Surprised to not see this posted yet: http://www.mail-to-jail.com/

I know Rich Paul, and he definitely doesn't belong there.

Who decides what a transaction is worth? Value is subjective, and even if you can't think of a reason why someone might be willing to pay a lot to send a transaction that doesn't mean they don't exist.

The idea is public domain, and I have instructions on the site with info on how to make your own. I even have an Adobe Illustrator template file you can use as a starting point for your own design. I would love to see more people start up their own versions. I already know of a handful.

This is probably what bothers me the most about this, that people are still so stuck in the old ways of doing things that they want to turn bitcoin into fiat.

Shire Silver 

I'm pretty sure bitfunder doesn't send the asset issuers the lists. They don't have to since the assets ownership is listed publicly on that one page.

If bitfunder ever got shut down the individual shareholders can prove they own their shares by signing a statement with the address listed there. IMHO giving the shareholders the ability to prove they are the rightful owners is better than having the asset issuer be trusted with the list. This way the shareholders can prove to the community at large that they own the shares even if the asset issuer tries to deny it.

My understanding is that Berwick was promoting the first ATM which was at least started a few years ago. It never went anywhere because the originator didn't have the experience/knowledge needed. That original was sold to the current owners, who got Berwick on board. So it might be considered the first one, while the Lamassu machine (if you consider it an ATM) is really the second but will probably be the first to get into production. There's a lot of history and discussion of all this hidden away in many threads on this forum.

Those are two completely different projects, run by completely different groups of people.

The first one is more like a vending machine, and at least in New Hampshire where they are located, it is regulated like one. I used the Lamassu prototype machine myself, and have talked to the guys on many occasions and they seem to have a decent plan. Their prototype is definitely not what they will be building for production use - they are really upping the quality and security.

The second one is a more traditional ATM, and IMHO was only really viable with someone like Jeff Berwick backing it, who has the skills and experience to run a "real" business and deal with big banks and regulators. I know Jeff despises the regulators, but would know how to work with them while holding his nose in order to make it work.

The Worgl experiment never lasted long enough to be a good test case. Just like when the Fed inflates the currency there is often a temporary boost to the economy, it actually does long term harm to the system; and the same probably would have been true in the Worgl case if it had run long enough.

Let people freely decide what they want to use, and let the market sort it out. That's the only fair way, and the only logical way. Go ahead and try using stuff like freicoin if you want, but I am going to stay as far away from that as I can because I personally want my money to work for me, not for someone's twisted idea of "the good of society".

I don't know about that one, but I'm liking Feedly.

For the average person, perhaps. But what about folks with poor hand/eye coordination or arthritis? And then there's the whole problem of how to carry them. Sure, you can toss a few in the wallet with your paper, but if you don't hold the wallet upright they can fall out - you never hear of people finding dollar bills in couches, but finding coins is a common theme.

People hate coins so much that there's entire industries built on it. March of Dimes and other charities can collect a lot of donations in retail settings because people would rather give a dime away then have to deal with change.

No matter what path libertarians might take to get to their desired freedom destination, its going to take a lot of time and work. Why not join the over a thousand who have already moved and started doing the work, and become a participant in the Free State Project. We have a port for those who want to build a seasted, lots of folks already getting elected and starting to make real change, a lot of folks who are opting out of the system altogether, and more coming all the time. We also have one of the longest running weekly bitcoin meetups as well as several bitcoin businesses.

If you do join, please put down Ron Helwig as the person who referred you so I can get a Golden Porc award 

More interesting to me is the idea of printing buildings. Imagine a really large 3D printer that you can set up and feed in the design files, and it will build it.

Most of the issues in the OP seem to be slightly off, but the one about ease of use is right on. Trying to deal with small amounts of gold or silver in traditional bullion forms is significantly more difficult than paper notes. And trying to have the notes backed by gold will just lead to more corruption of the currency. The solution IMHO is Shire Silver (of course), which has the backing embedded in the note. No need to trust a central bank or government to redeem, and its as convenient as paper notes.

Of course bitcoins are still better for many use cases, but for in-person anonymous non-electronic transactions Shire Silver is currently the best thing out there.

You need to add 2006 before I can vote 

It should be noted (and hopefully fixed on the wiki) that the Race Attack is not strictly speaking a double spend. It is a zero confirmation exploit that is basically the same as writing a check that will bounce. The business solutions that will solve/prevent this will likely be similar to what businesses use now, and will not be perfect but will probably be good enough.

That's already too complicated.


IMHO it should be more like:

• Customer visits site
• Customer clicks "Buy a paper wallet"
• Client side script generates two pass phrases, only showing one to the customer
• Clear and concise instructions tell the customer to write down or print their pass phrase
• Client side script then sends the other pass phrase and the public address to the server
• Client side then says "to complete your order send XXX BTC to 1?... and also presents a QR code
• Server alerts production that a new wallet is ordered
• Production prints out and ships the wallet

The customer shouldn't have to know about BIP38 or any of that, although if they want to learn about it good links should be available.

The wallet should have the codes to verify that the pass phrase in the wallet will generate the half of the private key. The website should have a client side script page that will take both pass phrases and use them to determine the real private key.

I made a test wallet using my Shire Silver equipment, putting a piece of aluminum foil between two pieces of 100# cardstock and laminating them (private key on the inside of one of the pieces of cardstock). It sure seemed to be pretty well guarded against casual prying, and only when the laminate was cut on three sides was the private key portion visible.

You can also save the pass phrase that the customer didn't get in a database, so if they ever lose the card they can always ask for another (for a price).

Anybody think maybe it was a test to see how well the business would survive a government ordered shutdown of the website? 

Well, there's also the point that the reason campaign contributions are limited is so that (at least in theory) candidates won't be unduly influenced by large donors. But with the ability to send the donations anonymously, that really shouldn't be as much of a concern. In addition, why not just make all donations where any info on the donor is provided public information readily accessible? Instead of trying to use a bureaucratic attempt to reduce corruption in politics, use sunshine.

Wouldn't the best use of BIP38 be to have the manufacturer print half the private key while the customer writes down the other half? You can print a really nice note for them and they know that you don't have access to the funds, but they can verify that the half of the code you printed is correct.