This will be a very complicated process to differenciate between people running a full node, and those who run full nodes and not opening a single inbound connection and those people running pruned nodes. There were even some people who spoofed nodes on Azure, so if they manage to fool the system, then they would be getting paid for "fake" nodes on cloud based services. This will just be a extra pain in the ass to manage and police this. ^hmmmmm^

You did pick up, that I used the word, "story" Right? The real facts are even more redicilous, " Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians. In fact, NASA ordered 34 mechanical pencils from Houston's Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., in 1965. They paid $4,382.50 or $128.89 per pencil. When these prices became public, there was an outcry and NASA scrambled to find something cheaper for the astronauts to use."

Source : https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/

The point I am trying to make, still stands : Implanting a foreign substance into your body to pay for goods and services are just stupid, and a over engineered idea that are easily solved by
much less radical payment options. I still think these people are just doing it, because it is regarded by many as a Taboo. < Religious or Social >  

Easy, you place a counter at the top, showing the countdown to the draw and also the pot that are growing with each entry added to the draw. The person hosting the site, can also add one or two adverticements on the site, to pay for the expenses or alternatively have a Ad free site, and only take a small percentage from the entry fees. < 1% for expenses > The first pot would need to be funded, to get things going, so you would have to work that into the expenses.

If people see a big Money Pot, they will enter the draw, without you even having to advertize. Just put something on Reddit and other forums and your promotion is done.

You can even pay people to submit good questions, if you too lazy to do that. < Obviously only a few Satoshi's > ^smile^

Some local companies in my country run competitions on cellphones and then you are prompted via Sms to answer questions. For example : They send the question : What is the biggest soda company in the world - Press 1 - Coca-Cola / 2 - Pepsi / 3 - PopGoesTheWorld. and stand a chance to win $5000 for instance. We do not neccesarrily need to run this via cellphones, but rather use a web page for this.

Bots will be welcomed, because every question answered, will cost them Satoshi's and all those Satoshi's will go towards a bigger prize pool. ^smile^

If people wants to hack the site, then they can do it... they still need to pay to enter the quiz and the final prize are not awarded to the person that answers the most questions correctly, but rather a final draw. The hacked answers will just give those people more correct entries into the draw. < but they will have to pay for that >

Yes, the main objective will also be to spread information and awareness to increase adoption, as one of you said. ^smile^ 

Ok, what other methods are currenctly cheaper than Bitcoin to send micro transactions? None. Have you used wire transfers or remittance services lately to send, say $2 to a friend in another country? No, because it is impossible to do with traditional payment systems. The fees charged, will consume the amount you were trying to send. This can be done with Bitcoin, for just a few cents, so stop spreading noncense and give credit where credit is due. ^smile^

How many times do we need to repeat this? DO YOUR DAMN BACKUPS and then you will laugh at this, when it happens to you. I backup regulary on DVD's, so I will not pay a cent, if I get Ransomware demanding bitcoins to decrypt my data. DO NOT simply over write previous backups on a external harddrive, because that may be infected too. DO NOT save private keys on your computer. Use Virtual machines / Clean bootable Operating systems like Tails to restart the OS after each session, to avoid infection.

Lastly, educate people about this threat and counter measures to protect themselves. ^smile^

Why do you need to put a stupid chip into your arm to do that, if you can simply insert it into a piece of jewelry or better yet, just use tap-and-go credit cards. The people doing this, just wants to be controversial and are desperate for attention. It reminds me about the story of the NASA spending millions on developing a pen that would write in zero-gravity. The Russians spent nothing on this, and simply used a pencil. 

Do not try to re-invent the wheel, we use 100's of other methods and it is just as convenient and safe as a chip in the arm. < overkill >

 

This is a typical example, http://www.badbitcoin.org/ where we provide the tools for people to determine in advance if the site is a scam or a hype and even with prior warning or even just a little bit of research <Google > they would not have lost any money. I guess greed clouds people's sound judgement. Next time you want to invest in one of these shady operations, just use Google first, you would be amazed at how usefull it can be. ^sarcasm^

It is a nice way to wash money, if you asking me. You create some legitimate company selling hashing power and you push some illegal money through it in a Ponzi type funding. The supposed investors could be your own "dirty" money. Some of these people rent out the hashing power and once they hooked enough people or when they hook a shark, they just close shop and dissapear. These operations are full of scammers, so I would avoid them at all cost.

The "revolution" sounds so liberal and we already have a reputation that most Bitcoiners are Libertarians. < b.t.w this is not true > So I would rather go for < The Internet of Money > The mention of money, already grabs your attention and linking it to the internet, will hook even more attention. You can also explain it easier, than trying to explain to people why you need to revolt against a corrupt fiat system. ^smile^

Can someone create a Quiz game, like we see with these SmS type quiz games, where each entry are being paid for by the participants and then all entries goes into a final Pot and the winner or winners are chosen from this pot. The system should be totally transparent and the draw provably fair. So, has this been done before or would this be unique? Entry to this should only be a few 1000 Satoshi's to allow for the poorest people to participate.

The more questions answered correctly, would increase your changes to win the big pot or one of the smaller prizes.  

Each question should have a 5 second timer, to eliminate "Google" help.   < Most questions should be Bitcoin based, to increase people's knowledge about the subject > A incorrect answer, will not disqualify you from the Quiz, but will not be eligible as a entry ticket. So for every correct answer, you will receive a additional entry ticket.

Paying for every entry, will prevent spam and guessing and multiple entries to get more correct entries. < We should have 1000's of questions to prevent duplication >

This can be both educational and also beneficial for the Bitcoin adoption rate, if this takes off and the prize pot grows to say $100 000 < Just an example > This will garner a lot of media attention, if it goes viral.

What would the legal requirements for this kind of project be, in your opinion? We will have a lot of issues with underage participants, but I doubt if this can be labelled as gambling. Please feel free to give your inputs and suggestions.

What do you think, will this work?  ^smile^

The NYSDFS fked themselves, when they implemented this in the State of New York. Most of the Crypto companies left the state and resumed operation in other states where they did not have to pay those ridiculous license fees and be subjected to all that red tape. The regulators of that piece of legislation created some nice jobs for them as consultants to explain the complex legislation to the busineses that had to adhere to it, before they would be allowed to operate under that BitLicense. A great barrier to entry for 1000's of Bitcoin startups in New York. ^hmmmmm^

We should worry about these things, and prepare for contingencies when these governments react negatively toward bitcoin. We should create untraceble black markets to provide for alternative commerce in the event where Bitcoin is banned. That is what happened with Prohibition in the USA during 1920 to 1933. The governments will soon realize that they are going to lose a significant amount of tax revenue, when Bitcoin goes underground, and that it would be more beneficial for them just to leave it to prosper and grow.

So they can chose between having Bitcoin bootlegging like the old days, or having legitimate busineses that create job opportunities and generate tax income. ^smile^

It will not just be the early adoptors that would appose this, every person who own bitcoins would be against such a flexible cap because it devalue their current coins as the cap is lifted and more coins enters the network. You are free to create your own Alt coin and then see how this will fail. The miners also benefit from the current cap, because the reward is more valueble than what it would have been if there were a flexible cap. What would you chose? 100 bitcoins @ $10/BTC   OR say 12 bitcoins at $800/BTC  < Just a simple example >

Bitcoin was based on Gold, and there are only limited amounts of gold deposits, which makes it more valueble as a precious metal. ^smile^

OP, you have to agree that the damage that Mt. Gox did was much larger than the amount of money that was lost. It was still early days, and Bitcoin was on the rise. The timing of this was nearly catastrophic for new Bitcoin users. At the time, Mt. Gox was one of the biggest exchanges around, and a lot of people used it. It was launched in July 2010 and up until 2013 it handled almost 70% of all bitcoin transactions. If you wanted to take down Bitcoin, then Mt. Gox was your best target.

Mark Karpeles almost sunk Bitcoin on his own, luckily some people still saw the value and they kept on going. ^smile^

I would much rather see all that funding being dumped into $1 000 000 projects to create that killer APP or GAME that would spark mainstream adoption. The commercial mainstream adverticement channels is too expensive and a waste of time and money. We only need 1 <one> killer/super App to stimulate the mainstream adoption, but I am worried about the scaling and the capacity to handle those kinds of transactions. The huge volumes of transactions needed, would bring the whole network down. ^hmmmmm^

They finaly figured out that the real gem is not in the adaptation of a digital ledger to function as a Blockchain, but for a Blockchain to function like Bitcoin. The <private> networks will not be widely supported, because there will always be the trust issue. What will happen if the public accept a <private> permissioned Blockchain, where they have ZERO transparancy or inputs into the core building blocks of the direction where the technology is going. < Who will determine the Coin Cap, and how easy will it be to increase it? > 

You cannot invest in something, if you cannot trust it. The consensus in Bitcoin, give it some degree of trust. 

I was a forum moderator for a few forums, and I can tell you, it takes a lot of time to manage spam and bots and also mediate between forum users when the shit hits the fan. You have to be biased in most situations even when your ethics/religion/political views are different from the parties in question. I think most people stepping up for this, has no clue how complicated this can get. Just as a matter of interest, is this a Crypto currency forum? ^smile^

I think Bitcoin trading offers the most potential and I have seen some good tutorials on the subject on the internet. There are also many different ways to trade, and one of the most interresting options in my opinion is CFD's at https://1broker.com/ The other options like mining would not be beneficial to the every day person with limited funds. Why would they want to learn about something, if they do not have the funding to compete against established Bitcoin mining farms?

Someone was saying somewhere in a video that the Venezuelians are already buying goods in Walmart via some service and they get the goods delivered to their country. It would be great if we could track that story and find a person to deal with. The trust will be a issue though, because in my experience with charities in Africa, most of the damn donations end up in the wrong people's pockets. These people end up selling these goods to the people. The world is a sick place. ^hmmmmm^

Bitcoin can make the biggest difference, if big companies like Coinbase/BitPay/Trezor/Xapo can join efforts to make Bitcoin transactions cheaper for the every day person on the street. They can also make it easier for them to make transactions via cheap mobile phones. < Most Bitcoin Apps these days, are developed for Smart phones >