an IP is just an IP.
just because you think Tor or proxies are the only way to change/mask/borrow an IP. is again nothing to do with the bitcoin protocol. but more to do with human choice and human knowledge.

there are many many other ways to separate yourself so your real life info is not linked to bitcoin transactions. this is not a fault of bitcoin. this is again human choice

the protocol is just the protocol nothing more nothing less.

if people want to decentralized mine, it takes less than 2 minutes to change pool details in their miner.. thus itsnot broken, its just not reached that critical point for people to change habits.

as for the anonymity and regulation

how YOU the people decide to mask your IP addresses
how YOU the people decide to volunteer personal information to third parties
how YOU the people decide to follow or disobey pieces of paper which some call rules or laws
how YOU the people decide to set up a business or service around the protocol

are all human traits and nothing to do with the protocol.

a police office cannot arrest the protocol
a police officer cannot inform the protocol that it has the right to remain silent
a police officer cannot hand cuff the protocol.

bitcoin is not broken, but humans decision to follow the law of one country where the protocol has no jurisdiction, is again your own failings. bitcoin will continue even if half if you people decide you dont understand its true benefits and give up.

+1
those businesses that shout out that they have a great idea and want pre-pays, have never really panned out well (BFL)
those businesses that shout out that they have a great idea and to tell the world instantly find competition grows which shrinks thir potential share of future customers.
those businesses that shout out that they have a great idea before having a prototype do not get far in private VC funding.

all of which shows that while the money grabbing ego maniacs looking for celebrity stats are dying off.. smarter and wiser businesses are jumping in.
for instance winklevoss are very quiet and waiting for the day to make their big announcement, rather then trying to push people to pre-buy bitcoin baskets.. but when that day comes.. you will thank them

arbitrage does not occur in reality. this has been pointed out to you before that bank wire transfers are not instant so if a price falls, no one can instantly deposit funds to then eat up a cheap deal to raise the price to normal.

what does occur is when one price gets manipulated, people on other exchanges panic sell. and that is the point the OP is making about exchanges being a liability.

the last time that arbitration was truly successful was where bitinstant took a risk on being a medium of dollar swaps between exchanges. i would say that in some small way ripple can fill that void, but not all exchanges are connected to ripple to allow successful and instant arbitrage to the same extent that bitinstant did between the exchanges of 2012.

now moving to the OP's question.
right now the best thing people can do is use localbitcoins and OTC style systems where actual bank account movements are instantly recognisable against bitcoin movements. and for people to base the value of their buys and sales based on their local and personal supply and demand. ignoring the movements of the crappy PHP exchanges (as we know they are speculative/manipulated). then when circle fully opens up its rates and when things like the winklevoss trust is running which is when true transparent value can also be seen alongside localbitcoins/otc. then we can have a better guage of true value.

until then i feel that the crappy exchanges are undervaluing on purpose, in an attempt to buy up cheap hoards ready for when the proper, scurely and transparent market exchanges are fully operational.

i do feel sorry for anyone selling at losses, and selling at undermarked prices. but that is your own choices and no one else can be blamed for you pressing the sell button

i know.. looking back on my childhood, learning about history of different battles, 1066 and that such, doing nativity plays which would never ever affect my future, and thinking of all the stuff that kids were and still arnt taught these days about the real world is very scary. even with the internet and TV broadcasts inside parliament which use to never happen, i know of many people my age (in their 30's) who dont have a clue.

shocking

its not a fault of bitcoin.. it's a fault of the websites display

basically if you own a wallet with 20 addresses, blockchain.info may only show one.


here is a better display of that transaction
https://blockchain.info/tx/66301b8ea62ad1c51f836362a4ccda50b4d40321cce8d825981dbb6614a88d43

estimates of 2-3mill based on unique addresses

but can be more due to many stupid people having all their funds in exchanges which move funds into a central cold store.

in short with 13-14mill coins in circulation if you have more than 10 bitcoins, you have an above average savings.

yes i know a few corporations have many many coins, but thats just the same as FIAT. and anyone that sells coins only has themselves to blame if they are now crying that they have less than 10btc holding where previously they had more

for text chat, use IRC. for video chats and social stuff within the bitcoin topic, there are many google groups that do video sessions

(though google, facebook and skype are just as data gathering as each other if you one of them paranoid people)

creditcard.. fail one

no id.. starting to smell fish..

for one if your using a credit card (not a pre-paid debit) then the government can trace transactions anyway so handing your ID to a PERSON on localbitcoins to prove you own the CREDIT CARD should be no problem.

im thinking you stole a credit card as your request sounds to be nothing related to hiding from 'big-brother' government. otherwise you would be asking for a ATM or a face to face meetup with someone local to you.

nice try but when trying to be anonymous credit cards are the worse to use.

but if you are honest, then do a bank transfer where you 'push' the payment to the recipient from your bank (thus not needing to hand ID to strangers. or if prefering credit cards you would and should normally be asked to provide ID to prove you own that card and not be trying a 'chargeback scam'

I Believe litecoin is significantly and deliberately different in bitcoin and was before the phase of hobbyist coin cloning, thus i consider litecoin part of the first gen grouping. the same goes for namecoin. but altcoins are mainly clones with minor tweaks and not really any intellectual reasoning for it.
there may be new coins in the future where the code and purpose is so unique they themselves join the first gen group in the future, but my aim was to describe the 'hierachy' of currency more so that what group certain elements belong into.

@billbags, i am fully open to sharing anything i put out into the community so dont feel its plagiarism. but atleast try to style my image better as it was just a 2 minute job to make the point. here maybe a better version to help peoples understanding

cryptocurrencies is the umbrella term for all cryptographic based currencies, thus including bitcoin.
then beneath that it separates into bitcoin litecoin and namecoin (the three main first gen) and altcoins, where most the other cheap pump and dump altcoins exist which have atleast 50% code copied from the first gen.

be aware that things like ripple, is not in the cryptocurrency category at all as its just a mysql database. just like facebook credits, world of warcraft gold, applepay, paypal. these are all part of their own categories

and then... digital currency encapsulates them all..

so going from biggest embrella to lowest entity it should look like this

guess he doesnt know that there is a difference between
FIAT (legal tender) (one of many currencies)
BTC (legal asset) (another of many currencies)
cigarettes (prison anti-rape tax) (another of many currencies)
vodka (russian favour/barter gift) (another of many currencies)

i do laugh when people cant even understand the basics

do you need a government signed document to transfer your fiat into a candy bar, or to convert it into a tin of baked beans?.. no
do you need permission to convert american fiat into euro fiat? no

bitcoin is classed as an asset currency, not a fiat currency, so think of it as buying anything in a shop, whether its someone elses products or currency

true money investors
free market specialists

or my favourite:
international currency fund managers

i think it had more to do with the fact that he went on a visitors visa (meaning he had to prove he could fund his stay) and not a works visa. and then when he talked about him having meetings they through him out as thats business, not personal...

but because he wanted to hype up bitcoin he spun the story into a long winded thing that was all about bitcoin

too much emphasis on mining.
especially talking about solo mining and gpu mining..

its as if your making a guide about gold and talking about pickaxes.

even if you reply that your meant the solo-gpu mining in terms of altcoins, even that is getting out dated, so write about it in terms of ASICS ONLY as too many people think they cam make $2 using $1 electric from a day on a laptop/desktop PC, where infact its not profitable to make any coin with just a computers singular GPU anymore

firstly although he wanted to stay anonymous, it was not due to some conspiracy about financial oversight by governments. it was more related to not wanting to get arrested for money creation.

but as we have now become aware that bitcoin is classed as an asset currency and not thing to do with government fiat, his anonimity was less needed than first thought. but now we see thousands of people wanting to search him out as a form of religious icon. i can see why he desires to stay anonymous.

as for why bitcoin doesnt have more anonimity features. well bitcoin itself meant to be a small straightforward way to enpower people and remove control of wealth from corporate entities who have centralised powers. bitcoin is enough to be pseudonominous BUT it has to be for PEOPLE to care about what they do with such features.

basically no code in the world can stop an idiot telling everyone what his address is,.. so its upto the people to protect themselves.

there are other layers that can sit alongside or ontop of bitcoin to help reduce self management and with people relying more on code then their selves. but i believe satoshi cared more about financial freedom and self control, rather than hiding funds away.

and there is no point talking about bitcoin as if satoshi has any say in it anymore. if you dislike it and want bitcoin to have extra facility, you can either make your own, or go to the bitcoin github and submit idea's/code.

use an app that gives you access to the private keys. as that is the important part.

this is because if the service is unavailable due to a electricity blackout at their datacentre, a DDOS attack, etc you can simply import your private keys into a different service.
i prefer cold storage, but for $100 of bitcoin i deem these third party apps acceptable AS LONG AS THEY OFFER TRUE PRIVKEY ACCESS

wow a positive mindset from the members of parliament..

WOW.. if Steve baker was to run for prime minister id vote for him as he seems to actually make sense, do his research and know what average joe really wants, even if its against government/corporate desires..

im gonna have to search out steve baker and see what he is upto on a regular bases as that MP seems to be a good resource that our(bitcoin) community, and country really need

if you dont own the private key to the 'deposit address' within paypal.. then you have no control. thus paypal can freeze funds by declining to process your withdrawal request.

use circle/exchanges/otc's and paypal to only buy/sell coins and then... MOVE THE FUNDS OUT!!!! only store funds in your own sole control(private keys only you have access to)