I suppose if people went out an acquired the bitcoins for the 'opportunity' of the scam then they would not feel the need to replace them. But I think there are plenty of people who have roughly determined how much they want to have. When they find out that they have 54 remaining after pirate runs off with their coin instead of 5054 they might not be willing or able to go back to 5054, but 54 isn't going to cut it.

Bitcoin scammers are more likely to be 'into' bitcoin than a random scammer would. Sure some just happened to hear of bitcoin and saw opportunity, but I have a feeling some people are like "omg, I need to get a ton of these any way possible"

Scammers are not ideological. They are opportunists. This is flawed thinking that they are going to be supporters of Bitcoins then decide "whelp, too hard to get them, might as well steal em!" They would not be scamming if they weren't worth something.

The mentality of "need to have X coins" is also extremely weird to me and I cannot understand it. Unless you had some kind of business or need to conduct transactions and need that many around to carry out transactions, it makes zero sense to me. Then again, a huge portion of the Bitcoin community are idiots, so maybe you are right.

I wrote a blog post about currency and bitcoin and figured some readers here might be interested:

http://mcnallydp.wordpress.com/2012/...oly-money-now/

It talks about the Diablo II in-game economy, gold/silver and gold/silver backed currencies, the inherent worthlessness of fiat money, and bitcoin's utility as a currency and why it has value despite its own inherit worthlessness.

Do you know if the people commenting are readers of your blog who so happened to already be familiar with Bitcoin? My first thought was "wow, it's really catching on" lol. But maybe you linked them, so it's Bitcoin-people seeing your blog.

Agree with the commenter that "inherent worthlessness" isn't correct, it's just an inherent uselessness besides as currency.

I like your description of Bitcoin, seems like a good way to explain the basics.

Certainly some scammers are ideological and opportunistic.

You don't have to be ideological to think that holding bitcoins for a long time after you scam them is a good idea though, either because you see the potential or for safety.

There is also a distinction between "I think Bitcoin is good for the world and want to support and be part of it" and "Bitcoin is going to catch on and be worth a ton" sort of interest.

"need to have X coins" is probably a bit crazy. Since I have some of that kind of crazy I'm probably projecting it. It's more reasonable to have made some kind of decision about % of your wealth that you want in bitcoins and when it goes down for whatever reason you move it back to what you decided. Sure some people are going to be bitter about losing them, but that doesn't really make any more sense than not replacing a house, car or refrigerator. Maybe better, say you accidentally sold your APPL stock, you probably buy it back. This doesn't apply as much to people who have decided on near 100%, since they won't have anything to use to rebalance right away.

TY, I think most of the commenters were probably familiar with Bitcoin, but they're not people I know. That's not to say it's not catching on though.

Yeah that commenter is correct, my phrasing wasn't ideal. Bitcoin has value because of the advanced, revolutionary payment system it's built on. The fact is that there's no coercion or secrecy behind it and people have given it value on the free market.

Just noticed the bitcoin thread in NVG. Nice job guys.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...l-u-s-1284941/

Selling bitcoins for 500-2k paypal to reputable people at the mtgox rate.

I used to read every bitcoin hit on google every day, now I miss 100 post threads on a site I visit every day.

In other recent news:

The libertarian party in Israel accepts bitcoins and Israeli interest in general seems to be exploding: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135088.0

Rush Limbaugh says on his show "Oh, the hell with that. Why don't we just use Bitcoin, to hell with printing up a whole new platinum coin here. Just use Bitcoin, which is the currency on the Internet."

Want: Bitcoins (2.5k worth)
Have: online money

You need references

Looking for approximately 2k worth of bitcoins if possible. I moneybookers/stars/lock.

Looking for bitcoins for $2-300 pokerstars, PM me if interested.

The Jews know how to sniff out money.

Slick Bitcoin Video Poker site. https://bitcoinvideopoker.com/

So much money to be made on the internet - the sit back and watch the counter kind, not the grind online poker kind. How much longer am I going to miss out?

Selling up to $10k in bitcoins, Please PM if you're interested.

Coinbase.com just raised their limits for verified (bank-linked) accounts. You can buy 100btc/day or sell 1000btc/day - not bad at all !

This will probably be the best place for newbs to get BTC, much cheaper than bitinstant.

Action has been great at btcsportsmatch.com recently (vig free sports exchange where you bet against other people, not the house. Lot of 2+2 types on there too). Poker and sportsbetting are the killer apps for americans using bitcoin right now.

looking to buy 3 bitcoins at mtgox market price. PM if interested.

BFL showed up to CES with a booth and an empty machine hooked up to a cell phone.

This video sums it up (you have to turn on the subtitles): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4SnUObMd0o

Laughing so hard I was crying.

Betting on BFL shipping asics before March 1st has suddenly gotten over 25k in action on bitbet
http://bitbet.us/

Bitcoin at $16. What is a good site that will update me on everything happening with bitcoin? The bitcointalk forum has gotten too ridiculous to monitor.

Anyone else use bitcoin-otc? Any reputable people want to make a tiny trade to help boost up our ratings pm me.

Is bitbet.us the best/biggest site for betting on events with bitcoins? Are there other reputable sites like this?

I have a good OTC rating, and I'll rate poker players to help carry over some 2p2 reputation.

I can't figure out from the site how much I'll be paid for a given bet. What am I missing?

betsofbitcoin and bitbet use ******ed payouts that weight the people who bet earlier more. It's idiotic. We need intrade to accept bitcoin.

Thank you for posting. I don't know why they do that. They could of had a Romney-Obama bet every night and it would have had 1000 BTC on each side. It would have shown a nice trend too, yet they insist on this weighted bet. If you don't bet early there is no reason to even bet.