Bitcoin in Video: Coverage from the Last Week (Part 2)

See Part 1 here.

Read more »

Bitcoin in Video: Coverage from the Last Week (Part 1)

For your convenience, here are six videos that captured the excitement in the media surrounding Bitcoin over the last week. The last one is a great documentary put together by Bitcoin Magazine and the GoldMoney Foundation. Click here to see eight more videos.

Read more »

$200 USD on Monday? GoWest and Hazek Jr Debate the Possibility

An excerpt from a Skype discussion...

GoWest: This morning's trading activity has been absolutely mesmerizing, if not unbelievable. In the nearly two years I've been following Bitcoin, I can't remember the last time I've seen such a bullish run this early on a Sunday. It seems quite likely that we could hit $200/BTC as early as Monday.

hazek jr: I agree, the Bitcoin exchange rate is going full retard at the moment, and what is happening today on a Sunday typically shouldn't be happening. So in my disbelief I cannot agree that we will reach $200 that fast. I'm as confident as ever we will get there eventually but we need to take a break first, wait for traders to take some profits perhaps with a temporary top just below $190 and then in a day or two we can make a $200 attempt.

GoWest: You have to keep in mind that last week's press coverage was unparalleled. I guarantee that, in response, some deep pockets lined up to get their money into Mt.Gox. At a rate of 1000 account verifications a day, which seems to be the case, anyone who got in line early last week will be able to get their funds into Mt.Gox when the banks open in Japan on Monday or on Tuesday (which is still Monday over here in North America). There's plenty of time for fiat to rush in and give us the boost we need to soar past the $200 or $2.2 billion mark. As I'm typing this, we've hit $163, with over 1000 BTC support above $159.

hazek jr: That's an excellent point, Mt.Gox does open their offices with quite a nice head-start before the rest of us which could yield just enough of a push. However if one examines a bit of trading history from the past 6 months, one could easily see the same potential momentum in buying getting accumulated which then simply needed to face a psychological barrier, for how ever short period of time, before being able to push through. That's why I stand by my prediction, $200 no sooner than Wednesday.

GoWest: Alright, so we're only arguing about 48 hours here. Here's some food for thought: you only have to get an account verified with Mt.Gox if you're going to deposit (or withdraw) more than $50,000 USD. Anyone else is simply waiting for an "ID check." What percentage of those 14,180 accounts are getting an ID check and how many are dealing with $50,000? What's 14,180 accounts (the current waiting list) x $50,000 USD? That's $709 million. That's right, $709 million dollars. Even if only 2% of the accounts are dealing with $50,000, that's still $14,000,000. I'm beginning to think that $200 may be a low-ball estimate for Monday. 

hazek jr: Ok, you're on!

Read more »

The Mt.Gox Verification Queue: 14,180 Users!

I just received a report from a friend that the Mt.Gox verification queue, as of eight minutes ago, is now 14,180 users long.

Fourteen thousand, one hundred and eighty users! That's a lot of money about to flow into Bitcoin.

Six days ago the queue was reported to be over 8300, with approximately 1000 accounts being verified daily; that works out to 12,000 new accounts in the last week.

Update:

Why is there a requirement to verify an account? From Mt.Gox:

"If you plan to invest more than 50,000 USD or equivalent on the long term in bitcoins, we need to know about you. In this case please use our verification system to get your account verified first. 

Please also be advised that all deposits are subject to an ID check by our AML team and this process would take up to 1 business day.  First-timer depositors are requested to upload their copy of the official ID to facilitate this process (you will not have to be fully verified at this point if your deposit is lower than 50,000 USD)."

So, how many of these 14,180 users are planning to invest over $50,000? How much money is that in total? The implications are staggering.

Read more »

TorBroker - The Silk Road of Stock Brokers

A daring new service, "TorBroker," was quietly announced in the gambling (how ironic) sub-forum of bitcointalk.org last week.

TorBroker does for securities trading what Silk Road did for the drug trade, allowing users to buy and sell any of nearly 1000 stocks and ETFs anonymously and under the cover of the Tor network. Users fund their accounts with Bitcoin and pay a 1% fee to buy and sell securities.

The main selling points of the service are that users can access publicly traded securities without providing any identifying information, not even an email address, while masking their IP addresses through the Tor network, and of course, dodging capital gains taxes. Trades can only be executed at the opening bell, so day traders won't find this service overly useful.

Can you trust TorBroker to not run away with your Bitcoins? Well, there's an interesting answer, with a dramatic Bitcoin twist. Roger Ver, a.k.a. "Bitcoin Jesus," was contacted by the creators of TorBroker and was asked if he'd be willing to hold 1000 BTC as a security bond that could be used to pay back users in the event that TorBroker disappeared. Here's the full quote:

"I don't know TorBroker or any of the people behind it, but about a month and a half ago they contacted me, and at least one other well known member of the Bitcoin community, and asked us to publicly hold 1,000 BTC as a security bond that would be used to refund customers if TorBroker ever disappeared with their customers money.

While I fully support TorBroker's efforts to bring additional economic freedom to traditional financial markets, legally it didn't seem safe for me to be the front man for this.

The fact that they were looking for someone to hold this bond seems to be a strong indication that they are in this for the long term, and do not intend to disappear with everyone's money.

If the regulators are able to uncover the true identities of the TorBroker accounts, I am sure that they (the regulators) will steal everyone's money though.

I wish TorBroker the best of luck,  and financial tyrants the worst."

No doubt, if the Silk Road has pissed off the FBI, TorBroker is really going to get the SEC's skivvies in a knot!

TorBroker can be accessed with the Tor Browser at http://torbrokerge7zxgq.onion.

Read more »

The Bitcoin Bubble

More people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing, so more people buy it, then more people use it, and it becomes easier to transact with it, which makes it more appealing...

(it's not a bubble, it's a positive feedback loop).

Read more »

And there it is... Bitcoin has hit $100!

I probably should've prepared something for this moment, but to be honest, I had no idea it would come this soon.

$100 US per Bitcoin; amazing.

That's a market cap of 1.1 billion...

This blog has really become an archive of the trials and tribulations of Bitcoin, as we crashed from $30 all the way down to $2 and, the slow... very slow recovery and renaissance.

What a ride, what a ride.

Congratulations, Bitcoin!

Read more »