Edit: jetzt haben schon zwei andere im Wesentlichen das Gleiche geschrieben - ich poste trotzdem, weil ich mir so viel Mühe mit dem Tippen gegeben habe und das nicht einfach canceln will 


Also mir würde, wenn überhaupt, eine regelmäßige gründliche Buchprüfung durch unabhängige Prüfer vorschweben.
Das kann nicht alle Schäden verhindern (eine Regulierung, die das tut, verhindert im Endeffekt *alles*), aber sollte zumindest die Schadenshöhe und die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer Verschleppung reduzieren.

Noch transparenter wäre allerdings eine Prüfmöglichkeit durch jedermann - also veröffentlichte Bilanzen plus Dokumentation über die Kassenstände, die zumindest im Crypto-Bereich auch verifizierbar wäre. Ob sowas bei einem Wirtschaftsunternehnmen, das ja auch in Konkurrenz zu anderen steht und daher nicht immer mit offenen Karten spielen will, überhaupt möglich ist, weiß ich aber nicht. Nach all den Negativ-Erfahrungen mit undurchsichtigen "Firmen" im Bitcoin-Bereich wäre es zumindest ein interessantes Experiment. Bei jedem kleinen Bitcoin-Benutzer, der 0.2 Bitcoins borgen will, wird nach Collateral gerufen - warum dann nicht bei Exchanges, denen man weitaus größere Summen zur Verfügung stellt, Sicherheitsmechanismen fordern. Collateral geht da natürlich nicht, aber Transparenz wäre als vertrauensbildende Maßnahme auch nicht schlecht.

Onkel Paul

Und die ganzen Leute, die hoffen, noch BTC für 110$ zu bekommen, spielen "Bankenrettung" :-) Der Schuss wird vermutlich nach hinten losgehen...

Onkel Paul

Klassische Konditionierung. Aber keine Angst, ich beiße nicht. Mir geht's nur um die intellektuelle Redlichkeit (und da bin ich ernsthaften Argumenten auch zugänglich).

Onkel Paul

Wird als Argument gegen Ripple oft gebracht, zeigt aber, dass du dich nicht wirklich damit auseinandergesetzt hast.
XRP haben keinen besonderen Wert (man sollte insbesondere nicht auf eine Wertsteigerung spekulieren), weil sie von Ripple Labs in großen Mengen unter die Leute geworfen werden und damit zentral ausgegeben & premined sind - lauter böse Wörter für einen Bitcoin-Anhänger.
Aber Ripple als verteilte Exchange ist ein sinnvoller Ansatz. Anders als die Traumschloss-Wünsche von verteilten Exchanges, die hier auf bitcointalk ab und zu angepriesen werden, funktioniert das Konzept nämlich (weil es akzeptiert, dass man Gateways braucht, denen man vertrauen muss, wenn man ihnen sein Geld überlässt).
Und die Architektur des Server-Netzes gibt ein verteiltes System (in dem auch Ripple Labs nicht mehr nach Gutdünken an Schrauben drehen kann) durchaus her, dazu müssen natürlich mehr Nodes aktiv werden und sich gegenseitig in die trusted node lists eintragen. Das ist im Moment noch nicht so weit (was ich sehr bedauerlich finde), möglicherweise auch weil der Aufwand, einen Ripple Node zu betreiben, ungleich höher ist als bei einem Bitcoin Node, und deswegen eher was für Organisationen ist, die sowieso Server und ordentlich Bandbreite zur Verfügung haben. Aber machbar ist es, ich hab's auch hinter meiner mickrigen DSL-Leitung halbwegs zum Laufen gebracht.

Onkel Paul

I've got 19.5 XPM left over in my primecoin wallet, willing to sell at 3 mBTC each (so that's 0.0585 BTC total). PM me if interested. I'd take LTC or XRP, too (need to look up exchange rate in that case).
My computer just is not usable for mining, and I'd rather see this in circulation than gathering digital dust on my hard disk.

Onkel Paul

However, if such a weakness were found, it could just as well be used to "recover" bitcoins that are currently in other people's wallets and essentially are "lost" to me :-)
This would certainly increase the number of possible bitcoin millionaires, but in practice it would mean that either
- I would become the sole bitcoin multimillionaire (if I knew the secret and didn't tell anybody)
- Everybody could be a bitcoin millionaire for a short moment until the coins are siphoned away again (if everybody knew the trick).
In both cases, owning a million bitcoins would be comparable to owning a million zimbabwean dollars...

Onkel Paul

To me, the announcement looked more like someone wanted to create a CC, too, and thought that it would be easiest using Ripple, without really understanding the implications.
I really don't know whether he intends to scam or is just naive, but either way, I would not trust such a currency.
A gateway is trustworthy if they only issue IOUs for currencies they actually hold, and make sure that they can pay out these currencies when holders of their IOUs request so.
Of course, you still need to trust the gateway operator, his technical competence, the security of the computers used etc... Just like you need to trust any institution that handles your money.

Onkel Paul

I'd much prefer a simple hardware security token plus easy-to-remember transformation rule, for example "swap first and third digit, add 3 to the fourth digit (mod 10)".
The token would spit out a new 6-or-8-digit number each minute, and the transformation rule must be used to find the actual password.
That way, to gain access someone must steal the token and also know the transformation rule. That's not impossible to do, but is much more difficult to achive stealthily than acquiring a fingerprint from some appropriate surface.

Of course, this is just the authentication part - you also need to have a reasonably tamper-proof computer and operating system, and the whole system must make sure that MITM attacks won't work.

Onkel Paul

(I can't help thinking of "Minority Report" whenever someone mentions iris scans...)

Der Fiat-Tausch (ob per Börse oder Face to Face) ist wie schon geschrieben kein zentraler Aspekt einer CC - eigentlich will man eher erreichen, dass ihr Gegenwert in Waren und Dienstleistungen gemessen wird und nicht in irgendeiner Fiat-Währung. So weit sind wir aber noch lange nicht.
Die Börsen sind auf längere Zeit nicht verzichtbar, denn nur mit Face to Face Tausch kann man kaum eine ernstzunehmende Preisbildung erreichen, und solange die meisten Leute, die sich an der Bitcoin-Ökonomie beteiligen, auch noch mit Fiat handeln müssen, wollen sie auch einen halbwegs verlässlichen Wechselkurs haben. Das aktuelle Chaos mit hunderten Dollar Kursdifferenz zwischen den Börsen ist ja schon unerträglich, aber wenn es gar keine Anhaltspunkte gäbe, was ein BTC in EUR oder USD wert ist, wäre es noch wesentlich schlimmer.

Onkel Paul

Take the sum of tx_indexes modulo number of entries. This gives a number between 0 and (number of entries - 1). If you either add 1 to the result or number your entries starting from 0 you have found the winning entry that would get the jackpot minus house edge.
100 entries is just a special case of this - modulo 100 just means to take the last 2 digits.
Of course, it requires some arithmetics to check whether the right transaction won - just taking the last 2 digits is easier. But then adding up 100 tx indexes is already quite some bit of work, so few people would check manually.
Another possible problem (unless I misunderstood the function of tx_index) is the placement of transactions in the list - are they sorted strictly by tx_index, or by arrival at your node?

Onkel Paul

(note that even though I gave technical advice on how such a thing might be done, I generally recommend against gambling, especially if you don't really have money that you won't miss when you lost it...)

For physical callateral, yes (collateral can only work when the lender has complete control over it in case you default).
Since the shipping costs can be quite high (especially if you include insurance), altcoins are often used as collateral - transferring them is cheap and almost instantaneous.

Onkel Paul

Verabschiede dich einfach von dem Gedanken, dass du mit blockchain.info auf einer Adresse sehen kannst, wieviel Bitcoins du hast. Ein Wallet hat viele Adressen. Welche alle dazu gehören, weiß außer dem Wallet niemand (und das ist auch gut so).
Bei Online-Wallets sieht das unter Umständen anders aus (je nach Wallet wird dort nur eine Adresse benutzt, und das Wechselgeld geht immer an diese Adresse). Würde für mich aber nicht als Grund ausreichen, auf ein Online-Wallet umzusteigen.

Onkel Paul

Bitcoins don't come simply flowing to you because you're sitting in front of a computer. Just accept that TANSTAAFL.

Basically, as with all other kinds of money, there are two ways of getting them:
- Invest money that you already have (risky, don't do that it you don't have any, i.e. don't to that with loaned money)
- Sell services or goods that are in demand

Forget gambling, faucets, Pay-to-click etc. Returns will be pretty small, it's ok to get your feet wet but it's not a serious way of earning money.

I suppose you're not sitting on piles of valuable goods that you can sell for a living, so you should ask youself: what skills do you have that people would want to pay for? Since you're jobless, you probably don't have the skills required for a paying job where you live - is this an issue with you or with the region in which you're living?
If your skills are not in demand anywhere, you need to work on your skills - otherwise either moving or offering to work over internet are possible options.
Work over internet can have several advantages
- your possible market is much bigger,
- you don't have a lot of upfront costs (like buying a car etc) since you already have a computer and internet access,
- it might work better if your in-person social skills are weak (but you should still be able to communicate without upsetting your communication partner).

Onkel Paul

Did he offer to pay in bitcoins? Otherwise it would be really bad style...

Onkel Paul

Looks like there is a technical issue (requests timing out) and a managerial issue (i.e. admin/manager has basically abandoned the project).
I won't speculate on the second issue, as I have absolutely no information about coinjedi's whereabouts and situation - it's possible that he lost interest, it's also possible that he got hit by a bus (hopefully not).
The second issue seems to prevent bets from being decided and finalized, so I don't see how bitcoins in waiting bets these can be retrieved.
Withdraing your account balance, however, seems to be possible with some patience - I did it today, and using the "reload" button whenever the dreaded "Your request can not be completed at this time" box appeared, I could coax the system into sending me the small amount that I had there. However, the transaction has not been confirmed yet (it had no fee, which should be ok since it was minimum size, but it might take some time before miners accept it into a block).

Hopefully the site will be revived, I really liked the clean design and considered the betting mechanism pretty fair and reasonable.

Onkel Paul

It's basically happening all the time (similarly with every software that's generating large primes, such as many encryption programs). Primes are not really sparse, so when you find a (large) prime, the probability that no one found it before you it is pretty high, and finding previously unfound primes is neither interesting nor hard. There are special kinds of primes (for example Mersenne primes) whose properties make it possible to prove their primality for much bigger values than is possible for randomly picked numbers, so the absolutely biggest prime numbers are typically of these kinds, but primecoin does not search for such primes.
What primecoin does is searching for special patterns (cunningham chains) of primes which are much rarer, so the task is usable as a proof-of-work mechanism. It is not yet clear whether the results will have practical uses outside of their primary use of protecting the primecoin blockchain, but it is conceivable that when research around some theorem around primes and cunningham chains needs many relatively long chains, the data will be welcome by researchers.

Onkel Paul

Even if the bitcoin price drops very quickly, miners will not react immediately all at the same time. Some will switch off earlier than others, maybe because they're more fearful, maybe because their energy costs are higher. At some point, remaining miners will decide that their best choice is to continue mining because enough miners have left the scene to make mining attractive for the others again. Of course, block rate will go down quite a bit until the next difficulty adjustment, so you might have 1-2 weeks of average 2-3 blocks per hour instead of 6. So what? It's very unlikely that this will happen at all, and even if it does happen, bitcoin transactions will only be slowed down a bit, not stopped.

Onkel Paul

Schau'n wir mal, wer sich demnächst im Forum rar macht - oder ist schon bekannt, wer da verhaftet wurde?

Onkel Paul

I know that's a rhetorical question, but still...
Essentially, "backing" in the context of currency is a promise by the issuer of the currency that it is at any time redeemable for something that its users consider valuable, and that the exchange rate stays constant.
As with all promises, this promise can be broken - intentionally or unintentionally. For example, if I issue a currency that is "backed" by huge warehouses of food, its users might consider it valuable (and use it for their businesses) because they know that at the end of the day they will get enough to eat for their money. However, if the food gets spoiled or stolen (not intended by me), the money will become worthless. Another possibility is that I print more money (because I want to buy services from the folks using it) without adding corresponding amounts of food to my warehouses - then we have inflation, and the money becomes worth less over time.

Back in the time when money was "backed with gold" the common understanding was that a certain amount of money could be exchanged for a certain amount of gold. Since gold is considered valuable by most people (which is entirely subjective itself, but that's a digression) that worked pretty well most of the time.

However, nowadays the currency used in an economy is typically not backed by some static resource such as gold, but by the value of the economy itself. Governments promise that you will be able to get goods and services within that economy, and they (partially) try to keep their promise using their monetary policies. However, money stability isn't their only goal, there are other sometimes conflicting economic goals (such as employment rate and growth) which they try to achieve as well. As a result, inflation is often controlled to be high enough that investments are attractive, but not too high so the citizens won't riot :-)

Of course, this leaves the impression that "your money" constantly loses value, and that the government does a bad job of keeping its value constant. This is a misconception, it's not your money, it's their money, and it's working as designed. Note that most of the wealth of the truly wealthy is not kept in the form of cash or bank accounts, but in the form of assets which gain value (or pay dividends) over time.

I think that's the main problem with fiat, and not the question whether it is backed by anything. That question is a red herring, because it only leads to a recursion.
Instead, I agree with the OP that value is entirely subjective (although there are objective needs such as food and shelter, they can have wildly varying costs) and that the concept of "backing" is not very useful.

Onkel Paul

Teils/teils. Natürlich ist die Sicht auf Bitcoin als reines Spekulationsobjekt problematisch, aber wenn jeder seine Bitcoins nur in Wallets verstecken würde, könnten sich auf den Exchanges kaum aussagekräftige Kurse herausbilden, weil das Volumen viel zu klein wäre (nur Bitcoins von Minern zu kaufen, wird vermutlich für eine stabile Kursbildung nicht reichen). Und ohne Kurs können Händler und Kunden kaum einschätzen, ob ein Bitcoin-Preis für eine Ware oder Dienstleistung angemessen, zu hoch oder zu niedrig ist - also wird keiner gerne das Risiko eingehen, Bitcoin als Zahlungsmittel einzusetzen oder zu akzeptieren. Die 10000-BTC Pizza würd ich da mal außen vor lassen, das war ein Spaß und Versuchsballon zu Zeiten, als das Mining noch fast nichts gekostet hat.

Onkel Paul