Quote from: Wandererfromthenorth on March 25, 2015, 04:14:10 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on March 25, 2015, 04:03:02 PM

Quote from: Wandererfromthenorth on March 25, 2015, 02:09:31 PM

Quote from: majamalu on March 25, 2015, 03:08:47 AM

If they didn't destroy Bitcoin is not because they never wanted to, but because they can't.

They can't?

1: Spend the necessary capital to 51% attack the network. Destroy it.
Good luck creating another bitcoin that people will trust after that.

2: Wire $20M-$50M on various bitcoin exchanges and short it down to single digits and beyond in one go totally destroying confidence.
Currently there are around $15M in bids (lol) on all major exchanges combined and plenty of longs that can be completely margin called ($23M+ on bitfinex alone for example), it should be fairly easy.

Not only $20M-$50M is nothing for them if they are inclined in "killing" BTC, they would also make a very good profit on top of it.

They could destroy bitcoin is they wanted to. Thing is, they probably DGAF.

for someone who claims not to be a newbie troll, you sure argue like it.

these issues have been discussed ad nauseum since day 1 2009. i won't bother with the 51% attack since it hasn't happened and probably never will. too much effort for lazy fiat artists who would rather manipulate than actually work. while they could try to short it down using the few exchanges that do allow it, they would be taking huge risk in leaving such large amounts on exchanges presumably unfriendly to their cause and overseas. audits will help prevent this along with the risk of these centralized exchanges being hacked or shut down like Evo walking off with all their funds. if that ever happened, lots of heads would roll at these 3 letter agencies or banks. there's no printing of BTC to bail them out either.

Personal attacks, Great.

"51% attack never happened so it never will"?
What kind of logic is that? somebody said that "THEY can't do anything to destroy bitcoin". I said that this is false. That's it.

"they would be taking huge risk in leaving such large amounts on exchanges presumably unfriendly to their cause and overseas"
So? They would risk to lose $20M. The cost of attacking the network is a lot higher. So why should the government or anybody else that is inclined in "killing BTC" care about possibly losing that?

Worst case senario: they lose $20M and they kill confidence in bitcoin. Mission accomplished. They pretty much paid (not much) to kill it.
Best case scenario: mission accomplished + a nice profit.

You are making up stories. Considering how little money is needed to short bitcoin down to whatever price, nothing prevents me, evil entity from the gubermint, to wire what I want on exchanges and short it how I please.

PS: yeah, 2009. I'm sure in 2009 you were all talking about the possibility of killing confidence in BTC by using reliable margin trading for BTC which didn't even exist.
Right.

I know you hate anybody who posts bearish opinions. I'm just not drinking your kool-aid.

no, i'm just looking at historical facts.

the more time that goes by w/o a 51% attack, the less the chances of it happening. what happened to yours and everyone elses FUD about the pools themselves organizing to do it? oh, it just so happens we've had a nice evening out of the distribution of those very exchanges as predicted making them, imo, a non issue concerning these attacks. so now you have to move your goalposts and claim the gvt can just do it totally neglecting the fact that someone in the huge chip manufacturing industry would probably rat out the huge chip orders required. there's a large queue for these types of orders from the likes of Apple and Microsoft. do you think they'll just step aside for a few months for their chip orders? what i'm saying is their is too much political risk for gvts to perform this sort of attack. they do have to maintain a modicum of legitimacy and wiping out positions of Microsoft, IBM, Google, Paypal, Overstock, Dell, hedge funds, VC funds, and many other ppl probably won't sit well.

at least back in 2011, i was talking about naked shorts:

Quote from: cypherdoc on April 28, 2011, 05:08:42 AM

theres also the problem with the owners of the exchange being tempted to allow naked shorting by their customers. in other words, they pretend to give you (generic) shares to short which they don't own simply for the fee involved in making that sale. this can create all sorts of problems as Overstock.com and Tazer experienced with thousands of shares sold (shorted) on the mkt way greater than the actual number of shares issued. at this stage of the game where BTC is such a nascent concept, i would avoid this complexity which could cause alot of harm.