I may be interested in conducting business with a man like yourself, Mr. Go. I may appear new to this forum, but I assure you that prior to my posting here, I was keeping up with it in order to keep my finger firmly upon the pulse of bitcoin. And you, good sir, are the kind of man I like, the kind of man I respect. I've read many of your writings, and your creed is true, your ambition endless, your integrity indubitable. Though you have not met with success yet in your endeavors, I've no doubt that a man with such drive will find a place of greatness in the world! You remind me of myself when I was beginning my manufactory. I had several other businesses start and fail, and that is the nature of success. One cannot understand success without having first experienced failure!

The wretched of the world fail and shrug their shoulders and say "This was not to be. This was not mine." The ambitious, the great, stand and move forward. They will say "This was not right. This can be better. I can be better. I will have what is mine." They are those that choose to succeed. You, Mr. Go, I do not doubt, have chosen to succeed. I am interested in a man who recognizes, at least, that this is a choice!

My money is bitcoin, largely. I have purchased many thousands from individuals with precious metal, preferring to stay away from the exchanges for the time being, as I don't trust their business acumen. I have said it before, and I'll say it again - I respect MtG:Ox for their ability to run a large and profitable business, despite being bogged down at every turn by quibbling bank operations and government slavedriving, but their lack of transparency and insistence upon anonymity give me no confidence of their integrity. I prefer to look someone in the eye and shake their hand when I do business. I want to know a man has character before I trade with him - that is how business does and ought to work.

Apart from those few purchases, I have also undertaken a mining operation, which I pay for with what remaining government play money I still have around. The fortune that is able to produce is quite prodigious, and as long as the electricity providers insist upon being paid by government decree, rather than with real wealth like gold or bitcoin, it's essentially free, so far as I am concerned. The balance of my fortune is tidied away in a vault under my home, mostly as gold and silver, and small quantities of other precious metals like osmium, iridium, and rhodium. (Mark my words - osmium will rise to great prominence after the coming collapse of the fiat treason! It is an excellent store of value, and I trade silver for it upon every available opportunity.)

Then I would urge the current owner of playcasinobtc.com to reconsider selling the domain to someone who cannot pay what it is worth. I advise him or her to wait for a serious offer from someone with serious capital. After all, if you cannot even afford to present an offer that admits the current owner some modicum of dignity, how do you hope to afford the considerable expenses of beginning a successful business? And of all businesses, a casino?

Original poster, hold out for a better offer. Some worthier entrepreneur with real ambition will offer well for your domain.

1.5 BTC? Why that's a pathetic amount of money to bid on a domain! Insultingly low! A man of integrity and with true intentions to build a venture should be willing to bid more than 10, or 20, or more! I would myself, if I so cared. And in truth, when an entrepreneurial opportunity comes up, I frequently salivate at the thought of it, itching to contain myself. There really is nothing more satisfying that hard work to the accomplishment of industry. However, there is only such honor and satisfaction in proper business, and gambling is no proper business, so far as I'm concerned. Best of luck to whomever undertakes this venture with the integrity it deserves, and bully for your effort, but I must draw myself out of it.

Why all this talk of fiat dollars anyway? There are more bitcoins than there were in June, and they are real capital, whoever holds them, whatever some traders may think they are "worth" in comparison to the failing American dollar. Let the traders and speculators bandy about their numbers and scream terror as they run back to the "security" of their government lies guised as currency. I know where the true future of capital lies, and I am more confident than ever of the real value of bitcoin.

No, these notions of a centralized issuer of currency are nothing more than fancies to establish a new reserve-type central currency authority. This is the very same organization we have labored to get rid of with the creation of bitcoins. Gold's value does not derive from it's acceptance by some currency-issuing central body, but by the fact that people recognize its worth as a store of value - gold can be currency, it does not need to back it. Immanuel is right to point out that Bitcoin is analogous to gold, and like Bitcoin, it does not need a central authority to give it value. Such authority is only necessary for intrinsically worthless media of exchange - that is, fiat currencies, whose worth comes to us from the barrel of a gun.

To back Bitcoin with gold is the same as backing silver with gold - it makes no sense when one is as good a store of value as the other. It is unnecessary. All that aside, I would like to see an exchange to allow the conversion of gold and bitcoins. I'll say, though, that such a business will need be quite transparent and forthright with me before I would hand over any of my gold - the present exchanges, for instance, strike me as suspicious organizations. I keep an eye on them, and in time, perhaps I will trust them. For now, however, I keep my Bitcoins - and my gold! - safe with me at all times.

I heartily agree. It will be of less expense to construct the machine yourself than to purchase it second hand. More importantly, perhaps, is that you will know the machine if you build it yourself, and for mining equipment of considerable expense, I believe it is very important to know the device intimately. Things will go wrong, and you should know in your bones what it is when it happens - and you will, if you build it yourself.

Consider also this - there is a deep satisfaction with watching wealth spring forth from the work of your own hands. Have you ever crafted wood, or forged iron? I have done both! The sensation is similar, and it is exquisite. Fruit is never so sweet as when you pick it yourself.

Hear hear. Nobody runs their business for free - nor should anyone be expected to. Accept my kudos to you, however, for being forthright about who you are and what you do - there are far too many "businessmen" about here who hide themselves and their business practices from the very people with whom they do business. That is not how a proper enterprise is run! It shows no character, and a lack of integrity. It's good to see somebody come forward and say who they are, and for God's sake, have some pride about what they've accomplished. Best of luck to you, Ira.

My own instinct, at the present time, is not to trust the exchanges, as much as I respect their ability to carve out a profitable niche. Their operators behave as though they have something to hide, and I, for one, like my business conducted with handshakes and eye contact, not with vague technicalities and opaque operating procedures. MtG:Ox operates the way I would expect some government thrall bank would, not as a bank should run, straightforward and with open books. I mine my own Bitcoins, so I needn't fetter about with these exchanges, but if you cannot do so, yet, I would advise you to find a local bitcoiner with an excess of coin and a deficit of sense (for who, in these times, would sell their coin?) and exchange to Bitcoin in person, with a smile, a handshake, and integrity. That's proper business, I say.

Your average troll is no sullen slouchabout, and will not rest after but five posts. The troll is a pernicious creature, a clever beast of patience and frequently of no small intellect. Five posts is but a snack for such a one, a delicate aperitif before he gorges himself upon your vexing frustrations. Be wary, fellow bitcoineers - these restrictions will perhaps keep out the lazier specimens, but those most foul and determined trolls will not rest at a mere five post limit. It is only a low threshold before a wide open door.

Greetings friends! Call me AndyR, Andy, or Andrew if you please, and know that I am a man of purpose. Know that I come before you a man of integrity and honor. I am a man who knows that only hard work and responsibility will make a man complete. See before you not a parasite, but a man who humbly asks you judge him complete by that measure.

It is a wonder that I have not joined these discussions earlier, for I have been a miner for some time now, and believe heartily in the future of Bitcoin. It has been clear to me for many years, as I'm sure it has been to many, if not most of you, that the pernicious fiat currencies of the world are but a precarious financial skeleton, with nought but skin upon them to hide the hollows inside. They will fall soon, as they must, and I hope - believe! - that it shall be Bitcoin that brings the world back to financial right! Truly a currency of the people and by the people, and we, the people, will carry it forward through the ruin of the old government reserves with their baseless smoke and mirrors.

Come friends and let each man work for himself, and by so doing, work for the good of all. We will make the world new.