The current tax regulations actually put Australia at a disadvantage to the rest of the world. If they change these regulations now, a lot of businesses will return, and it would boost their economy. When anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing regulations are applied to Bitcoin exchanges, it would stimulate a growth in that area of the world, like we have never seen before.

Ripple will definitely get a foot hold, when the banks accept it as the default currency and the technology to invest in the future. In it's very nature, it's everything that Bitcoin does not want to be. We need the freedom to have full control and some anonymity. The centralized nature of these regulated exchanges are a mayor risk factor <MtGox> and a source for government monitoring over financial matters of private citizens.

We already had all that with VISA & Mastercard & PayPal and we decided to use Bitcoin, because it offered us a different way to control our own money.  Why go back to the old ways, when we have a brand new technology?   

This is the true story behind this, " According to Bobby Lee, CEO of the world’s largest bitcoin exchange BTCChina, Chinese users who like to gamble enjoy the strong volatility in bitcoin prices. For many, buying low and selling high offers the opportunity to make quick profits. "

This is also why they love Bitcoin mining. Low input and high yield. Seeing that their electricity cost is so low and it gives them the advantage over the other mining operations. They will manipulate the price and cause high volatility and it will scare away merchants and companies, who wants less volatility.

All for a quick profit. ^hmf^

It's a start, but it's a pity they are jumping on the Blockchain bandwagon and not onto the currency that started it all. Surely Bitcoin has proven itself as a crypto currency already, and a new technology has to go a long way to cover the steps Bitcoin has already walked.

I have started to focus my charity efforts on Bitcoin donations only, to stimulate it's growth and acceptance and because I feel, the money channeled through the banks going towards charities, should have zero fees. Bitcoin gives me the opportunity to do just that. If I give $100 to charity, why must $20 go to banks for fees?

If they create another Blockchain type technology for banks, I will still only use Bitcoin out of principle or I would not support any charities at all.   

You do not need a computer to do that.. if you have a smart phone, you have Bitcoin. If your community have access to one computer, all of them have access to Bitcoin. How do you think things like Mpesa thrive in Africa?
If you use paper wallets, you would not need any electronic devices for a long time.

A computer crash should not be the end of the world for Bitcoin users. If it is, you are not using cold storage and paper wallets.

If we are realistic, only a small percentage of people in the world understand or trust Bitcoin now, after what happened with MtGox and Silkroad.

Your best bet, is to ask exchanges adhering to the KYC/AML regulations to post their totals on the forum. Duplication and sock puppets are then eliminated and you would get some clear totals of Bitcoin users per country. I have seen some totals being quoted within articles, but I do not know how accurate and updated they are.

I have 5 Facebook accounts, and I will join with 3 of them, just to inflate your totals a bit, how does that sound? 

Exactly, most celebs only look at something to see what they can get out of it. The people I mentioned, have another goal in life. They want to give back to the people in need. Bill Gates is doing this with his Bill Gates foundation, and he has already seen the impact, it can have on the poorest nations on earth. <Remittance>

Same goes for Sir Richard Branson, he is used to taking on the giants in the corporate world. His reputation as
a Pit Bull in this field, is what we need to take on the giants <eBay / WU / MoneyGram / Banks>

Elon Musk have the experience of developing ground breaking payment methods and his developments in cheap electricity and alternative energy, makes him ideal, for Bitcoin Mining solutions.

We do not need people like Kim Kardashian with her sex tape background and reckless spending habits to represent us, we already had enough of that. ^hmf^

I would prefer someone with a sound financial background and/or successful business career.

a. Elon Musk <History of knowledge of payment systems>
b. Bill Gates <Most successful entrepreneur and a vision to improve the world>
c. Sir Richard Branson <Risk taker and alternative thinker>

We need people with vision, and a true interest in making a difference where it counts the most.  

The site should have a referral option showing how many referrals you have, but I do not know of any service, where you can trace, who is profiting from you using their referral link. I join a gambling site affiliate system, and it shows me the username of the person who signed up with my referral.

It's also a pity that they do not make provision for a chat utility where you can communicate with your referrals. I would like to have weekly bonuses or cash back competitions for my best referrals, but I do not have a way to communicate with them.

Bitcoin is not like Ripple. We do not link social media accounts to our use of crypto currencies. It makes the targeting for hackers easier, if they can link you to Bitcoin and stalk you, to get to your coins. You might not care if it attract criminals, but most of us do.

Would everyone who are asked to join a group that own $100 000 in fiat, do that on social media? No, You would become a victim of a kidnapping or some other criminal action. Anonymity is there for a reason, it protects your financial privacy.  

 

It's about #@$ time that he face justice. Let's see if his conspiracy theories can hold up in a court. It's one thing to spew out a lot of nonsense to fabricate a story, it's another thing to prove it. He has all the odds stacked up against him, if you compare him to Ross's case.

He should have left the sleeping dogs, but he just had to poke it, and now they are showing him their teeth. They will come down on him like a ton of bricks now.

He had loads of time to prepare for his defense, so let's see if he can protect himself against the biting dogs. Bring the popcorn, this will be fun to watch. ^HeH^

I will wait until it's tested and proven to be secure. Tor has been around for a long time, and most of the vulnerabilities has been exposed by it's huge user base. Who are the people behind this project, and how skilled and experienced are they to take on the likes of the hackers being contracted by these agencies to poke holes in this software?

I usually do not trust VPN's and believe them to be honey traps for these agencies. The only reason most people want to use them, are to hide some illegal actions anyway. The small percentage of people who use them to protect their privacy, is not worth the mention.

These VPN's also attract a lot of attention from these agencies, if they are found to be popular and not hackable. They will concentrate all efforts to hack it, and eventually they crack it, and everyone is exposed.   

The thing is, gold is being rated and priced according to it's rarity and it's proven not to be the case. They find new gold deposits on earth too, and the mining operations are getting better at extracting it. It has also been found on asteroids, with the possibility for it to be mined in the future.

I love gold, but it's impact on earth is devastating based on the damage that is done to extract it. The most damage is done, in areas that are very remote and poorly regulated. Lots of trees and plants are removed to excavate and animals are killed and water are polluted.

How many people have died in mining accidents? <shaft collapse / lung problems / mud slides / crime>
The cost of that average sized 4 bedroom house full of gold was huge. 

Most people will not have the skills, to know what is being done via their Wifi, and it's up to you to proof your innocence. To do this, they will have to fork out a lot of money to acquire the skilled people to do a forensic analysis that would stand up in court.

You are opening yourself up to a world of hurt, when you share your network with other people and you do not know what they are doing on your service. The article says, the user will be signing onto the service without a username and password, so how do they monitor the activity and actions of the visitors to your BitMesh?

It will be interesting to know, how they would implement this, but it's still a good idea. 

So they do know about Bitcoin, but they still do not want to accept it as a payment method for their products. I have been sending them emails for months to try and get them to be the first AV software company to accept Bitcoin as a payment method.

It's just natural for the hackers to target mobiles, because most people do not care to install AV software for their phones. I did a quick spot check, and only one of my friends have AV software installed on his phone. I asked 32 people. It's a huge opportunity for them, and most people use their mobiles, linked to many of their accounts.

Well micro transactions are perfect for a MeshNet, but how will they implement the liability? When you sign a contract with your service provider, you are responsible for the activity on that service. If someone tap into your service and use it for illegal actions, who would be held responsible for their actions?

When you link onto a Free Wifi network now, it needs some authentication for you to use it, so you are still identified on their network. It's a interesting concept, but it still needs some brainstorming. I do not want to go to jail for someone doing #@%$ on my service.  

In this situation I cannot see that they would be going the Open source route. It would be much more secure if they make it totally proprietary and private. They can steal all the good properties of the protocol and achieve the same result, without public participation.

The whole system could run within their private VPN to add more security and they could have a global network running that host a decentralized ledger for security purposes. Hacking and backups could be less of a problem, if they implement it in that way.

There is space for both, but is there enough room for growth? You cannot have a commodity with no growth, it will simply grow smaller and die. One commodity must loose market share for the other to grow.
The Bitcoin supporters wants more people to invest in Bitcoin, for their investment to show a profit, and the same goes for the people who invest in gold.

For Bitcoin to crush gold, something must happen to the gold market or people invested in other commodities must trust Bitcoin more than gold. Will that happen? Nope <People trusted gold for many centuries as a safe haven>

If sha-256 is cracked by quantum computers, everything running on that would be compromised too. This includes all credit cards and most secure sites on the internet using SSH technology. They could also just upgrade to a better and more secure algorithm - sha-512 or whatever.

I am not a security expert, but I have read the information and understand the basics of the theory behind it. This has also been discussed before, and everyone agree that this is not an issue at all. Bitcoin is very flexible and the algorithms behind it is very robust.

Bring on the quantum computers, and see if they can do what no super computer have been able to do, up to this date. The mathematical calculations to crack a private key is staggering and beyond the combined computer power of all the computers on this planet.   

I think the idea is to have a decentralized ledger system between different banks, but within the same group. They already have enough computers in all their branches to host nodes. They plan to have a private ledger system without a token.

Miners are rewarded by Bitcoins, but this ledger system needs no rewards. It's a reward on it's own, because it saves the banks millions. They can use one system/ledger to carry more than one function. It can also be adapted to carry a token for money transfers between banks. 

I had a dream, and then I woke up, and the reality was Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin. I have been searching for a long time, for a alternative form of payment for the internet. Bitcoin has made this dream come true in a big way!
My next dream will be for the many people out there, who have had bad experiences with the traditional payment methods to hear about this wonderful technology.

Most of us living in the developed world, cannot grasp the concept of having no bank account. We accept this as the norm. We also earn a above average global wage and cannot see what a huge difference lower fee's and micro payments can bring to the people who do not have that.

Make my dream, your dream today!