Bitcoin Forum

Hey all paranoid bitcoiners (like me)
What if one day 1 Bitcoin is worth 100 or even more usd, could there be modifications to bitcoin protocol, Because if 1 bitcoin is worth that much one day and its like 99% Stable at that point, could there be modification to  the official bitcoin protocol to avid something called "Getting a gun pointed to your head for BTC"

Yes i know it sounds CRAZY, but hey there are people putting guns to people heads for currency's like WoW Gold and of course USD haha..
Anyway if bitcoin's price shot WAY up, is there a crazy way that someone could protect themself incase something like this happens?

Lets say something like this happens tomorrow:
A user is walking home from a long day at work, the user is 1 blocks away from home, all of a sudden a guy walks behind the user with a gun to his back, he tells the user to keep walking and to go into his house and give him all his bitcoins. The user would then login to his computer and send the btc to some new btc address and the gun men waits after 6 confimations then leaves and runs....

There is a high chance the gunmen walked away with thousands just now.
I am wondering if something like this can be done
A user is walking home from a long day at work, the user is 1 blocks away from home, all of a sudden a guy walks behind the user with a gun to his back, he tells the user to keep walking and to go into his house and give him all his bitcoins. The user would then touch his phone or ring or chest or something (lol) and it sends a sms message to his computer in which shows a regular bitcoin client (it would look 100% like a bitcoin client) except after hitting send on the bitcoin client it would send some "extra data" as in faking a bitcoin transaction in which after 6-7 confirms it goes back to the user who sent it, it would also contact the police (somehow?) so when the gunman goes home he notice he did not get shit.

I know what i typed sounds freaken sciyfie  but i think it could be possiable.


I am not requesting this to be done today, or tomorrow or even this year, but if bitcoins raises in value by a hell of alot, do you think the developers would support something like this?

Is there a way to protect from the exchange rate shooting up?

It is extremely likely to jump more than twice its value over just a few days nonetheless jumping an order of magnitude or two.

So if you end up with more bitcoins at a value greater than you feel comfortable holding, you then read up on secure wallet storage.  This likely involves using a LiveOS and disconnected from the network printing some paper wallets and then sending funds to those wallets.  Then securing those paper wallets or bringing them somewhere where they are secure.

Coming "real soon" are easier methods of doing M of N, so there would be two people (or two of three even) that would need to agree on the transfer or it technically cannot occur.  And thus you can hand over everything you have but your funds are still secure.

There isn't really any good way to include a safeguard on Bitcoins that you want to be able to carry around with you and also spend.  But there are ways to separate your Bitcoins into various places with varying levels of protection against theft.  You can have a spending wallet that only contains a small amount that might get stolen, and a savings wallet that you keep in a safe place.

Businesses usually use time-lock safes in order to enable the storage of large sums while discouraging theft.  Put your savings wallet in one of those.

Now you know why Satoshi is anonymous :)
Though this could happen to anybody, like say a Liberty Reserve exchanger in Russia who advertises over "200k" in reserves on a website and some mobsters find where he lives.

If you made up this phony transferring it would more likely be used for in person fraud than this highly unlikely theft scenario

And? You seriously expect some robber is gonna just jump people on the streets for bitcoins?

"HEY! GIMMIE ALL YOUR BITCOINS?"
"What?"
"BITCOINS! YOU KNOW, THEY'RE WORTH THOUSANDS!"
"Bitcoins?"
*shoots*

Hey its the same way i seriously expect a World Wide EMP will hit.
Anyway i didnt say tomorrow or next week for this to happen, its when bitcoins would hit $100+ a coin, right now they are about $12 a coin...

If it rises that high, average joe will be dealing in satoshi anyway and there are other, less violent, more effective ways to get at them, e.g. hack into computer, pilfer wallet.dat...

If I understood the OP correctly, this would mean being able to broadcast legitimate-looking transactions which would be reversed at some later time. No.

Is USD the currency of every country? I think not, so please refrain from mentioning USD when instead you should have said fiat currency as to avoid proclaiming USA as the only country on the planet and USD as the only fiat currency.

And bitcoin offers a payment system with non-reversible transactions.   Adding a way to reverse transactions would lower its value as a payment system.  Changes to the protocol require acceptance by the economic majority.  The economic majority will not accept a change that lowers the value of Bitcoin as a payment system.

In other words, relief from the threat of being robbed at gunpoint won't be coming from changes to the protocol.  Therefore, other security measures will need to be considered.  Similar risks in other financial matters have been mitigated by requiring two signatures, or by splitting the keys, etc.   That's probably the direction to look with regard to the risk that was raised in this thread.

Rexcoin, there is no difference between the scenario you describe, and a cash/ATM gunpoint situation.  Basically there are 2 things you could do to mitigate against robbers/hijackers/kidnappers:

1. Carry enough Bitcoins on your phone wallet so that a thief is happy if he mugs you at gunpoint, but never carry your entire savings balance on your person.  Leave your full balance at home or on a 3rd party online service, and draw from that on a daily basis as necessary.
2. At home, have a decoy wallet with low balance.  Give that to any intruders.  Keep your real wallet somewhere else, e.g. encrypted either online or physically hidden, USB, paper wallet, brain wallet, etc.

Of course this is all moot if a burglar has done research, can link an address with a high balance directly to you, and is targetting you explicitly for that reason; he will then insist on having those funds be submitted.  So if you're paranoid about that scenario, you should always break up addresses into small amounts and/or move/mix the funds around regularly or on receipt.  Hopefully, in the future, there will be some automatic P2P coin mixing/breakup solution for nontechies that mitigates any sloppy reusing & publishing of addresses, and the consequent risk of being targetted by offline thieves.

If you have money, you must be rich. If you are rich, hire a bodyguard, or get adequate training to be your own bodyguard.

Or just be smart and don't be stupid. Takes care of a lot of problems.

This all sounds like a rather complicated way to solve a rather simple problem.

Step 1.  Don't brag to the world about how much bitcoin you have.  As long as you aren't publicly announcing all of your bitcoin addresses or the total amount of bitcoin you own, then a thief shouldn't be able to know just how much bitcoin you own.

Step 2. Create a second wallet with an amount of bitcoin that you are willing to give up (maybe $40 worth?).

Step 3.  When the thief demands "all of your bitcoin", simply start up this second wallet instead of your usual one.  Send "all" of the bitcoin from this wallet.  Thief waits until he sees the transaction on the network (Highly unlikely that he will wait for 6 confirmations, he really doesn't expect you to be able to provide enough hash power to double spend the transaction.)

Step 4.  Thief shoots you dead so that you will not be able to identify him.

Step 5. Thief leaves, and the rest of your protected bitcoins are either lost forever, or your family/estate is lucky enough to figure out how to access them (hopefully you have provided some sort of mechanism for providing this information to your estate)

(Hopefully the thief leaves without shooting you.  In that case you get to keep the rest of your bitcoin for yourself.  Note that your system also does not prevent the thief from shooting you once he thinks the transfer has occurred.)

If people think bitcoins will be worth hundreds of dollars they are dreaming. Why would a virtual currency with only advantages are no inflation and fast transactions (which are offset by irreversible transactions, which is a negative most of the time unless you are dealing in illegal stuff) be worth hundreds of times more than the U.S dollars or other currencies? Be realistic it wont happen.

If 1 bitcoin =1000dollars, then still bitcoins would not be worth more than the US dollars.

I have no clue what you are saying

This is the best idea. Or bank safety deposit box.

"Only" no inflation :D
Show me one other digital currency on this earth with that single advantage?
Bitcoin also has several other unique useful "advantages" (not for all your money but for some of it.) that trumph all other FIAT currencies on this earth.
How else would Bitcoin be used by millions of people to buy cars/boats etc ;)
If Bitcoin does not go away which it wont. It will happen its just a matter of time. 2 years, 4 years or 10 years.

Bitcoin could easily go to $thousands over the next century.

Or better said in this case as, "in your list of only advantages you missed a few":

• impossible to counterfeit
• accepted throughout the world
• has no centralized issuing authority
• has fungibility
• has scarcity
• ease of identifiability
• ease of divisibility

Furthermore, I can't think of a single merchant who would think that the irreversibility of cash transactions is a bad thing.

In the end it really comes down to mainstream use.  If bitcoin catches on and becomes widely used, it will pretty much have to exceed hundreds of dollars per bitcoin.

Now go ahead and list the disadvantages. They are far more powerful. Terrorist links, money laundering, tax evasion (serious since without taxes you wouldnt have many things that you take for granted everyday,) only 21 million coins possible, not accepted throughout the world only in a very minute part of the population, scams everywhere, extremem difficulty in aquiring the coins themselves.  What you people dont understand about inflation is it will exist anyways with or without bitcoin. Since the cost of goods are going up regardless itll just take more bitcoins to buy the same good. Bitcoins isnt revolutionizing anything its just a cool concept. If it was then bitcoins would be far bigger than it is. Most people have never even heard of bitcoin.

You seem to be confused.  What you have described there is the United States Twenty Dollar Bill.  Or perhaps the Twenty Euro note? In other words you are describing attributes of currency, any currency.  Clearly these attributes are not getting in the way of widespread use of these currencies.

Saying that inflation will always exist, and that the cost of goods are going up regardless, and that it'll just take more bitcoins to buy the same good doesn't make it true.  As a matter of fact, it is pretty clear that you have already been proven wrong, as it already takes less bitcoins to buy something than it did 3 months ago, and it took less bitcoins three months ago than it did 6 months ago, and it took less bitcoins 6 months ago than it did a year ago.  Clearly, you need to re-think what you are saying here.


You are mistaken here as well.  In reality, Bitcoin moves the decimal place eight places to the left just to make it easier for us humans in these early days when bitcoin is dealling with really big numbers.  Given the current protocol, with no significant changes in the future to divide into smaller units, there will be nearly 2.1 quadrillion whole coins.  That should be enough for a very long time.

How long does it typically take for a revolutionizing concept to catch on from it's earliest beginnings as an experiment until it is in widespread mainstream use?  I can think of a few examples (electricity, telephone, internet, radio, automobile, aircraft, etc) and none of them were all that big 4 years after someone first came up with the idea and tried it out.  Can you think of a single revolutionizing concept that went from experimental idea to widespread mainstream use in less than 4 years?

I just like these threads telling me that bitcoins will be worth $1000 one day ...

Sigh. Everyone of your replies are completley wrong except for the 21 millions which every site seems to say that is the max. And for thr last part in thsi day and age revolutionary ideas cathc on like wildfire just look at apple products. Dotn compare the telephone and radio and the wheel to bitcoins.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a difficult time catching on to what you are saying.

Which of my replies are wrong? Or more importantly, how are they wrong?

Which of Apple's products do you consider revolutionary, and how long did it take for the product to go from an experimental idea in Apple's lab to mainstream widespread use?

I said every one of the mare wrong except for maybe the 21 million coin ones. I gave Apple as an example. The Ipod for one is revolutionary it caught on like wildfire. Bitcoin is not an experimental idea. It works the way it is supposed to and it is not changing.

"Saying that inflation will always exist, and that the cost of goods are going up regardless, and that it'll just take more bitcoins to buy the same good doesn't make it true.  As a matter of fact, it is pretty clear that you have already been proven wrong, as it already takes less bitcoins to buy something than it did 3 months ago, and it took less bitcoins three months ago than it did 6 months ago, and it took less bitcoins 6 months ago than it did a year ago.  Clearly, you need to re-think what you are saying here."

Do you realize that you make no sense here? Bitcoin is just a type of currency whether it be digital or not. IF it costs $5 for milk then it will cost say 0.5 BTC. If milk goes up in price then its not going to cost 0.5BTC anymore will it? Hence inflation will exist.

Your second response

"You seem to be confused.  What you have described there is the United States Twenty Dollar Bill.  Or perhaps the Twenty Euro note? In other words you are describing attributes of currency, any currency.  Clearly these attributes are not getting in the way of widespread use of these currencies."

That is the whole point of currency being controlled and centralized. Bitcoin is not, yet so how can you freeze funds or anyhitng of that sort with bitcoins? You can't. So its you who seem to be confused.

I have no clue how to "quote" it so i did it liek this.

Quote from ryann's Dad in 1990.

You see what I did there?  ;D

:S Was that some attempt at a joke lol. You owe me 5 btc for that horrid post lol

Ah, ok, I see now, everything I said is wrong simply because you said it is wrong.  I apologize for not realizing that things that you say are wrong, are wrong because you say so.  So clearly my opinion that has been backed up by facts and examples is wrong.  I retract what I said, and have now come to the realization that I should agree with you.  Thank you for your helpful explanation and detailed analysis of the situation.

Apple came up with the concept for the iPod in 2000, and hadn't reached 10 million units manufactured until 2005.  Satoshi came up with the idea of Bitcoin in 2008 and we have already reached 10 million units manufactured(mined) in 2012.  Clearly bitcoin is catching on faster than the iPod.

Lets use your ipod example (although I don't consider the ipod especially revolutionary more a very perfected design of existing tech).

Apple began designing the ipod in 1999.  It launched in 2001 and it was 2004 (iTunes) before sales became anything more than a rounding error.  Sales didn't peak until 2008 (9 years after the project began).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg/400px-Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg.png

General revolutionary ideas take a decade or so to catch on and the last 20 or so years are no exception, Personal Computer, gaming consoles, Internet adoption, ecommerce sales, digital distribution, Linux, video rental, cellphones, etc. Like in the ipod example with iTunes often it requires the development of supporting services before the potential is really seen by the masses.

As far as Bitcoin not being experimental you do understand that major portions of the protocol haven't even been written yet (pruning, archival nodes, contracts, full mult-sig support, etc).  With the inclusion of P2SH Bitcoin had a major protocol change less than six months ago.   If that doesn't classify it as experimental I don't know what would (code that doesn't compile?).

You need to learn a bit more about currency exchange rates.

If it costs $5 for 1 gallon of milk and the exchange rate is 1 BTC = $10 then the milk can be bought for 0.5 BTC
If milk goes up in price to $7.50 for one gallon, and the exchange rate is 1 BTC = $20 then the milk can be bough for 0.375 BTC

Notice that 0.375 is less than 0.5

So while inflation may exist in currencies where the government keeps printing as much more of it as they'd like, that doesn't necessarily mean that inflation will exist in a currency that cannot increase it's supply beyond a predetermined limit.

You are talking about bank accounts, not cash.  If I have a briefcase full of $20 bills, how exactly does the government freeze those funds or anything of that sort.  If bitcoin catches on in widespread mainstream use, I suspect we will find that there will be Bitcoin based banks where you can have an account to store your bitcoin.  Those banks will be able to freeze your bitcoin accounts with them in the same way that current banks can freeze your USD accounts.


That is what the "Quote" button and the "Insert Quote" links are for.

That a private Bitcoin wallet cannot be frozen is a feature, not a bug.

As for avoiding taxes by trading off the books, you can do that with BTC and you can do that with cash too.

As for serious crime and terrorism, you can fund that with BTC and you can fund that with cash too.

Go back watching your tv, go...

Yawn. I replied to your responses and pointed out why they were wrong. You obviously didnt read the post. Bitcoin isnt a concept. Dont talk about concept. Its already being used and has been for about 4 years I think.  When Ipod was released for use it immediately caught on like wildfire the exact same day.

I've really got to stop wasting my time trying to educate trolls.  You are welcome to your opinion.  I'll keep mine.

So where was the part already about Bitcoins reaching $1,000 a piece?  ::)

You do realize i used an example and not an actual figure? Thought that would be apparent since the numbers arent even close to real time values. Your reponse to the milk part is useless. You basically did nothing except use simple math with differnet numbers. Also I noticed that you said IF bitcoins go to $20 then it would cost this much. lol. Fanboys will be fanboys i guess. Im here because i was curious there isnt real money making potential in bitcoins for 99% of the users. Just like any currency. There is also a substantial amount of risk. If there wasnt then there would be no reward. One guy rips off people for coins and the currency falls close to 70% in 2 days. I know it came back but next time it might not.

You havent even responded lol because your points have been made irrelevant. So obviosuly I am the troll because you cannot handle a debate in which you are shown to be wrong by someone who isnt a fanboy just a realist

I submitted a theory => https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=116999.0

Not very successful I must admit.

That's right, that myspace thing will start catching on by next year when it turns 10 years old!... These are faster times; businesses can be destroyed by not shipping a good product for two quarters in a row. People can go from college dropout to internet millionaire in a year. "Party Rock Anthem" was the summer jam of 2011, now the band is broken up.

If bitcoin quadruples in value does that actually make you any richer or worth robbing? Apple stock has gone from $7 to $600 in ten years, does that mean that Apple stock owners are now getting jacked on streetcorners? You are far more likely to get mugged for your iPhone or laptop than for the bitcoins on them.

So you are saying that MySpace (social networking websites) was a revolutionary idea, and that it has taken until recent years for the concept to really catch on in the form of Facebook and Google+?  So that particular concept only took 8 years or so?  Still, certainly more than 4 years, so that is yet another example of how revolutionary concepts take more than 4 years to catch on.

Certainly, but businesses failing to make a profit has very little to do with revolutionary concepts catching on.  Using your example, MySpace may have introduced a revolutionary concept, but some other business figured out how to make and maintain a profit with it.

I don't think many people would consider college, or "Party Rock Anthem" to be revolutionary.

That's one of the functions of bank, online BTC bank will have good potential due to this safety demand

Insurance could also help, you lost every coin and insurance company pay you 90% of your loss

I read about that you need only an account number in a swiss bank to get all your deposited funds, but no one has been robbed of this number yet, although it is much easier than robbing BTC

You told : "with only advantages are no inflation and fast transactions".. that's enought for me to really beleive 1000 Fiat / BTC

Just need mass adoption over the web (gambling, small ammount and large volume online retailer, a country-wide use in real-life... etc)   alot of possibilities out there for 1000/BTC

Even if I believe in 1000/BTC, I spent more than half what I'm mining.. just keep arround 20 to 30 %  in heavy encrypted wallets, multiple copy in safe and online !

If someone want to force me to give all my BTC, he will get only my usual wallet wich will never have a balance over 1000 fiat networth..  just in case my computer got hacked/stolen..

Was my 2 satoshi

Probably by then someone will code a remote control for machine gun turret in original Satoshi client.

There is no reasonable way to prevent physical robberies happening without also preventing or making extremely hard for someone to use his own bitcoins. Maybe sending slaves back to cotton farms will reduce incidences by 80% but not guaranteed.

And 1000$ per BTC is not that valuable even if you are early adopter. Make a paper wallet from them and put in safe with time lock. Some people have even more valuable things on them and they are not so paranoid about them.

Yet

Bitcoin is supposed to remain anonymous.

I think you should be safe if you don't tell anyone IRL how much BTC you have, unless you have enough BTC to hire bodyguards.