Very good point.

I would imagine the combination of strongcoin with first bits provides ease of use (online wallet) with no 3rd party dependencies (assumming one backs up their private key from strongcoin's website).

The coins are at the address you sent them.  There is an issue in strongcoins backend which is causing the site to display the wrong (0) amount.  The coins are are "there" strongcoin simply isn't "seeing" them.  No error on strongcoins end can make the coins disapear or be lost (if you have a backup of the private key(s)).

In strongcoin click on the address.  Then on the right hand side there should be an option "decode private key".  The value it shows once you enter password again is the private key.  Don't lose it, don't let anyone else see it, don't decode it on a shared computer.  Treat the decoded private key like you would cash or gold.  Whoever has it has access to the coins.  If you lose it = nobody has access, if someone steals it = they have access.

The private key is what allows you to move/spend/transfer (all the same to the network) coins.  In Bitcoin the coins are everywhere on tens of thousands of nodes.  The private key is what ensures only you can spend your coins and you can't for example spend my coins.

If you make a backup (like printing it out) even if Strongcoin can't fix the problem you can import that private key into another wallet and gain access to the funds.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS and ALWAYS have a backup of your private key(s).

If it were me I would:
1) make a backup of private key (print it and leave no decrypted copies on your computer).
2) wait for strongcoin to fix their accounting issues.
3) if strongcoin can't fix the problem then import the key into a new wallet/exchange (like say the default client or MtGox account).


Then you should be fine.

Interesting.

Looks like coin generation is through trusted brokers.

Looking through the limited information I am not sure how they prevent a double spend.

1) calm down
2) nothing has been lost
3) see #1 & #2

Strongcoin actually gives you more options than other sites.  You can export the private key and import it in another wallet.

The only way you lost coins is if you sent them to the wrong address.  Coins aren't "on strongcoin".  Your coins are in the blockchain with tens of thousands of copies around the world.  As long as you have the private key (strongcoin allows you to export it) then you can recover the coins in a variety of ways.

You are sure you sent them to the correct address right?

No such requirement in the US once BK is discharged.  Of course investors should look at inability to pay debts (BK or not BK) as a warning sign.  Actually I haven't heard of any such requirement in any country so while it may exist it isn't very common.  The whole point of BK (generally speaking) is to write off debt which can't be recovered and allow the entity/individual to move forward.

The BFL singles use an unknown chip with encrypted single purpose bitstream.  BFL indicated probing via JTAG wouldn't work which would indicate some other form of card level obfuscation/encryption/security.  Exactly how hard it is to bypass is unknown.  Obviously once someone gets a BFL Single there is significant time value.  Tinkering with it means no revenue so it isn't surprising that we haven't seen any users reporting details. 

So right now you can mine with it and nothing else unless either BFL provides programming information and/or someone does some reverse engineering/hacking.

Why does the market price of Bitcoin matter?  If anything a private company could control the flow of coins to reduce volatility increasing the utility to merchants and users.

Bad things for who?  Other miners?  What does some guy buying some weed on SR really care if a miner got excluded from his cut.  Wording like "bad things" has no useful context.  What is "bad things"?  How do these "bad things" affect USERS not MINERS?

I asked the same thing up thread.  You make it seem like an instant collapse to $0.00000000000 per BTC will happen instantly when someone excludes other miners.  Why?  People use deepbit, people use Mt.Gox, people use lots of centralized services.  The belief that Bitcoin would collapse is simply unproven.

Still someone with 51% hashing power could boost their profits in a limited fashion and test the waters by randomly orphaning some % of blocks.  Orpahn 10% of the competing blocks and you are getting 10% more profits for no more work.  You still preserve the illusion of a decentralized network.

Then spend some of that money to affect mindshare.  "see a corporation votes by shares so if Bitcorp Enterpises has 100% of the hashing power it isn't a monopoly because each shareholder can vote.  Mining is still decentralized among thousands of shareholders". 

One could even draw  relatively accurate analogy that a private company with thousands of shareholders and 100% of hashing power is just as decentralized as p2pool having 100% of hashing power.

51% = 100%.  No company would stop at 50%.  It would be saying "I prefer half the revenue for the same amount of cost".

That is just one of bitpay "cosolidation accounts".  I doubt BFL is selling miners for 1.9 BTC.

Would Bitcoin collapse?   How many miners use Deepbit despite the danger that creates (hell DB almost had 51% of network at one point).  How many traders use MtGox despite the 90%+ centralization that causes?  Do you think Silk Road users really care if mining is centralized?  Do you think they would even know?  Do "trades" (who honestly are just unregulated gamblers) really care who runs the network?

Your belief that
a) people would know once an entity gets 51%
b) everyone would abandon it once an entity hits 51%
c) the operators would take the risk of a & b and value it higher than DOUBLING profits.

will all happen guaranteed (as in a 0.00000000000000000000000000000% chance of one of the above not happening) is at the very least naive.

Most likely Bitcoin would continue to operate even if an entity achieved a monopoly.  There may be a short term sell off but most of the activity on Bitcoin is speculation and one can speculate just as easy with a single miner than 1000+ miners.  Some would bet againsts, when price gets low enough some would bet for.  In time the network could adapt to a single CURRENT operator.  If the operator failed the network wouldn't fail so it would still remain decentralized at least in theory.

To say it is "fucking retarded" is silly.  It is a risk but investing $1M into Bitcoin is also a risk.


The other potential  is an outside force leveraging the 20%+ network.  Say Vlad go aproached by Chase who said "it looks like you have spent $2M so far and the NPV of your future revenue stream is $3.8M.  We want to buy your company out to monopolize Bitcoin.  Either Bitcoin continues to operate and we own it or it fails and we eliminated a threat.  We will buyout your company for $7.6M (an instant 100% profit to you and your investors), keep you and your staff on (maybe with some nice 300% increase in salary).  Spend another $1M or so and gain 51% = 100% control of the network.  

Maybe Vlad would tell Chase and their $7,600,000 check to pack sand but maybe just maybe he wouldn't.

TL/DR version:
Selling ASIC processors (even at a healthy profit) on open market furthers decentralization, building massive private hashing farms on scale never seen before only furthers centralization.  That can't be refuted.

Conciously no but companies are motivated to maximize profits.  If you could spend 10% more on your hashing farm and double your profits would you?  Obviously you would but you can't because your 0.001% to 1% of network doesn't have that option.

If someone got within striking range you would very quickly see the "justifications".  Well doing this makes Bitcoin more efficient, doing this allows us to keep more hashing power in reserve to fight an attack, doing this still keeps Bitcoin decentralized in theory, doing this is no different than MtGox having 90% of BTC:fiat trade, etc.

Well after the subsidy cut the network will produce 1.3M BTC per year.  For that to be a billion dollars in revenue would require BTC price to be $761 ea.    So sure BTC mining may "someday" be a billion dollar industry but we are likely a ways from that.

51% is a monopoly.  You simply exclude blocks by all other miners.

Making a better miner is great.  Trying to monopolize the network isn't so great.

Say this does launch and they get up to 2TH/s (20% of the network).  If profitable there is no reason not to expand so they grow to 25%, 30%, 35% of the network.  At that point it becomes asinine to NOT just expand to 51% and instantly DOUBLE the profits of investors.

Hypothetically say $1M buys you 20% of the network.
$2M then buys you 40% of the network but
$2.6M buys you 51% of the network = 100% of the network.

A private entity having 20%+ of the network is something to be concerned about.  If a company is in striking distance of spending a small amount more to instantly double profits (by excluding all other miners) it is naive to think they won't.

Shutting down is likely impossible but Congress Critters talk it sound bites.

"shutting down" = make it extremely difficult to use and allow the network to atrophy.

They "shut down" Online Poker in the US.  Now you still can play but they have made it so hard that the casual players ($$$$$) have all but dried up greatly reducing the profitability on regulars.  In poker people of equal skill lose money in the long run playing against each other (it all goes to the house slowly).

So have they "shutdown" online poker in the US.  Well technically no.  I still have accounts on a handful of sites.  I can still get money into them by sending $1000 by western union to a random person in vietnam who hand carries it to an affiliate who then drops notifies the poker site who updates my balance. 

Have they "effectively" shutdown online poker in the US ... Yes.

So how could they "effectively shutdown Bitcoin" in the US?
1) Prohibit bank transfers to bitcoin exchanges (including Dwolla).
2) Require ISP to use deep packet inspection and drop Bitcoin packets.
3) Require ISP to report users running Bitcoin and send users a letter about said reporting.
4) Hold larger enterprises responsible for Bitcoin traffic (schools, companies, ISP, webhosting providers)
5) Actively engage in reporting and disruption activities (imagine casual user getting letter from FBI asking them to explain why their IP was relaying terrorist funds)

Ultimately it boils down to how much of an edge they can achieve relative to the general public.  If they are talking about specs similar to LargeCoin then they are already not competitive with medium sized farms in low energy price areas.  If they are talking about specs which are 5x LargeCoin in MH/$ and 2x LargeCoin in MH/W then the overhead of datacenter is immaterial.

So the question really comes down to:
* how much better than other offerings can they get?
* how long can they keep that edge over the general public?

My first thought was "not enough" and "not long enough" but I guess we will see.

There is no problem.  Nothing is lost.

They are ALREADY excluded.

Any node which is running old incompatible software will have their SHARES rejected by p2pool network.  p2pool can't stop them from producing invalid blocks but they don't get credit for GOOD blocks either.

This is why you see the node & hashrate graph has declined.  Those excluded miners are no longer worker towards p2pool.

Now sometimes they will produce a block but it will be overwritten and they will never get paid.  Since they aren't getting paid for good blocks, and they aren't getting paid for their bad blocks their revenue will be 0.00.

Another way to look at it is the bad miners are on a seperate fork.   WE (good p2pool miners) produce blocks and only split the rewards among good miners.   The bad miners can only get payouts from bad blocks but those blocks will always be orphaned so they will never get paid.

TL/DR
The bad miners and bad blocks don't affect you payout a single bit cent.
No matter how many bad blocks the idiots produce they will never provide you any revenue.
No matter how many idiots/bad miners there are they will never get any revenue from good blocks.
There is no problem.  Nothing is lost.
Miners producing bad blocks are already excluded from payments on good blocks.

Lame. 

FPGA can only be reprogrammed if the FPGA has bitstream encryption disabled, or if you have the encryption key.

A certain vendor has locked down FPGA which require an encrypted bitstream.  That makes non-Bitcoin resale value essentially $0.00.