Bitcoin Forum
June 22, 2024, 06:19:59 AM *
News: Voting for pizza day contest
 
  Home Help Search Login Register More  
  Show Posts
Pages: « 1 ... 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 [281] 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 ... 368 »
5601  Economy / Economics / Re: First Nation to keep Bitcoin as Official Reserves on: April 28, 2011, 07:28:28 PM
I answered china.
They're putting their dollars everywhere and still can't get rid of them.

The points against China are....

1)  They are a large population, and therefore not prone to quick changes in monetary policy.

2)  They are a command economy, and would therefore likely view the rise of an un-managable currency (from outside their own culture, and worse from a Japanese national) with contempt.

3)  They are deeply vested in the international fiat systems due to international trade, and would be wary about losing much wealth with the decline of those reserves.
5602  Economy / Economics / Re: Bitcoin to failed states? (\o/) on: April 28, 2011, 07:24:28 PM
Time really isn't an issue.  It's not like Bitcoin is ready for mass adoption anyway.

Dream a little!

Patience.
5603  Bitcoin / Press / Re: Bitcoin press hits, notable sources on: April 28, 2011, 07:23:36 PM
bitcoin needs a 4chan meme...that will increase bitcoin popularity 100 fold...

Already did.
5604  Economy / Speculation / Re: Bitcoin Technical Analysis on: April 28, 2011, 07:21:44 PM
We are definitely seeing a bitcoin bubble here. People are buying into the hype, but once they lose interest and sell off, the market will be down to about dollar parity again. BTC still doesn't have nearly enough buying power to justify a $2.20 exchange rate.

And you know this, how?  Can you see the trade volume on Silk Road?  In Russia?  In China?  Just because the visable market is small, doesn't mean that the trade volume is entirely speculation.
5605  Economy / Economics / Re: A modest amount of inflation should be part of bitcoin on: April 28, 2011, 07:11:25 PM
Ripple is not a currency, but a web-of-trust based credit system.  It still depends on a common reference of value.  Said another way, Ripple users can use any common metric; such as ounces of gold or silver, fiat currencies, or whatever; as their medium of exchange, but the system itself does not establish one.  Bitcoins could be traded well in this manner, but in the end, Ripple is credit; if the buyer had the bitcoins, he could just pay for it.  Ripple does permit people to trade online relative to hard money, without needing to ship the hard money itself; but it is neccessarily not anonymous.

LETS stands for Local Exchange Trading System, and it is a local "mutual credit" based currency.  It does not involve scarcity, as the credits are created at the time of the trade deal by a double entry type system.  I.E., there is some central book, and when someone buys something from a local vendor, the account of the vendor shows a credit while the account of the buyer shows a debit, but all debits and credits in the system balance out to zero.  The system requires an external peg of value agreed to by the whole of the userbase, which can be a national currency, hard money, or hours of unskilled labor.


It depends on how we define currency.
What quality has LETS and Ripple hasn't that make it a currency?
You may say that the real currency in ripple are the IOUs issued.

Ripple doesn't define the unit of value the IOU's are based upon, while a LETS system must collectively define this.
5606  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Necessary protocol improvement; dissent on future mining configuration on: April 28, 2011, 07:03:09 PM
The whole point of the proof-of-work system is that any direct attack on the system is expensive relative to the expected gain, so that crime doesn't pay.

Your argument relies on this statement, but I have not seen it proven.

The burden of proof is not on me to show that the system is not broken.  And I have seen enough to believe it proven for myself, what you have seen or not seen is, likewise, not my problem.
Quote

Edit: I don't see your attacks against the Web of Trust problematic in a real-world situation. Let me take them on one-by-one.

Attacks upon a WoT system are more subtle, and potentially much less costly.  One is simply the act of 'node identity spoofing', faking the identity of a trusted node.  Another is the 'scorched earth' event, wherein a node develops honest trust, and then turns bad once the opprotunity is presented.  You can make both of these attacks difficult technically, but you cannot make them impossible, nor particularly expensive since I do not need any great resources for either attack.  Other attacks requiring coordination are possible as well.  This does not include the basic network attacks upon the hosting servers themselves, the security of which is importan in a web of trust.

  • Node identity spoofing is the same as Bitcoin target address spoofing.

Incorrect.  Your proposal is about the blockchain, and node identity spoofing would be the equivilant of hijacking the identities of trusted miners, but Bitcoin doesn't presently depend upon trusted nodes, which is part of the point of it all.
Quote
  • 'scorched earth' only works as long as the Web of Trust is small and holds only few connections. Otherwise, the risk falls exponentially with the number of connections.
Again, incorrect.  The scorched earth attack involves a node developing trust as the network builds, and only turning malicious after the WoT has grown to such a size that the value of such an attack outweighs the value of continued growth.  Said another way, the scorched earth method is most profitable when the network is mature.
Quote

I see no problem. Your attacks can apparently be thwarted neatly.

This is likely true in most cases, but not provably true.  Satoshi's white paper proves that similar attacks are not possible with Bitcoin so long as the attacker has less hashing power than the honest network.  And this is the status quo here.  If you don't like it, prove it.  You are long from that goal.  As I understand it, you don't contest that proof; you just believe that the transaction rules don't promise that said hashing power can be maintained.  And I disagree.[/list]
5607  Economy / Economics / Re: Bitcoin to failed states? (\o/) on: April 28, 2011, 02:05:28 PM
Time really isn't an issue.  It's not like Bitcoin is ready for mass adoption anyway.
5608  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 28, 2011, 05:31:02 AM

I wouldn't be too surprised if, instead of a 3,000USD cheque, Gavin would receive some nice bracelets once he arrives there:



Not if they openly approached him.  If they weren't going to play nice, they wouldn't have bothered with a ruse.  Like I said, openly inviting him to speak and offering him a speaker's fee tells me that they intend to play nice.  It's a very bullish signal.
5609  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 28, 2011, 05:26:04 AM
can u explain the downsides of being the reserve currency?

Not well, but how about a quote and a link?

"This cost comes as a choice between rising unemployment and rising debt.  The mechanism is fairly straightforward.  Countries that seek to supercharge domestic growth by acquiring a larger share of global demand can do so by gaming the global system and actively stockpiling foreign currency, mainly in the form of, but not limited to, central bank reserves.   This allows them forcibly to accumulate domestic savings while relying on foreign demand to compensate for their own limited domestic demand."

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/04/bogus-threats-to-us-reserve-currency.html

Basicly it's about the current account deficit.  Foreign producers can export to the US and accumulate US $, but unlike under a gold standard, this requires that the US become a debtor nation.  This works fine as long as the economy keeps humming along, but contributes to the public pain under a recession, like now.  Prior to the US $ becoming an international reserve currency under Brenton-Woods, the vast majority of the debt of the federal government was held by wealthy private citizens rather than central banks of foreign nations or sovereign wealth funds of dictatorships.  Of course, national debt is bad, because the 'debtor is slave to the lender'; but at least if the government is owned by the wealthy class of it's own citizenship, these same citizens have a vested interest in a stable social order and the legitimacy of the government.  Foreign investors do not, always, mind the losses if they can sow difficulties in the 'great Satan'.  Not all of them mind you, as China doesn't want to do it because it would harm China to a great degree, which was the strategic beauty of Clinton making China a 'most favored trade nation' back in the early 1990's.  In this way, he led to the Chinese middle class becoming dependent upon the economic health of the United States; and he foresaw a future that China could become the only single nation on Earth capable of challenging the US military in a conventional ground war if only by shear numbers.  Of course, he didn't foresee the adventurism of his successor nor the harm this has caused to the readiness of the US military; but if we were not presently in three major open conflicts at the same time, we would still be the most "effective" military on Earth.

And, of course, the present stability of the Chinese ruling class is highly dependent upon the quality of life of that same middle class.
5610  Economy / Economics / Re: Bitcoin to failed states? (\o/) on: April 28, 2011, 01:29:15 AM
A failed state is more or less a country where the state no longer has a monpoly on physical force.

According to failed state index(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failed_state) we seem to ge a lot more of these lately and there are more to come (varnings for most of of asia, central america and the non failed parts of Afrika)

Since these states don't have a state-backed currency, bitcoins would make a lot of sense there. Also there is less competition from fiat-currencies.

So how could this be done? What would be needed in terms of technology and "marketing" to intiaite this change. Don't understimate the technical infrastructure of theese countries, in most of central Afrika, money is regularly transferred via sms. What would for example a standalone bitcoin-client require in terms of tech-spechs? How could you design one for someone who is illeterate? Could it be sent over the phoneline? SMS? MMS?

How could you propse bitcoins? Using the purchasing power of our stronger echonomy? Tourism(maybe not in theese countries)? Lot of them have millitary in them...

Here is a list of the most failed states:
 Somalia (0)
 Chad (+2)
 Sudan (0)
 Zimbabwe (-2)
 Democratic Republic of the Congo (0)
 Afghanistan (+1)
 Iraq (-1)
 Central African Republic (0)
 Guinea (0)
 Pakistan (0)
 Haiti (+1)
 Côte d'Ivoire (-1)
 Kenya (+1)
 Nigeria (+1)
 Yemen (+4)
 Burma (-3)
 Ethiopia (-1)
 Timor-Leste (+2)
 North Korea (-2)
 Niger (+4)

How many of those countries have good internet access?  Seems that's a pretty big requirement.

Kenya already has p2p cellphone banking.  And "good" Internet access for Bitcoin is relative, as there are other solutions.  When a decent lightweight client for Android is developed, expecially if Android phones start shipping with a Dash7 mesh radio, a casual user in Kenya might not ever need Internet access.
5611  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin thread on OCN, 27 pages in 12 hours on: April 28, 2011, 12:45:25 AM
Honestly, I would have expected the membership on an overclocking forum to be a bit more tech savvy.

This is what I thought as well, but apparently these overclocking forums are mostly a bunch of kids trying to get crysis to run smoothly.

 Grin
5612  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin thread on OCN, 27 pages in 12 hours on: April 28, 2011, 12:37:26 AM
I wonder how the recent revelation that Gavin Anderson is doing a presentation on Bitcoin for the CIA would trip up these mental giants, but I'm not willing to join the fray to try it.

Honestly, I would have expected the membership on an overclocking forum to be a bit more tech savvy.
5613  Other / Off-topic / Re: Youtube vid I came across demoing the lack of media attention around gold silver on: April 27, 2011, 11:58:34 PM
I can't watch the video, but the idea that there has been zero reporting in the media is false.  I've seen it.  Unless you don't consider Fox Business News channel to be "mainstream".
5614  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 27, 2011, 11:38:00 PM
and the WH will obviously be hostile towards Bitcoin.
I don't agree that this is a given.

You must be joking. Bitcoin is threatening them with bilions of dollars loss if not a total dissolution and you don't think it's a given?

No, I don't.  I think that there are plenty of people in government capable of seeing the trends, and motivated enough to act towards benefitting from those same trends.  This is true if the trend in question is the stock market, Federal Reserve dominance, or the rise of cryptocurrency.  Nor do I doubt their capacity to obscure their true motives.
5615  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [If tx limit is removed] Disturbingly low future difficulty equilibrium on: April 27, 2011, 11:33:34 PM
would be cool if max block size could do something like that.


There is probably a way to do this.  What if the client were to track the average number of blocks that a fee paying and free transactions were to persist in it's own queue, and increase the blocksize limit by 25% when it adjusts difficulty if the average wait blocks for fee paying transactions were over 6, and the free transaction section limit if free transactions averaged over 30.  And a client wouldn't reject an oversized block if it's own calculations put the averages over half of those numbers. 

I just pulled those numbers out of my rear, so I'm not suggesting they are ideal, just throwing out an idea.  If transaction congestion became a problem, this metric could stretch the blocksize to accommodate without undermining the scarcity value of the blocksize limit, and it would take months to grow significantly.

Likewise, if the average block wait for a fee paying transaction were under 2, or the average wait for free transactions were under 10, those same size metrics could be reduced by the same factor until they returned to the current limits.
5616  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 27, 2011, 11:17:42 PM
and the WH will obviously be hostile towards Bitcoin.
I don't agree that this is a given.
Quote
Why would a government agency create a currency that undermines the government's ability to collect taxes?

The government has many other ways to generate revenue.  The income tax is not small, but has always been more about social engineering than government revenue.

That said, I was saying that I would be surprised if Bitcoin were a government project.
5617  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 27, 2011, 10:22:29 PM
Watch out for the honey-pots hanging around the water-cooler, they can be enchanting and deadly.

I'm skeptical, what does bitcoin need CIA for? It doesn't, AFAIK, bitcoin has got where it is without them (unless Satoshi is an agent).
I have suspected for a couple months that this forum was being watched, and that a couple of forum members were agents keeping tabs on us; but I'd be very impressed if Bitcoin were a CIA project or that Satoshi turns out to be a government agent.  I've been careful enough that most average forum users aren't likely to be able to discover my identity, but not careful enough to prevent the feds from doing so.  I would consider that futile.  And considering that I've personally mentioned that I have worked for the federal government in the past, they almost certainly know the real me.  These guys aren't surprised easily.
Quote

What it could do with is for CIA to keep its hands off and play fair. They are more likely to be a hostile threat than an ally.
Yesterday I would have agreed with you, but as I mentioned, the CIA openly reaching out to Gavin in a friendly manner implies that they intend to "play fair", if they intend to play at all.  Hands off is almost certainly not an option now, and probably never was considering what the goals are.
5618  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 27, 2011, 10:07:30 PM
  I think the goals of this project are to create a better currency, create a more competitive and efficient international payment system, and give people more direct control over their finances.  And I don't think any of those goals are incompatible with the goals of government.

They are, in fact, incompatible.  Government has a choice between a allowing a monetary system that's efficient and keeping the one that saps the wealth of all citizens.  It's no mystery which one they will prefer.

This is only true for certain sectors of government.  Domestic monetary policy is not a concern for the CIA.  That's doesn't mean that the monied interests of other sectors won't interfere with whatever the CIA might have in mind, but the CIA doesn't care what cyberpunks are doing in the dark corners of the Internet in general.
5619  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Gavin will visit the CIA on: April 27, 2011, 10:00:26 PM
I find this revelation to be supportive of Bitcoin's future.  If they are openly asking a major representative of the Bitcoin community to speak, that means that they not only have looked at it fairly closely and have judged generally that it's not a threat or a crime (meaning they are not going to commit resources to destroy the network) it also means that someone has a use for Bitcoin.

Keep in mind, they have a use for Tor, and if every Tor node were owned by the feds, it woundn't be very useful to them either.

It might also explain some of the mystery money that has been flowing into MtGox and driving the price.  If the CIA has a use for it, they are going to have to have some of it.

If this presentation goes well, and tells them what they really would like to verifiy (they don't ask questions that they don't already have strong opinions on, like lawyers never ask questions in court that they haven't already researched, the CIA has access to some truly high class programmers themselves) then just imagine the level of hashing power that the feds could bring to Bitcoin.

I know that most people think that the fact that the US FRN is the international reserve currency is a major boon for the US economy, but there are some very notable downsides.  In some ways it's in the interests of the US to gently back away from that role.  Bitcoin could help that endeavor.
5620  Economy / Economics / Re: Bitcoin to failed states? (\o/) on: April 27, 2011, 09:47:24 PM
There are several android clients being worked on presently.  This topic has come up with regard to third world usage of Bitcoin before, please search the archives.
Pages: « 1 ... 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 [281] 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 ... 368 »
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1.19 | SMF © 2006-2009, Simple Machines Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!