This could be big.
I agree the main point should be incentive to have more people mark new bills.
Here is the idea I have for now:
1. Mark on $1 bills (yes, ideally this works anywhere but start with U.S. for simplicity) the following: thebitcoingame.com or unlockmysecret.com
2. A curious person goes to the website and is congratulated on finding a game worth real money. The object of the game is simple: rack up the most miles traveled for their bill as possible. All they need to do is enter info from their bill (e.g. serial number and plate number)
3. The website enters the bill info and geo location of the I.P. address then calculates the distance from last entry if any. This is added to the user's score.
4. On the 1st of every month the top 3 users with the highest mileage score receive Bitcoin prize reward. This can come from donations and site advertising. There is no limit to the number of bills a person can register, but the bill they enter only is worth mileage for them to the next entry, then it transfers to the next user.
5. The site displays a running tally, and possibly other interesting info like where the bill was received etc. to add interest. It could be bigger than wheresgeorge.com. Of course, there is also a simple introduction to what Bitcoin is.
6. There can be a big bonus if a user enters any bill that they entered and later found its way back to them.
To prevent gaming the system: as mentioned earlier each bill has different security features which can be used to verify the user is holding it. The other problem is spoofing I.P. addresses, which is possible, but it's harder to spoof I.P. location over and over. Also, the I.P. might be required to come from Starbucks or McDonalds both of which offer free wi-fi nationwide.
It's a good idea, but wouldn't work very well. You can easily have access to IP addresses from all over the world if you know what you are doing. I wonder if it is possible to filter for only ISP-given IP addresses. I mean, gather up the IP ranges for all the major ISP's around, and then see if the IP fits the criteria. If not, throw an error and tell them they must enter their bills from a residential ISP carrier. Then again, people would start creating IP address circles. Mailing lists with lists of serial codes, and they just keep circulating them round-robin style. Of course, that could/would happen with any of the methods talked about so far... Hmmmm... Also, 6 wouldn't work, because a person could just keep a log of the serial numbers, then periodically re-enter them to see if they had been entered somewhere else and thus "returned". EDIT: An epiphony! Only pay out for the first bill entered for a second time every 24 hours. In other words, it wouldn't be normally expected that the same person could find two bills that had already been written on it in the same 24 hour period, so anyone who does would be considered a cheat, and would not be paid out for that bill. BUT, a person can enter as many first-time bills as they want in any given period of time. Thus, the incentive to write on fresh bills would likely outweigh the incentive to cheat on existing ones! You'd still probably have rings of people trying to enter each others bills to game the system, but ultimately, it wouldn't really be worth it for them. And it would probably be much easier to catch them just running some simple queries on the DB. |
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Is there a way to check that a bill-number is valid and not just a random value?
If not, the solution is "giving the reward" only if someone else will enter the same value on next days ( or after 10 hours / 24 hours / ... )
If someone enter a bill-number already on the database, the first player that has entered the bill-number will get 0.01 Bitcoin ( just an example ) and X points.
During the next hours he ( the first player ) wont get anymore 0.01 Bitcoin, but he will still get the X points ( every 5 hours ?)
All others that enter the bill-number ( that it is already on the database of the server ) will get 0.001 Bitcoin and Y points. ( this wont work for 5 hours )
If someone will get K points ( that is the total of all Ys plus Xs points) after a while, then he will get 0.1 Bitcoins. ( just another example )
The main difficulty is to find the good math between time and rewards to first and next players to avoid cheaters.
I have no idea if there's a way to legitimize a bill number. But even if there is, a cheater could use the same method of legitimizing bill numbers and enter in serials that they don't really have. I think something along the lines of what you mentioned above is reasonable. Could also make the reward for the person who originally entered the bill not be valid until 4 weeks out. Who holds on to the same cash bills for that long? That would at least avoid giving out half the reward to a cheater. They could still "cheat" by entering the bill on a different computer and getting the "second" entry of the bill, but I doubt anyone would hold out for 4 weeks to get the reward from initially entering the bill. Of course, you'd probably get the individuals who keep record of the serial numbers, then head back to the website 4 weeks later to claim their double reward. Hmmmm... there must be a way to legitimize this. It'd be fun though. You could take the idea further and have lotteries, high score lists with rewards for the top, etc. |
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This is also good, but my main idea was about finding a way to push people ( everyone ) to put a Bitcoin advertise on all bills that come on their hands. So that other people will find them, and then they'll start also the "game" on other clean bills. Your idea just push people to find bills already advertised. I mean that it isn't viral. They'll found the bill, get the Bitcoins ... and they will not have any reasons to add the bitcoin-adv on clean bills. Anyway, I think that your idea can be merged with mine in some ways  The main rule of my idea/game is that someone must get a reward by being the first that has advertised Bitcoin on a clean bill.Yeah, good point. Maybe there should be a reward for first entering a bill, but not quite as large as the reward for entering a bill that's already been entered before. I just worry that the site wouldn't be self-sustainable if new bills could be entered without consequence of old bills... and also worry about people entering serial numbers that don't exist, or that they don't have! So, you gonna do this? EDIT: Actually, just pay out to the original person who posted it whenever it is entered a second time! Still though, the same person could enter it and re-enter it later on from a different computer - that would be difficult to prevent. I suppose though, as long as the site had enough advertisers to survive, it wouldn't matter much who was the one entering the bills...! |
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My take on this idea is a bit more simple.
- Write on each bill "cbtc.com" (or something similarly short - this is short for claim bitcoins).
- User goes to address, types in bill serial number, and receives 0.001 BTC for their trouble (this is what dailybitcoin currently gives out).
- Users can enter as many bills as they want, but the first time each bill is entered, it does not give out BTC.
- The bill also cannot be entered again from the same IP (at least for a payout), nor can it be entered again for 24 hours (somewhat preventing people from just changing IP's to game the system).
- Site is funded by advertising, similar to dailybitcoin.
Thoughts? It wouldn't require any user funding (though users could certainly donate). It wouldn't require any complicated passwords or private keys or logins or anything. Just enter the bill's serial, and you're done! And if you're feeling greedy, you can go enter them from your friend's house again to get the 0.02 BTC or however much it would add up to. :p
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Butterfly Labs - can you tell us how many backorders you have at this point?
I see so many people saying they have ordered 1 or 2 (or 10). If we assume 300 backordered singles, and say, 10 of the box rigs, that's around 750 GH/s of added hashing power! Increase of difficulty around 7.5% from where we are now... I guess it's not a huge amount, but still interesting to think about!
You forget to account for the fact that some GPU-based rigs will be retired when the Singles come online, due to power / heat concerns. I, for one, will probably turn off one GPU-based rig for every 5 or 6 singles I bring online, due to heat concerns. Good point as well. |
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Butterfly Labs - can you tell us how many backorders you have at this point?
I see so many people saying they have ordered 1 or 2 (or 10). If we assume 300 backordered singles, and say, 10 of the box rigs, that's around 750 GH/s of added hashing power! Increase of difficulty around 7.5% from where we are now... I guess it's not a huge amount, but still interesting to think about!
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So, I hope you either have cheaper electricity than I have posted, or someone else is paying it for you!
Was the first post edited?  No.... I just guessed what his electric rates might be, based on previous electric rates I've seen posted from people in Europe. Guessing is a strange thing to do when he says, "I also have free electric". This... is true. I missed that part.  So, 24 GBP per month, payoff in 3.5 months! |
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So, I hope you either have cheaper electricity than I have posted, or someone else is paying it for you!
Was the first post edited? No.... I just guessed what his electric rates might be, based on previous electric rates I've seen posted from people in Europe. |
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Given the current difficulty, and assuming the exchange rate stays at 3.06 GBP per BTC, you'd be looking at making about 24 GBP per month with the card. BUT, that's not counting electric costs. To run it, you're looking at 200w with the card and computer combined (give or take). That's 144 KWH per month. Assuming your electric rate is $0.15 GBP/KWH, you're going to be paying about 21.60 GBP in electric costs per month.
So, I hope you either have cheaper electricity than I have posted, or someone else is paying it for you! Else you're going to be waiting a loooong time for that card to pay for itself!
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Thanks D&T. I appreciate your ability to get past my megalomania. Also, sorry for going apeshit on you SgtSpike. My teaching evaluations always say that I am a poor communicator and it must be true. I have some issues.
Like D&T, I was thinking that the trust would start with seed capital, and then charge say a 0.3% fee on any txn with the trust's exchange. 0.2% would go to increasing the size of the reserve and 0.1% would go to reward the investors. There would also be a 0.1% mandatory txn fee which could pay miners on all txns.
So the total fee on the exchange txn would be 0.4%. The use volume is potentially large because daytraders could use the exchange as a substitute for trading on Mt. Gox. Given the other hassles associated with Mt. Gox, the fees should be low enough to be competitive.
As for the seed capital, I was thinking that say 50 trustees could submit 50 BTC each which would be locked in the venture as equity. These 50 trustees would share an m-of-n txn account on bitcoin and an m-of-n txn account on the new currency which would be used for exchange. Any txn with either currency would need to be signed by at least 25 of the 50 trustees.
No worries. It didn't help that I thought you and markm were the same person most of the time while I was reading, so I can't blame you entirely. |
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I'm a bit concerned that no one else has theirs yet. Anyone who bought 10 of them get them yet?
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The government could freeze the company's account just the same as they could freeze a "warchest" account. I don't think there's anything to prevent that from happening - it's one of the potential dangers of dealing with fiat.
There is no mention of any interaction with fiat anywhere in the system I propose. Avoiding interaction with fiat is the whole purpose of the system. Why is the world like this? Why even bother to respond to people like this? Arrghh! Diogenes is looking for a human being in the bitcoin forum. There are similar reading comprehension fails in the rest of SgtSpike's inane ramblings. Sgt. We always knew you were slow. Kindly meander over to a thread targeted at your reading level. Wait... I'm probably the one who should be leaving... Goodbye. Sorry - keep getting you and markm mixed up. The problem with your idea is that it cannot be stabilized, making it no better or different than Bitcoin. sure it can be stabilized. it is just a fixed exchange rate. you stabilize it with a warchest just like any country with a fixed exchange rate does. read up on fixed exchange rates So, let me see if I get this straight. You plan to have a warchest filled with BTC and whatever the coin is. You plan to use said warchest to buy and sell the coin, as needed, to keep the exchange rate basically stable compared to some fiat currency. You plan to fund said warchest with transaction fees. Am I correct? EDIT: DeathAndTaxes explained it well. I understand the concept now. I think it's a good idea, and would make a good alternative to RealPay. I like the idea of a company-handled coin better myself, but there are certainly people on both sides of the fence in that regard, and I think there's definitely room for both services to co-exist. EDIT2: It also helps that DAT explained it without resorting to petty namecalling.  |
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The government could freeze the company's account just the same as they could freeze a "warchest" account. I don't think there's anything to prevent that from happening - it's one of the potential dangers of dealing with fiat.
There is no mention of any interaction with fiat anywhere in the system I propose. Avoiding interaction with fiat is the whole purpose of the system. Why is the world like this? Why even bother to respond to people like this? Arrghh! Diogenes is looking for a human being in the bitcoin forum. There are similar reading comprehension fails in the rest of SgtSpike's inane ramblings. Sgt. We always knew you were slow. Kindly meander over to a thread targeted at your reading level. Wait... I'm probably the one who should be leaving... Goodbye. Sorry - keep getting you and markm mixed up. The problem with your idea is that it cannot be stabilized, making it no better or different than Bitcoin. |
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How does anyone know if there is "fiat" in reserve? Why would the operators not just run away with the money?
Suppose there are honest operators who won't do that. What stops dishonest operators from setting up shop next door?
How do consumers tell the difference between honest and dishonest operators if they can't check how much money is on reserve in the operator's bank account?
What happens when the gov't freezes the operator's bank account? What is there to prevent this from happening?
What is the mechanism governing how the operator makes decisions? Is there just one dude controlling everything?
There are just too many problems with this. My idea is clearly much better. You probably know that.
I think assuming a dishonest operator is silly. I mean, Paypal could be dishonest and run, but they haven't. MtGox could, but they haven't. Dwolla could, but they haven't. Countless other companies could, but they haven't. Not everyone wants to be a criminal on the run. I don't know what you mean by "stopping dishonest operators from setting up next door". If the honest company controls all of the funds from the get go, what could a dishonest company set up next door do? The government could freeze the company's account just the same as they could freeze a "warchest" account. I don't think there's anything to prevent that from happening - it's one of the potential dangers of dealing with fiat. As with any other company, there should be a hierarchy of decision makers with checks and balances throughout the organization. Regular audits from an outside company should also be performed, and if they are AML compliant, I imagine the government would likely perform their own audit procedures as well, to ensure that the company isn't out to scam anyone and actually has the reserves to back up the outstanding liabilities. |
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Also, and tell me if I am misunderstanding, but you want to back your version with Bitcoin? What's the point of that?
To peg the value to one dollar in a way that is verifiable to third parties. Otherwise it will just look like a scam coin as in "Realcoin". Ah, ok, so I was misunderstanding. Well, best of luck with your endeavor. Maybe you can find a way to work it out.  |
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There is no legal precedent to back up your theory that all transactions will need to be tracked.
It will bug the heck out of "them" that all transactions *are* tracked but conspicuously fail to tie identities to the tracking. Bills have serial numbers, main reason cash registers don't track them individually yet is probably because they don't, economicall,y *yet*. Can credit card operators and banks get away with only reporting deposits and withdrawals not account to account transfers? -MarkM- *shrug* All I am saying is that I have not seen a law that would require person-to-person transactions to be tracked. You can be suspicious of the government and speculate what they might want to do all you want, but until something happens, I don't think it's fair to make predictions as fact. Also, and tell me if I am misunderstanding, but you want to back your version with Bitcoin? What's the point of that? |
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Seems like forum members could just as easily collude to run off with the backing funds as a company. And I'd trust a legitimate company that complies with regulations with millions of dollars a heck of a lot more than a handful of forum members. Just my opinion though. I know the folks here love decentralization and complete transparency. I agree with you about trusting a large company vs. the crooks who populate the forum. However, there is no way that a company could operate legally. With anonymization, the currency would be a vehicle for money laundering and drug sales. This would bring gov't intervention quickly. Realcoin will never work for this reason. On the other hand, if the company complies with regulation they will need to link every single txn to physical identities like in credit cards. The company would likely be liable for fraud committed by users to some extent. They would probably need to spend just as much as paypal to support their operation and would thus charge similar fees. What is the point of a company and currency like this? Why not just stick with paypal? You need a solution that allows for decentralized or semi-decentralized and anonymous operation. Otherwise, all the other advantages of the currency will be lost. In order to get this, you will need to put the crooks in charge. These are the guys who are willing to operate a system which is a vehicle for money laundering and drug sales. If you set up a system where the most profitable option is too comply with the rules, then even crooks will comply. You would do this by allowing the trustees to earn an income stream from the currency operation. I don't see any proof that all transactions would need to be tracked. When you hand out cash, you don't have to keep track of who that cash goes to afterword. If a company hands out gift certificates or cards, they don't have to track who that gift card might be given to. All that needs to be tracked is who bought it and who used it - same as with RealPay. They won't be tracking anyone except the people who buy the RealPay coins from the central entity, and those who sell to the central entity. There is no legal precedent to back up your theory that all transactions will need to be tracked. |
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I'm confused... how is a warchest any different from a centralized company? How does this differ from the existing proposed RealPay solution?
Refer to the post which starts out earlier which starts out as... "A feasible way of setting this up might be as follows: 1) Create an m-of-n multisig bitcoin account to serve as the trust. Find n trusted forum members to serve as signatories on txns. Any txn with m>n/2 signatures is approved. " Hopefully, you will understand why the proposed solution is: 1) more transparent and thus more trustworthy than realcoin (the size of the warchest relative to outstanding currency commitments is public knowledge via data in the two blockchains) 2) more robust to government interference than realcoin. (either bitcoin or n/2 trustees must be compromised for the system to fail.) Seems like forum members could just as easily collude to run off with the backing funds as a company. And I'd trust a legitimate company that complies with regulations with millions of dollars a heck of a lot more than a handful of forum members. Just my opinion though. I know the folks here love decentralization and complete transparency. |
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Okay, so suppose we have a number of blockchain-based currencies, each of which would like to achieve some stable value.
I think it is better to focus on a single fixed exchange rate cryptocurrency with a large warchest. There are several reasons: 1) Currency is most useful if it is accepted by a large community. Thus, it makes sense to focus on one single fixed exchange rate cryptocurrency to encourage broad usage. 2) The credibility of the exchange rate depends on the size of the warchest. You really want an exceptionally large warchest to prevent a speculative attack on the fixed exchange rate. If you establish several currencies then the warchest of each currency will be small. The exchange rates of each currency will not be credible. Better to have a single credible currency than a multitude of untrustworthy currencies. 3) I do not think it is a good idea to keep the warchest in a form that could be easily frozen by a corporate controller or a government regulator. Thus bitcoin is the best option as a secondary asset. 4) Competition is often harmful in finance. The problem is that competition encourages risk taking and fraud. Monopolists have a strong interest in preserving the status quo. The trustees could earn some income from fees for example. This is a good thing because it makes it unlikely that the trustees will rip-off their users for a one-off gain (looting the warchest or gambling with the warchest). I'm confused... how is a warchest any different from a centralized company? How does this differ from the existing proposed RealPay solution? |
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There's no way for a currency to be both pegged AND decentralized. It just doesn't work.
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