Don't forget the "Bitcoin site, that has been under investigation".

"It will also mean balances held in euros by Bitcoin will be subject to the same protection and compensation laws as cash held in conventional banks."

Yes.. the great Bitcoin company will hold the money, that's totally how it works.

Most confused article on Bitcoin ever. It is really clear that some people have a set of boxes that they put things in and if it doesn't fit they will damn well get it to fit

lol "I paid myself 100 btc NOT 1000$ while paying others nothing.. SEE they WERE lying and I am the victim!"

Pathetic Vladimir. I know nothing about this case, but you have made yourself look very stupid and guilty.

I'm feeling rather good about my bet nobbynobbynoob (That's his name, page 4-5, I'm not making fun of him )

Just a 1.5 $ rise in value or ~10% in almost 2 months... Bitcoin has performed like that easily before.

But he gets inflation-theft... what is the mental state of all the millions that accept it gladly? 

Forgive me for being a noob and doing a necro here, but what is "VI"/"scriptlen", it does not say on the wiki either?

I am usually right, you should try it some day

I would explain my logic, but I doubt a guy with a hundred ignores or so would understand or want to.

Once the block reward is gone, or even just lowered short-term, mining should go towards a minimum as people choose as low fees as they can while maintaining speed and security on the network.

Bitcoin is far from a failed technology.

Yes I think planets and large intergalatic societies will trade very directly information streams and innovations sent directly. Just 10 years delays in messaging would make negotiating complex contracts impossible.
"You sent me the latest in laser weapons tech and will continue to send you the latest in fusion reactors" etc..

Bitcoin on Mars? Mars is worse than living on Antarctica so I doubt there will be much economy there for a long time. Maybe one day they would have their own chain though.

No, no; they have to prove they own the trusted address with a signature no one else could have.

Maybe they could just put data in the block like Satoshi did and the POT clients can read from that. It doesn't have to be a tx just some kind of cryptographically secure sig.

EDIT: Maybe just a signature of the hashed block put in blocks free text. POT clients could then easily re-use existing code to verify the true originator.

Well that actually makes sense.

I must admit I am a bit disappointed by how much time and effort the community is putting into mining while we still don't have a BTC credit card and the many other things Bitcoin needs done.

If all these geeks had spent half the energy they have spent on mining on something productive, BTC would be worth twice as much by now or more.

A month huh.. yeah I'm not moving along so fast I admit it. However:

1. I have a game plan right now that says:
   A. Program smard card with a simple pub address and make it send it to a win-PC terminal program (ZeitControl software, only runs on
       win-PC )
   B. Program full card program.
   C. Get it to work and all/maybe an open source protocol for this stuff.
   D. People could at this step accept my BTC credit cards using say a laptop or do their own terminals/cards based on protocol
   E. Get it to work on Android - not easy, but vital more long term.

2. I have now researched Bitcoin itself a bit and I believe I am ready to do this. I was confused about the scripting system and thought my
    card would need RipeMD160 (a pain in the butt) - however since the card does no validation it will NOT be necessary.

3. If I didn't mention it the ZC5 something cards will be necessary for their SHA256 on-card functionality. EC-koblitz1 I still have to do
    myself, but it is actually kinda simple. (Think of it as an equation with two unknowns and the correct solution being a signature )

So yeah, next time I post here I might have a little source code with me!

I doubt delays would do all that much as the longer chain would still win.

Also:
By requiring they also know the signature this is avoided - hence the special tx
An trust-faking attacker would not know the key.

All stuff with hash monitoring then also becomes unnecessary
What?

Maybe you could just send me cut hologram stickers and I could test on some metal plates of my own.

Maybe I will have time next time I buy some coins from you and I will let you know if I'm up to it.

Alright so I thought of something better than "Proof of Work" AND "Proof of Stake": "Proof of Trust".

Well really more a complimentary idea to Proof of Work (and no fork etc. needed).

The primary purpose is to remove the possibility of a 51% attack entirely, but it may also lower the "CPU burning" a little and reduce the need for it almost entirely. (It wont be needed, but people will alas compete for the fees)

So how does PoT work?
1. PoT miners will include a 1 satoshi tx to themselves going from the coinbase/fees.
2. PoT clients can then tell exactly "who" a block belongs to.
3. The 1 satoshi address/tx will be the same for all blocks from a particular miner/pool.
4. PoT clients will add a bunch of the large pools "ids" to their trusted list.
5. PoT clients will reject and not relay blocks IF:
6. It is not on the trusted list AND the last ~50 blocks were 49+% from untrusted sources.

Will it work with the current chain?
-> Yes, since they accept untrusted sources too unless there is a 51% attack everything will go smoothly.

Wont this create forks between different trust-lists?
-> No, because I don't hard-block anyone, I (a PoT client) just want to see a minimum from my trusted sources.
You can have your own trust-list and as long as we have just a little overlap we will be fine with each other and relay everything to each other.

Wont this require a Bitcoin-wide upgrade?
-> No, since PoT clients could simply regard non-conformers as "untrusted". Only the top 4 pools would need to be PoT.

Now lets throw a 51% attack against this system; ECB holds 60% and the top 20 various pools hold almost 40% (before the attack 100%):
1. The first 50 blocks the ECB makes go through no problem.
2. The world realizes something is happening.
3. It is accepted for a while and the ECB even added to PoT trust-lists.
4. The ECB now charge insane fees and reverses transactions.
5. PoT clients remove them from their trust-lists and start rejecting their blocks until trusted blocks are allowed also by the ECB.
6. PoT clients are now widespread among miners and BTC merchants/pros.
7. While a "hard fork" exists a while between PoT and non-PoT since merchants/pros accept only the PoT chain it becomes the standard chain.
8. The ECB remain in control of 49% of blocks, but by waiting a little longer your txs go through with no hassle.
9. Unicorns for everyone...

Identification is made harder as the attacker could relay blocks and appear to not have 51%.

However: IF the "attacker" is behaving nicely with reasonable fees, no reversals and even allows the blocks of competitors you are not really under a 51% attack.

Identification would be easy once you can't transact, fees are crazy, reversals happen or such.

Excellent point.

While I have many times said it would be "easy" to block a 51% attacker (such as government) it is NOT without cost. By locking out part of the network you slow things down and create forks between clients trusting different nodes.

Unless a full 51% attack is actually being executed, it makes no sense to the individual Bitcoiner to lock out anyone.

I am not worried about the product value nor am I in any way disappointed with it

When I was a kid though we would dissolve post stamp glue using warm water steam and gently lift them intact off the letter. Is this possible with your holograms or have you taken steps to prevent it?

(Warm water steam might not be the only way, heated alcohol or acetone steam might also work with even better glues.)

I might, honestly I was just joking around - the ideas of JoelKats might work just fine too.

Hmm yes, but according to Casascius I am now a coin collector holding priceless treasure, such crude measures might decrease the value of my coin

Actually that would make it the opposite:
BTC moving around at a rapid pace would mean changes to creation rate would mean little, but if new money is a large part of the "money that moves" so to speak and it is halved then the money that moves is close to halved  and supply for new-comers with $ thus greatly affected.

There is gonna be panic buying and I will laugh at you all. Maybe I could take you seriously if your "logic" was not always like this:

Less reward means fewer miner coins trying buy dollars for hardware upgrades/electrons/food - you can't price that in until it happens unless people have been investing a lot extra for the past 6 months continuously.
Price is not agreed on it is established by some in/out flow of BTC/$.

Doesn't matter: If I see a 51% attack and set my client to only trust the mtgox IP for instance then you can fake coming from all the IPs you want using TOR, but that will never get your block on my client.

It's funny I am called the pig here when other posters are displaying such immense ignorance of basic TOR/IP/internet function.

So I recently received two 5 BTC coins and I plan to buy some 1 BTC coins and use them all for a board game as tokens.

But back on topic; after playing around with them I realized that the tamper-proof hologram on the back is very thin and has the first-bits printed directly on top of it.

While this is fine for souvenir BTC coins I believe this design would be worn beyond readability in 4 years or less if used as say a BTC local currency. In fact in this time my last credit card had lost any trace of originally printed account numbers and was also starting to loose basic back color.

Since both the 1 and 5 BTC casascius coins cost ~0.2btc each it would be hugely expensive to use them as real coins as they would have to be replaced very often.
A 10.000 people small town using these coins might have to spend 3000 BTC/year just to maintain their coins.


When I look at these coins I think to myself "this is what scifi/future money looks like" - I want this to work. So I am thinking; could a clear plastic membrane/cover/spray be applied to the back or the hologram stickers themselves include a protective layer over the address?

In this way the cover would be worn first and the coin potentially last more than 10 years.


I realize most BTC transaction are and will remain electronic and that anyone with a mobile phone can accept BTC; still these coins could make sense in rural areas for the next 20 years and as a statement that fiat cash is never necessary.