Is that right?

If the merchant waits 60 seconds before sending goods priced at 5 BTC to the attacker, then he has a 1 in 11 chance that someone else will solve a block, making the attacker lose his 50 BTC block reward.  In this case the merchant makes a regular 5 BTC sale and profits by his regular markup.

He also has a 10 in 11 chance that nobody else solves the block.  In this case the attacker gets the goods worth 5 BTC as well as the 50 BTC block reward.  The merchant is out 5 BTC.

That's not fair.  It's break-even for the attacker - he loses 50 BTC 1/11th of the time and gains 5 BTC 10/11 of the time, and 50*1/11 = 5*10/11 - but it's a net loss for the merchant.  Most of the time he gets ripped off for 5 BTC, and 1/11th of the time he makes a small percentage of 5 BTC.

No matter how long the merchant waits, there's never any chance of him gaining the block reward since the merchant isn't mining, and so there's nothing to balance the risk of losing his goods to the Finney attack.

So you're saying they should gamble my deposit on the currency markets in the hope of making a profit?  That seems a little risky.  Is there not a chance that by converting my deposited dollars into yen that they could end up unable to pay me back when I try to withdraw?


I don't understand why they would have to charge a storage fee.  Where's the expense in holding dollars in a bank account?

Do MtGox issue loans?  If not, why would they ever issue more in redeemable codes than they have in reserve?  As far as I know, I can only withdraw codes up to my current balance.

I was under the impression that MtGox were holding everyone's balance somewhere safely.  Is that not the case?

I wouldn't be so sure:

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/bits/2009/03/24/researchers-create-bios-malware/1

This?

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-stock-photography-string-puppets-image16489352

The image in the puppet master screenshot is an exact negative of the stock image.

I'm probably missing something here, but why would anyone make a loan at -2% interest?

I can 'loan' to my cat and get 0% interest (she doesn't know how to spend it, so gives it all back untouched), so why would I loan to you and get less than that?

Right, that's as expected.  Thanks for answering.

My question was about what options I have regarding the timing of referral bonuses.  Suppose I'm just about to clear an existing bonus when someone I referred deposits.  Can I say to you "I don't want that referral bonus yet, can you hold off a week so I can clear this one?"  That would be best for me, obviously.  Alternatively (less good) can I say "I don't want that bonus at all, I'm still working on one"?

The question arises because unlike regular deposit bonuses, I have no control over when the people I refer will deposit, and so I am asking what level of other control I can have over the amount of WR I will need to clear.

Also, I see the topic has been changed to mention "2 BTC every night", but don't see any other reference to "2 BTC" or "night" anywhere in the thread.  Will there be nightly leaderboards too now?  Please say there won't, or I'll never get any sleep!

Edit: I asked in a poker table chat and was told that the 2 BTC every night refers to the $10 in freerolls that happens every night...

Not for me it isn't:

That's not true.  There's no guarantee that SHA256 doesn't generate the same output for two different inputs.  In fact in general it's guaranteed that there are collisions in any hash function, since the input space is infinite and the output space is finite.  In practice of course it's incredibly unlikely that you'll ever have two tickets with the same hash.


If he's mining in a pool, he doesn't need to have anything like 50 coins worth of lottery tickets, since the block he throws away won't cost him very much at all.

The terms of service (https://strikesapphire.com/tos.html) puts it like this:

I was reading that as saying that the balance doesn't have to go to zero, just that I have to lose the deposit and bonus.  For instance, if I have $100 already, then get a $40 bonus on a $20 deposit, I have $160 total.  If I bet $10 six times and lose every bet, I've just lost $60.  That's the entire deposit and associated bonus.  My balance isn't 0, but I've lose the deposit plus bonus.  If that's not what you mean by "Should a player lose her entire deposit and associated bonus" then I think the TOS need to be clarified.


What happens if I'm working my way through a deposit bonus when someone deposits after signing up with my referral link?  Can I defer the bonus for their deposit until after I've finished my current bonus?  Do I have to decide right then whether I want the bonus for their deposit "now or never"?  Or does it just automatically get added on to the WR I'm currently clearing?

Thanks!

Never mind.  A run of bad luck fixed that for me.


It turns out I get the same amount as your first deposit, up to $20.  And then I have to bet it 30 times over before I can withdraw it.

I won the 5th weekend tournament too, and am currently winning the 6th.

I seriously need some competition here; if I win it many more times I think I'm going to be asked to leave!

Here's my referral link: https://strikesapphire.com/?afc=NG3Vhagxta - it doesn't cost you anything extra to use it, and gets me an extra $20 if you make a deposit.  I'm not sure how that works.  Like what if you deposit $5.  Do I still get $20?  Seems like that would be too costly for the casino.  Since nobody ever clicks on my referral link I guess it doesn't make any difference.

I think he must be talking about a different hand, because in this one the draw wasn't open-ended either.

The first time I heard it I thought it said "all hell" too.  Only for a fraction of a second until the context kicked in.

I watched the videos with a text editor open ready to make a list of all the details you got wrong.  I didn't make a single note!  I was going to quibble about how we don't need rule changes to be either unanimous or simultaneous, and how the rules actually do change over time.  But I don't think it needs changing.

Great job!

I quite agree.  Why bother adhering to standards?  So long as it works in my favourite browser, screw the rest of you.

I imagine you only use 'coin melting' if the accepted method of calculating which coins are 'tainted' only looks at inputs and outputs, and ignores transaction fees.

If coin melting ever becomes popular then it will stop being effective, as the taint calculations start taking it into account.

A couple of days ago I was playing with a new Bitcoin wallet service.  I deposited 5 BTC then tried to withdraw them again.  It appeared that the withdrawal didn't work, so I tried again, 4 more times.  Each time it seemed to fail.  A few minutes later I looked at my wallet and I had 5 separate incoming payments of 5 BTC from the wallet service.

I immediately emailed the owner of the wallet service telling him about the mistake and asking for an address to which I could refund the coins he had accidentally sent me.  That's what decent people do.

It doesn't make you a scammer that you didn't return the coins you were sent by mistake, but it does make me never want to do business with you.

Or using BlockChain.info's MyWallet service at https://blockchain.info/wallet - the MyWallet service doesn't have access to your private keys, so can't move your coins around without your permission.