Has anyone put any work into creating a custom client for the GLBSE? I'm not saying that there isn't the market or demand for a broker, but if the problem is with the complexity of the client(s), then perhaps it's the client itself that needs to be addressed.
The existing client isn't as bad as people say. Given the following changes were implemented, I'd even find it awesome: - Better in-client documentation (tooltips, links to documentation), especially about the security model
- Explanation of what the password is you enter
- Warning or something to make clear that accounts cannot be recovered if key lost and explanation on how to back up keys
- An integrated transaction history (sux to jump from bitcoin history to assets history to see how many of what asset where bought/sold by counting rows and guessing), maybe downloadable as csv or google datasource or something
- Maybe some styling (although I kinda like the simplistic retro look, just not the colors)
Is the webclient opensource? If so one could fork it. I might even do it if I can find time/motivation/BTC. |
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So the survival of Bitcoin seems to very much depend on the decline in block reward coinciding with an increase in transaction volume. Can anyone say why Satoshi chose the 2 year period as amount of time after which the block reward halves? Wouldn't it have been safer to choose, say 4 years, to allow more time for adoption before block rewards are lowered?
Perhaps it wouldn't even have to be hardcoded at 2 or 4 years-- why not have a dynamic formula based on number of transactions and amount of BTC being transferred (or something to that effect)? Amount of BTC being transferred can easily be manipulated at low to no cost. So that might not be a good idea. If, at all, you'd probably want to base it on fees payed per block or something. Also note: not only the number of transactions varies, but also the fee per transaction itself. The default (and minimum) fee in the standard client might offer a good enough way to increase/decrease fees when time comes. Also: A low incentive would decrease hashpower (as you fear) and therefore security of the blockchain. Awareness of this might trigger users to pay more fees in order to have better security, I'm not sure about this. Additionally: The survival of bitcoin depends on increase of transaction volume not only (maybe) by this mechanism, but also by the fact that if it doesn't grow fast enough, it will probably fail at some point for other (more "social") reasons. Having said that, it's probably not a good idea to try and change it now.
I agree  |
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I am going to have to increase the price of this service considering the recent drop of 25% in the exchange rate. I have not raised prices all the way down from $5. While I am willing to subsidize the fiat costs for the benefit of users, I am not willing to run this business at a loss for an extended period of time.
I am thinking of a base rate of around 0.08 btc/GB.
Could shareholders and users weigh in with their opinions on what a reasonable price would be?
Anyone who has already purchased bandwidth will not be affected by this price rise.
Even 0.1 BTC/GB is reasonable in my mind. 0.099 is stupid. I don't know how you came up with 0.08 BTC/GB, but it seems pretty much exactly right. |
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Not 100% sure on this because I have not tried it yet but can't you just create a single transaction to move the BTC from the coin/bar into any public address of your choice using the on line transaction creator here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51254.0Is that what you are looking for? Hmm, that might actually work. Pretty cool, StrongCoin. I downloaded the .zip and looked at the page. Currently you need to grab the transaction history of the address from block explorer and enter the privkey in base58. Both could be automatically done with only the minikey as input, right? After that, one can enter destination address, amount and fee and generate the tx, which can then be broadcast, e.g. via http://bitsend.rowit.co.uk/, which could also be done automatically. This way, the privkey never leaves localhost and the process can be repeated should more funds be transferred to the address, right? |
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Question: besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?
I've been thinking about making a dedicated service solely for redeeming stuff (and have the coins sent to a specified address right away) I dropped the idea because of the trust issues that'd be involved and because it's already offered, as you said, by exchanges. Such a service might be well-placed on casascius.com, no? Your service would do just fine if it paid out immediately. There's still a lot of trust there, since you're actually giving away the private key. A service could in theory start up, pay out the 1 BTC coins just fine to gain trust, and then once (if) Bitcoin value gets very high and someone tries to redeem a 100 BTC bar, they take the money and run. You might be best making one of those client-side javascript-based pages that seem to be getting developed to somehow take a key and the transaction hash and index being redeemed, and have it generate the redemption transaction completely on the client side, and publish that somehow. Then, once the source code of the page is vetted, it could be saved and used without any additional risk. It would be interesting if Casascius could include such a page for download from his site, or maybe included on a USB stick with the large-value purchases or something, customized already with the transaction hash and index associated with the coin/bar. So one would just need to put in the private key and could get the funds, without digging in BlockExplorer. I like the javascript-idea. Maybe BCCAPI by Jan could be used: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36892.0 ? Question about the provision of tx hash and index by casascius (or other source): would that work with additional fund being sent to the coin address? |
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If we're estimating, I would say difficulty will be almost double what it is now and price will be $1.50 or less. Unless we have some heavy market intervention between now and then.
Heh. I'm pretty sure the price will not be $1.50 +- 1.00 |
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Well, I know a Central Bank that made a decision on classifying Bitcoin two months ago.
Maybe I'm just too naive, but since when is it for a bank to make such a decision? Last time I checked banks were not the ones to make new laws (at least not officially ) I was under the impression that Bitcoin is not covered by existing legislation (at least not those by the EU specifically crafted for digital currencies). Therefore I had expected that new laws would have to be worked out and that at least some democratic process is involved with that. I'd be glad if somebody could shed some more light into this issue... I asked this question here before. Here's a candidate for an answer: The Banque de France is the regulator - it's decision effectively legally defines MtGox as a money transfer business and prohibits it from operating without a licence.
So it seems that formally the Banque de France acted in its capacity as a regulator (not law-maker). It's effectively prohibiting mtgox from operating due to the existing law that disallows money transfer businesses to operator without a license by classifying mtgox as a money transfer business. Right? |
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Question: besides Mt. Gox and StrongCoin does anyone know of any other places that accept the mini private key format for import?
I've been thinking about making a dedicated service solely for redeeming stuff (and have the coins sent to a specified address right away) I dropped the idea because of the trust issues that'd be involved and because it's already offered, as you said, by exchanges. Such a service might be well-placed on casascius.com, no? |
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down to 35.59% funded due to lower exchange rate.
Please donate. Notice you will get your money back in case we don't reach 100% in time if you use GLBSE to donate (see previous post for instructions)
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Could you give us an estimate of how many 1 BTC coins you still have left? And how long is the second series going to take? I wanted to buy a few of each, but I'm afraid that the original series will go out of stock soon...
Come to prague, you will likely be able to buy some. |
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The second dividend of 1BTC has been paid.
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I filled out the registration form.
Would expect some kind of email or payment instructions... nothing since 2 days.
What's up with that?
Hi, You caught us on the weekend. Staff need some time off but no doubt you will hear from us tomorrow. Allright, thanks, no problem. |
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I filled out the registration form.
Would expect some kind of email or payment instructions... nothing since 2 days.
What's up with that?
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Hi everyone, my name is Peter Lambert, and I run one of the largest companies traded on the GLBSE, the Lambert Investment Funds company. Part of what I do is trade assets on the GLBSE all the time.
While I enjoy using the GLBSE, I have heard other people complain that it is hard to understand and hard to use. It can be hard to find information on the companies listed there. Passwords are used completely different from other sites, so some people have been accidently locked out of their accounts.
Here is my idea: I could be your personal broker to use the client, buy/sell shares, etc. It would be as easy as this: you send btc to an address I give you, then send me an email saying which shares to buy or sell.
I am still thinking about pricing, what would be fair? I could charge 1% per transaction? Or take a percentage of profits made?
Thoughts?
Would you assume any liability in case you yourself screw up or glbse goes south? |
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If I'd like to modify Abe without modifying the original code, what's the go-to way of hooking or wrapping into it so as to maintain compatibility with the original codebase and its updates?
+1. I've been "hacking up" bitcoin-abe by adding functions "q_whatever(...)" to abe.py. Now I can't easily update. |
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38% funded down from 40%, because some share reservations on PMF vanished  . We made good most of that loss by a slightly risen exchange rate, though |
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Its just the name you object to I think. There already is such a "tax"in the form of transaction fees. Now they benefit miners, I dont see why we could not redirect part of it to a bitcoin foundation.
The difference between "bitcoin foundation" and "miners" is (lack of) decentralization, one of bitcoins main selling points. I'm not against "bitcoin foundation" at all. But they shouldn't get to put "developer fee" code into the client (to avoid the evil "tax" word here). I probably wouldn't mind myself, but explain that to someone you just explained the coolness of decentralization and "basically free" transactions. It's hard enough to explain the tx fees, but it usually works out with a nice AHA-effect in the end when you explain mining incentive after block reward drops to close to nothing. |
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guys, i'm gonna be locking down this thread sometime in about a week so i can start my own paid subscription website. essentially i will be moving this thread over to my new site called Financial Risk Analytics and continue posting over there in the same form and manner i have done here. right now its open for all comers until i get it locked down for subscribers only. take a look at the website and give me constructive feedback if you will. hopefully many of you will subscribe and help it along. Financial Risk AnalyticsThis is sad, I wont be able to subscribe. I don't trade, am just following out of pure interest. Thanks for your posts in this thread, it's been fun while it lasted. |
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Don't know who would come up with the money for it,
We all should. Why not include a donation option in the client? Make it optional, but set it by default so that 0.01% or whatever of each transaction is donated to a fund used to pay Gavin, other developpers and for bug bounties. There was talk of a bitcoin foundation a while ago, not sure how thats going, but they could manage those funds. I agree. In fact, even making such a donation mandatory wouldnt be such a bad thing, like a tobin tax, or like the transaction fees we already pay to miners. Although of course some people will just fork and use a client without the "tobin tax", if you set a hardcoded lower limit low enough, most people wouldnt mind I think.
I don't agree. It'd be very bad from a marketing point of view to make such a mandatory "tax". I'm experiencing a lot of troubles marketing bitcoin to friends (key import/export is a big one, by the way, because I use casascius coins to get people started, they inevitably want to see proof that it's working (and it's a big "AHA", when it finally does). Fiddling with pywallet ("what? that's not even in ubuntu repository") and having the client "stuck on blockchain rescan" with no gui showing for minutes ("that pywallet screwed up bitcoin, now it doesn't start any more, glad I have a backup") doesn't help the cause. But that's a different matter). Having a tobin tax would only add to the troubles I'm having "selling" bitcoin to people. |
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Sure, from random posts on this forum I infer that there is something called testnet, but I have no idea if and how I could help running a client on it.
You forgot to check the Wiki.  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/TestnetThat indeed explains what testnet is. That's not the only thing that was asked for, I think. I think niko was looking for a place where "normal users" would be able to obtain information on how they could help with testing. Such a place would include - explanation about what "testnet" is
- information about the planned release milestones and testing timelines
- downloads of test releases
- information on how to submit bug reports and other test results.
- info about how to test
- info about what needs testing and maybe current status
I'm sure the information is out there, it's just not easy to get to it if you're not quite heavily involved on developer mailing-lists, github, #bitcoin-dev, etc... In other words: the bitcoin developer circle is quite a hard place to get into for joe schmoe, am I right? So maybe it would be cool to somehow make it easier for the "normal user" to help. |
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