Bitcoins

gimme a break

Whatever, it's a good scoop (assuming true), and IMO if you involve yourself with a project of that scale your identity is fair game, especially if you don't take greater measures to hide it and use your real name as your alias.

or also what s1ocki said I guess

well it's one thing if he was still involved with it and taking money out regularly, I guess

kinda funny how the bitcoiners are referring to him as a Zuckerberg/Bill Gates type, and that in a bitcoiner world this means that he will likely be murdered so people can steal his precious precious bitcoins. as though hes literally sitting on a vault with billions dollars. for all we know he lost the private key to his wallet.

Lol at that letter....in lieu of FDIC protection, could we at LEAST get a reddit AMA?

"They be tryin' to steal me lucky bitcoin!"

the Bob Marley quote is making me wonder which one of you this is

Definitely gives you a sense of the kind of self-importance/persecution complex a lot of bitcoiners feel that they're so incensed about this.

its definitely unethical to reveal the names of rich ppl because they will obviously be murdered

writing a person of public interest doing business in his own name is not blowing up anyones spot

that being said its a weirdly sloppy and underinformed article. i assume they were rushing it for the first print issue

Of course, none of this puts to rest the biggest question of all - the one that only Satoshi Nakamoto himself can answer: What has kept him from spending his hundreds of millions of dollars of Bitcoin, which he reaped when he launched the currency years ago? According to his family both he - and they - could really use the money.

wait what's wrong with that?

he didn't "reap" it years ago, that's the current value

"...Mt. Gox, a former Magic: The Gathering card exchange that morphed into Bitcoin’s largest trading floor..."

I did not know this.

― nickn, Tuesday, March 4, 2014 7:44 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

mind was blown when i realized mt gox was an acronym for magic the gathering online xchange

― PSY talks The Nut Job (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, March 4, 2014 9:39 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they are not

he didn't "reap" it years ago, that's the current value

― sleeve, Thursday, March 6, 2014 11:08 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh I see, I guess it's just unclear writing -- I took it as meaning he reaped the bitcoin years ago, which is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars, not that he could have sold it years ago for hundreds of millions.

please tell me you guys are pulling my leg
― Nhex, Thursday, March 6, 2014

people always mining and reaping bitcoin. just grab some bitcoin imo.

i need a bitcoin convenient as gogurt. i don't have time to reap and mine.

my mind is also blown regarding that Magic revelation. wowzers!

not that he could have sold it years ago for hundreds of millions.

the other important point is that he couldn't do that now either

Well no, but he could presumably sell off a small portion of it and his family would be more than set.

He would just need to dribble it out, the same way institutional investors often sell off large, semi-illiquid blocks of stock -- a little at a time. Unless I'm missing something here.

given that btc trading volume is way down I do wonder how much $$$ you could get out right now without crashing the whole thing. Satoshi could certainly get out enough to change his life but certainly nothing in the realm of what's mentioned in the article. the fact that he hasn't is rather curious (like the Gox thing, you half-wonder if he lost his private key?)

From the description I could kind of see him just being weird and eccentric and constipated about the whole thing. Maybe he doesn't like the way bitcoin has gone and doesn't want to profit from it or something.

frogbs otm, just a weird question to leave hanging without pointing out that converting btc to real dollars at that rate is impossible and would destroy the market

But he could easily sell off a mil or two without causing a blip, I'd think. Why not just do that?

(a million united states of amerikkka fiat dollars worth I mean)

has anyone been able to do that?

Aren't there still Winklevosses etc. out there willing to pony up real cash?

Wau @ the magic the gathering reveal

has anyone been able to do that?

― frogbs, Thursday, March 6, 2014 11:38 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't understand why it would be difficult -- I mean just watching the trades here: https://bitcoinity.org/markets, it seems pretty clear that there's enough volume to do that, if not all in one shot, then gradually over a few days or weeks or months at worse.

He doesn't have to sell it all to one dude, that's not how it works.

what about a bro?

fyi, the numbers are "mBTC" not bitcoin, so 49,232 = 49 and change bitcoins, not 49 thousand. Still, that's like $30,000 in a single trade, a few minutes ago.

well we do know that a lot of people trade them back and forth to manipulate the price. I've heard of ppl who 'cashed out' at a total of $20k or so which is nice but I have yet to hear of the early miners who got six figures out of it. not saying they don't exist, just that I don't know if the market could handle say someone trying to get a million USD out of it

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=413349.0
illuminating

xp they quote a guy in the article who said he bought "a nice apartment" with the money he cashed out of bitcoin.

Intelligent people "cash out" gradually as the price increases, and do things like buy lambos http://i.imgur.com/MkuABq5.gif

"a man potentially worth 1000 million dollars,"

or worth a billion dollars?

I tell you now is the time to buy bitcoin yo - dont be a FOOL!!

you can xp to things that look like onion articles or whatever but i don't see how much further down the bitcoin rabbithole you can go than this; url says it all

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2014/03/05/winkelvoss-twins-pay-richard-branson-in-bitcoins-for-virgin-galactic-tickets/

The Japanese pronunciation of "Gox" sounds quite similar to an extremely vulgar phrase meaning "gulping down shit". Just putting that out there for y'all.

whoops, I meant to post that in the real thread, not this lamestream NPR-ready one.

I agree that obviously magic tha gathering online exchange was nto teh best place to spark the internet virtual currency revolution

it was what Kurzewil would call the "false pretender"

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-future-of-libraries-part-1-the-technology-of-the-book

Not exactly the best way to lend an air of seriousness to your project, in any case.

newsweek article doesnt seem that convincing in describing either this person's theoretical-political motive or suggest any specific cryptography background (all the prior shrill detective pieces about this suggested an academic background)

as it is there is someone of a fairly common japanese name who might not like the govt and works with computers? has anyone more adept that newsweek adduced more evidence?

well he also implicitly claims to be the guy by saying he's "no longer" involved with it or whatever, but it's definitely possible that he's pulling their legs

I do think that concerns about his safety are not unwarranted. I think one of the weaknesses of Bitcoins is that they are a nice fat target for thieves, kidnappers, extortionists, etc., do to the ease of instantly transferring enormous sums and the irreversibility of transactions. It is kind of like having $100 million in cash in your house.

the bitcoin world is giving me weird crossover vibes with that game that came out recently castle doctrine

i'm just curious, how much actual $$$ is there in the bitcoin ecosystem right now ?