Way to give back to the community, BitPay. St Pete is where our family has always vacationed in the past as we have relatives there, great beaches and restaurants. This bowl in particular isn't exactly popular but it's something.
True--but my guess is...this sponsorship will put it squarely on the map. Buzz will abound regarding the "Bitcoin Bowl," which should raise the profile of both Bitcoin and the St. Pete Bowl in-kind...which I'm guessing was the plan when these two sides came together for this 4-year deal. Not to mention, Bitcoin will evolve substantially by the time this bowl rolls around... |
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/bitpay-to-sponsor-st-petersburg-bowl-in-first-major-bitcoin-sports-deal-1403098202BitPay to Sponsor St. Petersburg Bowl in First Major Bitcoin Sports Deal Postseason College Football Game Previously Sponsored by Beef O'Brady's Restaurant Chain By MICHAEL J. CASEY CONNECT June 18, 2014 9:30 a.m. ET The annual postseason college football game played in St. Petersburg, Florida will for the next four years be known as the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl as part of a sponsorship deal signed between bitcoin payment processor BitPay and ESPN Events. The arrangement marks one of the most high-profile marketing initiatives yet for a bitcoin-related business and comes as the digital currency continues to gradually make inroads into mainstream commerce. In an announcement Wednesday, BitPay and ESPN Events, a subsidiary of sports network ESPN, said the name change would take effect at this year's Dec. 26 game and would continue each year through the 2016 game. The game will air on ESPN. Tickets, which start at $40 each, and associated merchandise will also be available for purchase with bitcoin through Bitpay's processing services. The St. Petersburg game, which previously bore the name of the Beef O'Brady's chain of sports-themed restaurants, is in its first year of a new college football affiliation with the Atlantic Coast Conference and the American Athletic Conference, each of which will field a team for this year's event. BitPay's foray into college football sponsorship coincides with a new drive toward bitcoin adoption by retailers and other merchants. Over the past three weeks, satellite TV provider Dish Network and travel site Expedia Inc. have both announced they would accept bitcoin. In the six months before that, businesses such as online retailer Overstock.com Inc., NBA team the Sacramento Kings and space-tourism provider Virgin Galactic started accepting the digital currency. Though the deal is the first bitcoin sponsorship for a televised U.S. sporting event, it isn't the first connected to a digital currency. Those honors go to a currency known as dogecoin, which promotes itself via an Internet meme image of a shiba inu dog. Dogecoin sponsored Nascar's Josh Wise at Alabama's Talladega Superspeedway on May 4. The sponsorship deal cost $55,000, with the funds raised via donations from dogecoin enthusiasts that were denominated in the digital currency. Write to Michael J. Casey at michael.j.casey@wsj.com
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So to the point...how does a capped financial system, which at some point will only be able to diminish in total quantity (and will do so continuously) manage to escape eventual extinction (regardless of divisibility), or at the very least dramatically reduced availability to the point of compromising the very economies it creates...?
Regardless of divisibility? What do you mean by "regardless of divisibility"? Divisibility is exactly the reason that this isn't a concern. As bitcoins are lost, the available supply is reduced. Economic effects result in the remaining bitcoins being worth more. This means that instead of spending 10 mBTC for a sandwich, you are eventually spending 10 µBTC (see how divisibility makes that possible?). As a result, the remaining bitcoins are spread thinner. This means that each individual with the same wealth has less bitcoins than they would have had in the past. If any of these individuals lose their bitcoins, the supply is diminished, and the value of the remaining bitcoins increases. Eventually (a few centuries from now) instead of spending 10 µBTC for a sandwich, you'll be spending 10 nBTC. As a result, the remaining bitcoins are spread thinner. This means that each individual with the same wealth has less bitcoins than they would have had in the past. If any of these individuals lose their bitcoins, the supply is diminished, and the value of the remaining bitcoins increases. Eventually (a few millennia from now) instead of spending 10 nBTC for a sandwich, you'll be spending 10 pBTC. As a result, the remaining bitcoins are spread thinner. This means that each individual with the same wealth has less bitcoins than they would have had in the past. And so on, and so on. Eventually there is only 1 pBTC (0.000000000001 BTC) remaining in existence. But because of divisibility, it is broken into 1,000,000,000,000 yBTC pieces spread throughout the economy. This process can repeat as many times as you like. Very helpful, as usual DannyHamilton...thanks much. Will be interesting to see how this plays out in practicum. |
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Bitcoin is nothing if not resilient. But something has been niggling at me for some time now...one lingering question that while seemingly far-fetched in these early adoption phases clouded by more pressing growing pains, could prove problematic years down the road. Bitcoin and its visionary community have absorbed every single hurdle...granted, with varying degrees of success, but at the end of the day, BTC always seems to emerge stronger. The only thing that would seem capable of stopping this paradigm shifting freight train...is if Bitcoin were to go extinct... If the ecosystem's physics are to be believed, then as we all know only 21 million BTC will ever exist. But wait...we already know that a full predetermined allocation of 21 million BTC never will exist, since many BTC have already been lost forever. Example A--the now infamous story of 7500 BTC lost to a landfill last year: http://www.cnet.com/news/uk-man-tries-to-retrieve-7-5-million-in-bitcoins-from-dump/ [Sidebar: isn't it astonishing how news from just a few months ago, feels like tales from a bygone era in the lighting fast evolution process that is Bitcoin?] There are countless unknown other such BTC vanishing acts occurring around the globe...likely on a consistent basis...such is the nature of assets of any sort--but in this particular case, we can't just create more (without cracking the encryption anyway). So to the point...how does a capped financial system, which at some point will only be able to diminish in total quantity (and will do so continuously) manage to escape eventual extinction (regardless of divisibility), or at the very least dramatically reduced availability to the point of compromising the very economies it creates...? |
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Trying to find mintage (read: funding) start dates for various Casascius silver coin issues. Uberbills lists funding dates for all denominations, making it easy to determine first-day funding for respective denominations, but it does not delineate out when silver variations of each denomination started. Another words, I can see that 1BTC brass coins started being funded on September 7, 2011 according to BlockExplorer, but one cannot tell when the first silver 1BTC was funded thereafter.
Short of asking Mike directly or rummaging through his Wordpress blog to try and piece together the puzzle, would anyone happen to know or know how to find out when each Casascius variation began funding...?
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Provided confidence-inspiring escrow service. DannyHamilton offers the most comprehensive BTC escrow witnessed to date. Recommended for even high-level transactions. Great communicator who is willing to take the time to assist, educate and provide sage advice.
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Awesome little commemorative silver rounds...thanks for the rare chance to pick up a few of Dobs coins long after they've sold out! Coins look great and are even worthy of their own Airtites   |
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Anyone know what's going on with Uberbills...?
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Looking to buy a mint 0.1 Silver Casascius...ANACS graded would be great, but not mandatory. Feel free to post or send a PM if you have one you'd like to sell...thanks much.
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Another layer being built upon the Bitcoin economy is coming...and at an accelerated rate given recent events. Would you want bank-style insurance for your BTC holdings and wallets? Questions to ponder...should it be underwritten by the decentralized network community or traditional and established carriers? How would claims be verified? What would this kind of coverage be worth to users (how much should it cost)? Are efforts like Elliptic and Inscrypto on the right path? Is this a game-changer...? Latest press: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=499071.0 |
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Anything BTC related deserves a nice Airtite  |
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Thank you Dob! My order of 10 arrived today after just 13 calendar days (9 business days) from Australia to the US. Greats bits...well minted as indicated. Coins are 15mm and should work well with Airtites if desired. I just order 15mm Airtites for them myself and will report back with results...
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Need some expert perspective here...
(Reuters) - Cyber criminals have infected hundreds of thousands of computers with a virus called "Pony" to steal bitcoins and other digital currencies, in the most ambitious cyber attack on virtual money uncovered so far, according to security firm Trustwave.
Trustwave said on Monday that it has found evidence that the operators of a cybercrime ring known as the Pony botnet have stolen some 85 virtual "wallets" that contained bitcoins and other types of digital currencies. The firm said it did not know how much digital currency was contained in the wallets.
"It is the first time we saw such a widespread presence of this type of malware. It was on hundreds of thousands of machines," said Ziv Mador, security research director with Chicago-based Trustwave.
Trustwave said it believes the crime ring is still operating, though it does not know who is running the group. The company said it has disrupted the servers that were controlling machines infected with Pony, but expects the group to launch more attacks on virtual currency users.
A representative for the Bitcoin Foundation, a trade group that promotes adoption of the virtual currency, advised bitcoin users to store their currency offline in a secure location to prevent cyber criminals from stealing them.
"Electronic wallet security continues to improve by leaps and bounds as hardware wallets become available and we start to see software wallets that support multi-signature transactions," said the Bitcoin Foundation's director of public affairs, Jinyoung Lee Englund.
Trustwave's discovery comes after an unrelated cyber attack that spammed bitcoin exchanges earlier this month. That attack prompted at least three online virtual currency traders to halt withdrawals, causing bitcoin's value to plunge 33 percent over three weeks.
Bitcoin is a digital currency sustained by software code written by an unknown programmer or group of programmers. It is not governed by any one company or person, and its value is determined by user demand.
People who buy digital currency can store it in virtual wallets on their own machines or with companies that offer storage and security services.
Mador said digital currency theft is still in its infancy, but that it is likely to grow. He said that digital currency buyers can protect themselves from hackers by using encrypted files.
"Most websites don't encrypt them by default, but you can turn them on," he added.
NEW OPPORTUNITY
Botnets are collections of infected computers that take orders from central "command and control" servers. The botnets steal data from compromised PCs and can also deliver other types of malware that force them to perform tasks.
This is at least the third type of fraud to surface involving digital currencies. Criminals have previously hacked into marketplaces where digital currencies are traded by exploiting security flaws in those sites, then stealing those currencies, according to Trustwave. (bit.ly/1hphzRj)
Cyber criminals have also developed botnets that force enslaved computers to create, or "mine", digital currencies, which the fraudsters then claim as their own.
Bitcoin mining is a time-consuming process in which computers perform complex math calculations. The operators of those botnets are stealing electricity and data center resources when they use compromised machines to mine digital currencies.
Trustwave in December uncovered a trove of some 2 million stolen passwords to websites including Facebook Inc, Google Inc, Twitter Inc and Yahoo Inc while probing a command and control server using a less sophisticated version of the Pony malware.
Trustwave said on Monday that the new version of Pony compromised another 600,000 website credentials.
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Payward launched Kraken in September 2013, this fledgling multiple asset trading platform is making waves. They seem to be one of the few exchanges that have apparently had no effects from the recent increase in Transaction ID Malleability issues. Very interested to hear what the knowledgeable members of the Bitcoin community think about Kraken a few months on from their arrival... Kraken CEO Jesse Powell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJAO2zn0f_sand https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=290799.0 |
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http://www.examiner.com/article/is-bitcoin-a-buying-opportunityFrom the Examiner, to avoid the ads: Mt. Gox, the Japanese Bitcoin trading exchange, issued a statement today after it announced last Friday it would suspend trading due to a technical issue. Here's the lay person version of what happened this afternoon: In essence, Mt. Gox says it identified a bug in the Bitcoin software that makes it possible for someone to use the network to alter transaction details, making it seem like bitcoins had not been sent to a bitcoin wallet, when in fact they had. ‘Since the transaction appears as if it has not proceeded correctly, the bitcoins may be re-sent. Mt. Gox is working with the Bitcoin core development team and others to mitigate this issue,’ Mt. Gox said. The technical explanation is a lot more detailed. It points out that bitcoin transactions are subject to a design flaw that has been largely ignored, although it was known to ‘at least a part’ of the Bitcoin core development community. The defect is known as ‘transaction malleability’ and it allows third parties to alter the hash of a fresh transaction without invalidating the signature. Mt. Gox further explains: ‘Of course only one of the two transactions can be validated. However, if the party who altered the transaction is fast enough, for example with a direct connection to different mining pools, or has even a small amount of mining power, it can easily cause the transaction hash alteration to be committed to the blockchain.’ At least one exchange proved itself immune to the attack: Kraken, which is one of the only Bitcoin exchanges based in the U.S., though its volumes are dwarfed by exchanges like Bitstamp. In an email, site founder Jesse Powell explained that Kraken's wallets were already constructed to avoid precisely the outcome that befell the other exchanges. ‘We read the manual’ he said. And he says there is still no reason to doubt the currency. ‘This problem has to do with poor design around Bitcoin, not Bitcoin itself. You don't blame gravity when your plane fails to fly--you understand gravity and design around it. There's a tremendous buying opportunity right now. I'm recommending everyone I know to jump in.’ Oleg Andreev, a France-based software developer and commentator, offered a bit more caution. While he agreed Bitcoin will overcome this event, he admitted it's a sign the digital currency remains in its infancy. He explained that if it were developed in all areas of exchanges, personal wallet, education in all areas of use then investment amount and the number of investors of Bitcoin would be a larger amount around the world. JPMorgan forex analyst John Normand released a note after hours casting doubt on the digital currency's utility. ‘Ironically the lack of external oversight may prove an obstacle to significant market deepening, since many market participants would prefer the accountability of known but fallible entities to one based on a mathematical code.’ The price of Bitcoin as of 5 p.m. Eastern was $637, according to Coindesk. To read more articles on Bitcoin see the list below in Author's suggestions and view the video atop this article of the Mt. Gox trading stop.
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Easy answer really...unlike in Europe and other places around the world where restaurant service is seen as a profession, which pays a increasingly strong salary based on experience and competence...wait staff in the US make a minimum wage of $2.13 or .003 BTC if you like http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-25/waitresses-stuck-at-2-13-hourly-minimum-for-22-years.htmlThis reality means that the job not only requires significant tipping in order to survive and justify being in the line of work, but that working as a server is not seen as a destination career path, but usually rather as a transient stepping-stone. A shame really...when we eat in Italy for example, we are usually served by the owner of the establishment, or their very professional staff who make very good monthly stipend and are invested in their restaurant and have great pride in their profession...and most have been there for many years. This creates an experience rarely matched when eating out in the US. Not sure the franchised society we live in here in the US will ever be conducive to this type of cultural shift. |
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FROM WSJ: Hackers Launch Attacks on Bitcoin Exchanges By ROBIN SIDEL CONNECT Updated Feb. 11, 2014 6:41 p.m. ET The two largest bitcoin-trading exchanges came under attack from hackers Tuesday, leaving customers unable to withdraw their money in the latest development to roil the fledgling virtual currency. Bitstamp's move to suspend withdrawals of bitcoin follows similar action Friday by Mt. Gox. Reuters Slovenia-based Bitstamp said it halted customer withdrawals to deal with the issue. BTC-e, a bitcoin exchange based in Bulgaria, said it was experiencing delays in crediting certain transactions. During such outages, some trading can continue, but customers aren't able to gain access to their money. Both exchanges described the problem as a denial-of-service attack, according to comments made by the companies on their websites. In denial-of-service attacks, hackers essentially disable a website by flooding it with information requests. The two exchanges account for 56% of bitcoin trading volume, according to bitcoincharts.com, which tracks trading activity. The attacks underscored the fragility of the five-year-old currency, which is created by computers and isn't backed by a central bank. "This is a very big deal," said Jaron Lukasiewicz, chief executive of Coinsetter, a New York-based bitcoin-trading platform that remained open as usual. "The two largest bitcoin exchanges aren't processing withdrawals—that essentially shuts the ecosystem down." Details about the incident were limited, although Bitstamp linked the problem to a "transaction malleability" issue that prompted the Tokyo-based Mt. Gox exchange to halt withdrawals last week. BTC-e didn't elaborate on its problems in the statement on its website. Mt. Gox has blamed its issue on a glitch in the bitcoin software that could potentially give rogue traders a way to falsify transactions. It said Monday the problem wasn't limited to Mt. Gox. After the Mt. Gox news arose, "somebody, somewhere in the network decided it would be fun to start mutating transactions," said Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, a trade group that promotes the use and development of bitcoin. More Is bitcoin another flash in the pan? Or are the early investors onto something -- that will make them rich? WSJ's Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer. Bitcoin prices fell sharply for a second consecutive day. The price of a bitcoin dropped roughly 4% to $650, based on the CoinDesk price index, which collects data from Bitstamp and BTC-e. At the beginning of February, one bitcoin was worth about $850, according to the CoinDesk index. "Virtual currencies were dreamed up in a virtual world, and now they are being market-tested," said Mark Williams, an economics professor at Boston University and former bank examiner who has expressed concern about bitcoin's infrastructure and unregulated exchanges. The most popular in a host of nascent virtual currencies, bitcoin has attracted enormous attention from professional investors, merchants and ordinary users in the past year. But because a computer-generated currency isn't backed by a central bank, there is no government to intervene if problems emerge. "The long-term strength of the virtual-currency industry will require robust safety and soundness requirements—so customers have faith that their money won't get caught in a virtual black hole," said Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, in a speech delivered Tuesday at the New America Foundation think tank in Washington. The New York regulator, which recently held public hearings on virtual currencies, is considering requiring bitcoin companies to get a special "bit license." Regulators want to require bitcoin-related companies to meet anti-money-laundering rules and vet customers better to help stop the currency from being used for illegal activities. Bitstamp said on its website that a denial-of-service attack triggered "inconsistent results" in the virtual wallet that holds bitcoin for its customers. "As such, Bitcoin withdrawal processing will be suspended temporarily until a software fix is issued," the exchange said in its statement. It also noted that no funds have been lost and none are at risk. Bitstamp said the problems "have simple solutions that are being implemented as we speak, and we're confident everything will be back to normal shortly." Mr. Lukasiewicz of Coinsetter called the problem, while troublesome, a "hiccup" in the evolution of the currency and expressed confidence the issue could be resolved. "In general, bitcoin is very robust, and this problem is more related to the exchanges than bitcoin itself," he said. —Michael J. Casey contributed to this article. Write to Robin Sidel at robin.sidel@wsj.com |
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