Excellent, Wiser. Joe will start start building a wish list. I strongly encourage everyone to post their  suggestions on what they like to see in a new version of DNotes. You can also PM Joe. We already have a few great ideas but some of them may not be shared until a relaunched. Please be reminded that we normally take our time to do things right. We are allocating the next two years to work on major development. Various feature will be made available along the way. We have a lot of things to get excited about.

If I could have a wish about one thing to change about DNotes, I would want it to be a minting coin, and I would also want there to be opportunities to mint it online via a trusted third party (something like Coinwallet.co) but also have a very well functioning desktop wallet that can also mint it. The DNotes vault currently functions a bit like a minting wallet in the sense that you can gain "interest" on a deposit, but you have to tie up your funds for a long time in order to do that. I would like to see an option where your coins can work for you but with no other strings attached (such as needing to tie them up). I think in this way, even a very small holder can have a stash that grows. Of all the minting coins I have worked with I have to say that Diamond coin does it the best, so if this idea is ever seriously considered I would recommend studying up on how Diamond does it. I can put anyone in touch with the lead developer.

That is a very interesting question, actually. I know that NEM (which for all practical purposes was a completely premined coin--all the coins got put into circulation at once through the Genesis block--allocated a certain amount of coin to reward node operators. Of course, there's really no mining, so there wouldn't be competition with miners. I don't know what kind of plan is in place for NEM node operators once the original allocated funds run out, but it's possible that isn't for many years, depending on how much was set aside.

I believe in principle it is a good idea to figure out a way to compensate anyone who is involved in securing the network in some way. The problem with Bitcoin is that this wasn't thought about right from the beginning (OK, the mining was, but not the nodes), and because of the current leadership politics, it's very hard to actually make any changes that could add it into the code after the fact. I mean, the Bitcoin people are having a difficult enough time deciding on how to enlarge the block size to handle increasing transactions.

DNotes wouldn't have this issue, because there is a "the buck stops here" actual leadership team. I'm pretty sure that if Alan in six months were to decide to turn DNotes into an X11 minting coin which kicked off both mining rewards and minting rewards, and had a special increased minting reward for node operators, and he was able to convince the DNotes core team that this is a good development, and then keep those of us who follow this thread duly informed and seek out our feedback, then I'm sure it would happen with little or no fuss. This is not a suggestion, by the way, just a random example off the top of my head

For an example of a coin which changed its algorithm midway, Diamond is a good example. I believe it began as a Scrypt coin, then switched to Groestl. I'm not sure of the reasons. It's also a dual mining/minting coin, and the core team recently held an auction for ten special addresses which will mint at an increased rate. The coin Neucoin recently made a decision to destroy half of its current coin supply (the part held by board members and initial investors, not coins in general use), and reduce its timeline for general distribution by a number of years. The reasons for this decision had to do with how the core team saw the coin being adopted as well as feedback from the community.

So I know all of this is technically possible.

My point is that from a technical point of view, Bitcoin could alter its code in order to continue to fairly compensate miners and also reward node operators. It could decide to increase its total supply (not cap it at 21 million). It could even code in a way where "lost" Bitcoins get recovered in some way (you know, those Bitcoins lost because someone wiped their hard drive and didn't retain private keys to the wallets). Those recovered Bitcoins could be used to provide rewards to node operators, or even add to the mining rewards. I mean, the sky is the limit as to what could be accomplished. But since Bitcoin is so widespread and basically developed as a leaderless currency, it's going to be very difficult to make even minute changes to the protocol because there will rarely if ever be sufficient consensus to allow any changes to get implemented.

On the other hand, with a currency such as DNotes, which has a leadership team which is willing and able to make unilateral decisions, it's not going to be technical difficulty that limits what can be accomplished. It's really a matter of the leadership clearly communicating the vision, seeking feedback from the community when needed, sticking to its vision, and not making hasty decisions about drastic changes, and then when changes are necessary, clearly communicating the reasons and the path forward so that all can easily adjust and get on board.

Digital Currency Weekly Recap 3-20-2016

Alleged Cryptsy Deal with Hacker to Resolve Stolen Bitcoin Issue
African FinTech 100 and Awards Set for October 2016
Coincheck Now Supports Ether Trading
New Bitfinex Policy for Law Enforcement Requests
Uphold Platform to Support Ethereum and LiteCoin
Coinbase Exchange Adds Stop Order Option
Russia’s QIWI Claims BitRuble Safe from Government Money Surrogate Ban

http://dcebrief.com/digital-currency-weekly-recap-3-20-2016/

Wow this book looks like great !! Congrats Alan    remember plant a tree too.

yesterday mining get burned jack conectors of gridseed blade :S just working at 750 mhz can go to 850 with no problems . so strange. But i got another 2 burned time ago.. i buy 4 at same time, maybe is the quality of conectors i dont know but dig for months without problems, so i need to buy new ac conectors
just keep mining at 1.4 mhash for the while with other asic.

Very thought provoking Alan!

The disappearing wealth of the American middle-class:


1 chart every middle-class American needs to see



http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2016/03/18/1-chart-every-middle-class-american-needs-see/81966418/

Could public blockchains be the first real anti money laundering tool? Although it would make moving money across borders easier, the ability to track drug money would be greatly enhanced. Here's an old article but it's very relevant, and raises questions about the ethics of some prominent financial institutions.

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Awash In Cash, Drug Cartels Rely On Big Banks To Launder Profits

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/03/20/291934724/awash-in-cash-drug-cartels-rely-on-big-banks-to-launder-profits

The Sinaloa Cartel, headquartered on Mexico's northern Pacific Coast, is constantly exploring new ways to launder its gargantuan profits. The State Department reports that Mexican trafficking organizations earn between $19 and $29 billion every year from selling marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines on the streets of American cities.

And Sinaloa is reportedly the richest, most powerful of them all, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. The capture last month of the Mexican druglord Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman has cast a spotlight on the smuggling empire he built.

One key to the Sinaloa Cartel's success has been to use the global banking system to launder all this cash.

"It's very important for them to get that money into the banking system and do so with as little scrutiny as possible," says Jim Hayes, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations for the New York office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. He was lead agent in the 2012 case that revealed how Sinaloa money men used HSBC, one of the world's largest banks, as their private vault.

ICE says in 2007 and 2008, the Sinaloa Cartel and a Colombian cartel wire-transferred $881 million in illegal drug proceeds into U.S. accounts.

Huge Daily Deposits

According to a subsequent investigation by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, cartel operatives would sometimes deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in a single day using boxes designed to fit the exact dimensions of the teller's window at HSBC branches in Mexico.

The bank ignored basic anti-money laundering controls, as the investigation found. In 2007 and 2008, the bank's personnel in Mexico wired $7 billion dollars to corresponding U.S. dollar accounts in New York. These were more dollars than even larger Mexican banks wired to U.S. accounts. ICE says some of it was drug proceeds.

Yet no red flags were raised because of what a bank official later described as, a "lack of a compliance culture" in the Mexico affiliate, according to the Senate report.

Moreover, the dollar transfers earned HSBC hefty fees. The Senate investigation quoted an HSBC email lamenting how the bank would lose $2.6 billion in revenue from U.S. dollar accounts that it was forced to close because of the Mexico fiasco.

"When I was told that there could be in the billions of dollars being moved through these accounts, it was very difficult to believe," says senior ICE agent Jim Hayes. "A lot of people have asked, 'Was this complicit?' We don't believe that they (HSBC personnel) knew for certain that the money being moved was drug money, but they should have known."

A Simple Plan

In Culiacán, the prosperous capital of Sinaloa, where people live cheek by jowl with the cartel, even they were shocked that narco-dollars could be laundered so brazenly.

"You see the building, the office, the cars, the papers, the men in suits. Everything looks legal. That's what frightens us," says Javier Valdez, an author and journalist in Culiacan who writes about narcotrafficking.

"The DEA loves to sell the idea that these guys are super sophisticated criminal masterminds," says Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico City and a former federal intelligence agent. "It's so simple. It's so unsophisticated. That is what to me is the most disturbing part of this. These guys are not even trying that hard."

The consequences for ignoring the torrent of dirty money flowing into its Mexico bank vaults were severe for HSBC.

The Department of Justice levied penalties and forfeitures of $1.9 billion on the bank. Of course, with $2.6 trillion in assets, for HSBC this represented a man with a hundred dollars in his pocket paying a fine of seven cents. HSBC was also faulted for hiding prohibited transactions with nations like Iran and Cuba.

The bank emailed a statement to NPR:
"HSBC has made progress in remediating anti-money laundering sanctions compliance deficiencies. But we recognize that protecting against financial crime is an ongoing journey and we have much more to do. Since 2011, we have implemented reforms and new controls, enhanced our monitoring systems, and strengthened and expanded our global financial crime and compliance organization. For example, the number of fulltime employees in financial crime and regulatory compliance is up 54 percent between 2012 and 2013."

ICE agent Jim Hayes says fallout from the HSBC case continues.

"We think this forfeiture is significant enough to make other banks to look and make sure they're in compliance," he says.

Banks Still Vulnerable

In the wake of HSBC, other banks boosted their anti-money laundering budgets, increased know-your-customer rules, and in some cases dumped high-risk clients.

Which might make you think, well, now they've got money laundering under control.

"Despite all of the efforts, banks are still vulnerable to money laundering and it's kind of an age-old thing," says Kieran Beer, editor of the news website of theAssociation of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists.

"The drug trade is overwhelming in terms of how that money finds paths—like water — to come into the global financial system," Beer continues.

HSBC wasn't the first or last bank money-laundering scandal.

In 2010, prosecutors detailed howWachovia Bank had been used by Mexican currency exchange houses to launder at least $110 million in drug profits.

In 2012, The Wall Street Journalreported on an FBI affidavit that laid out how the Zetas Cartel used Bank of America to launder cash through a racehorse operation in Texas.

And last month, Western Union agreed to do more to beef up vulnerabilities in its money transfer business along the southwest border.

Back in Culiacán, and throughout Mexico, currency exchange houses operate under strict new rules that are supposed to limit the size of dollar transactions, investigators are watching to see what the narcos next money-laundering ploy will be.

That's huge! The highest I've ever seen it before was slightly over 20 GH/s

Great article. Does this mean that the financial institutions that are fighting so hard to distinguish their blockchain from bitcoin, are inadvertently laying the groundwork for cryptocurrencies to be used within their systems? 

Great article RJF, very interesting and inspiring.

I liked this story, it made me reminisce about the first time I bought Bitcoin in a shady back alley (not recommended). Their business partner was arrested a couple years later for running an illegal poker site.
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Dealing With Fraud In The Bitcoin World

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanchester/2016/03/16/dealing-with-fraud-in-the-bitcoin-world/#50d7deab1b40

Bitcoin has been around since 2008, but it’s still in its infancy. That means a lack of regulation, fraud, ponzi schemes, and more. The Bitcoin industry has it all, making it the new Wild West. Digital gold is hiding “just beneath the surface,” waiting for those opportunistic, innovative and brave enough to test these uncharted territories. So what can you expect to encounter in this new frontier as one of the early pioneers?

When you take your first step into the bitcoin industry, it can feel like you’ve entered the 2015 Doc and Marty visited in “Back to the Future”. This new digital currency has big promises, from reducing international wage payment fees and delays (like what we do at Bitwage) to providing banking services to the 2.5 billion people who are financially underserved.

If you dig a little deeper and look at the blockchain itself (the architecture and technology behind Bitcoin), it even has the ability to create systems beyond the financial industry. There are applications popping up for things such as an incorruptible voting system and organizations that are run completely by computers, called decentralized autonomous organizations. It’s not hard to believe flying cars are too far away.

With all this new technology and new opportunities to improve outdated systems, the lack of regulation attracts a world of fraudsters and less savory entrepreneurs looking for a way to make a quick buck. In the past, these ponzi schemes and frauds were aimed at consumers (such as the alleged case against Gaw Miners), but now they’re focusing on business owners within the bitcoin industry too.

Those of us that have been in the Bitcoin Wild West since the beginning know it’s difficult to open a bank account when you’re just starting out. When a company is new, it has no revenue or close to zero investment. They have no financial history and can even be seen as a potential shadow entity for money laundering. So you can’t really blame the banks. The risk is often not worth the potential reward. This bitcoin-averse banking climate across the industry set the stage for my first run-in with a fraudster targeting entrepreneurs.

I went to my first bitcoin and blockchain conference, Inside Bitcoins, in Las Vegas in 2014.  (Before you even say it, yes, this industry definitely knows how to have a good time.) It was there that I met Arnold (his name has been changed for the sake of privacy). He had that classic 1980s mobster look, slicked back hair and a suit that had been worn a couple more times than it should have before getting cleaned.

He came up to me and asked what we are doing at Bitwage. After I explained our mission he asked if we were having trouble getting a bank account. Since it is such a commonly known problem within the industry, I was curious to figure out what his angle was. I said we were, and he responded, “Great, we actually run a bank. The way it works is we provide you banking services in exchange for a 5% stake in your company.” Immediately I thought, “Are you kidding me?! Who in the right mind would do this?!” I listened to the rest of his pitch and walked away thinking, “I’m sure no one takes this guy seriously.”

Over the next few months, I would run into Arnold at various conferences. I’d see him speaking with other members in the industry, many of whom I considered friends. I was baffled. I kept asking myself, “How could people like this guy? Is this guy actually legitimate? Am I missing something?”

A few months later, I found out my suspicions were right. Arnold and his executive team were arrested for operating an illegal Bitcoin exchange and fraud. I was actually a little shocked.  I felt like the guy might be running a scheme through some sort of loophole and I knew I didn’t want to go into business with him, but I did not think he was actually running an illegal operation. I couldn’t believe it.

Fortunately, neither Bitwage nor none of my personal acquaintances were affected, but there were a few new, early-stage entrepreneurs who fell victim to the unregulated Wild West. What is the lesson here? Well for starters, always make sure to apply the “appropriate level of due diligence” to all of your potential business partners. Luckily, as the market is maturing, we are seeing much less fraud and many more innovative technologies (Such as technologies that help artists protect their intellectual property). Now, enough with all this fraud talk, where’s my hoverboard?

You're right, hacker has been used by the media as a blanket statement to cover a wide variety of con artists.