Yer dreaming. I watch these shows on cable TV of these schmucks working their asses off mining gold in AK, the Yukon and even offshore to mine gold at $1200/oz. if the price doubles, every swinging dick with a shovel and a gleam in his eye will be out there with them. Gold WAS money. real money. free market money. It's easily recognizable, fungible, divisible portable and scarce. Bitcoin is MORE fungible, recognizable, divisible, portable and scarce. There's enough gold on the planet to cover the surface eight feet thick. You wanna dig it out of one hole, put it in another and pay someone to guard it. Good luck with that. It was awesome 18th century technology, but this is the 21st century.
We are never going back to a gold standard. I hate to agree with the asshole Kenesians, but they're right on this. You might use it like Goat does to trade in some mountain village in Burma, but in the real world you live in, it's good for speaker plugs and trinkets. Five thousand years was a good run. It's over. over. We used horses for five thousand years too.
Yep. Took me a long time to see that too. The reason why gold cannot be a principal currency in daily use ever again is because it is so unwieldy for face-to-face transactions and can't be used for remote transactions, which are most, by value in a modern economy. A gold-backed debit card is very nice, but who can trust someone else with their gold? Even the German government can't get its gold back. So fiat is needed, was needed until recently when crypto was invented. Why not look at it in the other direction? Gold doesn't need to be actively used as a currency to be a good asset, why should Bitcoin? All it needs is some sort of "potential" as a currency. |
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"They will eventually be made as a payment system to follow the same standards as the other payment systems and that will be probably be the end of them," he said. The game plan is to do to Bitcoin what they did to PayPal. This is not at all surprising coming from him. What will probably be to many, but what shouldn't be, is how many people in the Bitcoin community will be willing to help them try to destroy Bitcoin in return for a financial benefit. Keep an eye on those VC-funded Bitcoin startups especially. There is no possibility to enforce chargeback on Bitcoin. Also if you run a business of converting cash into Bitcoin, no one can force you to follow the regulation, the hawalas have existed for ages. If you really want to do business with the banks, which are run by Dimons and their minions then what's the surprise here? |
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Yup, like how classical liberalism is a step back to totalitarianism.
Not every idea more recent is one with good merits.
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Oh, its inevitable...the technology exists. The bitcoin centric mindset is pretty short sighted. If people feel, in any given community, for the rest of time, like they are not being served by bitcoin, they can have their own currency at basically the push of a button. They will exist and be traded. They may ever be bigger than BTC, but they're obviously going to exist...I know this because I would make one for just my family, inside my home...
I think it's ridiculous to assume otherwise. Cities will adopt local ones...there will be crytocurrencies circulating in high schools. Poor countries and impoverished slums will rock their own coins.
They can always be 51% attacked if they are smaller than Bitcoin, or if they are PoS, using even easier means. |
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I had a hard time figuring out the title, putting RMS and Microsoft in a sentence is kind of....  |
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These Medieval luddites need to be informed of a few basic facts about Bitcoin before they talk craps:
1.Technically nobody bearish on Bitcoin "would sell" it, if anybody wants to sell bitcoins, they can move their coins immediately and in about 30 minutes they will be done selling, no time wasted on going through middle-men and their 9-to-5 workdays so the future tense here is either ridiculous or we are actually talking about bulls who at least expect the price to be higher before they sell.
2. We don't know whether anyone with enough coins to cause a crash will sell today or tomorrow, but if by"investors" they meant everyone who owns bitcoins, then we have a pretty good idea whether the majority of coins move or not, so what the poll gives is probably either irrelevant or misleading result.
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That picture, and others like it, just make the idea of gold so obviously absurd. The monetary intrinsic value of gold (ie, it's "goodness" as money) died when it became no longer feasible to circulate it directly (ie, when people developed the need to transact quickly over distance). After thinking about and using bitcoin a lot, this is ever more obvious, and pictures like the above are downright silly. Literally laughable. Why are we bothering with all this stacks of gold anymore? It was rational when gold was usable as money, and it still made *some* sense when it "backed" paper (though people should've realized the inevitable; namely that the backers would eventually screw with the backing ratio and reserves, therefore making the whole arrangement a giant charade). But now? Seriously?? Maybe I've just been fighting Jim Rickards on twitter too much lately, but PMs are only useful in a very thin slice of the long-tail; other than some very specific pseudo-apocalyptic use-cases, they're done. But...but what about CombiBar? Supposed to be the greatest invention since sliced bread? |
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Let's assume for a minute, that we will be able to manage a migration, that a hard-fork can be successfully executed, is there any other digital signing scheme with comparable performance, key length, history of wide usage like ECC and RSA, that we can migrate to? Anyone cares to enlighten me?
Also Apple doesn't seem to be particularly worried about Curve25519....
i think the points you mentioned are precisely why cryptography has gone the way it has in the past 30-40 years. algorithms are not considered usable unless everyone else is already using them, creating a chicken-and-the-egg problem that is tilted substantially to the benefit of the NSA and its sockpuppet, NIST. since people are apprehensive about using lesser-used ciphers and modes, it makes manipulation of the standards process a very potent technique for the NSA to control the quality and ubiquity of encryption. there are few other options besides ECC for a system with small keys with, as far as anyone knows publicly, comparatively strong security. i would certainly take curve25519 over secp256k1, but migrating the BTC address space would be very non-trivial and everyone would supply the usual "but you can't prove it's broken!" argument. i'm not familiar with any other small-key ciphers that could be a good replacement. it's too bad that NTRU has such massive key sizes and is covered by many patents: imo, it is the most interesting option for pki currently since it involves almost zero magic constants, unlike RSA and ECC. If everyone only keeps a ultrapruned chain(not recommended of course) then NTRU key size may not be a problem as only the key hash will be kept anyway. But in the end I think it's probably a better idea to keep the Damocles sword of ECDSA hanging over us, so that everyone feels some urgency when it comes to the adoption of deterministic addresses. |
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He might have been thrown in jail, probably the only difference.
Perhaps he learnt from last time when they nailed him to a cross? (Not to be taken literally, just a thought provoking statement - make of it what you will) Here is one thought provoked: Ancient saints are obscure, we can only learn about them through their words and tales retold by others, modern heroes are otoh thoroughly scrutinized and analyzed, in this aspect Satoshi is more similar to the ancient saints than the modern heroes, thanks to the anonymity technology. |
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Let's assume for a minute, that we will be able to manage a migration, that a hard-fork can be successfully executed, is there any other digital signing scheme with comparable performance, key length, history of wide usage like ECC and RSA, that we can migrate to? Anyone cares to enlighten me?
Also Apple doesn't seem to be particularly worried about Curve25519....
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Satoshi's diappearance, is probably one of the most important, if not the most important thing ever happened to Bitcoin after its creation.
Had he not disappeared, some of the following would happen:
1.He would have been hated everywhere for his supposedly "unfairly obtained" wealth, and accused for so-called "premining".
2.He would also have been suspected now and then for trying to influence the Bitcoin client development for his own benefits, even if he had delegated most of the development to others long ago, heck, people would even appeal to him if their proposals are rejected by the core developers, he would be in a dilemma of trying to say things that can appease almost everyone, which is an impossible task.
3.Whatever he said would be interpreted as an attempt to manipulate the market to protect his wealth, and big-time investors would hesitate from buying, due to worries that Satoshi may try to pump-and-dump on them.
4.A legion of government agencies would have gone after him, threatening him with all kinds of lawsuits, and to pay taxes.
5. He would become the target of lots of kidnappers, forced to pay huge amounts of ransoms, serving as an ominous sign of what's to come to lots of Bitcoin holders, if Bitcoin price were to reach a point.
In short, with greater power comes greater responsibility, Satoshi knows that no single human can handle such responsibility as the anchorman of Bitcoin so he willingly gave up his power, it's wisdom like that allowed him to create Bitcoin.
Satoshi also made a powerful statement for cryptocurrency and decentralized system in general with his disapperance: in this time and age, you can create something as disruptive as Bitcoin, be in control of vast wealth, yet still remain anonymous.
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I'm not denying that it is important, but most people will nottake the steps to protect it, and even actively take steps to give it up if it gives them a small benefit. AT&T is offering high speed internet if they can spy on your data, how many people do you think will do anything extra to hide their privacy? It sounds like this is intended to be a mainstream and behind-the-scenes implementation, in which case, it simply becomes your address.
More like they feel there is nothing they can do and are simply giving up. As for AT&T, well the threat is still intangible in that case. |
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My concern with the name Stealth Address is that it will end up being a niche feature that most people will not use. Peter's "Ohh, privacy is good!" argument makes sense among his peers, but will fall flat on most common users. Most people "Have nothing to hide" and aren't threatened by privacy, even with all the leaks and damage done. This should be viewed as a standard and non-scary option, and not something for criminals and troublemakers only. Stealth has those connotations, and I have a feeling it will become put in a corner. I think he is also a bit biased in that the super-plugged-in people (aka meetup attendees) have heard of this term and it's too late to change it. I disagree that it's really that well known, even within the Bitcoin community.
Names seem to fall out of describing how something is used or describing what it does. We should also focus describing traditional addresses as well, to see if there might be a way to relabel them.
No, everyone cares about privacy, at least to a certain degree. Or maybe you could find me someone who would love to show me his bank transaction history. If this were the case, Edward Snowden wouldn't be hiding in Russia, no one would be using Facebook, and Tor would be standard. For the vast majority, privacy is simply not valued by most people when it comes down to actually put in any effort. The Bitcoin community in general is going to have a selection bias towards those who care more than the average person. Privacy is valued, when people appear to not care about it the threat is usually not tangible, as in your Snowden, FB and Tor case. When your bank/credit card history is out, or you are caught masturbating you will immediately feel how important it really is. Same happens when your friend/wife just saw your bitcoin transaction to a stripper on blockchain.info. Also the incognito mode seems so important that every browser maker feels the need to put it in. |
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My concern with the name Stealth Address is that it will end up being a niche feature that most people will not use. Peter's "Ohh, privacy is good!" argument makes sense among his peers, but will fall flat on most common users. Most people "Have nothing to hide" and aren't threatened by privacy, even with all the leaks and damage done. This should be viewed as a standard and non-scary option, and not something for criminals and troublemakers only. Stealth has those connotations, and I have a feeling it will become put in a corner. I think he is also a bit biased in that the super-plugged-in people (aka meetup attendees) have heard of this term and it's too late to change it. I disagree that it's really that well known, even within the Bitcoin community.
Names seem to fall out of describing how something is used or describing what it does. We should also focus describing traditional addresses as well, to see if there might be a way to relabel them.
No, everyone cares about privacy, at least to a certain degree. Or maybe you could find me someone who would love to show me his bank transaction history. |
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That's brilliant news - just the UK though?
Not that much difference really, people in other countries can purchase from UK as well(no shipping problem  ). Consider the hostile regulatory environment in U.S and many other places, I would say it's probably as far as they can go. Does this mean the UK is the most liberal bitcoin environment that eBay operates in? That does surprise me Certainly not, but it maybe what their powerbrokers and relation people can secure for them.(they are really good at that, Paypal is about the only foreign payment company which can legally circumvent China's capital control) I personally do not favor a coordinated global launch, not to attract the U.S regulators attention too early... Hey overstock just launched in US, porn.com, newegg.com to hopefully follow soon. If the US regulators haven't noticed yet what's going, they must not be connected to the Net Well, "someone is accepting bitcoins" is way different from "someone is allowing anyone to sell bitcoins on their platform", the later has implications for money laundering, which they hate as much as they hate death. OK cool. Get your point. Still think its a huge step forward, I thought it would a be a long time before eBay in any country would move towards accepting virtual currency sales. Bodes well for the next few months. Absolutely, as I have said, Chinese can theoretically transfer unlimited RMB using Paypal as well, now those hardcore apparatchiks are going to have a really hard time... |
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That's brilliant news - just the UK though?
Not that much difference really, people in other countries can purchase from UK as well(no shipping problem ). Consider the hostile regulatory environment in U.S and many other places, I would say it's probably as far as they can go. Does this mean the UK is the most liberal bitcoin environment that eBay operates in? That does surprise me Certainly not, but it maybe what their powerbrokers and relation people can secure for them.(they are really good at that, Paypal is about the only foreign payment company which can legally circumvent China's capital control) I personally do not favor a coordinated global launch, not to attract the U.S regulators attention too early... Hey overstock just launched in US, porn.com, newegg.com to hopefully follow soon. If the US regulators haven't noticed yet what's going, they must not be connected to the Net Well, "someone is accepting bitcoins" is way different from "someone is allowing anyone to sell bitcoins on their platform", the later has implications for money laundering, which they hate as much as they hate death. |
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That's brilliant news - just the UK though?
Not that much difference really, people in other countries can purchase from UK as well(no shipping problem ). Consider the hostile regulatory environment in U.S and many other places, I would say it's probably as far as they can go. Does this mean the UK is the most liberal bitcoin environment that eBay operates in? That does surprise me Certainly not, but it maybe what their powerbrokers and relation people can secure for them.(they are really good at that, Paypal is about the only foreign payment company which can legally circumvent China's capital control) I personally do not favor a coordinated global launch, not to attract the U.S regulators attention too early... |
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That's brilliant news - just the UK though?
Not that much difference really, people in other countries can purchase from UK as well(no shipping problem ). Consider the hostile regulatory environment in U.S and many other places, I would say it's probably as far as they can go. |
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Cool  If I understand it correct, the sender must know the stealth address from the receiver and the receiver must know the nonce from the sender, so information need to be exchanged both way, comparing with the standard way of only providing a receiving address? Yes |
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