The map is awesome. 
Where did it come from and what is the date it was generated? Is it updated regularly? What do the colours mean?

Drawing new people's attention to this thread is the result I consider awful.
I put in a positive suggestion about local user groups as a way to get merchants on board..  they have an immediate reward in the form of local geeks willing not only to help them set it up - but to buy some product/services from them.
MUCH more positive than a thread with 'Googlebomb' in the title.   Edit the title. It's just embarrassing.

In this case - I think the result is awful.
It provides ammunition to those who think bitcoin is a bubble hyped by desperate fanatics.
As much as google irks me sometimes - I can't help marvel at the appropriateness of it screwing with this lame attempt at self promotion.

I agree that the focus should be on getting it accepted by merchants.
Perhaps a more positive way to do this would be to encourage local bitcoin usergroups/meetups. At the meetups people could pick some local merchant(s) that a fair number would like to purchase from, and see if they can encourage and assist them in setting up bitcoin and prominently displaying the logo.
It might be the local pizza shop.. or pc shop for example.

Awful idea.  If I've been jailed for 10+ years after my magnificent heist went wrong by some malevolent regime who doesn't like my politics,
I'd like my loot savings to be safely hidden in the form of an encrypted bitcoin wallet.

Oh hell yes!   Given the wikileaks connection, and that they're accepting bitcoin donations - it wouldn't surprise me if bitcoin made at least a token appearance in a rap news episode soon

ok - so now I think I understand that you are suggesting the exchange manage an exchange-side wallet per trader.

This would be fine - except for transaction speed.
Traders can theoretically do multiple trades per second - especially if controlling via an API.

Perhaps it could be done if these server-side wallets were updated with the balance due to trading.. on say an hourly basis. (and upon withdrawal/deposit by trader)

I'm coming round to the idea in that case.  
It wouldn't stop a hack of the system in between wallet-update-ticks  - but may give people long term confidence that the exchange is solid.
The previously mentioned database total compared to wallet total checks would still need to be done anyway.

This is trivially done.  Check the total of BTC in the DB and compare it to the exchanges BTC wallet(s). Perhaps before each withdrawal.
It's most likely the exchanges have many such checks already in their code.

Are you  suggesting the exchange should operate directly by depositing BTC as trades occur?  I guess you can't be - because that would be utterly impractical due to the slowness - and would mean that if things were hacked/glitched - there'd be no repair possible via rollback.
(reverted trades do occur on standard exchanges - happened on NASDAQ earlier this year due to glitch apparently)

I'm not clear on how the addresses you talk about allow us to verify things are legit - to me it sounds unlikely to be useful.  Please give an example of a previously empty exchange followed by a single trade between two users, and what is where in your scenario.

My first thought was, please.. let it NOT be Charlie Sheen

While I agree with you that the leap to use the word 'scam' isn't helpful
- neither I think is the implied attitude that 'cents' or even tiny fractions thereof don't matter.
They matter a great deal to new bitcoin users - who may have about 0.01BTC total and are interested in trying out the system.

Really - I think many must have walked away from bitcoin because it feels like their wallet is just being eaten up by fees - just like the ordinary banking systems.

I know bitcoin isn't really optimised for microtransactions, but due to the uneven wealth distribution - this is already a problem for uptake.

Get bitten by the bitcoin bug!

But how is putting in a timestamp proof that the time it was done was actually anywhere near the time claimed?
Hashing a recent block proves approximately when you did your work.  What are you going to put in a timestamp that can't be forged?

I guess just a hash of a recent block in the chain would be a good enough form of 'timestamp' for this.

It had better be a proof of *recent* work - or people will generate these in advance and horde and trade them.. and it'll be a parasitic currency

A proper reading of Trendy the BitSnail indicates that he's holding prices at around $17 (as marked by the centre of his deflationary-spiral shell)
but if you follow a line from his eye stalks just above his shell - he has a slightly longer view of about $34.

Who wouldn't take market advice from a bullish snail!?

This tale of someone buying 20,000 low and making about $3 million has popped up in a couple of places..
Is it really referring to you - and if so - are you able to share the real story?

I enjoyed the discussion so far - but why are your BTC prices so high? 
sorry if you mentioned why in the show (still watching)

Currently your site seems to be operating on an exchange rate of around $11USD/BTC while it's up around $17 on mtgox.

This was my first thought.  I always distrust a site that won't give at least some basic info such as the company name.
What a cheek to call themselves a 'bank' whilst withholding that.

Loved show 13!
The stuff about deterministic wallet key generation was amazing.

I don't even understand why it's a bug. (unless it affects the current price calculations)

I've put in buy orders without the USD to cover it - based on the assumption that the buy would only occur if my sell orders had executed to provide the funds.
It's a feature!

A virus could use the Remote Frame Buffer protocol (the protocol used in VNC) to capture the pad entry.  The virus might be smart enough to at least identify which window to capture - even if it just packages up the info to send to a human to read off the actual numbers that were input.

I don't doubt there are other ways too.