I'm new, so if there's a link that explains it better. I won't be offended if you just post that. BUT.... I'm trying to imagine how converting 30 million into bitcoins could put them in a position to create havoc on the network. That would mean even individuals could do it. Just look at how much is being spent on US superPACs. They could buy stuff, they could convert back to USD or what ever at the current rates, they could give the BTC away (in wich case, please can I be in line? I'm still working on my first 1BTC ) Or they could 'disappear' the BTC which wouldn't be a whole lot different than putting it into a savings account (potentially, that could raise the value of BTC if they took out a large percentage of BTC available?) Buying a huge quantity of bitcoins would just drive up the price of remaining bitcoins (because not everybody is willing to sell their bitcoins for the same price, and once you've bought all the cheap ones, only expensive ones remain. Some people won't be willing to sell their bitcoins for any price, and for this reason, nobody, not even a government, could buy all the bitcoins in existence.) If they gave away the bitcoins they bought (though why would they?) the price would drop back to it's original level. If they hold on the bitcoins or destroy them (there's no practical difference as far as the remaining bitcoins are concerned), the price would stay up. These wild price swings could potentially destabilise the economy, but would have no major effect on the network itself. If anything, the price rise would just encourage more people to mine (since it would make mining more profitable), which strengthens the network. The only way I can see that they could create havoc on the system is if they could create NEW BTC from thin air (fiat currency). I don't think they can do that, can they?
Nope. Nobody can. That's what makes it so great.
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1) The firewall on your computer, router or corporate network doesn't allow outbound UDP traffic. You can go to this site to get an analysis by adobe of your connectability: http://cc.rtmfp.net/ (post a screenshot if you can't make sense of the analysis yourself) Knows public IP address of self (no NAT): NO Public UDP port number same as local UDP port number: YES Can receive from same IP address, same UDP port number: YES Can receive from same IP address, different UDP port number: NO Can receive from different IP address, different UDP port number: NO Can send to different IP address after server introduction: YES Source IP address is preserved from original connection: YES Source UDP port number is preserved from original connection: YES
Everything looks good to me, except for the fact that I'm behind a NAT. Please tell me that doesn't mean I don't get to see boobies. EDIT: Never mind, it's working now. Rendez Vous server must have gone down temporarily. Also, some way to adjust the quality would be preferable. Right now it's more than what my connection can handle, and decompression errors are a real turn-off. Also, in the login screen it used to trow a popup telling the user it failed top connect. I changed that to not do this this but instead attempt to reconnect on every failed attempt (so basically indefinitely) without giving user feedback. What do you think of this choice? Would you prefer to be notified of this and if so how?
To be honest, I think it's a stupid choice. It should only attempt to reconnect N number of times before giving up and displaying an error message. Sure, dropped packets might cause it to fail to connect one or two times, but if it keeps failing to connect several times in a row, that's a pretty clear sign that something is seriously wrong and it's never going to connect.
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It is money that has promoted greed, it is not hardwired but programmed into us, no one is born greedy, at the invention of "the economy" it was meant to help people, to minimise waste, but it has not, it has failed and it is time for a new "system"
I think you've got it backwards. Everyone is born greedy. Just witness two toddlers (who have no understanding of money or economics) fighting over a toy. Money doesn't promote greed, it just lets people act on their greed more efficiently (which is why money was invented in the first place). And greed is a good thing. Rather than using violence to force people to do what is required for society to function, all you have to do is offer them enough money and they'll do it voluntarily. And it's easy to define what is "necessary for society" by whether or not people will voluntarily pay money to make it happen. It's a good system. Maybe not perfect, but certainly far better than anything devised by any government.
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1 BTC is worth about $5 right now. $5 of real money. Do you seriously expect someone to just give you $5 of their own hard-earned money for no reason? If you want 1 BTC, you'll have to buy it or earn it, just like everyone else.
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Further, DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD FOR EVERYTHING.
You forgot the relevant XKCD comic:
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I can't get it to work. When I enter my name and click Watch nothing happens. The FAQ says it's supposed to ask me to enable P2P assisted networking, but it doesn't. When I go into the Global Settings Manager, all the options for P2P assisted networking are disabled except for "Disable P2P uplink for all", which is unchecked. What am I doing wrong? I'm using Flash Player 11.2.202.235.
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My rate is 6 cents per kwh ... is that good?
That's very good. At that rate, you'd need a hashing efficiency at least 0.42 Mhash/J to be profitable (without taking into account the capital cost of your hardware), which you can get from any high-end ATI card. It makes me wonder why you're complaining about how expensive it is. See also: Bitcoin mining profitability calculatorMining hardware comparison
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What is considered 'cheap' electricity?
Electricity that costs less than the value of the bitcoins produced from it (the exact break-even point varies a lot depending on the efficiency of your mining rig).
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Because if you live somewhere where electricity is cheap, then mining is profitable. Mining bitcoins in an area where electricity is expensive makes about as much sense as growing bananas in the desert, and in that case you're better of buying your bitcoins (and bananas) from someone who can produce them cheaper than you can. People wanting something that they can't produce as cheaply or as easily as someone else is pretty much the whole reason trade exists.
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This is old news. FPGAs have been pretty much the standard tool for large-scale cryptanalysis for at least the last decade or so, and in fact can be used for any kind of simple, iterated computation. Anyone who says they have no resale value because they'll be useless if Bitcoin fails or changes algorithms is an idiot who doesn't understand what "field-programmable" means.
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I appreciate you bringing these things to my attention. I have inside the zip files the hashes of the individual files contained inside. However, as you said, if someone is able to modify that then it doesn't really matter. I will makes hashes of the actual zip files (which are still on my PC) and add them to the page. Would that solve this problem? Or is there still another way around it for an attacker? Please let me know. I want to do all I can to ensure that nothing is tampered with.
No, it won't solve the problem, and the way for the attacker to get around it is... the same way, actually. If someone is modifying the responses from your site, the can modify the page source (as received by the victim) just as easily as the zip files, and they can just replace your hashes with the hashes of the modified files. You need PGP signatures, not hashes, to protect against this attack (though even that won't work unless your PGP key is already available from a trusted source). Or SSL. Or both, if you're really paranoid. EDIT: I just realised something. I don't know about other cryptocurrencies, but in Bitcoin each block contains a hash of the previous block, and therefore the Bitcoin client will instantly know something's gone horribly wrong when it downloads the next block and the hash doesn't match the blocks it already has, and will fix the problem by re-downloading the "erroneous" blocks. The only way this won't happen is if the maliciously altered blockchain has a higher total difficulty than the real one, in which case they don't even need to attack your site - we're all doomed anyway. Only light clients (which don't need a blockchain download anyway) have a need to implicitly trust the blocks they receive. Exactly how does a maliciously altered blockchain pose any kind of threat?
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Weird. I can access dailybitcoins.org and so can downforeveryoneorjustme.com, so I don't know what's going on with you guys. When I do an ICMP traceroute I just get Destination Unreachable (Communication administratively prohibited) from vl548-opt.sw4.riga2.nano.lv (91.203.69.122), which I presume is normal (Nano IT is dailybitcoins' hosting provider). TCP traceroute gets through just fine. I ran a tracert and my last successful connection seems to be in Latvia.
14 150 ms 151 ms 151 ms te1-1.465.tv.riga.globalcom.lv [85.254.1.226] 15 153 ms 153 ms 152 ms globalcom.to.ls.lv [85.254.1.6] 16 154 ms 153 ms * 159.148.76.202 17 150 ms 151 ms 152 ms 85.254.145.246. 18 * * * Request timed out.
Now that is something. My connection goes through Latvenergo, not Globalcom: 10 las-b3-link.telia.net (80.239.167.193) 316.303 ms 341.902 ms 296.193 ms 11 las-bb1-link.telia.net (213.155.134.250) 276.383 ms las-bb1-link.telia.net (213.155.134.76) 248.115 ms las-bb1-link.telia.net (213.155.130.124) 254.558 ms 12 nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (213.155.135.116) 330.275 ms 330.900 ms nyk-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.252.162) 399.901 ms 13 kbn-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.247.116) 478.064 ms 389.985 ms kbn-bb1-link.telia.net (80.91.249.25) 400.823 ms 14 s-bb1-link.telia.net (213.155.134.178) 419.242 ms s-bb1-link.telia.net (213.248.65.26) 429.213 ms 413.240 ms 15 s-b2-link.telia.net (213.248.66.6) 435.612 ms 443.690 ms s-b2-link.telia.net (80.91.254.185) 450.995 ms 16 213.248.95.202 (213.248.95.202) 445.014 ms 399.246 ms 398.965 ms 17 85.15.192.115 (85.15.192.115) 399.769 ms 409.647 ms 409.898 ms 18 gi0-2.sw1.riga1.nano.lv (91.203.69.118) 398.169 ms 389.670 ms 389.667 ms 19 vl548-opt.sw4.riga2.nano.lv (91.203.69.122) 399.911 ms 397.854 ms 409.679 ms 20 vl548-opt.sw4.riga2.nano.lv (91.203.69.122) 419.782 ms !X * * I wonder what's going on here?
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What is with all the waiting periods and 30 day this and 2 day that - the unavoidable waiting periods that no exchange mentioned when taking my money. I am not trying to buy guns. I am trying to use _my_ money to buy Bitcoins. Are Bitcoins that dangerous? ? Yes, bitcoins are that dangerous - to the person selling them. Because bitcoin transactions are irreversible, and all other means of electronic payment aren't, the seller is at a very high risk of chargeback fraud (ie, you buy bitcoins, then after you receive them you call your bank to reverse the payment, leaving the seller holding the bag) when you pay electronically. If you want to avoid jumping through all sorts of hoops to get bitcoins, you must pay cash.
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The easiest answer and probably least controversial would be to assume all of these transactions happened in 2011. We will assume the security was purchased for 1000BTC and at the time the BTC rate was $5.700 and when sold it was 1200BTC with a rate of $5.85. Then this would likely be how it would play out:
$1000*4=$4000 [basis in 1000 BTC] $5700-$4000=$1700 [short term capital gain = proceeds - basis; security basis is $5700] $6142.50-$5700=$442.5 [short term capital gain; basis in 1200 BTC is $6142.50] $7200-$6142.50=$1057.50 [short term capital gain] $1700+$442.50+1057.50=$3200 [total short term capital gains]
Do not be tempted to take the short cut of $7200-$4000=$3200 because it may not always work.
How would it not always work? If you start with $4000 and make a series of transactions and end up with $7200, all the individual gains and losses must add up to $3200, otherwise where'd the money come from? Plus, by applying some of the methods in the guide you could probably greatly reduce or even eliminate the tax liability depending on how aggressive you are with each of the methods. Just make sure your record keeping is in order.
Well, if the transactions span across several years, and each individual transaction was under the tax threshold, then yes, I suppose you could reduce your tax liability, though you may have some explaining to do if the IRS notices a single large deposit to your bank account but you claimed it was from multiple transactions over several years. Good luck with that. (I'm not saying that won't work, but in my mind it's easier and safer to just write off the attention-grabbing deposit as a capital gain and be done with it rather than having to explain what Bitcoin is during an audit) and thus have a taxable gain of $3200 when you finally sell it (until you get actual dollars out of the deal, it's not taxable*). At least that's how I figure it.
Fail. From the guide on page 6: There is another non-approach that is nonetheless probably on the minds of many. Some might be tempted to believe that digital currency transactions are not taxable until they are ultimately exchanged for cash. ... The legal justification for such an approach is extremely weak when compared to other positions and does not reflect the economic reality of the transactions. It is almost a non-position. The question was specifically about paying capital gains tax on securities, which are not taxed until they are exchanged for cash. Many (indeed, most) other types of transactions are taxable whether they involve cash or not (eg, sales tax, income tax, etc) but that's not what the question was about.
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IANAL, but I'm pretty sure you only pay capital gains tax on a trade or series of trades when your (dollar) gains are actually realised, so in your hypothetical situation, you're buying something for $4000, selling it for $7200, and thus have a taxable gain of $3200 when you finally sell it (until you get actual dollars out of the deal, it's not taxable*). At least that's how I figure it.
*Unless you have to pay an excise tax on the securities (which would be assessed regardless of what kind of money you're using), but I don't think you do; I'm pretty sure capital gains tax is the only one that applies here. Again, IANAL.
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Fractional reserve banking allows the market to change the money supply, allowing supply to meet demand. Surely that's a good thing.
Sure, unless everyone demands their money at the same time. Then the supply side kinda falls flat on its face.
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No. Because of the way Bitcoin transactions work, each transaction you send must be exactly equal to one or more transactions you have previously recieved, eg, if you received a payment of 10 BTC and want to spend it, you must spend the whole 10 BTC in one transaction. If you want to spend less than that, the transaction is split into two parts: one part is what you're actually spending, and the remainder is sent to yourself at a new address as "change". eg, if you spent 1 BTC in the above example, then your entire 10 BTC balance would be spent and you would send 9 BTC to yourself as change. Since change is sent to a different address (which is not displayed in most clients), it won't show up in blockexplorer under your original address. The balance displayed in blockexplorer will always be less than the true balance for this reason; the amount shown in your wallet is the correct one.
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If there are enough transactions per day then they will cancel out the account fee and everyone will earn "interest".
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