Wow, speaking of such... I just checked out this thread:

Grocery store for Life On Bitcoin Film Couple - crossing fingers

This looks FANTASTIC!!!

EXACTLY what we need:

http://lifeonbitcoin.com/ (video)

There is likely no evidence for it. Most people still barely understand Bitcoin, let alone know how to definitively prove its use in various forms. However, there are certainly people beginning to understand the freedom Bitcoin enables and want to suppress that. So they start up a propaganda war against it to make it easier to try to suppress it.

To counter that we need to do a better job focusing on the positive use cases for Bitcoin.

What universities offer is not the point. The point is they charge for information which is readily available, which is what you seem to have a problem with. And not everyone graduates.

So why are you advertising people get interest bearing loans? Many consider charging interest immoral. Why don't you make micro loans available to people in developing countries with 0% interest and help them out? No, instead you advertise Coin Lenders with an oversize forum font spamming up the forum... Why are you acting so scummy and only concerned with profiting?

See how it feels when people carelessly through around such words?


Since we're throwing around suggestions, how about I suggest you stop thinking you have any authority to tell people what to do?

What I find interesting is your statements that my ebook has the same info as an online page when you haven't read it. You must be clairvoyant... Let me spell it out for you. You can present information in a different manner to achieve greater results. There are math teachers that have their lessons fly over the heads of students, while others get amazing comprehension when teaching the same math.

Information on basically everything under the sun is public knowledge in libraries and on the Internet. That doesn't stop universities charging significant tuition for instruction.


I didn't say it did. Actually, I tried to keep reading time short which I think is a plus.


I have no interest or need to prove anything to you. I'm not sure why you seem so hostile. I wrote a book which took me nontrivial time, research, and thought process and decided to put a price on the finished product. Nothing here is inconsistent with the free market. I was glad to make another good available for bitcoins.


See what I said above about libraries and universities.

Actually I didn't consult that page at all when writing, and the book has several chapters. If that one page was enough information on the topic then there wouldn't be any confusion expected on the topic, which isn't the case. Plus I have a forum for discussion/questions as well. The ebook is about $2.90 so if that amounts to a money grab then... okay. I feel the subject is an important one. Thanks for the encouragement, though.

I was thinking that but I thought the topic might be of general interest to people too.

(mods please feel free to move if not the right category)

I've seen a lot of confusion over Bitcoin anonymity. I think it's because Bitcoin is moving beyond a base of core technically savvy users, so I wrote an eBook in simple to understand terms explaining how to gain anonymity with Bitcoin. The website is below and has a forum for questions.


http://BitcoinAnonymityEbook.com

Yes, but you only make a down payment on the bonds, based on the credit rating of the owners or something like that. Like I said, people really should listen to the talk. I found it very insightful.

There might be a transcript, but I don't know where. LTB makes its content available in an open source way, and I think they mentioned someone making transcripts once...

Yes, you're correct about partnering with a licensed company as a cost effective option. That was one of the things discussed. There are a lot of cost saving considerations which is what surprised me most. Like you I had the 1M dollar figure as the starting point. Actually, registering at the federal level is not so costly. From there a business would also need licensing for the 50 states, but there is more to that. For example, whether or not a state requires a license if a business is not physically located there can be different. Some states, at least two, if I can remember being Montana and New Mexico I think, don't require any additional license.

So, yes, to operate in all 50 states and be fully compliant as a money transmitter is going to be costly, but there are options and already Bitcoin businesses making progress, for example, with partnering with existing licensed entities.

EDIT: also yes you're right, they mentioned banks are not subject to money transmitter licensing, so opening a credit union might work.

Just reading your post I can tell you haven't listened to this episode of Let's Talk Bitcoin:

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/post/57717761405/the-regulatory-question-inside-bitcoins-conference

The talk features a panel discussion from the recent Bitcoin Conference in New York, which included actual professionals in the regulatory space including from the U.S. GAO.


Not true. Again you need to listen to the talk. Also, not every Bitcoin related business is categorized as a money transmitter. If you want to sell fruit from your orchard, offer singing lessons, or babysitting services, for bitcoin you need no license, for example.

This sounds like a promising service. Best of luck!

Nice try Mr. Benjamin M. Lawsky, but several things...

First, don't try to pretend the businesses and individuals that use a currency are equal to a currency itself. There is no "virtual currency industry". There are individuals and businesses that may use virtual currency at various levels but that commonality doesn't separate all such entities neatly into one industry.

Second, don't imagine you have jurisdiction to make meaningful impact on the use of virtual currency. Bitcoin, for example, being a decentralized global currency extends beyond any one U.S. state, and indeed beyond the U.S. itself.

Last, the U.S. dollar, as the world's reserve currency, I can assure you has been far more dangerous on a measure of human morality than the fledgling billion dollar Bitcoin market. The U.S. dollar has undoubtedly financed far more drug deals, global scale arms deals, heinous crimes, assassination, and murdering of innocent children unfortunate enough to be in the path of U.S. militarism in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, as you consider the purpose and intent of your regulation please keep in mind the reality of just how much more dangerous the U.S. dollar has factually been, for a number of years, in this world.

It couldn't be accessed by outside parties. You're essentially doing cold storage in another way. It's interesting, something I hadn't thought of, but yes it would work. The biggest risk would be if it's the only copy you have. Remember even brand new drives can fail unexpectedly.

Securing coins from external threats basically involves separating the private keys from any online (therefore potentially vulnerable) system.

Armory does this by using an offline computer (as one method) so the private keys are kept offline there and can never be accessed externally. Users shuttle authorization back and forth with a USB stick. Your method does away with the second computer, by simply using a second operating system and second drive.

The Trezor also separates private keys from online systems by holding them on a separate dedicated USB device, which has no OS and is therefore immune even from viruses on the computer it's plugged into.

Any of these methods can successfully separate private keys from online threats. Each is a bit different and may work better for different people. However, Trezor I feel is the most complete solution because it handles backups and any other minor security concerns (like disabling autorun for the Armory USB stick) more elegantly.

Also note the method suggested by Icon above only keeps the private keys safe when not in use. If the file is loaded onto a compromised system that could be a problem.

Mt.Gox has a back log of wire transfers to process. You are not alone, but people are getting their money although slowly as Mt.Gox works to process orders manually. See here:

MtGox withdrawal delays [Gathering]

The press release you linked to is old. Their most recent press release is here:

https://www.mtgox.com/press_release_20130805.html

I had this same idea. I think in general there should be a repository, maybe even a new forum for Bitcoin project code, PHP/Python, etc. Bitcoin itself it open source, but everyone would benefit if some other aspects of Bitcoin development also had shared knowledge/work. Why keep re-inventing the wheel? Everyone benefits from more stable, secure businesses. Securing wallets, dealing with DDoS, even legal issues like obtaining money transmitter licenses etc. shouldn't be problems every single business faces on its own, over and over.

That's very unselfish of you, but there is a positive tradeoff. You're helping the market make decisions more efficiently. Eventually that would have happened either way, though. If you hadn't posted the information someone else would have.

Interesting. Yes, I was aware there were a few surviving alt-coins besides Bitcoin around that time. IXCoin I think it was, which may have been the first alt, had died as well as a few others. I knew there were varying rates of profitability with the surviving alts (like litecoin) too, but nothing I ever took seriously. I never took a hard look at the viability of alt-coins until the Bitcoin Foundation uproar, which showed me they indeed could offer a value Bitcoin never could: alternative.

No, I think it's possible for Bitcoin to continue to hold value, but what actually happens no one knows. My thoughts are not much different from what this community has always thought, for the most part, about Bitcoin which is that its future value is uncertain. Along with that, though, people believed that until something superior to Bitcoin came along it would reign supreme having the only worthwhile value.

What I realized at the time of that post (from the chaos of the Bitcoin Foundation feuding) was another possibility, that there could be multiple coins with worthwhile value at the same time as Bitcoin had value. Working from there I saw several advantages, a big one being the subject of the thread, which was providing the market a more diffuse power structure for cryptocurrency than following only Bitcoin and its new foundation.

I don't believe it's possible for all coins to have similar value, of course, as that means infinite inflation. I do believe, however, the market can value a select few at any given time above all others and these can be the most widely accepted. There still remains the possibility any "super" coin can be supplanted by something far superior, but that's the same as it always was. Until that happens the coin maintains first mover advantage, and reason to retain its value. So that probably means Bitcoin sticks around regardless. What this complex market reasoning means for average people, however, is that they probably stick with something far simpler and more predictable to store the majority of their wealth, like gold. Cryptocurrency is superior to gold for its transactional properties, while gold is superior to cryptocurrency for its wealth storing ability. Both have reasons for people to value them, and I believe will be valued accordingly.

Good lord.

coinchoose.com appears to be the real world manifestation of what I described back in October 2012:

Solution to The Bitcoin Foundation (the announcement)

If that's the only attitude you project then yes certainly, but look at the video here:

http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/about

You will see the guys moving in to invest in that neighborhood are not doing it without betterment of the neighborhood being their core mission. Making a profit isn't the only thing which might attract people to Detroit. Opportunity can mean different things. There are actually entrepreneurs already on the scene in Detroit. A couple articles:

http://www.fastcompany.com/3007840/creative-conversations/how-young-community-entrepreneurs-rebuilding-detroit

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100900219

I agree it's probably not for the fainthearted, though.