i'm sure we will find out within the next several months, i wold think there will be more of this to come, mtgox said their beefed-up new site won't be ready with all the security features until the end of the year.


i see, the other thing i was thinking of re: markets being manipulated from the inside is the bro's network. favors cashed in, calls made, only the sweet deals going to those already sitting at the table.

i'd think a lot of that still influences the exchanges eh?

you are a funny guy (y)

I'm with ya. For as "safe" as everyone claims it is, it is looking like one of the most fragile currencies ever created. A simple ddos drops the value that much and they say nothing can be done about that. :helpme This has potential disaster all over it. They have to figure out a way to get this under control if they want it to survive.

There have been several times where they have closed for other reasons, the last time was just this past October for hurricane Sandy. They stop trading. Stocks don't fall off a cliff because of it.

Besides that, Wall Street closes every weekend for two days. :upsidedow

yea i just saw

by Joe Weisenthal

Instawallet — a site that offers a quick way to create your own Bitcoin wallet — just announced that it’s been hacked and will not reopen until it can “develop an alternate architecture.”

Here’s the announcement on the site.

The entire Bitcoin ecosystem is having pains today amid all of the attention. The various sites that provide quotes are very slow.

We talked to Clark Moody, who runs a great Bitcoin quote page, who said his traffic has more than doubled in the last month, and who says his servers are creaking.

Also the proprietor of Bitcoincharts is seeing bottlenecks due to high traffic, he tells us.

Image Reference

Geek.com

Once Bitcoin ATMs are widespread, reliance on exchanges will taper off big time.

Yes, funded and backed by the trust of the people.

Once...

If....

Maybe...

That is a ways away. Going to be a bumpy ride until, if, that happens and people actually use them. Ordering them is one thing, getting the population to use them is another.

Though, how do you figure that will change reliance on exchanges? ATMs for cash are all over the world and they have nothing to do with exchange rates. It just provides more convenience for getting and depositing money.

Sounds very similar to the way the stock markets are manipulated :pimp

The way I see it, for now the hackers and script kiddies will manipulate this market and then once Wall Street get involved then it'll be back to status quo

Was hoping that would be a few months away :Oh crap

I tend to side with your opinion DWB that governments will have put an end to Bitcoin long before ATMs for Bitcoin are implemented.

They better hurry cause ATM's are about 2 weeks away.

Because getting bitcoins is a pain, unless you have a person in your area selling. If I can just go down the street, put in a 100 bill and have bitcoins instantly in my wallet, thats 100000x better and many people using bitcoin feel the same way I'm sure. It would also make people spend more into the economy, since they can replace whatever they just spent pretty quickly.

Source? Last I heard there was a proposal for one in Cyprus but that was it for the immediate future.

Cheers Franck

So instead of one ATM there is going to be around 4 ATMs "soon" in two locations and no immediate info on when ATMs will be rolled out in other countries. Hmmmm

IMO it'll take a very long time to roll out if that's the type of capital he's looking to raise :2 cents:

The most important info in that article is this

thanks for posting this!

op, watch this youtube when you get a sec. :)

I get that, but how does that change anything in regards to the reliance of its exchange rate? So what if a handful of guys use a bitcoin ATM. That isn't going to make any difference at all on the exchange rate.

Millions, if not billions of people use ATMs for cash. Doesn't make any difference at all on what the USD is worth.

Bitcoins are decentralized and peer to peer. DDOSing exchanges doesn't effect it's operation or ability to pay and receive them. When the mass of people only use one exchange rate (mtgox) it scares them when it goes down and they panic sell. Throw up more exchange sites or reinforce mtgox with DDOS mitigation.

He didn't think that out very well. I like a lot of his videos but he's off on this one.

His point about if a bank branch wasn't doing well one day that the media would not report that the USD was hacked, it flawed. The USD would not lose 20% of its value if a bank branch couldn't create accounts fast enough, per his description.

Secondly, the word "hack" was used to deliver the story to people who do not know anything about computers or what a ddos is. WE all know what it means, but 99% of the population does not, but they all understand the word "hacked." The media always dumbs the stories down. That is how they reach the masses. Adam "The Man" knows this too.

Last, the word "hack" is defined several ways, some of which do describe what happened to bitcoin.

- to damage or injure by crude, harsh, or insensitive treatment
- to reduce or cut ruthlessly; trim
- to cut, notch, slice, chop, or sever (something) with or as with heavy, irregular blows (often followed by up or down )

All of which could be used to say they "hacked" 20% off the value of bitcoin. The ddos reduced, or hacked, the value of bitcoin. And so on. "Hacked" doesn't always have to mean what WE think it means, which is a security breach or about computer security.

Those of you who do not speak English as a first language get a pass. Those of you who do speak English as a first language and are opposed to the headlines should spend more time augmenting your vocabulary. Just sayin'.

not really.

granted, he got mixed up on the bank branch analogy, but his point is still valid. here's a better analagy, bank of america takes a shit, not the branch in 2008, not one mention of the dollar being hacked, it was couched as bailing out the bank. none of us knew wtf "bank bailout" meant at the time, just like you are saying most don't know what "hacker" means, but we were fed bank bailout.

no, hacker is a sensationalist term that does not portray the events accurately at all.

theres no point in arguing. time will tell and the fools will be proven fools. words marked!

bitcoins are for morans

people say that about bleeding edge shit everytime. fact is, early adopters risk their asses backing unproven technology, 90+% of the time it fails.

there's a multi-billion dollar industry based on it, it's called venture capital, look at the success rate for those morans, 1 out of 20 maybe?

let's look at baseball players, step up to the plate and only hit the ball 1 out of every 3 times and you will find yourself in the hall of fame one day.


but don't try. just don't try or people will call you a fool for trying.

What is a moran? Did you mean moron maybe?

It amazes me just how upset and butthurt these people are.
They are in every thread screaming and crying how horrible Bitcoin is.
I really only can find 1 reason for that. And that is that they hate to see other people making easy money.
What other reason could there possibly be for this behaviour?

I can understand mentioning you don't like Bitcoins every now and then but this group of haters...man...it's like their life depends on it to be in every thread explaining how evil Bitcoin is.
It just doens't make sense.

crissy moran!

http://www.teenport.com/new_images/m...issy-moran.jpg

Those microwave contraptions were for morons. What kind of idiotic sorcery could cook faster than an oven. Those things will never sell. And automobiles; dumbest idea ever.

Newsweek in 1995: Why the Internet will Fail.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...ernet-bah.html

not even comparable. the price of bitcoins is all based on speculation right now. non tangible items like bitcoin can't live on speculation forever. if they are not actually used for something (besides buying illegal shit) by a large segment of the population prices will eventually drop over time to maybe $10-20 per. i think this is just reality. i consider myself highly skeptical but not a hater. i am still on fence about buying some. i've lost way more money on other things in the past.

This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.
- Western Union internal memo, 1878

the internet as it was in 1995 would of failed had it not evolved. same will go for bitcoins. if they are actual common uses created for them they may have longevity. if its 99% speculation and 1% usage, it won't.

Bitcoin won't ever fail because of how it's previously and currently being used. A means to anonymously and easily/quickly transfer money across the internet without big brothers involvement.

Will it fail to make people rich? yes. Will it fail to hold $100? probably. But it will never completely fail unless it's succeeded by a better more secure and anonymous form of digital currency.

in this stage, they are both considered experiments. who knew in 1992-95 how or where the internet would evolve, same with btc, it's an experiment, who knows where it will go, most likely it will blow up, like most experiments, but the infrastructure will remain.

speculate in an experiment prior to it proving any value whatsoever and the risk/reward ratio is much more extreme than entering into it after it has proven any kind of value.

The average and stable price of bitcoin was originally around the $10-20 area both before and after the great pitfall to 50cents/coin. It only shot up when mass media got all these crazies to invest in it. I personally agree that it will go back to that price range. But you never know now that all these big wig investors (besides the mafia) have dumped money into it.

well it will 'fail' to be what all the hypers claim it will be if its just used for anon sending. like i've said before, no one needs anonymous transactions except people doing shady shit. i love paypal and use it daily but i don't see the benefits of using bitcoin over it. i don't need it to be anon. i don't need it to be non reversible. while there may be no fees in sending bitcoins in order to buy them it costs money, time and you lose the anonymity with all the verification.

true. people like yourself and mikeroth are more grounded regarding the future of bitcoin. then you have hyper fools like mayabong who think bitcoins will make be the end of the irs and the banking system.

this goes to the evolution of experimental tech, the anonymity wasn't really part of the original experiment, from the white paper

the anonymity is simply a part of the solution to the above problem:
http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

I dont have any predictions about the future. I do think if it because widespread enough possible the tax in the US would change from income to some kind of consumption tax.

The main reason I don't think it would work in the mainstream is because it's too easy to scam and be scammed. Would local police get into bitcoin theft? Would there be a new form of digital currency police agents highly trained in bitcoin chain tracing?

There's been a ton of people over the last year that have scammed people out of $100,000 or more. InstaWallet could be one of the people scamming (claiming they got hacked when in actuality the owner stole all the bitcoins for mass profit). There's multiple cases where online retailers became highly rated then one day stopped sending product while still collecting bitcoins then just vanished.

I don't think it was designed to be a mainstream currency and I don't see how it could become one. But for illegal activities it's the bees knees.

It was a poor analogy on many levels.

I didn't write the definitions for the word "hacker." Ask your grandma if she knows what a ddos is. She won't know. But chances are she knows what a hacker is because that is the word used over and over again in the media. They do this all the time, that is how they reach a broader audience.

"Hacker" is indeed a sensationalist term, but it is also the best term to use for the lowest common denominator when describing something like this.

The Bank Of America could go out of business tomorrow and the USD wouldn't be phased. All the banks could have problems and you wouldn't see a 20% drop in the USD. The Bang Of America could be robbed every hour on the hour and you wouldn't see any movement in the USD. A bank having trouble is not the same as a bank bailout. And yes, just about everyone knew what a "bank bailout" was. That was already as dumbed down as it could get. The term "bailout" is pretty cut and dry. Perhaps we didn't know the scope of it all, but everyone knew what it meant.

google? pffft ....LOL . we've already got yahoo

No offense, but you're completely delusional thinking it could have any impact on US taxes and the IRS. You have to first know what the IRS is and why we are taxed in the first place, then you will understand none of it has anything to do with anything bitcoin could solve.

Make all the money you can. I hope you and everyone else (even Franck) riding the bitcoin train get filthy rich. But you are pretty ungrounded when it comes to some of the comments you're making about it.

Hard for us to imagine now, but how long do you think it will be before someone unseats Google and Facebook?

my grandma wouldn't know what a hacker is, my mom didn't know, my dad described it as someone breaking into your computer and grabbing files. many non-sensationalist reports described it accurately as an attack, certainly that describes it better than hacked and more people would know that term over hacker.

either way, i think the media as irresponsible and over-sensational, you think they were accurate. we'll never know.

and no, many many people were confused about the bank bailouts. what is tarp, what is asset relief, what is too big to fail? all brand new terms and concepts.

there were many questions and a lot of people didn't understand it, including me.

hopefully soon :2 cents:

I think it was was accurate enough for the average person to understand, and that is the target audience of most of the media outlets.

Having said that, I believe a headline of "Bitcoin is under attack!" would have been equally effective. But we're talking about sleazy mega corporations who spread lies to help the government start illegal wars and further political agendas, so anything is possible.

Hey now, it has common uses. Drugs, child porn, hit men, gambling...how can it go wrong?

that's prolly the gist of it eh. + not investigating it in the slightest. i've noticed many of the mainstream articles quote each other- a lot. sure, they all have their "what you need to know about bitcoin in 30 seconds" articles but i'm realizing they prolly just read some other 30 second overview on it all to write their's.

it's too bad because it truly is a fucking fantastic experiment. doomed to fail? prolly. still a few years away though, but, just like the dotcom crash, investors took the hit, the infratructure remained and now here we are.

i'm glad you mentioned fb, btw, i've been fascinated with the comparison b/w it and btc. it's why i've posted a pic of zuckerberg here and there in these btc threads.

fb was touted as the next big thing, a new paradigm in social whatever. legitimate wall street ultimately valued it for us at $100 billion based on its potential. people all bought the hype and wanted a piece of $100b fb.

i'm not saying fb is bad or that btc is good. but i do find the difference between how the 2 are accepted/perceived to be....hmm....not sure what to think of that yet.....:1orglaugh

ATM theft and fraud is HUGE, in the BILLIONS - the only reason ATM's are around is because the banks are so fucking rich that they can absorb the huge losses.

Those owning and operating Bitcoin ATM's won't last long, they won't be able to eat the losses to fraud/theft.

Converting bitcoins to cash safely and easily will be a huge obstacle. Putting your trust in 'exchanges' that are totally unregulated is about as high risk as you can get.

What happens when/if bitcoins really do take off - when there are thousands of retailers online who accept them for expensive hard goods like computers? For example, I buy a $2,000 computer from some online merchant with bitcoins and get scammed, they take my bitcoins and don't ship me a computer. With a credit card I can do a chargeback, with Paypal I can do a dispute and win, with a check or wire I at least have hard evidence to use in court - what does the customer who uses bitcoins show in court to prove he sent $2,000 in bitcoins - is there a printable proof of transaction that will identify the user I sent the $2,000 in bitcoins to?

I got interested in bitcoins because I could see its' place as an anonymous digital currency for the underground online economy. This hype we're seeing now is about going far beyond that and there are going to be huge pitfalls along the way.

Also, I am pretty sure that ATM's would fall under some regulation in any country. You can't even operate a hotdog cart without a license and inspection. So with a stroke of a pen any government can shut down the bitcoin ATM industry.

It's like Alex Jones quoting his own website InfoWars.com as it being the truth, when it is the only source for the information. Somehow, in the craziness of it all, people believe it. If the mainstream media paints a bad picture of bitcoin, telling everyone who is thinking of using it how unstable it is, it will more or less be over for the majority of people as they believe what they are told. Perhaps that is the point.

The death of bitcoin doesn't necessarily have to come directly from a government. There is more than one way to skin a cat. :2 cents: