So how is bitcoin.de different from other exchanges? To my untrained eye it looks like it's the same exact thing as the others...

The message on the frontpage of https://bitcoin-24.com/ is disconcerting news (read more here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175123.0 and here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174935.0) and I hope everyone who still had money and/or BTC in there will get it back - including myself.

I had moved most of my stuff by chance the other day to https://vircurex.com/ because I wanted to convert to LTCs but now I'm worried that the same thing might happen to vircurex.com as well... Can anyone shine some light on this site in particular? Are the owners/the owner on this forum?

Generally speaking, how safe are these exchanges, if at all?

Wow that sucks ... lucky I withdrew all my funds the other day... Now they are sitting here: https://vircurex.com/ but maybe the same can happen to these guys?!? Anyone has some experience with vircurex.com ? Is the owner in this forum?

Worth a shot 

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171167.0

Hmmm that's odd because I am looking there and my folder is much smaller. c:\user\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin

Could it be that your blockchains failed to download repeatedly so they have multiple entries there? Not sure, if I find some more useful info I'll post it here 

Good system, all forums should have something like this

Interesting debate. It is not surprising that there are non-believers but anyone with a sane mind can see that a digital currency is part of the future at some point - hopefully this point is now and BTC, LTC & Co are part of this future 

I'm not an expert but have studied economics and have done a sh*t load of reading on bitcoin and litecoin in the last few weeks - my 2 (litecoin)cents would be that the value of the two currencies is definitely interconnected because as people buy bitcoins the demand for litecoins indirectly goes up as well thus increasing the price of litecoins. I can't find the article unfortunately but I also read somewhere that litecoins can in theory be considered like the lesser denomination coins of the bitcoin currency, like in some countries you have $2 or $1 dollar coins in a golden-like colour and the $0.x coins in a silver-like colour. Overall I think it'll take some time before the correlation of the value between BTC and LTC will be linear or direct - currently, if that, it will have an indirect impact on the value but once the BTC value settles somewhere it is only logical that LTC will follow the trend. HTH  

Exactly - why on earth would you be selling a rig for a few hundred or thousand respectively, when they can make you tenfold that? They will probably sell them once the difficulty has gone up enough or similar to double-dip and make a profit of reselling the hardware on top of having used it. Worst part, you'll be buying them as 'new' but technically they will have be second hand... oh, I mean 'tested' sorry 

My bitcoin folder takes 813 MB space when fully synced with the network. Maybe the OP doesn't have that much?

You could always just uninstall some programs and re-install them to the other non-SSD drive. I think leaving the bitcoin folder in its default location is a better approach, since I think the bitcoin software might be more at risk to not work properly when not in its default location 

Cool that helps get an idea of the ranks

Good guidelines there