You can do fractional reserve with Bitcoin.

You deposit 100 coins in the bank.
The bank loans out 90 of your coins.
Voila, fractional reserve.

Is Trump planning on banning cash?

Perhaps because none of those things come even remotely close to 1 terabyte a month worth of uploading (which a stock Bitcoin node will happily do)?

If you are going to make comparisons to justify your position, at least make decent ones.

/sigh... Most people are missing the point entirely.

If the cryptography protecting Bitcoin becomes vulnerable, every coin on the block chain will be vulnerable until it's moved to a new non-vulnerable address.

Assuming that this happens well into the future, suddenly a bunch of coins which were basically lost forever (and no longer part of the market) would once again be available on the market. This would shock the market in a major way (a lot of coins are considered lost). It would be like there was a once-off block reward of 1 million+ coins.

If nothing is done, people with fast computers would gain access to everyone's coins.

So... the fix would be to set a date (probably by block height) that everyone would need to transfer their coins to a new non-vulnerable address. If you don't transfer your coins by that date, they are considered lost forever, and would be locked (not transferred) by the protocol.

Bitcoin is a new form of money that comes with new challenges. One of those challenges might end up to be that you need to "update" your money to protect it. Expecting users to upgrade to prevent unauthorized access to private keys is not theft.

The economic majority decides which changes will be made to the protocol through it's ability to render the coins valueless. The economic majority will choose it's own self-interest.

...

If the launch codes for the world's nukes were vulnerable to unauthorized access due to broken cryptography, would the world say, "Oh, we can't force an upgrade because that is theft from the original nuke owners! We must let the chips fall where they may and let those codes end up in the hands of whoever can crack them first!"

No... that would be ridiculous.

Do we need to rehash this?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1469099.0

Everything?

https://www.gyft.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_packet_inspection


I don't know where you get the idea that I want to "impose" anything on anyone since I've been asking big blockers to make a block bigger than 1MB for ages. The two sides of this debate will never see eye to eye. A hard fork is the only solution where both sides end up happy. As soon as BU makes a block bigger than 1MB this debate will end.

No. Less than half that.


I don't mind in the slightest. This is why I run a node. I know some people want the advantages of a full node as their wallet but can't keep it up 24/7 because of the demanding requirements.

If a Bitcoiner wants to use a full node as his wallet, I think he should be able to do that with relative ease. But, no, that particular use case has little to do with decentralization. I've been over it before but I think the network should be robust enough to function assuming every government on the planet has banned Bitcoin outright and force the ISPs in their jurisdictions to block Bitcoin traffic entirely. Because, that's what will happen. Those in control don't want to lose control. Money is the most important thing they currently use to keep themselves in power. Inflation directly feeds the welfare/warfare state.

Once the decentralized global mesh network is up and running (which I think is going to be the most important technological advancement for the future of a free mankind), we can figure out how much data we can share over it and increase up near that barrier.

Bitcoin is, first and foremost, monetary freedom. All decisions should be made in that light and we should err on the side of caution every time.

All transactions do not need to be censorship proof in a world where censorship proof transactions exist.

I do. I uploaded over a terabyte of data to other nodes last month.

Obviously if blocks are bigger, the amount of data users need to share to keep the network running will increase.

I have very expensive, top tier internet from a major ISP that I recently purchased specifically for running a Bitcoin node. I had to gimp my maxconnections with more typical home user speeds or my internet was unusable for other tasks like surfing the web.

Metals vs. Bitcoin

I collected coins as a child and, as I grew into an adult, I became less trustful of the gubmint, fiat money, and "authorities" in general. So... naturally my childhood hobby evolved into wealth protection through precious metals.

Yet, metals biggest detraction (IMO) is pretty much the first words of praise out of any gold bugs mouth, especially when comparing them to Bitcoin. "If you don't hold it, you don't own it." Metals are clumsy and to truly secure them, you had better have them hidden away somewhere out of the reach of anyone who might try and take them from you. Obviously, storing them where you live is out. You certainly can't trust any third party. So, you are pretty much stuck burying them here, and there. Plus, if you are protecting any large amount of wealth, you are literally stuck with a lot of weight. Traveling around with your life savings in times of strife might be a dangerous proposition.

Bitcoin, however, is brilliant when it comes to security. Yes, we've seen high profile people fuck it up in a major way, but trust me, done correctly, no one is getting your private keys without your explicit permission. You can also take your entire "stack" along with you with great ease, should mobility be required for one's well being. Crossing borders with millions of dollars is now child's play. I don't fear the co-opting scenario mentioned by r0ach because I know there are enough like-minded Bitcoiners out there who would sustain an original fork in such a scenario. Granted, I will be much more comfortable once the decentralized global wireless mesh network is up and running (it's coming, I swear). I also don't fear any of the arguments around centralized mining, as again, a fork is a simple wrench in the works of anyone trying to gain control in such a manner.

What Bitcoin lacks in unchangeability, it makes up with concealability and transferability.
 
The saying, "If you don't hold it, you don't own it", is what prompted me to come up with my sig. Granted, it's not as short and to the point as the original, but it's as short as I could make it without omitting any necessary info.

I don't think I have a point. I like metals (especially copper and lead), but Bitcoin is now the most interesting wealth preservation tool in existence (again, my opinion, time will tell). The genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back.

The most important things one can have in any scenario is the ability to think and the skills to apply the necessary solutions.

I didn't realize VISA is now offering censorship-proof transactions and a store of value which, done correctly, can not be seized.

Oh, that's right, VISA doesn't offer those things and that's why a comparison between VISA and Bitcoin is ridiculous.

Those screaming for on-chain scaling think they need censorship-proof transactions when purchasing a coffee and a doughnut.

Governments around the world continue to implement increasingly strict capital controls and the reason Bitcoin has value is because people can use it to avoid those controls. Confirmation speed and fees are inconsequential in the face of that utility.

Which version of Armory are you using? The new releases don't replicate the entire block chain like the old versions. The database is relatively small, measured in MB, not GB.

If you are a bitcoin holder who is here to protect himself from the various shenanigans of the fiat monetary system, you should think twice about lending out your bitcoins to short sellers (be the sole controller of your private keys).

If you are a bitcoin speculator who is here to time the market and earn fiat, do whatever you think will help you achieve those ends (keep your coins where they can be traded at a moments notice).

I'm a paranoid son-of-a-bitch and my coins won't ever be available for lending to short sellers. People like me probably add to the volatility of the Bitcoin market. When the price goes up for long periods of time without a significant pullback, I (if I trusted any exchange) would be selling a small portion of my coins in order to buy more when the dumping comes (as it always does). But... since I am a paranoid son of a bitch, I can't provide liquidity during either rallies or crashes and thus the volatility is greater.

Therefor, I will never earn bitcoins because I have bitcoins. I will have to stomach the ups and downs of the market as a bystander. But... I will never lose a single satoshi to goxxing, theft, hacks, poor trading decisions, etc.

Hindsight tells me I could have made a ton of money playing the market. Foresight tells me 20% of the market participants take profits from the other 80% and I would probably be in the 80% (I have too much emotional attachment to Bitcoin).

To each his own.

Good. It would be one less thing the naysayers could constantly whine about. It can only affect the market once, and that's it.

That said, no fucking way is that dude satoshi. He was babbling incoherent stuff trying to sound smart on a panel where Nick Szabo is looking at him like, "WTF?"

Pfft... you'll have to pay people to take your bitcoins! Crypto... it's done.

The only thing those shiny rocks are good for is coating the pins on my processors (err sockets, depending)!

They accidentally all the coins again? Cuz' that's what I would expect "normal" to be at Finex.

Hacked or "hacked".

We accidentally all the coins.

So... what kind of manufactured "disaster" will put a stop to this rally?