Day 2, Senate hearings: Bitcoin climbs in use, Congress Fails To Comprehend Bitcoin (Again)

"Bitcoin is an open standard, an open protocol, and an open source payment network.  Nobody owns the network, and nobody controls the network.  All of the users collectively own the network, its rules, and its ledger."- from Statement of BitPay CEO Anthony Gallippi, before the Subcommittee on National Security and International Trade and Finance and the Subcommittee on Economic Policy of The United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, during the hearing on 'The Present and Future Impact of Virtual Currency,' November 19, 2013 

"Now we are engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. (...) It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us (...) that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." - Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863 

As today's Senate hearing on virtual currencies began, bitcoin rose to $704 USD, and continued to climb.

#Bitcoin surge, new privacy and anonymity tools, gold vs. bitcoin, predictability and random walk

Today, bitcoin jumped in value - over the weekend, it could be purchased for under $200 USD in some places, and at the moment (around 10:30 am PST / 1:30 pm EST)  it has jumped almost to $260.  If you have not yet purchased bitcoin and are looking for a way to do so, you can watch the ticker and wait for the drop that is bound to come - it is known to fluctuate.  The short term outlook for bitcoin is a sharp increase in price, and the long term outlook, as usual, and based on its history over the year, reveals a constant climb in value marked by periodic volatility.  Even with this volatile activity, bitcoin has remained remarkably stable over the past 60 days, with the net climb in value trumping any periodic loss.

In this post I'll mention a few ways that you can easily get yourself set up to purchase bitcoin, as well as present a brief compilation of some new tools that provide privacy and anonymity of bitcoin transactions.
As well, a brief comparison of gold vs. bitcoin is provided today, along with some commentary on how decentralized virtual currencies are developing (predictability and random walk).

If you are new to this blog and do not yet have bitcoin, after clicking on 'Read more' below, you can see the rest of this post for free. The BitMonet setting for this blog currently allows one article view without charge or paywall. Additional posts can be seen by selecting the blue button under 'article access,' then click on the tweet button (tweet this article to read) in order to bypass the paywall, alternatively, you can pay in bitcoin equivalent to 5 cents (USD). (This supports my work on this blog, as do any contributions received through the 'Donate Bitcoin' button at the top of the blog).  In case you are wondering why the paywall only has a bitcoin or tweet-to-read option (no $USD option to pay), just look at the performance of bitcoin.  The BitMonet quasi-paywall is designed to encourage you to use bitcoin and demonstrate how it can be used to request or accept payment.

[[ Philosophical addition as of Nov. 7, 2013: @tristan_winters has released a very insightful post breaking down the "us vs. them" myth associated with schools of thought on the direction of bitcoin. ]]