From the video it just looks to copy the details from the magnetic strip and then show whichever details you choose.

This wouldn't work in europe where we have the chip & pin system.
I'm not even sure if uk businesses accept just the swipe & sign these days.

I would expect the states will see chip & pin eventually too making this product pretty dead in the water.

Sorry, bit of a noob here but I've been lurking for a while and I'm guessing the Senate Hearing will be mainly bothered about....

Traceability

• Exchanges tracking transactions to accounts so incoming USD can be traced within the exchange
• Regulation allowing US authorities access to the above
• Bitcoin movement on the blockchain (thus the "red list" proposal)

Taxation

• How to tax profit/gains made via exchanges - would need paperwork & transaction histories to back it up though
• Taxation of pure bitcoin transactions - bitcoin could show up in your tax return since it is becoming possible to live without USD
• Taxation relating to sales tax - is selling someone say 1 BTC outside of an exchange taxable ?

Regulation is good in the long run but in the short term I wonder how many bitcoin holders out there will get nervous about the prospect of having to document and justify their BTC balance ? There have been thousands of BTC stolen in these early days and as time progresses it's going to be increasingly tough to cash them out without questions being asked.

Personally I'm in the uk and I'm not planning to cash out anything till the regulation is clear.
I'm a very small player though !
Feel free to shoot any/all of this down by the way, it's mainly guesswork.

Ok, that's $550 on Gox.... so what should the new Poll be ?

A few people have said that one reason why there might be such a rush to buy in China is the struggle to get money out of the country and to get USD. So the BTC is being used (in these cases) as a middle-man trading currency.

So I'm wondering which exchange would be the best place to sell to USD and transfer back out to a china friendly bank account ?

Ironically for everyone in the states I'm actually wondering if Hong Kong based gox is the place.
Maybe bit stamp though ?

Or would they not need to sell through an exchange ?

Oops.... well it's in the right bit of the world anyway

Edit : In my defense it's 3:25am and I've been putting off sleep for a while !

I'd seen it posted elsewhere but a google seems to back this up :
http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2011/11/11/getting-cash-money-rmb-out-of-china.html

"Chinese nationals are able to transfer the equivalent of US$2,000 per day into a foreign bank account, however Chinese nationals face a US$50,000 annual ceiling when exchanging RMB into foreign currencies while foreign nationals do not face such restrictions."

There's a nice bit of support there with a 900 coin ish bid at $840  

Edit : Just moved up to 855 lol
Edit 2 : Then moved up to 870 but down to 480 coins !

trading.i286.org is showing a huge 2,180 coin bid wall on Gox at $600

Try this also :

http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/btcchina/btccny

Showing stable (for now) at 5200 +/- 100

Gox launched to $900 and just finished crashing back down again... bottomed about $630

Has anyone seen that China seems to have slumped down to 4000 ?

Any thoughts ?

This shows a low :  http://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/btcchina/btccny

Just wondering if people think this will affect Gox
Also wondering why a sell reaction after the senate hearing went so well, surely this is good news for everyone

Also I missed the hearings... were these posted anywhere ?

Cheers !

lol very unlikely

In all seriousness I expect a significant dip in advance of the 31st of Jan (around the 28th) as people anticipate a crackdown in China in advance of their deadline. 

After the 31st that all depends on what actually happens in China and if the "work arounds" implemented by various Chinese exchanges are closed by the authorities. It's also worth noting that the 31st is a Friday so if nothing is heard straight away it could be an interesting weekend with lots of posts of memes/hold/hodl here

If they are a currency then the BTC are seized cash assets which would not be exchange to another currency.
This is because if the trial finds him innocent then they would have to return the currency as the "account" was frozen at the time.

If they consider the BTC to be an "object" with value then again they cannot just sell them for USD since they would be considered evidence.

Afik assets/cash seized in more traditional cases have sat static for years due to ongoing cases.
So no I don't see anything being sold anytime soon and these BTC will sit in limbo until a vertict is reached.

This really depends on how they treat the BTC at the time.

If they consider them to be an object then they will auction them off.
They are no stranger to real estate and high value asset auctions.
This will probably be GOOD for bitcoin both with regard to big money entering the market and also publicity.

If they consider them to be cash then I'm honestly sure what they will do.
I do this this will also be good though and further assert that BTC is a currency.

lol so how many ignore lists did I just join ?
Guess I'll never know :p

I might have quoted someone you didn't like but I was trying to provide constructive input not yet raised by anyone else.
If you have a problem with that then that's all yours and I'm not interested

Yeah bit of a tough crowd imho so "bah" to the grumpy sods out there

Me too though I rarely see high volume in the bids.
Usually nothing like Gox but they are much more reliable with SEPA transfers and cheaper to buy in with

Also from the article :


So unless I'm mistaken if then happens then does this mean inter-exchange arbitrage ? *

Edit : *Eventually that is

Personally I have buy orders in at..
761 USD
566 EUR
473 EUR

This is btc-e and the lower orders are in anticipation of a low dip before/around the end of the month.
If this doesn't happen then I'll move them up after the 7th of Feb.

I'm hodling BTC as well of course

I'm a regular reader since about June last year and it's an acquired skill to mentally filter through the last few pages each day.
I immediately filter out the charts edited in paint, memes, trains, bottoms (brief pause tho), nested replies from yesterday's drivel, new drivel.

What remains is the odd gem of insightful advice which is generally worth effort.
(not much effort, maybe a minute per page)

In reply to point 1 though.... this is an internet forum and nothing should be taken seriously.
As I stated above the circus does have it's uses though

Yes, I've just seen this on Russia Today (in the uk)

Edit : The overall message was pretty positive though there was a slight anti-US spin (of course)
Edit2 : Clearly if the Russian Banks have banned bitcoin then the RT staff haven't caught up with their email or their message would be different

None afaik.... the charges are purely against this guy and not Bitinstant

Edit : Sorry, these two guys... Robert Faiella & Charlie Shrem

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25919482

How about "Bitcoin: making stock investors cry since 2009"

Me... while I "work"

I'm hoping that over the next week or so a positive result in New York balances out any negative news from China.
If it's positive news all round then CCFM lol

Yes, she was there to represent a new/incoming gold backed and centrally controlled digital currency.
I didn't catch the name.... not interested but she did contribute some valid points to the wider discussion

I follow this thread by just checking the most recent posts every now and then and I can see nobody replied so I will do my best !
(some ppl in this gossip column/mothers meeting are just rude though the thread moves quickly)

Anyway I'm interested in the same thing since I'm UK based and while I've not yet tried withdrawing anything from Gox I understand GBP/EUR withdrawals work just fine via their bank in Poland though I would advise small amounts say no more than £1000 at a time. At that level I'm sure I've seen people post they it's taken a few days to a week to have the money land in their account. 
It's USD withdrawals that are still broken and I understand there is no way to get USD out.

I would also recommend trying BTC-E if you can suffer the price difference and a euro withdrawal. I've had no problems at all with moving money in with them via SEPA though their verification process is a little odd. You submit your documents via a support ticket referencing your first transfer so there was a delay of a few days the first time but after that I made multiple deposits with just 2 to 3 days from HSBC to cash showing to spend in BTC-E

Hope this helps !

That sounds like a horror story to me !  I did have an issue where the reference code they gave didn't fit into the box HSBC supply in their web form. A truncated version which still contained the account numbers worked for me and I messaged support in advance to let them know what I'd done.

Well at the time I had fiat to pay in and I was feeling impatient so after getting scans of my documents sorted I submitted verifications with bitstamp and mtgox.  At the same time I did the same with btc-e with a test deposit.

By the time bitstamp verified me (3 weeks I think) I'd made many deposits with btc-e and I think the mtgox verification took 2 or 3 months I think by which time I was fully paid in via btc-e. The multiple deposits were simply because HSBC limit how much I can pay out via SEPA and I wasn't going to make my next transfer till the last one cleared.
I can understand your caution and I was the same but the step by step approach worked for me and I figured bitcoin isn't for the faint-hearted anyway so what's a little extra risk to get cheaper coins  Stamp is level with btce now but it was about $50 higher at the time (pre-china).

My only complaint with btce is the volume is low and a "wall" is 30 bitcoins lol

Edit : Also I want to see the full bid depth and I've found that available anywhere yet

Well my tales are only very recent ones so maybe they shaped up some in the last 3 months.
I did first dip my toe into bitcoins back in May but that was via virwox which meant I could use paypal but it's costly and unusable for significant amounts.

Yes, I keep having to reload and it takes a few seconds to re-connect.
Earlier they mentioned they had viewers from 108 countries yesterday... I wonder how many viewers though

There is a CoinDesk article here

http://www.coindesk.com/btc-china-accepting-bank-deposits/

"Prominent Chinese bitcoin exchange BTC China is now accepting customer deposits via its corporate bank account, plus offering small prizes to its customers."

(introducing this right before the Chinese new year seems a bit risky and provocative to me tbh)

I've moved to 50% fiat.... it's making me nervous that Gox has dropped from over $900 to $840 but Stamp & BTC-E have barely shifted.
Maybe the gap is being closed (which is good) but I can't see why and there's not much news to go on, just the Apple FUD.

Yup... the rest is in LTC and I'm hoping to make some BTC on that when LTC moves back up.
Betting on both ends here lol 

That's kinda what I meant by betting both sides... if LTC goes up then BTC does too but also the LTC/BTC rate moves too.
I can make some money there but tbh not any time soon.

If BTC carries on down then I can maybe get more BTC for the USD I cashed in earlier.

I'm indifferent personally but I would vote for an extended time period.
Say 2 or 3 hours instead of 1 hour 

Arse... kicking myself now since I panic bought back in at a small loss (0.15 BTC) at $774.

I'm not sure which is harder, holding in BTC hoping for $5,000 bitcoins (lol) or holding in cash hoping to increase your BTC stash with cheap coins. Either way I've missed out on profiting from this dip !

+1   Best analysis I've seen all day

Thanks from me too.... very useful !

My tea leaves predict a future which includes double bottom pics, trains photoshopped to rockets and charts edited in paint fit for any abstract art gallery.
Anything else is too uncertain

Edit : Oh & hodl.... lots of hodl... like a chant to the stars & gods of bitcoin themselves !

Maybe but until we find out if MtGox is going to sort it's act out and if the exchanges in China and really going to be ok and escape the authorities then TA is fairly pointless as the price will be news driven.

I'm not saying TA is useless, just not useful at the moment.

Thanks for that

Wow, you almost make this forum sound like a place for serious discussion !

Unrelated to the actual news I do like that bitcoin has moved from the "Tech" to the "Business" and "Money" sections of most news sites.

This shows increasing acceptance

Looks like they bought in and have hodl since..... losses are listed as "unrealised" so they haven't sold the BTC yet

If you read it the article clearly says $20,000,000

See also here
http://www.coindesk.com/fortress-investment-group-reports-purchase-20m-bitcoin/

The audit was by a 3rd party who look to be the backing company/investors.
I suggest you read the posts you link to.

The statement from the auditing company can be found here :

https://www.bitstamp.net/s/documents/Firestartr_DD_Letter_for_Bitstamp.pdf

The transaction in question is here :

https://blockchain.info/tx/1c12443203a48f42cdf7b1acee5b4b1c1fedc144cb909a3bf5edbffafb0cd204

The auditing company is as follows :

http://www.firestartr.co/

My source for this are as follows :

http://www.coindesk.com/bitstamp-audit-proves-behind-147m-mystery-bitcoin-wallet/
http://www.coindesk.com/194993-btc-transaction-147m-mystery-and-speculation/

You can of course call into question the integrity of the Auditor.

Well done you can access wikipedia.

Please point out how your (or the wikipedia) definition of an "audit" differs from the documents demonstrated above.
Without this your post is to be honest pretty meaningless

Not till next week.... publicity increases *generally* come with a lag while money is moved over

Edit : Changed "always" to "*generally*".... bad publicity moves the price instantly lol

Wow.... actual financial speculation

I agree and in fact I've already considered that the recent drop in the value of the Russian Ruble will push the bitcoin value up as wealthy Russians look to cover their ass. Depends how the Ukraine situation develops and how/if it hurts the Russian economy.

Inevitable Edit : Actually they are back-tracing on that bad already suggesting there wasn't a ban at all.
http://www.coindesk.com/russias-anti-bitcoin-stance-may-softening-reports-say/

"Since audit reports tend to be addressed to the current shareholders, .."

I understand your point but unless you're a shareholder (or investor) then you don't get to see the report.  This is no different to any company, publicly traded companies publish financial reports and privately held companies don't.

However the sort of audit we are discussing here verifies the viability/solvency of the institution and I don't see too many banks publishing that kind of information.  Where can I see that my bank can honour all deposits if the account holders choose to withdraw ?


I see your point but I'm going to pick on your formulae and suggest for an exchange to be solvent A-X should be positive and so should B-Y.
Essentially all account holders should be able to withdraw 100% of their funds at any time in the currency the balance is held in.

Any assets/liabilities (bank loans, investments, etc etc) relate to the profitability of the company and is a separate balance sheet.


They proved they have access to the private keys of wallets totalling 194,933 BTC.
We have their word (that trust thing we do with banks) that this represents "A" and is the balance held to honour customer accounts.


I would hope that they found X by adding up all the customer balances where the currency is BTC.
They would also need to account for trades sitting on the exchange of course but this should be trivial.


I don't see why Coinbase is relevant and I'd rather not change subject if that's ok with you.


In that case your personal experience is being factored in here and that is understandable and a personal choice much akin to which bank we trust with our money.  Personally I think this will be covered by regulation in future and bitcoin exchanges (or any companies which hold customer balances) will be regulated to require that they must honour all customer balances.
This will be an interesting development and can only be a good thing since I don't believe the banks are regulated that tightly


But they did.... well for USD at least so I admit there's no mention of the EUR balance but I think that's their primary Fiat balances covered.

"The report identified that Bitstamp held 100% of validated BTC balance and USD funds."

Anyway.... that's me done for now

I'm not about making excuses for anyone, just looking for reasons.


Well I wasn't thinking of the banks cheating the government, more their customers.
That's a whole other subject though which I don't think is relevant here.


Well in the context of an exchange still an exchange shouldn't be trading a clients BTC with other clients USD/EUR and neither should it be selling that BTC outside of the company so yes I think the BTC should stay as BTC. As soon as it does then a unfavorable change in the exchange rate would instantly make it insolvent since they wouldn't be able to buy back the same amount of USD.
There is a solid model in making money from exchange fees and/or deposit/withdrawal fees and exchanges should keep it simple. In the bitcoin model exchanges (& funds) are the closest things to banks there is but they shouldn't try to behave like one and I wouldn't want anything to do with an exchange that does.


I see your point but I disagree with the priority and faced with a choice between two exchanges, one offering each perspective I'll go with the one who ensures the customer deposits first and pays the bank back second. Banks accept the risks of loans as part of their business plan and have insurance for defaults but I don't.



Both good points and accepted.  They do boil down to trust again though and any financial relationship has to involve some trust.

The answer to your second question though can be solved with a technical solution. This is purely off the top of my head so might not be feasible but it would be theoretically possible to keep track of all the input and outputs to the wallet addresses used by the exchange.  The required BTC balance is then the sum total of all the BTC paid in minus the BTC paid out.
Further technical checks could be added on top, some I'm sure stolen from current banking practice and some added from the capabilities bitcoin and the block chain offer.
 

Sometimes there's something to read between the lines and sometimes there isn't.  Politicians and lawers are the worst for that and at the end of the day you have to make your own mind up

In my mind at the time that transaction occurred the USD rate was roughly $750 so 194,993.5 would have been valued at $146,245,125 so this would be tough to sell on to anyone in a single block.
Also note that the address which that payment was sent to is still active and has received BTC as late as yesterday and this is not the pattern of wallets used to move stolen coins.

Remember bitcoin isn't the same as any currency, it's a new thing and should be assessed as such.
Not *throw away the textbooks new* but different enough that existing ideas/preconceptions should be re-assessed.
A generation of economics students are going to have bitcoin rammed down their throats in the coming years whether it takes off or drops to $0 and vanishes.

Now I'm getting preachy so time to agree to disagree I think... plus these posts are turning into small essays lol

More to the point both parties exchanged at the price they wanted.

If you haven't already I highly recommend reading the books by Ken MacLeod.

However the idealistic the dream the reality would probably put us back to the victorian age where the needy ended up in work houses and had to work for food but they didn't get anything else.  Just somewhere to sleep and food with no chance to improve their lot.

Sounds like they'd love that.... you could ask the poor people that do that now.



Edit : I appreciate you might not have been 100% serious.... well, I hope

No KPOP forecast ? Disappointed 

It's just moved up to 19.8 now.... that $850,000 buy bid keeps getting left behind.
Someone hoping to buy a dump that just isn't coming. Yet.

Just hit $20 and the $850,000 wall has moved up to match.... wow

True but it's the most excitement there's been round here in weeks lol

It helps that I'm holding LTC and personally I'm waiting to see how things stand tomorrow.
Feels like today is a warm up

Well since Huobi kick in with LTC trading tomorrow my reasoning is that there is the promise higher prices than $20
If not then I'm hoping/gambling that the 18$ and above should hold at least but I bought at $16.2 so looking safe.

Really I want to trade back to BTC so I'm hoping BTC stays put at $620 ish
That's unlikely though lol

Haha very true, don't anyone misunderstand my earlier post (edit : as gloating).
I might have got lucky catching this LTC train but those LTC were picked up with BTC bought back in Nov/Dec in the $800-$900 range.

I bought BTC high and have been trying to increase holdings ever since.
This will just help me slowly out of the red lol

Well I bought first coins back in June but that was just a tester.

My big buy in started late November and I'd spent all I had budgeted by the first week in January.
Not the best timing in retrospect but there's no crystal ball for this and I'm in for the long term ride with a plan to take stock after 12/18 months.

However if I can lower my average cost in the mean time then that's all good (but not without risk).
Ideally I'd like to bring my buy in down to more like $600

Well personally I missed out on the $21 peak while I slept and I'm torn between kicking myself for not placing a speculative sell and thinking the same regarding the longer term view.  Yes I think the possibility of a higher price is there but selling & re-buying to make some extra LTC in the mean time would have been nice.

That said I probably would have placed a sell to BTC at about 0.03411 and the peak was 0.03375 and I think I would have been even more pissed to have missed out by that close a margin !

Down to 5684 now... page crash !! lol

Well you could mark post positions at 500 page intervals which would tell you roughly where the posts were being deleted from.
It would be interesting to see how old the posts are to see if it's say an early adopter wanting to clear all trace... you know to avoid re-stating those US tax returns from the last few years.

However I can't be arsed myself and I'm not that curious

Coindesk just caught up...

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-drops-new-chinese-bank-rumours/

I don't know what to make of this but I know I don't want to risk cashing out to FIAT to find I sold at bottom.

On that basis I'm trading BTC/LTC... less potential gains but it keeps me in crypto and I think LTC has some ground to make up

Well I've been patient but after checking your posts add no value at all so I'm ignoring you too.

Did you go full XRP 12 months ago ?
Shame.

+1

If you can't go out in style go out crazy.... lol

Starting from the Coin Desk article there is this test site :
http://filippo.io/Heartbleed/

Here are my test results :
(list from bitcoinwisdom)

All good, btc-e.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, cavirtex.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, bitcoin.de:443 seems not affected!
All good, coinbase.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, kraken.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, bitfinex.com:443 seems not affected!
All good, bter.com:443 seems not affected!

bitstamp.net:443 IS VULNERABLE
btcchina.com:443 IS VULNERABLE
okcoin.com:443 IS VULNERABLE
cryptsy.com:443 IS VULNERABLE

The test site did error with a couple of sites, namely huobi.com and campbx.com

A bit more detail lifted from the article for the lazy :

Good !  lol

No problem, thanks for the thanks

I've tried log but I find it distorts too much and you loose detail at the highs.
That said I tend to look at a 2 to 5 day window most of the time and only rarely look at month and longer ranges

As things stand TA should NOT predict prices but enough people believe in the analysis that a 1w EMA downcross will affect prices.
The bare minimum is that a significant TA marker will make speculators more inclined to buy/sell and in the small market bitcoin exists in it just takes one big (ish) player to get skittish and the whole herd follows.

So take it as a warning of future group sentiment.
After all bitcoin value is (currently) largely based on sentiment with value based on perception.

Ok, for the curious here are the impromptu survey results averaged over all 14 responses :

a) In 2014, price will visit below 100   5.80
b) In 2014, price will visit below 200   9.93
c) In 2014, price will visit below 300   20.86
d) In 2014, price will visit below 400   55.00
e) In 2014, price will visit above 500   89.18
f) In 2014, price will visit above 750   79.04
g) In 2014, price will visit above 1000   72.50
h) In 2014, price will visit above 1250   63.21
i) In 2014, price will visit above 2000   52.50
j) In 2014, price will visit above 3000   43.67
k) In 2014, price will visit above 4000   31.21
l) In 2014, price will visit above 5000   23.14
m) In 2014, price will visit above 7000   10.86
n) In 2014, price will visit above 10000   5.54

So the top range which the consensus feels strongly for is going above $1250 (63%) or at least $1000 (72%).
The next step up is a big step though at $2000.

As for myself I've only been price watching since June and trading since November so I don't feel confident enough to say.

Now walk away and come back in a year or two.
The speculating over the long term is always the best way with a very volatile currency/stock.

I'm partly telling myself here since while chasing the *bottom* I missed the actual bottom and have subsequently lost all the hard-fought gains I made in the last couple of months *sigh*
Also I bought in back in December/January.... well above $700 lol

Think I'm joining you though he might have already ignored me for quoting someone he didn't like weeks ago.
He will be joining 2 other people including mah87 so he can join the trolls he is fond of complaining about lol

Smug disdain for those less fortunate is never nice.

Well I tried to be smart at first and traded BTC for LTC.... I thought hey I can stay in crypto and still make more BTC.
Then I started to trade 2/3 of my LTC for $$ since that made me more on each trade.
Finally a week ago (expecting a big dip) I sold 100% to $$ and then missed the bottom.
The upsetting thing is I nearly bought back in at $9.8 but cancelled it and put in a buy even lower but it didn't go that low again

Ah well... bitcoin keeps life interesting

Well now we look to be creeping up again and I'm going to go as far as predicting a double top in about an hour, maybe a bit longer.

It will be interesting if we pass the previous top or dip down lower.
No way I'm going to chance predicting that !

If we dip before meeting the previous top then I feel that a small dip means we're more likely to beat the top at the next push up.
Or we could fail to meet the previous top and then dip down lower, under $480 ish.

They feel like bitcoin's equivalent of penny shares and too risky for many (including me).
Yes you can make a killing if they move up but they are also cheap for a reason.

I'd rather buy Doge lol

LTC is traded on the Chinese exchanges so follows BTC very closely thus the BTC/LTC rate has barely moved in comparison.

Edit : In a market driven by China anyway

Mainly used to bomb London.... power on up... straight back down with a bang !

Personally I think what we're seeing here is the lead up to the Chinese exchanges closing CNY trading.

All the signs are that these exchanges will no longer be able to hold CNY balances since no Chinese banks will deal with them.

Assuming the above is correct then traders are faced with a choice of how much CNY vs BTC they want to hold.  The CNY they will have to withdraw at some point and some may wish to take some money back since it could be month/years before trading resumes. (Assuming a long term outlook is that China cannot avoid bitcoin forever that is)
Any BTC they are left with should be considered long term savings then or useful only for any foreign business or say a holiday outside of China.

So if all USD trading was to cease for an indefinite period what would you do ?
Cash out or commit and buy BTC for the long hold ?

For myself I'm in this for the long run, say 5+ years so I would want to be 100% BTC and not withdraw any Fiat at all.

It's could be an interesting few days

It is 1am in China so regardless of TA indicators I doubt that there will be much more action for the next few hours.

From the coindesk article :


Nobody is buying or selling BTC when trading on the NASDAQ with this trust, they are trading in the shares which represent the value of a fixed amount of bitcoin.

This article has been updated since :

Anyone care to predict a short term top ?

Big buy (1,200) on Huobi (at 15:06) which seems to have pushed through a wall (small price change) and provided some momentum for a further push in the price.
Bitstamp seems particularly keen pushing $20 ahead of Huobi at one point.

No news showing yet that I'm aware of but that's the exchange movements.

Google it and you'll find Mt Gox lol

Imagine a room full of people, not a big room (a large garage maybe) and they and cooperating to build something.  It's not quite tangible yet, most of it isn't clear and even more is still at the conceptual stage on paper or being discussed. There is a real purpose though each person is an individual in their own right with their own motivations with some leading, some following and some involved on the side lines.
Now imagine an additional figure sat in the corner of the room in a big leather arm chair with a big pile of text books a hot (non-alcoholic) drink and a pipe to complete the theoretical image. He is watching the proceedings with vague disapproval while reading through the books and tutting every now and then.
Occasionally one of the group will come over and and try to explain what is happening in the room but it is often futile and met with misunderstanding, references to the books and a general view that whatever is being built "just won't work" and "things just don't happen this way".

No disrespect meant but this is how I view Jorge and the day he buys bitcoin then I know I can start to take some serious profit because then bitcoin will be established in the mainstream. Hell, that pile of books may even have a positive bitcoin book or two added to the top. Hopefully not a negative book but as I consider myself to be an *involved* in the room I believe that at least whatever happens and whatever is built it will be unique and it's not often you can say that.

When the internet came along nothing like it had come before and the same applies to crypto currencies.
In 10 years time *something* will come of crypto and bitcoin and frankly it's extremely tough to predict in the same way back decades ago nobody could have predicted half the things we take for granted today. This forum being just one example.

Slight spelling difference.... Stofli vs Stolfi

I'm honestly amazed that nobody has throught to check ShroomsKit's FIRST posts.

From these he's far from a kid living with his parents with barely any btc to rub together.
He runs a business based out of Amsterdam (or he did in 2013) with it's own website.
That said the site seems to be old news now as the domain shows as available on a whois check.

So on that basis yes JorgeStolfi we're all kids living at home with our parents including me.
Speaking of which I've pocket money to earn... damn child labour

+1000 for the epic troll ShroomsKit

Haha... I didn't see that, just read the first few pages so that would explain allot.

Either way this is a net forum so comments should be taken with a pinch of salt.... except in this forum and in this thread I'd upgrade that to a large truck load or in some cases you might need your own salt mine

To everyone posting short terms charts try checking the longer term view.

The trend over the last two weeks has been the strongest trend for 3 months.



The biggest question here is will the trend continue with today being a "blip" ?
All trends have them and for this to be a blip the $$ trading would need at close the day at roughly $260+

If this is a trend break out then things could get interesting of course

I can't work out BTC-E since they plunged further than any exchange and all I can think is their users are very skittish/nervous. A TrollBox effect maybe.

Kraken dropped further than most too but then they are pretty low volume.

Regarding the GBTC quotes I wouldn't place much faith in those higher bids staying and after all they are for 100 shares and at 0.1 BTC per share thats 10 bitcoin so hardly game changing.  I see these bids as bait to draw out existing share holders to submit shares to brokers to sell.

For long term holders there is a gain to be had selling shares at above the market price and re-buying 1 year locked shares at the exchange rate.

For those companies wanting to day trade there is an appeal to paying above market rate for those shares which have passed the 1 year mark and can be fully traded though I doubt that they would really want to be paying $380.  Maybe in reality more like $25 or $50 above the exchange rate.

Of course those long term holders will be aware of this and will know that the initial bids are bait but a few quick trades could net a tidy profit if a company can sell and buy back in say $25 or $50 lower.  Also don't forget that these are traded by brokers so I suspect there will be a degree of pre-trading deals being setup with some trades/deals being lined up in advance.

I reckon when trading starts we'll see an initial push up over $300 which will settle down within a day or two to back below $300

Someone switched their mining pool back on again ?

A good sign I think

Well if the investor has bought at a 20% premium then surely that sets the market value so shares maturing the next day are unlikely to be marked down as much as 10% if the seller thinks they can sell at the 20% premium trading was at the previous day.
My (amateur) reasoning is that the shares which have matured (and OTC traded) are worth more than brand new shares bought today which cannot be traded for 1 year.  Some companies may prefer to buy and hold in which case new shares are fine but some may want a % of matured shares which can be freely bought & sold.  So company A then sells mature shares at a premium to company B and immediately buys new shares to the same value as the sale for a net gain with the catch that the new shares will be 1 year locked.  Company B (who might have been late to the party) then gains shares that can be freely traded or simply sold if they wanted cut their losses & get out.
Someone will have performed a risk analysis for this stock and set appropriate targets for the portfolio % and maybe a stop loss.  That may require that a % of the stocks are mature so they can be instantly sold if a stop loss is hit and this makes these stocks worth paying above market value for.

That said this is bitcoinland so who knows. I still believe that there will be plenty of negotiation going on here behind the scenes. That said every company listed on the Bid side is also listed on the Ask side which I assume suggests they have shares to sell so does that mean there are no new buyers ? Maybe this will be a damp squib with companies holding shares only having each other to sell to.

Apologies if this is a bit ramshackle, I struggled with the wording and re-wrote this a few times !

Either way those turtles need to speed up.

The smartest thing Satoshi did (ahead of bitcoin) was to stay anonymous and to disappear as soon as wider adoption started.  I hope for his/her/their sake that they keep their anonymity and stay off the grid as it were.

That's not for the risk of what happens if this goes wrong but the far greater risk of what happens if this continues to take off. In future Satoshi and the bitcoin in *his* accounts could take on some sort of mythical status akin to El Dorado, the Aztec city of gold.  The difference being that the gold of El Dorado likely doesn't exist any more but Satoshi's clearly does though it is likely inaccessible since *he* probably doesn't have the private keys saved.  Plenty of people will still try to find him to claim the keys & the loot though regardless of the low chance of success.

Already plenty of people are going to be looking for this guy, bad actors (kidnap & random), government agencies (NSA), big corporations (Mastercard) and with the keys to those early addresses someone could get rich quick and/or take down all faith in the value.  The technology would survive but bitcoin the currency wouldn't.

I would expect that it won't be long for someone to suggest a core change which blocks or otherwise restricts transactions against those early addresses.  This would dispel the spectre of the early days and then maybe Satoshi can step out of the shadows and claim credit for his work without risking his life or that of his family/friends.

Very true.... we would have an early warning at least, if not the days destroyed then I bet there is at least a bot or two watching those addresses with a panic sell order ready.  Those coins should be in circulation really and the fact that they aren't is a worry but then life is full of uncertainty and at least we know and have the visibility.

As I said the tech is out now and isn't going away so if anyone really wants to take this seriously then spread your bets and buy into an alt currency or two.  Ultimately we should all make our own assessment, invest our time/money accordingly and take responsibility when maybe things don't work out as you hoped. I bought at > $1000 and if I have to hold till retirement to make a profit then so be it but my own assessment is that I'll be back in the black within the next year or three.

I understand your point but this is a problem and there would be many hurdles to jump before it could happen.

A single government would not be able to enforce this so this would first require global, multi-national agreement.
Also at the moment the P2P network allows anyone to join from anywhere so this would need a core change to implement a black/white list.
Once the miners/transaction processors are globally regulated they would all need to agree to a transaction black/white list.
At this stage the global body could block transactions.

However I think this is highly unlikely since the global body would be VERY difficult to create.  We barely have a united nations and even then they don't agree most of the time and have little legal global clout. This would be a major roadblock stopping the global authority but lets pretend one is created.

Next they would have to get multi-national agreement for a regulated/limited list of miners/transaction processors.  Only companies would be allowed and they would have to register in order to be allowed in the P2P club.  Again this would be very difficult but lets pretend it can happen.

Finally the all the various multi-national companies on the P2P network would have to agree to block those fixed addresses on the black list.  The initial list would probably be easy to negotiate but new addresses would be a problem. Lets say company ABC has an account the US authorities want blocked and they get the global body to agree, adding their wallet address to the black list.  If say China disagree what's to stop them from not accepting that latest version of the black list ?  The transaction would be blocked in the US but a block processed in China would accept the transaction.
while technically possible I think such a system would be politically impractical.

Finally yes this could result in a hard-fork with a *government* block chain and a *public* block chain.  There would then be a political battle of sorts while government pushed companies (eg Bitpay) to accept their version of the blockchain truth vs the competing network.

If by a "new blockchain" you ultimately mean starting again from block 0 then this would be a new currency and I'd say good luck to them.  I think some of the main players are already looking to use the blockchain tech like this between themselves and I think there was a report saying the bank of England might issue a digital currency.  The bitcoin blockchain will still carry on regardless though.

Dr Stolfi I see bitcoin made it onto your wikipedia entry !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Stolfi


Following the link I also see there was a "Beware Bitcoin!" article back in December 2013.

http://advivo.com.br/blog/jorge-stolfi/cuidado-com-bitcoin

All I ask is would you write the article now, 18 months later ?

Well that's probably more the internet for you than bitcoin.


Ok, without trying to pick holes in your previous arguments can you give examples of new things people should be warned about ?

A consistent problem I see is that the general public as well as some academics keep trying to equate bitcoin to something they already know.  This is human nature but it just doesn't work because this is something new. Yes there are similarities which existing systems but these quickly break when you look at the bigger picture.
The value of a company can be determined through analysis of the products they offer along with current and future profits.  The value of a fiat currency can be determined through analysis of a countries productivity.

Bitcoin is not a company and it is not a currency.

Personally I see it and talk about it as a network with utility and it is only as valuable as what you can do with the network.

Many other people can see this too and have bought in, spending $$ in anticipation of what you might be able to do with bitcoin (& the network) in the future and this has driven the price.  This has also resulted in some people using bitcoin as an asset class for speculation (which it can be) but ultimately only increased utility will drive the adoption (& the value) long term.

We very nearly had a "killer app" for bitcoin only recently.  The Neteller announcement that they were accepting deposits with bitcoin at no fee was the key but it was hobbled my Mastercard.  
The initial promise was that you could spend say EUR to buy bitcoin at say a 2% fee then deposit to Neteller in AUD for free and finally spend your AUD balance using the Mastercard for no fees.  This would have undercut all current currency transfers and currency purchases where Bitpay will pay Neteller in the same currency as the account (AUD, USD, EUR or GBP) since the only fee is the cost to buy bitcoin.

This example is in the terms of the same user (eg holiday money) but equally this could be user A in say the US and user B in say France.  This is an idealised scenario but say user A buys bitcoin using Coinbase (1% fee) and then sends the bitcoin to user B in France (tiny fee) who then deposits the bitcoin in their EUR Neteller account (possibly currency fluctuation) and finally moves EUR to their Neteller Mastercard.  Overall (with some hassle) USD has now moved from the states to France as EUR with little friction and little cost compared to a traditional international currency transfer.
(idealised because Neteller blocked US bitcoin deposits from the outset)

I believe Mastercard saw this and that's why they blocked bitcoin balances being moved to their pre-paid card.

This is the future utility I see.
In the future I don't expect to buy foreign currency and take cash with me.
I expect to buy bitcoin and either spend bitcoin directly or use a Debit card which deducts bitcoin from an account balance as I spend.

Finally it's been pointed out that many people talking up bitcoin own bitcoin.
The straight forward reason for this is that once someone starts to see the utility and they become a "believer" then they buy.

Only these keywords get much response :
Bears, Bulls, Whales, Moon, Rocket, Train, Bottom (single, double, triple)

Pictures count as keywords.

If someone posts "Bear whales sending us to the next triple bottom" with a pic of 3 girls bottoms then we're all doomed and nobody else's post will get any notice (especially my last one with lots of words in it & no girls).

Interesting but only really a UK launch if they support some UK specific functions like the Faster Payments Network which would allow fee-free bank transfers within minutes (about 15 minutes from experience) but this is just between local banks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_Payments_Service

Without this they are just another exchange offering GBP as an exchange pair.

The problem though is finding a banking partner in the UK and not say Estonia or Poland since UK banks don't want to touch bitcoin and have been known to actively bitcoiners close accounts.
It would be good to see this change and FPS integration with a UK bank would be the key turning point.

Interesting..... I wonder if this would be using the Ripple network or a new network established just for Western Union.
It does say a "pilot to provide infrastructure for" rather than "adding to our network".

If it is Western Union's own network I can see XRP going down in value and not up lol

From the coinbase support page :


https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/1963197-uk-customers-funding-coinbase-exchange-wallets

*sigh*

I mean purely based on the speculators..... what if the investors in XRP realise that it's entirely possible that Ripple Labs might licence out the technology rather than add institutions to the existing network ?

Either is a win for Ripple and brings money in to the company.

True but I've been waiting for a Faster Payments exchange for what feel like forever (well, a couple of years).

So many announcements of UK exchanges and so much promise but not one yet has a UK banking partner.

Answering the bold bit I have to say I don't feel technical enough to answer with total confidence BUT if this was internal to Western Union then you could theoretically use the network to move IOUs between the different countries WU operate in, similar to the transferwise system I would imagine.  They would need to make a traditional transfer every now and then to balance the books but it could save them some money and another fraction of a % saved in costs is much money in the bank for them.

Either way Ripple is helping to prop up the old system so we should throw tomatoes at them and Boo loudly.

I've used btc-e right from December 2013 and had no problems though I'm not entirely comfortable with the situation so I do now have my trading stash spread out across multiple exchanges.

There is also Kraken who have started to get a bit more volume these days and Coinfloor who I've only just registered with.

For small purchases I've tended to use https://bittylicious.com/ who do offer Faster Payments but between individuals accounts (which isn't ideal) and they are expensive.

Edit :  The current Bittylicious rate is £157 and the Coinfloor rate is £146 so for anything less than say 1 to 1.5 BTC Bittylicious is cheaper than a SEPA transfer to Coinfloor with the associated £10 to £15 SEPA fee plus exchange fees.

Edit2 : Worth noting using Faster Payments with Bittylicious the time taken from starting a payment to bitcoin showing against my mobile wallet is 10 to 15 minutes. A few confirmations later and I can spend it so if you need BTC in a rush maybe the extra cost is worth with quick turn-around.  My dream is this without the extra premium against the exchange rate

I'm speculating that they could use Ripple tech to move money around internally using a network just for Western Union using what I'll call WRP (not XRP) which may save them some money.  I don't know how they move money internationally at the moment but they will (I assume) have cut every corner to make it as cost effective as possible but this may allow an extra edge.  To rebalance the books if they end up with too much money in their Mexico account then they may move money back to the US but using traditional methods and denominated in fiat.

I would love to see them using BTC but I doubt it would happen since it would "legitimise" the competition.

For the same reason this is why I don't think they would use the existing ripple network (so XRP) but they could use the technology.

Awesome, best use of Hitler yet

While bitcoin is being boring very little here is on topic.

Regarding those charts I see they are from this blog post :
http://www.ofnumbers.com/2014/12/19/are-there-changes-in-the-volume-of-retail-transactions-through-bitpay-this-past-year/

You should probably also include this paragraph from the same blog post which shows that this data is inferred and not definite or published by Bitpay.  The analysis is only as good as the data and data which can be questioned should be posted with a disclaimer and not claimed to be 100% reliable.


Link to the wallerexplorer site showing the raw assumed Bitpay transactions
https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/BitPay.com

Edit :
Basically if you're going to claim to do "serious data analysis" at least point out the reliability of the raw data and give proper credit to the creator of the charts.

Haha.... I nearly referenced the issue with temperature data but decided to stay away from it.

Besides, that data was deliberately manipulated.

Regarding my personal opinion I do believe in global warming.

At the bottom of the page is the text

However I didn't check reddit and I can see there that you were the reddit author so fair enough

The raw data is still "inferred from the blockchain by an undisclosed heuristic that is supposed to identify addresses belonging to the same owner" so isn't reliable enough for "serious data analysis" (in my opinion at least).

Edit :  Where's my facepalm ? I'm sure it's deserved in part lol

Is there a "Waiting for GBTC trading" meme yet ?

Btc-e are also showing higher than usual volumes again.

Trading activity is picking up with the Ask closing on the $50 top Bid....

Granted not seen much traded today (volume says 0) but Asks going up is more activity than we saw last week and a positive sign that more shares and being offered up to be traded. Offer volume is needed before we can see trading volume.

I think to see full details and without the 15 min delay you'll have to pay for access.

This should be an interesting week as this develops, I had hoped this would have been last week but I'd obviously underestimated how long it takes to get shares through the process it takes to put them up with an Ask price.

However consider that BIT is limited to "high net worth" investors and if I was someone with a long term interest in holding say 10,000 already matured shares as a small % over my portfolio I would be tempted to :
1)  Buy 10,000 new shares at the current market rate (1,000 BTC x $235 = $235,000)
2)  Sell 10,000 matured shares at the best GBTC rate I can get (say avg. 10,000 shares x $40 = $400,000)
3)  Bank Profit ($165,000)
4)  Hold the 10,000 new shares for 1 year (again)

This assumes anyone investing has money in the bank they can spend immediately and they don't need to wait to sell their existing shares before they buy new shares.

So sell (2) and they buy (1) using the funds generated ?

Using the traditional fiat system there are delays involved moving money and arranging purchasing new shares which might leave you behind. The above tactic almost guarantees profit if someone buys now as long as GBTC trading stays above $25 (allowing for fees).

Is there any way we can see if BTC are being bought for the BIT fund ?
I'm guessing these won't be in the same address but someone might have done the analysis.
(I'll do a google I think)

Yes, sorry if that wasn't clear !

This is someone who has 10,000 shares already and wants to continue holding 10,000 shares long term.

Edited for wording

It could also be said that these shares are worth more because as used in someone's pension fund they could be redeemed for $$ tax free.
The maths doesn't work out at this level though and people are financially better off buying BTC directly.
There will be other reasons why these shares are worth more (as you have said) and these will level out eventually.

The GBTC price should drop and the BTC price should rise to meet it but the GBTC shares are likely to always be selling for more than raw BTC.

Agreed..... within a very short window of a week or two

Is that FUD ?

Isn't that more like HOB ?
(Hope, Optimism & Belief)

(if anyone can think of a good "E" to swap for Belief then go for it, HOE beats HOB)

More like the only stuff that could make everyone here happy
(maybe even Dr Stolfi, tough call though)

+2

Anyone else watching the GBTC trading ?

Looks like the volume so far today is 435 shares, over half of yesterday's volume already and it's only just opened for the day.
As far as I know some can be posted overnight and then actioned first thing in the morning so this could be it.

Can anyone else confirm this ?

Ok, thanks that makes sense.

Thanks but already answered.... I need to memorise the time trading opens and factor in the time zone difference.

Not used to these exchanges operating just within office hours lol

Well that was an unexpected email.... I'm small fry too and haven't traded much during this sideways run.
Possibly this is encouragement !

Has anyone else seen this ?
I checked the last few pages here and I don't think this has been posted yet.

The tumbleweed is strong here.... hopefully we can clear it out soon.

Also apparently a beard with a man attached.



Plus who submits a ball pool pic for the company profile ?



Edit : Maybe he did it to annoy this guy

Can this asshole who keeps posting porn be IP blocked please ?

Who does this need escalating to ?

I would report this myself but clicking Ignore takes away the report button.

Some of us have jobs and are at WORK.... dick.

Meh true, VPN and Tor off the top of my head.

Clearly letting the trolls get to me.
I should clearly be ignoring their selfie porn posts.

Edit : On a serious note what happened to having to post in the Newbie group and having to wait a week ?

Well far be it for me to annoy the forum Gods but that's pretty crap then.

I had hoped so.... even had what I thought was a sound reasoning but after over a week it doesn't appear to be.

It looks to be living in it's own little world.

Strangely hypnotic and very surreal

Just sold some bitcoin to cover a holiday, moon in 3, 2, 1.....

On a serious note I'm splitting the budget between a withdrawal from Bitstamp via SEPA and Neteller to see which is more cost-efficient.
The account I'm withdrawing to is GBP.

Bets are on the winner being be Neteller for cost.
Bitstamp may win on convenience though since Neteller have a daily deposit limit of £300 and I'm having to split my deposit over two days.

I did a dry run last week and £100 took 3 days (with a £5 fee).

Ok I'm bored....

Anyone else watching this unfold ?

https://np.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/48rac0/bitcoins_nightmare_scenario_has_come_to_pass/

You really didn't read it did you ?

This is the r/technology sub (no affiliation to classic/core/xt) with it's 5mill subscribed user base.

The current top voted post is this :

I'm not interested in the war, more thoughts on the current "issues" being discussed in a more open forum.

Also consider that in that reddit sub there are alot of potential future bitcoin users.