You can deal with the possibility of seller fraud in one of two ways.

(1) Use an escrow and arbitration service, or

(2) Develop trust. Change how you shop so that you value reputation. If may take a while for the shysters to be shaken out of the market, but in the absence of consumer "regulation" there will eventually be a flourishing emergence of trusted brands.

Free riders is not necessarily a bad thing in a free society. It's one of the ways that wealth gets non-violently redistributed to the needy.

As for developing drugs, there are plenty of possibilities. Research & Development can be funded by consortiums of hospitals, or by patients who have a potentially-treatable condition, or by philanthropists, or by investors who reckon they can make their money back from the first-mover advantage, etc.

That's an odd recommendation. Even investing in non-perishable food gives a better return than banknotes under the mattress.

“I’ve never had a real job,” Geithner told his interviewer ... “I’ve only worked in public service. I live for this work.”

Treasury Secretary Geithner considering leaving post after debt talks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/treasury-secretary-geithner-considering-leaving-post-after-debt-talks/2011/06/30/AGd682sH_story.html

It doesn't work that way. Before Bitcoin acquired speculators, its value was precisely, exactly, $0.00. There was no way it could have acquired any transaction volume.

The speculators provide Bitcoin with enough value that people will want to sell stuff for it. Then the transactors can move in.

I'm sure there are plenty of Bitcoin businesses under development, but things take time.

Fixed. As others have pointed out, the reference to "shifting the decimal point" was metaphorical.

If it was so obvious, dinosaur corporations such as Nokia and Microsoft wouldn't be languishing.

(At the original XKCD page, the comic's hover-text reads "For the first time ever, the phrase 'I'd like to thank everyone at 4chan for making me successful and happy' is uttered".

Thanks V4Vendettas,

Your accountant effectively said "It's not officially legal and it's not officially illegal, so be very careful", which is pretty much what I would expect.

It's so sad that the concept of "officially legal" even exists, but that's the reality of the 21st century. It's the reason why PayPal and Google didn't move into the UK until regulations were modified to fit their business model. Unfortunately that avenue is only open to the "big operator" who can meet with government ministers and promise to "create jobs" if the regulatory environment is made friendly to their business.

The good news for Bitcoin speculators is that any gains are treated as capital gains (taxed at 18%) and have an annual exemption. That's less of a burden than paying income tax on the gains. Of course, you will pay company tax on your trading profits, but that's to be expected.

Furniture is designed by remix. Recipes are designed by remix. Clothing is designed by remix. Interior decoration is designed by remix. Folk dances are still designed by remix. Store layouts are designed by remix. Transport schedules are designed by remix. Book plots are designed by remix. Soap opera themes are designed by remix. Much of today's software is designed by remix. Most business models are designed by remix.

Human culture is based on copying with and without modification. Just because a few fields managed to get government-enforced monopolies (e.g. patents) doesn't mean that society wouldn't function without those monopolies.

Much as a like the concept, and much as I think Atlas has a great vision, the world has a habit of throwing stumbling blocks in front of any project that is sufficiently novel and innovative.

The path to success is not to raise $20,000 then spend it "on the best developers" etc, then find that there may or may not be something functional when the money is gone. Or there may be something functional but it is not what the market wants.

This kind of project should be done incrementally, so that a rough proof of concept is operating as soon as possible, and is producing at least some income.

Then, progressively increase the scope and improve the quality, based on priorities generated by customer feedback.

This is basically how MtGox bootstrapped itself. Had they tried to raise $20,000 at the beginning, I doubt they would have managed it. And they would have spent so long on the underlying processes that the moment would have passed by the time they got started.

If you don't want to go "agile", then I suggest to find a real venture capitalist who will back the business for $1million or more. That's about what you need to do something like this "procedurally" rather than "by the seat of your pants".

The new chain works in any way that it is programmed to work in the modified software. You could write software that requires a new chain, or you could write software that branches off the existing chain by applying the current rules up to a certain block number and new rules (e.g. a different generation rate) for later blocks.

I think it will be extremely difficult to attract a large number of users to any branch of the existing chain.

Sweden and other Nordic countries spend their money on things that are more productive than warfare. Therefore they achieve a high standard of living despite their socialism (and Sweden today is much less socialistic than it was in the 1970s anyway).

The obvious day to choose is January 3, the date (in 2009) when the Bitcoin block chain was established and the genesis block was created.

If you want more than one celebration, other possibilities are May 22 (Bitcoin Pizza day) and US dollar parity day (February 9).

Alternatively, maybe someone can find a way to add a Bitcoin angle to an existing "alternative" celebration such as Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19) or Festivus (December 23).

I don't think wallet theft can ever be a "good thing", but I think one of the biggest effects of Bitcoin over the next few years will be to totally revolutionize computer security tools and techniques.

V4Vendettas, it's an uncomfortable situation to be in but I think your accountant would be remiss not to warn you of the possibility, and to remind you that your accounting records therefore need to be squeaky-clean.

Also bear in mind that UK accountants are legally obliged to report their clients to the authorities if they have the slightest whiff of suspicion that something is not above board.

So keep your own records squeaky-clean, and make sure your accountant knows that they are.

(Please ask your accountant for permission to post the text of the letter.)

If any individual could predict how a voluntaryist society would address environmental issues, they would be well-qualified to lead a planned economy!

The more free a society is, the more possible courses of action its people can choose from, therefore the higher the chance of being able to pursue desirable outcomes.

You can take some comfort from some large-scale experiments. Consider West Germany vs. East Germany. After reunification it was clear that pollution and environmental degradation were much worse in the previously-communist East Germany. Prosperous people like to live in a nice environment, and are more likely to be able to achieve it.

Similarly, we can compare South vs North Korea, or Hong Kong vs Shanghai. In each case, the more free country or city is the less polluted one.

Client version 0.3.9 gave around 3 MHash/s on a 3.2GHz quad-core i5. Later versions pushed this up to around 5 MHash/s due to the cumulative effect of a number of tweaks.


Correct, but from around the time that poclbm was released there was a patch floating around so that you could recompile your client to include the getwork function so that external miners could connect.

Atlas, we need you back in this thread to reveal the punchline.