And because of those coming back to BTC mining after giving LTC mining a try.

But yes, with the exchange rate up 10% and difficulty dropped by a small amount ... today it is marginally better than it was two weeks ago.

Though the ASIC onslaught continues unabated.   Not every promised ASIC design needs to ship to finish off GPUs, ... just one actually shipping will do that.

Or even some souped up FPGA monster.  Such as what yohan says they've got.  From another thread:

Of people reporting having made this mistake (accidentally sending to the wrong address), every one that I know of has ended up recovering the funds (less bounty / etc.).    Contrast that to how nearly no thief has been tracked down through info obtained through the blockchain.

On the occasions that I put a buy offer on #bitcoin-otc marketplace I use the "{mtgoxlast}" macro substitution so that the exchange rate will fluctuate with the market rate.

Though you had put out a fixed exchange rate, this fluctuating rate could still be offered.  This is because the mtgox trading history is publicly available and has a timestamp (i.e., can be independently verified).

But I hate seeing a third-party data source being relied on in ways it wasn't designed to be.  There's no service agreement from blockchain.info that the timestamp displayed won't change (e.g., if had to re-index the database perhaps).   And the quote data from Mt. Gox has historically not been pure as well (trades getting cancelled).  

But these things occur with other trading systems and agreements so there's ways to deal with them, including acknowledging there is the risk someone will sell to you during a trade spike way above what ends up being the VWAP or similar less-volatile price method.

There are places to list your offer or find a trade as well. Such as:
 - https://localbitcoins.com/location/UK/london/

UK Bitcoin group on Facebook:
 - https://www.facebook.com/groups/300065276761228/

IRC:
 - http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-otc-uk

And there are frequently threads with buyers and sellers:



[Edit: And user Tenakha does cash trades and bank transfer as well:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=65105 ]

Does even Kenya's M-PESA (where Pesa is Swahili for "money") even offer a mode where it can be used in Swahili?

Fortunately, bitcoin is universal.  A 500 mBTC is the same in Nairobi as it is in Newark. But yes, no doubt, localizations will help increase bitcoin's reach to the rest of the world.

ModLog provides some transparency here:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/modlog.php

Deleting threads - Log the Title, URL, date deleted, deleted by, and reason
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=115662.0

Just to make sure that isn't misunderstood, you don't mean traditional coin debasement methods where alloys are introduced like how a 1964 U.S. quarter had 90% silver content, but a 1965 quarter of the same shape, size and appearance had been debased with a copper and nickel coin with no silver content whatsoever.

Instead what the Liberty Dollar did was change the denomination stamped on the coin.  The earlier 1 ounce silver coin was stamped $10.  The later 1 ounce silver coin was stamped $20.






The price charged for an item in terms of Liberty Dollars though would fluctuate depending on the exchange rate for silver.

So a 2005 (1 ounce silver) $10 Liberty Dollar pictured above would (presumably) buy the same amount of goods and services that the 2006 (1 ounce silver) $20 Liberty Dollar would.

Just an FYI, Dwolla added "Guest Checkout".

What this does is allow someone without a Dwolla account to enter their bank details and submit a transaction without registering through Dwolla.

 - http://blog.dwolla.com/guest-checkout/
 - http://developers.dwolla.com/dev/docs/gateway#submit-directly

What I haven't been able to figure out is when the funds become available to the merchant.  I'm presuming this does not occur until the bank transaction completed several business days later.

But this can provide a method for someone here with a Dwolla account (configured as a merchant) to accept Dwolla funds from people who might not yet already have a Dwolla account.

[Edit: Thought keep in mind the chances of a fraudulent payment is likely higher with these type of "guest checkout" transactions.]

 - https://btc-e.com/exchange/nmc_btc
 - https://exchange.bitparking.com/main

For future reference, BitInstant now has its own thread in the Newbie board for handling customer support requests:

Official Newbie BitInstant Support Thread (Active Customer Support)
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128314.0

The factors that matter in order to give you the best answer include:

 - Where are you located (country)?
 - How much are you looking to buy?
 - What payment methods do you have available?
 - How soon do you need access to the proceeds?
 - Is privacy important?

A fairly comprehensive list of options is compiled here:

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins

In the U.S., if there is a Chase bank branch around, BitMe.com is probably your best option for a purchase of $30-ish of coins.  

If you are in the U.S. and have a bank account you might want to get started on a Dwolla account, but that won't help you for 30 days due to Dwolla's 30-day probation period for new accounts with respect to Bitcoin exchanges.  But after that, Dwolla gives you the cheapest method to buy coins in the future.

I think that's probably where you are misunderstanding what options are available to you.

There are nearly no sellers who accept a payment card for the purchase of bitcoins.

The few that do will definitely have their merchant account name appear on your bank statement.  For instance, VirWoX:
 - http://www.VirWoX.com    <---   Buy Second Life Lindens (SLLs) then trade SLLs for BTCs.

LiqPay is another, used by BTC-e.com for instance.

Here's another ... but they have a delay of delivery from five to eight days:
 - http://www.bitcoinroad.com/bitcoin-store.html

The wallet is spent now so I'll share the URL:

 - https://bitcoinvideopoker.com/?account_key=1040830816df7889a97e9c090c6ba337

I played a couple dozen hands.  But now when I click the My Games it doesn't show anything.

This is on Chrome.  I didn't try any other browsers.

If your USB drive is a LiveOS (e.g., Ubuntu), then use that and copy copy of the html from BitAddress.org 

Then disconnect internet and boot to the LiveOS and load the html.

Print a few pages of paper wallets.  Print 2 copies of each.

Reboot.

Fund each with sane amounts (e.g., no more than 25 BTC each).

Store one copy in a secure location.  Store a second copy in another secure location or give to a loved one to hold on for you.

When you want to spend, from a secure computer (or using the LiveOS but connected to the internet), grab one of the paper wallets and redeem on Blockchain.info/wallet (import private key).  Done.

If you are talking more significant amounts of funds, there are additional approaches:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123727.msg1331697#msg1331697

I hadn't seen Jon Matonis' article from Forbes in this thread:

Prediction Market 'Bets Of Bitcoin' Available To U.S. Customers

- http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/12/06/prediction-market-bets-of-bitcoin-available-to-u-s-customers/

Also, Bets of Bitcoin was just references in an article by Verge's Adrianne Jeffreis on Intrade:

Intrade shutdown disrupts betting market on elections, air strikes, and celebrity arrests

- http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/11/3753082/intrade-shutdown-cftc-us-december-2012

My Games doesn't show any results.

And I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum.  Single-use paper Bitcoins are even better than paper currency.   The QR code is scanned and and the document discarded.   Either there were funds from it or there weren't.   For the change I get my local currency and coin, just as if I had paid cash.   Or I can show the public ("load & verify") QR code for my the next one and get a receipt from the merchant showing the address and the transaction id.

Yup.  If 1PyDNpaHGaAxazG13Xa7sESVeQbympLrHw is in there, you can take the corresponding private key over to another wallet or client and import it there and you'll have access to the funds.

This is serving as a front-end for transacting against a blockchain.info/wallet account.   The app asks for the username ("alias", I'm assuming, since blockchain.info/wallet only has "identifier" or "alias") and password.

Will this client be open source?

I would have serious concern over providing my Blockchain.info/wallet credentials to an app that is not open source.

Because even the Blockchain for Android app itself is closed source, I will only use it with a Blockchain.info/wallet account that doesn't hold a significant balance.

Since banks don't make much money from people who don't earn much money, as a bank if they can just impose enough fees to cause those account holders to close their accounts and go elsewhere, then they save themselves some headache and won't lose any significant business, because low income earners don't save much.

Does that seem acceptable to you?

The reason banks can't simply "cut off" these account holders is that the banking industry is protected from competition -- they are essentially granted a monopoly.  (i..e., You or I cannot start a bank [edit: even one that does not lending] because there is no way outsiders can put together the ginormous capital requirements required by the regulations).

So this is a righteous fight.  How dare they suppress a competitor in this manner.  In taking this action they are limiting my options as a consumer and as a monopoly player they can work together making it impossible for this competitor to serve its customers.

If I can open a bank next door, then I say fine let these financial dinosaurs serve their dying days milking their profitable customer base and whatever else they do, but until then we cannot allow banks to choose to serve only their most profitable customers and force the rest to go elsewhere.


Silence is acquiescence.  Thank you for not backing down.