The article is obvious total sarcasm. There are inventions, tiny and huge, happening every day. All of them follow the law of seven stages (appended below for reference). Even the most significant developments are over-advertised and over-sold. An article like this could have been committed when Internet was in phase 3. This has happened with Internet and will happen with Bitcoin.

PS. I believe that Internet is now in Phase 7. The most popular people on Web 2.0 are individuals who do not know HTML and cannot say what port HTTP works on. They cannot set up a LAMP server, but write blogs, populate YouTube channels, and have gazillions of followers on Facebook.

Isn't it obvious who signs this guy's pay check (http://www.atb.com/about/Pages/our-history.aspx)

'I want to link my Bitcointalk name with BTCJam's. Verification code: d9337359-f148-477b-b5db-435f8d0af464'

Governments will do it for us. They will print so much paper that the only thing that stands are real collectables like gold and bitcoin.

http://maxkeiser.com/2013/03/12/max-keiser-on-alex-jones-bitcoin-to-kill-the-fed/

Video. Introductory level explanation to Bitcoin. Speculations about Bitcon trading at hundred thousands dollars.

What is appalling for me is the fact that software incompatibility (even intentional one) has been factored into Bitcoin design. Things like this blockchain split may and will occur. These are rare events and very unprofitable for miners. However, they are not valid reason for any panic. One can compare them to eclipse, it lasts several hours and sun shines again.

It is important to keep in mind that this kind of problems are rare and have been already been thought about. Bitcoin as whole is resilient against this kind of problems. When two versions of Bitcoin nodes cannot agree on interpretation of the rules then miners vote with their feet. They either upgrade or downgrade.

The only thing interesting about this incident is that a small group of most potent miners have changed the outcome by dumping their version. It seems that at the beginning version 0.8 was winning and everyone would be forced to upgrade to that version on very short notice. Only when operators of big pools decided to downgrade, branch on which version 0.7 worked took over.

The issue got everyone by surprise mainly because old version (0.7) had a surplus rule/feature limiting block size. Was problem known before, developers would first release a version which accepts large blocks but does not produce them. Only when almost everyone would upgrade to that version, large blocks would be produced.

Actually this is what we are having now. Version 0.8 with default configuration accepts large blocks but does not produce them.

Apology: I did not read the whole thread before replying. But I agree it needs explanation.


1) There will be no official announcement, because there is no authority for Bitcoin.

2) Nothing mayor has happened, your Bitcoins has been and are safe. All transactions already have been reprocessed on new fork. In fact the very first few blocks on new branch should contain all transactions in old branch. The main difference is who will get fees for these transactions and 25BTC mining profit. Otherwise the whole event has no impact. The threat of double spending is theoretical, because when fork occurred there were miners working on both branches.

3) The ramifications are and will be purely psychological. The main one is loss of confidence in the brand name. This may cause lowering of exchange rates and this in turn may trigger stop loss orders. The end result is panic on exchanges. We have seen something like this over year ago and Bitcoin is still kicking.

The logo incorporates the contour of a house and set of keys arranged into a pentagon. Color schema has been selected to resemble golden glitter of the rising sun. A much needed dawn in the real estate market 

The banks have love/hate relationship with lawmakers: they love their protection, but hate their regulation. Bitcoin may free banks from regulation, but it will leave them without protection as well. Banks worked long and hard to get themselves in their current position and I doubt they are willing to give it up.

So far we have witnessed 4 attempts at creating ASIC bitcoin miner: OpenBitASIC, BitForce, bASIC, and Avalon ASIC. OpenBitASIC has not got to the point where they could obtain funding. bASIC is now in convulsions and customers are encouraged to seek chargebacks. BitForce is past its 1 Jan 2013 deadline and its pre-orders are refundable. Avalon ASIC is still smiling.

Now, my question is: is anyone going to write a book about all these turbulences?

Are there any payments planned at all?
Whole 50% of funds have been lost due to double returns?

The most amaizing thing about GLBSE was that it actually worked. Practicaly, we wittnessed only one case of dodgy investment instrument. It was under several pass-through labels, but it was the same entity. Vast mayority of people were actually honest (or even plain generous as it came out in case of race horse owners).

If you can recall, Enron went down despite all checks and balances, internal and external audits, etc. All these overheads costed huge amounts of money and in the end it still boiled down to honesty of few individuals.

I still think we are just scratching the surface of the problem. Coloured coins will only provide a "shareholders registry" service. It will not substitute for "stock exchange". Anyone running an exchange is still vulnerable to charges of offering securities without prospectus to unsophisticated clients. I understand that GLBEX was relying on argumentation that BTC is monopoly money, so “securities” traded on it were not real securities. One can argue on what BTC is, but it is hard to argue that BTC is worthless. Securities can be issued based on anything of value; they may be related to some commodity.

The challenge we face is how to create a decentralised trading platform.

In my opinion the problem is much deeper. Securities, by their definition, are contracts. In other words, they are agreements. They have consequences outside of the virtual domain. For securities to work there has to be some sanction for braking the contract.

Typical conditions for any security is that the management must inform investors honestly. Now, how on earth, we can get a distributed tribunal to judge that? What kind of sanction can be applied in a quasi anonymous habitat where nicks are dime per dozen?

Something like “whoever makes a block with this transaction will be a judge” does not work, because you need some qualifications to be a judge. For instance, judge should not be 12 year old. Please keep in mind that there is no restriction on age of miners.

Quantum computers have been vapourware for decades. However, should it eventuate, cryptography as we know it will be gone. Otherwise, the whole article is loughable. It starts with an assumption and then tries to find a rationalisation for it.

I already can see some pranksters ordering narcotics on SR as Christmas gift for Australian members of parliament.

Obviously, it takes someone so simple as a politician to use drugs at all; normal people enjoy their brain without crutches.