The nobel prize is an outdated metric to partition the academic world into a hierarchy over betters. It serves no purpose nor benefit to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Instead market adoption and remove to central banks will be the final metric of success and validation for Bitcoin. Besides, they gave the peace prize to someone who strapped bombs on kids to kill israelis. The award is forever compromised in my opinion.


I like the idea of a Satoshi prize that awards some jackpot of money to someone for doing something the community needs. Like developing a P2P exchange or bringing a certain amount of people into the ecosystem. It could be community funded and have a list of objective criterion.

I don't think non-humans or anonymous humans can win the prize.

anyone else ??

To expose and bring awareness to the flaws in the Ripple payment system, I am giving away 1 BTC on Ripple.

This is a social experiment. Therefore, posts not consisting of an Ripple address to send 1 BTC to will be deleted.

How it works

1. Register for a bitcointalk.org forum account if you haven't
2. Complete the following steps in your light (not a full node) Ripple client:



So you can copy and paste the address we're sending your bitcoin from, it's rH3bZsvVUhzugvcYuJVoSYCEMHkfK6wHNv

3. Post your address here. I will send at least 1 BTC to your address.

That's it!

I suggest reading RippleScam.org afterwards. Please note that you must exchange your bitcoins with an liquidity provider (Ripple does this automatically, when paths are calculated) in order to withdraw them from a gateway.

PGP

Am I the only one finding it suspicious that such attack on MtGox came soon after CoinLab lawsuit?

Perhaps I'm just being overly paranoid, but Vesseness looks increasingly suspicious to me. He surely has some contacts... VCs, big law firms... He chose Washington D.C. to siege TBF (any place with more lobbyists per m² in the world?).

Could he have anything to do with this?

As far as I was aware, Ireland suffered from easy lending and being a gateway to the EU for US companies. This meant that it got a lot of infrastructure funding, which then ballooned the property prices, and this funded extravagant lifestyles.

The difference with Ireland, is that people knew it was happening, and just rode the boat, knowing it would come to an end eventually.
Other countries, such as the UK thought it was mostly down to what their governments were doing, and didn't see it was just an easy credit boom until it was much later!

Ireland is bust in the traditional sense, however, unlike previous recessions, this time, all the financial institutions know that if they don't start scrambling for debt recovery, then we won't get serious poverty.  They all know that if we were to add up all our holdings, we would not get anywhere near our debts, so why not play the long game?

This time, Europe is going through stagflation for a decade - don't expect any real growth until 2020 and even then its only going to happen if we find a new industry to invest in - maybe like bitcoin etc.

Until then, expect the EU to flex its muscles every few months - while ignoring that its own accounts haven't passed auditing in almost 20 years - pot kettle black etc!

As far as I was aware, Ireland suffered from easy lending and being a gateway to the EU for US companies. This meant that it got a lot of infrastructure funding, which then ballooned the property prices, and this funded extravagant lifestyles.

The difference with Ireland, is that people knew it was happening, and just rode the boat, knowing it would come to an end eventually.
Other countries, such as the UK thought it was mostly down to what their governments were doing, and didn't see it was just an easy credit boom until it was much later!

Ireland is bust in the traditional sense, however, unlike previous recessions, this time, all the financial institutions know that if they don't start scrambling for debt recovery, then we won't get serious poverty.  They all know that if we were to add up all our holdings, we would not get anywhere near our debts, so why not play the long game?

This time, Europe is going through stagflation for a decade - don't expect any real growth until 2020 and even then its only going to happen if we find a new industry to invest in - maybe like bitcoin etc.

Until then, expect the EU to flex its muscles every few months - while ignoring that its own accounts haven't passed auditing in almost 20 years - pot kettle black etc!

NOTE: please correct any information below if wrong because I did not verify my sources and I'm just writing what I remember on top of my head.

Ireland has less that 5 million inhabitants. Irish debt does NOT come from government spending out of control. It has two main sources:

1. Toxic derivatives. Anglo Irish Bank was mainly used as a dump for those. It was bailed out by the government (which was in turn bailed out by EU) then it went bust.
Anglo Irish Bank  was only serving the financial sectot not the public. Rumour has it that the German-led EU posed rescue of Anglo Irish Bank as a condition to the Irish government for the EU bailout. Bad mouths say it was because German banks had purchased debt from Anglo Irish that they needed to wash their hands off before closing it down.
As opposed to going to jail, former Anglo Irish Bank managers got a rich performance bonus.

2. Unpaid mortgages. At the peak of the housing bubble in 2007 real estate prices were 2 times and half what they are now. There are 90 thousand homes in Ireland whose mortgage hasn't been paid for more than 90 days. The banks are legally entitled to repossession - yet there are only few houses for sale on the market. Rumour has it that banks are not willing to sell the properties at a loss because it is more convenient to them to try and get another bailout - hoping they get third-time-lucky, who knows.

In regards to banks' liquidity situation in Ireland - rumour has it that Bank of Ireland is fine but Allied Irish Banks (no. 2) is in deep shit.

Meanwhile most Irish top bank managers are still being paid generous bonuses for having been able to negotiate bailouts with their friends at the government.

I believe Ireland is going to be the next testing ground for the Cyprus idea. The Irish Times article is already starting the "lesser evil" sweet-talk-bullshit.

Never did like Dwolla.

Under a compromise text proposed by the Irish presidency, uninsured deposits of over €100,000 would be bailed in in the event that a bank is resolved, but depositors would rank higher than other creditors in the event of a wind-down.

In this scenario – known as “deposit preference” – depositors would rank at the very end of the process, with other creditors first absorbing losses.

However, some member states have not ruled out the possibility that insured deposits, i.e. deposits under €100,000, would be forced to bear losses in the event of a bank collapse even though these deposits would be likely to be protected by the deposit guarantee scheme.

I believe diversity tends to bring stability.

I'd like to write a loose overview of 10-20 economic systems and ideas that might help to liberate our economy. Virtual currencies, micro-lending, local currencies, alternatives to paypal etc.

I don't believe one sole system has the answer. I'd like to cover systems with at least two years track record, and with no gaping flaws.

Kiva, Kickstarter, Bitcoin, Dwolla, LETS systems, Barter Club... I have plenty of ideas myself, but the field is so big I might have missed something.

Are there any other strong contenders?

 

I know that I am not a fan of Homeland Security.  On the last vacation I literally watched them confiscate bottles of Vodka and other beverages from passengers and then pocket them for themselves.  Hmmm.  Great security.  SO thankful that they are helping us. Oh, and I really don't want them patting down my pre-teen daughters at the airport either. This might have a reverse reaction and make more people angry and even more people want to invest in BTC.  I have been saying that I am not necessarily into BTC for ideological reasons but this is pushing me towards that very quickly!  I do not feel "free" here in the US anymore.  Our freedoms are being snatched from us daily.  With BTC maybe there is some hope of having some still.  We will see. . .