I've watched the Trezor video at their website and also the talk given at the Bitcoin 2013 Conference. The video you linked is 45 minutes long, but I doubt it will specify the Trezor is a flawed solution. Does it?

It does need to be relatively stable, but not absolutely stable. Some people will desire to hold for the longer term regardless. For those people volatility is not so much a concern.

Also, as more goods and services become directly available for bitcoins swings in price relative to other currencies is less a concern. In the modern age of electronics and with the digital nature of bitcoins they can remain a usable exchange mechanism so long as their price remains fairly stable for a matter of minutes.

How is the Trezor solution flawed?


What problem do you imagine there?


You buy a cheap dedicated laptop and cleanly install an OS. Go to bitcoin.org and download Bitcoin-Qt. Go to bitcoinarmory.com and download Armory. Disconnect it permanently from the Internet. Proceed to use Armory for paper backups, storing and spending coins.

What problem do you imagine?


What happens if you're away from home? Blockchain.info can give users similar access to spending bitcoins as online email services give users for accessing email, which is access anywhere in the world. Keeping a few hundred dollars worth of spending money in a Blockchain.info wallet seems very convenient and low risk to me.

Just look at the math. There is nothing unbelievable there.

Well, some quick math... Mt.Gox does volume of around 22490 BTC (current) multiplied by $100 equals $2,249,000 in daily trades. Their trade fee is 0.6% which is $13,494 but multiplied by 2 since they charge on both buy/sell side equals 26,988 daily revenue multiplied by 30 days is about $809,640 clear revenue per month.

They don't need to advertise and their hosting costs I'm sure are a small fraction of that. Holding up $2.9M of theirs would be an unfortunate blow, but I don't believe detrimental.

Traced back by whom? Dwolla is a service started independent of Bitcoin and continues to be. It's simply a way for people to send each other money. That means it's possible to use Dwolla without having anything to do with Bitcoin.

If your local bank sees transfers to Dwolla they may guess you're dealing with Bitcoin, but that wouldn't seem to be sufficient grounds to close your account. The guidance issued by FinCEN clearly shows they don't consider people using bitcoins to be breaking the law. Now does this mean banks won't come under pressure from obscure sources to close your account for such transfers? Of course that can happen, but I wouldn't think they would do so without being able to say exactly why.

So, you're probably OK to do so, but if paranoid then use other options to obtain bitcoins.

Well, it uses a mnemonic code of 12 words for the seed:

http://www.bitcointrezor.com/faq/#software-design-security

It generates this when the device is first initialized after plugging it into a computer, so yes I think it would grab some randomness from there. At least I hope so. It would then probably use that to randomly choose from an internal dictionary of words.


They are not idiots. Staying away from Windows is prudent advice for anyone, especially types interested in Tor. There are several reasons. Even apart from software vulnerability Microsoft has been shown willing to work with the NSA. There were hidden NSA labelled keys found in the operating systems starting from Windows 95, the purpose of which is unknown.

As long as he is willing to pay back funds, even if he requires identification, I don't think you can label him a scammer. It sounds more like a miscommunication about the terms of the agreement.

This is one reason people need to be very careful with bitcoins. They are irreversible. Once you give them to somebody else, that's it. You should be very sure you trust whomever you give them to. You should also be very sure you understand all the terms of any deal.

As for editing threads I don't think that's appropriate if the threads are not his and he is only doing it to benefit himself. If there is a complaint about his moderator role that's different, and I'm sure could be resolved somehow.

No, I don't like that idea. The problem is Android is still an operating system and therefore vulnerable to malware. It also wasn't built with Bitcoin in mind. You tell people it's safe for them to use as cold storage for 50K then the recent Android bug with random number generation can wipe them out. The Trezor is designed for security and Bitcoin specifically so it's far more unlikely to have such a glaring software flaw.

If people are storing substantial coins then they shouldn't mind spending either the time or money necessary to ensure their coins are safe. For about the same cost they can buy a simple dedicated laptop to use with Armory and be assured their coins are safe, including easy paper wallet backups.

Blockchain.info should be used as a convenient spending wallet, not storage wallet.

Now that's what I call a safe!

I actually consider Trezors about equal to keeping coins offline. That's why I'm so anxious for them. Most people won't bother with the complexity of learning how to keep and manage coins in cold storage. Not only do you have to learn how to do it, but then learn how to spend those coins as well as keep the physical storage medium safe. Trezor allows convenient access to spending coins while keeping them just as safe as cold storage. The task for users is reduced down to learning to use it and managing their backup seed.

This is the second incident (I'm aware of) with an attacker gaining access to a blockchain.info account. In the earlier one several account balances were moved to a new one in an apparently coordinated operation.

The victims share similarities. If I remember at least one of the victims in the earlier theft used 2FA, and may have kept a local backup. The best guess I have is similar to DeathAndTaxes which is some kind of keylogger, but even that seems to not fit well because there would be reports of other services being burgled.

It's hard to see where the vulnerability is here. We really need those Trezors. In the meantime, once again, if you are keeping more coins stored long term with any online service than you can afford to lose you have too much stored there.

Sounds good. Bitcoin is very US-centric right now. This can help even out the distribution which is a good thing.

This seems like very positive news for Bitcoin, like the government is basically saying hey it's a private matter, not our business.

Also, big thanks to Casacius for those physical bitcoins. They may not be ideal for transacting bitcoins but they have done a lot for people associating the image of bitcoins with something real.

There are a few reasons trying to make Bitcoin illegal would backfire.

First is the technical problem. The name "Bitcoin" is arbitrary, so you can't ban that. Rather you have to ban people using computers in a certain way. The problem is Bitcoin is used very similar to using the Internet normally, so outlawing it could make many other "lawful" Internet actions illegal.

Second would be the enormous news coverage the attempted ban would bring. It would probably elevate the level of discussion on Bitcoin bringing in a lot more voices that otherwise wouldn't have heard of it. People would start debating if they should be allowed to freely choose to use it or not, because it would still operate globally. Also, making something widely illegal, like gambling, isn't always enforced at the state level. Nevada obviously is one example of a state enacting common sense regulation and exercising its own right to governance. Similar challenges are happening in states with marijuana laws now running counter to federal laws. Choice of Bitcoin use would probably be just as contentious, and might go to the Supreme Court.

Third the resulting attention from making bitcoin illegal would increase the now officially illegal use of it. Many people trying to build constructive law abiding businesses would likely rebel and refocus their efforts elsewhere.

Last, of course, is Bitcoin operates globally, so making it illegal in one place only makes that illegality seem quite totalitarian when its use is legal elsewhere, like Finland for example which seems very much in favor of it.

I have a question. I've been reading through this thread and have seen everybody pissing on MtGox with fury over the situation. At the same time it seems people have multiple withdrawal requests for thousands of dollars.

Mt.Gox is a way to buy bitcoins.

As far as I know there have been no problems buying or transferring bitcoins. The only problem is withdrawing USD, which is obviously tied to the old existing banking system.

Now, I'm not saying Mt.Gox should not have offered withdrawal by wire service, but it seems to me if they didn't this problem wouldn't exist. In other words the people making all these USD withdrawal requests apparently were not truly interested in owning bitcoins, but in something different. So now that the system has jammed up everyone is in a temper. It seems to me Mt.Gox isn't the only entity responsible for the resulting situation of multitudes of people withdrawing thousands of USD, or am I missing something?

I think a lot of us that live and breath Bitcoin daily often lose sight of just how early in the game we are for mind share. As percentages go there aren't that many experts available from the point of view of someone who just heard of it like the newscaster. Still all publicity as they say is good publicity  

Get ready for another price spike? Fox newscaster just told his audience to Google Bitcoin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSKgVcMC2yc

[Bitcoin Investigation: Is this the end of virtual currency?]

With the upcoming political response to Bitcoin we really need to showcase how it's used for more than illicit activity. I think Farmigo.com could be a perfect example. We need to start getting people to actually spend coins and  buying food is a basic building block.

http://www.farmigo.com/about/about




Farmigo.com basically links local farmers together with local buyers, where buyers can shop for the items they want between all the farmers (since any one wouldn't have everything) and have the goods delivered bundled together to a local pick up place. Thoughts?

EDIT: here is a link to Farmigo's video presentation at Techcrunch Disrupt where you can get a better idea how it works.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/12/farmigo-tapping-into-the-power-of-the-web-to-bring-you-fresh-veggies/

As I pointed out before bitcoins are actually stored in the cloud on thousands of computers worldwide. To "own" bitcoins really only means you know the private key allowing them to be sent somewhere else. Since brain wallets can store any number of bitcoins a law banning possession literally means telling people what they can and can't think.

Glad to have you aboard, David!

Posting your market picking ability isn't really on topic here unless it's related to Bitcoin/cryptocurrency somehow. If it is then it fits under Speculation:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=57.0

Also, you may want to check out https://icbit.se/futures which trades things like gold and oil in addition to cryptocurrency.