Okay - thanks for that (had never heard the expression before) - overall I hope the OP is not getting too worried that his bitcoins are not safe even after 6 confirmations but I do believe that it is at least important to try and explain clearly how the system works so people don't get too "shocked" if something occurred that they had been told was "less likely than the end of the sun" (for this reason I would never recommend anyone to invest more in bitcoins than they are prepared to lose completely).

OP - if I've confused you further then sorry and feel free to ask for clarification.

Hmm... am not quite sure how to be a "Bayesian" (although I am guessing you might be referring to the Baysian equation algos used for identifying spam).

It isn't actually as nonsensical as you think - one of the core devs was just posting the other day about the weakness of the Bitcoin network.

Don't kid yourselves - if the PRC government decided to prevent the export of ASIC and keep it to use on Bitcoin mining themselves then the >50% could happen in as little as one month.

I don't believe that this is correct in the case of a successful >50% attack.

AFAIA if someone has enough hashing resources that they can mine blocks much faster than the rest of the network combined then if they simply keep mining new blocks (even with no tx's if they like) without publishing them they can let the blockchain grow as many blocks as they like and then suddenly announce a longer chain (this attack can only go back as far as a "checkpoint" AFAIA).

They can indeed "disappear" if they are later detected as being double-spends.

Understand that the confirmations are required in order to prevent a "double-spend".

So although you can never receive a "fake" bitcoin (either the tx output is valid or not) it is possible (although not highly probable) that you could be sent a tx that later becomes "invalid" due to another tx using the same input having been sent at roughly the same time.

Certainly for high value txs I would recommend waiting for at least 6 confirmations.

I have already seen another all upper case vanitygen address in a sig on this forum so I think this must not be correct (at least with the current version).

Once again regex's using vanitygen (assuming there are outgoing tx's from them which I haven't checked as I am assuming you have).

Understand that in the first case it could have been ^1ELEC* or perhaps *Jo*Dox* and the second case ^12345678*go* - unless you know exactly what regex the creator used it really is just speculation.

If you really think it is so easy to create any BTC address you like then please try creating 1hohohociyam1 (exact match) and I will send you 10 btc (after you've proved that you own the private key of course).

I expect the funds will turn up when they are back online (hopefully) so don't stress out.

You can use regular expressions with vanitygen - so the regex used probably was just [A-Z0-9]+* (or similar) which although difficult is not as difficult as a very long case sensitive specific prefix.

The situation will very much depend upon the service in question (where is the account held?) but in general a Bitcoin address that "belongs" to an account should always be valid and still tied to that account (even if the service allocates a new address for usage as this is done to help protect your anonymity).

In the soon to be released CIYAM open source project all sensitive content is encrypted over plain HTTP that is injected dynamically (think AJAX).

With the page calling for the injection being able to be formatted any way you like it should be very hard to determine what is going on unless they also plan to ban all dynamic HTML injection.

I have been in contact with the owner recently and understand that new (API) features are being added so I am pretty sure that it has not been forgotten (although I don't think that "dispute resolution" was ever really part of the service).

I see the words "fractal reserve" in the image - is something to do with preserving the Mandlebrot set going on here?

I also plan to build a General Ledger package for the CIYAM open source project (probably a few months away for this particular package) - I've used GNUCash for a few years and will be basing it on its basic design with support for BTC and conversions to other currencies being a core part.

Actually if I was the Chinese government I'd be considering Bankcoin very seriously (and who knows maybe I will be contacted about it?) as America has screwed them badly with their QEx tricks and inflation is a huge worry in PRC (with preventing a revolution always being a major consideration).

Of course if different Bankcoins were to appear in different countries (i.e. only able to be mined within their own country) then it would be interesting to work out which would be trusted more (I don't think I'd be investing in Americoins).

If this occurred then the new Ripple project would be likely become a very important mechanism for interbank transfers of Bankcoins.

I hadn't actually thought so much about the interbank settlement currency (although that does sound like a very good use case).

Whether PoW or PoS or other variant is best would of course depend mostly upon want the banks would agree to (although I do think that at least some portion of PoS might actually be more preferred to prevent the currency being >50% attacked).

I still think that the opportunity for a huge PR boost (if the banks were to offer non-inflationary investment as an extra "account") vs the cost of setting up the system (virtually zero compared to the advertising campaigns that would follow) would see an "overnight success" (which of course unfortunately would drive/keep Bitcoin underground).

If some of the name banks in the world were to offer such an account tomorrow (with all the guarantees of a bank) then I think I'd probably invest 10 times as much in that than I would invest in Bitcoin (at least as things stand at the moment).

Allow me to quote myself:


BTW I am not talking about the banks necessarily using Bankcoin as a "currency" but more as a digital commodity.

It would be open to competition - but that competition would be limited to registered banks.

Understand that although I really do like Bitcoin (and would love to see it become widely adopted) I just think that it's naive not to think that Bankcoin won't be the more likely successful version of the technology (when the cost to the banks is virtually zero to turn their bad rep around any PR company worth its salt would already be suggesting this if they only knew about it).


Banks in China allow you to purchase gold (and you can buy real gold rather than paper gold and of course it comes with paperwork to guarantee it) - please tell me how they are taxing that with inflation?

Thanks very much Charlie - I have updated the title of the OP and my nephew is very happy to have his first bitcoin.

I understand the point but really think that what you are saying is "dogma" - do you represent the banks (if not how can you be 100% certain they will do what you say so - and would you like to take a bet on this)?