I hear you Hazek. Sometimes I say it in the way you described, sometimes I say "no fees".  Again, because they're so tiny I don't see a signficiant difference between "no fee" and "super super tiny micro fee".

If you tell people that it has "extremely low fees" they are just as likely to think that means like, 1% or something, because that is extremely low for money transfer. Consider $10,000 transfers, and 1% becomes significant. But with Bitcoin, $1,000,000 can be sent with a "fee" of half a penny. As far as I'm concerned, this is a fee-free transfer.

See where I'm coming from?

Two answers:

1) Bitcoin can be sent without a fee. This is a fact.

2) The normal fee that is included with typical transactions is so god damn tiny that it may as well be nothing. A fee that is a fraction of a penny is not even worth discussing.

Hey all,

From the BitInstant trip to Macau, Roger and I got to sit down with the CalvinAyre.com people and do a quick video interview about Bitcoin. It's all very basic stuff, but CalvinAyre's demographic is the gambling community, so this is prime targeting at this point in Bitcoin's progression   And wow Angelia Ong was smokin!

"One of the more popular discussion panels at the recent Social Gaming Asia Summit 2012 featured BitInstant’s Erik Voorhees and Roger Ver discussing the Bitcoin ‘crypto currency’ and its potential impact on the global gaming industry. The dynamic duo wowed attendees with their description of a payment system that offered both transnational convenience, security and anonymity. CalvinAyre.com’s roving reporter Angelia Ong was sufficiently intrigued to corral Voorhees and Ver for an in-depth followup."

http://calvinayre.com/2012/12/21/business/bitcoins-impact-on-global-gaming-industry-ao-vid/

Is it too late to get into Bitcoin mining?

Yes. Just like it is too late to get into gold mining. It's not for newbs.

Doesn't take two weeks. It takes one hour:

1) Go to BitInstant.com
2) Select Cash Deposit as source, and Bitcoin to Email as destination
3) Fill out the form, and take cash to the location near you.

Within an hour you'll have Bitcoins in your email inbox.

Easy peasy.

This is so awesome, no words can describe it

CoinLab released a desktop client mining software which generates goats for needy families.

http://www.geekwire.com/2012/geeks-charity-bitcoin-mining-give-goat/#utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geekwire+%28GeekWire%29

http://pool.coinlab.com/partners/goats

Have not heard from James (GLBSE) regarding FZB yet. However I know he is going down the list and giving the shareholder databases to the respective asset owners. I know the S.DICE passthrough has already gone out, so let's see if FZB is handed over to me in the next couple weeks.

And yes the plan is to relist at one of the new platforms, likely BitFunder.

Excellent. Waiting to hear back from Theymos and we can move forward.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. - Hanlon's Razor 

Hey all,

Regarding this double-spend phenomenon, I wanted to allay concerns. We're aware of it and have been examining the issue. We do not think it is a significant problem, though we're taking certain precautions. Primarily, bets without a fee are now not accepted, meaning the original method of these double-spends is no longer effective. We're also taking a couple steps which are trade secrets, but that should further insulate us from similar exploits.

BitcoinMagazine just wrote a piece about this... http://bitcoinmagazine.net/instant-transaction-fraud-an-explanation/

We're also figuring out a way to deal with transaction spam - some people are sending us many transactions or outputs of .000000001 btc. We may set it so that these spam transactions are kept by the site and considered donation, because they negatively effect the experience for legitimate players. In any case, we're considering some options and will post any rule changes to the site and to the relevant threads on this forum.

And if you haven't noticed, Dec. is shaping up to be the best month ever for shareholders

Could you elaborate on this part? I think it's necessary that the recipient of the tip gets a message alerting him that he has funds awaiting him.

I think it'll be between $20-50 in Dec 2013

Baller

Hello and welcome to the community.

To be honest, my advice is to avoid mining entirely   The real profits, and the real excitement, for you as an entrepreneur will likely be in creating new services which specifically leverage Bitcoin's features. Mining is just a support system, and profitability of that will always tend toward zero in the long term. If that stuff really excites you, then go for it, but I think legitimate services and technologies built around Bitcoin are what you should focus on.

Want an idea? Figure out how to set up a useful btc exchange in Argentina, and then run an arbitrage operation to help Argentinians get Bitcoins while their currency is in the midst of collapse. 

For that volume consistently, you'll probably need to open a MtGox account and wire money to it every week or two to buy coins directly.

Ehhh not quite. Britain lost reserve status between WWI and WWII and went through financial hell during that time. Directly related to the pound losing its status was such dire consequences as the world abandoning the gold standard, the Great Depression, and even WWII itself.

Governments will never create crypto currencies.

Why? Because the reason they are "crypto" is to maintain privacy and enable the relinquishing of centralized control. Let's remember that government currencies are already "digital currencies," the USD is a digital currency. So why would a gov make a crypto-based version of their digital currency? The whole point of a gov establishing and managing a currency is so that it has control over it and so it can benefit from the printing privilege. A crypto-currency that could be controlled by the gov, and could be printed at whim, and doesn't permit privacy, is really no different than the dollar, is it?

I think it is inevitable that a free and open, decentralized, borderless digital currency will be used widespread around the world. It will likely be Bitcoin, because Bitcoin has a huge head start and, despite the naysayers, actually has very few problems - it's a beautifully elegant system. Even something marginally better will not be able to replace it.

But, the most exciting thing is that the only thing which could kill Bitcoin is a far superior crypto currency, and there is nothing bad about that outcome at all!

Internet as a formal name for the unit... terrible idea.

Internet as an insider casual name for the unit... no problem.

.01 btc should be called bitcents.  And 0.001 btc should be millibit, which is already widely used.

So that I don't come across as a Negative Nancy, let me say that I'm really excited about the team you guys have put together. All-star cast for sure. The software I've seen, and the branding, is all beautifully done.

I'm very interested to see how people start using this as it launches.

Thanks for your posts, Joel, you always speak wisdom.

However, when you say "The core of Ripple is somewhat analogous to a bank account. When you have dollars, or any other normal currency, someone owes them to you. If you say "I have $5,000 in the bank", what you mean is that your bank owes you $5,000. "  There is a very important difference here. In the case of the bank, you know the bank is good for the money. When it's other people holding the money, there is far less certainty as to its payability.

So the issue here is that the money is not as fungible as otherwise. Paying someone $100 in cash is "money good" But paying someone with an IOU for $100 cash is less valuable. In other words, a $100 IOU is not worth $100. I worry that this fundamental issue is going to cause problems.

You say,
" it lets people transact in national currencies much like they currently transact in Bitcoins."

But it doesn't, really, enable this. It lets people transact in IOU's for national currencies. When I send someone a Bitcoin, they actually get the Bitcoin. When I send someone $100 USD via Ripple, the recipient only gets an IOU. With Bitcoin, money is actually moving. With Ripple, money is not moving. The brilliance of Bitcoin is creating a way to actually move money without a central party. Ripple may not have a central party, but it is also not actually moving money.