I don't think hackers have the upper hand, I believe because of the nature of how bitcoins work.  You can't run a company anymore because any worker with knowledge of your code can empty your company's acct easily with anonymity.   Just like how most armored truck robberies are committed by inside jobs.  

It takes a great deal of luck and skills to gain access to any avg company's network with just decent set of security. The easiest method is to find someone inside that has the keys and how do we know who's trust worthy these days.  Bitcoin provides all of the ease and anonymity with stealing from your company.

You guys wanted deregulation and decentralized currency.  This the result.  Bernie Madoff is sitting in prison because all money transactions can be accounted for but in the bitcoin world once your money goes to another person that's it you can only pray the person delivers.

Because in order for Wall street to get in they must own all of the warlords that controls the market.  Since there are no warlords in the bitcoin economy they won't get in.  Too much of a risk.  

There is no risk in the stock market to Wall Street because if the market dips they win, the market goes up they still win.  

I hate shipping overseas because all EU countries have import documentation requirements and expensive import taxes.  If I sold something for $100USD, electronic goods gets taxed the most and shipping is expensive.  That $100 item becomes a $175 item after shipping and fees and the customer usually wants the cheapest and most unreliable shipping method.  If it gets lost because a lot of thieves work in the postal services in both the US and abroad a good % of goods are lost due to theft or damage.

International customers if you want your goods safe you need to opt for private delivery service rather than government sponsored ones.

I just lost 4 BTC due to my wallet.dat getting hacked.  I did some research and stumble upon dozens and dozens of other people losing their BTC to hacks and scams as well.  

How can this currency survive or even have a chance in the retail marketplace if there is absolutely no protection?  It is the wild wild west.

Essentially the only way to get your BTC back is to find out where the BTC went and bring a bat or a gun and demand the thieves your BTC back.

You can't call the cops because a virtual currency is not protected by our laws, it's game money.

I lost 4 BTC but some people lost over 100+ BTC to hacks or scams.

I've lost faith, I don't think this currency can survive unless some protection methods are in place.

Or the US FTC could step in and start forcing BTC clearing houses to adopt consumer protection laws and we're basically forcing BTC to get institutionalized by the big companies again.

How could the Bitcoin community provide protection and self-governance without having the governments step in?

Just a year ago having a 5Gh/s setup was pimp now it's ghetto.

If you keep growing your hashrate you are not going to ROI on any acquired gear as the difficulty increases at a faster rate.  How much could you spend to keep hashing and be profitable?

In this case, you are more likely sending cold hard cash to ASIC sellers than really making a profit. 

Take all of your investment and pour it into BTC and you won't need to keep up with the mining arms race.

The window for ROI on any new hardware will be a short one as soon as they ship because there already exist a huge farm of miners.  You will have a small window to mine before difficulty scale with more miners lighting up.  I think buying any mining hardware is a very risky proposition because the difficulty scales so high and fast it can render your assets worthless in days not months.

Depends what you consider a scam.  I think BFL did a poor job delivering these products but it's not a scam.  They did make advertise their product to perform under the most optimistic situation they didn't put a warning saying that performance and ROI would change by the time the products flood the market.

Some with free electricity will keep mining.

What would be the right price and timing for ROI?  If a 2TB miner comes out for $500 next year and typically ASIC makers will sell preorders to reap the profits first because they know the risk-takers will bite.

Then the machines flood the mining pool and the next batch orders becomes useless.  It keeps going on and on.

This is why I'm having 2nd thoughts, these prices are not adjusted for the difficulty jumps accordingly.  I'm just afraid that once these boxes show up on the internet we're going to see a huge spike in difficulty and everybody is screwed but the asic makers.  Which is why they want our $$$ upfront so we can't ask for a refund if they don't ROI.

So I received an email today and a phone call from Cointerra that my Paypal Payment was refunded.  

Here's the email:

We hope you are excited as we are about the news regarding our case design and performed mock tape-out.

CoinTerra is still on shipping schedule, and as you can see in the renderings, the TerraMiner series will be a truly professional, powerful and robust and Bitcoin miner.

We do however have to inform you that due to a PayPal policy change, we have been forced to hold, and eventually refund all PayPal transactions. These funds should be visible in your account at this time. The reason for this is that PayPal has instituted a policy where they do not accept any form of pre-orders. We will honor your place in the order queue, and hold this spot for 14 days and would like to offer you to pay via Bank Wire or BitPay (Bitcoin).

For fastest service, please use our direct wire transfer option with payment information here. (Be sure to include your order tracking ID so we can solidify your spot in queue).

Though this is out of our control, we would like to apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you.

You can reach our team directly at either sales@cointerra.com or 512-270-6050.

---------------------------------
So basically Paypal overnight refunded almost all of the Paypal payments and they are no longer allowing or accepting preorders for CoinTerra.

The phone call did tell me my spot on the 2nd batch will be kept if I resubmit my payment using Bank Wire or BitPay.

Now I'm kind of having second thoughts, on one hand their Gold Miner will definitely crank out some serious Hash/s but the difficulty jump is so drastic of late.  It might not be worthy to pay at the current rate.

Any comment or thoughts??

Where in Thailand?

best ASIC = Hot IPO