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

[vokain]

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

[1714909975]

1714909975

[1714909975]

1714909975

[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