Someone just needs to design a raised platform to place around western styled toilets so we can get the "squatting" experience here the USA. Sell it on an infomercial and talk about the health benefits.  Already exists. Search for the "Squatty Potty." |
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It's always easier to clear the milestones the second time around.
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That volume number is misleading. A lot of trades are arranged by localbitcoins.com, but do not use their wallet, but simply go P2P. Those don't get counted towards volume.
Also LocalBitcoin's only reports volume for online trades, not in-person trades - even the in-person trades which are processed through the LocalBitcoins transaction system. |
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I doctor friend once told me that it's much healthier to shit squatting than to sit on toilets as westerners do.... something about long term effects, organ health..... something....
Supposedly it's better for the plumbing because less force is required. |
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Call me naive, but I think it's a simpler case of individual regulators at various agencies simply trying to meet their mandates. Thus, they're enforcing AML/KYC and licensing. That's all rather to be expected. They're not in cahoots with Wall St. banks towards some amorphous goal of creating more paper debt; more generally, the regs targeting tracking of financial flows help gov keep tabs on people for taxation and crime-fighting purposes (drug war, etc). Their mandates were written by the best-paid lobbyists who all came from Wall Street. They don't have to be conscious of the big picture effect. But regarding paper-BTC, we as consumers/customers of such platforms and products will simply need to demand proof. Sign a message with the private key to whatever balance. Much simpler than credibly providing audit-proof of vaults full of gold (tungsten?) bars. Customers *have* to demand this sort of accountability, though! But unlike prior vehicles, full transparency is possible with bitcoin.
Full transparency is always possible with Bitcoin. When you're dealing with third party services with accept Bitcoin deposits, however, you need an additional accounting layer to get that transparency. Like this one: http://bitcoinism.blogspot.com/2013/12/voting-pools-how-to-stop-plague-of.html |
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Meanwhile, in the good 'ol US of A…. FinCEN sending notices to businesses that they should err on the side of caution lest they be seen as criminals. Basically, if you want to start an exchange in the US, you better register with FinCEN and get your money transmitter license in all 50 states and pay for your surety bond in each state (very expensive). FinCEN is doing their job as the enforcement arm of the Manhattan financial crime mafia. Wall Street wants in on Bitcoin trading, but on their terms and without needing to compete against more honest platforms run by outsiders. Professional traders talk about how the lack of leverage and other traditional trading features as contributing to volatility. That code for, "we hate needing to ask permission to sell other people's bitcoins for them". They want to be able to rehypothecate customer deposits, and especially want to be able to short naked. The purpose of all this FinCEN enforcement activity is to herd bitcoin users into forthcoming platforms where you'll be dealing with "paper BTC" that's just like "paper gold" - no way to prove that you actually own what the balance in your account implies that you own. |
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I take it you've never heard of LocalBitcoins? I have, but doesn't it require that you meet up in person? If so, it's like comparing eBay to Craigs List. . All of those ads work by having the buyer go to a branch of the seller's bank and deposit cash. The seller then releases the escrow when they verify the deposit. Buyer and seller never meet in person. |
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can imagine a website in a BTC-friendly country (Denmark?) that displays an orderbook that is only updated every hour (for example). At the top of the hour, you can see the latest status of the orderbook. Then you click the order you want to transact with and you are given P2P payment instructions for a buy (PayPal, Dwolla, etc) or a deposit address for a sell. The website could maintain a reputation tracking system for each member. New members would need to built up their rep with small transactions before they are given permission for larger transactions. The time in between orderbook updates (1 hour?) would give people the chance to complete their transaction. I take it you've never heard of LocalBitcoins? |
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My favorite is: When should you shoot a cop?
The right answer is "never" because anyone who asks you that is an FBI agent. |
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Mining is the only way in which bitcoins come into existence.
Before any exchanges were ever formed, a considerable amount was already in circulation between miners and early adopters.
OTC trading started well before any orderbook-based exchange got started.
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People deposit BTC there, and create limit orders to fill up the order book just like how you deposit fiat there and create your own orders.
A new exchange uses BTC supplied by its owner/investors to seed the initial order book.
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http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg10152.htmlAs an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and
becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the
total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all
the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household
wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With
20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million.
So the possibility of generating coins today with a few cents of compute
time may be quite a good bet, with a payoff of something like 100 million
to 1! Even if the odds of Bitcoin succeeding to this degree are slim,
are they really 100 million to one against? Something to think about...
Hal
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I disabled signatures to de-clutter my screen, but now you've shown me that it can be a valuable tool!
Always glad to help. |
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Hint: Ignore all posters with the gaudy paid signatures and you at least double the SnR.
Don't disable signatures - the existence of a paid signature helps distinguish between a genuine newbie who is posting inane shit because they don't know better and someone who's intentionally posting inane shit to meet their commission requirements.
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A pre-image attack that does not encompass all 64 steps just results in something indistinguishable from the empirical effect of everyone in the world being able to hash faster. I think the second preimage attack is the one that where we should panic because that means an attacker might be able to rewrite the transaction history. A first preimage attack just means mining got easier as you said. |
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I think this problem is going to be solved, but not in a way that meets the conditions of the OP.
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Very good call. I thought it might get down this low but never this fast. BTC be crazy! I don't think declines can be slow and gradual like they were in April-November 2011 any more. Too much has changed about the ecosystem since then. |
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We can observe people today using Bitcoin as a currency, therefore it is functional as a currency.
Case closed - your premise is trivially disprovable therefore requires no further addressing.
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