Quote :

"If I buy on coinbase, do I run the risk of them shutting down or all my shit getting stolen? "

Yes. But it's much less of a risk because they have lots of cash and are making money. The founder had a not insignificant role in Pay Pal.

2/26/2014 5:17:18 PM

But wasn't Mt. Gox doing pretty damn well? Are you implying that coinbase will underwrite or insure my deposits?

2/26/2014 6:28:38 PM

I'm not being clear.

Mt Gox was making money but had people with no experience at the helm. Coinbase has outside investment AND they are making money. They also have people with experience commanding the ship and competent advisors. No one that's been around is surprised that Mt Gox has folded and this happened. I would be surprised if something similar happens to Coinbase, but if it does you'll likely be shit out of luck if your bitcoin was in Coinbase.

You should be securing it yourself if you choose to buy any, which minimizes a lot of this type of risk.

2/26/2014 6:55:13 PM

How do I secure it myself?

2/26/2014 9:01:52 PM

store your wallet.dat files yourself, regularly scan your system for malware, and put the wallet.dat files in some sort of offsite backup

2/26/2014 9:30:45 PM

2/28/2014 8:14:13 AM

break wallet.dat into a couple dozen rar archives and store them on floppies.

2/28/2014 12:33:44 PM

break wallet.dat into 20 .rar files, corrupt one, then put them in a password protected zip and download it from bittorrent

[Edited on February 28, 2014 at 3:48 PM. Reason : .]

2/28/2014 3:47:34 PM

big jump overnight

went from 570ish to about 700 or so right now

3/3/2014 1:08:25 PM

This is pure retardation.

3/3/2014 3:17:20 PM

ITT, 3 years of people claiming BTC will be dead in the next 6 months or already dead. All of this occurring 2 years after it was first created. So I suppose it's been dying for 5 years now?

3/3/2014 7:53:16 PM

but see this time it's different, the well of lolbertarian herp-derp will surely run dry now

3/4/2014 1:29:15 AM

^^Yeah, I guess we keep underestimating people like you and their epic fucking idiocy.

Sorry.

3/4/2014 8:04:28 AM

LOL. u mad bro?

3/4/2014 8:41:01 AM

I'm mad I didn't mine when I had the chance.

Still don't think btc is viable long term though, although the idea has potential as a supplement to established currencies.

3/4/2014 9:43:45 AM

My boss has a Ph. D in particle physics and mines litecoin that he uses to trade/sell bitcoin. I'll tell him he's epically fucking idiotic when he gets in.

[Edited on March 4, 2014 at 11:28 AM. Reason : a]

3/4/2014 11:28:40 AM

Today, 1 bitcoin buys x. Tomorrow, bitcoin buys 100x. The next day, bitcoin buys 0.001x.

3/4/2014 11:38:28 AM

I'm not sure how having a PhD in an unrelated subject correlates with ability to forecast bitcoin's viability or future value?

3/4/2014 12:10:53 PM

Yeah, CaelNCSU, would a Ph. D. in sucking dick constitute appropriate credentials as well? Because if so, I'd be interested in retaining your mother as my financial advisor.

BURN!

3/4/2014 12:40:46 PM

^^ The way the detractors in this thread talk about it, you'd think all the bitcoin proponents are script kiddies.

Technically it's interesting and uses several "hard" concepts in a novel way. It gets rid of some payment risks and creates new ones. The only way to determine which risks are worse is to try them out. It has some practical issues, to say the least, to overcome. The only way bitcoin will survive is if people keep using it and building on it, which is happening at an accelerating rate.

The speculation was interesting in large part because if you had $10,000 in it 3 years ago you have life changing money today.

3/4/2014 1:58:06 PM

Quote :

"The speculation was interesting in large part because if you had $10,000 in it 3 years ago you have life changing money today."

Roulette tables must fascinate you to no end.

3/4/2014 2:42:43 PM

rip in peace flexcoin

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/03/04/another-bitcoin-startup-tanks-after-600000-theft/

3/4/2014 4:05:02 PM

^^

Things with great asymmetry do. http://www.edge.org/conversation/understanding-is-a-poor-substitute-for-convexity-antifragility

3/4/2014 4:23:51 PM

ono

http://blog.tian.io/bitstamp-has-a-broken-matching-engine


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=499580

3/4/2014 4:25:44 PM

Seems like all the bit coin sites need WAAAYYY more quality control than currently exists. I guess without regulation and watchdogs to exact real oversight, people are pushing out shoddy software hoping they can make a quick buck.

3/4/2014 4:46:31 PM

^ What baffles me is NO ONE SEEMS CONCERNED about all these issues, there is absolutely no shaking people's confidence in this stuff. The cult of Bitcoin, indeed.

3/4/2014 5:43:15 PM

^ I've been concerned about <INSERT POS WALLET, FLY BY NIGHT EXCHANGE OF THE DAY HERE>. Which is why I don't and haven't used any of them. Essentially anyone that can write 3 lines of Javascript or PHP has been building services infrastructure. The market is crowded with junk, much like Windows Phone.

3/4/2014 5:55:46 PM

I've done pretty well with this last bump. Although my total investment of play money here is pretty low, it's nice to see it doing something.

3/4/2014 9:24:45 PM

Quote :

"you'd think all the bitcoin proponents are script kiddies"

because they fucking ARE

Jesus fucking Christ.

Quote :

" I guess without regulation and watchdogs to exact real oversight, people are pushing out shoddy software hoping they can make a quick buck. "

DING DING FUCKING DING

3/4/2014 9:56:46 PM

Quote :

"because they fucking ARE"

No, not ALL of them. This is definitely a caveat emptor situation though, and no one who knows anything at all about bitcoin wants it to be anything else, and are therefore extremely careful about who they trust.

[Edited on March 5, 2014 at 8:49 AM. Reason : *]

3/5/2014 8:49:01 AM

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/bitcoin-ceo-found-dead-singapore-apparent-suicide-article-1.1711585

3/5/2014 2:22:04 PM

Quote :

"The Face Behind Bitcoin"

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

[Edited on March 7, 2014 at 2:02 PM. Reason : ^^ all this misleading "Bitcoin CEO" stuff is bullshit]

3/7/2014 2:01:35 PM

The dude identified by Newsweek has strongly denied it, and there's a firestorm on controversy on the journalistic quality and ethics (did they have the right guy? was it right to reveal it?).

3/7/2014 2:32:36 PM

Bitcoin CEO is just like being a Nigerian prince. Right?

3/7/2014 2:42:01 PM

Quote :

"The dude identified by Newsweek has strongly denied it"

Quote :

"Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions. "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection." Nakamoto refused to say any more, and the police made it clear our conversation was over."

That's what you call a strong denial?

Quote :

"(did they have the right guy? was it right to reveal it?)"

I think only the latter is up for debate, and barely at that.

3/7/2014 3:52:45 PM

Ok so he admits to it, then denies it after he gets chased all over town by the media horde.

http://gawker.com/bitcoin-inventor-denies-newsweek-story-after-bizarre-1538090682
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=22811029
http://gawker.com/newsweek-editor-in-chief-we-stand-by-our-bitcoin-story-1538363931

3/7/2014 4:37:37 PM

This is the dumbest piece of journalism I have ever seen. The reasoning behind the article is

-guy is good at math
-he has the same name (even though there are good reasons to think the name is a pseudonym)

Quote :

""Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions. "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection." Nakamoto refused to say any more, and the police made it clear our conversation was over.""

I'd be really surprised if this quote wasn't pulled out of context, which of course is exactly what Nakamoto is saying:

Quote :

""I'm saying I'm no longer in engineering. That's it," he said of the exchange. "And even if I was, when we get hired, you have to sign this document, contract saying you will not reveal anything we divulge during and after employment. So that's what I implied." "It sounded like I was involved before with bitcoin and looked like I'm not involved now. That's not what I meant. I want to clarify that," he said."

Let's think about this for a second. A cryptography genius goes to extreme lengths to protect his anonymity over the course of 5+ years. Never once slips up and identifies himself even though the whole world is clamoring to know who he is. And then he accidentally admits his involvement to a reporter? But then recognizes his mistake hours later?

Then during the 5+ years he was super secretive about his identity, he uses his real name to post on Amazon in broken English (even though he wrote a white paper with perfect English):

Quote :

"royal danish butter cookies in a big 4lb round blue tin can it has lots of buttery taste. the shipment went well. i've had a nice comment from my kids. it's a perfect xmas and i would say, for other occasions."

How the fuck can anyone believe this for a moment? http://www.cnbc.com/id/101474673

3/7/2014 6:46:31 PM

If he some random guy who has no idea what it was, why is he acting so sketchy when reporter try to talk to about it? It seems pretty obvious this guys involves with bit coin doesn't want anyone to know, which is his right. But I can't see how anyone would believe that he's not the guy.

What's the big deal even if he was the guy who created the bit coin idea? Just because you're the person came up with the original product, doesn't really mean anything considering what it is today. Steve Wozniak was the creator of the apple, but he has pretty much nothing to do with the Macintosh we know today. It would be stupid to presume he is really relevant to the process now. That's probably the case with this guy now.

3/7/2014 8:27:22 PM

Quote :

"If he some random guy who has no idea what it was, why is he acting so sketchy when reporter try to talk to about it? It seems pretty obvious this guys involves with bit coin doesn't want anyone to know, which is his right. But I can't see how anyone would believe that he's not the guy."

Sketchy? He's being harassed by a reporter who is asking questions, which he thought was about his previous government contracts.

There's such a disconnect here... I'm baffled.

The guy who invented bitcoin is clearly highly intelligent, capable of hiding his identity for years (even though he owns around a billion dollars in BTC), able to write perfect English.

And here we have a bumbling old Japanese dude who writes broken English and he's the guy because..... well, I haven't heard any reasons yet. If he is the guy, fine. I'm rather curious to know who Satoshi Nakamoto is. But I'm not seeing a shred of evidence this is him.

Quote :

"It seems pretty obvious this guys involves with bit coin doesn't want anyone to know, which is his right."

Why in the world would he admit to it if he didn't want anyone to know??!!?

[Edited on March 7, 2014 at 9:47 PM. Reason : asdf]

3/7/2014 9:31:50 PM

japcoin

3/8/2014 12:31:41 AM

That amazon review isn't broken English. It's just an amazon review. My previous dictated post in this thread is worse.

Why only 1 review? Seems suspicious doesn't it...

3/8/2014 12:57:14 AM

Quote :

"Why only 1 review? Seems suspicious doesn't it..."

Yes, very suspicious. Of course, he left 3 reviews over 2 years.

3/8/2014 6:36:56 AM

Quote :

"The reasoning behind the article is -guy is good at math -he has the same name (even though there are good reasons to think the name is a pseudonym)"

Wow. Hell of a strawman there. Did you even read the article?

3/8/2014 12:46:03 PM

Yes. I did. It's not a strawman.

This is the kind of airheaded logic used in the article:

Quote :

"Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 online proposal also hints at his age, with the odd reference to "disk space" - something that hasn't been an issue since the last millennium - and older research citations of contemporaries' work going back to 1957."

I'm not sure if she means we don't use Hard Disk Drives anymore..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive

Or if memory is now unlimited? Actually the unpruned block chain is necessarily ridiculous in size since its a public transaction ledger of every transaction ever made back to the beginning of time.

Quote :

"At very high transaction rates each block can be over half a gigabyte in size."

Which means if you didn't optimize anything, you'd be creating a TB ever couple weeks.

And referencing one paper from the 50s (appears to be a foundational paper on probability) isn't evidence of fucking anything. Pretty sure people do that all the time.

Quote :

"Satoshi's style of writing code was old-school. He used things like reverse Polish notation."

Who the fuck cares?

This article is junk.

[Edited on March 8, 2014 at 1:14 PM. Reason : afsad]

3/8/2014 12:58:17 PM

saying hard drive space that hasn't been an issue != saying "we don't use Hard Disk Drives anymore"

come on dude. i'll agree that the article is flawed in places, but that's a pretty monstrous misrepresentation, just like your one before it.

3/8/2014 1:46:29 PM

I was being charitable and thinking maybe she thought disk refered to floppy disk or something. Hard drive space HAS been an issue and will continue to be an issue. I have no clue what she is saying, but I was quite charitable in dealing with all the things she might have meant.

Please highlight the evidence in the article you find compelling. The only "smoking gun" anyone seems to have is a an out of context quote that the guy says was misunderstood (and it seems obvious that he wouldn't have admitted to such a thing if he was going to turn around and deny it hours later). What else is there?

[Edited on March 8, 2014 at 1:57 PM. Reason : asdfasdf]

3/8/2014 1:56:55 PM

Quote :

" The only "smoking gun" anyone seems to have is a an out of context quote that the guy says was misunderstood"

That's a he said/she said situation...certainly not a smoking gun, but they would both have their reasons for not being honest about the exchange. Was there anyone else on that porch besides the two of them? What are they saying?

3/8/2014 2:37:54 PM

What I'm asking is what evidence is presented besides that single quote? That seems like the best thing going for the article and if you remove it, what do you have?

The police were there and actually confirmed the quote. I don't take issue with the words of the quote. I take issue with the context, what question was posed beforehand.

Here's a long section of the article, but pay attention what happens between the journalist's own words and Nakamoto's:

Quote :

"Two police officers from the Temple City, Calif., sheriff's department flank him, looking puzzled. "So, what is it you want to ask this man about?" one of them asks me. "He thinks if he talks to you he's going to get into trouble." "I don't think he's in any trouble," I say. "I would like to ask him about Bitcoin. This man is Satoshi Nakamoto." "What?" The police officer balks. "This is the guy who created Bitcoin? It looks like he's living a pretty humble life." I'd come here to try to find out more about Nakamoto and his humble life. It seemed ludicrous that the man credited with inventing Bitcoin - the world's most wildly successful digital currency, with transactions of nearly $500 million a day at its peak - would retreat to Los Angeles's San Gabriel foothills, hole up in the family home and leave his estimated $400 million of Bitcoin riches untouched. It seemed similarly implausible that Nakamoto's first response to my knocking at his door would be to call the cops. Now face to face, with two police officers as witnesses, Nakamoto's responses to my questions about Bitcoin were careful but revealing. Tacitly acknowledging his role in the Bitcoin project, he looks down, staring at the pavement and categorically refuses to answer questions. "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it," he says, dismissing all further queries with a swat of his left hand. "It's been turned over to other people. They are in charge of it now. I no longer have any connection." Nakamoto refused to say any more, and the police made it clear our conversation was over."

Wait. Why the fuck interject a non sequitur in the middle of the most important exchange in the entire article? Maybe because there were other questions posed at that point that never made it into the article. So I'll ask again, even if you think this is good evidence, what else is there?

3/8/2014 2:50:16 PM

It's highly circumstantial, but unless the NSA release of their wiretaps or someone owns up to it, it would really all just be speculation at this point.

3/8/2014 4:51:45 PM

LOL that a random police officer would know what bitcoin was, much less who Satoshi Nakamoto was

set em up---------->

3/8/2014 11:10:22 PM