And they all happened to come from the same unknown person.
The same node reported all 3 blocks, but received them from different sources. if you're working out probabilities this might be important, use total number of miners to factor it in
The difficulty increases with the hashing power of the miners. This is why just the current block rate was needed to calculate the odds of 1 such event in 70 days. |
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Someone mind explaining to me why you have to claim them on your taxes?
I thought legally Bitcoin was in a grey area at the moment.
It is legally grey as a currency. As an asset its very clear - when it increases above what you paid for it, you are supposed to pay taxes on that. So, if you own assets like an old master painting, a vintage car, a hundred kilos of silver, and they all double in value - you pay tax on that gain??? Not in most countries. |
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PaulDonnelly, if you are staying in the Bitcoin forum you need to spend some time studying these: |
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Ultimately, I think centralization is not the essence of what those of us who want to avoid it actually loathe. We loathe coercion. After all, for whatever reason, we have violated directive #3 (I think - right? That was Stephen's example, right?) because, through some centralization, the community was able to reason with miners and thereby convince enough of them to switch to a broken client in order to save the masses of bitcoiners still on that version, unable to validate the good block that forked them over. There is a kind of coercion in that, but it depended on the cooperation of the miners and isn't something I would call coercion because no rights of anyone were violated or threatened to be violated.
IMHO, I think coercion is too strong a term. BTC Guild had some 25% of the hashing power and 60% recognized the large problem block. So it was up to BTC Guild alone to decide what they wanted to do, and they obviously gave weight to the opinion of core dev. This was an unusual situation resolved by actions which did not strictly violate the principles which support #3. |
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1) I don't sense that everyone agrees with directive #1. Or at least the degree to which it is important varies widely even among those who can conceptualize high traffic systems and the magnitude of various economies.
Perhaps the perceived degree of support for #1 is really the question of what defines centralization (conversely decentralization): Consider 10,000 nodes of which 1,000 are mining, all owned by individuals. Does that have the same decentralization as 10,000 nodes (1,000 mining) owned by companies, organizations and co-operatives? |
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Wtf we already went through 50?!? Was the wall pulled or bought?
25k BTC originally, whittled to 19k, then 10k pulled, market took a breath at 3k, and then chewed it up! |
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$50 wall down to 6100. Destruction!
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Many thanks for your diligence. Some in userspace tend to forget that would be no Bitcoin but for the efforts and cooperation of the development and mining communities.
Agreed. Fast work and much more helpful than the "contributions" made by the authors of the anti-dev threads. |
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What makes you guys so sure the this little flurry was down to the $1m claim? As I left work it looked to me like it was about to go off (walls moving northward) and was not surprised at all that it had shot up with some pretty active trading by the time I got home...
Yes, and Gavin's 0.8.1 announcement, a route forward from the chainfork problem, is more likely to have influenced a new spike. Bitcoin progress continues... |
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$50 coming soon, only 23k BTC away...  19k BTC now, wall erosion underway... |
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..Bitcoin will get where it wants to go eventually no reason to force it at every chance you get and wind up with everything crushed by regulators and gigantic banks.
It's called beating them at their own game. You can't beat them if you just lurk in the sidelines. ..< MAKES YOU SUBJECT TO A WHOLE RAFT OF LAWS>>>>
We can't all live off-grid like you and John Connor. |
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grau, I understand the rationale of this suggestion, but here I think we have to agree to disagree.
You are discussing currency rankings for standardized cross-rate quoting, which has an interesting history.
The first properly quoted currency pair was GBPUSD, still known as cable, for which real-time quotes became possible in the 1800s when a telegraph cable was laid across the North Atlantic. Because sterling was the reserve currency at the time this rate was 1 GBP = n USD. Despite the USD becoming reserve currency the rate convention remained the same, and even the Australian and New Zealand dollars were ranked above the USD when they were invented and split off from sterling in the 1960s. GBP remained top ranked until Jan 1st 1999 when the euro became a currency (for financial transactions). The EU wanted EURXXX so that all currencies were quoted to 1 euro. Some banks in London rebelled, led by RBS, tried to make an exception for GBPEUR, but the market won out and they failed. So the euro elbowed sterling off the top rank.
Enter Bitcoin. In 2009 Bitcoin was first issued and the convention of BTCXXX has resulted, the market always quotes other currencies to 1 BTC. So Bitcoin has elbowed the euro off the top rank. I think this is how it should be as Bitcoin has gone from the world's weakest to strongest currency (per unit purchasing power) on its own merits!
This means that the XBTUSD rate would be .000047 at present, which is unwieldy today, but they may be 1:1 in 20 or 30 years time!
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Since you recognized that accounting systems require divisibility by not more than 100, it is straightforward that such unit should be the main unit carrying the only ISO code.
grau, your input has been invaluable, thanks! You have the identified the crucial factor which prevents Bitcoin from becoming integrated into mainstream finance, and that is the 8 decimal places of precision required which is beyond 99.9% of the world's accounting systems. The debate about numerical representation of dollar amounts is interesting reading: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/61872/use-float-or-decimal-for-accounting-application-dollar-amountFurther, because over 80% of the world's financial transactions are processed in COBOL systems the inertia of maximum 2dp currency amounts is impossible to overcome in the next 20 years, at least. This explains it well: http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/programmings-second-oldest-profession/144636So, I concur, XBT alone would be sufficient as an ISO code for Bitcoin if it defines 100 satoshi or one millionth of a BTC. This means that Bitcoin amounts and transactions can be easily and quickly supported in the world's mainstream financial systems. BTC is fine as an informal code for customer-facing usage, just as YEN is used instead of JPY. However, the extra step of multiplying/dividing by 10^6 will need doing as well for conversion to/from XBT by these systems for subsequent processing. I believe this is the essential part of the next proposal to SIX to get Bitcoin its ISO recognition. |
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Are you willing to prove that?
Come on, if you're as smart as you think you are, you can find all the proof you need  That was all the proof I needed. Proof enough for me too. That station platform is getting really crowded with all the people who missed the train. They just make a moaning noise while waiting for it to reverse back so they can get on board, when it is already half-way down the track to Hundred Dollar City. |
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Whether you:
a. force 0.8 to reject valid blocks which it predicts 0.7 cannot process
b. force 0.8 to not generate blocks which it predicts 0.7 cannot process
What about b. with an expiry date of say 60 days? So 0.8.1 is released compatible with the predicted behavior of 0.7, and miners are asked please upgrade to it within the time period offered. |
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Yes, FX markets that usually have 1/10000 BUT the accounting and bookkeeping software of banks and others do not.
I guarantee you, since had been working in biggest banks for decades, that they mostly can not deal with money fraction below 1/100, they can however deal with billions.
Please read again, I suggested to use the iso code XBT to be equal 100 satoshi, that means satoshi is the "cent" that does not need a code. 1 BTC would be 1 million XBT
You are right that an ISO code is needed for accounting systems which only support 1/100, because precision cannot be lost through rounding on Bitcoin amounts. However, this needs yet another code, like XBH for 100 satoshi. There is too much inertia in the marketplace for quoting the fx rate between Bitcoin and fiat currencies as 1:1 and I can't see people changing that. So front-office systems will need to translate the ISO code on executions for back-office accounting systems. So for Bitcoin to be acceptable in all computer systems then it seems that these are needed: XBT = 1 BTC XBH = 100 satoshi And IT teams just need to work with those depending on the systems they have. Sounds reasonable? |
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XBS could be used for 1 satoshi, however XBT needs to equal 1 BTC.
I think the purpose of this initiative to open for mainstream. I can tell from long experience with banking software, that dealing with fractions less than 1/100 for money is a challenge to them! It is however not to deal with billions. If we do this change to open for mainstream, then let us define XBT as 100 satoshi. This would fit perfectly with existing infrastructure and familiar to people. USDXBT (again using FX market standard conventions) would be about 20,000 now and declining as XBT strengthens expressing nicely that USD falls. I see where you are coming from. I too have long experience with banking software and I agree a lot of them are limited in this respect, but mostly the 3GL mainframe systems. Newer (21st century) systems are more flexible. In FX trading it is common to quote in pips to 5dp or 6dp, check out oanda.com for example: http://fxtrade.oanda.co.uk/?&stop-geo-ip=yes&country=united%20kingdom&division=fxtrade.oanda.co.ukThey should be able to cope with Bitcoin's decimals. It would just be too weird to have an ISO code for a value (1/100) which did not equal either the major or minor currency unit. Solex, compliments for your efforts! I believe that everything that will make Bitcoin more mainstream will significantly strengthen the project and improve the chance that we will be using it fifty years from now.
Thanks! I agree this is the way forward to help cement Bitcoin's future. |
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The 21st century way to do things is to give the currency a URL. At the W3C Payments group we are going to add all the 3 letter ISOs to https://w3id.org/ and we'd probably be happy to add BTC (or other 3 letter code) to that list if you wanted a permanent ID there. The principle here is that the web plays a role in removing gatekeepers, squatters and high barriers to entry like the ISO system... This is excellent! If you would check, and hopefully register these for Bitcoin that would be a great start. XBT Bitcoin ISO currency code (application pending) BTC Bitcoin currency code (informal use) Please let us know if they would be accepted. I vote to keep BTC and use XBT for millibitcoin so that 1000 XBT = 1 BTC. ...
ArticMine, BitPirate and grau Informal ISO codes can be assigned for minor units. USX and GBX are sometimes used for cents and pence, Sometimes USc and GBp, it depends on the data vendors and banks. XBS could be used for 1 satoshi. However 1 XBT needs to equal 1 BTC. |
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...So now what, is the Bitcoin Foundation going to lobby for XBT? Seems like an excellent job for them.
Yes, indeed, I will ask them. A letter from the Bitcoin Foundation would carry more weight than from anyone else. However, I now understand that last year SIX rejected a request to give Bitcoin an ISO code, but I don't know where the request came from or the code(s) suggested. The poll has only been going 8 days yet there is a consensus that an X-code is warranted and XBT is the front-runner of those. There are several fronts in this war of attrition. 1. Bitcoin's monetary base (in USD) is now over $500 million which can't be ignored, and may even get to 10 figures this year, so a new request to SIX can point this out. 2. Mainstream partner banks of bitcoin firms could be asked to write a letter of support for a Bitcoin ISO code. These letters would be submitted with a new application to SIX, and they would help a lot, as these are the firms which the standards agency is meant to represent. 3. MagicalTux has indicated that Mt.Gox would consider supporting a new ISO code in addition to the existing BTC. If other major Bitcoin firms were to also support XBT as an alternate code then it would have a snowball effect. Every time a mainstream financial company decides to look at using Bitcoin they could be given XBT and told the official application is pending. This would be good enough to get some of them using it anyway, If enough firms used XBT then the pressure for it to be officially recognized would be overwhelming. |
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