The Chinese miners should collude to work on pre-mining next blocks so they can get rid of BitFury and the Other category and control 100% of the hashing network as a group.

I'll add this, here is the breakdown of pool by country:



Entities in China control 70% of the hashing power in the network.

Just to add some data to the discussion, this is a current chart of miners by percentage of blocks they are mining in the bitcoin network.



Almost any combination of 3 of the top 5 miners (any combination that does not include BW and BCCC together) would constitute a majority of the hash power.

The total mining power of every group outside of the top 5 miners is 11%.

In a zero sum game, for every gain, there is a equivalent loss.

Let's say my neighbor discovers a cure for cancer and ends up making $50 billion dollars as a result of his discovery.

Does the fact that he made $50 billion dollars make me and the rest of the world poorer?

How to pay a hooker:

1. Put $200 in an envelope
2. Meet, greet, put the envelope on the counter
3. Do your business and leave when done

Completely anonymous, transaction occurs immediately, no record kept anywhere, no exchange needed. Cash can be then spent anywhere, immediately.

Inconvenient?

If true, it makes complete sense. Imagine what bitcoin owners would say if the maximum number of bitcoins was doubled by a hard fork. They bought their bitcoins with the expectation that there was a hard limit to the number of bitcoins and that's the "deal" they feel they signed up for.

The same goes for miners and transaction fees. If the bitcoin architecture starts moving transactions out of the blockchain or causes the miners to get lower and lower fees over time for more and more work, that's not the "deal" they feel they signed up for.

I've always said, if you need really solid economic advice, look for a guy who uses Charles Manson as his avatar.

How unfortunate as I relish the opportunity to talk about sex workers and "loser men", just as you apparently do

"Nah, dude. No amount of money laid at my feet combats the amount of violence and harassment hot women get from loser men. Like I started wearing sunglasses and headphones every day so that I could get shit done while these dudes are so confused about their dicks. "

- Cass LeChat

Why don't you try this...

wait until you are done and then tell her you want to pay her in virtual electronic currency which was invented by someone who wants to remain anonymous. Tell her she can create an electronic wallet online and you'll electronically transfer your virtual bitcoins into her account but she should wait for a few confirmations and that could take 10 minutes. After waiting for the confirmations, she can convert the money into dollars by going to an online exchange, moving money into it, providing some documentation and then waiting a week or maybe two. Tell her that the fee for converting her money to dollars isn't a big deal. She will need to give them her bank account information.

Hearing all that, she will likely call her pimp.

Then you have a chance to educate a second person about bitcoin!

If you are lucky, you will end up in the hospital with moderate to severe injuries. There you have the chance to educate even more people on bitcoin, the trauma nurse and the police. Explain the virtues of pseudo-anonymous transactions and how the dollar will be worthless in the future because of the Fed.

Credit card customers in the US don't really have to worry about fraud too much because, by law, credit card losses due to fraud are limited to $50. This is the law:

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-credit-atm-and-debit-cards

"Credit Card Loss or Fraudulent Charges

Under the FCBA, your liability for unauthorized use of your credit card tops out at $50. However, if you report the loss before your credit card is used, the FCBA says you are not responsible for any charges you didn’t authorize. If your credit card number is stolen, but not the card, you are not liable for unauthorized use."

ATM and debit card charges are also limited in a number of circumstances. You can see details in the link above.

Additionally, almost all credit cards in the US are now chip cards. When using a chip reader, this prevents skimmers from working. The US is using chip + signature instead of chip + pin as they do in Europe, however, and not all readers are chip readers right now. Gas stations, for example, aren't required to have chip readers until 2017.

The phishing and spoofing of websites is not related to method of payment.

My comment: that's a wonderfully written paper, really well done.

What's the interest rate you get on your bitcoin deposits?

Reduce transaction costs? I bought some food today and paid with a $20 bill.

What was my transaction cost? How long did it take the transaction to confirm? How many parties were involved in confirming the transaction? Did I need to be connected to the Internet to do it?

Checks can clear absolutely instantly at banks. There is no need for blocks to be solved, confirmations from third parties or anything else. The reason they take some time to clear is not because of some wizard level problem. It is because a check is a piece of paper someone wrote some amount on.

The check writer may not have the money or the check may be forged, that's why it takes a while to clear. Why do people use checks? Because they are really easy to use, if you have a guy working on your plumbing, you can write him a check when he is done. The plumber doesn't need any kind of computer to accept the check and can just put it in his pocket. No merchant processors, no need to connect to the Internet, no bitcoin addresses, no confirmations.

With a U.S. bank, you have a whole host of options when you want to pay someone:

- paper check
- paper cashiers check from the bank account (funds are guaranteed)
- electronic transfer (including via email address or mobile phone number)
- recurring automatic electronic transfers
- wire transfer
- debit card (most have the money in the account, receiver needs merchant account)
- credit card (borrowed money, receiver needs merchant account)

Those are the most common. Banks have zero use for crypto currency, things work great as it is.

As I stated, my pool guy doesn't have a computer, that is why I have him mailed a physical check each month.

What I posted was completely accurate, what exactly is your problem with it?

Why would a bank want a distributed ledger system when they can just have their own ledger?

With their own ledger system they can:

- make changes immediately
- rollback any fraud
- not have to deal with others when upgrading or running the system

There is zero reason for any banking system to have a distributed ledger. The fully electronic cash and computerized banking system in the U.S. works fine as it is.

All my recurring bills are paid automatically and electronically and 99% are paid without any additional fees. The only one I have a fee for is my pool guy who doesn't have a computer so my bank mails him a physical check once a month at the additional service cost of $1.

All my daily purchases are done via credit card. I get (about 3%) cash back on my purchases and the merchant pays the fees. My balance is paid in full each month, with no fee, from my checking account.

No, bitcoin can't be a national currency for countries that are about to have their currency wiped out. Zimbabwe switched to the US dollar when its currency failed and was able to borrow US dollars to do it. They are now trying to switch back their own currency because they want control over their own currency.

If Zimbabwe's own currency fails, are you going to lend billions worth of Zimbabwe bitcoins to use as a currency? How exactly would the people of Zimbabwe, who had no money for computers, use bitcoins at all? Where are they going to get the bitcoins to use as currency in the first place? And do you think they would be OK with using a system where an anonymous hacker could steal all the government's money overnight or some hard fork done by China made it all worthless? And that's just the start, the list of reasons it would never be done is almost endless.

Nobody lives there, it is not a county, it is a rock a guy bought for 25,000 euros (likely much less, that was the offer price). The guy who bought it declared it a country himself and declared himself a prince. Nobody else recognizes it as a country and nobody cares because there is nothing there but a rock. The story:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/experience-i-founded-my-own-country

The subject of this post was "Why would customers use Bitcoins"

There are no transaction costs for a customer when using credit cards. In fact, many cards give you cash back, points or other perks. That is the viewpoint of the customer.

When you talk to someone who uses credit cards about bitcoin, their first question is "Why should I use it?". If you say "lower fees", they are going to say "I don't pay a fee, in fact I get cash back/flight mileage points/travel points on my purchases". And there is nothing simpler than using a credit card. You stick it in the machine and sign your name (or put in your pin) or hand it to the waiter and they give you a slip you sign where you add your tip. Or you type in your number online.

If you use your credit card for autopay of a recurring bill, you enter your information once and can get billed each month without having to sign anything.  And if someone defrauds you, you call the credit card company.

Now, if you are buying something illegal, you probably rather use bitcoin. That's one case where it can claim an advantage.

I can't believe there's a number of people in this thread that apparently do not know how credit cards work. Seriously?

I am in the U.S. A credit card does not cost most customers any money in the U.S. Some credit cards you have to pay an annual fee for (usually those with additional perks) but many have no annual fee. I have a Chase Freedom Card for every day purchases. It has no annual fee. I got $150 for signing up with the card. I pay no interest charges. I get cash back on purchases. Specifically, I get 5% back on certain purchase categories.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/card-details/card-name/Chase-Freedom-100-Cash-Back

That is the experience of the customer of the card. If I have a problem with a transaction, I can call the credit card company and dispute the charge. If my card is stolen, my total liability for unauthorized usage on the card is $50. This is a requirement of the FCBA (Fair Credit Billing Act):

http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-credit-atm-and-debit-cards

I pay my balance off each month so I don't incur any interest charges or other expenses. I just get cash back. Yes, the merchant has to pay merchant fees for processing credit cards. No, I don't ever see them. The price is normally the same if I am paying cash, with a debit card or with a credit card. At some gas stations, you get different prices whether you pay with cash, debit or credit but for most purchases, there is no difference in price at all.

My credit card has a chip in it, a new recent requirement for all credit cards in the U.S., and many credit card readers now (all are supposed to) read the chip instead of the magnetic strip. The chip stops skimmers from working. Most of Europe is chip and pin, in the US it is chip and signature (which isn't as good as chip and pin). I can use the credit card pretty much anywhere in the U.S. When I travel to Japan, I bring cash because cash is still king in Japan.

There isn't a banker in the world that cares about bitcoin. They care as much about it as they care about the value of the Western Africa CFA franc.