manipulate? Image? Ridiculous. BTC is a joke as long as its furthest currently-programmed decimal place is only worth 0.000002293 USD and not at or above parity with the smallest denomination of the world's reserve currency. Branson would be a hero and a villain to exactly the same people who view him as such today.

[Kprawn]

Richard Branson is a very ambitious person, he would not just want to disrupt the main financial businesses.... he will go for the whole thing.

I expect a total NEW Alt coin, with all the shortcomings of Bitcoin addressed. It will have a funky name. "FUCOIN"

Whatever it will be, it would be disruptive in nature, but it would adhere to the laws and regulations of most countries, to make adoption easier for governments. {Something like Ripple}

[WhatTheGox]

Richard Branson is a very ambitious person, he would not just want to disrupt the main financial businesses.... he will go for the whole thing.

I expect a total NEW Alt coin, with all the shortcomings of Bitcoin addressed. It will have a funky name. "FUCOIN"

Whatever it will be, it would be disruptive in nature, but it would adhere to the laws and regulations of most countries, to make adoption easier for governments. {Something like Ripple}

So hes going to get bitcoiners with probably large holdings of bitcoin to support a project which could devalue bitcoin?  the gamble could pay off sure but its risky.

[Amph]

Richard Branson is a very ambitious person, he would not just want to disrupt the main financial businesses.... he will go for the whole thing.

I expect a total NEW Alt coin, with all the shortcomings of Bitcoin addressed. It will have a funky name. "FUCOIN"

Whatever it will be, it would be disruptive in nature, but it would adhere to the laws and regulations of most countries, to make adoption easier for governments. {Something like Ripple}

why everyone should make his own new altcoin, just improve and help bitcoin, no need to throw other garbage coin, and hoping to become rich quickly like all the users on the altcoin section

Branson and company, should definitely help the bitcoin price with all the money he has, no not for let people like me dumping at the current price, but for not let the btc die...

[btbrae]

Guess I wasn't far off the mark after all. Quoted from the press forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1040854.0

Richard Branson spokesperson Nick Fox got back to us by email Tuesday evening. Though Branson is listed as a “host” for the summit, and his name is used frequently on the site, Branson’s spokesperson Fox says, “This is not our event.” Branson, who famously accepts Bitcoin for flights on his Virgin Galactic spaceline, wasn’t at the controls for this event, says Fox. “It is being organised by an investment company who have hired Necker Island and have selected the people,” said Fox by email. “Richard has been invited and has had no role in the selection of the guests or curation of the event.”

http://fusion.net/story/127735/the-only-woman-going-to-richard-bransons-big-bitcoin-summit-is-a-professional-kiteboarder/

[WhatTheGox]

Guess I wasn't far off the mark after all. Quoted from the press forum https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1040854.0

Richard Branson spokesperson Nick Fox got back to us by email Tuesday evening. Though Branson is listed as a “host” for the summit, and his name is used frequently on the site, Branson’s spokesperson Fox says, “This is not our event.” Branson, who famously accepts Bitcoin for flights on his Virgin Galactic spaceline, wasn’t at the controls for this event, says Fox. “It is being organised by an investment company who have hired Necker Island and have selected the people,” said Fox by email. “Richard has been invited and has had no role in the selection of the guests or curation of the event.”

http://fusion.net/story/127735/the-only-woman-going-to-richard-bransons-big-bitcoin-summit-is-a-professional-kiteboarder/

Its probably safe for him to put it like that, if he said... yeah so ive invited a few people to my island to see how we can take down bank and gov power it might not go down so well PR wise for some of his business connections.

[randy8777]

Richard Branson is a very ambitious person, he would not just want to disrupt the main financial businesses.... he will go for the whole thing.

I expect a total NEW Alt coin, with all the shortcomings of Bitcoin addressed. It will have a funky name. "FUCOIN"

Whatever it will be, it would be disruptive in nature, but it would adhere to the laws and regulations of most countries, to make adoption easier for governments. {Something like Ripple}

why everyone should make his own new altcoin, just improve and help bitcoin, no need to throw other garbage coin, and hoping to become rich quickly like all the users on the altcoin section

Branson and company, should definitely help the bitcoin price with all the money he has, no not for let people like me dumping at the current price, but for not let the btc die...

branson is a business man. he is not willing to use his wealth to make the price go up so others can dump. that's definitely what will happen, he knows that.

[TheButterZone]

So he can set a stratospheric height bid wall just under his ask wall so others cannot dump past it.

[Snorek]

While I despise elitist behavior like this, which only douchebags with luck condone, I se how this could be positive for BTC publicity wise, so whatever, let it happen and I hope we benefit from it.

Publicity is just one side of the coin, media attention is always good. But we need people like Banson to do one more thing - use their deep-pocketed interests and be ready to throw good money after bitcoin is closer and closer to collapse therefore preventing an outright or dramatic catastrophe and fail of bitcoin. Whales for the win.

[Amph]

Richard Branson is a very ambitious person, he would not just want to disrupt the main financial businesses.... he will go for the whole thing.

I expect a total NEW Alt coin, with all the shortcomings of Bitcoin addressed. It will have a funky name. "FUCOIN"

Whatever it will be, it would be disruptive in nature, but it would adhere to the laws and regulations of most countries, to make adoption easier for governments. {Something like Ripple}

why everyone should make his own new altcoin, just improve and help bitcoin, no need to throw other garbage coin, and hoping to become rich quickly like all the users on the altcoin section

Branson and company, should definitely help the bitcoin price with all the money he has, no not for let people like me dumping at the current price, but for not let the btc die...

branson is a business man. he is not willing to use his wealth to make the price go up so others can dump. that's definitely what will happen, he knows that.

he don't need to buy all the walls of the sellers, he just need to triggera panic buy, then the other will pump the price and adoption will increase as a result

[acquafredda]

All they need to do is coordinate amongst themselves to buy up all the volume on all BTC exchanges, and then they can set sell walls at $1 million USD/BTC (or whatever price above the highest/last limit sell they conquered), then say hello to hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in profit once they control all the liquidity (automatically buying up any later limit sells priced under their wall, so they are always the lowest ask).

But isn't this already possible?
This is what I'm really afraid of. And the forget about decentralization!
 

And how would that be threat to decentralisation? Please explain.

@ButterZone, that scenario is totally unrealistic. Even if they were trying to buy it up quietly and very slowly, to cost would be huge and the risk too high. Plus, miners (and hackers) will be the lowest ask.

If the majority of the BTC available will go to few hands (which is already possible as I wanted to point out) what then? What prevents them to play with it?
Look at the stock market: this is happening on an everyday base.
I have more fear of BTC coins being in a few hands than a possible 51% attack to the mining itself.

And, if this will happen, this world will not be as different as the outside financial world which is already controlled by very selected few.

I hope this makes sense.

[pawel7777]

If the majority of the BTC available will go to few hands (which is already possible as I wanted to point out) what then? What prevents them to play with it?
Look at the stock market: this is happening on an everyday base.
I have more fear of BTC coins being in a few hands than a possible 51% attack to the mining itself.

And, if this will happen, this world will not be as different as the outside financial world which is already controlled by very selected few.

I hope this makes sense.

Holding >50% of PoW coin supply =/= centralisation. You control the price* (to some degree) but you don't control the network. And you can manipulate the market with much less than 50%. Such risk is inevitable. Could you imagine any currency/asset that is always equally distributed and impossible to hoard? Even if that was possible, the currency would be useless.

Edit:

* to fully control the price you would also need significant fiat reserves.

[ensurance982]

All they need to do is coordinate amongst themselves to buy up all the volume on all BTC exchanges, and then they can set sell walls at $1 million USD/BTC (or whatever price above the highest/last limit sell they conquered), then say hello to hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in profit once they control all the liquidity (automatically buying up any later limit sells priced under their wall, so they are always the lowest ask).

But isn't this already possible?
This is what I'm really afraid of. And the forget about decentralization!
 

That way they would just basically buy every single Bitcoin in existence without any prospect of selling them for a higher price at a later time. They would basically execute Bitcoin that way while paying an incredible price for it.

[ensurance982]

If the majority of the BTC available will go to few hands (which is already possible as I wanted to point out) what then? What prevents them to play with it?
Look at the stock market: this is happening on an everyday base.
I have more fear of BTC coins being in a few hands than a possible 51% attack to the mining itself.

And, if this will happen, this world will not be as different as the outside financial world which is already controlled by very selected few.

I hope this makes sense.

Holding >50% of PoW coin supply =/= centralisation. You control the price* (to some degree) but you don't control the network. And you can manipulate the market with much less than 50%. Such risk is inevitable. Could you imagine any currency/asset that is always equally distributed and impossible to hoard? Even if that was possible, the currency would be useless.

Edit:

* to fully control the price you would also need significant fiat reserves.

In that way you would control such a big amount of liquidity that you could influence the market in any way you like. Whether this stabilizes or destabilizes Bitcoin depends on you. But inevitably it is going to cost you big time!

[acquafredda]

I mean whatever we're discussing here is only hypothetical for the moment.
I just wanted to point out what it might lead to.

Thanks for your inputs.