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

[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