VC Tim Draper Revealed as Silk Road Bitcoin Auction Winner

[allthingsluxury]

Very nice, lets see if he can do what he plans and bring BTC to emerging economies in an even bigger way.

[Beliathon]

[Still though, I'm inclined to believe that once bitcoin gains another magnitude of value he'll disclose the price.]

I suspect you may be right. When BTC is trading at 2500 $ +, no one will gasp at an 800 or 900 per coin auction bid.

[jonald_fyookball]

 Medium.com is a great site that deserves the traffic

Is it?  I just went to the medium.com and its completely unclear
what the site does or what its about it.

Maybe its a great site but I would never know because
they aren't getting their message across, at least to me,
from their home page.  Just my 2 cents on that.

The bigger point about news aggregation:
 
A respectable source makes it clear where the original
source is... and thereby rewards the original source by
giving that source visibility and traffic. 

Think of it this way  -- most people visit the sites
they are familiar with, so its not stealing any traffic
away from the source -- its really doing more of
the opposite and making that source known to
a wider audience.  Sure, a few people get their
news by doing a google news search, but I
think those folks are in the minority.

And I think the way coinbase does it is very
tasetful -- they actually hyperlink back to
Medium.  Not every aggregator does that.

[sgbett]

May I humbly suggest we stop constantly throwing links at Coindesk (news aggregation) and instead link the actual source material?

Coindesk basically takes other people's news and re-posts it with a few words on their own site. it's a shitty, asinine practice and we shouldn't support it.

You must be really cross with news.google.com eh? outrageous practice!

[QuestionAuthority]

May I humbly suggest we stop constantly throwing links at Coindesk (news aggregation) and instead link the actual source material?

Coindesk basically takes other people's news and re-posts it with a few words on their own site. it's a shitty, asinine practice and we shouldn't support it.

You must be really cross with news.google.com eh? outrageous practice!

LOL Thank god Digg is gone. Crazy idea of reposting what interests people in a specific community.

[Lauda]

[Still though, I'm inclined to believe that once bitcoin gains another magnitude of value he'll disclose the price.]

I suspect you may be right. When BTC is trading at 2500 $ +, no one will gasp at an 800 or 900 per coin auction bid.

It will be completely forgotten.

[Benjig]

Its not surprising that one man took all the blocks with one bid, selling bitcoin in that way it will sell like hot bread.

[Ron~Popeil]

That is great news. No pump and dump and no mass of under priced coins dumped for profit taking.

[DooMAD]

That is great news. No pump and dump and no mass of under priced coins dumped for profit taking.

It might be even better news than that.  If you were one of the many big investors who didn't get a single coin, you're still sitting on all your money and probably still want to buy some bitcoins.  They'll now have to do it the old fashioned way.  Either peer to peer, or from an exchange.  The extra demand should hopefully prove positive.  Then there's the extra press coverage too.  As unexpected outcomes go, I don't think it could have gone any better.

[janbrel]

That is great news. No pump and dump and no mass of under priced coins dumped for profit taking.

It might be even better news than that.  If you were one of the many big investors who didn't get a single coin, you're still sitting on all your money and probably still want to buy some bitcoins.  They'll now have to do it the old fashioned way.  Either peer to peer, or from an exchange.  The extra demand should hopefully prove positive.  Then there's the extra press coverage too.  As unpredicable outcomes go, I don't think it could have gone any better.

The only losing bidders I could find who were prepared to give an indication of how much they bid all said they bid below market price. They all wanted cheaper bitcoins than they could buy on an exchange. Why would they now want to buy millions of dollars worth off exchanges at full price?

[DooMAD]

That is great news. No pump and dump and no mass of under priced coins dumped for profit taking.

It might be even better news than that.  If you were one of the many big investors who didn't get a single coin, you're still sitting on all your money and probably still want to buy some bitcoins.  They'll now have to do it the old fashioned way.  Either peer to peer, or from an exchange.  The extra demand should hopefully prove positive.  Then there's the extra press coverage too.  As unpredicable outcomes go, I don't think it could have gone any better.

The only losing bidders I could find who were prepared to give an indication of how much they bid all said they bid below market price. They all wanted cheaper bitcoins than they could buy on an exchange. Why would they now want to buy millions of dollars worth off exchanges at full price?

I guess the obvious answer would be that they don't have any other choice unless they want to invest in some mining hardware instead.   That or possibly wait for if or when the next auction comes for the remaining coins.  But again they'll have to raise their bids if they don't want to lose out again next time, so it's not like they'll be getting any tremendous bargains.  Auctions always attract people looking for a good deal, but I don't think cheap bids are going to win when there's lots of savvy investors around to grab them at a more reasonable value.

[Its About Sharing]

Wow, what a potentially beautiful thing Draper did. I have imagined that Bitcoin will be a way of transferring wealth to the developing world.
But how to get it there before the price explodes. Well, if Draper is thinking what I am, then Kudos to him. Amazing.
Looking forward to how they work this out.

[twiifm]

Vaurum is a startup w 2 guys.  No need to get excited

[Its About Sharing]

Has anyone calculate about how much the BTC price would rise if one were to buy 30,000 BTC across the biggest exchanges?
I'm wondering about how the bidders calculated the premium on the bids.

[DooMAD]

http://new.livestream.com/draperuniversity/bitcoin-auction

Press conference about to start.

Watching the livestream, took a little time to get it running, but seems smooth now.  Did he really just say "Satoshi Nakamura"?  Heh.  Sounds a little less reassuring than it did at first.  I guess being a venture capitalist means you're looking at the figures rather than the folklore, so I'll forgive such an egregious faux pas.  

Everything else he's saying sounds bang on message, though.  


//EDIT:  He's not revealing how much he paid in the auction.   

[jonald_fyookball]

Should we sit him down with Dorian to get a lesson about that..

[newIndia]

http://new.livestream.com/draperuniversity/bitcoin-auction

Press conference about to start.

Thanks for the link ...watching it now ...either the sound quality is bad or Mr. Tim Draper speaks at a very low voice

[Its About Sharing]

Just for some perspective regarding my question before. To purchase 5000 coins on stamp would move the market around $50, from 650 to 700.
So, to buy 30,000 coins (even spread across a few exchanges) would probably move the market $100 easy.

And companies like Bitpay, etc. are probably making a nice premium selling their BTC's to large pockets.

IAS

[CoolBliss]

"In the post authored by Vaurum CEO Avish Bhama, the company announced that Draper intends to partner with Vaurum to use the roughly 30,000 BTC to provide bitcoin liquidity in emerging markets."

You know, that's actually one of the more interesting uses I've heard for bitcoin. It could be very useful in countries like Venezuela which are subject to tight currency controls. In that context, bitcoin's wild price fluctuations could be tolerable.

[CoinDiver]

I can't imagine Venezuela would allow it.