Many people, including myself, have a vision of using BTC to make an unalterable timestamp of a file.

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Background for those unaware:
Unfakeable timestamping is easy to do with Bitcoin because you can just use a SHA256 of any file as a privatekey, import it, and then send BTC to it and back. The fact that you sent BTC to, and then from, the file's associated Bitcoin-key-and-address proves that you had access to the file at a certain time (the time of the transactions).

The low-tech, quick-and-dirty way is to:
1] SHA256 a file containing the contract/great ideas you want to take credit for later.
23e039cf88c6f2fe89415b938d62245af3f339ccf734d8d0c939422c7e4bb8b8

2] Hit up brainwallet.org
2.1] Convert Hex (hash) to Base58 using the convert tab of brainwallet.
5J65yxHPWGfNrXatL8gKwqhFJh9tAXKPmAxYHxFk8b9ACsxd9jS
2.2] Import this as a Private Key on the Generator tab of brainwallet...you will get an associated public key and Bitcoin Address.
1LHnjmyNPDmb9PopeBNrnhNTGVkVkhTGgY

3] Send some BTC to that address using your client.
4] Use brainwallet (transactions tab) to send that money back to your main wallet (the temp wallet created in 2.2 will not be secure when you release the file with all your great ideas, as anyone can hash it).

5] Wait patiently at http://blockexplorer.com/q/addressfirstseen/ for your BTC to show up in the network. Unfortunately this functionality has yet to be incorporated into open-source Abe (and I failed to replicate it myself).
http://blockexplorer.com/q/addressfirstseen/1LHnjmyNPDmb9PopeBNrnhNTGVkVkhTGgY
2013-01-28 05:30:09
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Previous discussion of this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52715.20
https://www.strongcoin.com/en/blog/using_the_blockchain_as_a_trusted_timestamping_service
Goblin invented a version of this, but I could not get it to work (sorry!): https://github.com/goblin/chronobit
Someone wrote a paper about this and related ideas: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&cad=rja&ved=0CC8QFjAAOAo&url=http%3A%2F%2Feprint.iacr.org%2F2011%2F677.pdf&ei=OwIGUcqoCarD0AHDy4D4Bg&usg=AFQjCNE53BUwzCopGFXB9lX7F4tOYEpyzw&bvm=bv.41524429,d.dmQ
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Personally, I envision this as something that would actually make a great core feature. Much in the way that gold is used in industry/jewelry (in addition to being a store of value and medium of exchange) Bitcoins can be used to timestamp files in an unalterable way for ~free (and used for sending international transfers for ~free, unfreezable assets, brain-storage, etc), in addition to being a store of value and medium of exchange.

Personally, I envision a drop down selection in the client GUI (for example **File > Timestamp File**) that just asks you for the path of the file. Easy to use, mainstream for everyone! Likely also a **File > Get File Time** to verify that a file was stamped. Obviously for this to happen there would need to be widespread community support.

Having millions of copies of proof of existance/ownership is way cooler than jewelry! Am I wrong? There are other minor benefits, like responding to people who say that "Bitcoins are inherently worthless / not 'backed' by anything" and helping to explain the sheer quantity of BTC addresses (at minimum 1 per possible MS Word document you could ever create) to people who worry about collisions or make similar arguments.

Your thoughts?

Note: I tried to code all of this myself but I ran into two snags, replicating /addressfirstseen/ and getting a ecdsa public key from a given private key (where is brainwallet.org getting 'G' to do the multiplication???). Im sure the core developers could do the whole thing in like 15 minutes if they wanted to, though, even if it needs to rely on blockexplorer.com's /addressfirstseen/  for now.

If I securely load 10 BTC onto a paper wallet today and put it in a safety deposit box for 10 years, could something happen to the Bitcoin protocol itself that would invalidate the balance or make it unrecoverable at the end of that period? (Other than Bitcoin going away altogether of course.)

Put another way: are there some predictable/foreseeable changes we can anticipate as Bitcoin gains popularity and scales such that I should expect to have to bring wallets out of storage and swipe them into newfangled wallets from time to time so as to preserve their validity?

Thanks for helping me understand this.

This article is one of the best & most intelligent articles I've read about why Bitcoin WON'T become the next currency:
https://medium.com/money-banking/2b5ef79482cb

That guy GETS Bitcoin, and he truly understands that it is NOT a currency. It is a commodity/investment.

It all comes down to the volatility and wild swings of Bitcoin pricing. Any item whose prices swing so wildly up & down can't be depended on for daily, routine transactions. Items that swing wildly up & down are considered speculative commodities (like gold), or a speculative investment (like the stock market).

Nobody wants to spend $5 on a loaf of bread today, only to realize that they could have gotten that same loaf of bread for 5 cents yesterday, or that they'll have to spend $500 tomorrow for that same loaf of bread. That just isn't how currency works.

Currency is STABLE. A loaf of bread is $5 today and it will be $5 tomorrow and it was $5 yesterday. If inflation happens, then MAYBE IN A YEAR'S TIME, that loaf of bread will cost me $5.05 in today's money. And MAYBE IN 2 YEAR'S TIME, that loaf of bread will cost me $5.10 in today's money. it's slow, predictable, stable, and dependable... because it's a real currency.

For Bitcoin to be actually be taken seriously as a real currency -- and not a commodity worth hoarding -- the price would have to become completely stable. And there's no indication that the price will ever stabilize. Ever.

Nobody is buying Bitcoins to spend them... people are buying Bitcoins to hoard them as speculative investments, just like gold or stocks. And that's why Bitcoin will not become anything rivaling currency.

Now, as long as everybody realizes that Bitcoin is nothing more than the equivalent of investing in gold, or playing the stock market, or playing at a casino craps table... then i think we're thinking about Bitcoin in the right way. We're all just playing the roulette table in one big casino. Nothing more, nothing less. Not that there's anything wrong with that... it's just important to know exactly what Bitcoin is.

Bitcoin is just like gold, but it's not nearly as precious because, come on, let's face it, we're basically buying & selling pac-man pellets here (as one other article perfectly nailed it).

Thoughts?

Is anybody willing to help? I'd like to try it out, but my forum account isn't old enough to qualify for their "giveaway".

Personally I think it would be prudent to look into different hashing algorithms.... once ASIC out for SHA256, LTC price rising.. only matter of time... what are the other algorithm options that could be considered??

Yea I have such a plan in my mind:)

There is a plan in my mind to create an altcoin which main goal is to distribute the new created coins in an as fair as possible way.

(For example one human one coin per day)
I know that’s not an easy task to design such an decentralized currency, and I know that we can’t start with 7 Billion humans at once, but hey, we are “Nerds” and who if not we can find a way to make this real?


For example: Imagine we start with a list of 100 humans. The old list is replaced if the new list gets double the votes than the old list. Voting with transactions can be realized in an simple an decentralized way. The more humans will join on this list the more it will get decentralized.

Perhaps it’s also thinkable to use this in the long run to secure the network itself. Imagine the ripple consensus algorithm combined with this list of humans, so you always would know how many on this list are agreeing on the current ledger.

Vocabulary https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133832.0

You can simply rename the wallet.dat on your current Bitcoin installation, and temporarily put a copy of this old backup wallet.dat there. When you launch bitcoin with the -rescan option, it will update the wallet to show the correct balance. You can then also send the wallet balance to a new address, if you never expect anyone to send your old wallet payments and want to discard the backup.

Then put the original Bitcoin wallet.dat back and make another dated backup while you are thinking about it!

Can I just ask.. is this stealing?

I mean people there avoid taxes all the time, but still depend on their government in some ways. The stupidity of it aside isnt this just a tax, without anything morally wrong with it?

I own the original PSD from the designer.

add this music to the background

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b11-37Me_a4

This is the best news all week. Rickards has always said that flight from the dollar is a done deal. Now that he's endorsed Bitcoin, many folks that heed his advice will see Bitcoin as a legitimate path away from the dollar equal to PMs.

I would compare bitcoin with a $7 stock that has a market capital of 800.000.000 U$S...
It's going up, but any big shot with, say, 100-500k can manipulate the stock considerably and pump it and dump it.
As the market capitalization of bitcoin grows, the currency will be resistant of those kinds of "attacks" and hopefully, the price, although it will continue to move up perpetually, it will slowdown considerably compared to today's volatility.

Anyway, a quicker answer to your questions is NO, it's not even close to being the strongest currency in the world.