Sorry for reviving a dead thread again, but doesn't this destroy the collect-ability of these coins, which I believe will no doubt be worth something to collectors in 10, 20, 30 years?

I suppose it would give more value to the ones actually created by the original Casascius....

-Burger-

Lets just hope that the greed of the human race, from people who couldn't give a rats ass about its true "intention", don't end up watering it down into a regulated system that is barely indecipherable from other forms of currency.  I think that may be the biggest risk to Bitcoin.  Humans. 

So technically you never have to load up a wallet software to receive coins, after you've loaded it up once and determined your receiving address.

You can just make sure you save the receiving address and send any new coins to that address.

Then check the blockchain for the balance.

But that begs the questions:

1)  Where exactly are the coins? Are they in the wallet.dat file? Or are they on the block chain?

2)  If the blockchain is just a documentation of where the coins are, then the wallet.dat file is very important to keep. Should you always update the wallet.dat file then? Or never need to?

3)  It seems to me someone could hack the blockchain and simply change an address from "5" to "0" and it wouldn't matter what your wallet.dat file says. If that's the case then the wallet.dat file isn't the gold standard.  The blockchain is. See the overlap?

Thanks.

LOL!

Thanks.  My mind just exploded too :-)

Hey i warned you it was a newbie question.

Disclaimer:  The reason I asked is because I did some wallet searching for Devcoin or Namecoin and didn't readily find it.  I suppose I could have done some more searching...

I am not technical enough to do most of what you guys do.  So I would need to have a proper "wallet" software that can be installed on a windows machine. 

1)  However as I am seeing, only a few alt coins have such software.  Off the top of my head - Feathercoin, Litecoin .... any others? 

2)  I don't want to keep my balance of alt coins on the Vircurex website just sitting there.  I don't keep anything sitting online.  How can I get my litecoin stash - even the most *obscure* one ... offline?  Safe.   Into a wallet.dat file that I can pull off the computer?

Thank you.

-Burger-

Business Idea:

Start a Bitcoin friendly bank .............

If you make millions please PM me for my address as a thank you for the idea.   

-Burger-

Didn't say equal.  Said 1/4th.  And why?

I think he's doing a magnet too, so it would be okay in this thread.

As for the design - whatever becomes most popular should succeed!

If LittleShop does this stuff for a living, maybe do several designs and just add to the store.

I just wont put stickers on my car.  Back in college with the 89 accord, definitely!   I had "WHATEVER" and "VIRGINIA IS FOR LO(V)SERS"

Can't get away with that today.  :-P

Barely got away with it in college 

There will be 4x as many Litecoins as there are Bitcoins.

Would it stand to reason that the price of Litecoin would ultimately hover somewhere around 1/4 that of Bitcoin?

Therefore when Litecoin hits mainstream .... such as the first step - MtGox adding it .... its price may very well hit $25?   (1/4 of BTC)

Or is that just a bunch of malarchy

-Burger-

Wait so am I doing this or is Little Shop doing it?  Getting confusing.  The place I saw offers them for $3.22 and you can pay regular USD for them.  If you guys prefer going with littleshop for $6-8 BTC payment only let me know.  Up to you guys.    

Regarding 'In Cryptography We Trust' ...   Let me play devils advocate here for a minute.

Marketing 101:  you need to think about the purpose of these bumper stickers.  Your audience is all that matters.  

"In Cryptography We Trust" is just going to offend some people who will see it for what it is:  A play on words with the removal of "God".  
No different than using the Christian Fish symbol and putting 'DARWIN' in the middle of it.  Its offensive to many.
They will not give a rats ass about your weird new currency when they see that.  

The rest of the people are not in the "tech" world, and will likely zone out when they see "Cryptography".
The phrase sounds cool to you, but its not going to mean much to non geeks.  
And they are the only ones who matter.  

The purpose of these bumper stickers (magnets) isnt to show that you're raging against the machine, and religion.
You're not making a statement of rebellion.
My goal at least is to get the symbol, the logo, and the thought into people's heads.
Because this is the best way to guarantee success.  Familiarity.  Brand recognition.

The only people worth offending with Bitcoin are bankers.  Maybe something like

Bitcoin
"Privacy, Security, Freedom"

I dont know ... just thinking out loud.  Im just going to order the regular one and put it on my car.  :-P

I agree "Accepted Here" is a little strange, but it could also be the standard logo for bitcoin, which it is, pretty much everywhere you see it.  So you'd just be promoting that standard logo.  And it doesn't offend anyone.  "Bitcoin" by itself would also be perfect.   Brand recognition.

-Burger-

Obviously. 
I was comparing bitcoin to credit cards.  From the merchant perspective, and from the consumer perspective. 
I wasn't forgetting that cash exists.
You'll never guess how you could have figured that out on your own. 
Give up? 
Ok, but don't tell anyone else ... this is seeecrit, just for spies like us: 
Its called "context".

-Burger

I own an online store.

I am anally raped by Visa and Mastercard every month to the tune of $4,000 just for transaction fees.

Bitcoin would save my business nearly $50,000 a year, and I am a very small mom & pop sized shop.

Large businesses like Amazon.com would easily save hundreds of millions in fees.

I believe that it is merchants who will ultimately power the propogation of bitcoin to the masses.

You are correct.   Human beings are lazy, and in general, not very smart.  But they do like "fun stuff".  

And they like privacy.  Even if they're not breaking the law.

Being able to pay for something with their cell phone, even if its just a cup of coffee, without the NSA knowing about it, will be a big sell for many...
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=30346

Don't forget, customers also pay transaction fees, interest, late payment fees, and if they miss a payment?  Their credit is screwed for 7 years.  Think of all the ways that their credit card companies anally rape them, too...

-Burger-

I know they need to make money to stay in business.

But this is a slippery slope.  And when I'm already seeing merchants like BitPay.com charging 1% for every transaction, I can't help but wonder what that transaction fee will look like in 10 years.

Visa and Mastercard rape me monthly with a bill of nearly $3,900 just in transaction processing fees with my online store.

BitPay already charges 0.99%

Sure its less, but Bitcoin hasn't even come close to hitting the mainstream yet.  

Isn't the entire point of Bitcoin to avoid transaction fees, especially for online merchants?  I think its biggest draw towards mainstream commerce is the "lack of transaction fees".  Which has now conveniently turned into "lower transaction fees"  (yawn).  

Sure its nice to cut the fee down by 66%, but in my naive view, a 66% discount isn't what Bitcoin is about.  Bitcoin is about a 100% discount.  Free transaction of money, no?

Yes, I know Coinbase, Gox, etc all charge transaction fees.  I know its necessary.  Maybe my question should be phrased like this:  

How can the entire purpose of Bitcoin (the free exchange of money) be retained when it costs money to do transactions?

Merchants don't keep their rates the same.  They will increase.  And if BitPay is already at 1%, I foresee them being at 3% in 10 years easily...

-Burger-

Updated original post with a couple designs I threw together in PS.


Pretty cool idea, but that would be individual, so looks like their price is $11.88 for each unique one.

-Burger-

Hi all -

Another guy raised a good idea regarding bumper stickers here:  http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=242684.0

But I wont put a bumper sticker on my car.  Like most people.  A few people requested magnetic ones, but the discussion fizzled.  

I found a site that will produce them for about $3.22 if you buy 50.   I'd be happy to dish out the $175 or whatever to have 50 made.  If you guys want to get in on it, please reply here.  A single magnetic bumper sticker is about $11 on the site, so its still not that crazy expensive either way.  I personally have a black car, so a black version would look sexy on my ride, but the standard logo is also an option.  Maybe I'll have both made.



Here are the two I have right now:



and...



-Burger-

Thank you everybody.  The site has actually been around since 1999, so we have a pretty decent sized customer base already.   Pretty sure none of them use bitcoin but I consider it an honor to even increase awareness of it with the banner on the store home page.  "Visual familiarity" is a huge step in legitimizing anything. As for the design - its a bit outdated, but I need to give props where props are due - http://www.orangelabel.com were the designers. They're pretty badass at web design.  The one they did for us is now about 6 years old, but it was pretty amazing looking back in 2007.  We'll be updating it soon.  

-Burger-

Well okay here it is.

I may win the award for most strange Bitcoin early adopting online store though .... lol

http://www.hairlosstalk.com/shop

Well, just signed up for a Merchant account at least.   My developers have the Bitcoin Magento plugin in their task list.   A couple weeks and we'll be live.

Excited to be in a position of owning an ecommerce site and being able to take a step like this.   

Both to propogate both the awareness of the currency, and to encourage transactions.

Anyone else here with an online store going to add BTC soon?

-Burger-

I sometimes wonder if people realize they *are* the "grumpy old man" who said "it'll never work" that is routinely made fun of in nearly every history book, on every successful new trend in society?

How does it feel to be that miserable, weird, old grumpy man who still thinks the earth is flat as Columbus sails off into the distance?

That is you.  Right now.

I want to ask this question to every db ex high school football jock turned stock broker, mocking bitcoin on the stock trading websites right now.  And to the OP of this thread.

Be a forward thinker.  Not a stick in the mud.  

This is already happening en masse.

So its not a problem.   Will be commonplace soon.

-Burger-

Either you are all lying or something weird is going on here.

Why are 90% of the people on a bitcoin forum currently owners of "zero" bitcoins?