Thank you Coinlab for your efforts at clarifying this confusing time.

One more annoying question: Is there a deadline to using up my loyalty points? will they simply expire at some date if I haven't used them all yet?

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This is kinda exciting/fun trying to figure out if I should wait until asics start up and drive the difficulty through the roof, or should I use up my points asap to get more bitcoins per dollar (if you were to speculate that the price of bitcoin is going up)

personally, I think the price will continue to slowly trend upwards with some rapid rises followed by corrections, perhaps $15 by summer 2013? maybe $20 by next winter?? right now I'm working under the assumption that unless the price were to hit triple digits in the near future, I will be better off waiting for the impending difficulty surge and cashing in my loyalty points at that time.