Distribution of bitcoin wealth by owner

[Vlad2Vlad]

LTC?  Ethereum?

Doomed from genesis.

And Bitcoin will turn very political [with China and Russia secretly hoarding it] later this year which will eventually be its downfall [in a few years].

The unfortunate and inherent problem with techies, which makes up 99.9% of this Forum, is that they understand very little about money and what it would take to build and distribute a successful global crypto-currency.

Your crypto logic is hence on the same linear fault as everyone else.

But don't worry, Wall Street will be here, as I predicted last year, within 1 to 2 quarters; to promptly relieve the computer guys from their acting jobs as bankers and monetary analysts.

And then the engineers will hopefully begin to understand what's really happening here and what a global currency is supposed to be.

Good luck to you and LTC, and Ethereum, etc....

Regards...

You need the techies, but you also need the marketing guys and the financiers, mtgox should have use more techies and more financiers..

Bitcoin will become huge when the dollar will crash and when the Yen, € and £ will also drop in value sharply; it shouldn't be too far away, 6months? One year? Maybe two years? Bitcoin also need to become user friendly and safe, having a tech giant getting involve in Bitcoin and a few big institutions creating easy wallets could obviously help a lot

If a Hong Kong bank was to create an Alt coin backed by gold it could get a lot of traction but it doesn't mean Bitcoin will disappear

It will disappear because the end game is one global currency but it will be a multi year battle before Bitcoin gives up its soul and lies with Napster and MyFace. lol.

Of course you need techies, this is a tech currency but when  evaluating and analyzing which currency will become global, you need economists for that, not techies.  The hard part of the tech has been done, all these silly features are a non-event as they can be copy and pasted to any coin [open source].

Bankers will largely ignore that which all these techies place as the number 1 priority and they will instead look at security and ease of mass adoption [time and energy required to fool all the idiots on the planet to switch from worthless paper to worthless virtual].

And when you look at this game from that perspective, 99%+ of the coins ever created all of a sudden become a worthless impossibility. 

They don't stand a chance, not even the most popular and especially not coins like Litecoin.

And yes, the dollar, yen, euro, etc will be dead or near death by September 2015.  I even chose an exact date and made a shirt to wear for the celebration party:  9/1415.  That date is right on many different levels but I do realize that choosing an exact date for an economic collapse 28 months in advance is a nearly impossible feat, but it should be fun to see if it actually happens or if I'm at least close.

Because it's not a question of if, but rather when.

[FenixRD]

LTC?  Ethereum?

Doomed from genesis.

And Bitcoin will turn very political [with China and Russia secretly hoarding it] later this year which will eventually be its downfall [in a few years].

The unfortunate and inherent problem with techies, which makes up 99.9% of this Forum, is that they understand very little about money and what it would take to build and distribute a successful global crypto-currency.

Your crypto logic is hence on the same linear fault as everyone else.

But don't worry, Wall Street will be here, as I predicted last year, within 1 to 2 quarters; to promptly relieve the computer guys from their acting jobs as bankers and monetary analysts.

And then the engineers will hopefully begin to understand what's really happening here and what a global currency is supposed to be.

Good luck to you and LTC, and Ethereum, etc....

Regards...

LTC is an improvement on BTC in many ways (though the symmetry of scrypt in validating the chain is its primary downfall, long-term). But the improvements are too trivial to make it a successor. It's a good silver, though, which is really all it ever claimed to be. You can't just be "sorta better in a few ways" to oust an incumbent technology, when we're dealing with network-effect propagation. IXC even more so. We don't care about LTC, per se.

And Ethereum is still in development. This forum, in 2010, when Satoshi frequented still, would have been in love. Maybe not then, because it takes the evolution of knowledge over these few years, but the participants, back in the glory days where the average forum IQ was probably 165, are all either involved or awaiting it with silent optimism. Satoshi included, if he's alive. But we'll see. The real Bitcoin devotees aren't religious about the brand name. We're religious about the underlying tech, where the first killer app was a p2p cryptocurrency that avoided the double-spend problem. There's a lot more coming.

Your reflexive response, and display of a lack of knowkedge, and an interest in only the brand all but guarantees that you're just going to be along for the ride. You're in the right place so you'll have a nice seat for the show, but your so-called opinions are too simple to be useful.

[FenixRD]

I approached the situation as an Economist and looking for what I knew the banks and govts would look for:   The One Global currency.

And I did it with Bitcoin in mind as there will be stark similarities just like all the techs before it.

With all of these things in mind I researched and studied all of the coins before and after iXcoin and I found them all seriously lacking in one or more areas.  With ixCoin however, the deeper I looked the more perfect and flawless I found it to be for the task at hand.  Most cannot see this because they look for popularity or features which can be so easily copied and pasted yet nobody seems to understand this simple point.

And after my research I followed my conviction and bought heavily into iXcoin and along the way kept testing it against all the new CrapCoins which came out - a task I still do today.  

So I am not in iXcoin for name, popularity or features - I'm invested because it is as clear as day to me that it is a perfect match for what Wall Street will want when they show up very very soon.

So we will soon find out if I'm really crazy as many have said I am or if economists really do understand money better than engineers.

But to be safe, why not diversify?  Not for me of course, I'm throughly convinced enough to be all-in into iXcoin.  

I just skimmed the IXC page (from 2011). You're either the most misguided self-declared "economist" I've ever met or a terrible troll.

IXC is described on its own page as an exact clone of BTC, but with a linear mining rate terminating in 2015 with all 21M coins. (In choosing a 1WC from the existing cryptos, if we ignore the conspiracy side, why would they have to choose one which had finished being mined?)

Hilariously, this was chosen to "beat Bitcoin" and they describe Bitcoin as having an also-constant 50/block release ending in 2033 with 21M. This is of course incorrect, as Bitcoin release is not linear but an inverse exponential stairstep, ending nominally in 2140 with only a few satoshis per block. Since they had to fork BTC and recode the release formula in it, it is almost unfathomable that this could have been anything other than a deliberate and malicious misstatement of facts in an attempt at deception. It's a scumcoin (useless clone with no improvements), and probably was also the first scamcoin, though only a mildly deceptive one.

Do not reply to this thread again. (1), it's moderated by rpietila who will prune the whole thing, rightfully; this nonsense is shitting it up long enough already. But because you may simply be misguided: if you wish to speak further you may PM me. If you have legitimate curiosities I will be happy to assist. Because (2), regardless of any ad hominems you may choose to effluviate after this post, I will not reply, out of respect for #1.

—J

[Vlad2Vlad]

If Bitcoin becomes uncontested, gold may experience a decline of value. Also silver may experience spikes. We continue to live in a world of uncertainty so the best bet is to distribute the bets in the ratio of your choosing.

Bitcoin is about to be contested.

In a big way.

[Adrian-x]

If Bitcoin becomes uncontested, gold may experience a decline of value. Also silver may experience spikes. We continue to live in a world of uncertainty so the best bet is to distribute the bets in the ratio of your choosing.

Bitcoin is about to be contested.

In a big way.

this is the logical conclusion can you give insight on how?

[AnonyMint]

I claim the OP is currently wrong. I don't believe there are 2 million Bitcoin users at this time.

How can you possible know the number of people in any category since lots of people can easily have more than 1 wallet?

That is why the thread is so long because we do research, not just copypaste numbers.

I have re-read the entire thread and collected all the relevant comments as follows.

edit: Ah, as I was writing, I remembered that average remaining investment was calculated with bitcoin price of $100 instead of the current $200. This makes the total number of bitcoin users 350,000, which I think is very realistic considering other metrics.

This was the figure I heard last year and seems to be more realistic when you factor in my analysis below.

They also didn't take into account that wealthy bitcoin owners break up their wealth among many smaller accounts, and they linked a bunch of addresses together with the assumption that if one address sends money to another, both belong to the same person, despite the transaction possibly being between two people.

All wallets are in a sense personal wallets.  Wallets that exchanges use "belong" to the exchange and the exchange owes users BTC upon demand that they might pay or not.  So those wallets are more concentrated and large owners wallets are more distributed.  Perhaps it averages out.  I don't think bitcoin will somehow negate the laws of human interaction.  BTC will flow from incompetent users to competent ones so concentration much like with other wealth is unavoidable.

I invalidate the above by noting at least Coinbase, Blockinfo, and Localbitcoins allow users to create multiple (unlimited) new receive addresses with the click of a button.

- My gut feeling is that number of bitcoin holders was estimated a little too small last time - an analysis of Bitcoin client and wallet software userbases, (Rassah!   ) plus Coinbase users, Bittiraha.fi users and Localbitcoins activity, and new user count in exchanges, is what we need to find more reliable figures.

In Japan, 週刊新潮 (Shukan Shincho, a weekly news magazine/tabloid) published a section on Bitcoin this week featuring an interview with a MtGox rep. The rep said that they have 720,000 users, of which 400,000 are active/frequent, and that 20% of their users are Chinese, up from 4% in April.

OK. I think for Mt.Gox, the "active" number 400,000 is what we should use. The total number possibly includes also accounts that have not been funded + the ones that have been emptied (and abandoned). The ratio of "active":"total" is about the same as in Silvervault.

Then we know that Localbitcoins has 120,000 accounts, with a growth rate of 2.5% per day. If you just buy from any of the merchants, you do not need to register afaik, so the total number of users could be larger. On the other hand, LB has quite many accounts with zero trades, since it has grown so rapidly. Perhaps 80,000 users would be a good estimate.  

Coinbase has 488,000 customer wallets. The number is probably "total", in which case about 300,000 would have a balance.

BTC China has to have quite many accounts, but I did not find the information publicly. Help!

Bitstamp ditto!

Number of Bitcoin clients downloaded is 4,350,000 over 5 years. How many of these is in use?

MyWallets (blockchain.info wallet) walletcount is 690,000.

Bitcoin network has used 11,462,000 addresses, of which 600,000 (exact) have non-dust (>1mBTC) balance.

Then there are other exchanges and wallet services, which you can add if you find nice figures.

In my understanding, the Bitcoin ledger (address usage and balance distribution), currently sets the upper limit for bitcoin number of users. Especially considering that 1mBTC only 2 months ago was only $0.13 or so, most of these accounts are not the sole acconts of bitcoin holders. On the other hand, most of the larger accounts

We need to evaluate, how many users should be added who only use exchanges for storing their bitcoins. This increases the total number.

On the other hand, there is a huge overlap in the numbers, since I alone have 8 accounts in the abovementioned sites only + several addresses with balance in the ledger.

Now, please try to keep this on-topic so that we get the december figures out.  

My experience from the software download industry is only about 5% of downloads become users, due to repeat downloads for same user, failed downloads (but recorded as downloaded), curiosity only, etc. So 4.4 million x 0.05 = 220,000. The rate might be a little higher since Bitcoin is a very serious tool.

I created a few localbitcoin wallets and I am not even serious about Bitcoin (possession of less than 5 BTC which isn't even mine). You note the overlap in your case too. How can a wallet receive external Bitcoin sends if the wallet does not have an address that has been used? So obviously given the 600,000 non-dust address, then many of those online wallets have never received any Bitcoin sends, and were I guess loaded with fiat exchange. Do we even know how many have 0 balances, i.e. were created but never funded? When Mt.Gox says 400,000 active, does active mean has a balance or user has signed in recently (I will assume the later since companies have an incentive to pump up their importance)?

Given all the major online (potentially off-coin) services mentioned add up to maybe 2+ million with some unknown divisor > 1 and < 10 and the number of non-dust on-chain addresses are 600,000, it seems the true number of users is still less than 1 million.

It seems reasonable when factoring in several billion people in underdeveloped countries which have no use for Bitcoin yet, nor are investors, that only 1 in 10,000 of all people on earth are Bitcoin users, i.e. 7 billion divided by 10,000  = 700,000 users.

By user I assume we mean someone holding a balance denominated in BTC which they have not abandoned and long since forgotten about. This an important distinction, because then we can eliminate all addresses with less than 0.01 BTC from the count of users at the current price < $1000 per BTC.

also i think the number of people who hold .1 of a btc or whatever is not many. if someone is going to get into btc only a few people are going to stop at .1 btw or less.

So I would estimate the current number of bitcoin users at 1,500,000 at the bare minimum, and more likely closer to 2.9 to 3.25 mil.

That was also my original estimate, but it is unrealistic because then most of the accounts would need to be too small to be bothered.

None who reads this has a small bitcoin balance, but do you even know of people who have, say, less than BTC1?

I knew at least 4 who have just BTC1. Some of them wanted to see what it was and just bought BTC1 to play around with, others got BTC1 on a paper wallet as a gift and still have it. Not sure about those who have less than 1BTC. I suspect there may be a few newbies with that amount, if they were only comfortable putting about $100 into it to start.

After delving into this matter in the last 1-2 days, I am tempted to drastically reduce the total number of bitcoin users, because I haven't found the mechanism that actually would have produced millions of sub-BTC1 holders so far. The number of investors will likely stay quite much the same after the update.

It looks from this like several million will be the correct figure.

I heard that only about 3 million bitcoin addresses are used. I would say that the number of addresses > number of users.

Myself, I have used dozens of addresses, and don't consider to be a heavy user of addresses.

[AnonyMint]

The concentration of wealth in Bitcoin means it is not yet a currency. The wealthy don't store their wealth in base money, rather in investments that can appreciate.  The concentration of wealth must entirely leave Bitcoin for it to be a currency (the masses have a different distribution curve than the wealthy [1]). Eventually that will happen and Bitcoin will be left with its currency use valuation. Hopefully it will be a gradual transition (via rpietila's rake) and not an abrupt exit when the number of new "users" (greater fools) can't increase. So far it looks more like that the latter outcome.

[1] Dragulescu & Yakovenko. Exponential and power-law probability distributions of wealth and income in the United Kingdom and the United States

I really like that you point out the dramatic fall in purchasing power silver has experienced over the millennia. That separates you from the goldbugs.

I'm thinking the same will happen with gold now that bitcoin is here. And due to faster evolution it will probably not take hundreds of years but tens of years. What are your thoughts on that?

The purchasing power of the physical monetary stock of gold may actually go up. The paper gold charade will be destroyed along with dollar and all fiat currencies, which leaves only physical gold. At present, people think they collectively hold more gold that there is, which is one reason to gold's cheap price vs. the dollar, but the market cap (7T) is generally estimated using the actual stock. (Otherwise it would be maybe 70T which is not bad at all.)

If Bitcoin becomes uncontested, gold may experience a decline of value. Also silver may experience spikes. We continue to live in a world of uncertainty so the best bet is to distribute the bets in the ratio of your choosing.

Gold may rise relative to fiat, but fiat may be collapsing relative to crypto-currency, thus a relative fall in purchasing power for Gold (to below its purchasing power at the peak in 1980 yet higher than it is now on current dip). I am becoming more and more amenable to that being a distinct possibility.

Gold is more useful for transporting value over larger distances, something crypto-currency does better. Whereas, silver is more useful for local barter, something crypto-currency does less well because a) it can't function where the recipient doesn't have a computer+internet, b) not everyone has an account, c) it isn't as convenient in physical trading, else the slimy hands of the fish vendor doesn't want to touch a smartphone while serving multiple customers multitasking. Although gold could serve this function with very small coins, silver is relatively undervalued based on available supply, thus silver will be more widely held and thus more recognized as a barter currency. Thus most people will want to have silver since it will be more widely accepted. This assumes we continue to see socialism failing into disorderly outcome where we need to use something other than fiat. Silver would of course be more volatile due to its much smaller market cap and also the disorderly outcome needed to drive demand for it in local barter.

Thus I see silver rising in purchasing power and gold falling (relative to 1980 levels), should decentralized crypto-currency become very ubiquitous and we continue to see socialism failing into disorderly outcome.

However, should the elite succeed with stabilizing fiat with a global SDR unit backed with a basket that includes national currencies and gold, then gold would reassert its relative value to silver, although fiat would then rise much in value again. But I don't see this before 2032 roughly.

[FenixRD]

The concentration of wealth in Bitcoin means it is not yet a currency. The wealthy don't store their wealth in base money, rather in investments that can appreciate.  The concentration of wealth must entirely leave Bitcoin for it to be a currency (the masses have a different distribution curve than the wealthy [1]). Eventually that will happen and Bitcoin will be left with its currency use valuation. Hopefully it will be a gradual transition (via rpietila's rake) and not an abrupt exit when the number of new "users" (greater fools) can't increase. So far it looks more like that the latter outcome.

[1] Dragulescu & Yakovenko. Exponential and power-law probability distributions of wealth and income in the United Kingdom and the United States

I really like that you point out the dramatic fall in purchasing power silver has experienced over the millennia. That separates you from the goldbugs.

I'm thinking the same will happen with gold now that bitcoin is here. And due to faster evolution it will probably not take hundreds of years but tens of years. What are your thoughts on that?

The purchasing power of the physical monetary stock of gold may actually go up. The paper gold charade will be destroyed along with dollar and all fiat currencies, which leaves only physical gold. At present, people think they collectively hold more gold that there is, which is one reason to gold's cheap price vs. the dollar, but the market cap (7T) is generally estimated using the actual stock. (Otherwise it would be maybe 70T which is not bad at all.)

If Bitcoin becomes uncontested, gold may experience a decline of value. Also silver may experience spikes. We continue to live in a world of uncertainty so the best bet is to distribute the bets in the ratio of your choosing.

Gold may rise relative to fiat, but fiat may be collapsing relative to crypto-currency, thus a relative fall in purchasing power for Gold (to below its purchasing power at the peak in 1980 yet higher than it is now on current dip). I am becoming more and more amenable to that being a distinct possibility.

Gold is more useful for transporting value over larger distances, something crypto-currency does better. Whereas, silver is more useful for local barter, something crypto-currency does less well because a) it can't function where the recipient doesn't have a computer+internet, b) not everyone has an account, c) it isn't as convenient in physical trading, else the slimy hands of the fish vendor doesn't want to touch a smartphone while serving multiple customers multitasking. Although gold could serve this function with very small coins, silver is relatively undervalued based on available supply, thus silver will be more widely held and thus more recognized as a barter currency. Thus most people will want to have silver since it will be more widely accepted. This assumes we continue to see socialism failing into disorderly outcome where we need to use something other than fiat. Silver would of course be more volatile due to its much smaller market cap and also the disorderly outcome needed to drive demand for it in local barter.

Thus I see silver rising in purchasing power and gold falling (relative to 1980 levels), should decentralized crypto-currency become very ubiquitous and we continue to see socialism failing into disorderly outcome.

However, should the elite succeed with stabilizing fiat with a global SDR unit backed with a basket that includes national currencies and gold, then gold would reassert its relative value to silver, although fiat would then rise much in value again. But I don't see this before 2032 roughly.

The dates are always interesting to me, because most of the 2031, 2032 era claims usually stem from conspiratorial NWO stuff, and Occam's razor forbids me from believing in a small cabal of brilliant humans conspiring to commit evil (which itself seems a paradox). There are a lot of "but..."s to my assertion, there, however. And, who knows, I may as yet have missed the data that will turn on the light bulb and open my eyes.

In any case, any hints of NWO aside, I agree entirely with your reasoning throughout. With an "iphone of cryptocurrency" (I don't mean a phone, just a slick device that unifies the ecosystem pleasantly) we will see cryptos give silver and other regular means of in-person, in-store commerce a run for its money, IMO.

Regarding the post prior, I'll leave the user base debate to rpietela. I wouldn't be disappointed to find we had vastly overestimated the userbase, though. That only means good things for the market cap when we hit the next rush for adoption.

[Vlad2Vlad]

We are entering a hyper phase of technology where new tech is greatly accelerated by big money, special interests (including governments) and the social effect which was not around for the dot com boom.

Crypto money will be developed and pushed by all of the above (no production or logistical restraints with crypto money ensures Hyper Growth without precedent) which is why I said last year that Bitcoin et al (the crypto industry) will be far more explosive and far bigger (and a bigger bubble) than the Internet itself.

That means many millionaires can be minted here (and in a fraction of the time, in mere months instead if decades) but most will choose to sell for a measly 10 fold when they could have had a mind numbing 1000+ fold.


That being said, BTC and one other crypto will reach critical mass and there will be one global currency way before 2032, but at first there will be a 2 CryptoCoin global battle but only one will win.

...and they will be brothers.

And yes, there is a cabal which tries to dominate the world but they have road blocks, few left, which require manipulation and more time than sometimes anticipated.  But such issues are quickly being eliminated with each [artificial] revolution and cloned government they plant.  Israel will be the very last stronghold which they will try but fail to remove.

The next Bitcoin is already here - it has to be, as [with any new technology] it needs time to be tested and perfected. 

Choose your coins wisely and don't blink!

[sawani]

bitcoin is strong but very very tiny. imagine it being strong and big/mainstream. every single bitcoin owner will have a blast.

[Vlad2Vlad]

bitcoin is strong but very very tiny. imagine it being strong and big/mainstream. every single bitcoin owner will have a blast.

Bitcoin going to $3,000-$5,000 by summer and easily to $10,000 by year's end.

The catalysts in the pipe for Bitcoin are many and some are very massive.

[AnonyMint]

MoonShadow claims 1 million Coinbase accounts versus the 488,000 figure I quoted from upthread.

However, Coinbase has seen its relative popularity rise like a rocket, so this could be existing users and not new ones. Also Coinbase's feature to email BTC to a non-Bitcoin user may be causing the creation of accounts. But are these really Bitcoin users then, i.e. are they sticky on Bitcoin or just cash out their accounts?

[skibe]

How can you possible know the number of people in any category since lots of people can easily have more than 1 wallet?

That is why the thread is so long because we do research, not just copypaste numbers.

 

[slfmde]

Infographic using the data provide by OP: http://www.landmarkcash.com/articles/bitcoin-wealth-distribution.html

http://s12.postimg.org/6yfnsa2hl/bitcoin_wealth_distribution.jpg

[FenixRD]

Infographic using the data provide by OP: http://www.landmarkcash.com/articles/bitcoin-wealth-distribution.html

Very nice. (Nitpick: If you get a sec, please edit your post and replace the image with the thumbnail+link I created for this reply. If you quote my reply, you'll see where I edited it. But excellent contribution all the same, thanks!)

[thatbluedude]

Call me dumb, but I don't understand this green & blue graph.

ur dumb
ignore picure, read data
bottom 40% own 0.24% off all bitcoins
bottom 60% own 1.34% off all bitcoins
bottom 80% own 2.7% off all bitcoins
richest 20% own 95% off all bitcoins
richest 10% own 92% off all bitcoins
the 1% own 76% off all bitcoins
makes sense to you?
tl,dr: the bitcoin 1% own a much bigger piece of the bitcoin pie than the dollar 1% do off the dollar pie

[Adrian-x]

tl,dr: the bitcoin 1% own a much bigger piece of the bitcoin pie than the dollar 1% do off the dollar pie

I like your tl;dr, this was a big concern for me but to put it in perspective it isn't as bad as the status quo.

The Bitcoin rich don't own 60% of revenue generating business like the 1% today (Bitcoin is static and needs active participation to create value as opposed to TPTB (aka the 1%) they extract value.

The value of Bitcoin is voluntarily given, the Bitcoin Mega rich can't materializes there Bitcoin wealth if they do the price goes down and there net worth diminishes. This is a feature not a problem, (so hold untill the bad actors lose all there coins)

Individuals can erode the Bitcoin wealth by saving, that isn't possible with fiat (you are on a treadmill)

Once that graph looks more like a bell curve we'll start to see price stability.

For now price volitility is the mechanism necessary to help optimize Bitcoin distribution  to the true believes.

[FenixRD]

I agree with Vlad that the 750K coins may now be in the hands of the NSA or other powerful entity and can be used at-will to create a selling panic.

Now you see TPTB are going to play this game with every weapon in their arsenal.

I expect major downside as the contemplation of this (whether true or not) can wreck major doubts now on the value and reliability of Bitcoin. The tx malleability bug will cause people to doubt whether Bitcoin doesn't have other bugs that can cause the loss of 750,000 coins.

Also it now gives Bitcoin the reputation of being riddled with widespread fraud. Mt.Gox was Bitcoin for most of Bitcoin's life.

$300 and below looks realistic. Wasn't that your prediction for the low rpietila?

The deer are stunned in the headlights. Once the gravity of this sinks in and how long it will take to recover the brand again, I expect capitulation from all the speculative holders. Only the diehards will have the resolve to hold long-term.

Also Bitcoin will be hit with very serious competition over the next few months coming from more than one very innovative altcoins that totally change what cryptographic decentralization is all about. Currency was too small of a paradigm.

Regulation will come fast&furious now (see announcements from NY and Canada).

This could end up being like the fall of silver from $49 to $18 since 2011.

I see people writing it will be at $45,000 next year. So much irrational exuberance. Need capitulation first before a bottom.

Rulers and thieves alike used to plunder regions for gold and treasures; it was even romanticized. This still occurs, but the Bitcoin demographic tends toward heists and cat burglary. We're not much for violence, even the thieves. At least the species is evolving.

The only Bitcoin challenger I see is Ethereum. (Zerocoin is worth watching, at least, too.) I'll be using it extensively unless something goes terribly wrong. Whether I use it to create Bitcoin transactions and contracts, or whether the market finds it easier to just use Ether itself as currency, or a hybrid, I neither know nor care. The products and services will work just fine regardless, which shall speak for themselves. There's no way to establish a solid support for underlying value until a couple killer apps suck in large swatch a of people who will become unwilling to live without it, as the internet is viewed.

Meantime, we just get to keep an eye on the climate to avoid falling victim to any adverse movements. (Not even that difficult.) Keep calm and form startups.

[FenixRD]

You guys will have to redo your distribution curve.

750,000 BTC were cleverly transferred [not lost] from lucky but clueless bitcoin millionaires [on Gox] to JP Morgan, Goldman and the Federal Reserve.

And in the next 24-48 hours I expect a media FUD storm to create panic and capitulation by more lemmings which will further redistribute [another 500,000 Bitcoins] from investors to the same SmartMoney giants who orchestrated the entire Mt Gox debacle.

There goes another Bitcoin foundation board seat, like I said last week.

2 board seats in 30 days [going to Fed/NSA puppets].

Who's next to go?

My bet:  We'll find out in 30-60 days.

Why are ixcoins immune from the abovementioned tactics?

They only go after valuable stuff...

iXcoin is not immune.  It's simply not a real player yet.  Any coin looking at a potential future global currency will be hi-jacked by banks, the Govt and the Fed.  I said this last year yet nobody thought banks and govts had any care or interest in Bitcoin or digital money.  I was shocked to hear everyone d calling me crazy for feeling that way.

So if iXcoin ever goes where I think it will, then I may end up getting the Shrem or Karpeles treatment [since I'm probably the largest and loudest holder].

A lot going on behind the veil of secrecy which we know nothing about.  There's a massive global sea of change being created by BTC and Cryptos, it's naive to think the powers that be will sit by idly, seeding control to a bunch of nobodies.

I just wanna make some good, err, great amount of money; I have no illusions as to who is gonna end up owning and running whatever currency ends up being "The One", and I have no intention to get in their way and end up with a self inflicted nail gun death wound or God knows what else they'll think of next.

Well, IXC is rather bland and lacking iterative improvements so I don't know why it should catch on (absence of bad press, perhaps?). But as long as it is not flawed crypto, I'll use it I guess, unless there's a good reason not to. I really don't see a way for there to be a "one". There may be a global currency, but if it has the correct properties, it won't matter that TPTB use it; likewise, the cryptocurrency genie is out of the bottle. The existence of a centrally-controlled, heavily-manipulated world cryptocurrency doesn't mean anyone will use it except when in places where it's dangerous not to. I've a feeling peephole will use what they like.

By the time anyone starts nailgunning anyone, or whatever, we'll either be a spacefaring species or someone or a group will pop up like Neo to counterbalance the system's Smith. Next thing you know, We have an actual trillionaire superhero, which will logically be Satoshi or another early coiner. Maybe it'll be me, making an arc reactor in my basement. (Refer to my avatar if confused.)

Necessity compels invention, and my gut feeling isn't that we go extinct. Therefore, one of these things or something also amazing, will happen.

[Vlad2Vlad]

You guys will have to redo your distribution curve.

750,000 BTC were cleverly transferred [not lost] from lucky but clueless bitcoin millionaires [on Gox] to JP Morgan, Goldman and the Federal Reserve.

And in the next 24-48 hours I expect a media FUD storm to create panic and capitulation by more lemmings which will further redistribute [another 500,000 Bitcoins] from investors to the same SmartMoney giants who orchestrated the entire Mt Gox debacle.

There goes another Bitcoin foundation board seat, like I said last week.

2 board seats in 30 days [going to Fed/NSA puppets].

Who's next to go?

My bet:  We'll find out in 30-60 days.

The Chinese just love a bargain, and they have a history of doing this type of thing.
(crashing markets and buying cheap)
I'll try dig something out if I find time...

I was certain that China and Russia were secretly amassing BTC but I thought the Gox job was our Fed and maybe JP Morgan and Goldman; trying to play catchup.

I'm still trying to figure out if Karpeles was part of the game or if he truly can be this stupid and arrogant.