That doesn't make much sense. They should charge less, precisely because including transactions with old coins help them pruning the chain.

To the good listener, half a word is enough.
If you can't understand the implications of everything that was repeatedly explained here on this topic, I don't think there's much more to be said.

See my first two posts on this thread, please.

Yeah, but then, he would have to pay fees to sell them. Wouldn't that represent losses? (well, it's true that if BTC value keeps raising like it does then he won't be losing anything )

Yes. Well, I haven't tested the wallet yet, but I tested with some text files, and when I changed them using the soft link, the Wuala software would show me the changes. I logged to my Wuala account from another computer and I could also see the modified file there.

One thing I haven't managed to figure out about Wuala so far is if the files they store on my computer are already encrypted, or if they are only encrypted before sending to the network, but on my disk they are unencrypted. If it's the latter, I'd have to use a second layer of encryption (Wuala+Truecrypt maybe?) if I don't want my wallet file to be store unencrypted anywhere.

What exactly do you think drove the price of gold up? I mean, I don't  really see any stores out there accepting gold as payment...

This is really powerful.

A question: is the mining task correctly prioritized not to annoy the user (lower priority than anything else)?
The CPU going to 100% won't be a problem if the user continues to be able to use his computer normally. But if the mining process has the same priority as other user processes, that might piss him off, with reason.
I don't even know if you can set priorities in javascript like that.

The idea is good, but relying on a third-party service boils down to relying in the user capacity to protect his password. Actually, the same applies to any sort of encryption. That's the greatest problem, IMHO.

I think that the best way to secure something is to have a dedicated device for it. A sort of small smartphone that's not actually a phone, just a device to run a bitcoin client. Its connection to the internet would be limited to the bitcoin protocol and nothing else, no browser or anything that could compromise its security. No interaction with other computers, except through the bitcoin protocol.

Maybe someday we'll see someone manufacturing such device.

Since everything is encrypted before being sent to Wuala, is there a problem in just making my wallet.dat a soft link to a file inside the directory structure Wuala automatically created on my home dir?

I've tested and it seems to work. It seems easier than making all these filters and everything.

This is indeed an intelligent way of buying BTC. But, what if you receive more orders than you can afford? I mean, this can't be a long-term service...

That's really interesting, indeed. What he predicts is still unethical and bad for the economy, but definitely much less worse than what we have nowadays. Let's hope that's the path governments choose to take, instead of just stupid brute repression à la war on drugs.

So that psycho works for the central bank? I was not aware.

I don't think Keynesians argue that the deflationary spiral would be bad for bitcoin, but rather for society. You know, without their wisdom commanding us, we are nothing but ignorant people who would voluntary choose self-destruction. So, the government must intervene to kill such threat.

I thought about it, but if it's true, he should not have claimed everything was done under consent. He should have said the truth... or hiring a prostitute is punished more severely by NY state than trying to rape someone?

Just answering your question A, later I come for the rest of the "essay"

You must understand that nothing has intrinsic value. Value is a subjective opinion people have on stuff, not an intrinsic attribute of stuff themselves.

That said, please realize it's not impossible, although unlikely, that gold's value reach zero one day. All it takes is people to find better and cheaper substitutes for everything gold does. Personally, I think distributed cryptocurrencies can be such substitutes in what concerns gold utility as a store of value, but that only long years will tell.

Now, comparing bitcoin particular with gold, of course gold brings much more security as investment. We can rest assure that, no matter what, the value of this ancient precious metal won't go to zero from night to day. We can count on its historical value, which bitcoin, being such a young project, obviously doesn't have.
But then, what did you expect? You can't invent something 5.000 years retroactively.

That's the most important, but besides that, there are the advantages others explained already, mainly the fact that bitcoin is decentralized by design. To accept gold payments, you either have to trust a third party - which will probably be vulnerable to a government, and then bye bye privacy/security - or you'll have to accept physical gold plus silver and copper for small changes, meaning you'll have to find ways of protecting this physical gold, not to mention the hassle and limitations (cost!) on transportation.

Protecting data is certainly easier (cheaper!) than protecting anything physical. Data may be backed up, a physical commodity cannot, meaning if your safe gets destroyed, you lose. Data may be encrypted, meaning that even if someone has access to it, he would also need a password. And with the existent techniques to create hidden encrypted volumes, even torturing you to get the password may not be enough to get everything you have.

I haven't read the entire topic, I'm just answering directly the OP. The following charts should make it pretty much clear why you would prefer using BTC instead of gold:

Speeder, look at the exchange rates. Look how much bitcoin went up in a year. Of course a precious metal which has been with humanity for thousands of years is more recognized than an open source project less than 3 years old, but, seriously, look how much it's growing! Don't you think you're way too pessimist?

Seriously man, stop with this freaking out about people "having to trade with bitcoins!" for it to be useful.

How many people do you know that trade with gold? When was the last time you bought something using this precious metal at a grocery store?

Gold is practically useless for trade nowadays, and look how its price increases over time (particularly during uncertain times). The main purpose of gold is to store value, and bitcoin is a better store of value than anything physical could ever be. And, besides that, as a bonus, it can be easily used for trade by those who have a particular interest in it.

People paying or not most of their bills with bitcoins is not at all a necessary condition for its success.

The very weusecoins page let it bold clear:  "Most bitcoin users don't mine! Bitcoin mining is a business and very competitive."

Why is it a problem that miners are generating and selling? Shouldn't we thank them for providing us with cheaper coins?

Regarding those who waste energy with CPU mining, then you're right. I think we should remove CPU mining from the standard client, or at least put a very strong warning against it.