Nope.  Usually just means someone hit reply without doing "quote", like I just did here.

The title comes from the first post then.

There's a brokerage that lets me buy and sell stocks without having to pay any per-trade commissions.   They can offer this because the trades are not traded in real-time, on-demand but instead trades are grouped together, matched internally and remaining orders are sent to market twice a day.
 - https://www.folioinvesting.com/brokeragefeatures/window-trades.jsp

Because the bitcoin exchange rate is so volatile, I think that if there was some type of trading in equities listed with major exchanges (for bitcoins) it would probably need to start out like this.

So when there is net selling, the issuer would convert the fiat proceeds from selling at the market into bitcoins for crediting the seller's balances.  When there is net buying the bitcoins from the buyers accounts are converted to fiat and used to pay or the orders placed at the market.

But the cost of that Bitcoin-to-fiat (or vice-versa) conversion is known and the exchange costs are allocated proportionally to all shares traded.

That's not the ideal scenario for the individual trader (real-time trading based on the latest info results in the best pricing), but I bet the exchange rate risk is too high and no organization could justify taking on the exchange rate risk without some window trading method like this.

Here is another thread on the topic as well:

This is an ex-change (cryptoxchange closes shop)
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126732.0

You don't need to import a private key, you simply use Blockchain.info's API to redeem the private key on behalf of your customer.  Here's the API:


You would probably want to verify the amount of funds available to that address as if the amount is lower than the amount available, the change gets sent right back to the address it came from.

This could also be done with the Raw Transactions capability of the Bitcoin.org client v0.7 and higher, and thus eliminate any concern over sending a customer's private key to a third party service.

So you never need to import the private key, you simply spend it to the address generated for a specific transaction and that takes the place of the customer having to redeem the funds themselves first.

Bitpay is now integrated with Ecwid:
 - https://github.com/bitpay/ecwid-plugin

Back when there were mostly solo miners you could get a general feel by seeing where the generated coin hadn't moved.  But with payouts from pools, there's really no data showing how much of that gets cashed out.   With pools that pay out generated coin directly (e.g., Eligius and P2Pool) you can see this again, and perhaps assume these miners are typical and then extrapolate the results for all miners. 

But just because the generated coin moves doesn't mean it is cashed out -- it could simply mean it got moved to a savings wallet, for example.

Just simple variance would account for a decrease of that estimate level with no decrease in physical hashing capacity.

But I don't think there are many people adding either GPUs or FPGAs so anyone trying to beat the rush by selling their GPUs now could cause a net decrease to the amount of hashing capacity that exists.


The difficulty adjusts right before block 210,000 so if many Thash/s of capacity drop out that first adjust period will be brutal.  Not just for severity (i.e., a shock to many miners who learn that "halving" means half.   As in if your system is bringing in 0.4 BTC before it now brings in 0.2 BTC) but in duration.  The more capacity that drops out means the longer that first adjustment period persists.

Here was my play-by-play prediction made about a month ago:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118952.msg1278827#msg1278827

Looks like the first three are coming in as being fairly accurate.

Well, those who mine on GPUs and pay for electricity average rates or higher would mostly be forced to drop out.

When they drop out, the difficulty would drop.

That lower difficulty will make it so others who pay a lower rate (e.g., up to $0.07 per kWh) for electricity can continue mining at a profit after the halving event.


The reason we are currently at 24 Thash/s is not because that is the minimal level necessary to protect the Bitcoin network from a 51% attack, it is because with bitcoins issued at the rate of nearly $3 million USD worth each month, 25 Thash/s was the level of hardware acquisition that occurred from miners competing.

Is the bitcoin network just as protected from a 51% attack with a total of 12 Thash/s?   Probably.


Yes, the power consumption limits that were the upper ceiling for "hobbyist" and relatively "small-time" miners is gone with ASICs.  


Economically it doesn't make sense for someone to invest the millions of dollars in ASIC hardware to harm bitcoin or to double spend (which will harm bitcoin).  Not all actions are for economic reasons.  Having many ASICs distributed among many miners is the countering force.  The hash rate isn't busting out anywhere and at least two manufacturers now are claiming "real soon".

We'll know how this all pans out "real soon" I guess.

Will they continue to operate Mr. Bitcoins or will that be closing as well?  (That already lost TrustCash so no USD funding method, and they haven't done INR trading for a while either.)

Actually, most tax issues are relative to your specific jurisdiction(s).  And taxes on interest on loans is likely treated the same whether you are paid the interest in euro, gold, bitcoins or tulip bulbs even.

There is an article on the general tax topic though in the Bitcoin wiki:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance

Kind of related is the payment protocol being discussed for Bitcoin:

The currency exchange rates are usually provided by an official source, oftentimes the central banks.

What is the official source that Google could use?     There probably will need to be some proportional weighting method.  (e.g., for BTC/USD, something like 70% based on BTC/USD at Mt. Gox, 10% from BitSTAMP, 10% from BitFloor, 5% from CampBX, 5% from BitME.).

You are using the "collapse" word again.   I'm kind of perplexed as to why.

Miners either hold what they mine, sell it at an exchange, or to some degree, spend their mining proceeds within the bitcoin economy.  But that happens once.  After the miner spends those funds the funds are then spent.  Those coins are ultimately either bought by someone investing/speculating or they continue to circulate in the bitcoin economy.

Starting later this month, the currency issuance rate drops to a 12.5% level (at an annual rate).

So in the year that follows miners will either save, cash out or spend those 1.3 million coins that they earn.

 - If 100% of those funds are saved ("hoarded") by the miners then, of course, that will not cause "collapse".
 - If 100% of those funds are spent in the bitcoin economy, that will be fantastic, and will not cause a "collapse".
 - If 100% of those funds are cashed out immediately upon being earned by miners, that might keep the exchange rate subdued, but I can't think that is anywhere enough to cause "collapse".
 - And thus, if there is any combination of the above, there is nothing there that would cause a "collapse".

So where do you see low profits (or losses) to miners as being something that will cause Bitcoin's collapse?

Does anything from this reply from another thread help?

Perhaps there is some [edit: I am] misunderstanding here?

Take Baidu, for instance.  It is a Chinese search engine company headquartered in Beijing, China.

Here in the U.S. we can buy and sell shares of Baidu on NASDAQ as there is an ADR issue for Baidu
 - https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:BIDU

So if there was a broker that were to allow its customers to fund a brokerage account with bitcoins to trade on the NYSE or on Nasdaq (including any ADRs which trade there) then that would be good for bitcoin as that is another way that bitcoins can be used as a currency.

But that doesn't help someone in Canada, or China even.  That broker must still follow AML/KYC and I presume the broker is not able to serve customers (facilitate their investment) when the the customer is not from the U.S.


I see.  That's a different question.   You might be asking how bitcoin can be used to increase the investment options available to those who don't currently have many options for accessing capital markets.  For instance, even in the U.S. I cannot invest in options and futures contracts as my online brokerage requires that I sign some extra paperwork and maintain a large balance with my brokerage account.   But let's say I simply want to lock in today's price for crude oil, as I plan to buy a several hundred dollars worth of gas over each of the next few months and I fear the price of crude will go way up.    With my broker account, there is no way I can "lock in" to today's crude oil exchange rate (well, technically there are ETFs and other things that give me roughly the same thing, but let's just assume these are not available).  

Instead, I can put in $1,000 worth of bitcoins and buy nearly a dozen CLG3 contracts on ICBIT (each CLG3 contract is a future contract for a barrel of oil):
 - https://icbit.se/CLG3
ICBIT operates without the requirement that I sign any paperwork or maintain a large balance.  In fact, I could even buy a thousand dollars worth of these contracts with much less than a thousand dollars worth of bitcoins, thanks to ICBIT offering margin accounts.  Buying on margin is risky though (as might be investing in unregulated exchanges like this), but the point I am making is for the first time ever, I technically have the ability to invest in oil futures by simply going to the convenience store and paying for bitcoins, and minutes later I can hold an investment in crude oil.  If the price of oil skyrockets, I'm covered because my investment will increase in value as well.


I've no idea.  Both have had their skirmishes here on the forum.  (actually, so has ICBIT, and nearly every other securities- or investment-related instrument involving bitcoins).

But because bitcoins are simply used to transfer value, it doesn't matter if bitcoins represent just a little bit of or a lot of the trading at these forex firms.  You aren't speculating on the bitcoin exchange rate, you are simply using bitcoins to transfer value into (and out of) an account at the brokerage.  From there, the speculation is on whatever investment instrument is purchased.

This would create additional demand for bitcoins, sure.  And bitcoin becomes more stable when it is used for a wider and wider variety of purposes.  So, sure, this would help.

About the closest so far is the forex outfits that accept bitcoins to fund a brokerage account:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Forex

With a couple of them the bitcoins that arrive are converted to USDs or some other fiat for use in trading.   VenetFX apparently provides a way that when a position is entered, the purchase comes from the (leveraged) bitcoin balance and when a position is exited the proceeds are paid to the bitcoin account:
 - http://bit4x.com/faq.html

So in a way, what VenetFX/Bit4X is doing with regard to forex is about identical to the scenario where bitcoins are the funding mechanism for investing in (and cashing out of) ADRs.

There shouldn't be that much of a challenge to a broker offering this -- as long as regulations regarding AML/KYC and other restrictions are followed.

For inspiration:

 - https://metacpan.org/module/Software::License::DWTFYWWI
 - http://api.metacpan.org/source/AVAR/Software-License-DWTFYWWI-0.01/lib/Software/License/DWTFYWWI.pm

If you are considering requests ... now that the site uses accounts the "Forgot Password" recovery tool would be useful.
 - https://fastcash4bitcoins.com/forgot.aspx

2012-11-15 Mondato.com - US Elections & The Rise Of Mobile Donations

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126577.0