You might also try adding it to the order book on the #bitcoin-otc marketplace.   That is useful for also building up a trust history on the #bitcoin-otc Web of Trust (WoT), useful regardless of where you trade -- here on the forum, on BitMit, etc.

 - http://bitcoin-otc.com/vieworderbook.php
 - http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-otc-foyer
 - http://bitcoin-otc.com/viewratings.php

With a "company" on GLBSE being unincorporated, do those buying "shares" of the asset become partners then?

Partners are jointly and severally liable for debts, right?  So let's say I buy a share of a mining asset (not a bond, let's say, but described instead as owning a share of the mining operation), and the mining operator did a bad job with the electrical wiring, someone gets injured and sues successfully.   Am I now liable for that debt?  (I'm not talking limited up to the $5 that the share was worth, I'm referring to actually getting named in a suit having to defend myself as a partner in this mining operation.)

Is this one of the possible outcomes?

I see, you are using the blockchain, but are accepting all wagers, not just those that have at least one confirmation.

There's a problem with that, but I suppose there are ways to mitigate the problem.

You are accepting wagers on 0/unconfirmed where there is a requirement of a corresponding receipt added here in the forum (by pasting the transaction ID/hash, I presume).

Posting here in the forum helps to eliminate the question as to when the wager was actually placed.  As long as posts can be edited, this isn't foolproof.  The auctions board has a no-editing restriction, which is one approach to resolving this risk, I suppose.

The other problem I was suspecting with using the blockchain is that there is the risk of a double spend, such as the Finney attack.

This matters a lot because if lots of wagers are placed on the favorite, for instance, I might be tempted to wager on the longshot.  If those odds were false due to invalid wagers (that were canceled after the race from a double spend), then I got cheated.

This risk is mitigated though by having a relatively low maximum (10 BTC) and by requiring the verification in the forum.   But that isn't ideal as with pseudonymity, one party can place multiple bets under multiple identities, and double spend the losing wagers.

Presumably the payout wouldn't occur until after all wagers have confirmed (e.g.., three confirmations or more) so the biggest risk is that a bet was made solely due to odds being favorable at the time the bet was placed but those odds were false.  If the odds skew highly from those at the track though then you can probably know to be cautious with the betting for that race.

But this is really minutia compared to the risk, as Dargo points out, that you'll disappear with all the wagers.  Perhaps to get past that concern you'll send a certain amount to a trusted escrow, which would help ensure that at least that amount of payouts is guaranteed?

There is one approach that might be useful here:


The exchange rate offered through this service is relative to the BTC/USD market rate on Mt. Gox so even after the 2.5% fee, there is frequently an arbitrage opportunity involving cashing out bitcoins through this service, specifying Chase as where the proceeds should be deposited (into the BitFloor account) and then using those proceeds to buy bitcoins at the cheaper rate on BitFloor.  The transfers aren't immediate though so there is the risk of that arb opportunity being gone by the time the USD funds are credited at BitFloor.

But I wanted to share this in case it helps anyone.

Incidentally, the list of banks that this cash-out service will deposit cash into includes:

 - Wells Fargo
 - Bank of America
 - Chase Bank
 - U.S. Bank
 - Northern Trust
 - Bank of the West
 - Great Western Bank
 - Washington Federal
 - BBVA Compass
 - Plus any bank or credit union local to Arizona

Exactly.  We already have examples of these p2p micro-banks.   Most of us already use them without knowing it.  Mt. Gox is a p2p micro-bank that offers the ability to transact micro-payments with no fee, using their redeemable codes (denominated in BTCs, USDs, EURs, GBPs, etc.).   These redeemable codes / vouchers / coupons etc are today offered by many exchanges (Bitstamp. CryptoXChange, Bitcoin-24, and more) and now some eWallets are introducing them (e.g. EasyWallet.org) so there is already a method for a service to use bitcoin for micropayments where there are either no fees or the frees are ridiculously low (compared to any other alternatives).

Additonally, each service that has its own EWallet is internally able to support bitcoin-denominated micropayments without a fee for its users.  Ogrr.com is a great example of how this is done today.

Also, each micropayment doesn't need to be an individual transaction on the blockchain.  The transaction fee can be shared among multiple transactions, lowering the per-transaction code.  This is how the Bitcoin Faucet works, for instance, when it hands out its pennies-worth of transactions throughout the day.

So eventually it probably won't be feasible for microtransactions themselves to cross the blockchain.  Once that day arrives there are already alternative approaches that work nearly as well.  In the meantime, there are services like SatoshiDICE and others that have the opportunity to take advantage of this period where ultra low cost microtransactions that cross the blockchain are possible, and build a customer base while following a strategy that is compatible once the day that the "nearly free, ultra low cost" feature goes away.

Though there is a wide gap between fees that are "free or nearly free" and those that are "multiples of pennies" per transaction, the difference means little to most every normal commercial and P2P transaction so this issue is isolated solely to the use of microtransactions that themselves are amounts measured in pennies.

Non-negative?

If you mean without buying them, there might be another alt currency that is more workable with your CPU, then use that to trade for bitcoins at an exchange, and then use those bitcoins to trade for namecoins.  All the trades for this can be done through BTC-e.

Right now, the fees paid by SatoshiDICE are not attractive enough to all the miners as some are now excluding those transactions.  The miners gain greater value by getting smaller blocks to propagate across the network a little quicker than the value the fees from those transactions brings.

So essentially, it is already happening that a fee of a half a cent isn't always enough to cause a miner want to include the transaction.  

When the amount of transactions grows even higher, the upper limit to the per-block data size will start to get hit.  The only prioritization method built into the system is the price paid for the transaction fee.

So bitcoin wasn't architected to be a micropayments system (defining micropayments perhaps as a dollar or less of value).  I wouldn't build on the presumption that fees will always be below some threshold, like maybe a few cents.

This matters when looking at bitcoin as a store of value.  It really matters little when looking at bitcoin as a payment network.  A $20 today will get you $20 worth of btcoins.   A month from now, $20 then will get you $20 worth of bitcoins then.    When you look at it that way, the exchange rate is irrelevant.

As far as volatility, that's the result of having low liquidity.  There are a few "first time" events coming up (e..g, first block reward drop, first shipment of ASIC miners, etc.) so there is understandably uncertainty.  Not much you can do about it.


The mtgoxUSD BTC/USD market is well over 50% of all trading yet.  That percentage been dropping, so eventually to obtain an accurate "current market price" will require a basket of markets to be evaiuated to determine where the true market price is for each other markets that exist.  But arbitrage does a decent job of keeping exhange rates relatively in check with each other.


Perhaps in clusters like in Free State New Hampshire bitcoin will start to be used more widely for in-person commerce.


Successful, meaning displacing fiat?   Bitcoin won't do that. 

But how many other projects in which there is no formal organizational structure, no marketing budget, no backing by some multimillionaire, etc. that you are considering investing or participating in.  There must be something to it that caused you to be reading this right now.   That something shows that Bitcoin is so much more than an electronic store of value, so much more than a medium of exchange, so much more than a unit of account.

While there is a type of ACH transaction that can be used internationally, both Bit-Pay and the Canadian bank would need to support that specific type of transaction.  I'm not sure how often this international ACH is supported but I don't see much on it.  You'ld first need to check with your bank to see that they would handle it, and what the fee for doing so would be.

Because payments through Bit-Pay can be kept as bitcoins and withdrawn without a conversion to fiat, your best bet might be to do something like cash out to a reloadable (USD) debit card which accepts bitcoins for reloading (such as the one offered by OKPay) or by ACH direct deposit (e.g., American Express Prepaid Card or Western Union prepaid card).  You would then access those funds on the card at an ATM or when spending.

If the amounts received are large enough, then you can trade your bitcoins at a BTC/USD market, and then withdraw by an international bank wire as USD funds to your Canadian bank.  You would provide instruction on the wire to keep it as USD for deposit into your USD account.

Which is posted on their support page:

 - https://support.intersango.com

I see.  You are not with the service, you are simply acting as payment intermediary.    I search, find the book, verify it ships to my country, then place the order with you and pay you.  You complete the order and it drop ships to me.  Got it.

Read:
 - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/07/19/5-essential-privacy-tools-for-the-next-crypto-war/

TextSecure (from same developer as RedPhone), for instance, might be another:
 - http://www.whispersys.com/updates.html

Do a rough assessment of your risks.  If your ISP were to cut your connection to your home, for instance,, how disruptive would that be?  Then perhaps technologies relating to a neighborhood mesh network that doesn't use that ISP would be of interest:
 - http://commons.thefnf.org

What risk are you thinking might exist?  Exposing your identity or what?

In addition to cash deposit, USD funds can be added using ING Person-to-person and bank transfer as well (SWIFT).

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitfloor

Here's the link describing the fees:
 - https://bitfloor.com/docs/#trading-fees

Correct link: http://cheaperinbitcoins.com

I asked essentially the same question and nobody had a solution so it probably doesn't yet exist.  But there is definitely a need for it.
 - http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/q/4107/153

I'm just going to place this here ...

 - http://georgedonnelly.com/libertarian/how-to-start-doing-agorism

And not to justify his statement, but the "morally wrong" claim specifically refers to giving a discount for paying cash.  Presumably this indicates that the discount is possible because the income won't be claimed / taxed.

[Update: Here's the actual quote.



 -  http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/now-cashinhand-morals-minister-comes-under-fire-from-tradesmen-7972473.html ]

Which address?

If block 0, then know the 50 BTC in Block 0 cannot be spent, using the current client -- and there are no upcoming plans to do a hard-fork that would change that.   The additional transactions (non-generated coin) to it can be spent though.

Mr. Bitcoins?   Cash at a bank (Westpak, Commonwealth)

 - https://www.mrbitcoins.com
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Buying_bitcoins

A bitcoin address is a bitcoin address, whether it is from your own wallet or with some online services hosted (shared) EWallet.

So yes, sending straight from BitInstant to Mt. Gox, for instance, works, you don't need to have it go through our own wallet first.

There is the situation where if both parties use the same hosted (shared) EWallet provider that the transaction will occur internally and the blockchain can't be used to prove that the payment was sent.  Mt. Gox, for instance, has a checkbox on withdraws that says "Open Transaction" which means it will go through the blockchain even if the recipient also happens to be a Mt. Gox user.

There's one other detail ... you can't always assume that you can return coins to the address they came from though.  So let's say BtiInstant sends you coins to your own wallet, you wouldn't just return them to the sender's address.   You instead want the destination to let you know exactly which bitcoin address to use when returning funds.