2013-08-04 WSJ: Famed Trader Joe Lewis Backs Bitcoin (hoax)

[vokain]

Correction posted:

Investor Joe Lewis isn't investing in a bitcoin venture called Avalon and doesn't lead a Zurich-based private-equity fund called the Phoenix Fund. An article on the supposed investment was inaccurately published and has been removed.

and with that, any credibility I reserved for the modern press (and high academia for that matter—author was a journalism graduate of the University of Edinburgh!) has now vanished. What kind of publication like the WSJ hires reporters that do not do their due diligence in corroborating with primary sources when claiming speculation as facts? Sucks.

Either way, hopefully that this is a case of any news is good news, and that this brings serious discussion to the table for those with the means to utilize the clear opportunity of first-mover advantage and take Bitcoin seriously.

===============

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.html

Joe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin.

Mr. Lewis leads the Phoenix Fund, a Zurich-based private-equity fund that on Tuesday plans to invest $200 million in Avalon, a company that makes computer servers aimed at creating bitcoins, according to people familiar with the situation.

Bitcoin is a virtual currency that exists online and isn't backed by any government or central bank. Bitcoins were invented in 2008 by a computer programmer who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, who describes it as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

The Phoenix Fund's investment in Avalon reflects the growing popularity of virtual currencies, which are also coming under scrutiny from regulators. Other bitcoin enthusiasts include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who are best known for their role in the creation of Facebook Inc. FB +1.50% They have proposed an exchange-traded fund that is tied to bitcoins.

Bitcoins are created through a process called mining, in which computers solve complex mathematical algorithms to earn the bitcoins. The total number of bitcoins that can be mined is limited to 21 million. There are now about 11.5 million bitcoins in circulation, according to Blockchain, a website that monitors bitcoin transactions.

The Phoenix deal will also involve Taiwanese microchip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., 2330.TW +0.50% which is set to supply the state-of-the-art microchips that will power the hardware.

The Phoenix Fund was set up this year to invest in bitcoin mining-hardware companies. It looked at several of Avalon's rivals in the sector, including Butterfly Labs and KnCMiner but decided against investing, according to a person familiar with the private-equity firm's strategy.

Investors in the Phoenix Fund, which includes a small number of individuals who made their fortunes in currency trading, believe that the currency will become more stable and popular if more parties are involved in the mining process, this person said.

Mr. Lewis moved into currency trading in the 1980s and 1990s. In September 1992, Mr. Lewis teamed up with Mr. Soros to bet on sterling crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, an event that was later named "Black Wednesday." Mr. Lewis didn't respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Lewis had big losses investing in U.S. brokerage firm Bear Stearns Cos, in which he began amassing a stake during 2007, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

Mr. Lewis is the main investor in an unlisted company called Tavistock Group, which has investments in more than 200 companies across the globe.

Tavistock Group includes ENIC Group, which has a Bahamas-registered subsidiary called ENIC International Ltd., through which Mr. Lewis owns 85% of the shares in U.K. soccer club Tottenham Hotspur.

The Phoenix Fund is independent of Tavistock.

The bitcoin deal was put together by Andrew Laurus, a former government-bonds salesman at Lehman Brothers who is also an investor in the fund. Avalon was set up by Yifu Guo, a pioneer in the bitcoin-mining industry. He was part of the team that developed the first ASIC bitcoin mining hardware. ASIC stands for application-specific integrated circuit, a type of custom-designed microchip. Mr. Guo couldn't be reached for comment.

Separately, Coinflash, a company that planned to set up kiosks for bitcoin enthusiasts to buy the virtual currency, is shutting down before it even opened its doors. "Due to an unforeseen change in our personal circumstances, we've made the difficult decision to suspend Coinflash's services indefinitely," the San Diego-based company said in an email statement.

Coinflash was established earlier this year and had planned to open the bitcoin kiosks in California and New York this summer.

As part of the deal, Avalon will gain access to TSMC microchips based on 20-nanometer processes, which are much faster than other chips. TSMC recently won a contract to supply chips to Apple. The increased processing power should give Avalon an edge in solving the algorithms that control the supply of bitcoins.

—Robin Sidel contributed to this article.
Write to Harriet Agnew at Harriet.Agnew@dowjones.com

'You mean I can't just buy Bitcoin?'  

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[Ytterbium]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

Note: this is behind the paywall, but if you do a Google search and find a link to it, you can read it for free (at least at this point)

[vokain]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more

[Ytterbium]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more

Sure, and the total bitcoin market cap is around $1 billion.  This guy could personally bid it up to $200.  If he has a huge investment in chip capacity it would be in his interests to keep the price going up in order to sell chips.

[julz]

This article smells like total BS.

Someone has confused one Avalon for another Avalon.

[solex]

Why would it cost anything like $200m to take the Avalon design to the latest, narrowest chip tech?
Surely a few million would be enough. Doesn't make sense.

[vokain]

Why would it cost anything like $200m to take the Avalon design to the latest, narrowest chip tech?
Surely a few million would be enough. Doesn't make sense.

I just don't see why $200m is needed to beef up the Avalon operation. Since Avalon did their first ASIC on a shoestring (couple of million?) why would it take $200m to go the latest chip technology. Surely something like $5m would be enough. HashFast and CoinTerra are not going to spend anything more than a few million either.

200M to buy a whole generation's worth of mining (while leapfrogging a few others while they're at it), first mover advantage, why the hell not!!!
got a couple  more billions in his pocket...

vision: set it to "nothing's impossible"

[julz]

Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.

I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour.  Would love to be wrong though!

[vokain]

Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.

I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour.  Would love to be wrong though!

too well researched to look that way, very much unlike the thailand rumor

[vokain]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more

Sure, and the total bitcoin market cap is around $1 billion.  This guy could personally bid it up to $200.  If he has a huge investment in chip capacity it would be in his interests to keep the price going up in order to sell chips.

There isn't even close to $200M on the orderbooks combined.
I think he can get a little bit under 100K bitcoins for 200M, after slippage

[Ytterbium]

Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.

I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour.  Would love to be wrong though!

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

Sure, and the total bitcoin market cap is around $1 billion.  This guy could personally bid it up to $200.  If he has a huge investment in chip capacity it would be in his interests to keep the price going up in order to sell chips.

There isn't even close to $200M on the orderbooks combined.
I think he can get a little bit under 100K Bitcoin's for 200M, after slippage

When I said $200, I meant he could buy enough to drive the price to $200 dollars. Not that he could buy $200mil worth.

Keeping the price up would increase the value of his mining chip investment.

This guy is mainly a ForEx trader.

[Vigil]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

[vokain]

Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.

I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour.  Would love to be wrong though!

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

Sure, and the total bitcoin market cap is around $1 billion.  This guy could personally bid it up to $200.  If he has a huge investment in chip capacity it would be in his interests to keep the price going up in order to sell chips.

There isn't even close to $200M on the orderbooks combined.
I think he can get a little bit under 100K Bitcoin's for 200M, after slippage

When I said $200, I meant he could buy enough to drive the price to $200 dollars. Not that he could buy $200mil worth.

Keeping the price up would increase the value of his mining chip investment.

This guy is mainly a ForEx trader.

Whatever his plan is, bravo to him for seeing opportunity where most others of similar influence did not dare to tread  #entrepreneurship

[jl2012]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

[Vigil]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

[julz]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

+1

I don't see why the merchants, users & other miners should care too much if some massive miner starts building a chain of blocks with some other ruleset.  

[dillpicklechips]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

By forking they will likely make less money than by following the rules. Profit will motivate them to be honest.

[Vigil]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

+1

I don't see why the merchants, users & other miners should care too much if some massive miner starts building a chain of blocks with some other ruleset.  

It won't be one miner, its going to be most of the network. We are the minority, the mindless masses are the majority. They aren't going to care about your forked network, they just want the one that they are told they are allowed to use. "We" are going to be the "chain of block with some other ruleset" if you let these criminals into the mining operation.

[bobdude17]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more

Perhaps the Paypal rumour for this month is true and this guy knows it. I feel like us little are guys are really not included in the real market happenings these days. It has moved up beyond us methinks.

[giszmo]

I agree this looks fishy. Why would anybody put 200M into mining? Is that good or bad news? Do they want to destroy or support bitcoin? I mean maybe this is the amount it would really take to defend against attacks but it certainly is an amount that is enough to put all existing miners out of business and destroy the next 3 versions of a proof of work algo, too. I hope he is greedy and has not too much fiat to loose as then it would not make any sense to destroy Bitcoin.

Ok, so if he is greedy, why is the bitcoin price not sky high from him front-running his good news?

So if you want to invest 200M, why would you need Avalon? The only advantage I see is that even with 200M you wouldn't be able to ramp up production big scale 2 months from now. With Avalon, you can. Why hurry? Did somebody whisper in his ear that Flintheart Glomgold will go all in and he wants to be even faster?

[dhenson]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

You should look into why Yifu got into creating ASIC's in the first place.  His heart is in the right place, you don't have to worry about him exceeding 50%.

[Vigil]

I agree this looks fishy. Why would anybody put 200M into mining? Is that good or bad news? Do they want to destroy or support bitcoin? I mean maybe this is the amount it would really take to defend against attacks but it certainly is an amount that is enough to put all existing miners out of business and destroy the next 3 versions of a proof of work algo, too. I hope he is greedy and has not too much fiat to loose as then it would not make any sense to destroy Bitcoin.

Ok, so if he is greedy, why is the bitcoin price not sky high from him front-running his good news?

So if you want to invest 200M, why would you need Avalon? The only advantage I see is that even with 200M you wouldn't be able to ramp up production big scale 2 months from now. With Avalon, you can. Why hurry? Did somebody whisper in his ear that Flintheart Glomgold will go all in and he wants to be even faster?

His Zionist brotherhood is whispering into his ear. They have to control Bitcoin before it destroys their global banking scam. Yufu was discussing the problems with how the government can destroy/control bitcoin and then he makes a deal with the devil.

You should look into why Yifu got into creating ASIC's in the first place.  His heart is in the right place, you don't have to worry about him exceeding 50%.

It does not take that long to corrupt someone - especially when you are throwing $millions around - hundreds of $millions.

[vokain]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more

Perhaps the Paypal rumour for this month is true and this guy knows it. I feel like us little are guys are really not included in the real market happenings these days. It has moved up beyond us methinks.

you think bitcoin acquistions happen on the orderbooks? think again..

[julz]

yeah.. I'm taking a hedge on this news by depositing into btct.co and buy up some of the mining shares which are falling on the rumour. (e.g btcgarden now below IPO)

If the news is true... meh.. my bitcoins will probably be worth a *lot* more.  If false - which I suspect...  some cheap shares.
Either way

[Vigil]

What is the rumor?

[julz]

I see this whole news article as a 'rumour' at this point.  wsj or no.  Journalists get things wrong - and this story is lacking in any verifiable detail and fails the sniff test.

I could be wrong - I just 'doubt' it at this point.

I tend to agree with the skeptics in the reddit thread on this for now:  http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1jpoec/famed_trader_joe_lewis_backs_bitcoin/

[bobdude17]

At $100/btc the entire mining industry only makes about $131 million a year.

In order to justify investing spending $200 million dollars in bitcoin mining these people must believe the price will go far higher then that.

Hopefully this will cause some more people to want to buy

200M to secure a confirmed portion of what might be the new financial backbone of the world? surrrre why not, got billions more

Perhaps the Paypal rumour for this month is true and this guy knows it. I feel like us little are guys are really not included in the real market happenings these days. It has moved up beyond us methinks.

you think bitcoin acquistions happen on the orderbooks? think again..

Yup yup. If this is true, and it's a huge credibility risk for the WSJ to write all that with no solid sources, then this really is the start of the goldrush.

[dexX7]

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

The media usually copies what is written somewhere else. I don't mean stealing news, but once it's out, it's out and spreads. I saw this many times.

Directly related to Bitcoin the WSJ did something similar even some days ago:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/07/29/bitcoin-now-illegal-in-thailand/?mod=MW_latest_news

MW is part of the WSJ Digital Network. In case you didn't know: Bitcoin isn't illegal in Thailand.

[vokain]

What is the rumor?

paypal?
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1jn974/imminent_paypal_to_accept_bitcoin_official/

[vokain]

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

The media usually copies what is written somewhere else. I don't mean stealing news, but once it's out, it's out and spreads. I saw something like this many times.

Directly related to Bitcoin the WSJ did something similar even some days ago:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/07/29/bitcoin-now-illegal-in-thailand/?mod=MW_latest_news

MW is part of the WSJ Digital Network. In case you didn't know: Bitcoin isn't illegal in Thailand.

THAT'S A BLOG, QUOTING ANOTHER BLOG

[bobdude17]

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

The media usually copies what is written somewhere else. I don't mean stealing news, but once it's out, it's out and spreads. I saw something like this many times.

Directly related to Bitcoin the WSJ did something similar even some days ago:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/07/29/bitcoin-now-illegal-in-thailand/?mod=MW_latest_news

MW is part of the WSJ Digital Network. In case you didn't know: Bitcoin isn't illegal in Thailand.

Possibly. But this is their bread and butter. Traders and markets.

[dexX7]

So what? This doesn't falsify my statement that media outlets do make errors not necessarily do proper fact checks.

[bobdude17]

So what? This doesn't falsify my statement that media outlets do make errors not necessarily do proper fact checks.

No, but it is to be expected that a published(paywall) article is likely to go through much more rigorous fact checking.

[julz]

So what? This doesn't falsify my statement that media outlets do make errors not necessarily do proper fact checks.

No, but it is to be expected that a published(paywall) article is likely to go through much more rigorous fact checking.

pfft. What about the reuters article on an eco-friendly car that 'runs on nothing but water'
http://www.reuters.com/video/2008/06/13/water-fuel-car-unveiled-in-japan?videoId=84561

This story was picked up by other mindless journalists around the world and parroted in 'respectable' publications.

A lot of Journalists lack basic high school level understanding of tech subjects - and crap slips through all the time.

[Vigil]

So what is your all s call? Real or BS?

[canuck]

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

The media usually copies what is written somewhere else. I don't mean stealing news, but once it's out, it's out and spreads. I saw something like this many times.

Directly related to Bitcoin the WSJ did something similar even some days ago:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/07/29/bitcoin-now-illegal-in-thailand/?mod=MW_latest_news

MW is part of the WSJ Digital Network. In case you didn't know: Bitcoin isn't illegal in Thailand.

THAT'S A BLOG, QUOTING ANOTHER BLOG

That's the market watch blog.  Market watch is owned by WSJ and their blog is treated like any other MSM news outlet.

What's really funny here is that people seem to think that journalists do thorough research on their stories.  They don't.  They may research their stories but thoroughly?  No.  They don't have the time to.  Maybe they did 20 years ago but today, one reporter is working on as many stories as 5 reporters did in years past.  Newsrooms all over the world have been shrinking as the traditional news media market has been disrupted by the new internet fuelled information age.  It used to be that a national news outlet could depend on a network of local reporters and field researchers to work their magic.  In other words, national outlets could parrot what was said by locals and be confident that it was well researched.  National news outlets still largely do that but the quality of research is much worse today because the workload is spread too thin.

A friend of mine is a radio news anchor.  Years ago in her line of work, she would be reading self written copy on stories that other reporters had prepared for her.  Wanna know who does all the phone calls, notes and on air copy now?  Yeah, she does.

Just because this is coming from a dead tree media outlet with a very notable pedigree does not mean it's gospel.  $200 Million sunk into a bitcoin ASIC chip maker?  Extremely limited fab plants producing cutting edge 20nm technology being used in a multi billion dollar markets being used in a multi-million dollar BTC ASIC market?  People...give your head a shake.  This story don't make sense.

"Hey you there.  Yeah, Global Foundries.  I know you spent anywhere from 4 to 7 billion dollars building your new 20nm fab and that your customers are multi billion dollar businesses who tie up your production lines but do you think you could set aside some of that fabricating space for my bitcoin ASIC chip?  Pretty please?"

ha

[somestranger]

So what is your all s call? Real or BS?

Smells like bullshit to me. I think the Bitcoin Examiner article is wrong and then WSJ just copied it and spruced it up a bit.

[josiasrdz]

It does not take that long to corrupt someone - especially when you are throwing $millions around - hundreds of $millions.

+1 I think I'am a good person, but selling my soul for 200 million dollars seems like a good deal

[solex]

This is the WSJ writer Harriet Agnew's twitter page

https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew

Lots of activity in financial reporting. Would be real egg-on-face to have the wrong Avalon completely.


Edit: two earlier crypto pieces:

Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
@annairrera @tylerwinklevoss @winklevoss The crypto community is pumping up the next new thing: Litecoins http://bit.ly/16beDAD

 Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
Q&A with #Bitcoin backer @tylerwinklevoss:  http://bit.ly/1bbQaAI  @winklevoss
Expand

[Vigil]

This is the WSJ writer Harriet Agnew's twitter page

https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew

Lots of activity in financial reporting. Would be real egg-on-face to have the wrong Avalon completely.


Edit: two earlier crypto pieces:

Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
@annairrera @tylerwinklevoss @winklevoss The crypto community is pumping up the next new thing: Litecoins http://bit.ly/16beDAD

 Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
Q&A with #Bitcoin backer @tylerwinklevoss:  http://bit.ly/1bbQaAI  @winklevoss
Expand

Oh my god... someone beat that girl with an ugly stick.

[Ytterbium]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Having 51% of the network doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with BTC. any kind of outright manipulation would be obvious, crash the price, and destroy their investment.

You can use a 51% attack to destroy bitcoin, but you can't use a 51% attack to just steal people's money

[Vigil]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Having 51% of the network doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with BTC. any kind of outright manipulation would be obvious, crash the price, and destroy their investment.

You can use a 51% attack to destroy bitcoin, but you can't use a 51% attack to just steal people's money

I am talking about manipulating the mindless masses into using a forked chain that they control once Bitcoin has taken off. They won't know any better, they won't understand the need for the current protocol. They will just understand the convenience and as long as the forked chain has that and they can spend it they won't care about whether the amount is fixed or any of that.  

I'm not talking about a 51% attack to steal coins - that wouldn't be worth their time.

[dexX7]

It didn't start with the WSJ but the Finanical News.

http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2013-08-05/bitcoin-gold-rush-heats-up-with-private-equity-deal

Edit: Same author.


This is by the way very sad. This guy does seem to support Bitcoin, hope it doesn't turn out too bad for him.

[canuck]

It didn't start with the WSJ but the Finanical News.

http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2013-08-05/bitcoin-gold-rush-heats-up-with-private-equity-deal

Edit: Same author.

Does no one realize just how incestious the media family is?

Financial News is owned by Dow Jones & Company. The Dow Jones franchise also includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Factiva and Marketwatch.

[Vigil]

Anyway, hoping this is BS so these stock prices will correct.

[bobdude17]

Guess we'll find out soon enough. Either huge news or a huge fuck up.

[Ytterbium]

You should look into why Yifu got into creating ASIC's in the first place.  His heart is in the right place, you don't have to worry about him exceeding 50%.

The nice thing about bitcoin is that even if his heart isn't in the right place, greed will still push him to distribute his chips as much as possible, as massive centralization would reduce the value of bitcoin, and thus the overall value of his chips.

Yup yup. If this is true, and it's a huge credibility risk for the WSJ to write all that with no solid sources, then this really is the start of the goldrush.

There is no way the WSJ would ever write a story like this just based on mixing up two companies named "Avalon".   They have names, even the fact that the Lewis was interested in BFL.  Where would those details have come from if they weren't verified by the author.

The media usually copies what is written somewhere else. I don't mean stealing news, but once it's out, it's out and spreads. I saw something like this many times.

Directly related to Bitcoin the WSJ did something similar even some days ago:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/07/29/bitcoin-now-illegal-in-thailand/?mod=MW_latest_news

MW is part of the WSJ Digital Network. In case you didn't know: Bitcoin isn't illegal in Thailand.

THAT'S A BLOG, QUOTING ANOTHER BLOG

Right.  A newspaper might publish a story saying something like "According some random blogs, X is true" or "according to rumors" on their blogs.  But they wouldn't write an article like this - clearly stating various things as facts unless they had done the fact checking themselves.

__

His Zionist brotherhood is whispering into his ear. They have to control Bitcoin before it destroys their global banking scam. Yufu was discussing the problems with how the government can destroy/control bitcoin and then he makes a deal with the devil.

Wow, you are a complete idiot.

I am talking about manipulating the mindless masses into using a forked chain that they control once Bitcoin has taken off. They won't know any better, they won't understand the need for the current protocol. They will just understand the convenience and as long as the forked chain has that and they can spend it they won't care about whether the amount is fixed or any of that. 

I'm not talking about a 51% attack to steal coins - that wouldn't be worth their time.

Anyone can start a forked chain whenever they want.  There are dozens out there, from litecoin to BBQCoin to Primecoin.

If a company wants to start it's own alt chain they can do so whenever they want.  They don't need $200 million in chips to do it.

[BitTrivia]

From BTCGarden's Chinese founder:

Hello everyone...er... Hello every shareholder,

1  About that "big news" regards to Avalon:  

        1  From a thread at btcman.com that was posted by a ID called "gridchip" last month, we (incl. all btcman`s members) can sure that Avalon team do have a big discord inside. It was written in chinese and need to register&login to read ,so I d prefer not giving the link here (all chinese shareholders can find it at "比特币挖矿区" board) However, I hardly believe the rest of this news is real.

From yuansuyi:

gridchip's thread is here: http://bbs.btcman.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=4621&extra=page%3D2&_dsign=2de4381b

My hypothesis (which could be totally off base):

1) Some Chinese guy, gridchip posted the news in a Chinese forum last month. Seems like a lot of people didn't believe it.
2) Bitcoinexaminer publishes a story about it
3) Wall Street journal republishes news from bitcoinexaminer

This whole thing just keeps getting weirder.

Edit: The gridchip post is this one:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252233.0;all

It talks about a 40nm chip being produced. I'm thoroughly confused, haha.

[Vigil]

Wow, you are a complete idiot.

go fuck yourself.

I am talking about manipulating the mindless masses into using a forked chain that they control once Bitcoin has taken off. They won't know any better, they won't understand the need for the current protocol. They will just understand the convenience and as long as the forked chain has that and they can spend it they won't care about whether the amount is fixed or any of that.  

I'm not talking about a 51% attack to steal coins - that wouldn't be worth their time.

Anyone can start a forked chain whenever they want.  There are dozens out there, from litecoin to BBQCoin to Primecoin.

If a company wants to start it's own alt chain they can do so whenever they want.  They don't need $200 million in chips to do it.

You just aren't comprehending the scenario I am talking about.

[Ytterbium]

Anyone can start a forked chain whenever they want.  There are dozens out there, from litecoin to BBQCoin to Primecoin.

If a company wants to start it's own alt chain they can do so whenever they want.  They don't need $200 million in chips to do it.

You just aren't comprehending the scenario I am talking about.

No, you aren't comprehending what you're talking about because you're a complete idiot. I understand what you mean, and you are incorrect. Because you are stupid. And an anti-semite or something.

[Vycid]

Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.

I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour.  Would love to be wrong though!

Somebody has been buying up all of Avalon's coins already. It fits. Yifu has come out and said that all of the Bitcoins that were recieved as payment for the most recent round of loose chip sales were sold. If you look at the blockchain none of those coins were moved - the ownership of the wallet was transferred.

http://blockchain.info/address/1FGAftzSTztFSB8LMwsrdCKTyqGY6zr3sU?offset=0&filter=0

Over 75,000 bitcoins were sold at once. That buyer could have been Joe Lewis.

[Vigil]

Anyone can start a forked chain whenever they want.  There are dozens out there, from litecoin to BBQCoin to Primecoin.

If a company wants to start it's own alt chain they can do so whenever they want.  They don't need $200 million in chips to do it.

You just aren't comprehending the scenario I am talking about.

No, you aren't comprehending what you're talking about because you're a complete idiot. I understand what you mean, and you are incorrect. Because you are stupid. And an anti-semite or something.

I know exactly what I am talking about, d-bag. Zionists are not Semitic to begin with. But obviously I'm talking to a brainwashed stick. Maybe try to do a bit of studying before replying to my comments. You tried to refute my comment and neither time did you lead on that you even had a clue what I am saying. Trader Joe is an Ashkenazim, who are of Eurasian (khazarian) decent. They are not related to the Semitic people who inhabited Palestine (i.e., Hebrews) 2000 years ago. Go read a book, please.

[solex]

Also.. if you were about to drop $200Million into a mining outfit... you'd probably have dropped a massive chunk straight into buying bitcoins just before publicizing the news.

I still smell a stinking ball of incestuous journalists feeding off the same rumour.  Would love to be wrong though!

Somebody has been buying up all of Avalon's coins already. It fits. Yifu has come out and said that all of the Bitcoins that were recieved as payment for the most recent round of loose chip sales were sold. If you look at the blockchain none of those coins were moved - the ownership of the wallet was transferred.

http://blockchain.info/address/1FGAftzSTztFSB8LMwsrdCKTyqGY6zr3sU?offset=0&filter=0

Over 75,000 bitcoins were sold at once. That buyer could have been Joe Lewis.

But surely the buyer HAS to move them. That is a zero-cost step to take. A wallet buyer can never be sure that the private key is unknown to the seller(s). The coins could disappear at any time. This is like leaving $8m in cash sitting in your car.

[Ytterbium]

Somebody has been buying up all of Avalon's coins already. It fits. Yifu has come out and said that all of the Bitcoins that were recieved as payment for the most recent round of loose chip sales were sold. If you look at the blockchain none of those coins were moved - the ownership of the wallet was transferred.

http://blockchain.info/address/1FGAftzSTztFSB8LMwsrdCKTyqGY6zr3sU?offset=0&filter=0

Over 75,000 bitcoins were sold at once. That buyer could have been Joe Lewis.

There's no reason to think that wallet ever belonged to Yifu in the first place. He said he was selling coins privately and that that wallet didn't belong to him.  

So it's likely that wallet belongs to however he was selling coins too to get cash to pay for chips.  It could be Joe Lewis, or it could be any rich person with $7m to spend on bitcoin.

But surely the buyer HAS to move them. That is a zero-cost step to take. A wallet buyer can never be sure that the private key is unknown to the seller(s). The coins could disappear at any time. This is like leaving $8m in cash sitting in your car.

Right, transferring a wallet would be idiotic.  The originator would still have a copy and could still spend the coins at any time.

Trader Joe is an Ashkenazim, who are of Eurasian (khazarian) decent. They are not related to the Semitic people who inhabited Palestine (i.e., Hebrews) 2000 years ago. Go read a book, please.

Uh huh, and how the fuck would you know that anyway? you nutjobs have some special wiki that tells you the specific linage history of every well known banker?

[jl2012]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Having 51% of the network doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with BTC. any kind of outright manipulation would be obvious, crash the price, and destroy their investment.

You can use a 51% attack to destroy bitcoin, but you can't use a 51% attack to just steal people's money

I am talking about manipulating the mindless masses into using a forked chain that they control once Bitcoin has taken off. They won't know any better, they won't understand the need for the current protocol. They will just understand the convenience and as long as the forked chain has that and they can spend it they won't care about whether the amount is fixed or any of that.  

I'm not talking about a 51% attack to steal coins - that wouldn't be worth their time.

These are already happening. Look at those scamcoins. Is bitcoin hurt? I don't think so

[Vigil]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Having 51% of the network doesn't mean you can just do whatever you want with BTC. any kind of outright manipulation would be obvious, crash the price, and destroy their investment.

You can use a 51% attack to destroy bitcoin, but you can't use a 51% attack to just steal people's money

I am talking about manipulating the mindless masses into using a forked chain that they control once Bitcoin has taken off. They won't know any better, they won't understand the need for the current protocol. They will just understand the convenience and as long as the forked chain has that and they can spend it they won't care about whether the amount is fixed or any of that.  

I'm not talking about a 51% attack to steal coins - that wouldn't be worth their time.

These are already happening. Look at those scamcoins. Is bitcoin hurt? I don't think so

Think about it more like a bait and switch. I am not talking about making a new coin. I am talking about letting Bitcoin gain in popularity and grow through the market and lack of regulation until it becomes mainstream  and then hijacking the mining network through "investing in mining companies", then bring on the regulation pressures, then fork the chain with the necessary regulations via a combination of political influence and mining votes, while outlawing the other chain. You need the knowledgeable crowd to push BTC first - you need them to figure out the difficult stuff (do all the leg work) and you need the "libertarians/voluntary/etc" to buy in with the promise of sound currency. But they would not have bought in if they thought it was going to be another controlled currency. The mainstream would never buy in because they aren't involved or interested enough to take the time to figure it out, which is necessary with something like this. Also, they require everyone else to be doing it before they are willing to take the "social risk" (i.e., they don't want to look weird) - so no way to sell it to them from the get go. Have to do a round-about.

[cryptograd]

Yifu is a smart guy and blessing to BTCitcoin

I credit him with that early jump in February, he will make this $200M work right

I say buy all the coins you can now before the week is over


#Boss

[bobdude17]

It's hilarious that the first comment on the article is about tulips...

Never fails, no matter the news. Some people will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.

[vokain]

This is the WSJ writer Harriet Agnew's twitter page

https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew

Lots of activity in financial reporting. Would be real egg-on-face to have the wrong Avalon completely.


Edit: two earlier crypto pieces:

Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
@annairrera @tylerwinklevoss @winklevoss The crypto community is pumping up the next new thing: Litecoins http://bit.ly/16beDAD

 Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
Q&A with #Bitcoin backer @tylerwinklevoss:  http://bit.ly/1bbQaAI  @winklevoss
Expand

and this is her linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/harriet-agnew/1a/73/23a

University of Edinburgh..I highly doubt she would fuck up such a simpleton misunderstanding like Avalon Mining and Avalon Ventures

[Mike Christ]

It's hilarious that the first comment on the article is about tulips...

Never fails, no matter the news. Some people will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.

We still have a lot of people who refuse to use computers, let alone the Internet.  Bitcoin's gonna have to get in line

[btchedge]

Perhaps Yifu was smart enough to amass a war chest and the needed capacity to balance the network at will precisely because he actually believes what he says?

[Vycid]

This is the WSJ writer Harriet Agnew's twitter page

https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew

Lots of activity in financial reporting. Would be real egg-on-face to have the wrong Avalon completely.


Edit: two earlier crypto pieces:

Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
@annairrera @tylerwinklevoss @winklevoss The crypto community is pumping up the next new thing: Litecoins http://bit.ly/16beDAD

 Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
Q&A with #Bitcoin backer @tylerwinklevoss:  http://bit.ly/1bbQaAI  @winklevoss
Expand

and this is her linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/harriet-agnew/1a/73/23a

University of Edinburgh..I highly doubt she would fuck up such a simpleton misunderstanding like Avalon Mining and Avalon Ventures

Also note the little "—Robin Sidel contributed to this article." at the bottom.

This article was not the effort of a single person. It's getting printed in the Monday edition of the WSJ. They do not fuck up - not like this.

[Ytterbium]

Also note the little "—Robin Sidel contributed to this article." at the bottom.

This article was not the effort of a single person. It's getting printed in the Monday edition of the WSJ. They do not fuck up - not like this.

Exactly. They wouldn't just read random shit on the internet and put in their story, they would have called people on the phone and verified with them what was going on.

Note that the story says they were unable to contact Yifu, but does not say they were unable to contact Joe Lewis himself, or some of the other players.

The only risk is if one of their sources claimed to know more then they really did, and the $200m figure got injected into the rumor mill from the old stories.

It still seems improbable. Maybe they're putting out fake news in order to drive the price of BTC up so they can sell for a profit.

[Vycid]

Also note the little "—Robin Sidel contributed to this article." at the bottom.

This article was not the effort of a single person. It's getting printed in the Monday edition of the WSJ. They do not fuck up - not like this.

Exactly. They wouldn't just read random shit on the internet and put in their story, they would have called people on the phone and verified with them what was going on.

Note that the story says they were unable to contact Yifu, but does not say they were unable to contact Joe Lewis himself, or some of the other players.

The only risk is if one of their sources claimed to know more then they really did, and the $200m figure got injected into the rumor mill from the old stories.

It still seems improbable. Maybe they're putting out fake news in order to drive the price of BTC up so they can sell for a profit.

That's not impossible either. Joe Lewis could have bought millions of USD worth of Avalon's BTC (someone did), and now he's releasing false rumors to send the price into the stratosphere and create tons of demand. Then he's gonna offload.

Guys like Joe are pretty shrewd... but honestly, pulling a scam like that is probably not on his radar.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

[Ytterbium]

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

Exactly. 

[Hfleer]

Anyway, hoping this is BS so these stock prices will correct.

Is it affecting the price of the bitcoin mining stocks or something else?

[bigdude]

Does anyone recall Yifu, at the 2013 Bitcoin Conference, saying that he didn't like investors - that there should be no need for them

[jl2012]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

To be precise, a 51% attacker could implement any soft-fork to the system, i.e. making an originally valid transaction invalid. That's all he can do. So he could blacklist bitcoin addresses, decrease money supply, decrease block size, charge ridiculous tx fee, reverse confirmed transactions, etc.

A 51% attacker cannot pull a hard-fork (making an originally invalid transaction valid), e.g. inflating money supply, raising block size, printing money out of thin air, stealing money, etc.

[Vigil]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

Not if the "original" bitcoin is made illegal. The users can decide which chain they are a part of through client updates and such. Don't sit there and try to tell me that can't work. It absolutely can work. When FTC was forked, we had to update our clients to make sure we weren't on the forked chain, and many were, and were mining and transacting on the forked chain. They could fork the masses right off to a new chain and leave the original hanging with computer nerds and the sound money crowd who were fine with running an illegal chain. It. Can. Happen. Especially if the big players want it to happen, easily once they get everyone on board and the infrastructure built. So shut your ass.  

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

To be precise, a 51% attacker could implement any soft-fork to the system, i.e. making an originally valid transaction invalid. That's all he can do. So he could blacklist bitcoin addresses, decrease money supply, decrease block size, charge ridiculous tx fee, reverse confirmed transactions, etc.

A 51% attacker cannot pull a hard-fork (making an originally invalid transaction valid), e.g. inflating money supply, raising block size, printing money out of thin air, stealing money, etc.

I am not just talking about a 51% attack. We are talking about using the majority of the mining base to fork the chain while altering the protocol on the fly to adopt to government regulations - they can change the max number of coins, just as they can alter the blocksize, etc. You need a mining base to maintain the particular network for each chain - that is why they would take over the mining infrastructure. But they also need to alter the protocol.

Taking over Bitcoin will be easy once the infrastructure is established AND the masses join... because the masses can be duped into anything. they will take it over, eventually, if allowed to. Whether or not we maintain the original in a black market is a different story.

[viboracecata]

fool, why not buy bitcoins directly?

[vokain]

fool, why not buy bitcoins directly?

why not? would you rather pay the water company every month, or be the water company?

You are in no position to call Joe Lewis a fool.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

This is the WSJ writer Harriet Agnew's twitter page

https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew

Lots of activity in financial reporting. Would be real egg-on-face to have the wrong Avalon completely.


Edit: two earlier crypto pieces:

Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
@annairrera @tylerwinklevoss @winklevoss The crypto community is pumping up the next new thing: Litecoins http://bit.ly/16beDAD

 Harriet Agnew ‏@HarrietAgnew 5 Jul
Q&A with #Bitcoin backer @tylerwinklevoss:  http://bit.ly/1bbQaAI  @winklevoss
Expand

and this is her linkedin:
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/harriet-agnew/1a/73/23a

University of Edinburgh..I highly doubt she would fuck up such a simpleton misunderstanding like Avalon Mining and Avalon Ventures

Also note the little "—Robin Sidel contributed to this article." at the bottom.

This article was not the effort of a single person. It's getting printed in the Monday edition of the WSJ. They do not fuck up - not like this.

Harriet Agnew has been the editor for only two months, thus shit happens. I think the key here is Robin Sidel.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robin-sidel/6/ba1/ba

Experience

Wall Street Journal
Senior Special Writer
Wall Street Journal
March 2001 – Present (12 years 6 months)
I write about the banking and credit-card industries

https://twitter.com/smirobi

Robin Sidel
@smirobi
Online marketer, mom, wife, yadda, yadda, NOT WSJ reporter, NOT active tweeter (yet).

Washington, DC

[Hfleer]

fool, why not buy bitcoins directly?

Well liquidity is fairly low right now.  Should only get better from here and hopefully more buy directly in the future.

[Ytterbium]

https://twitter.com/smirobi

Robin Sidel
@smirobi
Online marketer, mom, wife, yadda, yadda, NOT WSJ reporter, NOT active tweeter (yet).

Washington, DC

Um, wow dude - did it occur to you at any point that the reason that twitter said she wasn't a WSJ reporter was because she was a different person, someone with the same name who people confused her with?

____

Not if the "original" bitcoin is made illegal.

...

They could fork the masses right off to a new chain and leave the original hanging with computer nerds and the sound money crowd who were fine with running an illegal chain.

The problem with idiots is that no matter how much time you spend trying to explain things to them, they will never understand  -- if they simply lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend the explanation. Makes it a huge waste of time to bother.

[Vigil]

Could there be hyperinflation in Bitcoin?

Currently the creation of new coins is fixed at a certain rate which halves every few years and will at some point in the future drop to zero. As I understand it, this is by consensus, i.e. all the nodes in the network agree on this protocol.

Suppose at some point in the future the Bitcoin community were to decide that the currency's deflationary bias wasn't such a good thing for the economy and that it would be better to start expanding the monetary base at a higher rate. What would it take for such a policy to take effect? Specifically, what percentage of the nodes in the network would have to vote in favor of the new expansionary policy?

And if indeed the network could vote itself into an expansionary policy, is it then also conceivable that it might vote itself into a hyperinflation, where the rate of expansion gets out of hand?

In short, what does it take to change the rate of expansion of the Bitcoin monetary base, and how easy or difficult is it to achieve as compared with the stroke of a central banker's pen?

Answers:

As per the current rules there will only ever be 21 million coins at most (explained in other answers here). However, I'd like to add that this is by general agreement, which means that it can be changed.

See this question: Could there be hyperinflation in Bitcoin?

Looking at the history of money, I am skeptical that there will only ever be 21 million coins. I don't know of too many instances in history when money could be created out of thin air and wasn't. It would be foolish to ignore history. Whether or not there will be more than 21 million coins depends on whether or not "the people" demand it, and once again history is our guide.

Not everybody needs to agree (that would probably never happen!) for there to be a change in the protocol (which would be needed to cause inflation), but it's not based on just a majority of hashpower either.

It's really a vast majority of users that need to agree; if just 51% of users decided to change the protocol, it's entirely possible that it would cause a massive loss in confidence in both resulting chains. Retailers and every other service would need to choose which to accept (or accept both), and try to understand the difference, and communicate that on to users.

I think most of us know its a bad idea to go down that path with Bitcoin while it's not yet been fully accepted as mainstream. A smoother option would probably be to create an alternative cryptocurrency with a new name, rather than trying to split the Bitcoin user base into two parts.

All they have to do is secure the mining power, fork the chain while altering the protocol to allow more bitcoins, tell the masses that any other chain is illegal and disastrous to society and there you go - job complete.


trader joe nor any of his zionist banker buddies should be allowed within an astronomical unit of a bitcoin mining operation under any circumstance.

The problem with idiots is that no matter how much time you spend trying to explain things to them, they will never understand  -- if they simply lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend the explanation. Makes it a huge waste of time to bother.

Especially those who think they understand it when they do not.

[vokain]

I actually like Joe Lewis, he's a (quiet) force of good in this world. Huge art collection, donated a ton to worthy causes, etc. I guess it is true that society cannot stand a winner. Can you tell me what he has done that you so abhorrently do not approve of?

[Vigil]

I actually like Joe Lewis, he's a force of good in this world.

Magically went from a bus-boy to multi-billion dollar fortune through hard work and dedication - BS, he thieved his fortune with the help of insider info just like the rest of his kind: Soros, Buffet, etc. they are low lifes who wouldn't be crap if they had to compete with everyone else.

[vokain]

Lewis was born to a Jewish[1][2] family above a public house in Roman Road, Bow, London,[3] Lewis left school at 15 to help run his father's West End of London catering business Tavistock Banqueting, starting out as a waiter. When he took the reins, he quickly expanded it by selling luxury goods to American tourists, and also owned West End club the Hanover Grand, where he gave Robert Earl his first job.[3] He later sold the business in 1979 to make his initial wealth.

You sir, are what I deem a racist. Makes sense, racists are very ignorant.

Let me ask you this: If this is all insider trading, and not through realizing opportunities that others do not see as the entrepreneurial spirit entails, tell me, oh tell me, what is he doing in bitcoin? What is this insider information that he is about to "thieve" a fortune from?

[Vigil]

Lewis was born to a Jewish[1][2] family above a public house in Roman Road, Bow, London,[3] Lewis left school at 15 to help run his father's West End of London catering business Tavistock Banqueting, starting out as a waiter. When he took the reins, he quickly expanded it by selling luxury goods to American tourists, and also owned West End club the Hanover Grand, where he gave Robert Earl his first job.[3] He later sold the business in 1979 to make his initial wealth.

You sir, are what I deem a racist. Makes sense, racists are very ignorant.

You are a dumbass, you must have no clue what racism is. First of all you are confusing Zionism and Judaism - they are not the same thing. I never said anything about jewish people.

[Ytterbium]

You sir, are what I deem a racist. Makes sense, racists are very ignorant.

Let me ask you this: If this is all insider trading, and not through realizing opportunities that others do not see as the entrepreneurial spirit entails, tell me, oh tell me, what is he doing in bitcoin? What is this insider information that he is about to "thieve" a fortune from?

Yup.  Racism is a clear indication of stupidity.

___

All they have to do is secure the mining power, fork the chain while altering the protocol to allow more bitcoins, tell the masses that any other chain is illegal and disastrous to society and there you go - job complete.

For example, too dumb to see the obvious flaw with this theory.

trader joe nor any of his zionist banker buddies should be allowed within an astronomical unit of a bitcoin mining operation under any circumstance.

And again, apparently too dumb to understand that the whole point of bitcoin is that no one has to "allow" you to use it. It's the kind of statement that only someone who isn't even capable of actually understanding bitcoin could make.

Sell all your bitcoins and buy BBQCoins or whatever if you don't like it.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Robin thinks Bitcoin is a company. But did learn for the first something new (read red).

http://24allnews.com/virtual-currency-enthusiasts-to-launch-self-regulatory-group-2/

Virtual Currency Enthusiasts To Launch Self-Regulatory Group

AdoptionBitcoinCommitteeDigital-AssetEstablishmentLegitimacySuch-As-BitcoinWorld

By
ROBIN SIDEL
CONNECT

The controversy surrounding virtual currencies is prompting enthusiasts to try to bolster their legitimacy and fight perceptions that they attract illicit behavior.

A group of companies that are pushing virtual currencies such as bitcoin are expected on Tuesday to announce they have set up a self-regulatory organization to promote common rules for the fledgling industry.

The move is an effort to respond to state and federal regulators, who are trying to monitor transactions in virtual currencies for illegal activity. Bitcoin is the most popular of such currencies, which aren’t backed by a central bank.

The group, which will be called the Committee for the Establishment of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority, will set technical standards aimed at preventing money-laundering and ensuring compliance with laws.

“For new payment technologies such as Bitcoin, Ripple, Ven and other digital currencies to realize their full potential, making commerce cheaper and easier around the world, users will need to have trust in the integrity of the companies in the ecosystem,” said Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, which is pursuing investments in the industry. “This trust comes from association with trustworthy investors [and] trustworthy business practices and the adoption of trusted regulatory oversight,”

Separately, a group of bitcoin supporters plans to announce on Tuesday that it has formed a charity that will make donations to environmental and public-health causes around the world. Backers of the BitGive Foundation include BitPay Inc., an Atlanta-based processor of bitcoin payments, the Bitcoin Foundation trade group, and lawyers at Seattle-based Perkins Coie LLP, which represents companies involved with virtual currency.

The charity, which will accept donations in bitcoin and dollars, “provides the opportunity to capture some of the capital formation anticipated from the success of Bitcoin for worthy causes such as health and disease research,” said Stephen Pair, a member of the charity’s board and Bitpay’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

[MrHempstock]

Right, because ideals trump global power.

[vokain]

Robin thinks Bitcoin is a company. But did learn for the first something new (read red).

http://24allnews.com/virtual-currency-enthusiasts-to-launch-self-regulatory-group-2/

Virtual Currency Enthusiasts To Launch Self-Regulatory Group

[...]

The charity, which will accept donations in bitcoin and dollars, “provides the opportunity to capture some of the capital formation anticipated from the success of Bitcoin for worthy causes such as health and disease research,” said Stephen Pair, a member of the charity’s board and Bitpay’s co-founder and chief technology officer.

There's also the lifeboat foundation!! I plan on writing for them at some point, when I find something worth writing about.

about: http://lifeboat.com/ex/about

great great read: http://lifeboat.com/blog/2013/04/bitcoins-dystopian-future

[Vigil]

You sir, are what I deem a racist. Makes sense, racists are very ignorant.

Let me ask you this: If this is all insider trading, and not through realizing opportunities that others do not see as the entrepreneurial spirit entails, tell me, oh tell me, what is he doing in bitcoin? What is this insider information that he is about to "thieve" a fortune from?

You do not know what racism is then. I didn't say it was insider trading, I said he got his fortune through insider trading and using his connections within the central banking cartels. What I said, with regards to this story, was that if this story is true then he is making one of the first moves to gain control of the mining power of the network.

___

All they have to do is secure the mining power, fork the chain while altering the protocol to allow more bitcoins, tell the masses that any other chain is illegal and disastrous to society and there you go - job complete.

For example, too dumb to see the obvious flaw with this theory.

trader joe nor any of his zionist banker buddies should be allowed within an astronomical unit of a bitcoin mining operation under any circumstance.

And again, apparently too dumb to understand that the whole point of bitcoin is that no one has to "allow" you to use it. It's the kind of statement that only someone who isn't even capable of actually understanding bitcoin could make.

Sell all your bitcoins and buy BBQCoins or whatever if you don't like it.

What is the obvious flaw, genius? I mean, just go ahead and spit it out... don't tease us.

I don't even know what the hell you are trying to say in the last comment. That just simply has no connection with anything I said.

[Ytterbium]

Robin thinks Bitcoin is a company. But did learn for the first something new (read red).

http://24allnews.com/virtual-currency-enthusiasts-to-launch-self-regulatory-group-2/

A group of companies that are pushing virtual currencies such as bitcoin are expected on Tuesday to announce they have set up a self-regulatory organization to promote common rules for the fledgling industry.

...
Separately, a group of bitcoin supporters plans to announce on Tuesday that it has formed a charity that will make donations to environmental and public-health causes around the world. Backers of the BitGive Foundation include BitPay Inc., an Atlanta-based processor of bitcoin payments, the Bitcoin Foundation trade group, and lawyers at Seattle-based Perkins Coie LLP, which represents companies involved with virtual currency.

Do you seriously have a learning disability that prevents you from understanding written English?

The subject of the sentence is "A group of companies that are pushing virtual currencies such as bitcoin..."

That can be rephrased as a single sentence: "A group of companies are pushing virtual currencies such as Bitcoin."

In that case the subject would be "A group of companies"

The object would be "Virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin"

and the verb would be "pushing"

"such as bitcoin" clearly refers to the virtual currencies the companies are pushing, as opposed to the companies themselves.

The section highlighted in red is also totally irrelevant.

___

This is in addition to thinking that a twitter user who wrote that they were "not a WSJ reporter" was a WSJ reporter.

[Ytterbium]

What is the obvious flaw, genius? I mean, just go ahead and spit it out... don't tease us.

No point in telling you since you are too dumb to understand it.

I don't even know what the hell you are trying to say in the last comment. That just simply has no connection with anything I said.

Exactly, you didn't understand it because you are really stupid. 

[bobdude17]

This really does make me think about the Paypal rumour though...

[Vigil]

What is the obvious flaw, genius? I mean, just go ahead and spit it out... don't tease us.

No point in telling you since you are too dumb to understand it.

I don't even know what the hell you are trying to say in the last comment. That just simply has no connection with anything I said.

Exactly, you didn't understand it because you are really stupid. 

Whatever, kid. I don't even care. Peace, I'm out. And I hope this turns out not to be true.

[vokain]

This really does make me think about the Paypal rumour though...

I do think it's more likely true than not, and that was on day 0 of the rumor when I first heard about it.

It'd make so much sense. Old Paypal founders already invested $2m into Bitpay. The Paypal CEO (or president?) already said he was looking into Bitcoin. The reddit post was removed pretty quickly (possible company letter threat? I don't know why a troll would remove a troll post if they didn't work at Paypal). It'd be easy for them to do so—they have the infrastructure needed to bring bitcoin into the mainstream. Why the hell not? Makes perfectly good business sense! Especially if Bitcoin has the potential to ruin their business model if they didn't adopt it! 'Sides, they already work between dozens of currencies, what's bitcoin to 'em?

[bobdude17]

This really does make me think about the Paypal rumour though...

I do think it's more likely true than not, and that was on day 0 of the rumor when I first heard about it.

It'd make so much sense. Old Paypal founders already invested $2m into Bitpay. The Paypal CEO (or president?) already said he was looking into Bitcoin. The reddit post was removed pretty quickly (possible company letter threat? I don't know why a troll would remove a troll post if they didn't work at Paypal). It'd be easy for them to do so—they have the infrastructure needed to bring bitcoin into the mainstream. Why the hell not? Makes perfectly good business sense! Especially if Bitcoin has the potential to ruin their business model if they didn't adopt it! 'Sides, they already work between dozens of currencies, what's bitcoin to 'em?

Yeah me too, plus trolls have a certain "feel" to them and TheInsiderMan just didn't have it.

Damn I don't even want to go to sleep right now, I want to watch New York wake up...

[vokain]

This really does make me think about the Paypal rumour though...

I do think it's more likely true than not, and that was on day 0 of the rumor when I first heard about it.

It'd make so much sense. Old Paypal founders already invested $2m into Bitpay. The Paypal CEO (or president?) already said he was looking into Bitcoin. The reddit post was removed pretty quickly (possible company letter threat? I don't know why a troll would remove a troll post if they didn't work at Paypal). It'd be easy for them to do so—they have the infrastructure needed to bring bitcoin into the mainstream. Why the hell not? Makes perfectly good business sense! Especially if Bitcoin has the potential to ruin their business model if they didn't adopt it! 'Sides, they already work between dozens of currencies, what's bitcoin to 'em?

Yeah me too, plus trolls have a certain "feel" to them and TheInsiderMan just didn't have it.

Damn I don't even want to go to sleep right now, I want to watch New York wake up...

They're going to be unhappy when they have to get used to the fact that Bitcoin doesn't simply operate from 930-4 

[vokain]

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/robin-sidel/6/ba1/ba

Experience

Wall Street Journal
Senior Special Writer
Wall Street Journal
March 2001 – Present (12 years 6 months)
I write about the banking and credit-card industries

Here is her writing portfolio at WSJ. She got the Pirate thing pretty well in that she understood it wasn't Bitcoin that wasn't a Ponzi. First ignorance check passed. Looking at her other writings, she seems to check out in my book.

http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=ROBIN+SIDEL&bylinesearch=true

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Robin thinks Bitcoin is a company. But did learn for the first something new (read red).

http://24allnews.com/virtual-currency-enthusiasts-to-launch-self-regulatory-group-2/

A group of companies that are pushing virtual currencies such as bitcoin are expected on Tuesday to announce they have set up a self-regulatory organization to promote common rules for the fledgling industry.

...
Separately, a group of bitcoin supporters plans to announce on Tuesday that it has formed a charity that will make donations to environmental and public-health causes around the world. Backers of the BitGive Foundation include BitPay Inc., an Atlanta-based processor of bitcoin payments, the Bitcoin Foundation trade group, and lawyers at Seattle-based Perkins Coie LLP, which represents companies involved with virtual currency.

Do you seriously have a learning disability that prevents you from understanding written English?

The subject of the sentence is "A group of companies that are pushing virtual currencies such as bitcoin..."

That can be rephrased as a single sentence: "A group of companies are pushing virtual currencies such as Bitcoin."

In that case the subject would be "A group of companies"

The object would be "Virtual currencies, such as Bitcoin"

and the verb would be "pushing"

"such as bitcoin" clearly refers to the virtual currencies the companies are pushing, as opposed to the companies themselves.

The section highlighted in red is also totally irrelevant.

___

This is in addition to thinking that a twitter user who wrote that they were "not a WSJ reporter" was a WSJ reporter.

Why don't you play nice? I swore I read companies like Bitcoin, and not currencies like Bitcoin. Big difference!

The Twitter comment was another mistake on my part. I thought she was being funny by stating such. I even thought it was her that posted about Bitcoin, but it was Harriet.

The red text was an aside comment relevant to me.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Let's just take it for gospel that Avalon is getting $200M in VC to compete with BFL which is at best a $30-$40M GROSS sale company.

Do you realize that sales would have to be in the billions for a VC to even see the return of their principal, let alone profit/interest?

The only thing that would make since is if there's one or two too many zeros in that $200M figure.

Therefore, I see only two possibilities: Somebody fucked up the research or Bitcoin's being played.

[Hfleer]

Let's just take it for gospel that Avalon is getting $200M in VC to compete with BFL which is at best a $30-$40M GROSS sale company.

Do you realize that sales would have to be in the billions for a VC to even see the return of their principal, let alone profit/interest?

The only thing that would make since is if there's one or two too many zeros in that $200M figure.

Therefore, I see only two possibilities: Somebody fucked up the research or Bitcoin's being played.

Well in the real world people don't need to see 200% returns in a few weeks.  If they can sell their stake for 50% more in 1 year that is a return on their principal plus a profit.  P/S can regularly be 1 or higher.

[jl2012]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

Not if the "original" bitcoin is made illegal. The users can decide which chain they are a part of through client updates and such. Don't sit there and try to tell me that can't work. It absolutely can work. When FTC was forked, we had to update our clients to make sure we weren't on the forked chain, and many were, and were mining and transacting on the forked chain. They could fork the masses right off to a new chain and leave the original hanging with computer nerds and the sound money crowd who were fine with running an illegal chain. It. Can. Happen. Especially if the big players want it to happen, easily once they get everyone on board and the infrastructure built. So shut your ass.  

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

I know how it works. If you control the mining, you control the voting of the bitcoin network. Once, the masses jump in, all of us "decentralization whores" and libertarians aren't going to have a voice. The Big money will control the mining and the forking of the network and they will lead the masses, who don't understand the need for decentralization, along with them.

Once again... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

The only thing miners "vote" on is which tx is valid in a conflict and which txs are included in the next block.  That is it.  If a group of miners change the protocol it is a fork and existing users and continue to use the existing (original) Bitcoin.

To be precise, a 51% attacker could implement any soft-fork to the system, i.e. making an originally valid transaction invalid. That's all he can do. So he could blacklist bitcoin addresses, decrease money supply, decrease block size, charge ridiculous tx fee, reverse confirmed transactions, etc.

A 51% attacker cannot pull a hard-fork (making an originally invalid transaction valid), e.g. inflating money supply, raising block size, printing money out of thin air, stealing money, etc.

I am not just talking about a 51% attack. We are talking about using the majority of the mining base to fork the chain while altering the protocol on the fly to adopt to government regulations - they can change the max number of coins, just as they can alter the blocksize, etc. You need a mining base to maintain the particular network for each chain - that is why they would take over the mining infrastructure. But they also need to alter the protocol.

Taking over Bitcoin will be easy once the infrastructure is established AND the masses join... because the masses can be duped into anything. they will take it over, eventually, if allowed to. Whether or not we maintain the original in a black market is a different story.

Last time... LEARN HOW BITCOIN WORKS.

[cedivad]

Subscribing to this nonsense.

[solex]

WSJ have published in their Germany Edition too. Should get the Bitcoin-happy Germans talking about it.

http://www.wsj.de/article/SB10001424127887324653004578649323688351736.html

[prophetx]

Not good that a big-time thief like this guy is getting involved with mining. Mining is the way to control Bitcoin. Once you control the mining operation, you can do anything with Bitcoin you want. It not longer is beholden to limited supply or anything. They know this. Once the masses jump into Bitcoin and these mega douches control everything Bitcoin is over, it will be just another exploited currency. The problem is that we are still in their system of monetary control - i.e., they can buy up anything they want and that includes Bitcoin. The only time to strike is is when their system has collapsed.

Please learn how bitcoin works first

+1

I don't see why the merchants, users & other miners should care too much if some massive miner starts building a chain of blocks with some other ruleset.  

It won't be one miner, its going to be most of the network. We are the minority, the mindless masses are the majority. They aren't going to care about your forked network, they just want the one that they are told they are allowed to use. "We" are going to be the "chain of block with some other ruleset" if you let these criminals into the mining operation.

Are you trying to imply there are not already many criminals involved in mining operations?  Seems like the kettle calling the teapot black to me.

Get over it, and stop trying to compare who has the bigger d**k in the room.  This guy helped collapse GBP, he is a hero in my book.

[prophetx]

Let's just take it for gospel that Avalon is getting $200M in VC to compete with BFL which is at best a $30-$40M GROSS sale company.

Do you realize that sales would have to be in the billions for a VC to even see the return of their principal, let alone profit/interest?

The only thing that would make since is if there's one or two too many zeros in that $200M figure.

Therefore, I see only two possibilities: Somebody fucked up the research or Bitcoin's being played.

There is more uses for ASIC dev then just processing for the bitcoin network...

[Gabi]

Do you really trust journalists? Seriously? LOL

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

Yeah sure, and you expect me to believe you? Lol

[lunarboy]

I agree this looks fishy. Why would anybody put 200M into mining?

OP has answered your question

'You mean I can't just buy Bitcoin?'  

I had lots of "chats" with monied folks from Switherland along the lines of "we have lots of dosh we want to buy 22 million bitcoins now". Eventually they realize that they will have to fight for the remaining 10 millions or force the price into 5 digit area prematurely.

Large scale investment into mining is a way to buy bitcoins without showing your hand and starting another "bubble". It was exactly like that in early 2011 and at any other time so far. There is nothing new, just all the numbers now have more zeroes. As time goes by, there will be even more zeroes added to those numbers.

Finally some sense.

reading this thread has been painful.

[cr1776]

Part of the 200 million also includes TSMC. That is a bit into the article itself, so it is not all for Avalon.   A few other points:

1. They specifically discuss getting "more parties are involved in the mining process" also.
2. "Mr. Lewis didn't respond to a request for comment."
3. "As part of the deal, Avalon will gain access to TSMC microchips based on 20-nanometer processes, which are much faster than other chips. "

... The Phoenix deal will also involve Taiwanese microchip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., 2330.TW 0.00% which is set to supply the state-of-the-art microchips that will power the hardware.

The Phoenix Fund was set up this year to invest in bitcoin mining-hardware companies. It looked at several of Avalon's rivals in the sector, including Butterfly Labs and KnCMiner but decided against investing, according to a person familiar with the private-equity firm's strategy.

Investors in the Phoenix Fund, which includes a small number of individuals who made their fortunes in currency trading, believe that the currency will become more stable and popular if more parties are involved in the mining process, this person said.
...

The bitcoin deal was put together by Andrew Laurus, a former government-bonds salesman at Lehman Brothers who is also an investor in the fund. Avalon was set up by Yifu Guo, a pioneer in the bitcoin-mining industry.... Mr. Guo couldn't be reached for comment.

[Carlton Banks]

Also, R+D and manufacturing infrastructure aren't the only thing you can buy with $200 million. Employees, advertising/promotion, flashy Headquarters etc come to mind, there's doubtless many more.

[marcus_of_augustus]

fool, why not buy bitcoins directly?

... probably couldn't be assed going through the whole Gox KYC/AML rectal examination. 

Go Joe the miner I say!

(might be 20 not 200 (?)mill though at this stage of the game)

[johnyj]

I'm considering research for a quantum mining chip design in the next 5 years

[canth]

https://twitter.com/ScottWapnerCNBC/status/364370798892421120

'Spoke to Joe Lewis this morning who says of reported Bitcoin investment: "Completely Untrue".  Tells me he's "Never heard of Phoenix Fund" '

For everyone that sold out last night...waaa waaa.

[prophetx]

https://twitter.com/ScottWapnerCNBC/status/364370798892421120

'Spoke to Joe Lewis this morning who says of reported Bitcoin investment: "Completely Untrue".  Tells me he's "Never heard of Phoenix Fund" '

For everyone that sold out last night...waaa waaa.

lol well as everyone probably already knew... the WSJ is trash since Murdoch bought it...

[Vigil]

Had only I snagged prices much lower than I did and made tons of profit.

[vokain]

Either way, false or not, this should bring very interesting discussion to the table for monied people as to what is possible. There is a very serious first-mover advantage for the first big group investing in bitcoin that takes it seriously.

[lunarboy]

not sure if this rumour is any truer than the other stuff but i'll leave this here.

https://twitter.com/ScottWapnerCNBC/statuses/364370798892421120

Twitter / ScottWapner, CNBC:

"Spoke to Joe Lewis this morning who says of reported Bitcoin investment: 'Completely Untrue'. Tells me he's 'Never heard of Phoenix Fund'"

its a bit like watching goldfish swim round and round in a bowl.

[vokain]

In light of that, I do agree that it is very unlikely now, and more importantly, any faith in the press (and high academia for that matter) i had left is now kaput.

[Arogo]

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this bit from the bottom of the 'efinancialnews' article:

Visit the Phoenix Fund website here: http://www.phoenixasic.com/

It has the same site design as: http://www.joelewis-trading.com/index.php but different head office address... Strange?

[aigeezer]

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this bit from the bottom of the 'efinancialnews' article:

Visit the Phoenix Fund website here: http://www.phoenixasic.com/

It has the same site design as: http://www.joelewis-trading.com/index.php but different head office address... Strange?

Even the embedded reference to joelouis-golf.com near the end of the source code.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this bit from the bottom of the 'efinancialnews' article:

Visit the Phoenix Fund website here: http://www.phoenixasic.com/

It has the same site design as: http://www.joelewis-trading.com/index.php but different head office address... Strange?

Curioser and curioser.

Maybe the WSJ people, unable to contact any of the principals, saw the similarity and took it as an implicit validation of the story?

[greyhawk]

Not sure if anybody has mentioned this bit from the bottom of the 'efinancialnews' article:

Visit the Phoenix Fund website here: http://www.phoenixasic.com/

Set up 3 days ago, hiding behind a proxy registrar. IP points to a Road Runner Residential cable modem in the Southwest US.

This is a scam if I've ever seen one.

[Gabi]

Do you really trust journalists? Seriously? LOL

No way the WSJ would publish a story like this without checking everything out.

Yeah sure, and you expect me to believe you? Lol

I have to quote myself. Lol for "checking everything out".

One more reason to NOT trust WSJ and journalists 

[Ytterbium]

I'm still doubtful that the WSJ would fuck up like this, but on the other hand $200m seems absurd.

Here's a theory though: maybe the $200m is an investment in TSMCs 20nm process. As a small part of the deal they'll work on a 20nm mining chip for Avalon and use it as a sort of test chip, boosting the profit on the R&D. Then, maybe Lewis gets a cut of the revenue from said 20nm process.   Most of the money wouldn't be for bitcoin chips, it would just be for fab R&D, and most of the profits would just come from regular fab work, not bitcoin miners.

Or, maybe Joe Lewis only bought into a small part of $200m that TSMC is planning to spend on R&D, and the larger number go reported.

I think though the $200m figure is way off, although it seems likely there was some kind of deal if this is all being reported.  The WSJ wouldn't just go off internet rumors - they would have had to have been actively conned by someone for this to run if it's completely false.

not sure if this rumour is any truer than the other stuff but i'll leave this here.

https://twitter.com/ScottWapnerCNBC/statuses/364370798892421120

Twitter / ScottWapner, CNBC:

"Spoke to Joe Lewis this morning who says of reported Bitcoin investment: 'Completely Untrue'. Tells me he's 'Never heard of Phoenix Fund'"

its a bit like watching goldfish swim round and round in a bowl.

That doesn't really mean all that much, though. It could be like all the "I'm not running for president" type statements. If the story is false it would be a big black eye for the WSJ.  I'm sure they're looking into it in more depth right now.

[vokain]

^ It makes business sense even if isn't true. And that should be enough.

[canuck]

Hate to say "I told you so" but...oh no wait...I don't hate it at all.  It's incredible the level of faith you people have in old media.  Even now, you people are posting here with notions like "Oh, but this is the media.  They would never just publish on rumour right?  There has to be something more to this!"  Unfortunately, when you want to be the first to press, you will publish on rumour and yes, journalists do this a lot more often than the public realizes.

People who posted that someone would lose their job over this and that the story must have been true because no one would risk their job like that...also getting it wrong.  There may be a meeting and someone may be scolded but this isn't like reporting the wrong sex of the royal baby; this is a story on bitcoin rumours.  A story with niche appeal.  In other words, no biggy.  Unfortunate, undesired and unprofessional sure but also unsubstantial in its effect on general credibility.

Seriously, why the hell do some of you think the mainstream media prints gospel? If it's "because they're the established media" then you should give your head a shake and think a little more critically.

[vokain]

Hate to say "I told you so" but...oh no wait...I don't hate it at all.  It's incredible the level of faith you people have in old media.  Even now, you people are posting here with notions like "Oh, but this is the media.  They would never just publish on rumour right?  There has to be something more to this!"  Unfortunately, when you want to be the first to press, you will publish on rumour and yes, journalists do this a lot more often than the public realizes.

People who posted that someone would lose their job over this and that the story must have been true because no one would risk their job like that...also getting it wrong.  There may be a meeting and someone may be scolded but this isn't like reporting the wrong sex of the royal baby; this is a story on bitcoin rumours.  A story with niche appeal.  In other words, no biggy.  Unfortunate, undesired and unprofessional sure but also unsubstantial in its effect on general credibility.

Seriously, why the hell do some of you think the mainstream media prints gospel? If it's "because they're the established media" then you should give your head a shake and think a little more critically.

I just had some faith in journalistic integrity, especially for someone that graduated from the University of Edinburgh in journalism. It's okay though, my heuristics have adjusted accordingly.

[BitChick]

So even if it is a hoax, how many people will believe it anyways?  Could the hoax still bump the price up? 

[BitChick]

So even if it is a hoax, how many people will believe it anyways?  Could the hoax still bump the price up? 

People still think btc is illegal in thailand.

Hence why a press release stating, "BITCOIN TO RISE TO $1,000,000" needs to be published. 

I guess that does not sound believable enough though.

[vokain]

So even if it is a hoax, how many people will believe it anyways?  Could the hoax still bump the price up?  

People still think btc is illegal in thailand.

Hence why a press release stating, "BITCOIN TO RISE TO $1,000,000" needs to be published.  

I guess that does not sound believable enough though.

Believable enough to me :p

In the mean time, work on getting your small business owning friends and family to accept bitcoin.... bitpay/coinbase makes it super easy without the currency exchange rate risk.

[canuck]

Hate to say "I told you so" but...oh no wait...I don't hate it at all.  It's incredible the level of faith you people have in old media.  Even now, you people are posting here with notions like "Oh, but this is the media.  They would never just publish on rumour right?  There has to be something more to this!"  Unfortunately, when you want to be the first to press, you will publish on rumour and yes, journalists do this a lot more often than the public realizes.

People who posted that someone would lose their job over this and that the story must have been true because no one would risk their job like that...also getting it wrong.  There may be a meeting and someone may be scolded but this isn't like reporting the wrong sex of the royal baby; this is a story on bitcoin rumours.  A story with niche appeal.  In other words, no biggy.  Unfortunate, undesired and unprofessional sure but also unsubstantial in its effect on general credibility.

Seriously, why the hell do some of you think the mainstream media prints gospel? If it's "because they're the established media" then you should give your head a shake and think a little more critically.

I just had some faith in journalistic integrity, especially for someone that graduated from the University of Edinburgh in journalism. It's okay though, my heuristics have adjusted accordingly.

HAHA.  +1 bud.

I think if people spent some time in a news room they would be pretty taken aback.  It's not like people are routinely unprofessional or lack skills but a lot of assumptions about the ability of journalists and the resources they must have at their disposal are absolutely unrealistic.

[vokain]

I think if people spent some time in a news room they would be pretty taken aback.  It's not like people are routinely unprofessional or lack skills but a lot of assumptions about the ability of journalists and the resources they must have at their disposal are absolutely unrealistic.

why can't it be more like MacKenzie McHale's Newsroom?

[DeathAndTaxes]

Not if the "original" bitcoin is made illegal. The users can decide which chain they are a part of through client updates and such. Don't sit there and try to tell me that can't work. It absolutely can work. When FTC was forked, we had to update our clients to make sure we weren't on the forked chain, and many were, and were mining and transacting on the forked chain. They could fork the masses right off to a new chain and leave the original hanging with computer nerds and the sound money crowd who were fine with running an illegal chain. It. Can. Happen. Especially if the big players want it to happen, easily once they get everyone on board and the infrastructure built. So shut your ass. 

Which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MINING. You could make Bitcoin illegal (in one county) with 0.0 khps and can't make it iillegal with 3490278429178412940274219847 PH/s.  So the idea that one would need to invest $200M in mining  to fork Bitcoin and make the original illegal is just stupid as was your original claim.  Of course Bitcoin being illegal in one country doesn't make Bitcoin illegal in the other 239ish countries. 

[vokain]

Not if the "original" bitcoin is made illegal. The users can decide which chain they are a part of through client updates and such. Don't sit there and try to tell me that can't work. It absolutely can work. When FTC was forked, we had to update our clients to make sure we weren't on the forked chain, and many were, and were mining and transacting on the forked chain. They could fork the masses right off to a new chain and leave the original hanging with computer nerds and the sound money crowd who were fine with running an illegal chain. It. Can. Happen. Especially if the big players want it to happen, easily once they get everyone on board and the infrastructure built. So shut your ass. 

Which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MINING. You could make Bitcoin illegal (in one county) with 0.0 khps and can't make it iillegal with 3490278429178412940274219847 PH/s.  So the idea that one would need to invest $200M in mining  to fork Bitcoin and make the original illegal is just stupid as was your original claim.  Of course Bitcoin being illegal in one country doesn't make Bitcoin illegal in the other 239ish countries. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

I guess that does not sound believable enough though.

Well someone investing $200M into an industry which at most has $130M in global revenue is equally unbelievable.  Remember the $130M doesn't mean the market supports $130M in mining hardware profit or even $130M in mining hardware that is just the GROSS revenue for all miners globally.  Miners themselves expect to make a profit and they have to electricity as a cost, and mining equipment is a capital good it doesn't get "used up".

[canth]

I guess that does not sound believable enough though.

Well someone investing $200M into an industry which at most has $130M in global revenue is equally unbelievable.  Remember the $130M doesn't mean the market supports $130M in mining hardware profit or even $130M in mining hardware that is just the GROSS revenue for all miners globally.  Miners themselves expect to make a profit and they have to electricity as a cost, and mining equipment is a capital good it doesn't get "used up".

You're crushing the dreams for everyone that was briefly hoping BTC would go back to $250, this week. It was a pretty implausible idea...there were many of us that didn't fall for it. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252531.msg2866724#msg2866724

The only way it would work would be if someone wanted to invest $100M in BTC but didn't want to drive the price up - even that theory has holes in it. No matter your goal it's unlikely that you'd make a $200M announcement. More likely a quiet $20M private investment for > 50% of one of these firms.

[Ytterbium]

I'm thinking this Andrew Laurus person must be the source.

Evidence from twitter:
Bitcoin examiner, which "broke" the story follows him
Harriet Agnew, the WSJ repoter follows him

Additionally, Agnew follows Bitcoin Examiner, and Bitcoin Examiner follows Agnew. Interestingly Kim Dotcom follows him as well

Now, it's entirely possible all these people started following eachother after the story broke.

Now, some people are saying the Laurus twitter account is fake, which it could be.  But I'm guessing it's not.

So, my theory is that if the story is fake then it's probably been faked by Andrew Laurus.  Why would he fake it?  One might simply be that he's talking up something to journalists in order to impress them and boost his "cred" in the bitcoin world as someone who can get big deals  done. 

Another might be that he's heavily invested in bitcoin and trying to make the price go up by making it seem like big players are involved.

Or similarly he could be invested in another one of these chip ventures (such as HashFast, which also follows him follows him on twitter) and wants to drum up other interest from big investors in other chip projects.

Another could very well be that he's trying to scam other rich people into getting "in" on the deal.

A final possibility is that there is a deal and Joe Lewis just didn't want to publicly acknowledge it to the reporter on twitter. I do find the $200 million price to be ridiculously over the top, though. Bitcoin would have to be worth at least $2k, IMO, for that to even begin to make any kind of rational sense.

[vokain]

what a big fail on his (Laurus's) part if so. so much work for no gain

A final possibility is that there is a deal and Joe Lewis just didn't want to publicly acknowledge it to the reporter on twitter. I do find the $200 million price to be ridiculously over the top, though. Bitcoin would have to be worth at least $2k, IMO, for that to even begin to make any kind of rational sense.

I considered this too.

[Ytterbium]

what a big fail on his (Laurus's) part if so. so much work for no gain

Yeah, unless the story ends up being true and we all look ridiculous.

My feeling is that there are a lot of really rich people interested in investing in bitcoin, but can't just buy coins because there aren't enough. On the other hand, for them buying a $500k hosting plan from "Gridfinity" wouldn't even be a lot of money.

In the past, any company selling mining gear had to do it publicly in order to get enough support. Now we a bunch of companies that seem to be doing their pre-sales in private (HashFast and Cointerra).  With a small market cap, that would be a huge red flag that a company was a scam and looking to rip people off on an individual level.

But, if you're talking about private investors who can afford to drop hundreds of thousands of dollars - it might actually work.

On the other hand, it's going to provide huge opportunities for rich scam artists to scam other rich people, who don't have any experience with bitcoin mining and don't know what to look out for to avoid getting scammed the way people did by BFL and bASIC.

[vokain]

what a big fail on his (Laurus's) part if so. so much work for no gain

Yeah, unless the story ends up being true and we all look ridiculous.

My feeling is that there are a lot of really rich people interested in investing in bitcoin, but can't just buy coins because there aren't enough. On the other hand, for them buying a $500k hosting plan from "Gridfinity" wouldn't even be a lot of money.

People have been asking me for well over 1 million worth of BTC over the last 2 weeks and that never happens. Some people are paying 10% over gox.

You mean people are asking you to sell BTC for bank T/T on PM here? 1 Mill$ in the last two weeks?
Why would anybody buy OTC so to not influence the price and then offer a spread which makes it lucrative to just sell to him and buy at an exchange at the same time?

Crazy indeed.

Many people have been asking for a lot of coin. Not all offered to pay over gox rate but one guy did at 3000 coins.

I did not ask why but there is demand otc.

Also not one person tried to sell to me.

[...]

I had lots of "chats" with monied folks from Switherland along the lines of "we have lots of dosh we want to buy 22 million bitcoins now". Eventually they realize that they will have to fight for the remaining 10 millions or force the price into 5 digit area prematurely.

Large scale investment into mining is a way to buy bitcoins without showing your hand and starting another "bubble". It was exactly like that in early 2011 and at any other time so far. There is nothing new, just all the numbers now have more zeroes. As time goes by, there will be even more zeroes added to those numbers.

[yuriygeorge]

WSJ Redacted the article, saying there was inaccurate publishing:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

[yuriygeorge]

WSJ Redacted the article, saying there was inaccurate publishing:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

Correction article reads:
"Investor Joe Lewis isn't investing in a bitcoin venture called Avalon and doesn't lead a Zurich-based private-equity fund called the Phoenix Fund. An article on the supposed investment was inaccurately published and has been removed."

[Ytterbium]

Wow, that writer will probably never work for the WSJ again.

I'm sure Andrew Laurus is was the "source" who fed them this information. Probably had some kind of scam going on, probably offering to get people "in" on the deal.

[cryptograd]

Not if the "original" bitcoin is made illegal. The users can decide which chain they are a part of through client updates and such. Don't sit there and try to tell me that can't work. It absolutely can work. When FTC was forked, we had to update our clients to make sure we weren't on the forked chain, and many were, and were mining and transacting on the forked chain. They could fork the masses right off to a new chain and leave the original hanging with computer nerds and the sound money crowd who were fine with running an illegal chain. It. Can. Happen. Especially if the big players want it to happen, easily once they get everyone on board and the infrastructure built. So shut your ass.  

Which has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH MINING. You could make Bitcoin illegal (in one county) with 0.0 khps and can't make it iillegal with 3490278429178412940274219847 PH/s.  So the idea that one would need to invest $200M in mining  to fork Bitcoin and make the original illegal is just stupid as was your original claim.  Of course Bitcoin being illegal in one country doesn't make Bitcoin illegal in the other 239ish countries.  

lol I just made this

[LiteCoinGuy]

at least it is PRESS for bitcoin, so i like it 

[BlackBison]

lol I just made this



Nice. Can you remake it with 'USE BITCOIN' instead? I think that would be a bit better.

[Ytterbium]

Here's a (paywall free) article about this isn't true: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/private-investor-and-trader-joe-lewis-not-backing-bitcoin-ventures-2013-08-05

[vokain]

Here's a (paywall free) article about this isn't true: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/private-investor-and-trader-joe-lewis-not-backing-bitcoin-ventures-2013-08-05

"I have no investments whatsoever in any Bitcoin ventures," said Lewis.

Too bad for him, he should very well consider it more closely now.

[yuriygeorge]

Interesting, because the author's (Harriet Agnew) tweet is still up:

https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew

[dexX7]

Hate to say "I told you so" but...oh no wait...I don't hate it at all.  It's incredible the level of faith you people have in old media.  Even now, you people are posting here with notions like "Oh, but this is the media.  They would never just publish on rumour right?  There has to be something more to this!"  Unfortunately, when you want to be the first to press, you will publish on rumour and yes, journalists do this a lot more often than the public realizes.

People who posted that someone would lose their job over this and that the story must have been true because no one would risk their job like that...also getting it wrong.  There may be a meeting and someone may be scolded but this isn't like reporting the wrong sex of the royal baby; this is a story on bitcoin rumours.  A story with niche appeal.  In other words, no biggy.  Unfortunate, undesired and unprofessional sure but also unsubstantial in its effect on general credibility.

Seriously, why the hell do some of you think the mainstream media prints gospel? If it's "because they're the established media" then you should give your head a shake and think a little more critically.

+1

And not the WSJ fucked up, but Bitcoin Examiner. But what is very more interesting: Bitcoin Examiner gained such a high level of credibility till know, that this happened.

[vokain]

Hate to say "I told you so" but...oh no wait...I don't hate it at all.  It's incredible the level of faith you people have in old media.  Even now, you people are posting here with notions like "Oh, but this is the media.  They would never just publish on rumour right?  There has to be something more to this!"  Unfortunately, when you want to be the first to press, you will publish on rumour and yes, journalists do this a lot more often than the public realizes.

People who posted that someone would lose their job over this and that the story must have been true because no one would risk their job like that...also getting it wrong.  There may be a meeting and someone may be scolded but this isn't like reporting the wrong sex of the royal baby; this is a story on bitcoin rumours.  A story with niche appeal.  In other words, no biggy.  Unfortunate, undesired and unprofessional sure but also unsubstantial in its effect on general credibility.

Seriously, why the hell do some of you think the mainstream media prints gospel? If it's "because they're the established media" then you should give your head a shake and think a little more critically.

+1

And not the WSJ fucked up, but Bitcoin Examiner. But what is very more interesting: Bitcoin Examiner gained such a high level of credibility till know, that this happened.

WSJ fucked up by not fact checking from a primary source the stuff their hires wrote.

[DeathAndTaxes]

WSJ fucked up by not fact checking from a primary source the stuff their hires wrote.

Exactly.  If you put your name on it, you are vouching for it.  They did and the story was bogus.

[Ytterbium]

I am definitely surprised that the WSJ would run a story like this without a thorough fact-checking, but it sounds like that's what happened. I would have expected the reporter to at least check with multiple sources.

[vokain]

I am definitely surprised that the WSJ would run a story like this without a thorough fact-checking, but it sounds like that's what happened. I would have expected the reporter to at least check with multiple sources.

right?? it makes me so angry

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I found the following as soon as the story broke but got sidetracked.


Current account.

This is Google's cache of https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/295140622619246592. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on May 14, 2013 23:45:06 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more
Tip: To quickly find your search term on this page, press Ctrl+F or ⌘-F (Mac) and use the find bar.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tJ8_yLQpPXIJ:https://twitter.com/frankieterrier/status/295140622619246592+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

Andrew Laurus
@frankieterrier
Marketing MA, LBS. ex. Senior Bond Manager (Sales) @ Lehman. Emerging Markets Manager for Private equity Fund. (Taking time off for Bitcoin Mining project)
Zurich/London

This is Google's cache of http://twittercounter.com/frankieterrier. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Jun 16, 2013 20:44:38 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more
Tip: To quickly find your search term on this page, press Ctrl+F or ⌘-F (Mac) and use the find bar.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tSrJq2GcAo4J:twittercounter.com/frankieterrier+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

@frankieterrier Update
 
Marketing MA, LSB. ex. Senior Bond Manager (Sales) @ Lehman. Currently seeking small business opportunity.

This was the main reason why I felt it was a scam from the get-go, but failed to present it because I got caught up in a parallel dialog.

[vokain]

So you're saying this is pro marketing at work? interesting if so

[Phinnaeus Gage]

So you're saying this is pro marketing at work? interesting.

Take a look at this and compare to current account while I take and crop screenshots: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eopV5NmMVGkJ:twitbridge.com/frankieterrier+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Note the tweets that are no longer available.

[vokain]

So you're saying this is pro marketing at work? interesting.

Take a look at this and compare to current account while I take and crop screenshots: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eopV5NmMVGkJ:twitbridge.com/frankieterrier+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Note the tweets that are no longer available.

business is business i suppose. interesting indeed in how far someone will go to get their company in the spotlight

[Phinnaeus Gage]

So you're saying this is pro marketing at work? interesting.

Take a look at this and compare to current account while I take and crop screenshots: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:eopV5NmMVGkJ:twitbridge.com/frankieterrier+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Note the tweets that are no longer available.

business is business i suppose. interesting indeed in how far someone will go to get their company in the spotlight

Ironically, he mentions starting a charity, which you I are part of (going by your sig).

Here are the screenshots before he deleted posts on his current account: https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

[giszmo]

Screenshots and links and quotes and stuff …

Mind writing a TLDR. It's late and my brain doesn't parse what's your point.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Diggin' a little deeper! https://twitter.com/MoAzeel

@MoAzeel
Business Development Consultant for http://www.GrowthAccelerator.com
London · growthaccelerator.com

Mo Azeel ‏@MoAzeel 8 Jul
@frankieterrier Hi Andy. Nice to see you're back. I heard you're working with the Tavistock bunch. Nice work if you can get it.

But notice the number of tweets Mo deleted: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qdxr7KkU86UJ:https://twitter.com/MoAzeel+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

This is Google's cache of https://twitter.com/MoAzeel. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on May 29, 2013 00:08:54 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime. Learn more
Tip: To quickly find your search term on this page, press Ctrl+F or ⌘-F (Mac) and use the find bar.

Screenshots and links and quotes and stuff …

Mind writing a TLDR. It's late and my brain doesn't parse what's your point.

That Frankie purposely changed his name to Andrew, and that this ruse was planned in early July as just now shown above.

[dexX7]

Here are the screenshots before he deleted posts on his current account: https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

Very good detective work!

Though this only shows that he talked about mining, but it's not really a clue that he was directly involved in creating false news.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Here are the screenshots before he deleted posts on his current account: https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

Very good detective work!

Though this only shows that he talked about mining, but it's not really a clue that he was directly involved in creating false news.

If I could only find a Bitcoiner that vacations in the Bahamas and deals in seeds like Frankie Terrier does, with both living in the same mainly French speaking country that's not France, then I may be one step closer in solving this mystery.

But what are the odds of that happening?

The icing on the cake would be if that mystical person posted on this forum at the same exact time as he posted on Twitter.

BTW, I've officially put more time in this than the two seasoned reporters, one of which is the editor, did in the WSJ article that's no longer available--and they were paid for their efforts, of which I had to pay to not only read it, but to no longer be able to read it. Now that's value!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I think he knows that I know what he was hoping no one else would ever know, you know?

https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

For those of you interested I will be posting a statement on thur re #bitcoin and press reports and #joelewis

[vokain]

I think he knows that I know what he was hoping no one else would ever know, you know?

https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

For those of you interested I will be posting a statement on thur re #bitcoin and press reports and #joelewis

you're the man Phin

[johnyj]

"I'm sick of the scams and greed of asic bitcoin mining companies that are scamming customers am going to do non profit miner"

“We will bring social justice, decentralisation back to bitcoin together put bicoin back in hands of ordinary people not greedy companies”

 

This is actually a grand long term view! After ASIC miners are built in millions of network switches and routers, each device will generate only a small amount of satoshi and there will be no single entity that can generate large amount of coins, means much higher degree of  decentralization

[fex]

Sadly, FAZ, one of the biggest german newspapers had this story in it's print version today:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=269150.0

[RodeoX]

There is a clue in one of the first sentences.

"Mr. Lewis leads the Phoenix Fund, a Zurich-based private-equity fund that on Tuesday plans to invest $200 million in Avalon"

So what kind of fund manager says what he is going to buy beforehand? 

[Gabi]

Well, more reasons to NOT trust WSJ and journalists

I am definitely surprised that the WSJ would run a story like this without a thorough fact-checking, but it sounds like that's what happened. I would have expected the reporter to at least check with multiple sources.

lol? You are joking, am i right???

[Phinnaeus Gage]

http://online.wsj.com/article/Corrections.html

Investor Joe Lewis isn't investing in a bitcoin venture called Avalon and doesn't lead a Zurich-based private-equity fund called Phoenix Fund. A Global Finance article on Monday about the supposed investment incorrectly said both are true.

The Tracking Exchange-Traded Portfolios table in the Funds/ETFs report on Monday was inaccurate. A correct table is at http://on.wsj.com/14emv77.

Natural-gas prices are $4 per million BTUs in North America and $16 per million BTUs in Asia. A page-one article on Monday about gas projects in the U.S. and Canada erroneously dropped the word million.

Tiger Woods shot a first-round score of 66 in last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational golf tournament. A Sports item on Monday incorrectly said 64.

Warren Sapp entered the NFL Hall of Fame as a lineman. In some editions Monday, a Sports column on Alex Rodriguez incorrectly said linebacker.

[dhenson]

We're in a bitcoin news lul.

Does anyone else wish they could go to sleep and wake up in September?

[Vigil]

Fake Bitcoin news stories should be the norm. Just let me know before they get published.

[giszmo]

Great! The WSJ correction still is behind a $1 pay wall? So I have to pay $1 to read that Joe Lewis will not and never planned to invest in Bitcoin? Copying the url to Facebook still gives me a great insight:

Famed Trader Joe Lewis Backs Bitcoin
online.wsj.com
Joe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin.
Like ·  · Share · Promote · 21 minutes ago ·

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Great! The WSJ correction still is behind a $1 pay wall? So I have to pay $1 to read that Joe Lewis will not and never planned to invest in Bitcoin? Copying the url to Facebook still gives me a great insight:

Famed Trader Joe Lewis Backs Bitcoin
online.wsj.com
Joe Lewis, a billionaire foreign-exchange trader who teamed up with hedge-fund manager George Soros in 1992 to bet against the Bank of England, is the latest high-profile financier to throw his weight behind the virtual currency called bitcoin.
Like ·  · Share · Promote · 21 minutes ago ·

Here's an image of the actual physical copy of the WSJ article: http://i2.wp.com/www.teribuhl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wsj-joe-lewis-story-redacted.jpg



Somehow all this stems from the first week of July of this year after Harriet ran the piece on the twins. I'm still diggin'!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Why did a seasoned reporter like Harriet Agnew who's selective about whom she follows on Twitter, opted to follow a guy named Mo Azeel (@MoAzeel) that never followed her and who posted vile tweets? The guy even used a stock image for his Twitter account.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-indian-business-man-smiling-image2020520




From Mo's Twitter account.

One of the few people that Mo followed was Frankie Terrier who recently changed his name on Twitter to Andrew Laurus. Of the eight tweets remaining, three are exchanges with Frankie.

That WSJ article was mostly comprised of what Andre/Frankie tweeted, then deleted prior to the original article being published.

I'm still looking to see what Robin's role was in all this.

BTW, if you search Google for Mo Azeel you'll find...wait for it...only 4 results. If was only three, but some monumental asshole mentioned his name on BitcoinTalk.

Bottom line, this was contrived.

Now, I ask you this: How much influence can I bestow upon a person who has never heard of Bitcoin before if I show them a physical copy of the WSJ depicting a whale investing $200M in some Bitcoin venture?

Think about that!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I'm getting warmer! http://www.leverageacademy.com/aboutus_testimonials.php



http://www.businessinsider.com/author/leverage-academy

Leverage Academy

Leverage Academy is a global investment banking, private equity, hedge fund, and CFA training facility that has helped over 1,500 students to date secure careers in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Las Angeles, and Dallas as financial analysts and financial managers.  

Our instructors have collectively over 55 years of experience working on Wall Street and teach courses in English, Spanish, and Mandarin (Chinese).  Started by Bear Stearns Merchant Banking alumni, Leverage Academy and the LA Global Team provide the most current and relevant training and consulting services to undergraduate, graduate, and professional clients.

A song by Neil Diamond comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4tXMYeUIls

[Ytterbium]

I'm getting warmer! http://www.leverageacademy.com/aboutus_testimonials.php

No you're not, you just proved in your last post that that was a stock photo. Think about it.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

I'm getting warmer! http://www.leverageacademy.com/aboutus_testimonials.php

No you're not, you just proved in your last post that that was a stock photo. Think about it.

For those playing at home and need help, showing that Mo used a stock photo as his profile was my intent.

Harriet followed a guy who didn't follow her, and she did such fairly recently. When she opted to follow him, he either had a wall of shit posts or now the only 8 tweets, three of which are in conversation with Frankie Terrier.

The other thing I was trying to show is that if the stock photo was legitimately purchased for some other site, that same person could have opted to use it for his Twitter account.

I've noticed that Ytterbium has struck it up my ass a couple times now, ignoring the first times. I wonder what goes through a guys mind that he feels he needs to diss a guy who never dissed him and is only trying to help.

If an English speaking person with a poor command of said language were to come here espousing the same as I have, would you stick it up their ass because the spelling and grammar won't meet your standards?

[vokain]

Bottom line, this was contrived.

Now, I ask you this: How much influence can I bestow upon a person who has never heard of Bitcoin before if I show them a physical copy of the WSJ depicting a whale investing $200M in some Bitcoin venture?

Think about that!

So, in the grand scheme of things, this scheme was to drum up support for this mining outfit...or something bigger?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Bottom line, this was contrived.

Now, I ask you this: How much influence can I bestow upon a person who has never heard of Bitcoin before if I show them a physical copy of the WSJ depicting a whale investing $200M in some Bitcoin venture?

Think about that!

So, in the grand scheme of things, this scheme was to drum up support for this mining outfit...or something bigger?

Honestly, I don't know. But I do know that even with this faux pas, further awareness was brought to Bitcoin in the VC camps.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/any_press_is_good_press

Being mentioned in the media is beneficial to the subject because it gets publicity.

This phrase may be said after coverage of a scandal or a controversy.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Here's the latest by Robin Sidel who had her hands in publishing the Joe Lewis story.

Bitcoin = Money, Says Judge

You may not carry it in your wallet, but a federal judge in Texas has determined that bitcoin is indeed a form of money.

As a result, Judge Amos Mazzant, sitting in U.S. district court for the eastern district of Texas, says he has jurisdiction over a case involving a man who has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of running a virtual currency Ponzi scheme.

The judge disagreed with contentions by Trendon T. Shavers that funds associated with his website called Bitcoin Savings and Trust shouldn’t be considered as securities because bitcoin isn’t considered to be money.

“It is clear that Bitcoin can be used as money,” the judge wrote in an opinion issued on Monday. He noted that the virtual currency can be used to buy goods and services and exchanged for traditional currencies.

“Therefore, Bitcoin is a currency or form of money and investors wishing to invest in (Bitcoin Savings and Trust) provided an investment of money,” he wrote.

The SEC last month charged Shavers, 30 years old, with raising more than $4.5 million worth of bitcoin from investors who were “falsely” promised a weekly interest rate of 7%.

Shavers couldn’t be reached for comment.

[vokain]

Bullish press, I'm okay with that even if misleading.

A US Federal judge in Texas just ruled that Bitcoin is in fact, a currency.

~BCX~

No, that is not what they ruled.

Yes that's exactly what the Judge ruled today.

http://www.law360.com/articles/462977


http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanmaglich/2013/08/07/court-green-lights-bitcoin-lawsuit-rules-investments-constitute-securities/



~BCX~

first link reads the same as all those news reporting Thailand banning bitcoin drama.  if you read carefully forbe's artile, you will see that court decided against Shaver's claims that BTCST did not operate in investment securities and did not fall under SEC jurisdiction, which court decided against. The Judge simply recognized Bitcoin being as a form of money which can be used in investment securities, exchanged for traditional currencies and to buy goods and services with it.  There were no official ruling on whether Bitcoin is legally defined as a currency or not.

in other thread you mentioned Liberty Dollars and that there is a bunch of laws designed specifically for currencies inclining that bitcoiners may be in trouble with this 'precedent' for making their own money. Firstly you dismiss the fact that US does not prohibit private currencies, there are few that exists and function today in the US. Secondly bitcoin does not try to compete with and look closely resembling with legal tender for which LD got in trouble; there are no single entity issuing Bitcoins and no single miner has control over bitcoin's production mechanism and clearly do not fall under any currency counterfeiting laws that protect USD.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

Andrew Laurus ‏@frankieterrier                           5h[ours ago]

received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re:Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled.

Quick! Somebody pass me a towel. I'm about to cum.

[vokain]

https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

Andrew Laurus ‏@frankieterrier                           5h[ours ago]

received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re:Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled.

Quick! Somebody pass me a towel. I'm about to cum.

how can you sue someone...who doesn't even really exist 

[vokain]

tl;dr http://www.teribuhl.com/2013/08/06/the-mess-the-wsj-made-famed-trader-joe-lewis-not-investing-in-bitcoins/
Aug 6 RT on Andrew Laurus's twitter "How @HarrietAgnew , Robin Sidel, and WSJ editors made a mess of the Joe Lewis BTC story"

[Phinnaeus Gage]

https://twitter.com/frankieterrier

Andrew Laurus ‏@frankieterrier                           5h[ours ago]

received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re:Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled.

Quick! Somebody pass me a towel. I'm about to cum.

how can you sue someone...who doesn't even really exist  

Exactly!

Here's another account where FT changed his name. A quick search for M16LTD will show that he expressed himself the same way Mo Azeel did on his Twitter account, but later deleted the posts.

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HHcVq2RHglh0bTGZNktBA?feature=c4-feed-c

[vokain]

what a kook

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Here's Danny Ashton's Twitter account: https://twitter.com/dannyashton

I'm surprised he's not following a single Bitcoiner.

[vokain]

Phinn, do you peruse these guys manually or do you have some neat detective tool? because I truly admire your perseverance!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Phinn, do you peruse these guys manually or do you have some neat detective tool? because I truly admire your perseverance!

I paid closed to $20K for the program I use.

[vokain]

Phinn, do you peruse these guys manually or do you have some neat detective tool? because I truly admire your perseverance!

I paid closed to $20K for the program I use.

Our very own resident private eye! Let's see you scammers mess with us with this sort of power on our side!

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Phinn, do you peruse these guys manually or do you have some neat detective tool? because I truly admire your perseverance!

I paid closed to $20K for the program I use.

Our very own resident private eye! Let's see you scammers mess with us with this sort of power on our side!

I currently have it overclocked, and look what it spit out: https://twitter.com/neomammalian

NeoMam Studios @neomammalian

UK infographic design firm tweeting regularly about design, promotion, SEO, content marketing and whatever gets our heart racing.

Manchester, UK · neomam.com

I had to add a few more fans to the device last week to keep it Cool Running.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Phinn, do you peruse these guys manually or do you have some neat detective tool? because I truly admire your perseverance!

I paid closed to $20K for the program I use.

Our very own resident private eye! Let's see you scammers mess with us with this sort of power on our side!

To show off its hashing power some more: http://news-by-design.com/who-invented-bitcoin/

[johnyj]

"Andrew Laurus ‏@frankieterrier 11h

received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re:Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled."

I guess that swiss based phoenix fund is true, so some kind of project is on going anyway

[pisces1999]

Smells like bullshit to me. I think the Bitcoin Examiner article is wrong and then WSJ just copied it and spruced it up a bit.

[Ytterbium]

"Andrew Laurus ‏@frankieterrier 11h

received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re:Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled."

I guess that swiss based phoenix fund is true, so some kind of project is on going anyway

I guess "Andrew Laurus" is a bullshit artist who was trying to scam people.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

"Andrew Laurus ‏@frankieterrier 11h

received today communication from #joelewis lawyers Alston & Bird LLP Atlanta / re:Phoenix fund will postpone comment until matter settled."

I guess that swiss based phoenix fund is true, so some kind of project is on going anyway

I guess "Andrew Laurus" is a bullshit artist who was trying to scam people.

Moreover the PR team behind the Andrew Laurus Twitter account. I contend that the WSJ article was by design and not a mistake.

[JohannSummers]

Is this what the fuss was about?  "Phoenix Technologies Announces Production of Bitcoin Mining Hardware
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/phoenix-technologies-announces-production-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware-302555.htm

[giszmo]

Is this what the fuss was about?  "Phoenix Technologies Announces Production of Bitcoin Mining Hardware
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/phoenix-technologies-announces-production-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware-302555.htm

Hi Sockpuppet,

no, this link is new. If you want to get our attention, get at least any of those thousands of "Phoenix Technologies" to post it on their site and not some sbwire …
I tried to find the logo and found out that tineye.com is particularly bad at finding text-logos.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Is this what the fuss was about?  "Phoenix Technologies Announces Production of Bitcoin Mining Hardware
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/phoenix-technologies-announces-production-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware-302555.htm

Hi Sockpuppet,

no, this link is new. If you want to get our attention, get at least any of those thousands of "Phoenix Technologies" to post it on their site and not some sbwire …
I tried to find the logo and found out that tineye.com is particularly bad at finding text-logos.

Finally, a ASIC-based company I can believe in. As in, I believe they've acquired part of that logo elsewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Television



Ergo, anybody ordering from them deserves what they get--NOTHING!

[MrHempstock]

I've already pre-ordered several X5s. 

[worldinacoin]

How do they manage to get such a huge and prestigious online paper to publish in the first place?

[JohannSummers]

Is this what the fuss was about?  "Phoenix Technologies Announces Production of Bitcoin Mining Hardware
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/phoenix-technologies-announces-production-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware-302555.htm

Hi Sockpuppet,

no, this link is new. If you want to get our attention, get at least any of those thousands of "Phoenix Technologies" to post it on their site and not some sbwire …
I tried to find the logo and found out that tineye.com is particularly bad at finding text-logos.

Hi Reactionary.

I'm acutely aware that the "press release" from Phoenix Technologies is new. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my question.

How about this: Given the line of reasoning that there was an effort to plant the WSJ article by some sort of firm potentially involving "Andrew Laurus," could the objective have been to create an atmosphere where there's news hype for businesses with the key words of "mining" and "Phoenix?"

Or given that it was directed at the post immediately preceding mine(yes, I've read all ten pages several times), maybe I should have gone with "Yo, Phinneaus, where does this goofy company fit into your findings?"

Or if you prefer, "Sockpuppet." At least I have a title now.

[giszmo]

Is this what the fuss was about?  "Phoenix Technologies Announces Production of Bitcoin Mining Hardware
http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/phoenix-technologies-announces-production-of-bitcoin-mining-hardware-302555.htm

Hi Sockpuppet,

no, this link is new. If you want to get our attention, get at least any of those thousands of "Phoenix Technologies" to post it on their site and not some sbwire …
I tried to find the logo and found out that tineye.com is particularly bad at finding text-logos.

Hi Reactionary.

I'm acutely aware that the "press release" from Phoenix Technologies is new. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my question.

How about this: Given the line of reasoning that there was an effort to plant the WSJ article by some sort of firm potentially involving "Andrew Laurus," could the objective have been to create an atmosphere where there's news hype for businesses with the key words of "mining" and "Phoenix?"

Or given that it was directed at the post immediately preceding mine(yes, I've read all ten pages several times), maybe I should have gone with "Yo, Phinneaus, where does this goofy company fit into your findings?"

Or if you prefer, "Sockpuppet." At least I have a title now.

Hey, sorry, you most likely didn't deserve my negative reply. Newbies being the first to find "interesting" links just is too common here. It screams sock puppet but I guess in your case I was wrong.