Seems to me Bitcoin's biggest problem at the moment is that there is only one implementation. It seems that there is absolutely no desire by the core dev team to ever have more than one client, since that would actually require freezing and documenting the protocol long enough and doing interop testing.

So instead, we will continue to have a mono-culture where there is no bitcoin protocol, other than "whatever some specific version of bitcoind currently speaks".

For that reason alone, I think it is important to back this and other project and if necessary completely ignore the developers who have little interest in standardization or interoperability with more than one implementation. "Bitcoin" the standard, should be a protocol, a money API, and a clean, minimal reference implementation, not a chunk of C++ code that does everything from node to GUI.

Of course, the usual answer is: go build it yourself. I notice those who try get shouted down or thwarted by a moving target, because the dev team is off pursuing a new extension, fad or GUI feature, instead of standardizing the existing protocol.

Yeah, let's disagree.

Well, the first thing you can do is to build a little test version of your shop inside ecwid:

I'll document these steps more thoroughly, as part of the new shop owner manual, but in the meantime, you can try them and let me know if any parts are difficult or need more documentation.

The best part of this, is that when you do a beta, you link it to *this* store on ecwid. So any work you do, will be available as your store when we create a hosted instance. Basically, all your work will show up, so you can actually put in the real information and it won't be wasted work.

a) Setup a free account with ecwid.com  (it's not a demo, it's a working shop for up to 10 products.

Probably the easiest is to use an existing account ID, such as a Google, Paypal, etc. It will not re-use or "learn" your password for these services, it will simply ask them to identify you.

Go here: https://my.ecwid.com/cp/

 
b) Create a few categories, by visiting the Catalog/Categories section. Your store comes with sample categories, you can delete those.

c) Create some products, by visiting the Catalog/Products section.

d) Check out your demo site at, by clicking on the "Visit Store Front" on the side.

Ok, then

Would you like to be a beta tester in setting up a new store with ECWID+WP+Bitpay+Heroku?

It will be about two weeks before I'm ready to launch a beta site.

Also open source? EXCELLENT.

Plus it seems you have very good design skills for web.

Please let me know if you had a look and found the OpenPaperWallet project interesting:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155847.0;all

Can you please take a look at the demo here: http://www.ecwid.com/demo-frontend.html

You can see both customer and store-owner views.

How does that compare? More or less complex that OpenCart?

Is there interest in this service, if I offered it as part of the btcprice.info site? (price notifications)

I am expanding to include both channels (email, pubnub etc) and more triggers.

What exactly was unique about this service, that is different from bitcoinmonitor?

BOUNTY PAID

For the record:

Bounty Payment

Payment of 4BTC to acorn, in addition to the 1BTC paid earlier

Total Bounty: 10BTC
Paid so far:

- acorn: 5BTC

Remaining:

Second design/code/site bounty: 2.5BTC
Third design/code/site bounty: 2.5BTC


A

Please see a similar, open source licensed effort we have in progress here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155847.0;all

There may be some potential for collaboration, and we could certainly use insights, feedback and support.

Here's the announcement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=161264.0

You could donate the domain to our effort to make an Open Bitcoin Store that helps non-technical people open and operate a free hosted store that sells in bitcoin in less than an hour. Basically, a one-click to free bitcoin store project.

All the tech is done, I'm getting volunteers to polish the UI and scripts and help me test. I will be launching it before the end of April.

Our beta has completed successfully.

The last week offered multiple opportunities to test our new automatic SMS alerts. We had several beta-testers who signed up for alerts if the price moved anywhere from 4% to 10%. Given the volatility, they all got a chance to test the system. We had rate changes from -14% to +8.5%, with dozens of alerts going out.

Lots of bugs were fixed, a new front-end design was added and new numbers in Spain and Greece.

Check it out at btcprice.info

Coming next:
- Email alerts
- Multiple criteria (%change, abs change, Volume etc)
- SMS alert support in 100+ more countries, starting April 10th. (Currently US, UK, CA)

More testers and feedback are much appreciated.

Thank you all for the support, feedback and testing so far, as well as the generous tips that fund the SMS alerts.

Have any of you checked out ECWID? (Fork from old X-Cart devs)

It's completely free, very fast Javascript cart with a ton of features. It does categories, products, shipping calcs, tax, customers, orders, bitpay, API and SEO. Customizable via CSS easily, but pretty slick out of the box.

http://www.ecwid.com/

The basic build I've got going is a git repo which contains a buildpack for Wordpress on Heroku (free hosting), plugins and themes for ecwid, a plugin and custom code for bitpay merchant integration on ecwid, etc.

The process for a new OpenBitcoinStore owner would be somewhat like this:

- Sign up for a free cart on ecwid
- Sign up for a free hosting account on Heroku
- Sign up for a merchant account with bitpay
- Buy a domain (optional, or use a free subdomain of openbitcoinstore - I'll offer that)
- Select a store name
- Enter all the info from above into a form - Click build store (this part is currently "edit a bunch of files, git commit, git push heroku")
- Log on to ecwid and add products, pictures, categories, prices, shipping etc.
- Log on to your new store and add content via Wordpress (optional, FAQ, contact form etc.)
- Hit "Open" on ecwid and your store is ready to sell.
- Tell the world and watch the BTC roll in (or not, and all you've risked is one hour of your life and no money).

What is your current cart?

Wow this really helps! Nice work!


My preferred choice is (1) -  modified by replacing section B, with a full-size area B, as it is in (3).


I'll call the keys L(oad) and S(pend) - easier to remember.
Suffix: q = QR, b = base58, p = prefix (only first 6 of base58)

So, I can define a layout based on this template like this:

Basic: A=Lq, B=Lb, C=Sq  (A = Loading QR, B= Loading base58, C= Spending QR).

Basic with stub: A=Lq, B=Lb, C=Sq, E=Lp, F=Lq, G=Sq
Basic with stub and human-readable: A=Lq, B=Lb, C=Sq, E=Lp, F=Sb, G=Sq
etc. etc.


Not finalized yet though, don't take my word for it....

I want to hear more comments. I think this layout would be good for an M-of-N key with it split between C, F, G... Let's see what other have to say.

I'm sure many people have products and services they'd like to sell, but do not know how to set up a store. Easy solutions like Shopify are difficult to use with bitcoin. To solve this problem, I am launching:

Open Bitcoin Store

The idea is simple:

Person has an idea to sell a product to make bitcoin, but no store or technical experience.  They visit OpenBitcoinStore, pick a name for a store and... boom. They get a free, pre-configured store, ready to accept bitcoin payments and sell products.


The prototype technology is ready and tested for one of my own projects. For the techies, the setup is:

Wordpress with plugins, with a buildpack for Heroku hosting, ecwid hosted commerce cart, bitpay merchant account.

The rest is mostly glue. I want to build a front-end to heroku-drop new stores into production.


License: Everything in this project will be open. Code, process, scripts, website, documentation.
Goal: Enable a brand new bitcoin user to open a store and sell in bitcoin, within a day, following simple web based instructions.

Seeking: Feedback, help, design, ideas, code, beta testers (wanna sell something, no cost to try?)
Specific Skills I need help with: Wordpress, WP themes.

Note: I'm out of bounties for this one, sorry. Wish I could afford more. I'm putting in most of the infrastructure work, if someone want to donate a bounty towards others' work, not mine.

UPDATE: License detail - Code BSD 2-clause. Web/text/graphics - CC-BY-SA.

UPDATE: Repository: https://github.com/openbitcoinstore/openbitcoinstore

UPDATE3: Repo moved to its own "openbitcoinstore" organization, from my private account

UPDATE4: Beta testing has opened and 4 stores are in progress... More news soon.

There may be other approaches, as we were helpfully and recently reminded.

I am also leaning to (c) obviously, let's keep it at the mockup level until we get more feedback.

I have not yet decided on the size of the stickers. I can get 1" x 1", 2" x 2" and 2" x 1/2" easily. Other sizes more tricky.
I was hoping to use one size sticker for everything, so I don't have to manage stock of different stickers.

I see two or three approaches:

a) We use larger scratch-off stickers and re-design the template for 2" x 2" areas which contain more information (QR *and* text in the same square). Bigger stickers, but only two of them, one on note, one on stub

b) We use two different sticker sizes: 1x1, and a longer one that fits a line of text 2" x 1" or 3/8" by 2-1/2".

c) We stay with the smaller stickers (1" x 1"). We use only two of them. On the left, we print the private as a QR and cover it. On the stub we print the private key as text in 4 rows, and cover it. No other text for the private key anywhere. For QR scanning, use the note. If things don't go well, your backup stub has a human readable key on it, not a QR.

Another thought: The load-key (public) is completely unnecessary on the stub. We can use that space better, perhaps put the public prefix there.

Acorn, if you do any new template drafts, could you please label the areas as A, B, C, D, (including the text areas) so we can then refer to them as "on A, put QR of private key".


As you hopefully see, I am indeed open to suggestions and feedback. In this case a correction has led to a necessary re-design for a safer wallet.

It will make this a bit of a longer project, but I think it is worth it. Getting the template right is CRITICAL to success and partiicipation.


Thank you !

ATTENTION:

We are still working on the layout. Until that is done, any designs submitted will have to be reworked. Please help us make a great layout that works for many uses. Let's get that right first, then we can all design graphics to it

Please do not submit designs yet! (though they are amazing). Help us figure out the layout and security features. If this is to be a successful open project it has to support a number of designers and different styles/uses. For that, we must get consensus!

Recent discussions have uncovered a couple of flaws we need to address:

It would be great if we had 1-1/2" x 1-1/2" stickers. But we don't, we have ones that are too small or too big. So we need ot be creative about how and where we position the things that need to be secret, including human readable versions of the private key for recovery.

Thank you for your patience and for the feedback!

See my next post for thoughts on layout

I think we are simply trying to address different market needs.

The defined purpose of this project is to create beautiful, pre-printed wallets on nice quality paper, which can be sold to new users. They are meant to be pretty and look valuable, because they are meant to be stored in safes or deposit boxes.

Not to say that your approach is not the right one, just that it is in a different direction from the goals of this project. I think bitaddress.org code could be easily modified (like jonis did) to print wallets using a template like yours.

If you mine, then it is income.

If you invest, then it is capital gains.

My understanding is that I will file any GAINS only, as capital gains. Since I have not sold much of the bitcoin I bought, I have not yet realized any gains. Therefore, I only will declare and pay taxes on the difference in price on bitcoin that I bought and then sold at a profit.

Nothing to do with income.

If you're a business that sells in bitcoin, then you have sales, franchise, and corporate taxes, or self-employed taxes and pass-thru, depending on the business type.

Given how much incorrect info is floating around here, ask an accountant (I'm not one, I pay one to answer these questions)