(11-06-2014 03:01 PM)Maciano Wrote:  Whoa! FBI just seized all big TOR/Deep Web dark market places.

http://www.wired.com/2014/11/feds-seize-silk-road-2/

It appears SilkRoad 2.0 was managed by a guy who's either extraordinarily dumb, sloppy and/or lazy. Not only did he register the darknet server under his OWN name & email, he also tried to change BTC for money on CoinBase, which is known for strict compliance to US KYC/AML laws. I rarely say so, but what an idiot. What a complete idiot.

Getting busted is one thing, but just think of all the criminals who will come after him because they lost money because of this.

Re bitcoin, last dark net drug bust (Silk Road original) the price collapsed for a day, before going up sharply & starting a rally.

Yeah.. seems to be some pretty basic and retarded mistakes... like he was NOT even attempting to conceal his identity.

It will be interesting to see how this situation evolves, when more of the details come out... concerning how many coins were seized, exactly... and what other sites may take its place....

Open Bazaar may be a little more effective in regard to taking over some of these kinds of peer to peer exchanges of merchandise and/or services; however, time will tell regarding fall out... and/or whether BTC prices are affected to go up or down in connection to these developments.

Lots of people are trying to build infrastructure around bitcoin (criminal or legitimate), and are fucking it up royally. Trial and error boys!

Hello ladies!

10% increase in the last 24 hours, it's going up.

Sorry to bump this up

Can anyone recommend a good place to buy Bitcoins using PayPal?

I've seen several places but most of them seem really dodgy...

(11-26-2014 06:57 PM)ganjian Wrote:  Sorry to bump this up

Can anyone recommend a good place to buy Bitcoins using PayPal?

I've seen several places but most of them seem really dodgy...

What are the several places that you have looked into buying bitcoin?

In general Bitcoin is NOT very versatile in terms of buying flexibility, and there may be different kinds of buying venues in different locations, so guys here may only be able to make suggestions based on places that they have traveled.

Where are you and what are your objectives in getting bitcoin? Why do you have a preference for paypal?

Recently, people have been able to buy bitcoin with a credit card through Circle - but that is NOT the same as Paypal, except to the extent that you may have a Paypal credit card.

Also, generally it can be good to pay fewer fees, and there may be some hidden fees, depending upon your credit card. Also, there may be daily or weekly buy limits depending upon your location and what service you are using to get your bitcoins.

Surely, bitcoin prices seem to have been in the doldrums for the last several months, and some guys would argue that BTC prices have been in such doldrums for the last year. Actually, this is about my one year anniversary in buying bitcoins.

I still do NOT really have any meaningful abilities to predict short-term price directions; however, in recent times, I have been of the belief that BTC prices are NOT going to go up in any kind of meaningful way prior to December 4, 2014... Yet, I would NOT bet anything meaningful ln such prediction...

Whether December 4 is any kind of trigger day or trigger event for Bitcoin prices, who knows, but as many bitcoin followers may realize there is another US Marshall's auction of 50K bitcoins that is taking place on December 4, 2014. Those 50k are nearly 1/3 of the DPR holdings of 144k BTC that are in the hands of the Feds.

Accordingly, big stake participants in that US Marshall's BTC auction seem to have tangible incentive(s) to attempt to manipulate BTC prices downardly as much as they can until after the auction.

There has NOT yet been any announcement concerning the auctioning, if any, of the remaining 94k BTC, but rumor has it that those 94k BTC may be auctioned off as well in the future but at such a time in the future that BTC prices are allowed to recover from the absorption of the first 50k. Also, the first 50 k are going to be auctioned in 20 lots (or something like that).


Likely, there is NO reason to believe that the BTC market will react any differently to this December 4 auction than it did to the 30k BTC auction that occurred over the summer of 2014. At the time of the 30 BTC auction BTC prices were around $600 and after the auction BTC prices went up to nearly $700 and then went down thereafter.

Because Tim Draper won all of the Summer 2014 nearly 30k BTC, a reasonable inference could be made that he bid nearly 10% over market price or more (possibly in the $650 to $700 range). BTW, Draper has also announced that he is going to be participating in the upcoming December 4 auction.

Personally, I have a hard time anticipating that BTC prices will ever again go below $300, yet what the fuck do I know? Never say never in bitcoinlandia.

In September/October 2014, I was of the belief that it was highly unlikely that BTC prices would go below $350, and contrary to my belief such BTC prices went down to $275, and since then, BTC prices have mostly been floating between $330 and $430 for these last two months...

In my opinion, the last few months have been a great time to accumulate BTC if you have any confidence in BTC or if you have any fiat left to invest into BTC (caveat is that I have been saying that it is a great time to invest in BTC for my whole time buying BTC and moreso since BTC prices were below $600 - go figure!!).

It would be nice to know if any guys are still interested in BTC.. surely, downtrending prices can remove a lot of optimism... except maybe for a few people who are just jumping on board with prices in the $300s.

We had a short spike at CAD $444 2 days ago, at which I sold 12 BTC, now it dropped to CAD $418, about to buy more. Of course still interested.

(11-27-2014 09:32 AM)alex3948 Wrote:  We had a short spike at CAD $444 2 days ago, at which I sold 12 BTC, now it dropped to CAD $418, about to buy more. Of course still interested.

I remain too chicken shit to sell at these prices, even though I have the sense that prices are going to stay depressed until December 4.. but I get scared of upward manipulation could occur at any time.. and screw up my sale.

Really, I have NO problem with others trading, and I think it is good if you can buy back in with larger holdings than previously (we also have to account for trading fees, too when we take such chances to sell).

Maybe I am making an overstatement; however, currently, there appears to be NOTHING holding back a considerable upward momentum in bitcoin prices.

The significant event of the ability to bid in the US Marshall's auction has been over for more than 2 hours, now, and currently, we are merely awaiting the US Marshall's to communicate to the winners, within the next approximately 24 hours. Thereafter, they have to submit the money to buy their lots of coins (if they won) by NO Later than MONDAY.

Probably we can presume that the BTC auction was somewhat bullish - in regard to the final bid price(s), I doubt, really, that anyone is paying at market price or less for such auctioned coins.

Personally, I had expected some kind of meaningful BTC price dump in the past 24 hours in order to further benefit big players who were participating in the auction; however, when there was NO real meaningful BTC price drop, I decided to buy a pretty decent chunk of coins for myself (approximately 26 BTC).

Therefore, my average price per BTC in my own BTC holdings came down from approximately $558 to $537.

Surely, my BTC holdings remain in the red about 30% (partly due to my having had purchased over 100BTC in the June to August time frame when BTC prices were in the $600 arena - and I anticipated a BTC price rise at that time).


Surely, I admit that I have made some mistakes with my BTC investments in the last year, and really more easily to see in hindsight - even though difficult to see while matters or occurring and really hard to know whether to invest or NOT; however, I remain fairly optimistic about BTC and the various fundamentals of BTC including the large amount of ongoing investments into various aspects of the BTC infrastructure - in spite of ongoing depressions of BTC prices and the downward trend in the last year and even the more difficult to explain downward trend since summer time of this year.

I personally understand the downward trend of the past 4-5 months to be a sort of accumulation phase for bigger players.. and surely, the likely shook out several weaker hands of people who had invested more than they can afford to lose and who had been expecting faster and higher short term returns. Accordingly, I am expecting a BTC price rally at some point in the near future (I know I have been saying that since about April-ish ), and really I am doubting that we are going to see many more days of BTC prices below $400 - however, never say never in bitcoinlandia.

In my latest investment spurt, I did hold onto about $3k in dollars in my BTC allocated investment fund - just in case I am wrong about the near term BTC price direction during the month of December - and I have the ability to buy BTC in the event of a price drop.

In the longer term and maybe the next 1 to 12 months, surely BTC prices could continue to be manipulated in the $400 to $800 price range; however, I believe once BTC prices go above $800 - it is likely that the price will shoot past the previous ATH into the $3k to $13k range.... but who knows how long that will take... I believe BTC has at least one more 10x rally within it..... maybe more than that, but difficult to say how many of these 10x price spurts can still occur with current information and current levels of uncertainties regarding wider-spread adoption of BTC (and the potential interferences of possible competitors, if any). And, bigger players entering into the market can signify bigger manipulations - and maybe even does NOT guarantee any large scale (such as 10x) price spurt.

I told 2/3 of my MAID long time ago and now it's three doubled. Wonder if jamaica sold already or not but he's banned now. I will hold my coins at least until it's fully constructed though, unless it makes spike like 5x or 10x.

I sold my condo recently and invested 2/3 of the proceeds into BTC around the $400-450 range, and 1/3 into gold/silver. Never again will I go into the mortgage/debt scam industry, even though I was able to make some money off the scam. Kinda risky, but whatever, I paid off my student loans already (well 90% of them), so have some room to gamble a little. I also set up a self-directed Roth IRA LLC so I could put some bitcoins in my retirement portfolio. Sounds crazy, but imagine if these things go 100x fold, by the time I'm ready to retire, I'll be grabbing those returns tax-free. And because it's a self-directed Roth IRA/LLC, I get to have full custody of the bitcoins, so they can't be seized down the road if the law changes for the worse or something. Still, it's only $5k worth, maximum yearly contribution, and it's my "last resort" money just in case Bitcoin dips to $200-300. Gotta have a strategy!

(12-04-2014 04:31 PM)yolo Wrote:  I sold my condo recently and invested 2/3 of the proceeds into BTC around the $400-450 range, and 1/3 into gold/silver. Never again will I go into the mortgage/debt scam industry, even though I was able to make some money off the scam. Kinda risky, but whatever, I paid off my student loans already (well 90% of them), so have some room to gamble a little. I also set up a self-directed Roth IRA LLC so I could put some bitcoins in my retirement portfolio. Sounds crazy, but imagine if these things go 100x fold, by the time I'm ready to retire, I'll be grabbing those returns tax-free. And because it's a self-directed Roth IRA/LLC, I get to have full custody of the bitcoins, so they can't be seized down the road if the law changes for the worse or something. Still, it's only $5k worth, maximum yearly contribution, and it's my "last resort" money just in case Bitcoin dips to $200-300. Gotta have a strategy!

Well, hopefully your various investment assets are sufficiently diversified.

I have been somewhat interested in a self-directed IRA, but sometimes seems kind of complicated.


I do NOT really plan on spending BTC in the near future; however, I was thinking that if I spend BTC proceeds overseas (I am a USA citizen) then I can avoid much of the capital gains. From my current understanding, there is some kind of capital gains exceptions, I believe, when the assets are cashed out overseas.

(12-04-2014 04:53 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(12-04-2014 04:31 PM)yolo Wrote:  I sold my condo recently and invested 2/3 of the proceeds into BTC around the $400-450 range, and 1/3 into gold/silver. Never again will I go into the mortgage/debt scam industry, even though I was able to make some money off the scam. Kinda risky, but whatever, I paid off my student loans already (well 90% of them), so have some room to gamble a little. I also set up a self-directed Roth IRA LLC so I could put some bitcoins in my retirement portfolio. Sounds crazy, but imagine if these things go 100x fold, by the time I'm ready to retire, I'll be grabbing those returns tax-free. And because it's a self-directed Roth IRA/LLC, I get to have full custody of the bitcoins, so they can't be seized down the road if the law changes for the worse or something. Still, it's only $5k worth, maximum yearly contribution, and it's my "last resort" money just in case Bitcoin dips to $200-300. Gotta have a strategy!

Well, hopefully your various investment assets are sufficiently diversified.

I have been somewhat interested in a self-directed IRA, but sometimes seems kind of complicated.


I do NOT really plan on spending BTC in the near future; however, I was thinking that if I spend BTC proceeds overseas (I am a USA citizen) then I can avoid much of the capital gains. From my current understanding, there is some kind of capital gains exceptions, I believe, when the assets are cashed out overseas.

If you're interested about the self-directed IRA, pm me. There's a company that will do it for $1,500, set it all up for you through a trust. Kinda pricy, but the best I could find. Basically they set up the LLC for you and you become the manager of the LLC, and then you handle transactions/deposits/withdrawals through a trust. They send you a binder with all the information and walk you through it and help out with any questions. The hardest part for me was setting up a bank account for the LLC. Most banks want minimum deposits or certain amount of transaction volume, but I found a bank First Niagara that has a free basic business checking account that was able to set me up, but there not around in many states.

(12-04-2014 05:17 PM)yolo Wrote:  

(12-04-2014 04:53 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  

(12-04-2014 04:31 PM)yolo Wrote:  I sold my condo recently and invested 2/3 of the proceeds into BTC around the $400-450 range, and 1/3 into gold/silver. Never again will I go into the mortgage/debt scam industry, even though I was able to make some money off the scam. Kinda risky, but whatever, I paid off my student loans already (well 90% of them), so have some room to gamble a little. I also set up a self-directed Roth IRA LLC so I could put some bitcoins in my retirement portfolio. Sounds crazy, but imagine if these things go 100x fold, by the time I'm ready to retire, I'll be grabbing those returns tax-free. And because it's a self-directed Roth IRA/LLC, I get to have full custody of the bitcoins, so they can't be seized down the road if the law changes for the worse or something. Still, it's only $5k worth, maximum yearly contribution, and it's my "last resort" money just in case Bitcoin dips to $200-300. Gotta have a strategy!

Well, hopefully your various investment assets are sufficiently diversified.

I have been somewhat interested in a self-directed IRA, but sometimes seems kind of complicated.


I do NOT really plan on spending BTC in the near future; however, I was thinking that if I spend BTC proceeds overseas (I am a USA citizen) then I can avoid much of the capital gains. From my current understanding, there is some kind of capital gains exceptions, I believe, when the assets are cashed out overseas.

If you're interested about the self-directed IRA, pm me. There's a company that will do it for $1,500, set it all up for you through a trust. Kinda pricy, but the best I could find. Basically they set up the LLC for you and you become the manager of the LLC, and then you handle transactions/deposits/withdrawals through a trust. They send you a binder with all the information and walk you through it and help out with any questions. The hardest part for me was setting up a bank account for the LLC. Most banks want minimum deposits or certain amount of transaction volume, but I found a bank First Niagara that has a free basic business checking account that was able to set me up, but there not around in many states.

Thanks for the further response Yolo. Probably, I guy could set up the LLC cheaper, if he merely did it himself; however, there is likely a bit of value to have your hand held through the process to avoid falling into any major pitfalls.

I have some tax deferred funds that currently are in a decent investment vehicle, and I had considered moving some of those funds into bitcoin. Nonetheless, at this point, I am thinking that I am sufficiently diversified into bitcoin, and maybe if I put some of my tax - deferred funds into bitcoin, I would feel over invested in bitcoin - given my age, my total finances and my risk profile.

Like you seem to imply in your earlier post, there remains a real decent chance that BTC prices could go up considerably, and surely, any guy could assert after the fact: " I should have invested more into BTC, FUCK!!!"

Currently, I have a pretty decent chuck of money invested into BTC, and if my travel plans work out, i may be able to spend some or a large amount of the BTC while traveling - and thus largely avoid capital gains taxes on them... That's my current thinking about how to minimize my tax burden on any gains that I may experience in the future on the bitcoin in my investment portfolio.

Microsoft accepts btc now, I decided to repurchase xbox live membership using spare btc

(12-14-2014 03:43 PM)Emancipator Wrote:  Microsoft accepts btc now, I decided to repurchase xbox live membership using spare btc

Yeah... the Microsoft news seems to be fairly significant and another BTC liquidation venue... which is good for BTC in the long term, even though it could be considered as bad in the short term, if people are cashing out their BTC through these various liquidation venues without replacing it.

Hopefully, Emancipator, you are replacing your BTC when you purchase with BTC.

I understand that Bill Gates does NOT control the day to day operations of Microsoft anymore; however, I recall a few months ago, he was making fairly BTC friendly comments and suggesting that BTC was a promising technology.... accordingly, when BTC is beginning to get a large number of very wealthy people and mainstream institutions considering BTC as a solid and/or strong asset or a strong investment or a solid payment mechanism or a great wealth transfer vehicle, then sooner or later, some of these institutions and/or people are going to begin to invest in BTC in major ways and cause a shortage of the supply of BTC (which will cause the price to rise significantly).

When will the big BTC price rise occur?

My current thinking is pretty broad... hahahaha... what else is new?

I am thinking that we will get an exponential BTC price growth event anywhere between 1 month and 1 year (now that is specific, no?)

Personally, I am getting a little anxious, and I would prefer to have a BTC price rise sooner rather than later - however, I am still feeling comfortable for the long haul waiting and continuing to accumulate BTC, and I am o.k. waiting it out for a couple more years, if necessary, since various BTC fundamentals still seem to be getting stronger rather than weaker.

Actually, these days, there seems to be NO real sign of BTC stagnation (apart from the lower prices), so several of those of us who continue to invest and continue to accumulate BTC are continuing to wait ... for the someday bull run scenario to play out...

I'm thinking about buying back into btc soon but think it will drop or be steady for a few more months, then again I haven't been following it.

(12-23-2014 07:33 AM)DumbfromBirth Wrote:  I'm thinking about buying back into btc soon but think it will drop or be steady for a few more months, then again I haven't been following it.

I doubt that anyone really knows short term BTC price direction, apart from some people who have abilities to significantly manipulate the price in one way or another, and maybe even they do NOT know for sure the BTC price direction - except for the fact that they are willing to go with the trend - up until a certain point, and maybe attempt to affect the BTC price trend.

If you are unsure about whether to buy BTC or NOT, yet you believe that you are inclined to buy, then you have to assess your own particular circumstances, regarding how much you plan to invest and the timeline in which you anticipate investing.

Surely some people believe in investing all or NOTHING and attempting to time the ups and the downs, and other people invest for the longer term. Which type are you and what are your circumstances? What is your risk tolerance, your personal diversification, your time line, your goals? You can describe them here if you want, or at least figure out for yourself in order to create and hopefully stick with a BTC investment plan or alternatively a BTC trading plan.

I recently bought some in the 400s range, and have a small stack put aside just in case it goes in the 200s. I do believe the price is good, but it's my strategy, sticking to it. If I used up my last resort cash now and it fell to $200 then I would be kicking myself. If it goes back to over 400, then I'm good on my previous purchase. If it goes to $200 then I may have balanced out my average cost overall. Still, I'd try to imagine any possible scenario. Of course if this thing dies altogether then I'm prepared to lose it all, maybe liquidate at around $70 or something, but only if there are strong indicators that bitcoin is dead - highly doubt it, unless something way way better comes about or serious security flaw is discovered, but doubt that since the block chain is an open ledger. I see ripple is gaining steam, so I have my eyes on that one but still think it's somewhat centralized and depends on existing centralized fiat currencies...

(12-23-2014 06:09 PM)yolo Wrote:  I recently bought some in the 400s range, and have a small stack put aside just in case it goes in the 200s. I do believe the price is good, but it's my strategy, sticking to it. If I used up my last resort cash now and it fell to $200 then I would be kicking myself. If it goes back to over 400, then I'm good on my previous purchase. If it goes to $200 then I may have balanced out my average cost overall. Still, I'd try to imagine any possible scenario. Of course if this thing dies altogether then I'm prepared to lose it all, maybe liquidate at around $70 or something, but only if there are strong indicators that bitcoin is dead - highly doubt it, unless something way way better comes about or serious security flaw is discovered, but doubt that since the block chain is an open ledger. I see ripple is gaining steam, so I have my eyes on that one but still think it's somewhat centralized and depends on existing centralized fiat currencies...

Yolo:

Actually, that is a decent description of a BTC investment plan, including exit strategy scenarios and contemplations.

Surely, my BTC investment plan is a bit different than yours, but I appreciate that you are sharing an outline of your plan and it is possible that your plan is more solid than mine. My plan is to continue to accumulate BTC while I have money allocated to such because ultimately I expect BTC prices to go up past my average BTC buy price - currently at $534.

Yeah, Ripple has been pumped up a lot lately, and surely it would have been possible to make a decent amount of money on it in recent months - however, like you said, it seems to be very much connected with the traditional banking, and there could be real issues that investing in ripple since ripple does NOT diversify you from fiat and it also is much more easily manipulated in a lot of ways as compared with bitcion.

Further, Bitcoin has considerable upside potential with the mass of its peer to peer decentralized network that ripple cannot even remotely touch - smarter and bigger investors likely can recognize these positive aspects of bitcoin and negative aspects of ripple and would be much more fearful about the multiple outstanding billions of ripple coins that can easily be increased in supply to devalue the remainder and other centralized aspects that are possible to manipulate including the problem with the outstanding quantity of ripple coins that are scheduled to be sold by Jed (upon Jed's sole discretion) - causing additional uncertainties and possible devaluation of the supply of Ripple.

Bitcoin may have some issues, but they seem to pale in comparison with Ripple.... Even though Ripple seems like a pump and dump in comparison with bitcoin (bitcoin does NOT seem to be a pump and dump, even though it is possible to manipulate bitcoin with a few million dollars of investment), we will see what happens in the coming weeks.

Even though a lot of people seem to be losing interest in Bitcoin in recent months, these still seem to be interesting times, and it still seems to be the case that at any time BTC prices could begin to irreversibly rise.

(12-14-2014 07:35 PM)JayJuanGee Wrote:  Hopefully, Emancipator, you are replacing your BTC when you purchase with BTC.

I receive a small stream of btc from some work done every couple weeks so I've just spent a very tiny amount

BTC is still a substantial % of my net worth.

25% BTC
25% Stocks (Mix of Mutual Funds, ETFs and individual stocks)
25% Assets (business, vehicle, misc)
25% Cash

I am wondering if we have any more RVF bitcoin enthusiasts still reading this thread?

Surely, a few of us, maybe me the most, have been expecting and even bordering on ongoing predictions that BTC prices have to go up soon and in the near future.

In about the last year, I admit that I have continued to assert these ideas about an upward BTC price direction, and maybe a few other RVFers had this kind of bullish sentiment towards the BTC space, even though few of us have been exuding unflinching confidence regarding the short-term BTC price movements.... yet short terms turns into long term, especially when we have ongoing and seemingly continued downward BTC price pressures.

In this regard, the last several weeks have caused considerable disappointment for BTC bulls, and even the last three months have seen less than stellar BTC price performance... and even worse the last year (13 months) we have found an overall downward and fairly persistently downward BTC price trajectory...


hahahahaha.. hindsight is 20/20; however, there seemed a lot more hope for upward BTC price movement - especially given the ongoing development and expansion of the bitcoin space in the last year (and more).

Even the BTC mining hash rate has been increasing on a fairly consistent and even on an exponential basis, which to me demonstrates a large amount of investment into mining bitcoin and desires by some entities to invest a lot of resources in order to take control over the supply of new bitcoins in the future.

They may NOT be correct regarding their investment into BTC, but the investment into super bitcoin dedicated computers and mining farms does show a fairly extensive commitment towards the future of BTC.

See this chart regarding the BTC mining hash rate over the past two years, and even touching upon a current all time high in the BTC mining hash rate.

https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate...0&address=

Do any RVF BTC bulls need suicide hotline information yet?

Personally, I am o.k. because I feel like I have NOT been investing into BTC more than I can afford to lose, yet the past several months have been very trying on my will and my patience... though I am planning to stick it out because despite the price stagnation and/or depression, I continue to consider a considerable potential for upside.... and keep hoping for some kind of recovery in the coming months - or at least within the coming year.

Even though we have some recent bad news (with Bitstamp being down so far for more than 13 hours, as I type), surely we can label 2014 as a very bearish year concerning BTC prices.

Nonetheless, I am becoming more confident that 2015 is going to be an overall bullish year for BTC. But what the fuck do I know?

Sucks. I only look at it if I remember to. I sold and bought but bored with it all because I really don't give a fuck about a digital currency and making too much during the day of actual currency. But I'm going to hodl my coins for fun?

(01-05-2015 08:03 PM)el mechanico Wrote:  Sucks. I only look at it if I remember to. I sold and bought but bored with it all because I really don't give a fuck about a digital currency and making too much during the day of actual currency. But I'm going to hodl my coins for fun?

Well, that detatchment may be the smart thing to do, and to NOT waste time monitoring the short-term fluctuations of BTC and/or other cryptos.

Possibly, there will come a time again in the next year or two in which the coins and even other cryptos become worth a lot more, in the $700+ range for BTC or greater, and then maybe bitcoin and other cryptos will become exciting again, for those who have some cryptos under their control?