Anyone using that as a postulate in a theorem clearly doesn't actually 'get' Occam's Razor.

Overview

The principle is often incorrectly summarized as "other things being equal, a simpler explanation is better than a more complex one." In practice, the application of the principle often shifts the burden of proof in a discussion.[a] The razor asserts that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. Philosophers point out also that the exact meaning of simplest may be nuanced.

You don't understand. Why else would the thief sell easy-to-launder BTC? Evidently, they are of little value to him. We know that Zhou Tong considers BTC valuable, and wouldn't be stupid enough to sell the ones he stole. Therefore, Zhou did not steal them.

This is a classic framing. There is no reason to suspect otherwise.

You can.

Another disclosure:

I detected two vulnerabilities in ExchB (hope you guys still remember this exchange) last year and I returned the money I "stole" from them actively after the hack.

I also wanted to test whether Mt. Gox had the same problem, so I created the account using my stevejobs email. I didn't want to use my own account for this testing. And Mt. Gox was secure enough that I failed to exploit.

Some con men describe a “rush” from closing the deal. They know they are doing something wrong, often illegal, and the success of that activity combined with the physical stresses and rewards in the brain become addictive. The chemicals released in the brain from the pursuit and capture of the cash becomes its own reward; the game becomes more than just a way to get money. Other con men have been known to use their work as a way to massage a fragile ego: Every time they get away with stealing money, they’ve proven to themselves that they are smarter than the authorities and their victims.

The transaction cost just needs to be increased so it serves as an incentive for miners to support the main block chain...I think.

allten both of your posts are false.  No reason to jump from one fallacy to another.  Can Bitcoin be free forever and for 100% of transactions?  No.  Obviously not the network has a real cost.  The idea that Bitcoin has to be expensive is equally wrong.

Two examples:

PayPal scale network:
The Bitcoin network reaches 50 tps (roughly PayPal sized); that is roughly 1.58 billion transactions per year.  At an avg tx fee of $0.01 USD that would generate ~$16 million in revenue for miners.   Now obviously it will take some time for Bitcoin to grow to this level so the established history means that Bitcoin will be seen as less risky relative to today.  Risk determines return on capital.  Lets assume miners are willing to accept a 10% ROI and that hardware costs makes up 80% of lifetime mining costs.   That puts the network hardware cost at ~$200 million.   Remember it is the cost of the network (not hashrate) that determines security.

VISA scale network:
The Bitcoin network reaches 4000 tps (roughly VISA sized); that is roughly 130 billion transactions per year.  At an avg tx fee of $0.02 USD (higher utility given Bitcoin is now as popular as VISA) that would generate ~$2.5 billion in revenue for miners.   Now obviously it will take some time for Bitcoin to grow to this level so the established history means that Bitcoin will be seen as less risky relative to today.  Risk determines return on capital.  Lets assume miners are willing to accept a 7% ROI and that hardware costs makes up 80% of lifetime mining costs.   That puts the network hardware cost at ~$200 million.   Remember it is the cost of the network (not hashrate) that determines security.


While $0.01 or $0.02 isn't "free" (remember that was just the hypothetical average cost, some tx would still be free) it is hardly "high cost".  The idea that Bitcoin can only scale under high transaction cost is simply FUD.

Lets compare that to some other payment networks:
Money Order - $0.50 to $1.00
Cashier's Check - $5.00 to $10.00
GreenDot MoneyPak - $5.00 (instant, limited deposit options max of $500)
ACH - ~$0.20 per tx (3-5 days)
Bank Wire - ~$10.00 (4-5 hours)

WU - 4% to 10% (10 to 30 minutes)
Credit Cards - $0.30 + 3% (seconds  chargeback risk for 120 days)
Credit Cards (micropayment) - $0.05 + 5% (seconds  chargeback risk for 120 days)
mPESA - 5% to 15% (instant)

Bitcoin - $0.00 to $0.02 per tx (instant to hours depending on risk profile)

Yup Bitcoin is horribly expensive at $0.00 to $0.02 per tx.

I too believe this is a critical issue for Bitcoin, as a whole.  I had floated the idea that handling blockchain size was critical, in the past, but other issues seemed more pressing for the devs at the time -- I didn't have a solid idea to promote, and the blockchain size wasn't so out of hand yet.

One nice benefit of this solution is that because it's an alt-chain, technically no core devs have to be on-board.  It can be done completely indepedently and operate completely non-disruptively, even with only the support of other devs who believe in it.  I'd certainly like to get core devs interested in it, as they are very smart people who probably have a lot of good ideas to add.  But one of the biggest upsides here is that it can be done completely indepdently.

As angry as I am at Zhou for not making proper database backups, I think he is being framed.

The question I have is why Zhou would state that the suspect who supposedly admitted guilt, Chen Jianhai, is a multi-millionaire. What evidence or reason to believe does Zhou have that Chen is a millionaire if he has never met Chen in person? And what type of "webshop" did Chen operate where Zhou used his stevejobs email address and password? How can he confirm that Chen Jianhai is his actual identity?

What's even more curious is who is Zhou's "friend" with the tens of thousands of LR. The timing of Zhou's sales of LR is extremely unfortunate, seems very possible that Zhou could be unwittingly (I agree with others, zhou is probably not that stupid if he were the thief) selling the stolen BTC for this "friend". Zhou really let himself be set-up in offering to do this "favor"...

The good news is that most con men get caught because they are so good at convincing people of mistruths that they con themselves into believing they won’t get caught. Over-confidence is what traps most of them. They over-reach their skills or underestimate the victim. They get sloppy or lazy, making bad assumptions after some successes. Conversely, they may become too ambitious, have too many “irons in the fire,” and trip themselves up. Some scams collapse under the weight of too many lies or are exposed when a third party identifies the pattern. Others crack wide open when a victim realizes that he’s been rooked and contacts authorities to complain.

So bitcoin for micro-transactions in the future is a no go unless you stay within a walled garden.  I thought bitcoin was all about being open and zero transaction fees.  Those are two of its biggest sellers.  Cut them out too early and slow down bitcoin adoption.  The whole bitcoin market capitalisation is still under $100Million yet they sound expensive to buy at nearly $10 each and too expensive to transfer for frequent open micro transactions.  Revalue bitcoin once it's spent twelve months plateaued over $10 to 210,000,000 coins from 21,000,000 and revalue everyone's wallet by *10 keeping the transaction fee at BTC0.0005.  Plus keep doing that until the bitcoin market-cap is worth trillions of dollars and they are mainstream worldwide.  So take this bitcoins are worth $100 each and a transfer costs $0.50 yet the whole market-cap is only $1Billion.  Sounds like bitcoin would be getting too big for its boots when you look at how many dollars are in circulation in bills and coins.  Plus those in circulation as bills and coins are only the tip of the ice-berg.

If Zhou really did this that would make him a opportunist not a con.

(If we assume that bitcoinica was a genuine operation, which it was, for a time imo, since it was profitable and sound)

You misunderstood. My point was to disprove the suggestion by Phinnaeus that Zhou indeed had that domain back then.

(And since then I've also stumbled upon verification for Zhou's claim that he bought it in March: http://q.3hk.cn/u/zhoutong.html )

That he's owned that domain since almost 10 years back.