I love this idea.

Have you talked to kickstarter or Indiegogo about doing a partnership and releasing projects on their sites and yours at the same time?  Maybe you could work together with them so that they could accept bitcoins by proxy through your site?  Partnerships could be pretty big to drive traffic.

I agree that strong anonymity is valuable, but I disagree that anonymity should be the de-facto standard for how crypto-currencies operate.  We should use it when we need it.  I don't think the creators of the bitcoin protocol ever placed anonymity as a preeminent design goal.  There are lots of methods like what you discussed hearing about at the conference.  (It's AWESOME that you went, by the way.  I'm jealous). 

Maybe I'm wishing here, but I'd like to think that bitcoin will become a viable challenger to credit cards and wire transfers. 

I don't see that kind of mainstream adoption happening though if we can't beat the PR stigma of a "currency used for buying drugs and laundering money".  Doesn't matter if its true or not.  Crossing the chasm between the early adopters and mainstream non-technical users is a battle for public perception.  Don't you think that standing on the cornerstone of anonymity calls our motives into question?

We've already seen people targeted for large scale bitcoin thefts.  The information is available to those that have the skills to find it.

However, the danger is not lost on me.  Having everyone's data publicly viewable might do more harm than good.  I personally would still want to see what addresses are linked to me, though.  It's in the same vein as wanting to know what my credit report looks like.

Building bridges between the government and existing financial systems absolutely does create a more viable currency.  You SHOULD care if governments accept bitcoins or not because that will have a direct impact on their value and longevity as a storage of wealth. 

I'm assuming the "dogs" in your comment are supposed to be the governments that track revenues for the sake of collecting taxes?  If you currently pay taxes in any way, shape or form you're already "lying down with the dogs" on some level.  Might as well be the top dog if you're there.

I find the idea of a central bitcoin database vile, myself.  I really do.  I'm just looking ahead a year or two and this is where I expect things will be going.  I'll admit that there a lot of people smarter than me on these forums, so I'm happy to be wrong, but creating new addresses for each transaction probably does NOT make you anonymous, especially if you actually use your bitcoins for things that link you to an identity. 

Read http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.4524v2.pdf for a more detailed explanation on why real anonymity is something you have to work hard at with bitcoins. 

Law enforcement is already using bitcoin addresses to ID drug traffickers and even seizing bitcoins

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2357954/First-Bitcoin-bust-Feds-seize-electronic-currency-connection-shadowy-internet-drug-bazaar-Silk-Road.html

Let's throw that case out though, for the sake of argument, and say that the guy arrested just didn't cover his tracks.

If at ANY time in the future, someone or some algorithm does start to connect the dots, then every transaction you've ever made leads back to you (unique addresses or not).  I'm not saying that it finds every address out there you own.  Obviously that's not possible, but it does link income and expenditures to you.  That makes it likely that a government is going to want a piece.  Whether its a piece of 1 BTC or a piece of 100 BTC will depend on how well you isolated yourself.  For a variety of reasons, it makes sense to know what addresses are linked to your ID and which are "undeclared".  No?

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm reading about the U.S. senate requesting that the Dept. of Homeland Security "look into this bitcoin thing".  If they aren't already, I'm sure they are going to start putting together a database matching bitcoin addresses with people's real identities.  They almost NEED to in order to comply with the Anti-money laundering legislation that the U.S. has in effect.  Other countries are bound to follow suit.  In the spirit of staving off a whole bunch of secret government surveillance programs, I'm wondering if we should beat them all to the punch.

I'm suggesting that we put together a public, searchable database that cross references people's identities with their bitcoin addresses.  Sort of like a yellow pages for bitcoin.

There will always be bitcoin laundry providers for people that need anonymity, but shouldn't those of us that aren't buying pot from the Dread Pirate Roberts be willing to build a bridge to the inevitable government push towards data collection?  Governments have been collecting information on people's revenue since the dawn of civilization and I think its naive that they won't figure out SOME way to do it with virtual currencies.    I love the idea of tax free income via bitcoin, but I also know that if bitcoins were more easily taxed then governments would be much more likely to start accepting it. 

Should we take a hit on our perceived anonymity for the sake of creating a more viable currency?

I'm totally with you.  It's not the most compelling branding for a new product.  I'm sure they'll come up with something better if it gets to market.  I bet the inventor of the "artificial felt-covered warming device" never considered calling it a "Snuggie" until later.

I actually though for a moment that it was dispensing some kind of "Bitcoin Fluid" and I was like,

"Oh man...just when I thought I understood this crazy thing...there's a FLUID?!?"

I laughed hard at this comment.  It does seem that bitcoins attract quite a bit of the "intellectual" crowd.  I'm a hardware hacker myself and I get inspiration from things like this.  Well done Mr. Schroder.

 

I'd like to see a pro's and cons modification to the list from the perspective of professional miners.  I'm looking into setting up a pretty large mining farm and it would be great to know people's perspectives on which coins are effectively protected from ASICs, or which ones have a high potential for future value based on the improvements they've made on the BTC protocol.

Kind of like an OP ED piece from a place of experience.  It's sometimes hard to tell who has valid opinions based on experience as I wade through these forums.

I don't think I've ever seen the word "soddisfacent" before.  Is that english?  I see that there is an Italian word that is similar which means "satisfactory".  Does that mean you are not looking for investors?

We need a more organized way of confirming the validity of bitcoin sites, like Angie's list for bitcoin.  Anyone know of such a thing?

Fantastic Idea.  I'll chip in some BTC just to help you succeed!

Paypal is a disappointment.  Sorry for your loss.

Nothing in cryptocurrency is a safe long term investment right now because there are heavy traders controlling pricing with bots and high volume. 

If you're interested in higher risk/higher reward investments, you might try day trading for penny stocks also.   

I'll second some posters here recommending silver as well, its well below the long-term trend line right now.

Unfortunately this is a bad idea.  Lack of escrow is not the problem.  Payment reversals due to Paypal disputes is the problem.  This can happen well after escrow has closed.  The ONLY thing that can potentially help you as a seller is the mailing of a tangible item to the buyer's verified Paypal address.  There is no way Paypal will possibly side with you on a dispute if you don't have evidence of that shipment. Again, Paypal will not even consider your case if you don't have proof of mailing a tangible good to a verified address. 

From my experience, eBay is actually pretty vigilant about policing its auctions.  If its against their terms of use, the auction will get taken down 90% of the time.  I've never been in that 10% myself.  I've listed other grey area items items that I didn't realize were TOS violations at the time, and every one has been taken down.  

On another note, I'm not finding the explicit prohibition in Paypal's Terms of Use against paying for bitcoins.  Do you know where I can find that?  They clearly state that they don't protect the seller in the case on non-tangible goods but I can't find anything explicitly related to bitcoin buying being a TOS violation.

Looks good.  Are you using Magento with the bitpay plugin for that site?

No.

Coinlab won't have a basis to sue you for trademark infringement unless you try to rip off their logo or something that legitimately threatens their business.  I think they just received $5 million in VC funding, so their probably focused on other things right now.

What is Labcoin?

Free Lotto!?!? 

I would be stupid not to throw my hat in the ring.

1H1e3ixb7zH7krp2pVpzSj7KC2RyGrGAMn

Thanks!

If you look at what is most profitable to mine in real time, some of the other scrypt based currencies seem to come out on top.  Litecoin is definitely an early leader but because of the number of people mining it, the profitability is dropping.  It wouldn't take much of a price swing to make another coin the best option in terms of return on your mining investment.

http://www.coinchoose.com/ has a great comparison chart for people looking to choose an alt coin to mine.