You might as well ask, what's the point of using untraceable cash if you're just going to put it in an easily traceable bank account? The answer is the same in both cases: bitcoins and cash are both more convenient than other ways of moving money around. No exorbitant fees, no daily withdrawal limits, no risk of chargebacks, no risk of identity theft, no waiting forever for transactions to clear, etc. The potential for anonymity is just a side benefit, which not everybody wants or needs to take advantage of. They can use bitcoins any way they want for any reasons they want, regardless of what other people think. That is the way it is supposed to be.

7 char vanity address. The "goog" is almost certainly just a coincidence. I can see someone wanting an address starting with 12345678, but why would they go for 12345678goog? There's no way it was deliberate.

Not a real address, it is literally just the number 0 encoded as a bitcoin address. It's nice that someone's sent some coins to it, though. If those coins ever go anywhere, it'll constitute absolute proof that the whole system is completely broken and we're all doomed.

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32)
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LrwvS943GgsqSbdoKZWdTnfnEq+UaGo+Qfv66NpT3Yl0CXUiNBITZOJcJdjHDTBO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=3FTe
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

Nope. The version line is not actually a portion of the key, it exists solely to indicate to the user (not the software) whether there are likely to be any compatibility problems importing the key. You can replace it with anything you want and it'll still work. The actual key format is the same as that used by most older versions of GnuPG, so that doesn't help determine what version of GnuPG was really used. The file is an ASCII text file with DOS/Windows line breaks, but that also is easy enough to alter (even accidentally: just opening and re-saving the file on a Windows machine will do it).

So, does Satoshi Nakamoto really use Windows? Or is someone just trying to make it look like he does in order to tarnish his reputation? Is Satoshi himself trying to make it look like he uses Windows in order to throw investigators off the scent? Will someone else come up with an even crazier explanation? We may never know.

Your example is incorrect. Transaction 4 requires only 1 previous output, since D received BTC1 in a single transaction (transaction 3) from B. The fact that transaction 3 used multiple inputs makes no difference, since it consolidated them into a single output. In your actual transaction, you sent BTC6 to 12yEB7J93XtgXVM343fPdzYw38ZLgE5U2t, and now the owner of that address has a single BTC6 output that he can spend without creating an enormous transaction. In this way, as bitcoins change hands, they consolidate themselves into whatever amounts people are spending them in. It is not true that they just keep getting split into smaller and smaller pieces as time goes on.

As for your situation, if you really wanted to, you could send all your bitcoins to yourself in one huge transaction, after which your future transactions will be smaller, but that would incur an even greater fee than if you just spent your bitcoins normally, so there's no point in doing this. You just have to get used to the fact that Bitcoin simply isn't meant for microtransactions, and anyone who insists on using it for that purpose just has to accept the higher fees that this usage requires.

$150, though by that time it will only be worth enough to buy 3 cigarettes and a stick of gum.

Yes.

Yes.

For a block to be solved, its hash must be lower than the "target", which is basically the inverse of the difficulty. It takes, on average, (difficulty * 2^32) hash attempts to solve a block.

The time taken to solve the last 2016 blocks. It should take exactly 2 weeks to solve 2016 blocks. If it actually took less time than this, the difficulty for the next 2016 blocks is increased in proportion to the time taken (eg, if it took only 1 week to solve the last 2016 blocks, the difficulty would double); if it took longer than 2 weeks, the difficulty is decreased. This ensures that blocks are solved, on average, once every 10 minutes.

This figure is calculated by multiplying the current difficulty by (2^32 / 600) and is only an estimate of the network hashrate. Since difficulty is a determined by the average time taken to solve blocks, and since solving blocks is essentially random, it is possible that the network hashrate is actually lower and miners are just getting lucky, or the network hashrate could be higher and miners are unlucky. But it should be accurate on average.

PetaFLOPS = Quadrillions of FLoating point Operations per Second. It is a standard measure of supercomputer power. It is calculated by multiplying the network hashrate by the number of floating point operations a typical supercomputer could perform in the time taken to hash a block. Note that mining does not actually involve floating point operations, and some mining hardware doesn't even have the capability to perform floating point operations at all, so this number is completely meaningless.

The difficulty adjustment tries to ensure that 52500 blocks are solved per year, though since solving blocks is a random process, the number of blocks solved in any given year varies and cannot be predicted exactly. Currently, the mining reward is BTC50 per block (BTC2625000 per year), and halves every 210000 blocks (every 4 years, on average).

Key events can only be received by whichever application has keyboard focus. They cannot be accessed by other programs without admin privileges.

Sending key events and receiving those sent to other programs are two different things. The latter is not normally possible under any sane operating system. If you're asking about the possibility that such programs might log their own input, then yes, this is possible, but entering passwords directly into another application is kinda dumb.

That depends on what you mean by "get onto your machine". It's much harder to install a keylogger than it is to just read files. Installing a hardware keylogger requires physical access to the machine, and a software keylogger requires direct access to the keyboard driver, which requires administrator privileges on any sane operating system (though if you're in the habit of giving admin privileges to any random program that asks for it, you're screwed).

Since I started using Bitcoin, I now have more money and can spend it more freely. It's not exactly dramatic or life-changing, but it's the little things that make all the difference.

No. There is no such thing as direct debit with Bitcoin.

This would be extremely dangerous for obvious reasons, and is not even possible in a completely automated fashion if the wallet is encrypted, since that makes it completely impossible to make a payment without requiring the user to enter the passphrase. Any system which allows payments to be made without the user's passphrase, or which randomly pops up a dialog asking for the user's wallet passphrase (and thus conditioning users to enter their passphrase without checking the transaction details) is asking for trouble. And by "trouble", I mean you'll lose all your money with no hope of ever getting it back and if you complain about it here we'll just laugh and say "I told you so" and then you'll get upset that we're not being more supportive. And that's not a good outcome for anyone.

Remember, this is real money you're talking about. Bitcoin is not a bank, there is no deposit insurance, and all transasctions are irreversible. If your money is lost or stolen, you're never going to get it back. Security must always take precedence over "cool" features, because losing all your money isn't cool.

Generally, there are two types of taxes you might have to pay on bitcoins:

1) Capital gains tax: If you buy bitcoins and later sell them or spend them*, you have to pay tax on the difference between the value of the bitcoins when you bought them and value of the bitcoins when you sold/spent them.
2) Income tax: If you earn or mine bitcoins, they count as regular income which you have to pay tax on. However, you do not have to pay an additional tax when you sell or spend bitcoins aquired in this manner.

Now, it gets a little tricky when you're buying and earning bitcoins, as well as dealing with price fluctuations, and this is where having a good accountant comes in handy.

*Exchanging any kind of property for any other kind of property counts as a "realisation event" as far as capital gains tax is concerned; it makes no difference whatsoever whether you exchanged it for cash or not. Spending bitcoins directly does not provide a loophole to avoid having to pay tax.

Agreed. People need to be more careful to say things which could not be quoted out of context. They actually said:They then go on to explain that this is not actually what they mean, and that they may consider accepting Bitcoin in the future, presumably once their lawyers/accountants figure out the relevant legal requirements. The thread title is quoting them as saying the exact opposite of what they actually said.

Wouldn't making Bitcoin illegal push the price up, not down? Historically, prohibition has had little effect on demand for the prohibited goods, but has had a huge impact the available supply. Pretty much everything that has ever been made illegal has gone up in price as a direct result, resulting in huge profits for criminals. Probably not the intended effect.

There seems to be some confusion of the meaning of the term market capitisation as it applies to Bitcoin. It means exactly the same thing as it does in any other market. In particular, it does not represent the amount of money needed to "buy out" the entire market, which is impossible to measure by any means.

I don't think the term outstanding shares means what you think it does. Outstanding shares are shares which have been acquired by, and are currently owned by, members of the public, as opposed to the issuer. Outstanding shares are not limited to those which are actively being traded, they also include those which are being hoarded and those which have been lost (since the owner of lost shares could (theoretically) find them again). In the case of Bitcoin, outstanding shares are all the bitcoins that have ever been mined (currently a little over 9 million) out of the 21 million bitcoins "issued". There's nothing more to it than that. Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this further, but I really don't see how there's anything further to discuss. Market capitalisation is a simple concept, perhaps too simple, since people seem to want to draw some kind of deeper meaning from it that just doesn't exist.

Market capitalisation is calculated by multiplying the current trade price by the total number of shares that have been distributed. It is by no means an accurate representation of the total value of a particular market, but it's the best we've got.

I have a problem with my dollar. It's not worth as much as it was when I got it. Who is this SOMEONE who is responsible? Do they have a complaint hotline?

Actually, currency exchange is something that Bitcoin is (or, rather, will be once it is more widely accepted) really useful for. No need to take credit cards or foreign cash when travelling: just take bitcoins and exchange it for the local currency at your destination. No need to worry about theft or identity fraud or exorbitant fees or capital controls; just use Bitcoin and all the problems currently associated with currency exchange disappear. Remittance is also a prime candidate for Bitcoin use. In fact, if all Bitcoin was good for was currency exchange, that would still make it pretty darn useful in my book.

Of course, if you're worried that it'll be too easy, then fear not. I'm sure governments are going to do everything in their power to make it as difficult as possible.

No it isn't. Legally, a "guarantee" is just a promise to pay a certain amount of money if they can't meet their obligations. So presumably, their 100% server uptime guarantee means they'll compensate users no questions asked if the server ever goes down (though the liability limitation in their TOC specifically excludes "damages", so any compensation would be limited to just a refund). Seems perfectly reasonable to me. It's like those 100% customer satisfaction guarantees: it doesn't mean 100% of customers will be satisfied, just that the ones who aren't satisfied will get their money back.