That's what I called "intruiging" in my last message.


That's what I called 'dialectic' and I have no final answer to that yet.
But for sure I would not trust the wealthiest people on this planet (in $$$) to care much for my interests, so why should I trust the persons who hold the most BTC more than that? And as you already hinted in your statement (at least it can be deducted from it), "being able to invest in huge mining operations" and having the "most stake in the current financial system" can easily produce players that have large stakes in Bitcoin too.
So these two don't exclude each other, just one takes more time than the other.


Would you think of a BTC exchange or trading platform as a large stake holder? I would, even though the coins they hold are mostly not theirs. But the system wouldn't know the difference. Just like large mining pools would currently be the most successful targets for a 51% attack.


Maybe so.


Never said that. Also I have no interest in banning SC. They can work that out among themselves (oh wait, just among trusted nodes).

Final thoughts:

Why would I trust a large miner to act in the best interest of BTC as a currency?
Large miners are in it for the profit, their support of the currency ends where their profit ends (the whole discussion here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67913.0 is centered at that thought.

Why would I trust a large speculator holding a lot of BTC to act in the best interest of BTC?
They will sell as soon as they think there's nothing more to gain.

I'd rather trust a single individual with an average number of Bitcoins, and a few GPUs in their gaming computer that are trying to sell and buy stuff on BitMit.net using BTC. Or an enthusiast with a few FPGAs or spending hours writing code for BTC , or the economist who went broke to promote hist interest-free currency http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/bitcoin-a-positive-step-in-monetary-reform/ or Matt https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68329.msg797433#msg797433 who almost made it to the top of the ignore list for his affection, strong opinions and free spirit.

Addendum: The concept that someone has a stake in BTC because they hold a lot of it, becomes even less important when BTC will approach it's goal of being a competitive currency to currently established currencies. Because then according to free market principles anyone who is out for profit would just choose the currency that provides the most profit. Having a lot of bitcoins, even if correlated now, is not an effective gauge for loyalty of an individual to that currency. Taking both hashing power and the stake into account reduces the pool of such individuals somewhat, but eventually has the same issues.

Yes, lot's of if's indeed 

Didn't mean to bash them, as a business they just present themselves so strangely that thoughts like these crossed my mind.

Definitely interesting to watch though.

I like FPGA/ASIC approaches a lot, they cut the waste, being designed especially for the task. Worked with PGAs myself back in the early days...

I agree, that sounds really strange. I don't want to speculate on their intentions right now, but they do really crappy marketing and market analysis.

If you look at their website, there's just one page and a PDF article, that when reading it the first time, I thought many people here at the forum could have done a _much_ better job.

Then there's a product we have absolutely no information about, the 20GH/s @ 100W for a FPGA/ASIC system is something I did already come up in my daydreams under the shower or sitting on the pot. But that's about most we know about the product (ah yes, there's a license key, so they aspire confidence that the details have been worked on  ).

And to my knowledge there's no info on the companies qualifications for that project.

I'm not saying they are out to scam us, no I actually believe they might be doing it in the best intentions.
However, just thinking about BFL, those guys were given a hard time eventhough they have much higher credentials to show, had a more believable target, more realistic specs, a better idea about the pricing, and a prototype.

But on the other hand, just thinking, if I created an ASIC that could perform with these specs, I might realize that I didn't have the cash to produce it on my own, keep it for myself and mine happily ever after. So I'd start a company for the sake of building that machine, have someone share costs and effort, and once that's covered stop selling (or sell it at a price that would also cover my mining profits) and focus on my own mining operation. So with that motivation, I wouldn't care about web page, marketing, or making a profit with selling the product. I would just be concerned with getting it off the ground, produce it and get mining.

In theory this sounds intriguing, but to me the "Proof of Stake" concept is just another way to introduce the ShitCoin (aka SolidCoin) concept into Bitcoin and attempt to establish a BTC version of the Money Power (like a BTC Rothschild or so). It seems one only has to find the right dialectic to talk people into something that doesn't fully agree with the original mission. Even if you don't immediately go as far as SC and trust the nodes with more coins more than anyone else, that is another logical consequence of the concept, and in the end: Hurray, we took monetary control away from feds and establishment and give it to someone we can trust.

People who own a large amount of BTC will most likely agree with the concept, others that like the dialectic will be sold into it without owning a large stake, and we are back to yet another Money Power controlled currency.

That's like the end of the "Animal Farm" by George Orwell.

It's not the concern of being able to raise the $30k vs. $15k.
ttul wrote, although there are already more than 25 requests he encourages people to sign up and get on a "waiting list" in case someone drops out.

So if I pay $2250.- to be on a waiting list and it turns out that I won't get the $15k deal then I want my deposit back. $30k are not economical; it takes already 10 months to break even with $15k.

And if ttul says anyone not getting into the $15k deal would automatically go into the $30k bracket, this is defacto like signing a contract for an unspecified price. As others have noted, this is 'bizarre', so I was compelled to ask this naive question.

But maybe I didn't understand something there...

What is your expected delivery time frame?

And can I get my deposit back if you cannot meet your promised delivery time frame?

OK then, another Q&A item:

Q: Will I get my $2250.- deposit refunded if I am not able to get the initial reduced offer price?

Ordered: 2/29/12
Shipped: No
Qty: 1

You do exist after all, Matthew!

I profoundly apologize for ever doubting your existence 

Impressive, really!

So, when you submit say 20 credits for the raffle without referral, you are voting 20 times for yourself (to win).

When you do it with referral, you are voting 21 times for yourself and 5 times for someone else (and reduce your chances to win relative to the other person) .

So why are you doing that?  

I feel strangely bewildered: Why should anybody refer anyone else (unless they share the same income)?
You would just support the other one (.25 > .05)! No?

And they say Bitcoin's principle is built on the prisoner's dilemma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma

The irony, aahhh the irony

I don't get the drift.

I'm curious Matthew,
I thought you are located in Seoul, South Korea.
Why is the raffle page on bit-pay.com saying Baekdu Mountain, Pyeongyang Korea North?

In good old Bitcoin transaction manner several members will independently check the results. 

Are you, Matthew?

Ah, you just answered that one post above.
This thread is moving too fast...

I can't believe it, but I'm mysteriously drawn to this. It might still be a scam, and I never win anything.
But that again, the ongoing discussion about the mechanics of how to determine the winner are just to cool to stay out of this.
I'm in.

$30,000 is just a ridiculously high price, but reading through the whole thread it seems ttul is testing willingness of people to buy the box for $15k?    


@ DeathAndTaxes:

Yes, $18k seems acceptable, if the LC appliance really can deliver on the promised specs. But if the power requirement really turns out to be closer to 200W (or more) and the performance is say 20% less in the production unit this would be a slightly different picture; in case of the BFL Single it happened...

Still something is missing, the BFL Single (now that it's actually shipping):


With the initial investment at about $15k for the 24 BFLs, a LargCoin appliance @ $15,000 would be quite competitive.

And the rig box is not even out yet, so if the actual performance is the same ratio as  with the BFL single (1GH projected, 832MH delivered), the BFL will get you about 42 GH for $30k @ 2.5kW (or probably more kW).

Now you made me do it!

Looks interesting. I'm running OpenSuse 64bit here, as it was the best compromise for the work I'm doing.

cgminer looks most attractive to me, especially since there's so much support for it here on the boards.