I doubt there's any entity remaining with the ability or will to enforce that restriction. Since they're not doing business, what would their damages be?

This is pure misdirection.

Whichever one was first seen by whoever mines the next block, assuming both transactions meet their requirement for inclusion. Theoretically, they could/should prefer to one with the higher transaction fee, but I don't believe anyone actually does this.

Right, but in order to sell high, the market must first be high. He can't afford to wait for the market to rise on its own, so he has to buy to push it up. And in order to buy low, the market must first be low. Again, he can't afford to wait for the market to drop on its own, so he has to sell to push it down. In order for this to work, he has to wait for the walls to be replaced before he can change direction. Anyone who recognizes this strategy can buy into the walls on a change from down to up or sell into the walls on a change from up to down and take the profits the manipulator intended for themselves.

Buying high pushes the price extremely high, allowing someone who can corner the market to profit by selling. Selling low pushes the price extremely low, allowing someone who can corner the market to profit by buying. If you're the one doing the high buying and low selling, you know when it's going to start and when it's going to stop, allowing you to time your trades until after the walls re-appear. Some lucky and/or wise counterparty recognizing this happening can both profit during the buy up or sell down (when you're buying high and selling low) by taking your trades and they can also profit during the buy low and sell high phases by taking the trades of the walls that other people put up.

For example, say that Bitcoins were trading at $9 or so and are stable there. And then say that last Thursday night, someone wanted to push the price down to $7 so they can buy low. In order to do that, they have to sell coins. So first they sell at $9. But then they have to keep selling all the way down to $7. So they have to sell below market price. Since the price will go back to $9 when they're done, a counter-party can profit. Now, while that someone is buying at $7.80, others can buy at $7.80 too. Since the price will go back to $9 when they're done, again a counter-party can profit. If people with sufficient resources recognize this manipulation and move on it, the person doing the manipulating will lose because they'll have to sell shares below market price and they will hardly get to buy any shares back below market price. Heck, they might not even be able to get all the way to $7, getting stuck just under $8. It could have happened .. last Thursday night.

Which leads to the question -- why is it so much more expensive to borrow Bitcoins than it is to borrow dollars? And I think the answer is that you're competing with more scammers in the Bitcoin world, driving the interest rate way up.

In a Finney attack, you pre-mine a block with one transaction and announce the other transaction to mining pools. As soon as the other transaction is accepted with zero confirmations, you release the pre-mined block. It takes computing power to pre-mine that block.

That's too easy to defeat -- someone just watches the transactions as seen by the major mining nodes.

It's possible in theory, but miners haven't yet adopted a system of accepting newer, conflicting transactions in favor of older ones just for the higher fee.

When you flip a coin, it either comes up heads or it comes up tails. So after a coin has been flipped, you can say which side landed. But a person who flips a coin generally can't choose in advance which way the coin will come up. So there's no conflict between "you can tell X after the fact" and "you can't choose X".

You can look at a Bitcoin transaction to tell where the coins came from. That doesn't mean those who form transactions necessarily have the ability to control where the coins come from.

There are three basic reasons this can make sense:

1) When you're hiring high-level employees, their performance really could make a noticeable difference in the bottom line. Having them hold stock increases their incentive to boost the company's stock price. (This can backfire though. For example, it can create a perverse incentive to hide losses, so you have to be careful.) This only applies to employees that have a chance to actually affect the stock price of the company.

2) Sometimes investing in the company's stock does make sense for the employee because the company's risk/reward profile is a good match for the employee's desired investment profile, at least to some extent. This is a win/win because it is generally cheaper for a company to offer its own stock rather than cash.

3) It is often cheaper for a company to offer its own stock than cash, so the company may want to give the employee some compensation in stock form even if that doesn't make good financial sense for the employee. This is good for the company, as stock is cheaper for them to give than cash, but it creates significant financial risk for the employee as it ties his financial health to the company's when this is beyond his control. (And often such stock is subject to restrictions that may make it hard for the employee to sell. In this case, the employee generally would rather have cash.)

Do you have any idea how you wound up at this site? Did you type it in by mistake or was it linked or advertised somewhere?

Either way, it's really, really dumb and inefficient. It just takes away people's freedom to pursue different employment and investment priorities in exchange for nothing at all.

What do you think the difference between investment and ownership is? Regardless, whatever it is, it has nothing whatsoever to do with employment. Why would anyone want a system that ties things together that have nothing to do with each other rather than obviously superior systems that allow them to pursue these things independently?

Say I want to work for company X. But I have no idea how that company should be run. But I might have great ideas about how company Y should be run and I'd prefer to have some ownership in company Y because that fits my investment priorities. For absolutely no rational reason whatsoever, your proposed system requires me to pick one company for these completely logically independent things. It just makes no sense at all.

And if they're not shares you own or sell, what happens when a person works for a company for a long time, builds that company up, and then stops working? They cannot sell their shares because they don't own them? So they just lose all claim over the value they added to the company? That doesn't seem logical or fair. It seems a system where the shares are owned and sold is much fairer.

The problem is, the worker may prefer to have a share in a completely different company because that company better reflects his *investment* priorities even though this company best reflects his *employment* priorities. There is no rational reason to advocate a system that prevents people from pursuing these interests independently.

This just stupidly hurts people for no benefit whatsoever. It makes absolutely no sense.

Why would anyone want a system that compels them into sub-optimal investment choices just to make optimal employment choices? Or sub-optimal employment choices just to make optimal investment choices? You are advocating a system that hurts people and gains *NOTHING*.

Say I'd really like to own part of company Z because it makes investment sense for me. But company Y is offering me a great job. Why would you advocate a system that forces me to make compromises? What is the benefit? It just seems like pure idiocy to me.

Isn't this horribly inefficient? Say a particular gold mine is willing to pay me the most for my labor. Well, gee, that's the place I should be working, right? But say I think that gold mine is a horrible investment that is very likely to lose money. Why should I also be forced to own shares in a business I think is a horrible idea? Why should I be forced to probably lose money, as owner, just to make money, as employee?

Isn't it much more efficient and sensible that I can buy shares in the businesses that I think have the best chance to do *well* rather than being forced, for no rational reason at all, to own shares in the business that happens to offer me the best employment deal? What the hell does one have to do with the other? Nothing at all.

If I want to invest in the same business that hires me, I can certainly do that. But it's bizarre that I should be forced to even if my investment priorities and my employment priorities don't coincide -- as they don't for the vast majority of people.

It seems totally illogical and inflexible to force people to invest in the exact same businesses they happen to work for. Why shouldn't I be able to work for the business that pays the most for my labor and still be able to invest in the business that I think has the best chance of turning a profit?

Then I would say you don't have a coherent understanding of what "self-interest" is. By definition, acting only by self-interest must be in one's self-interest. And if one is acting *only* in one's self-interest, one would strike the balance between short-term and long-term that maximally benefits one's self.

I've had good luck with refurbished E3000's. Gigabit switch, simultaneous dual-band, and can run DD-wrt or Tomato. There's only one hardware version, so you don't have to worry. You can find them for $60 or less.

http://www.compuplus.com/Network/Cisco-Linksys-Refurbished-E3000-High-1166620.html

http://www.amazon.com/Cisco-Linksys-Refurbished-High-Performance-Wireless-N-Router/dp/B003VY83HO

The WRT610N is usually the exact same router. However, the WRT610N exists in two hardware versions, so I prefer to order the E3000 so I know what I'm going to get.

When a pool does mine a block, it can immediately assign that same work unit to many miners. Any that pull a new work unit and don't mine the block are highly suspect.

I don't know what law applies to Bitcoinica, but typically until there's a formal declaration of insolvency, companies are still obligated to pay their debts. Their continuing failure to return depositor's funds is a continuing breach of their obligations to their depositors. I cannot believe any lawyer would say, "continue to breach your fiduciary duties". In some jurisdictions it can be a criminal offense to fail to formally declare insolvency and to continue to breach obligations.

I can't imagine a lawyer would advise a company that holds other people's money not to give any of it back. I could see that if it was combined with advising them to make a public statement of how much money they held, how much they owed, and where the money was being held.

That would be very different from Bitcoinica doing that unilaterally without any assurance that the funds were secure or, for that matter, actually exist.

If this was an inside job, the longer Bitcoinica holds the money without locking it down, the more risk there is that depositors will get an even lower recovery. Frankly, the funds should have been locked down securely *before* this last theft. If they were holding my money, I'd be really angry that they're not disclosing how much money they have, how much they owe, where that money is, and who is responsible for the shortfall and who is responsible for the disbursement of the remaining funds.

So are people fools for continuing to use Mt. Gox after they were hacked? Or do we decide who is a fool retroactively?

Except none of the victims chose anything. They were waiting to be refunded. To fit it into your analogy: Someone went out on a date with a guy, got raped by him, and then three weeks later, he broke into her house and raped her again. Now would you say the "victim was a complete idiot the second time around"?

The problem is that people have unrealistic expectations and beliefs. Even if Mt. Gox were very stable financially and had assets that significantly exceeded deposits, I suspect a lot of their customers wouldn't be happy with the numbers because they expect complete segregation and 100% funding of Bitcoin deposits in Bitcoins. That's very expensive, and if Mt. Gox were to do it, it would likely cost them a lot of money that they would have to compensate for by raising rates. And all this would do is put them where most people assume they are anyway.

I believe this is a genuine market failure. We'd all be better off if at least the reputable firms disclosed this information and customers rationally evaluated them. But actually all this would do is make people assume the firms who didn't disclose are perfect and they'd see all the imperfections of the firms that did disclose. People expect to pay no storage fee. People expect to pay no account maintenance fee. People compare exchanges largely on commission rates.

And when an exchange or eWallet absconds with deposits, everyone blames the customers.