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There's no need to wait; SecondMarket can get IRA into Bitcoin through partners now.
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I took in the first stake I wanted and could afford to lose altogether. There is no going in and out for me. It's all the way to the top or bottom. The more events Bitcoin survives, e.g. SR, and the longer it goes without serious flaws being detected the happier I am. Eventually I will bring in my second stake. One day I really should get around to buying something with Bitcoin. Hmm, I know, I'll give them to my wife; she's much better at spending than I am.
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If I live in a densely populated area then of course shared services make a ton of sense.
If I live in a sparsely populated area then of course shared services make way less sense.
A community (not an entire nation per se) could be responsible for many shared services. Only a nation can reasonably be responsible for certain shared services, e.g. defense.
It seems very reasonable that adjacent communities might cooperate on some shared services.
Individuals would choose which community they want to reside in, in part based on the quality of shared services.
Perhaps these seem like simple truisms, but too often I observe folks assuming the only answer is one central government providing all shared services. Perhaps the unspoken assumption is economy of scale? What gets forgotten is the larger the government the greater the risk of mismanagement and corruption.
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To all the people saying 2^256, please know that it's actually 2^160 to brute force a bitcoin address. You don't need to find the exact private key, you just need to find another key which collides with the hash to form the same address. Did you know that for any given bitcoin address, you can expect there to be roughly 2^96 different public keys which are valid for that address.. and so you just need to generate *one* of them to be able to spend from that address.
Is it actually less than 160 since the first character has to be 1? How many addresses can a normal computer try each second? Feel free to be generous. A trillion you say? Whoa, but ok. 2^40. How many computers on your team? Be generous. A trillion you say? Whoa, another 2^40. Wow, every second the team is trying 2^80 addresses. There are about 2^25 seconds in a year. So, that first year the team knocks down 2^105 addresses, nice. So, in the first trillion years the team will get 2^145 addresses done. Oh, darn the end of the universe is coming up and we are still short by a factor of 2^160/2^145=2^15. Oh, we're gonna need faster than normal computers and a really big team. |
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Hack a private key = brute force How many private keys can a normal computer try each second? Feel free to be generous. A trillion you say? Whoa, but ok. 2^40. How many computers on your team? Be generous. A trillion you say? Whoa, another 2^40. Wow, every second the team is trying 2^80 private keys. There are about 2^25 seconds in a year. So, that first year the team knocks down 2^105 private keys, nice. So, in the first trillion years the team (we'll call them a dedicated bunch) will get 2^145 private keys done. Oh, darn the end of the universe is coming up and we are still short by a factor of 2^256/2^145=2^111. Oh, we're gonna need faster than normal computers and a really big team. |
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alt-coins are worthless because they don't have new groundbreaking features.
This is the most incorrect statement ever. For example: PPC is more energy efficient, secure against 51% attack, and enforce transaction fees at protocol level to defend against block bloating attacks. Bitcoin's network is actually a huge waste of energy, and will become less and less attractive as time goes on, less secure as time goes on, and eventually get block bloated. Peercoin has "Significant" innovation above and beyond bitcoin. Hmm, it's my understanding that Bitcoin can modified/enhanced to adopt innovations, no? |
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So many people hee complaing about the problem of diluted values, no backing etc. This is not a problem unless you have a lot of cash. Then go change it into stcks or bitcoins or whatever. And use cash only for exchange of goods. Problem solved.
I would absolutely love to own stocks, etc., denominated in Bitcoin. Stocks, etc., denominated in USD are vulnerable to arbitrary devaluation. Hmm, or would the share price tend to go up to compensate? |
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Sure they do! Holding a Dollar note does NOT give me a claim to any of that however  Ah, got it. |
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The US federal government does have considerable chickens, er, assets and ability to collect more. It is misrepresentative to imply less.
As we begin to play less poker with their notes, where do we find better ones?
Physical gold is a royal pain to play with; weight, volume, poor divisibility, etc., and besides which gold should be used for what it is best at, jewelry, electronics, etc.
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Following your logic, if I buy a TV set and the producer makes just one more unit, you consider that act "theft". In common usage, theft is the taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it.
As you obviously know, the difference between a TV set and money is the TV itself *is* the property and money is just a note. Steal either from me and I consider it wrong. Producing additional TVs creates no burden on me per se. Producing additional notes dilutes the value of mine. This is trivial to understand and it is disingenuous to deny it. If you play poker with someone and they put a note into the pot indicating they owe the bearer some amount, e.g. 1 of 10 chickens he owns. If you win the pot then you expect to be able to collect sometime soon. If enough of these notes end up in circulation then eventually it will exceed the 10 chickens; not everyone can collect and at best someone will get less than one whole live chicken. Every new note the jerk writes dilutes your original note. Now you'll make some noise about how the guy could just go get some more chickens to payoff the notes. Is it stealing? One wonders how it will go when he stands for final judgment. Long before that folks will wise up and stop playing poker with him. |
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So this is still puzzling me. Suppose (a lowball estimate) Satoshi has 250K in BTC. That would be, at current Gox value, about $37,500,000.
He's supposed to torch $37.5 million so you can subjectively feel better?
This plan seems to raise concerns of realistic, rational behavior.
Oh, I thought I read somewhere it was more like 40% of all Bitcoins were in Satoshi's hands. If it is *only* more like 2% or something then I stand corrected. Satoshi, you can keep your Bitcoins, it's ok; I feel better. |
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The current block chain is about 12.5GB and it zips down to 8.74GB (a 30% savings).
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Yep, private.
Such a tremendous loss of Bitcoins would be to benefit the whole Bitcoin ecosystems by reducing the concern of the very large stash of old/stale coins suddenly being transacted back into action.
I could create a charitable organization such that donations to it can be deducted. All donations would be used to match Satoshi dumps of vulnerable caches. Win, win; Bitcoin goes up in value, contributors get an income tax deduction.
Satoshi could die unexpectedly/suddenly without having prepared to pass their fortune on to their beneficiaries. This could happen without anyone knowing. The reward coins would be unknowingly lost. However, the fear/risk would remain. If/when the news did get out then a worldwide treasure hunt for the scrap of paper (it matters not if they ever existed or not) with the private keys could create mayhem. Even if the keys are passed on there's no guarantee the beneficiaries would be as benevolent as Satoshi has been so far.
After a long enough period of time no one will actively worry about such things; well it might make a nice plot element in some future novel. This would just make the shock greater; concerns that a flaw in Bitcoin had been discovered as opposed to Satoshi just waking up to collect their well-deserved reward.
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This does not solve my previous question but the previous question made me think of it. How does one construct a transaction like the following?;
Alice and Bob both send X BTC to an address atomically
We do this at restaurants all the time; put two VISA cards on the bill and ask the waitress to split it 50/50.
If such a transaction can be constructed then an alternative proposal would be to have Satoshi and other volunteers co-dump enough Bitcoins into an address without a known public key to reduce the latent concern in the system.
I'd be delighted to see Satoshi get every penny they've earned and more. Satoshi may be trustable not to dump significant portions of their holdings but the temptation to coerce them will only increase as the value of Bitcoin increases.
*Any* Bitcoin holder with enough value ought to be of a concern. If the Winklevoss's were publicly coerced into giving up their Bitcoins then we would see them move on the block chain and know the destination addresses were under the control of bad guys. But if they are coerced privately then we wouldn't know. The Winklevosses are public figures and it wouldn't take long to realize they had been coerced. Satoshi is utterly private. We would have no idea whether he/she/they were being coerced or not. The movement of Bitcoins out of Satoshi holdings at an unexpected/unannounced time would be disruptive.
A significant off-market transaction will eventually be noticed and confidence will swing, perhaps wildly, on the news.
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If/when a single Satoshi now moves out of one of the original addresses then the reaction will be huge.
Is it provably possible to create an address with a private key that is not known? If so then a seriously stabilizing gesture would be to transfer a significant quantity of the original Bitcoins into it; whatever is not moved can then be assumed to be in play and the valuation/confidence in Bitcoin established correspondingly. Such a gesture is much easier to recover from now rather than later.
I do not begrudge Satoshi his reward at all; he/she/they should make clear their intent soon rather than leaving the future of their reward in this unknown state. If their security is ever compromised then they could be coerced at gun point to give up control.
Imagine the capitalization of Bitcoin jumps to $10 or even $100 billion USD and then a transaction comes in touching an original address. The ensuing panic would be huge. The exchange rate could drop to half or less in a very short period.
Satoshi, thank you very much; your contribution to the human race is beyond measure. Please provide a definitive act to settle the position of your original reward.
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What exchange rate is the baker likely to accept in the future?
Or rather, how much is the baker likely to charge for the loaf?
Nominally the exchange rate has gone up by a factor of 10,000. So one way simplistic way to look at is the loaf will cost $10,000 USD at that time and if the agreeable exchange rate at that time between our buyer and our baker is indeed $1,000,000 USD/1 BTC then the loaf will still be 0.01 mBTC.
If one had put $1 USD away for a future loaf purchase then they wouldn't even be able to afford hardly a crumb let alone a single slice. If one had instead put 0.01 BTC away then they would still be able to afford a whole loaf.
But, will the exchange rate and the price of a loaf scale together? In a world of hyper-inflation of a fiat, are financial systems so disrupted that product pricing becomes unstable?
Buying a loaf of bread with gold is difficult; it's hard to measure such a small amount of gold. I know, I know, it is trivial to divide Bitcoin into small portions. But, will our baker be content to accept Bitcoin when his world is in turmoil? Will his suppliers, the farmer, the miller, etc., be accepting Bitcoin? If not then by the time our baker can exchange to fiat to purchase the next round of flour, eggs and milk, etc., he might not be able to afford them.
It is the rate of change that cripples us. Relatively smooth and steady change over long enough periods of time are tolerable.
Everyone with Bitcoin boners watching hour-by-hour for an explosion to huge exchange rates; slow down, relax, enjoy the ride. Divert a little of the energy/intensity into promoting instead.
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Say a loaf of bread cost $1 USD today (you might find it on sale); suppose further that you could find a baker or grocer willing to accept Bitcoin as payment for a loaf of bread and even agreed to an exchange rate of $100 USD/1 BTC; the loaf would cost 0.01 BTC (or 10 mBTC if you prefer).
*If* someday in the future, the USD/BTC exchange rate reaches $1,000,000/1 BTC then how much will a loaf of bread cost?
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18YXnSUCPDVNEpPGDFRVrdVye63RpH2MA4 is another but both were used and emptied out in a short period of time. Why would anyone *ever* use such an address? Perhaps they realized their vulnerability and corrected the situation but this second one isn't just a quick in and out.
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