mascots:
yea we all know about the dogecoin dog.. but it really has not helped dogecoin grab any retail presence.. it is just a gimmick.

ambassadors:
just one famous face.. nah.. even Mcdonalds customers got bored of seeing bieber. the only exception was justin timberlake who introduced the "ba ba ba, ba ba. i'm loving it". but even he is no longer the ambassador for mcdonalds. and most people cant even remember seeing him being the pioneer of that phrase

what needs to be done is this:
bitpay, coinbase do an applepay style advert. but only after getting some high profile retailers onboard. then they can show how easy bitcoin is to use for customers, while also advertising their retailers.

a 50btc txfee total is at the moment 0.012btc a tx.. (50btc/4200tx), lets average it to 1200txs of fee paying users = 0.04btc (over $9/tx)
who would pay $9 a tx right now to give miners a 50btc tx reward if block solving reward stopped today.

even in the future of 20mb the average customer usage and voluntary addition of a fee (cos not all blocks are filled and not everyone wants to pay) would be 45c at current btc price.

even if bitcoin went to $1000 a coin when the 20mb block limit was in place and every byte of the limit was filled with tx data, and every tx had a fee..

50btc/84,000tx =0.00059524btc/tx = 60c/tx

i think 50btc tx fee reward per block at any fiat price is asking too much.. i think the bases of keeping bitcoin active and useful would be a 1c/tx fee..
which based on a full 20mb limit and all users paying a fee. and btc value being $1000 each would be a 0.84btc total reward... definitely not 50btc.

the safe way is not to look for 10% spreads and hoping to double your money over night. just look for 1% spreads, even trading 1 time a day means that you will double your money in 3 months and have 400% profit in a year. and thats just from one trade a day

as mining rewards decrease. then yes transaction fee's would be more important to miners.

the issue is that USERS wont want to pay $10 a tx. they would want to pay 1c a tx.
so lets work out how much a tx will need to cost to keep miners happy.

so, matter what the value of bitcoin is or how many satoshi's are required.. a 1c/tx equates to a maximum of $42/block right now
(1c x 4200max tx)
(yes not everyone will want to pay a fee, and not all blocks will contain 4200txs so its going to be far less than $42 mining income)

even if the block limit grew to 20mb. the maximum potential would become at most $840(again dont expect that much, as its just a maximum potential).

so whilst current mining income via blocksolving reward is $6,000, this means that eventually on a 20mb block each tx would need to cost 8c to keep the mining reward in the $6000 range per block.

again 8c a tx is based on max potential if all 20mb of block was full and all tx's contained a fee.

so i predict that to keep the miners happy the tx would be on average atleast 20c each, which is where users will start to think its not as 'free' to use bitcoin compared to debit/credit cards.

i would be happy to give gemini the details if:
1) they were actually on the NYSE
2) they were regulated properly and actually insured
3) that they also give out all their home addresses of their employee's so people can sue them if they Gox it up.

gemini has alot of fame and has some money transmitter licences of half of america.. but i still dont see them doing anything consumer friendly/protecting..

if you learnt anything from facebook.. peoples info is worth money. so id be cautious giving details to third parties unless they were fully consumer protection complient

what if i told you CIA HQ does send bitcoin to addresses owned by agents around the world who then exchange funds into native FIAT in the country they are spying in..
but what if i told you for security reasons CIA wont admit this as the targets do not need to know how the spies are paid, to avoid the spies from being recognized.

with trezor. you cant just press a button on the device while walking around town to send a TX.
you cant even just plug it into any random persons computer and use it instantly, you need to download the browser extension and log in.. which is a security weakness. (imagine a virus that can detect a trezor/webextension and replace it with a malicious version to send funds to them blackhat instead of the address the user types in)

i think phone app wallets are pretty much on par with a trezor.. no better, no worse. however we are still in the innovation stage and things will get better and more independent, away from third party services

the way that instant confirms would work is not to speed up the block solving. but to instead lock-in a TX into the miners mempool. and ignore any second tx's using the same funds. even if the second one has a higher tx fee. and have all miners advertise their mempools so that everyone knows and all miners have the same locked in tx's. that way double spending (attempts) wont be a worry, even with zero confirms

well the reason they do what they do is because it protects their own investments.. which as a by-product protects everyone elses too. their priority is security of the network. not so much the GUI.
however i do agree that if people want extra features they could request the bitcoin-dev team to set up an address so that people can send a donation to. because thats how politics works. corporations pay politicians in exchange for regulatory benefits or tax breaks.

maybe worth people who want certain changes to talk to the bitcoindev team, and the team set up a kind of 'go-fund-me' site that lists an address next to a features description. then those that want that feature to be dealt with, can fund it to happen.

i think that amaclin is trying to say that the bitcoin-dev's main priority is the network and ensuring it cant be abused.
by this i mean the bitcoin dev's are the equivelent of the bank wire transfer team.. and there should be another team who program the user GUI, much like banks have a website dev team, separate from the payment network.

i personally reprogrammed my bitcoin core to be more user friendly, and there are other wallet programs/websites that can take care of the GUI side of things.
EG blockchain.info allows users to send funds, and backup privkeys. even ensuring the change returns to the same address as it was sent from.

i think once bitcoin-core is at a V1 status (not in beta), the programmers would divert the concentration from security and more towards user friendlyness.. but to me i think any naive, newbie, non miner should start off with other wallets. and later move onto bitcoin-core once their funds need to be secured away from third party services and once they learn to backup privkeys

no one should be backing up their wallet.dats as the change addresses mean you have to constantly update. i would say that bitcoincore needs an easy way to File->save the privkeys as having to explore your program data folders is just silly

lesson to all.. learn your privkeys!!!

save your privkeys as they are the important part. dont just rely on having a wallet.dat file in a second folder.

not only can u mess things up by not copying the file correctly. you can also get viruses, house fires, burglars stealing your PC. a disgruntled employee/spouse putting a hammer to your device.

so learn how to get your privkeys and back them up in a new location..

the reason why the OP lost his coins is because when he sent the 0.1btc out it also takes the 2.0btc with it and returns the 2.0 to a change address.. this change address is saved to the active wallet.dat.
the problem is that if he had a wallet.dat backed up from hours/days before the tx was sent. then the backup wont contain the privkey/pubkey of the change address..

far easier to get a temping job for just 1 week and buy bitcoin. then there is no need to spend hours per night raiding faucets

if its taking you 6months-a year to make under $300.. then you need a new job

Ciyam.. as you are a person who was involved in the blockchain.info project, im certain that even you know that offchain tx's is a very easy thing to impliment, to send tx's instantly between users without touching the actual blocks..

after all people dont do bank transfers for a cup of coffee using swift. they use third party services such as visa. so offchain is a solution.
why do you think apple now want you to pay with applepay for itunes.. because its alot easier then asking for 70c from visa everytime..

secondly its easy to check a receiving TX, see what address it came from and check if the originating funds already have confirms to not delay things in regards to the new tx the shop just received.. plus if your going to do it. you would also push the TX to all the miners, just incase the customer has only pushed it to a explorer service nodes in attempt to try look like its been received but still not quite entered the mempool of miners.

im kind of surprised your coming up with these objections, especially with your experience

most things like cups of coffee in starbucks wont need confirms or reversibility.. because the coffee buyer can slap the barrista in the face with a wet fish if the customer doesnt get their coffee after payment.

but if your talking about a $4 keyboard and mouse from some chinese supplier.. then thats slightly different.
that being said the news has reported that silk road alone has done millions of small transactions even with nefarious merchants and there hasnt really been a problem with the buyer-seller relationship.

so buying a snickers in a walmart or a coffee in starbucks is no issue at all. they have their own codes of conducts which protect customers no matter the currency. the only issue is the 'stranger danger' transactions with people thousands of mile away.

MTGox
Trendon shavers
Bitcoinica

the thing about all scams is that people keep putting all their funds into uninsured third parties hands, people they have never met but weirdly trust with thousands of dollars of value.

if you want to avoid a scam never put all your eggs into one  basket. and if you cannot find enough info about who is 'managing' your deposits, to be able to slap them with a wet fish and a court order.. then dont put any in.

no funds insurance??

now that just went from a legit investment company, to a MTGox clone... im guessing no one cares about the impact of not insuring deposits..

best way to make money with bitcoin..

do whatever job people use FIAT with.
eg sell grocery's, utilities, gadgets, fashion, toiletries, car fuel, car parts, cars, houses, .. basically everything and anything you can think of