well you need software / website/ code to unlock a brainwallet of basic phrases too..
but my example was not any software.. i just googled "sha encrypt online" much like people would google brainwallet. so there is nothing special required.

but i agree that just hashing a few words is not ideal and that re-hashing and doing other things inbetween (salt/rounds) before converting to a privkey should be added.

anyone thinking about using brainwallets i feel that simply typing in 12 words into brainwallet.org is risky. as many people are developing databases of attempted word combinations

for instance:

is not unique. and can be predicted within a couple weeks of trying different combinations.

BUT if we were to hash each word first. and then put the result into brainwallet converter.. then it is more secure:

to=663ea1bfffe5038f3f0cf667f14c4257eff52d77ce7f2a218f72e9286616ea39
improve=2b35ed6944dd2e8f7462b14096e8969711280dffe1457a680c885a95127e426c
is=fa51fd49abf67705d6a35d18218c115ff5633aec1f9ebfdc9d5d4956416f57f6
to=663ea1bfffe5038f3f0cf667f14c4257eff52d77ce7f2a218f72e9286616ea39
change;=dc36e8b61c6627435b26da98200d6eb38a9a6feaeaae7392864b0e53e67f4932
to=663ea1bfffe5038f3f0cf667f14c4257eff52d77ce7f2a218f72e9286616ea39
be=46599c5bb5c33101f80cea8438e2228085513dbbb19b2f5ce97bd68494d3344d
perfect=fafe97f7def328bbd4f10779b9625a8aa0bfaa143d7ae64e6f5770e47b51cd1d
is=fa51fd49abf67705d6a35d18218c115ff5633aec1f9ebfdc9d5d4956416f57f6
to=663ea1bfffe5038f3f0cf667f14c4257eff52d77ce7f2a218f72e9286616ea39
change=12ea12eace7d655f471ce55e34f89b1b77a3d9d05a445ca82877dd2235beaa51
often.=b0c347a4cd46f0a96e83fa2b63d8611511c5bb5dc986406e88674b3fb3e54ad3

the entropy alone is atleast 10 times longer. yet all you have to do is in your mind remember the 12 words and then use a sha encryptor before pasting the result into a brain wallet converter.

4 pages of posts because some idiot panicked that the price dropped by $10....

bitcoin is not the problem.. its the emotional sheeple thats the problem

we need to measure bitcoin based on a cost of living index.
something that can be measured universally and something that all people can easily imagine and calculate and understand how valuable/cheap/expensive it is.
for instance if we say bitcoin is 1 weeks cost of living.
EG 150 loaves of bread or 40 hours of minimum wage labour in whatever native fiat they please.

that way if the russian ruble collapses and next year it costs 10x as much for a loaf of bread. bitcoin is not measured at the ruble price.. but at a weeks cost of living. to ensure people always get paid enough to live on no matter how their native currency fluctuates.

The payment is protected by the Freelancer Milestone Payment System.

meaning although someone may be stupid enough to do this and see their freelancer account start to show fiat balance... it cant be withdrawn or be any practical use, until the sender confirms they are happy..

in short.. just like paypal chargebacks (send funds to get person to give up bitcoin, and then complain after to get a refund of the fiat).

imagine a cleaner/maid works in america and gets paid dollars. to send that to the Philippines. the intermediary needs to put it into a bank account and exchange it from dollars and into Philippine peso's. which is very cumbersome and costly to do on forex markets, and also very slow to deposit and withdrawbetween a US bank and a filopino bank. thats why western union usually keeps reserves and alot of databases to keep the balances of each office straight.
meaning not only large forex fee's bt the admin and security costs of looking after funds.

yet by utilizing bitcoin, anyone.. yes anyone can go to localbitcoins, sell the dollars for bitcoins. email the privkey to relatives in the Philippines and those relatives find a Filipino localbitcoin trader to swap bitcoins into Philippine peso's the same day.. with alot less fee's and delays or admin work.

bitshark seem to be doing this second scenario, avoiding the complex red tape of forex markets. and also professionalizing the localbitcoin swaps at both ends by hiding the 3 step process behind their own gateway..

i have not used bitshark but i see the positives of the business plan. but id ask everyone to do their due diligence and check they are a registered company etc before trusting them with funds.. and that goes for any business

there are NO bitcoin licences as of 2013-2014.. so that statement is incorrect. the problem is a bitcoin exchange that happens to touch FIAT.. by the act of swapping dollars for bitcoins means a fiat licence is required. and which then comes with rules of use for fiat. its not a fault of bitcoin that shrem now has 2 years.. its a fault of agreeing to FIAT regulations.. and then secretly avoiding them

if your supplier accepts bitcoin for the products, your staff accept bitcoin for salaries and customer buy the products with bitcoin, then it can be very easy to:
link supplier expenses to a bitcoin address just by showing the address you paid them
link employee expenses to a bitcoin address  just by showing the address you paid them
link customer spending to a bitcoin address  just by showing the address that hoards the incomes from customer transactions.

unlike current accounting systems where people not only need to make spreadsheets and then keep receipts and invoices for 5+ years. if every transaction was bitcoin related you simply store a spreadsheet of addresses

... yet facebook  wanted to buy snapchat for only $3billion. but putting that aside ...... bitcoin is not a company!

better off comparing bitcoin to a native currency
for instance 4billion cap is the equivalent to 11 countries combines GDP, which has a combined population of 1.7million people.

so bitcoin has a higher usage and value than 11 countries combined. which is not bad for just lines of code and being active for only 5 years.. especially without having to have any legal tender laws or bank enforcement to force people to use that currency.. i would categorize bitcoin as a success because its purely voluntary to want it, there is no government pressure forcing people to be paid for their labour in bitcoins.

list of countries based on world bank 2013 figures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvalu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiribati
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Islands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/São_Tomé_and_Príncipe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federated_States_of_Micronesia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominica
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comoros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Vincent_and_the_Grenadines

hobbyists are those small household guys that are not investors..

basically they are more likely LIVING off of the proceeds of bitcoin and need to cash out to pay bills and live. and also cash out to upgrade rigs. thus they are ALWAYS worrying about the prices.

we see it every day, the small hobbyests posting on this very forum how they gave up mining because its too expensive. shouting out that POW has failed and has out priced average man from mining..
YET we still see the large mining farms expanding and gaining atleast 20-30% of the hash power share.

i agree that the large investors throwing in large amounts of fiat decide to either invest it in a mining farm company or buying directly on exchanges dependent on price. but the mining farms themselves do not care about the bitcoin price. as they are not cashing out bitcoin to pay electric. they are using the FIAT income from large investors for that and thus hoarding the bitcoin for themselves or handing percentages back to investors.

but if you want to ignore all the posts from people crying that they had to give up their hobby due to large farms.. go ahead
if you want to ignore the posts of people crying because bitcoin is becoming less decentralised because large farms are increasing hash power.. go ahead

the only time hobbyists dont care about electricity prices are when they are moving over to altcoins and playing the pump and dumbs to keep profitability high, but that has nothing to do with bitcoin difficulty. thats a discussion for the altcoin section

i understand that ulbrichts crimes are on a mega high scale in comparison to shrems. and if u read my post you will see that i have categorised btckings ventures as being more criminal than shrems and then ulbrichts as being higher again..

my point being is that if by that small 0.01% chance that ulbricht gets a light sentance or no sentance due to evidence being thrown out or some legal loop hole he tries. then shrem should get a lighter sentance than whatever btcking or ulbricht gets.. thats all im saying

+1

the current crappy php based exchanges are playing around with crappy volumes, and in any half hour period its dozens to only a couple of hundred coins being traded.

i find it foolish to base the market cap value of 13.5million coins on the movements of these crappy exchanges. as they are not true value indicators of supply or demand. localbitcoins and OTC's are better indicators as EVERY transaction is a bank transfer to bitcoin trade, with no speculation or fake movements.
especially when you take into account the fact that trying to deposit more than $10k into the crappy exchanges causes delays, and an obscene amount of red tape, the large investors do not even bother using these crappy exchanges.

thus when the ETF starts up which has proper investors throwing proper bank funds at the ETF we will see a recovery of proper value discovery. so dont worry about low prices now if you are hoarding. instead if your a buyer, treat this as a way to abuse these crappy exchanges with low prices to grab a bargain, and if you want.. sell them for better value on localbitcoins/OTC for profit (rinse and repeating the process) to increase your hoards. as the ETF will cause significant price rises.

if you do not believe that ETF will do much. just think about the amount of bitcoins required for a "basket"(10k bitcoin) and then check out your favourite crappy PHP exchange and see how high the price will rise to be able to grab enough coins to fill one basket.

late adopters?

the currency is only 5 years old.. thats as bad as rejecting to adopt kids in foster homes that are not toddlers.. don't you understand in the first 5 years of life, currency and children are boring. its not until they start becoming independent and can think for themselves that you stop thinking of them as that little thing in the corner screaming for attention and start thinking of them as part of society.

so do not think that being 5yo is too old. but at the point where life in society truely begins

so if this was about drugs....

then shrems 2 year sentance means that BTCKING will be expecting a bigger punishment.. seeing as BTCKing is one step closer to the drug crime. and on that presumption ross ulbricht should be expecting an even bigger jail sentence then both shrem and btcking...

so lets see how the other 2 get sentenced in January and see if this is about drugs or about the fact that government didnt get a nice slice of money from any of the transfers as either licence fee's or taxes..

if ubricht gets a lesser sentance.. or btcking.. then shrem should appeal his sentancing as it does not fall into line that a lesser crime compared to the other two deserves a bigger punnishment.

large miners mindset.

"i have $20million upfront beforehand.... and i want 28,000 coins, ill spend $10mill on rigs and $10mill on electric."
no matter what the price of bitcoin is. the cost of rigs/electric stays the same, the price of bitcoin is irrelevant because they never sell bitcoin

hobby miners
"i have $10k and i want $12k in 3 months"
they spend $10k on rigs. and then have to cash out the bitcoin to pay for electric bills each week/month, meaning they are not 100% hoarders and are going paste their 3 month deadlines due to changes in difficulty. thus they never reach ROI die to selling coins.

the smart miners are those that waste their fiat investments first off in electric and rigs. and then simply keep 100% of the bitcoin mined.

after all if your not keeping the bitcoin your mining.. then why the hell are you mining!..

large miners wont just give up... it will be the small hobbyists that turn off first.

large miners want bitcoin and use FIAT to buy rigs and pay electric and then hoard coins. yet its the small hobbyists that care about the bitcoin price because they have to sell coins to recoup losses. to be honest i enjoy seeing these stupid hobbyists turn their rigs off.. after all they are not investing in bitcoin. they are selling coins to invest their freshly received fiat into electric companies.

mining is not suppose to be quick mining to fuel a FIAT lifestyle. it suppose to be a way for people that want bitcoin to accumulate bitcoin. and those that want to accumulate bitcoin do not care about the price, as they know and are planning on the long term. and not caring about the daily/weekly costs

bitcoin itself is still as good as it always has been..
BUT
the crappy exchanges are not what they promised to be,

i remember in 2012-2013, mtgox btc-e and other exchanges were doing lots of trades, where most order lines were in whole bitcoins.. now just checking out btc-e the amount of bitcoin orders between $313-$317 is less than 50 bitcoins COMBINED

many people can remember the days of seeing large 'walls' of 500-5000 bitcoins. lots of people were throwing 5+ bitcoins per order. but now its small decimal amounts,

all of which is not due to faith in bitcoin, but lack of faith in third parties holding the bitcoin for you.

basically the price is not falling due to hate of bitcoin, but the fact that less people are trusting third parties as centres to gamble/day trade coins. and instead only as exit routes to get a bit of fiat to pay their small lifestyle costs.

we need to STOP using these crappy exchanges as price discovery indicators, as they are not true indicators of supply and demand. people that are truly selling for FIAT should not use these centralized crappy exchanges, but instead value it based on how much people are willing to pay in their own area/country.

there are 13.5 million coins in circulation. but at any time there are less than 200 coins being traded in any given 30 minute period. we should NEVER be basing an entire economy of 13.5 million coins based on the manipulated movements of just a couple hundred coins.

i am seriously wondering why so many have not woken up to this fact yet.

hold atleast 30

and then play with atmost 5 to try increasing your hoard.

use that upto 5 coins to either:

1. buy products at wholesale (research drop shipping) and then sell for profits based in bitcoin
2. start your own business and pay someone to make a great service/website/project that can gain you regular bitcoin income from
3. get a bitcoin ATM and let people hand you bank notes for the upto 5btc (+small markup value) and then use the bank notes to buy more coin, rinse and repeat
4. play the exchange markets(only if you are experienced in forex/stocks/shares)

i can buy bitcoins alot faster then buying a different FIAT.

local bitcoins is the service with least KYC restrictions (they ask for least amount of ID) and in comparison to getting in my car, driving into town, parking up, walking into a travel agent/bureau de change and waiting in queue to be served. bitcoins is far superior.

the bitcoin ATM's are becoming more readily available and as others have said soon you'll be able to by bitcoins in multiple places locally. but the thing to remember is that bitcoin is not 200 years old (pound) its not even 90 year old (dollar(non gold backed)) its not even 20 years old(euro).

yet dollar only serves 320million people (under 5%) of the world
yet euro only serves 335million people (under 5%) of the world

so when was the last time you were in england and able to buy things with dollar or euro directly.
so when was the last time you were in america and able to buy things with ponds or euro directly.

bitcoin is international and has many features, benefits and advantages that exceed what fiat could ever try to provide, so although bitcoin is not at 5% world wide coverage yet. it has grown from being a couple dozen people to a couple million people in just 4 year. and this has happened without any government rule that forced people to use it.

we are still in the innovation phase of adoption, and thus expect bigger and better things in the future.

but for now, localbitcoins is the closest thing to a bureau de change where it comes to easiest access to funds that you can actually handle. and then if you wish to compare the hassle of FIAT swapping using bank transfers.. i dare you, in america to try setting up a european bank account to then fund that account with euro's so that you can go buy stuff in france, belgium, germany.

NEW never seen before cottage industries concentrating on bitcoin:
ASIC manufacturers (billion dollar industry)
exchanges (multimillion dollar industry)
payment gateways (multimillion dollar industry)


online shops focusing on only bitcoins:
bitcoinshop, bitcoin store, namecheap, alpaca socks, bitcoincupcakes, to name just a few. but if you search out the bitcoin services websites, not only are they themselves bitoin concentrating services, but the companies they list are bitcoin concentrating services. so go check out coinmap.


lastly it is foolish to have a bricks and mortar business that has dozens of employee's that only accepts bitcoins. purely because in some towns there may be only 1 or 2 customers that use bitcoin. thus unsustainable to limit themselves to ONLY bitcoin.

what you have to truly realise is that there are over 100,000 businesses in the world accepting bitcoin in some form alongside FIAT. not 10, not 5 not just a dozen.. but over 100,000..... i was going to name more above but i got lazy when i wrote the 5th example store and thought it easier to just tell you there are 100,000 instead of listing them all.

as for the idea that getting people to spend bitcoin will increase merchant adoption. im sorry but if you have a grocery store in your town that you want to be bitcoin accepting.. spending your bitcoins on alpaca socks or computer parts wont convince your local grocer. YOU need to have a conversation with that local grocer, as thats more effective than spending your bitcoin elsewhere. after all there is no subscription fee's or large % fee per tx, so there is no loss to the business. even if he has just 1 customer a week (you) the grocer can still make the same profit.

when you add up all the employee's working at ASIC manufacturers, exchanges, bitcoinstores etc. then add on the sole traders and contractors, and add on the web designers and graphic designers, translators, advertisers, payment gateways, you will see that there are multiple thousands of people that work and get paid bitcoin.

lastly. please tell me what skills you have and i could probably think up a couple of examples of jobs you can do that pay you in bitcoin. so stop thinking the only way to get bitcoin is from mining ("bitcoin is only for the rich") or faucet raiding ("bitcoin is for the poor").

annd if you cant find an employer that pays in bitcoins, become your own employer