Oh they are, are they?  So they stopped hacking each others limbs off with machetes¹, raping infants², killing and eating short people³, and commiting genocide against white farmers⁴?

Oh I get it.... April 1st.  Ha ha you got me.

1: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2533828/Mutilated-machete-tragic-orphans-Africas-forgotten-war-A-truly-harrowing-dispatch-worlds-new-Heart-Darkness.html
2: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/18/africa-child-rape-crisis_n_3103558.html
3: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2933524.stm
4: http://www.genocidewatch.org/southafrica.html

Africa?  No.  Africa doesn't have a good track record at adopting advances in technology or culture.

Peru and other South American countries?  I think that it is quite possible, but I think that a dose of pessimism is warranted.

There are three technologically and socially advanced countries that have high levels of inflation.  They are: The US, the UK, and Japan.  So these are the three countries where I expect Bitcoin to flourish.

Those of you who are asking for proof are missing the point.  I'm trying to warn people, not win points in a debate.  People who are receptive to a warning will make use of it, those who have blind faith risk suffering a loss as I have.  Will everyone suffer a loss?  Obviously not.  I'm just relating what happened to me, and what *might* happen to you.  I've tried to resolve this with support and after talking to three people my problem is still unresolved.

When I feel safe to give more information I will update this thread.

I am a big believer in Bitcoin and intend to hold for the long term, however I have another opportunity so I tried to sell a portion of my bitcoin on Coinbase recently.  I don't want to give the specifics of my situation yet, because they are in the process of giving me most of my money.  The end result is that they are stealing a few thousand dollars from me.  I have evidence and will likely take this to court.

Not only is Coinbase robbing me, but they are also robbing themselves of future business.  I'm not a bitcoin millionaire (yet) but I do have a three-digit number of coins (glad I got in when I did!).  The amount that they are robbing me of is nothing compared to the fees that they could have collected from me.

Something to keep in mind if you are thinking about using Coinbase.

So?  That would cripple Russia and wouldn't hurt the US in the slightest.  If people can't buy rubles at the market rate then Russians won't be able to engage in international trade.

If anything, the result would be a more dominant US.

That something will be bank accounts and credit cards denominated in BTC.  In a world where bitcoin is the only currency, the majority of the population will never actually possess real bitcoins.  They will interact with it through intermediaries.

I think that you would need to buy the bitcoins through an IRA account.  So you would need a broker (such as Coinbase) to offer IRA accounts.  I am not sure how IRAs work though.

If you are young you might want to think about the possibility of your IRA being seized by the government.  Private retirement accounts in Ireland, Poland, Hungary, and Cyprus have all been seized.  There is talk (just talk for now) about starting in that direction for IRAs.  Instead of outright seizure, I can imagine them cancelling the promise of tax-free withdrawals from your IRA.

No way.  I can't use gold for daily purchases.  That doesn't stop it from being worth a rather huge amount per ounce.  Bitcoin, even if accepted by no merchants, can achieve a price in the tens of thousands of dollars per coin.

If you hold coins for 2+ years they get taxed under the capital gains tax rates.  The rate you pay is based on your income plus your capital gains, 0% up to a certain amount, 15% after that, and 20% if you are rich.  Ok let me try to explain.

For a married couple the 0% capital gains rate goes up to $72k, less if you are single.  So let's say that your income is $50k.  You pay your income taxes based on that.  Now let's say that you sell some bitcoins for $40k that you bought for $10k.  So that means that you have a $30k capital gains (40 - 10).

So we start piling your capital gains on top of your income.  You take 22 of that 30 to go from $50k to $72k.  You pay 0% on those capital gains.  The remaining $8k is taxed at 15%.

Let's say that you have no income, just huge numbers of bitcoins.  Every year you spend/sell enough to make $72k and live on that.  0% tax rate.

I don't understand how taxes on foreign currencies work, but it seems like it is 23% if you keep good records and 35% if you don't.  Much worse than capital gains.

When you die all capital gains are zeroed out.  So let's say that I buy a bitcoin for $600 and die, leaving it to my son.  Now the bitcoin is worth $100000.  No capital gains on that.  If my son holds it for two years and then sells the coin at $101000 he has a capital gain of $1000, which is going to be taxed at 0%.

So basically capital gains taxes are 0% if you hold your coins long enough and if you don't make too much at your day job.  I think that this describes most people who hold coins now.  If not, there are legal ways to avoid taxes that become feasible when you start talking about big money.

Having bitcoin classified as property rather than currency is the best possible scenario.  The capital gains tax rate is 0% for most people.  0%... hard to beat that.

More useful would be to something that attempts to maximize the capital gains that you report, up to a threshold.

In the US you pay 0% on long-term capital gains until your income gets to something like $72,000 for married people, and then the rate jumps to 20%.  Let's say that you make $50,000 per year.  I would want the software to ensure that I use coins such that I come out with exactly $22,000 in capital gains.  That way I pay no capital gains taxes this year and it also reduces my future tax liability.

Do you really think that you've invented a novel system for tax avoidance that doesn't run afoul of the laws and regulations?  You haven't.  I don't know the details of your system but there is definitely a way that the IRS can tax you.

Let's say that your system is as follows:

27 overseas people mine bitcoin.  You are the 28th person, and the only American.  By a 2/3rds vote it is decided to spend the money to buy ebooks on Kindle, with each of you getting a copy.

How would the IRS handle this?  They would consider all 28 of you to be partners in a partnership.  When you receive the ebook that would be classified as income.  You would be required to report its market value as income and pay income taxes on that income.

In reality, you would probably not report this and the IRS would never find out.  They know that people evade taxes on small transactions all the time and they don't really mind.  However if we're talking about big money then we're talking about big penalties for non-compliance.

Ok so you have your group of people structured some other way?  No problem, the IRS has some other way to tax you.

Ahh yes, so that's about 189 years before we can expect a collision.  Of course I'm making a big assumption about the rate of address creation, so that number will probably be very different.  Good points about the other hurdles to such a huge number of addresses.

This problem is a generalization of the birthday problem.

What is the chance that you and I were born on the same day of the year??  1 in 365.  Seems small, yet if you have 23 people in a room there is a 50% chance that two of them will share a birthday.

If we extend this to larger numbers, there is a 50% chance of a collision occurring when the sqrt root (roughly) of the space is filled.  Since we care about addresses, rather than private keys, the space is 2^160.  So when 2^80 addresses have been used we can expect a collision, or when roughly 10^24 addresses have been made.

According to this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=441336.0;all

The current rate of address increases is x10 every three years, and we're at about 10^7

which means that 63 years from now there is a 50% chance that a collision will have happened.  The rate of collision will continue to creep up after that.

Half a dozen collisions in the 21st century does not mean that bitcoin has suddenly become insecure.  It just means that - worst case scenario - half a dozen addresses are compromised.  Right now more than 90% of addresses in the blockchain are empty, and this percentage is almost certain to increase.  So if you create a colliding address you probably won't get any free money.

What about the person who had the address before?  You fund the address and now it shows up in his wallet... or does it?  I imagine that the wallet software of the future won't check the balance of addresses that have been emptied.  The old owner might never know that you are now using an address that he has a key to.

At some point the rate of collisions will climb to unacceptable levels.  That's more than a century away, probably several centuries.  People will have time to come up with solutions.

People cannot reliably generate random numbers without the assistance of mechanical aids.  Thus, by making this change, most of the randomness of the system would be removed.  It would be very likely that people would sometimes discover someone else's private key.  This would kill bitcoin.

Why is that Pente?  I am considering using Coinbase and I want to make sure that I am dealing with a reputable company.

It seems like Coinbase is the right choice and their website looks simple.  Is it a real exchange though?  It markets itself as an online wallet.  I have heard of people getting their order cancelled and such due to "fraud detection".  What can I do to prevent this?

What about bank accounts?  I have heard of people having their bank accounts frozen/cancelled after a big payment came through.  Should I use my current Bank of America account?  I really don't want that locked down or cancelled.  Should I get a new bank account just for this?  That way if it gets locked down for a month or two I will still be able to pay my bills.

I used to use MtGox to buy BTC and I have had only good experiences with them.  However I hear that their USD wire transfers are very slow now.  Is bitstamp the best alternative?

There is no way that I am doing some sort of local bitcoins thing.  The amount of money involved is too much.

I'm pretty sure that the chart does not show a decrease in correlation.  This chart is yet another example of why all bitcoin price charts need to be log-scaled.  When people look at linear-scaled charts they draw incorrect conclusions.

You're completely right that the high price per unit is an extreme psychological barrier.  We've been having this discussion every month for at least two years now, and everyone who understands the issue* agrees that things should change.

The problem is that we are just a bunch of people on a forum, not people with real power.  In fact that only person that matters is the owner of MtGox.  If he moves the decimal point everyone else will as well.  If he doesn't move it no one else will.

*yeah it sounds like I am making the No True Scotsman Fallacy.  I'm not.