Not sure if you found your answer or not, but Bitcoin Segwit did not split into 1x and 2x. At least there were not enough 2x miners to keep it alive with any significant value. We are left with just two primary forks, though a Bitcoin Gold also came on to the scene, splitting off from Bitcoin Segwit.

I would launch one of these four to five business models to help push crypto-currency technology forward. I've seen some indications of a few of these business models being attempted, I've not seen a true player break out with a solid strategy yet. If anyone has heard of any of these, please let me know as I'd like to help where I can. If not, I will entertain leading such an effort. 

International Trade: I've spent the last 4 years trading a single food commodity internationally, and each container is roughly worth $250k. Thousands of these containers are crossing international waters, and there is more than one food commodity. And that's food. Obviously mining, timer, electronics, etc... are all sent to and fro using containers. There is a tremendous amount of paperwork, banking, trust, and often regulation behind trade that makes it ripe for disruption. I saw one company going after this concept a while back, but their approach did not strike me as the right one. The same concept could also be applied to consumer delivery services (UPS/FedEx/DHL/EMS) once the blocks can handle the transaction volume.

Domain Trading: The market for domain names continues to grow and their are a lot of speculators world wide. Developing a system that would replace Escrow.com and the other major escrow companies seems a natural fit, as it would not only remove the human judgement and international politics elements, but also will likely find efficiency that is not had now. More importantly, a market for LANDLORDS and RENTORS could be developed by putting domains in "permanent escrow" that guarantees the RENTOR future control of the domain as long as they continue to make payments, and the LANDLORD future control of the domain should payments fail to be made. This is especially helpful when considering all of the domains out there worth less than $100k. The cost of potential litigation just doesn't allow one to easily and safely lease a domain. A whole new industry could be developed.

Mortgage Market: Today, most homes are purchased with a mortgage from the bank. Banks are happy to loan money when they are earning hefty interest up front. Most people move in 5 years, a new mortgage is arranged, and the interest starts over again. Back when the US housing market dropped underwater and hundreds of thousands of families were stuck in a home where their mortgage was worth more than their house, I developed a concept where mortgages could be "forwarded" to a new home. So if one were to upgrade, their negative equity position would increase. If they downgraded, their negative equity would decrease. Ultimately, the idea was to enable people to move and continue making payments on their mortgage, but detach the mortgage from a specific home. Homes have value, mortgages have value. They do not to be attached to each another as long as the market is free to determine value. Unfortunately, all of the companies that offered mortgages were quickly consolidated and the already lofty idea had no shot at success without a huge amount of political clout. Bitcoin changes this.

Advertising/Marketing: As micropayments become possible, using Bitcoin or another crypto-currency will be very useful in connecting brands with their customers. This can be accomplished many ways, and not only will it be good for the brands to connect with their consumers, as an industry we start to teach the masses about crypto-currency. I have a few contacts throughout the ad agency industry and would enjoy educating them on ways to make Bitcoin work for there clients. This idea is probably best left for a time when the Blockchain can handle the volume.

As mentioned, I've seen discussion about these ideas, or concepts skirting these ideas, but none from what I can tell approach the market like I would.

Oh wow. Been a while since I wrote that. The buy back was more of wishful thinking than a belief. However, I was thinking an investor wanting to help Bitcoin succeed. Someone wishing to breath life back into MtGox. Or possibly those that made the error bringing it down in the first place.

I recall there was speculation involving China. I thought it was BTC that was stuck there, but I may very well be wrong. Conspiracy theory: to spread BTC to China, an event like this had to occur, whether dollars or BTC were seized. There was not much activity there prior.

Edit: clarity

Investigation is on going, ad it seems that the Trustee and team has done a tremendous amount of work. They've identified and publicly expressed which claims are acceptable and which are not. That in itself shows they are doing the research. It seems most people have had their claims accepted, except for a number of people that deposited funds via Poland. There are numerous ongoing lawsuits, some of which are not related to bankruptcy, but claims prior. Mark Karpeles, the primary exchange owner and the man with more insight than anyone, had some sort of gag order put on him. When he wrote a blog about his suspicions, head tossed in prison. There are still ongoing events tied to Silk Road, and possibly involving Craig Wright. Who is Variety Jones?

I agree, there is no incentive for the authorities that you speak of to recover the funds, but that doesn't mean there is no incentive for any authorities. This was one of the largest thefts of a financial institution in history. Not only that, but if Bitcoin grows and becomes as widely used as most people on this board are working towards and expect, this theft will be of historic proportions. And it is all recorded history.

So, yeah, I believe there is incentive to get this right.

In the last bankruptcy meeting, the trustee indicated that he might distribute Bitcoin as Bitcoin. Japan recently passed a law that recognized Bitcoin as a currency, so I think it is more likely.

Also, they are still investigating whether or not Bitcoin is missing, how much is missing, and the whereabouts of any such missing Bitcoin. There are lots of rumors that only 20% will be found, but I have faith that with all those international safety and security agencies involved that we should see near 100% recovery. They've had lots of time to sort everything out.

It was recently reported that Plural of Mongoose is fighting extradition from a cell in Bangkok still.

http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11404

I'm sure this has been stated before, but the 'heist' of MtGox, if there in fact was one, was one of the five largest bank robberies in the world.

http://listverse.com/2009/12/01/10-largest-robberies-in-history/

And Bitcoin was just getting started.

Think about all of the "wealth" stored 401k's and IRA's that cannot be moved without penalty. Using law to discourage divestment from the markets, only inflates it further, allowing more loans against this theoretical value, and so on....

Is this rigged, or just the natural development creative financial, economic, and political desire?

TOR Network Risk: following 300k

http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11022&start=675

Yep. Truth is certainly easier to do d these days.


http://myplanetganja.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11022&start=675

Now how about those 300k Bitcoins?

Usage is negligible now; but these are the use cases that count the most for those in the Bitcoin is a currency camp. If you are in the Bitcoin is an asset camp, then you are right, who cares about the smaller transactions. I believe in the US consumer spending outweighs government and business spending combined. Tried to find some quick stats, but couldn't. Anyhow, the largest corps by market cap are all consumer oriented.

This might be a good time to look at the alt coins. Are there any alt coins that eventually went offline, or do all alt coins continue to exist, even if they only have two users and near zero value?

I would not be so quick to assume that real world merchants will accept "only Bitcoin." First of all, some of these merchants were doing perfectly fine before accepting Bitcoin. They got into Bitcoin for a reason.

Secondly, it is entirely possible to build a "merchant service" whereby a Seller can accept any currency that the Buyer chooses, and have it instantly converted to their own currency. All this requires is more people to adopt Bitcoin and/or any other currency out there and to grow the exchange markets. Exchanges are very critical in this entire ecosystem.

Dish is definitely receiving Bitcoin payments.

Heed this advice.

There is nothing wrong with a fork. Let's just make sure the exchanges allow the exchange of both. If there are exchanges that intentionally block one over the other, the exchange is not a supporter of free markets.

Edit: Bitcoin, no matter what form or forms it takes, will survive.

You may be right. This is the first I've seen the idea of consensus on a political/government scale, and need to consider it more, especially in light of the power of technology. However, my first gut reaction is that consensus is not possible. I see two immediate concerns:

1) No two people think 100% alike, and the minority in a consensus must concede to the majority anyhow. I think maybe a democracy is more honest in that an actual vote takes place. Vote can be traded, based on importance. Hence, politics come in to play. (Yuck, but reality).

2) If one person refuses to a consensus, either the rest of the consensus moves on without them (in which we are back to a dictatorship  by democracy), or consensus never occurs and a decision is not made. This can work for a while, but evolution does not stop.



Ultimately, the beauty of Bitcoin is the open source nature and the ability for anyone to use it how they please. What I have realized is that the ability to freely pick and choose your money is more important than ever. Any impediment to currency exchange and transmission, no matter what form it takes, is an assault on human rights and dignity.

Agreed, but infinity is a very large number. FIAT really can go on a very long time.

Consensus sounds like a great idea, but may not always work. Democracy may not work either. A dictatorship, benevolent or malevolent, can make things happen very quickly and win a game in the right circumstances. One of those circumstances might be if a democracy or consensus is stuck in minutia, missing a bigger picture, while a dictatorship conceives and idea and quickly executes it overtaking both consensus and democracy.

I hope that Bitcoin can find consensus, but will settle for democracy. I do not want dictatorship. Certainly more than one dictatorship with concepts already.