Trilema is Mircea Popescu's blog.

yes

I was surprised that he disappeared. What's the purpose in that?

Assuming he was not using someone else's identity:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/5175189/Happy-helping-the-homeless
http://www.rbzgroup.com/people/ph.html

You would think that Jimmy Wales -- the porn guru -- wouldn't be afraid of bitcoin.

I do think he will be found, if not caught. Everyone knows his face.

Or at least the face of someone involved.

Perhaps multi-sig (simple online activation) to prevent theft?

Yep. I'm embarassed to be poster #2. I sketched out with my bitcoins before everything imploded, but I still considered Harnett to be trustworthy. The fact that I have my bitcoins right now is mostly due luck, and a gnawing sense of general distrust I developed. If there's one lesson I've learned on this forum, it's this: don't trust anyone. It's said so often but it really can't be said enough. And I really don't trust anyone anymore, except for certain people in very short time-frames. If you ever think you're being too paranoid, you're probably not being paranoid enough.  It's a lesson that some have to learn the hard way--unfortunately, some only accumulate enough wealth in one lifetime to be worth screwing over exactly once. This is the horror of financial fraud. I'm sure there are people on this forum who's lives have been devastated because of their poor judgement with bitcoins. Maybe I deserve to have lost my bitcoins. However, I'd say that nobody deserves to be scammed. Just because My house isn't 100% secure doesn't mean I deserve to be robbed.

honest bob's seal of disapproval

Sort of like the "Mircea hired a PR lady" story. Yes, that was a grand success.

#altcoinproblems

Sorry to necrobump but my friend introduced me to this amazing website today.

Late in the crypto course, there is an entire class period (or whatever you want to call it) on bitcoin.
http://www.udacity.com/view#Course/cs387/CourseRev/apr2012/Unit/348002/Nugget/430002

This is a really great website if you love to learn... I want to just download the whole thing right now in case it ever goes away.

How much value will bitcoin have if you can't otherwise keep them out of the hands of thieves?

Good point. I guess it's not really buying goods that worries me, it's the storing/trusting part.

Hmm... I'm so glad I have all of my bitcoins "under a matress"  right now. In times like these, I really do wonder about the future of bitcoin. When people ask me "what can you buy with bitcoins?", I'm not really sure what to say anymore, because I don't really trust anyone enough to buy anything with bitcoins. I'd rather buy items with paypal, and sell items for bitcoin. And I will settle for selling items for paypal.

Has the bootstrapping of the bitcoin economy hit an insurmountable wall?

I stopped taking Nefario seriously when I read this joke of a thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=6279.0



I think we all knew GLBSE wasn't going to end well... But this worse than I imagined.

so glad i logged in today.

Perfect! I'll watch this next chance I get. I've been super busy lately.

It is a democracy inasmuch as your "votes" are the efforts you contribute to the project. I simply reap the rewards by using bitcoin. I don't feel entitled by any means and I am grateful the foundation exists.

Thanks for the rude answer to a polite question.


I don't understand the meaning of this sentence.


dev team is dev team because 1) they put hard work in and 2) people are pleased with their work. The other things you list are things that won't be accomplished without some sort of quasi-central authority.


You are if you are still using the client and protocol that they put so much work into. This is the evolution of this open source project. Not everyone is going to agree and it's not going to be a democracy, much less a perfect one. The people who step up and contribute, like all the members of the board, are the ones who get to represent the project.