I think a native EUR market (and other currencies) is a very good idea. I hope it becomes succesful enough for people to stop thinking bitcoins are denominated in $$$  Exactly. A native market for BTC/EUR will eventually provide the necessary liquidity. The Euro is the world's second largest reserve currency and it is used significantly in global trade. SEPA provides the speed and maintains the low cost for deposits/withdrawals to and from TradeHill. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_AreaThose wanting to fund for the thUSD trading platform can simply instruct their European-based bank to convert to USD and send outbound international wire (non-SEPA) to the USD deposit account https://www.tradehill.com/DepositOverview/USDThis is a positive development for TradeHill. |
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I'm a big Matonis/Hushmail fan.
I was too... Until Hushmail rolled over for the feds. It's time to clear the air on this. I have read several comments like this one but I chose this one to respond to. My tenure as CEO of Hush Communications was from 2000-2002 during the period that the headquarters was located in Dublin, Ireland. We indeed responded to many international subpoenas during that time period and a special division was set-up to verify the authenticity of the many inbound government subpoenas. Our response was to comply with the subpoena and to turn over the contents of the inbox and the outbox, which of course was encrypted. Due to the nature of the java applet and password hashing technique, Hush Communications did not have the ability to decrypt any data. Sustained non-compliance to subpoena orders would have led to significant legal fees and probably the end of the company's operations. Furthermore, if users had deployed Hushmail properly in the first place, our compliance was not harming any users and this was a major factor in our decision. The change in policy that you refer to occurred after my tenure at Hush Communications when the company relocated its headquarters to Vancouver, Canada. The controversy revolved around compromised java applets served to targeted users where some Hushmail employees, with government coercion, actually cooperated to obtain the user's password. This is distinctly different than merely turning over encrypted data. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HushmailOf course, this is hindsight, but I would NOT have allowed the company to take that additional step, because I believe that it is a direct, unwarranted intervention and it violates the end-user agreement with Hushmail's userbase. It crosses the line. I would have taken it to court and I would have made it an international media issue for privacy rights. People who know me well would agree that is my stance. Failing that, I could have also resigned in protest. It is important to state that Hushmail is still a valuable and safe service if utilized properly. All security is relative. Physical keyboard sniffers and ceiling cameras can be mounted in a suspect's home to obtain PGP private key passphrases. If one verifies the Hush applet against source code or better yet stores a clean version locally, the threat of a 'spoofed' applet can be eliminated. |
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The only way that this could be beneficial is if the "small renegade nation" established a peg to bitcoin for their national currency, thereby providing a consistent way for bitcoin to be convertible to the nation-State world of international wire transfers, etc.
When it comes to countries that ignore the establishment's OECD/FATF anti-money laundering guidelines and tax information exchange treaties, the only two that I know of are Iran and Libya.
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Thanks for the memories, Gavin. Maybe someone will purchase ClearCoin.
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I know that the exchanges are the weakest link in the system. And after listening to that CBS interview today, where the guy talked about how they were closely working with governments to track transactions, I was kinda left with an empty feeling.
If its not true, will we be relying on sites like Mt. Gox forever? Or is there some other plan from the amazing brains that are behind bitcoin?
+1 Of course, have accounts at multiple exchanges in multiple jurisdictions and supports sites like http://ubitex.org/ |
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hey look - my first concern is the success of Bitcoin. ideology comes second - at the moment. and the plain facts are that we are going - at some point - to need votes; whether in congress or in a general public election. we need to lay the groundwork for that. we need Bitcoin to be non-threatening to as many people as possible.
It's naive to think that disingenuous, 'bitcoin-is-traceable' media interviews will result in congressional votes. What votes does bitcoin need anyway? |
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Bram Cohen's client for BitTorrent is not the leading client for downloading content from the Internet today.
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mtgox and other exchanges are actively working to be legal in as many countries as possible. That is a huge step forward for bitcoin.
I agree that legal exchanges within a given jurisdiction are a positive, especially since there are still technical issues with implementing a viable decentralized p2p exchange structure. However, money service businesses and Know-Your-Customer rules vary among jurisdictions globally and in many cases they are less restrictive than the MSB regulations in the US. Also, it is jumping the gun to classify a 'crypto math puzzle' as a financial instrument and to suggest regulatory oversight. IMHO, the permitted US-based bitcoin exchanges will eventually become a single point-of-failure. Exchangers in other jurisdictions will mitigate that regardless of KYC rules. So, I'll say it again: bitcoin is not the vehicle for your ideological cause. It is an ideology-neutral currency. Either you like the current technological implementation, or you don't.
I fail to see how maintaining the same features as a $100 bill is an ideological cause. Are you now opposed to people using $100 bills? I have no problems with the technological implementation because it can provide those features when structured correctly and safely. |
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I got off of the phone with Senator Jim DeMint's(R SC) DC office, a short while ago.
While I didn't speak to the Senator, I talked to a member of his staff that was: already aware of Bitcoin and how it works, has visited this forum, and was aware of Gavin's coming trip to the CIA. He agreed that this is an interesting technology with market potential.
The conversation was brief and politic, but my overall impression was a positive one.
Have the politically-correct co-opted the Forum lately? When will people realize that it doesn't matter what government thinks about a 'crypto math puzzle'. Nor , does it matter if they like it or support it. It doesn't even matter if the population likes bitcoin. I don't like US Dollars and the promise-of-a-promise Euro currency, but I still accept them. |
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That is masterful PR. Making the fear-mongers look silly is brilliant. Any viewer with half a brain will still get a hint of the great potential.
Not masterful at all. It wasn't just PR spin. Garzik actually believes what he says. Although he was well-spoken, this is fundamentally the wrong position to be taking with the media. Here's why. Cash is slowly going away and social utopians everywhere are talking about the nirvana of a global cashless society. Well, that all sounds great until people wake up one day and realize that what they have sacrificed in the transition to a cashless utopia is any thread of financial privacy that remained with paper cash. The phrase 'resist digital money unless anonymous' really means don't give up paper cash if the future is even more traceable and intrusive. Therefore, stressing bitcoin's traceability and that bitcoin is not anonymous becomes the worst of both worlds -- cashless and traceable! No one is fooling the authorities by saying bitcoin is fully traceable and some people know safe bitcoin practices. Press interviews like this one retard the 'separation of money and State' cause and reinforce the harmful notion that money can and should be used for identity tracking. Those are bitcoin's positive key differentiators. I ran out of time before I could even write what a bad idea MSB regulation is for bitcoin....but last week I posted my other PR thoughts (Jews as money launderers, etc., etc.) here: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8940.msg164099#msg164099 |
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+1 to duncant. Nice planned implementation. I think I'm the one who found it over the weekend and tweeted it. Sorry to blow your cover, secret squirrel, but things are starting to move fast now. I also posted it to mikegogulski on the Bitcoin Laundry thread where it is being discussed here, http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6891.0 |
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I wanted to try this particular exchanger even though my Spanish is not so good. First transaction went very smoothly and I received my confirmed bitcoin within 2.5 hours of funding. Communication was clear on setting the rate, terms, etc. and I would definitely recommend them (English and Spanish). Additionally, if you have an account at Openbank.es then this is probably one of the fastest ways to buy and sell bitcoin. Thank you bitcoin.com.es
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Hiro, welcome to the forum! Great job on the AgoristRadio program.....listening to Doctor Nefario was awesome. Thanks also for hosting me last week on the program. |
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Not true...people use these all the time to buy groceries and to go on vacation, restaurants, etc. http://bit.ly/k3rDSOie:Bitcoin will succeed because it's just like cash Exactly. And, no one gets to decide what is a 'moral transaction' and what is a 'real crime'. Transaction done. |
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