Many hacks/losses are listed in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337
... but not only exchanges.
HTH

Aspergers Syndrome much?

The pencil reference was a metaphor. Just a way of saying that many of the world's poorest have little or no access to education. They could still benefit from an accessible, low-cost alternative payment system... as long as it doesn't require an expensive device to use.

The poorest (i.e. those "billions") can't afford high-end smartphones; they're using e.g. Series 3 Nokias for SMS and calls. That's why payment systems like M-Pesa, already widespread in parts of Africa, provide SMS-based interfaces for their users. Anyway; my objection was to deadgiveaway's assertion that anyone who doesn't understand cryptos is inherently stupid and not worthy of consideration. He sounds like another cryptonerd who's been raging at the world from his basement for waaaaaayyyyyyyy too long.

If the goal is to replace central-bank controlled currency (that serves the elite few) with a fair alternative, then it's the poorest and least educated in this world that should be right at the top of the priority list.

Riiiiiiiiight, deadgiveaway (sarcasm). Those billions of people that can't afford a pencil, never mind access to a semi-decent education, are all inherently "stupid". This is all about creating a new oligarchy of "high IQ" elites who'll be free to exploit and abuse the rest selfishly.... a marvellous step forward for humanity!

Thanks for your post. You've greatly enlightened me regarding the noble and egalitarian ideals of Bitcoin and cryptos in general. Feel free to label me a "faggot" too; not homosexual but not homophobic either, so I won't be offended in the slightest.

If this important piece of innovation dies... I won't hesitate to rest the blame squarely at megalomaniacs like you that seek to selfishly twist and corrupt it. No wonder Satoshi stayed anon and left the forum years ago... he's undoubtedly ashamed to be associated with the likes of you.

haven't crunched the numbers but this must be true, even when moving back using a smaller & more stable altcoin.

Silk Road 2.0 came up 4 weeks later. The whole argument that "Bitcoin enables crime" is false; people have been committing crime using dollars and pounds for centuries!
Personally I don't believe that getting high should be a crime, but that's a different subject anyway.

Andy Greenberg @ Forbes is covering darknet / cryptocurrency issues well... in case you didn't know already.

Also...

New ideas pass through three periods:
1) It can't be done.
2) It probably can be done, but it's not worth doing.
3) I knew it was a good idea all along!

Arthur C. Clarke

They must be overloaded. Don't panic. During the quiet time before this latest spike my SEPA transfer only took 3days.

As new people in e.g. emerging countries wake up, it'll surge and then fall back to a higher floor. India or Brazil next maybe? India's another billion people with a cultural attachment to gold / distrust of fiat. It's all speculation right now, but there are different levels of speculation. In the short-run traders are riding it up, selling and buying again after corrections to increase their holdings. But there's also longer term speculation on the future potential of Bitcoin as a fast, bureaucracy-free, un-blockable electronic payment system; and store of value.

There are crazy ideas out there using the anonymity, e.g. http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/11/18/meet-the-assassination-market-creator-whos-crowdfunding-murder-with-bitcoins

Chicken-and-egg situation, with volatility slowing adoption for commerce, which in turn magnifies the volatility. It behaves like a leveraged ETF that swings wildly on news. But payment platforms could mitigate the volatility e.g. by using futures (& other derivatives) transparently in the background as they develop to hedge against the volatility for both customers and businesses. If you believe in it, the best thing you can do is ask every business you patronize if they plan on accepting Bitcoin. Tell them you'd like to use it in future. Enough people do this and they will accept it.

Satoshi's core innovation: the blockchain's distributed consensus-based trust exchange and record-keeping machinery... is pure genius.

One thought I have (which won't be very popular round here) is that we could be looking at the "Altavista of cryptocoin" in Bitcoin. The "Google of cryptocoin" may come later.

This is a reply to kireinaha's thread here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341507.0 ... obviously I can't post there yet.

Arbing by moving fiat around carries huge risk due to the long bank-transfer delays & charges, during which prices could drastically change.

I've looked into arbing using altcoins for the moves, say between BTCE and Cryptsy.
E.g.
Buy BTC on BTCE
Move BTC to Cryptsy
Sell BTC into PPC say
Move PPC back to BTCE
Buy BTC again

But according to recent prices (last 3 days), it doesn't work out for either PPC or NMC.
I presume algos are doing it already?