I just increased the value of your coins.

[cbeast]

P2P social currency is the next big thing and everyone knows it. Bitcoin is the next Master Charge when people realize how accessible it is compared to debit cards. It will take time. If you lost your stash, just buy one bitcoin and hold it for a few years and see. It is a cheap gamble, but the odds are high of bitcoin's success.

[dancupid]

Mt.Gox already seems to be slowly positioning itself for the future - I suspect most people who use bitcoins in the future won't even know that bitcoins were used to transfer value. Bitcoin is a protocol of value transfer.
The mt.gox code mechanism can already be used to move funds to a top up debit card (https://www.aurumxchange.com/), and you can already move currency on mt.gox between 15 different currencies.
If you want to pay a Chinese seller the cheapest way in the world right now is to use mt.gox (hence they have a Hong Kong bank account).
I doubt the future of bitcoin will involve people actually using bitcoins directly (though it will still remain a niche) - bitcoin will be the intermediate exchange mechanism of choice as it's easily the cheapest.

[Gerken]

Cryptocurrency may go big, but it won't be bitcoin.  The die hard libertarians surrounding it scare most people off.  Extremists of any sort tend to turn people off, even if they make sense. 

[westkybitcoins]

Cryptocurrency may go big, but it won't be bitcoin.  The die hard libertarians surrounding it scare most people off.  Extremists of any sort tend to turn people off, even if they make sense. 

Die hard libertarians will always embrace cryptocurrencies, and will likely flock to whichever is currently the best. Them's the breaks.

[makomk]

Yeah, theoretically you only need to recover 32 bytes.

Yep. Somewhat more than that in practice right now of course, since it's a bit tricky to reliably figure out which 32 bytes you need to recover. (Also I'm lazy; that's why it currently involves a slightly arcane command-line program.)

[julz]

Cryptocurrency may go big, but it won't be bitcoin.  The die hard libertarians surrounding it scare most people off.  Extremists of any sort tend to turn people off, even if they make sense. 

The die hard libertarians are already being diluted by the pragmatists and industrialists in this community.  It's the fact that libertarians are so trollable which keeps them so visible here.
They're a noisy minority - prod them for the hilarity while you still can!

[Shortline]

While this is good news for the immediate future, its stuff like this that makes my skin boil. Bitcoins are kind of like Elves. They rarely come into being, there's a finite number of them and each loss is a tragedy! 

Don't fret.

This is not real life.

To most people this is not even money, and money is nothing.

Not worth boiling your skin over.

[JA37]

Congratulations. I just destroyed my bitcoin stash of about 30 coins due to a brainfart. I transfered my coins to a wallet on another computer and before the backup had a chance to run on that machine I reformatted the drive, destroying my coins.
I hope the value of your coins go up, and I'm officially out of the bitcoin world. It was fun while it lasted.

So you're "officially out of the bitcoin world" because you lost $180 of wealth?  You've posted almost 500 posts... isn't that a bigger investment?

Nah, I just think that the libertarians should have someone from the real world to talk to every now and then. The simplistic view of the world they have must be challenged every now and then, or the circle-jerk becomes self sustaining.

The thing is, when I had a small stash I could experiment, try building small apps and such. Now I have nothing to anchor me to bitcoin and will probably invest my time elsewhere. I might cpu-mine a little on my work machine so in a year or two I'll have a BTC again. And if bitcoin ever becomes the $100000/BTC someone predicted I'll be happy. In the more likely scenario where bitcoins aren't worth any money I've just created a little more heat around my workspace which isn't bad in my climate.

I still think cryptocurrencies are interesting, but I think I'll just wait for googlecoin or something similar to show up. 

[btcbaby]

Congratulations. I just destroyed my bitcoin stash of about 30 coins due to a brainfart. I transfered my coins to a wallet on another computer and before the backup had a chance to run on that machine I reformatted the drive, destroying my coins.
I hope the value of your coins go up, and I'm officially out of the bitcoin world. It was fun while it lasted.

Sorry to see you go

[modrobert]

Congratulations. I just destroyed my bitcoin stash of about 30 coins due to a brainfart. I transfered my coins to a wallet on another computer and before the backup had a chance to run on that machine I reformatted the drive, destroying my coins.
I hope the value of your coins go up, and I'm officially out of the bitcoin world. It was fun while it lasted.

Never give up, never surrender.

[BkkCoins]

Congratulations. I just destroyed my bitcoin stash of about 30 coins due to a brainfart. I transfered my coins to a wallet on another computer and before the backup had a chance to run on that machine I reformatted the drive, destroying my coins.
I hope the value of your coins go up, and I'm officially out of the bitcoin world. It was fun while it lasted.

I don't understand. If you dropped your wallet while out on a boat and it fell in the water and sank... would you give up using money after that?

There's a million ways to lose regular dollars/dinero/yen/euro but it would be pretty weird if you moved to a cave in the jungle and stopped using money because of that.

Better you learn the lesson that any newly created wallet should immediately be backed up / printed out. Also remember that a wallet doesn't hold the value transacted but just the keys. So any previous backup will work for getting keys to transactions made later.

[jonathan]

like maged said:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=25091.0

do it now! I did, and got my btc back.

[payb.tc]

you can already move currency on mt.gox between 15 different currencies.

how exactly do you do that, without going via BTC and paying the spread... twice?

[P4man]

. And if bitcoin ever becomes the $100000/BTC someone predicted I'll be happy.

No you wont. Chances are a bread will cost $1000000 then.

[Gabi]

While this is good news for the immediate future, its stuff like this that makes my skin boil. Bitcoins are kind of like Elves. They rarely come into being, there's a finite number of them and each loss is a tragedy! 

But you can divide a bitcoin as much as you want, while you can't divide an elf 

[Pentium100]

also the 1st land line phones were considers a fad for the rich that would go nowhere. everyone was like, "just who you gonna call, anyway??? hardly anyone else has em."

That is why phones were first advertised as being useful in an emergency - you could call the fire department for example.

[julz]

While this is good news for the immediate future, its stuff like this that makes my skin boil. Bitcoins are kind of like Elves. They rarely come into being, there's a finite number of them and each loss is a tragedy! 

But you can divide a bitcoin as much as you want, while you can't divide an elf 

Pfft.. any dwarven axe knows better!

I think that bitcoin losses in the short term are no big deal for the system as a whole. 
It would be 'nice' to have an idea of how many coins are in circulation, but if it gets to the point where there appear to be few left and it's a concern that large stashes thought lost, could suddenly reappear and devalue the currency; then perhaps that would be the time to migrate to a new chain.
I'm guessing that would be centuries away, unless there is some IT apocalypse which destroys a large percentage of wallets.

[BitMagic]

The first automobile was considered a silly, expensive toy for the rich. Many problems. Many glitches. Many undue accidents and unrefined systems. Totally silly to imagine that private industry might figure out how to harness the potential and fix the problems.

I can totally imagine private industry being welcomed to take over bitcoin and fix the problems! 

And line phones were considers a fad for the rich that would go nowhere. everyone was like, "just who you gonna call, anyway??? hardly anyone else has em."

Yeah, we need the AT&T of bitcoin, that should make everything work! Or maybe government to set up and own all the infrastructure!