Maybe I'll buy one or two for the stored value.
If you are only looking for a secure, offline wallet - paper bitcoins fit the bill (pun intended). - http://www.BitAddress.org [Edit: correct domain is .org not .com] Print that out, then add funds to the bitcoin address using an exchange. In many countries there are cash deposit methods available. Specifically: - U.S. - deposit at a bank or 7-11, Walmart, CVS, etc using BitInstant with delivery to the bitcoin address you provide. Also MrBitcoins.com (among others) can be used for this. - Canada - deposit at some banks using CAVirtex.com - Brazil - deposit cash using Boleto or Banco Recomendito using BitInstant - Russia - deposit cash using Qiwi or Cyberplat using BitInstant - India - deposit cash at HDFC Bank using MrBitcoins.com - Australia - deposit cash at a bank using MrBitcoins.com, SpendBitcoins, and CryptoXChange There are also methods where you can send cash-in-the-mail or check to purchase bitcoins. - USD - cash in mail to Get-Bitcoin.com, cash, personal check or postal money order to Camp BX. - CAD - cash in mail to CanadianBitcoins.com - USD, EUR, GBP and DKK to BitcoinNordic.com Then, when the day comes you want to spend the funds, you can import the private key into a wallet or EWallet (e.g. Mt. Gox, or Blockchain.info). Do keep in mind that if your system needs to be secure when printing out the BitAddress paper bitcoin. To protect against these risks, what some people do is copy the html from BitAddress.org and use a bootable operating system / LiveOS (e.g., Ubuntu using the ISO distribution) on a system that is not connected to the network (air gapped). That way it can be assurred that there was no malware that knows the private key. For larger amounts of money, these protections make sense. For a couple of bitcoins, not as much paranoia is necessary. |
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maybe this would be better estimation :
to sum all the lesser parts of the transactions,
if initial address has 145 btc, and transaction is made 27 + 118,
then we could assume that 27 was actual payment
and 118 change
overall, that would better represent actual economic transfers, wouldn't it ?
There's an awful lot of 8K BTC and however coins here: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88584.msg975886#msg975886So if one of those 8,000 gets a 7,500 and a 500, you'll tread it as a 500 spend, even though it really was a 7,500. The thin is ... nobody knows, at least not right away. After some days, I might be able to see that some of the 500 got included in transactions that others with the same ancestry that links it to the 8,000, then it might be safe to assume that the 500 was change that came back. But that isn't knowable right away --- or ever sometimes. Looking at only the smaller transactions as being actual spendign, then you would likely be safe assuming you never are overestimating transaction volume. This still can easily be manipulated, so be careful if you are considering using this metric as something to help wiith speculating on the price. |
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What can I do for the Bitcoin community?
The Wiki is forever in need of maintenance. The Trade page, for instance, has a number of stale entries -- additions where the link now fails because the site went away. Thank you for offering! |
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tl;dr: The cost of a 51% attack for a single transaction is prohibitive.
So we should completely disregard this when introducing new merchants and users to Bitcoin, rather than state that it is currently extremely difficult and improbable? A merchant doesn't have to worry about a double spend occurring as the result of a 51% attack (should that ever successfully occur), unless the attacker is specifically targeting that particular merchant with a large double-spend. People, particularly those in business who manage money, know to weigh risk. A merchant starting out using bitcoin might have 2% or 0.005% or whatever of its sales come from bitcoin transactions. Thus, no -- the low risk possibility of a 51% attack (i.e., has never happened in bitcoin's history) is not material to that merchant. (i.e., coherently weighing the risk, the rational merchant wouldn't change her mind after being informed of the risks associated with the 51% attack.) And please, ... let's consider how things work in the real world. Merchants don't do business anonymously. They know who their customer is. Any transaction that is large enough to harm the company if there is a payment problem will probably have been been reviewed at multiple levels. When bitcoin starts to become a bigger percent of the business' income, that is when they might wish to weigh the risk that you describe. This might include per-account caps, a pre-payment requirement. Or simply, if there is any significant risk perceived they can simply choose to not accept bitcoins for the transaction. But for a document that explains Bitcoin to someone who sells widgets online, ... no caution about a 51% attack would need to be raised, I wouldn't think. |
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then the accepting business must turn around and sell those Bitcoin in order get fiat currency to pay the electric bill. This is completely inefficient. There are goods and services in which the best (or only) payment method is bitcoins. If you are doing market research on your competitors, you might want to use an anonymous VPN, for instance. You would want to pay using a digital currency that can be used anonymously then. Other times bitcoin is the only payment method the seller accepts. Expect this to become more common as merchants in certain categories realize they can ditch their high risk merchant accounts: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=73694.0So in these instances, a merchant will acquire bitcoins just like a consumer does -- using cash deposit at 7-11, or a bank transfer (e.g., through Dwolla). It takes time for a payment method to gain traction and without Bitcoin being a corporation (e.g., no marketing budget, no 1-800 # for support, etc.) it will take longer than many of us would like, but it also is unlike any other payment system. There is no payment system that technically works in every single country in the world en Espaņol? Si Habla. As well as German, Portugese, Chinese, yes even Greek! - http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/24492713017There is no widely accepted payment system that can be used anonymously. There is no payment system that is technology agnostic. Want to send a bitcoin to someone through e-mail? Coinapult, Blockchain.info, and others will do that. How about to a mobile? Several options for that as well. Physical (offline) method/ Check. Escrow? Check (well, someday -- use a third party until that happens.) So yes, while a merchant that accepts bitcoins might be leaving money on the table by cashing out, they are already half-way there to being prepared for when the goods and services they buy can be paid for using bitcoins. That will happen. The reasons pointed out in this Bitcoin Business Primer will help to explain why Bitcoin is better: - http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/7/5/a-business-primer-on-the-bitcoin-ecosystem-erik-voorhees.html |
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This sentence was kind of awkward. Thus, a merchant can see profits increase by 100% when customers pay with Bitcoin (if they had a 3% profit margin, and then saved an additional 3% from the lack of Bitcoin fees, their profit margin has doubled, even before accounting for the zero chargeback risk savings). Could it be revised to be more readable? [Update: If this were given a Creative Commons license and then added to the wiki I think it would get revised into an even better piece.] |
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Excellent work. I wasn't sure on the amount for the claim of "Fraud from the theft of credit card information and personal identities is in the hundreds of billions of dollars per year". Sounded a little high (a lot high, actually). Without researching it properly, I just Googled a little and got this: - http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2011/03/24/solving-the-190-billion-annual-fraud-scam-more-on-jumio/The number is from a study from Lexis-Nexis and the abstract simply says "over $100 billion". I don't know that study, but another one I had read on chargeback fraud had grossly inflated numbers. The actual cost of fraud incurred to the typical merchant was a relatively tiny fraction of the reported number. What those studies never seem to do is exclude purchases that wouldn't have occurred if there wasn't fraud. Take a VirWoX for example. They might see a third of their order volume include fraudulent attempts to buy SLLs (that number is one I just made up). But that doesn't mean that if fraud was eliminated that any of those attempts would still be made using legitimate payments. So while there might have been a million dollars worth of fraudulent attempts to purchase SLLs, VirWoX did not in any way lose a million dollars to fraud. Those purchase attempts just would not have happened. On the other hand, if you as a merchant aren't worried about a fraudulent chargeback, there are certain efficiencies that can occur as a result. Just think of all the software written to do address verification for orders, for example. With bitcoin: - If the customer wants to have the bill-to be in one country but ship-to another? Go ahead, let them! - The customer wants to ship the package to a residential address (where it just gets left at the doorway)? Go ahead, let them! - Customer wants to purchase but doesn't have their ID on them? Go ahead, sell to them! - Need a DVR system and camera above each cashier lane so that you have photo evidence to help pursue fraudsters abusing the vulnerable credit card charge system? Forget it, those cameras won't be necessary. It is the costs of all these that add to Bitcoin's advantage over a reversible payment system. |
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A Bitcoin payment can be reversed?? Might want to let the devs know.
Yes, using the 51% attack. Dude, come on. |
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@Stephen
I think it is already covered in the BIP 21 paragraph starting:
"General rules for handling (Important!)"
Reading that suggests that when a payment request occurs that there is a confirmation dialog asking the user if they want to accept it.
I hadn't looked at the URI produced. I just noticed the "forward compatability" section: - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0021#Forward_compatibilitySpecifically: "Variables which are prefixed with a req- are considered required.". So I suppose the URI could be fully compliant without doing anything special. "Some future version that has variables which are (currently) not understood but not required and thus valid:" |
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if they're using Armory, Multibit or Electrum, then they will see a popup like this after they click on it
Would this be something to post as a BIP/? A successor to BIP 0021 - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0021 |
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Is it known how much money is bet on satoshidice per day?
It is all in the blockchain, but I only know of snapshots, not time series data. Looking at snapshots from two different times this week, looks to be about 2K BTC per-day, recently. (about $12K USD per day). There were many days before the increase in the house edge where there was a much higher churn. - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80312.msg1009467#msg1009467 |
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Anyone know of a good advertising system that accepts/pays out in Bitcoin?
In the Wiki are the following that I've used (as a publisher) or have looked at: - BitcoinAdvertising.com This is an adsense style service for advertisers and publishers. Publishers make money for CPC. 2% fee lowest in the industry. - Operation Fabulous, advertisement platform for advertisers and website owners - Anonymous Ads Promote your link or get promoted for BTC - ThroughAds Online advertising network for Advertisers and Publishers - theBTCNetwork Online advertising network for Advertisers and Publishers - FeedZeBirds - Advertise on Twitter with Bitcoins - Bitcoin Magazine - Advertise in the physical magazine or on the website [Update: late addition] Wiki: - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Advertising(full disclosure, i hold some FZB.A / FeedZebirds "equity" on GBLSE) |
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I contacted Mt.Gox support which asked me to confirm the bank and label used in the transaction, but I can't seem to get an answer from them for the last two days.
If you have a support ticket # and the ticket has not been closed, you can add a comment to it which might help them notice it, if somehow it got overlooked. |
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ic..what if i have multiple wallet.dat? how can i set them to the client so it recognizes that there diferent
If you are swapping different wallets, you simply close the client, back up the current one, then replace it with the other one. Or some people keep multiple wallet.dats on a drive at the same time (e.g., each gets a different name) and use a symlink to point to the one they want to use. Other clients support multiple wallets. Multibit, I believe, is one of them. |
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Can't believe nobody has posted a photo of Ben. Or this guy:  |
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