Erik,
As a developer I'd recommend that you change the format a little for medium sized awards like 300 BTC. Bounties are great for quick stuff like "get this to compile on Ubuntu".
Instead ask for proposals and then award the best one the opportunity to do the work. Proposals should contain how the system will work, resumes, how bugs will be fixed, license, and a completion date. If they miss their completion date you have the opportunity to extend or move the offer to someone else.
Offering a coding bounty -- AKA a "race" -- is going to get you shoddy (as fast as possible!) work, people with enough time on their hands to out-race other coders, and who are willing to risk their work being wasted just because someone else was a little faster. But there has never been a time essentially since computers were invented when top quality programmers were not in great demand, so what kind of programmer really wants to grab at this?
Cheers!
I think you're right about this. Anyone have a problem with this format? I'll approve a proposal, and then if it's completed successfully I'll pay the bounty. But, you have to get my proposal sign off first. Any issues with this? I agree with thezerg on this, as well. I'd tip him if there was such a feature. Fast | Cheap | Correct : Choose two Thanks! Half my day job is being a "coder-dad" -- I clean up all the junk my people leave behind  . WRT a tip its always appreciated but not necessary! 16ExHi8FZ848JDsDqrGAXgXbyyLWhdDMe9 Erik, I don't know yet if I have the time to propose, but if I don't (that is, you see nothing from me by whenever you decide to decide) then I'd be happy to do a technical review of the proposals. |
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I dont like "internet" as a name to define 0.01 BTC !
This does'nt fit at all in my mind !
Bitcents seems some way familliar, but dont like the link with the dollar too.. other appelation would be better in my opinion !
Internet as a formal name for the unit... terrible idea. Ooo Internet as an insider casual name for the unit... no problem. .01 btc should be called bitcents. And 0.001 btc should be millibit, which is already widely used. Seems like we have two distinct dialogs going in this thread. I, too, frown on the idea of using internet as a denomination, but let's explore this option a little further nonetheless. Consider the following: http://grammarist.com/usage/inter-intra/Inter-, intra-
The prefix inter- means between or among. The prefix intra- means within. So, for example, an interstate highway is a highway that goes between or among states, while an intrastate highway is one that exists only within a single state. What I envision is a class of denominations too small to be used in the real world for any country's currency, yet acceptable only via the internet. The class could be referred to as the intranets or, moreover: intranetz; intra-nets; intra-netz; intrabits; intrabitz; intra-bits; intra-bitz. What also can be considered is the class uses a hyphenated option, and a denomination of choice uses the same word, but un-hyphenated. Not being a wordsmith, that's the best I can do. If only I had a spotless desk, I'm sure I could have provided better advice. ~Bruno K~ Netcoin, intercoin all sound better to my ear then internets which sound valueless/abstract like karma |
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seems good from a user's perspective. 4 suggestions:
put typical tip amounts in the dialog box so we don't have to type numbers in
refund if not claimed within a month
put the tip destination address in the box so we don't have to hold btc in your service if we don't want to. So tipping direct is inconvenient but possible.
Limit the total tip amount to slow down thieves -- just an added protection alongside the fact that there should not be too many btc in your tipping act
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And let me just leave this here (from the reddit bitcoin tipper discussion) to encourage any interested developer to make a solution that can be easily extended to other services: It is probably the single greatest thing to happen to BTC adoption rates. Now, if we could find a way to do this for youtube we'd be set.
This is a great idea to expand the tips to YouTube. Also, how can we integrate it with blog comments? That could become a particularly explosive niche. Perhaps a WordPress plugin that connects to the tip bot that allows it to interact with the blog? With or without the help of the hosting site? I was considering this project a few months ago. The basic strategy: create a website that lets you deposit small amounts of bitcoin or fiat (should be fraud resistant due to deposit limits). And an automated way to create a tip jar. users puts some btc in the tip jar and then posts a message on the blog, youtube vid, etc. The tip jar can do this automatically for the top 5 sites (youtube,etc). Problems: 1. Verification of the claimant (how to prove that the person claiming the tip jar actually did post the blog or upload the video) 2. Creating trust in the hosting website (i.e. your service), since it is holding the bitcoin. 3. May bend TOS for sites like youtube and/or be considered spam Tips would also be a great way to encourage bug fixes in FOSS software. With or without the help of the hosting site? I was considering this project a few months ago.
... The tip jar can do this automatically for the top 5 sites (youtube,etc).
The WordPress plugin would be installed on each individual blog but report back with the server for the tipbot. Then the plugin could ping the tipbot when a tip needs to be verified and processed. The tipbots would also be able to monitor the sites (but don't eat too much bandwidth!) where the plugin is installed. Perhaps have a blogger API key for installation. This would solve a need that bloggers have with a way to interact with and reward the community that develops around their blog. Good highly quality comments that are rewarded with bitcoins, by either the blogger or other commenters, would be an excellent way to get bitcoins into that community. Then the blogger could sell products, like ebooks, for bitcoins and spend bitcoins on hosting, etc. Plus, it would help bloggers counteract all the trolls from the Air Force's blog commenter program. What I envision is a WordPress plugin that works kind of like Gravatar or Disquis where a commenter can create an identity in one place but have it show up in multiple places. 'Facebook comments' has tried to do this but most bloggers do not want their nasty code intertwining with their website. Comment sections often have great content but it is just really hard to find and weed through all the trash. People could make their tipping history public and then others could see where the insightful comments are. Its an interesting proposal. A generic tipbot server and then custom integrations with the top sites that solves issues like identity validation. Last summer it was questionable (in my mind) whether these sites and the public would be "friendly" towards this kind of thing (as opposed to seeing it as some form of spam) but the reddit tipbot and the recent spate of legitimizing news may make the difference. I wonder if SAAS APIs exist to integrate this with existing online wallets (blockchain, etc)... if so the job becomes a lot easier -- you wouldn't even need to handle the BTC and the additional development care and ongoing security maintenance that that implies. Regardless, I expect the BTC held by this tipbot would be pretty limited and so not a great target for thieves. |
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Erik,
As a developer I'd recommend that you change the format a little for medium sized awards like 300 BTC. Bounties are great for quick stuff like "get this to compile on Ubuntu".
Instead ask for proposals and then award the best one the opportunity to do the work. Proposals should contain how the system will work, resumes, how bugs will be fixed, license, and a completion date. If they miss their completion date you have the opportunity to extend or move the offer to someone else.
Offering a coding bounty -- AKA a "race" -- is going to get you shoddy (as fast as possible!) work, people with enough time on their hands to out-race other coders, and who are willing to risk their work being wasted just because someone else was a little faster. But there has never been a time essentially since computers were invented when top quality programmers were not in great demand, so what kind of programmer really wants to grab at this?
Cheers!
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Gox bids above $5 (chosen since it is the last major plateau) passed above 200k BTC for the first time ever (AFAIK). Equivalent sell side (up to 21) has only 60k BTC
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Sorry share computer with my wife
I thought answering yourself was funny... but THAT is a riot! Can we hear all your marital spats on the forums  ... actually now that I think abt it it probably wouldn't make much of an impact on these forums. |
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With or without the help of the hosting site? I was considering this project a few months ago.
... The tip jar can do this automatically for the top 5 sites (youtube,etc).
The WordPress plugin would be installed on each individual blog but report back with the server for the tipbot. Then the plugin could ping the tipbot when a tip needs to be verified and processed. The tipbots would also be able to monitor the sites (but don't eat too much bandwidth!) where the plugin is installed. Perhaps have a blogger API key for installation. This would solve a need that bloggers have with a way to interact with and reward the community that develops around their blog. Good highly quality comments that are rewarded with bitcoins, by either the blogger or other commenters, would be an excellent way to get bitcoins into that community. Then the blogger could sell products, like ebooks, for bitcoins and spend bitcoins on hosting, etc. Plus, it would help bloggers counteract all the trolls from the Air Force's blog commenter program. What I envision is a WordPress plugin that works kind of like Gravatar or Disquis where a commenter can create an identity in one place but have it show up in multiple places. 'Facebook comments' has tried to do this but most bloggers do not want their nasty code intertwining with their website. Comment sections often have great content but it is just really hard to find and weed through all the trash. People could make their tipping history public and then others could see where the insightful comments are. Its an interesting proposal. A generic tipbot server and then custom integrations with the top sites that solves issues like identity validation. Last summer it was questionable (in my mind) whether these sites and the public would be "friendly" towards this kind of thing (as opposed to seeing it as some form of spam) but the reddit tipbot and the recent spate of legitimizing news may make the difference. I wonder if SAAS APIs exist to integrate this with existing online wallets (blockchain, etc)... if so the job becomes a lot easier -- you wouldn't even need to handle the BTC and the additional development care and ongoing security maintenance that that implies. Regardless, I expect the BTC held by this tipbot would be pretty limited and so not a great target for thieves. |
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It is probably the single greatest thing to happen to BTC adoption rates. Now, if we could find a way to do this for youtube we'd be set.
This is a great idea to expand the tips to YouTube. Also, how can we integrate it with blog comments? That could become a particularly explosive niche. Perhaps a WordPress plugin that connects to the tip bot that allows it to interact with the blog? With or without the help of the hosting site? I was considering this project a few months ago. The basic strategy: create a website that lets you deposit small amounts of bitcoin or fiat (should be fraud resistant due to deposit limits). And an automated way to create a tip jar. users puts some btc in the tip jar and then posts a message on the blog, youtube vid, etc. The tip jar can do this automatically for the top 5 sites (youtube,etc). Problems: 1. Verification of the claimant (how to prove that the person claiming the tip jar actually did post the blog or upload the video) 2. Creating trust in the hosting website (i.e. your service), since it is holding the bitcoin. 3. May bend TOS for sites like youtube and/or be considered spam Tips would also be a great way to encourage bug fixes in FOSS software. |
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dammit! I only picked up 10 btc during the dump and now the price is back up! Come on bears where's your fear!?
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picked up on slashdot |
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I hate to break up this catfight but I'd love it if you guys would take a quick break to teach me something. Cypherdoc is predicting deflation and he seems to believe that ppl defaulting on mortgages will cause it. I understand how retiring debt is deflationary but I don't understand for defaulting. I thought defaulting would cause inflation... because you can't take the USD back. Its spent. So its still out there but is no longer "backed" by the future earning power of the person who originally took the loan. Thanks in advance for helping a macro-econ noobie!!! Your bolded statement is the key. It wasn't necessarily spent, but the debt has been securitised and traded, thereby monetized (basically treated as money). In effect, the debt is being exchanged as money before being paid off - there is no way to take back or 'sterilise' the funds. What's at issue in respect to deflation is the process of writing down these 'assets'. By accepting less than face value for the debt, non-performing securitised assets are a reducing factor on the money supply. However, this is not happening in isolation - the process of securitising debt is continuing, as is the fractional reserve system. By comparison to the amount of debt being written off, there is much more being created at the same time. Hmm... I think you're saying (for instance) that if there was a sudden mass loss of confidence in silver (for example ) as money, then the other forms of money would have to cover all the economic activity that silver originally handled -- there would be a scarcity of currency resulting in deflation. So since the debt was monetized, it behaves in this manner. Fascinating! since silverdick won't answer your question i will. its much easier to think of what happens in a default from the banks balance sheet. that mortgage represents an asset. remember that assets=liabilities + equity. equity is composed of deposits and stock. normally this would be 10% if they were fractionally reserving conservatively. but in the rah rah leading up to 2007, companies like Fannie Mae were leveraged 120:1, Goldman Sucks was maybe 50:1. in the latter case it only took a 1/50 or 2% drop in the value of the houses backing those assets to wipe out the equity. for a bank this is disastrous whereas for a homeowner you might just ignore it. in this case the bank then becomes insolvent and the rating agencies have to adjust down the ratings causing stock investors to sell or short. banks would be forced to sell assets or raise more equity through stock dilutions as they scramble for cash. this is deflationary and drives up the USD. this is why banks so strongly resist taking the writedowns as it would wipe them out. this is why they are letting delinquent homeowners live rent/mortgage free for years on end. this is what is happening to Greece and the Northern European banks; the ECB keeps extending loan packages to enable the Greeks to repay their loans to these banks. it isn't sustainable as you can't solve a debt problem with more debt. Ok... i think you're saying that my point is valid, but irrelevant because banks are hoarding many times that in cash in an attempt to bolster the equity side of their balance sheets because they were over-leveraged on mortgages so (now that the mortgages are underwater) their liability side really looks like N*liabilities where N is their leverage. This hoarding is causing a deflationary pressure on the USD. From what I've heard in the popular media, we are seeing the same hoarding on corporate balance sheets... Interesting... does this mean that if they somehow do manage to deleverage it could release all that cash back into the system (i.e. inflation)? |
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I hate to break up this catfight but I'd love it if you guys would take a quick break to teach me something. Cypherdoc is predicting deflation and he seems to believe that ppl defaulting on mortgages will cause it. I understand how retiring debt is deflationary but I don't understand for defaulting. I thought defaulting would cause inflation... because you can't take the USD back. Its spent. So its still out there but is no longer "backed" by the future earning power of the person who originally took the loan. Thanks in advance for helping a macro-econ noobie!!! Your bolded statement is the key. It wasn't necessarily spent, but the debt has been securitised and traded, thereby monetized (basically treated as money). In effect, the debt is being exchanged as money before being paid off - there is no way to take back or 'sterilise' the funds. What's at issue in respect to deflation is the process of writing down these 'assets'. By accepting less than face value for the debt, non-performing securitised assets are a reducing factor on the money supply. However, this is not happening in isolation - the process of securitising debt is continuing, as is the fractional reserve system. By comparison to the amount of debt being written off, there is much more being created at the same time. Hmm... I think you're saying (for instance) that if there was a sudden mass loss of confidence in silver (for example ) as money, then the other forms of money would have to cover all the economic activity that silver originally handled -- there would be a scarcity of currency resulting in deflation. So since the debt was monetized, it behaves in this manner. Fascinating! |
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I hate to break up this catfight but I'd love it if you guys would take a quick break to teach me something. Cypherdoc is predicting deflation and he seems to believe that ppl defaulting on mortgages will cause it. I understand how retiring debt is deflationary but I don't understand for defaulting. I thought defaulting would cause inflation... because you can't take the USD back. Its spent. So its still out there but is no longer "backed" by the future earning power of the person who originally took the loan. Thanks in advance for helping a macro-econ noobie!!! In the average case, the money goes to pay off the mortgage of the seller. Poof, there goes the cash. The only things that change the money supply are the lost interest and fees(deflationary) and the change in price (likely deflationary due to lower prices currently). If the seller didn't have a debt to pay off, it would be inflationary, but that inflation would occur at the time of the initial sale. We are talking about when the owner defaults on the mortgage. Let's say a new owner pays C for the house to the seller, and owes the bank C (100% mortgage just for simplicity). The seller spends C so it goes into circulation. The new owner defaults. Now presumably when someone buys the house from the bank they do so at a much lower price (say C/2). Let's pretend they do it with cash. So C dollars were injected by the original loan, C/2 were retired when the house was repurchased and C/2 dollars are still circulating and are not backed by the original loan. Do this a million times (or whatever) and it seems to result in an increase in the money supply (inflation) to me. |
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I hate to break up this catfight but I'd love it if you guys would take a quick break to teach me something. Cypherdoc is predicting deflation and he seems to believe that ppl defaulting on mortgages will cause it. I understand how retiring debt is deflationary but I don't understand for defaulting. I thought defaulting would cause inflation... because you can't take the USD back. Its spent. So its still out there but is no longer "backed" by the future earning power of the person who originally took the loan. Thanks in advance for helping a macro-econ noobie!!! |
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I can't agree with the OP's anger, but yes I think he's essentially correct.
First off its like an Enron executive giving a talk about energy.
Second, his attitude of "we're all just a bunch of hackers having fun" may have been appropriate last year but not at this point when lots of people work on bitcoin-related companies full time and Mt. Gox exchanged just under 10 million USD (bitcoincharts.com) in the last 30 days. His use cases move from Silk Road to dodging the Wikileaks financial blockade to donations to print guns. What's a simple shopkeeper going to think? A more balanced portrayal needs to happen, and one that contains a lot less personal ideology.
Third, he actually doesn't seem to know technical details or any facts (about the size of the economy, etc)! On the one hand this is surprising since I guess he's written a client, but on the other hand (bitcoinica) maybe not.
Fourth, its pretty clear that he lost the confidence of the audience -- there are lots of hints but really the kicker is when someone from the audience attempts to answer another member's question (incorrectly).
Relevant quotes for TL;DR
(Presenter)
And um, well, I like it, this is, this is Amir’s only slide, and I rather like it cause it says “down with banks, rise of bitcoin,” so uh, over to you Amir.
(Taaki)
Uh, yeah. How’re you doing, nice to meet you all. Uh, yeah I don’t have much faith in uh finance industry. I think it’s a bit of a sinking ship, and uh, I don’t think the change is gonna come from within, it’s like gonna have to come from outside
--
we’re not some flashy start-up we’re just hackers, we’re technology people that are like enthused with and like absolutely fascinated with technology and this is I think one of the most interesting applications of technology. Uh there have been a number of really cool technologies over the years like bittorrent, wikileaks, and bitcoin is uh, one of the culminations of the applications of whole– a bunch of concepts have come along and you know we’re just hackers who are very much interested in uh these things and uh yeah.
--
Question 2)
Well how, you talk about bitcoin being completely decentralized. Where does the supply come from?
(Taaki)
Mathematics. Yeah.
(Question 2)
I don’t understand that.
(Taaki)
Well, okay I can explain how bitcoin works, right? Uh, (inaudible from audience) well it is it’s tied into like the infrastructure and how bitcoin actually works, you know? Is, like–
(Question 2)
I’ve got a calculator at home, if it’s mathematics I can just put loads of numbers in and–
(Taaki)
Right. But, uh the underpinning, of the infrastructure, for security the network, is tied into how supply –(drowned out by cell phone interference)–you know?
(Possibly Question 5, else new Question)
But the European Central Bank prints Euros. Who’s printing the bitcoins?
(Taaki)
No one’s printing bitcoins. It’s tied to the underpinning of the network, how the network functions.
(Audience member offers to explain, exact verbiage inaudible.)
(Someone else in audience: Can you tell us, in English?)
(Audience Explainer)
There’s a mathematical series a bit like prime numbers, but there’s not an infinite supply, there’s only about a million being discovered. And those are basically what represent the bitcoins, and so you buy one of those numbers, and then someone keeps a registry of who owns which numbers. So you might (inaudible) the number five (inaudible). And so uh
(Someone else in audience, to Audience Explainer)
So how do you create an exchange rate? There needs to be an exchange rate.
(Audience Explainer)
Well it’s a free market, trading things so you post on (inaudible mumbling). So uh, it’s a bulletin board exchange system.
(Question 7)
Hi. Uh, sorry, firstly I wanna condone a few of the very cynical remarks and cynical tones of voice from people around here, it’s a complex system, in all fairness, I don’t necessarily agree with it, but it is very complex and I suggest you go and read about it on Wikipedia if you really wanna learn about it...
(Taaki)
No. It’s not a credit card, because a credit card you pay fees. But I’m saying that I’m able to change money without paying any fees.
(Question 7)
You, you do pay fees.
And on and on...
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I know this is OT, but has anyone else noticed that like 10Thashes has gone missing?
miners have been unprofitable ever since the reward halving. I guess some are dropping out now. i hadn't noticed, thanks for pointing it out. I guess so. Just seems a bit odd that so many would stop and basically the same time. Naw, all that power came online in the last 2 months -- most of that was probably some GPU miners getting their last months of marginal profitability just for the lulz of mining the last few 50 blocks. Look how jagged the graph is... |
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Its behaving as I expected. The blockchain halving event won't put significant pressure on the price for for some time -- there are just too few coins involved relative to the daily txn size on Mt Gox. However if we assume that the # of coins being sequestered (i.e. taken off the exchange either for long term investment or private exchange use) remains roughly the same then there will clearly be a slight shift to the demand side. But this shift is easily met by speculators taking profits since the price remains pretty good. The result is that a week to a few months from now you end up with a LOT of speculative fiat on the exchanges and so some good news will trigger a cascade of momentum buying :-). The longer the price hangs around at this level (or slowly rises) the bigger the final pop.
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