If it's impossible it's impossible Nothing to be done.
But why not being able to export them when it is possible? It's your keystore anyway, you should be able to manipulate it.

If you depend on trust you're not proving anything. Normally proofs are asked exactly when there isn't enough confidence.


The proof is valid while the funds remain in the same address. They may remain there for a long time.

I meant the funds. But even the account number, how do you prove it's yours? The account numbers go to the chain somehow?


Well, if you can export keys, you can sign with them using an external tool at least.


As far as I understand, the link "gpg key" => "arbitrary identity" is possible, since proof of gpg key ownership is possible though signature.
But "arbitrary identity" => "gpg key" I can't see how, since there's no generic way to prove ownership of an arbitrary identity.

Like, I can create a GPG key and link it to your name. But that isn't my name. See what I mean?


You just sign something with the same private key that owns the coins and that's it, you prove you own such coins. The other party just need to check the block chain to confirm.

It doesn't need to be monolithic. The code that manages the wallet doesn't have to be the same that interacts to the network. They'd better not be, imho.

The wallet is a specific type of keystore. As a keystore, it would be nice to be able to import/export keys, and actually using them.

For example, another use case would be to encrypt some message for the owner of address X only. It could be encrypted using the public key of such address. The receiver must be able to retrieve the corresponding private key and use it to decrypt the message.

Signing with a bitcoin private key provides proof of ownership. This may have many use cases. It's a good feature.

Also, being able to split/merge wallets is interesting too. Today maybe not much, since transfers are free. But they won't remain free forever, and even today, each transfer does imply in a small cost to the entire network. Merging/splitting wallets would be a way to move money around without using the chain. It's also a good feature to have.


Can you? I don't know how... I thought the account feature wasn't even public... can anyone knows how much I own on account X just by checking the block chain?
How do I create a key related to this account and use it to sign something, proving that I am the owner of such amount?

This would be nice.

Actually it would be even nicer if we could treat our wallet.dat file as a generic keystore, importing and exporting keys.
This would allow merging and splitting of wallets as well, besides signatures as suggested above.

Governments want to control the internet the same way they control conventional media (TVs, newspapers etc).
They will get there, eventually.
I hope by then systems like Tor, I2P and others are the most user-friendly and widely known as possible, so all sort of "computer-illiterate" people can use them.

I'm not sure it's the dark pools or the transaction fee instead. Before, transactions were free...

Isn't your CPU overheating? Although normally when it overheats, it shuts down instead. I used to have overheating problems.

There should be a debug file somewhere, probably on ~/.bitcoin... check if there is something suspicious there and post it here. I can't help you much but there are people here who could.

By the way, forget about CPU generation. It's just not worth it. If you have a GPU, try a GPU miner.

Why not using bitcoins addressees themselves, instead of separate keys?

Like, a 0,01µBTC could be the representation of an asset. Then all you have to do is transfer this particular coin fragment around, and whoever owns it, owns the asset. Ownership could be proven with a simple signature performed by the private key that owns the coin fragment.

It's a pity to "burn" coins like that for another purpose, but such a small amount shouldn't make any difference.

Now, this scheme would be really powerful if there could be a way to make conditional transfers. Like, owner of the asset says "I transfer my asset S to the owner of address A only if X bitoins are transferred to address B" and the buyer says "I transfer X bitcoins to address B only if asset S is transferred to address A". Then the system validates both transactions at the same time since they are co-dependent.

Cool! From the north of Norway to the south of Chile bitcoins are present!

It would be really nice to have an euro exchange.

This is great.

And when you say accepting euros, does that means I'll be able to transfer you euros which will be automatically converted to dollars into my mtgox account, or will us be able to have the 3 different currencies in mtgox? Like, will you create an EUR-BTC exchange on your platform, with different charts and all?

Interesting (if I understood well).

Banks could build some sort of "reliable node set" to protect themselves.
Also, connecting through IP-masking networks like Tor wouldn't be a way to protect yourself against such attack?

It's complicated to conduct such attack too, I think... the bank has to keep receiving and sending to the normal network, otherwise they may suspect something is wrong, after complaints from their clients. So the attacker would have to reproduce all transactions from the real network while decreasing the difficulty. During this period they will produce much less blocks (since they have much less computing power) than the true network... that makes it difficult to mimic the transactions, and the bank might realize something is wrong (transactions get too long to confirm etc). Also, if anybody tries to send any of the coins produced after the "surrounding", the banking will not be able to receive it.. it will probably treat them as "illegal coins" what may raise alerts too.
It seems very difficult.

Fairness and democracy have nothing to do with one another.
It's fair if you are rewarded proportionally to what you contribute. The more hashing power you add to the chain, the more you contribute, and the more you are rewarded. This is fair.


What are you talking about? There's no "core issue" with capitalism being denounced here. There's a core with issue with governments (money monopoly, central banking..), which bitcoins are designed to bypass.


Oh boy, we're dealing with a watermelon here...


It's not free, and you do have the convenience, just buy GPUs and install the proper software.


There are many people trying to establish such services, it's just not easy, due to credit card charge backs.
There is one service where you can buy bitcoins with an US credit card. They perform several checks on your identity before allowing you to buy.

Agreements?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord


I don't authorize any government to represent me (and I happen to live in a country, so...)

Penn & Teller have an episode on this carbon credit bullshit: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1325805851224851246#

It's good, I recommend it (as all BS episodes actually)

How would you prevent people from sharing the file once they download it? Or you don't care?

I understood what you want. It's more the reason that I don't get.
If it's more from an "investor" point of view (raising the value of bitcoins for profit), then, ok, it makes sense you wanting that.
But if it is because you think this is important for the currency itself, otherwise it wouldn't be a good currency etc, then you're wrong.

Now, about finding other uses... I don't think there can be another use for bitcoins which wouldn't have more efficient alternatives. Like your suggestion, timestamping... I bet there are better ways to do it then with bitcoins. So, I wouldn't waste much effort in this idea if I were you...

Oh boy, it seems people will never get over this intrinsic value fallacy.

It's actually funny... one of the advantages capitalism brings is specialization. Not only skill specialization, but resources as a whole. Always trying to use the best cost/effective material for a certain purpose.
So, why do you people want money to be useful for something else? Why, particularly for money, people are against specialization in the use of resources?

Money doesn't need to have other uses. Actually, I dare to say it would better not have other uses.

And, by the way, why would one want to use money to timestamp stuff? Can't there be a cheaper (= most efficient) way to do it?