pics of tits or gtfo

No, the last trusted block has a 1/2 probability of being a correct seed for a power block. 1/2 * 1/16 = 1/32

Still an absolutely, astonishingly stupid idea.

grow the fuck up, all of you

None of this actually refutes anything I said; all it is is rhetoric.


You're going to have to define "external forms of wealth" for me, because I don't understand what that means. Wealth shouldn't change because of "supply and demand." I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying we need to move away from this.


More rhetoric. Gold is different from bitcoin, as is evidenced by the fact that I can go and mine gold without regard to how many other people are mining gold. In bitcoin, I have no option but to split a severely limited amount with whoever else is mining at the time. Bitcoin is static unless you believe that currency distribution plans on changing anytime soon. The market does not affect this.


And it is no different because the bitcoin/altcoin combination suffer from the same flaws. Somebody should be rewarded with wealth by being ahead of a trend in the flow of wealth? Really? Someone else should lose wealth for being behind? I suppose it's fine if you want to believe that, but we're going to have to agree to disagree. These types of things are the bases of recession.


Ya rly. What I want to do is separate the economy from the monetary base. It should be neutral. It is not with fiat; it is not with bitcoin.


Ohhh look you used the 5,000 year history of gold as an argument. It's so cute. I'll let the 100 year history of gold continue to slap you in the face. Gold doesn't work as a currency anymore.


Central banks were around in the time of the goldsmiths? No I don't think so. Fractional reserve and credit were though. For as long as banks have existed, humans have manipulated the supply. Not only are humans capable of manipulating the bitcoin supply, it has been handed to them on a silver (or should I say altcoin lol) platter. You seem to think that only central banks and governments are capable of doing this; history says you are incredibly wrong.


Oh, it might take longer, so this solves our problems? What a joke.


They are complicit because they owe the bankers. How about we get away from this SOS?


So giving the wealthy control over the money supply is somehow different from giving banks control over the money supply? Hint: it's not. Wealth being accrued from money is the root of our economic woes. Bitcoin doesn't fix this and you complicitly agree with it, therefore you complicitly agree with the inevitable result: wealth transfer, recession. Gap between rich and poor growing. I obviously will not be able to convince you otherwise, because you believe that this is deserved. That the millions of people whose only purpose is to gain wealth from currency are necessary, and that you think that this is productive and good for the economy. That everyone should be slaves to debt. I, on the other hand, actually propose to move away from this.


Yada yada yada. SOS. The supply is not the issue; the manipulation of the supply is.


Rhetoric.


Bitcoin does not come a whit closer.


It is functionally better than fiat because the new money is given to those that work for it, not created as debt. Stop being blinded by what governments do and focus on what the currency does.


Rhetoric. Status quo. SOS.


Yes, bitcoin is moot. Thanks for agreeing! Now let's actually try something different.


You would have to be pretty green to think that 2008's problems and 2011's problems stem from a different source. It is the same recession and I consider it as such.


So says your opinion. Which apparently has changed for whatever reason.

Arbitrary feedback. pfft. The point is to come up with something that isn't arbitrary. I know that this is possible may come as a shock to many, but calling something that is not arbitrary, arbitrary, does not mean that it is.

You don't see why there'd be huge fluctuations? Is the rise up to $30 completely anomalous to you then?

Yes, value of money = total goods and services. However, in a totally fixed supply like bitcoin's, the value is pushed up the chain like no other. Those with a low time-preference earn for doing nothing productive. Who can generally afford to have a low time-preference? The wealthy. As the total goods and services expand but the supply of money doesn't, this is giving value to those with money. This value doesn't just magically appear from no where, it is taken from those with a high time-preference. Yes, Bitcoin may create wealth by lowering barriers to trade, however, this will be insignificant compared to the amount of value that is moved up the chain. "Monetary manipulation" doesn't have to have anything to do with what the government does (other than a lack of regulation, as will be rampant with bitcoin) as the recent mortgage crisis shows.


You are making gross assumptions that do not fit the historical divide of how those with wealth use it. Yes, the price of BTC would stabilize if it became more popular. This does not mean those with wealth will not attempt to manipulate the currency, and this does not mean that this won't cause more deflation than there should be. No matter what, deflation is a vehicle that gains more value for those with currency than those without. They will use this to gain even more. Human greed is at the source of every recession. Lack of productivity should not be encouraged by gaining real wealth. It is stupid.


Status quo bias. You are willing to accept that bitcoin works, but not that another way could. In my design, there is no "loss in the creator's mind." It is all determined by the demand for new currency which is based on whether or not people produce new currency based on the market price. In my design, there is no algorithm that determines to increase the supply. People determine whether or not to increase the supply. And the supply is occasionally restricted (by the currency award, nothing more) to foster competition; what this competition does is help level off the cost to produce against factors that are unknowable to an algorithm. Price of electricity goes down or electrical consumption of GPUs go down--foster competition on a restricted supply to see who is willing to set the bar for what is profitable.

People can't hoard and expect that the value of their currency will increase by virtue of them restricting the supply. The supply will expand in response. The supply will expand in response to more goods and services being available in the economy. The value of each unit of currency will remain stable, or oscillate around a stable point. All of this requires separating the money supply from the security of the network. It can't be done with the gross simplicity of bitcoin's coin distribution scheme. That's why I had to propose a redesign for everything.


So you don't consider gold a commodity money? "Political class" is irrelevant, it is the "wealthy class" that controls politicians. The poor are never going to be able to invest under the same conditions--they don't have the capital! Bitcoin is a more ridiculous version of commodity money than gold because its supply is absolutely fixed. If it were to ever gain wide acceptance (which it won't because of early adopters), the wealthy class will again control the currency, and again they will do whatever is most beneficial to themselves. This *will* result in another deflationary spiral (and I mean spiral in the sense that deflation is happening far faster than it should), and they will be happy to fix it by spending a lot less currency for the same goods and services as before. And they get all of that value before the money gets back to circulation; it is almost the exact same measure by which banks and the wealthy gain from cheap lending from the central banks in an inflationary currency. The gap between the rich and the poor grows and eventually a recession will be the result. The poor will have had their wages deflated as a result of this restriction in the supply, and once prices rise again, realize that all of a sudden they no longer had the purchasing power they once had. Where did that value go? To the wealthy. A limited commodity currency does not solve anything.


Wait wait, so how many people made a profit that bought in from anywhere between $4->$30->$4? Somebody bought in. Do you think it was the early adopters buying in? Everyone is not making a profit. The later adopters are not making a profit. This is a zero sum game where wealth is transferred up the chain. It doesn't matter if there were early adopters, there will always be those who are wealthier, and the wealthy have proved on many different occasions that they, time and time again, will do whatever they can to increase that wealth. It was goldsmiths, after all, that created fractional reserve. Bitcoin is no solution, it is just the beginning of the same old bullshit.


So you would just give up on a better currency then because you think it's impossible? What makes you think merchants would want to take currency when it was $30 but could be worth $4? When/if it hits $30 again and they have to charge 0.25 BTC for their widget, what guarantee do they have that that BTC won't essentially become worthless again? How can they be sure that the wealthy are not merely manipulating the supply?

Merchants and consumers would both love a currency with a stable value. The rich, not so much, but they might eventually be forced to use it because no one else wants their bullshit, manipulative currency. *I* say we come up with something that forces the rich to stop abusing us, and use money on the 99%'s terms. Bitcoin is the SOS with a new group of people in control. All it will ever amount to is a payment processor with fees every step of the way that make it no better than paypal or CCs. *I* want something that is actually a store of value. *I* want to actually change how the system of money works. Bitcoin has no hope of doing that. Stop thinking that it is impossible, focus your energy on what you could do to make it possible, if that's actually what you want, anyway. If you are a bitcoin elite, you might certainly not.

This is not true. The value ranges in accordance with demand. There is a huge difference. And what that difference does is open up the opportunity for a transfer of value/wealth by manipulating the supply. Bitcoin is not more reliable in this management, as the spiral up to USD $30 so eloquently proved. Even without early adopters, if we assume the 80/20 distribution of wealth will generally remain true, those with 80% of the wealth have every opportunity to manipulate this supply for their own benefit. Even more so with an arbitrary money generation like Bitcoin's that cannot be changed. At least more effort can go into mining gold to ease supply problems; there is no such possibility with bitcoins.


The point was the monetary base is going to expand whether or not continued production warrants it. I'm talking about Altcoin here. Prices rise, and for no good reason. This may actually encourage a loss of productivity as electricity is wasted to keep your portion of the value of the currency. Don't want to lose value? Mine. Perhaps it makes sense from the standpoint of the security of the network, but it hardly makes real sense.


Gold is not excellent for wealth preservation. Its prohibitively limited quantity makes it a speculative vehicle. Speculation is not something one should have to engage in to retain wealth. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Gold_price_in_USD.png/800px-Gold_price_in_USD.png - Anyone buying in on the way up or near the top most certainly did not preserve their wealth. It is inflation-resistant though, but that is only because the property of fiat is to be inflative.

By using an analogous dual currency system that mimics gold and fiat, you are asking for the same problems.


Do you agree that the USD is a mature system? If you do, then how did we just see a world-wide recession based on the manipulation of credit? Those with the majority of wealth aimed to transfer more wealth to themselves by pushing currency around. And that is in a mature system, and they nearly collapsed the economy. Do you think Bitcoin will be immune to this because of no government? The government had little to do with any of this besides deregulation. Bitcoin absolutely begs for low fractional reserves with its restricted supply. Welcome to debt-based society yet again. Welcome to the manipulations of the top 20% in wealth impressed upon the bottom 80%. No goverment will be able to bail anyone out, so welcome to the recession to end all recessions.


Greed is something we can universally depend on, and those who have the ability and desire to acquire wealth for nothing productive will always attempt to do so. This will be realized in bitcoin; it has already been realized.


Yes, they are representations. But these representations change in value based on external factors. A currency should make these external factors--these manipulations--as difficult as possible. Bitcoin makes it as easy as possible to transfer wealth up the chain. Altcoin makes it somewhat easy to transfer wealth down the chain. Neither is at all optimal. The poor won't use bitcoin, the rich won't use altcoin. Not a very productive currency. Governments attempt to alleviate the disparity by government spending, though we all know that this is another greed-fueled process that rarely benefits the majority.


Altcoin is actually something I've agreed in the past as a genuinely better system than bitcoin or fiat. However, the decades it will take before altcoin stops being so volatile make it essentially worthless. It cannot adapt to large changes in demand or productivity. It will likely never have to as no one will adopt it.


Yeah but I don't pay a 0.65% arbitration fee to move money from my savings to my checking. It is such a gross solution to the issues of bitcoin. "Start a sister currency LOL!"


Well, not really a currency if you can't spend it though, now is it? "Get your bitcoin bullion here! Only a 1% fee!"


I did not say must. But if you want to hedge your bets evenly, you have to. Aka not be a speculator with your personal wealth.


No, it becomes easier to use a simple number and go from there without any real economic thought behind it. That is the only logic behind either of these distribution schemes. If you could create a currency that is similar to gold in that it is difficult to obtain but the difficulty of obtaining it stays relative throughout time, you would have a great foundation for a currency. Say you could compact 1 man-hour of work into a coin. 1 man-hour may have different productivity throughout time because of technological progress or whatever, but everyone knows what 1 man-hour is when you spend it. Or save it. Its value should not vary based on the whims of the 20%, its value should not vary based on the whims of the government.


The bailouts were governments protecting the many from the greed of the few. Although in doing so they just let the greedy retain their power. But make no mistake that the greedy had everything to do with the latest recession, not the government. Mature market, nascent market does not matter. Greed will find a way if you give it one.

Bitcoin users have trouble believing that anything other than hashing power could be used to secure the network (and BEX is probably especially pissed because his attack didn't work...). Solidcoin, however, has an extremely high barrier to entry to become part of the control group. It doesn't really foster a decentralized mindset, especially when they were given 1 million coins to be bestowed with that power. But 51% of the hashing power is just another control group, it is just a lot easier to become a part of that control group. Problem with being easier to be part of that control group is that it is easier for malicious people to join, too.

Except this chart has no basis in reality. The amount of money in existence will not just perfectly equal the amount required for the economy to so beautifully line up with your chart. It takes no actual supply or demand into account, only a made-up 10:1 ratio between it and bitcoins and a 10:1 ratio between it and potatoes. Real economies don't work this way, brah.

What if there is no demand for new currency? Well, new currency is going to be produced anyway, but now it comes in for little effort. Everyone will HAVE to mine just to keep the value of the currency remotely stable. And it will HAVE to be done in massive pools or someone is going to become Altcoin's newest (b-)millionaire based purely on luck.

Instead of one replacement currency, now you have one for spending and one for saving. Doesn't that suggest that there is something inherently wrong with both? Everyone will have to keep wealth in both because god-forbid the christmas season come around and bitcoins flow like mad into altcoins, crashing the value of bitcoins and inflating the value of altcoins. (buying wheat in the fall caused a constriction of the money supply in new york, led to someone manipulating the system, led to a crash in the economy, and the eventual result was the federal reserve as we know it today. things aren't so simple as you'd like them to be)


Then why switch from fiat? Just for convenience's sake?


See my example above. Bitcoin won't retain its value independently of the exact same thing but with inflation. There will be flows between the two constantly, and if something scares/guides the public into one over the other, it will surely affect the other's value.


The creation of coins is a self-managing process, the effects of that creation is not. Coins are not created in a void. The cost to produce each coin should not vary so wildly as to essentially imitate fiat. All this will do is create a gigantic market of speculation between the two currencies which MIGHT actually result in stability between the combination of the two (but the cost of this stability will be that speculators get value, everyone else loses--oh wait, exchanges win too by taking fees, we love fees). Again though, you'd have to keep half of your wealth in both. Kind of silly. And still doesn't do anything to help ease economic struggles or prevent manipulations of the currency.

Perhaps by allowing anyone who wants to secure the network to do so, but only give them power based on proven economic activity, like Encoin.

The last 4 or 5 bytes of every bitcoin address is a checksum, you should be able to check that an address is valid the same way that the client does. Anything less would mean you're lazy.

Bitcoins might appreciate at a stable rate in the far, far future when the currency is reasonably distributed. However, as bitcoin is attempting to replace fiat currency, a stable appreciation is highly unrealistic until it is already mostly adopted by those who would adopt it.


Actually, the great depression has its roots in the underlying medium being too "hard" like bitcoin, and the recent recession definitely has its roots in being too "soft" like current fiat currency (mostly because of 10% fractional reserve, but also because of deregulation). Hard currencies are open to manipulation by wealth-holders--incur deflation by hoarding, spend cheaply. Soft currencies are open to manipulation by governments and banks. The austrian school of thought wants to remove government manipulation as they believe this is the cause of the business cycle. Mises recognized that a hard currency had many faults, he just believed it was better than soft currency managed by government.

Why not get rid of both problems?

Probably because the majority of the people who own Bitcoins have them because of the greater fool theory.

The one for windows is called sdelete. I remember reading somewhere that this utility wasn't possible to do identically in linux because of the file system for some reason.

I don't know enough about the protocol design to say for sure, but you would think that it starting with a "1" would automatically get it rejected. I would assume no miner would put it in a block at the very least. Otherwise there are some pretty piss-poor protocol (lack of) designs in place.

Price is a bad word to use, at least with the encoin design. Value is more appropriate. I used the example of if 1 ENC = 1 loaf of broad, 1 ENC should always = 1 loaf of bread, assuming production costs of bread are unchanged. This initial value will be determined within the first few hundred thousand coins or so, after that everyone else must put in a similar cost to produce, or they are doing so at a loss (if they are doing so at a greater gain, and this greater gain becomes a larger percentage of the coins produced, the koomey's law competition effect will bring the cost back up).

But value is different from price because price kind of implies market price, e.g. what does 1 ENC = in USD/EUR/etc. This will change drastically over time as fiat currency inflates. If you can buy 1 loaf of bread for $2 in 2011, but a loaf of bread costs $4 in 2050, a loaf of bread should still cost 1 ENC in 2050. More fiat available for limited ENC, plus those producing ENC will want an equivalent amount of fiat value (why would I mine/sell for $2 when bread costs $4?) for their time, hardware, ROI even if electricity prices lag behind. Like I've said, it won't be perfect, but I think it can get real close.

There is nothing stopping anyone from creating currency at a loss. It's just irrational, obviously.


The same property that has arrested bitcoins around $3 - opportunity. Everyone can see that the market price is below what it cost to produce, that means you can buy and hold to speculate that the currency will again rise to its market value. Prove enough times that the market value of the currency revolves around a stable cost to produce, and you can gain a lot of faith in the currency.

But there are other ideas as well. One I came up was redistributing transaction fees as interest to all holders of currency. This means if the price does start to fall, those with currency can hold on and make interest off of those who are buying in and transacting, or just selling. This interest would still apply even when the currency isn't falling, so it creates demand to hold anyway.

Red had an idea where transaction fees are destroyed, but only if no one is making new currency, and even possibly adding a spending tax. I've drawn this idea out a bit in my latest post in the thread, but I need to think on it a bit more.


This is why you should always revolve these types of decisions around transaction fees. Real economic activity is a lot easier to measure when there is a small, but significant fee.


If we're talking about Encoin, there is no method that attempts to fix the price. It only attempts to keep a stable cost to produce, and it does so by occasionally restricting supply to see how much competition is fostered. koomey's law

If the price of electricity goes down, the cost of time and processing cycles will go up due to competition. Although not quantifiable, time isn't free. If 1 coin takes 50 hours and $1 of electricity, it may be valued identically to a coin that takes 100 hours and 50 cents of electricity. This is the balance Encoin is trying to achieve. Electrical cost + time + processing cycles (hardware costs, etc.) + return on investment = market price.

Actually, plaintext implies it will be encrypted, whereas all data used in bitcoin is not.


Did your dictionary not tell you that "un" can mean "not" as well? If so, you should probably look into getting a new dictionary. Either way, the cryptography community uses them separately, and in fact unencrypted is not even considered a word by any dictionary I checked. Probably because the meaning of unencrypt would not be a proper verb, as there is no action. Funnily enough, unencrypted is not flagged as being misspelled by my browser, but unencrypt is. Decrypt, on the other hand, has a universal and unambiguous meaning and is a proper verb. Perhaps that's why unencrypted was the logical, colloquial choice for meaning "not encrypted."

Unencrypted as in, "not encrypted". This really is not that hard of a concept. Unencrypted is not synonymous with decrypted.