Also you "get rid of coins" by sending them to the address which received the block reward for block 0. This block starts everything off, and is hard-wired into Bitcoin. It was never actually "mined". As such, the 50 generated coins in that address cannot be redeemed.

Additional payments to that address can be redeemed by Satoshi, if he still possesses the private key for that address. Since the date of that block (3 January 2009), people have sent almost 50 additional payments to that address, increasing its balance by more than 6 bitcoins.

It's kind of like tossing coins into a fountain for good luck. You have lost the coins forever, but you had fun making a wish.

If anyone wants to toss some coins into the Satoshi fountain, here is the address:
1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

(edited to correct an error in my original post)

If and when the fees get too high for micropayments to be efficiently handled in the block chain, they can be handled in some kind of sub-ledger. Eventually I think we will see not just micropayments, but also nanopayments - very tiny payments attached to things as small as a single API call.

For now, micropayments and nanopayments can be tested on the block chain, then hived off into a sub-ledger in the future as and when required.

He's bending the truth, but he probably rationalizes it like this:

Oct-Dec 2010 = one year (2010)
All of 2011 = one year (2011)
2012 so far = one year (2012)

I think you'll find that's their perceived value of an American (i.e. USA) life.

Like all bubbles, it's easy to see with hindsight.

But before the first bubble, there were many times when the price more than doubled within 8 days. For example, the MtGox closing price went from $1.41 on 22 April 2011 to $3.50 on 30 April 2011, but that wasn't a bubble. It went from $3.33 on 5 May 2011 to $8.20 on 13 May 2011, but that was not a bubble. It went from $0.45 on 28 Jan 2011 to $0.92 on 5 Feb 2011, but that was not a bubble. (There are more examples).

I think you are right that the price tripled within 8 days only once. But at the time, how sure could anyone be that a tripling would be unsustainable when all the doublings had been sustainable?

Long term, you can say that more than 7% per week is unsustainable, but I don't think you can say anything about the short term, without the benefit of hindsight.

myrkul, how can an agorist like yourself not lean more towards economic freedom? That does not compute.

jjames88, it's unfortunate that you used the terms "left/right", which have different meanings to different people.

I'm guessing your intention is that the vertical axis reflects personal freedom (bottom is completely free, top is completely un-free), and the horizontal axis reflects economic freedom (left is completely unfree, right is completely free).

The Amish manage it because they have legal privileges that are not available to modern communities.

For example, the Amish are exempt from paying social security (according to the 1965 Medicare bill), along with any other sect that consciensciously objects and was in existence on December 31, 1950.

If you knew genjix, you wouldn't say that. He may have handled the whole Bitcoinica thing sub-optimally, but he didn't lie to people.

Make a large bid just below market value, and keep it updated.

The smaller exchanges have considerable volatility, so you can trade at better rates than on the big exchanges if you're not in a hurry.

Some people don't.

Frequently what you get is access to a six month waiting list, free at the point of delivery. That's not the same as access to healthcare.

I think it's funny how Vandroiy spent so much energy trying to save people from making mistakes with BS&T and their money, yet was resistant to others trying to save him from making mistakes with BS&T and his money.

Unfortunately it's not really a predictions market, because you can't trade bets. A real predictions market for BS&T default would be awesome!

Most people are reluctant to pay twice for healthcare. When you're already paying for the NHS through tax, it's no so easy to pay for it privately too.

Although stories like this make me consider private healthcare:

"A desperate hospital patient who died of  thirst after he was denied vital medication rang police and begged them to bring  him a drink, an inquest heard today ... he became so delirious he was forced to  call 999 to ask for help ... Officers raced to St George’s Hospital in Tooting, south London, but were turned away by staff who insisted Mr Gorny was  fine, Westminster Coroner’s Court heard."
http://updatednews.ca/2012/07/02/hospital-patient-22-died-of-thirst/

The payment could have come from anyone to whom you gave your receiving address. Since you posted that address in the forum, anyone could send you funds.

You can edit your address book to show the name of the payee, which may help your book-keeping if you only use each receiving address for one purpose. But in this case, an appropriate payee name would be something like "forum donations".

Any publicity is probably good publicity. Bitcoin survived the MtGox hack, bitcoin survived the MyBitcoin scam, and a few others. Bitcoin will also survive the inevitable end of Pirate's operation.

The people who will suffer won't be bitcoiners as a whole; just those who "invested".

Vandroly, have you taken into account the possibility that a pre-announced large reduction in interest paid by Pirate could occur and wouldn't count as a default.

You're convinced that 3000%+ per annum must be a ponzi, but perhaps 150% per annum wouldn't be. Or even if it was, it might delay default beyond the closing date for the bet.

Apart from the pizza-for-bitcoins market which yielded 3741% annually compounded over the following two years (or would have, if jercos had held on to his 10000 BTC).

Like Warren Buffet said, only invest in businesses that you understand.

I don't know of any evidence that Pirate is conducting a ponzi, but I don't understand his business model and wouldn't invest a satoshi in BS&T.

That wouldn't be surprising. It's not as if donors are more interesting or more intelligent than non-donors. So there's no real reason to frequent the secret place.

Except when Satoshi posts there. Then, the place buzzes for days.