I'd certainly be very interested in one of those, IF there was the small additional feature that I could print out more than one copy of a given keypair. Not that I want it to store the addresses/keys; rather, so that I when I push "New Keys", I can tell it how many copies to print.

If I intend to store more than a pittance at an address, I want more than one copy of it and its key as backup, and if I have to scan it into a computer to make copies, that kind of defeats the purpose.

Hmm.

I took a look at USPS shipping costs within the U.S. (specifically, from the midwest to Alaska.) I looked at prices for a one ounce letter in a letter-sized envelope "containing a rigid object" (a light cardboard sleeve.)

The cost for first class mailing is $0.65 (goes up to $0.85 for two ounces.)

The cost for proof of deposit (certificate of mailing) is $1.15.

Insurance of $10 (for the rough purchase price of, say two dimes) costs $1.85.

Certified mail, which provides delivery confirmation but not point-to-point tracking, is $2.95.

Express mail, which DOES provided point-to-point tracking, is a flat $18.95.

And the spot price of a silver dime is about $2.25. For two dimes that would be $4.50.

I've rethought this several times over, and while I came up with various options and such to reduce the cost, while still trying to mainly provide for my target market, it got much more complicated than I wanted. Again, I'm not so much trying to provide silver for average bitcoin users as provide a small product for several people with a bitcoin or two who want to spend it on something. I'm only going to be selling a few dozen dimes, not trying to make a business out of this (not right now, at least.)

To that effect...

One silver dime: 1 BTC - includes proof of deposit. Insurance/confirmation/tracking optional, costing extra
Two silver dimes: 2 BTC - includes certified mailing. Insurance/tracking optional, costing extra
Additional dimes: + 0.65 BTC per extra dime, still includes certified mailing

Maximum order size of 10 dimes.
Additional shipping methods and services negotiable upon request. U.S. shipping only.

I'll probably go with all this and make the post on the Goods forum once I get the shipping materials.

Something like that. Perhaps "NOTE: Spending a large number of small payouts too soon after receipt may incur a transaction fee."

True. As an aside, this might be something we need to more explicitly inform people of; perhaps dailybitcoins.org could inform users of this right on the page? (Also, perhaps a good feature request for the main client might be an info box that pops up whenever transaction fees are incurred, letting the user know that he might be able to avoid the fee by waiting to send the transaction.)

Well, I'm thinking of selling some silver dimes, and wondering if there would be interest on this forum in buying them.

I'd be selling them at a constant price, 1 silver dime for 1 bitcoin, shipping included, until I ran out, regardless of price fluctuations. Admittedly, this is currently a pretty high price, but the intent (besides selling out of about 50 dimes) would be to give people with just 1 or 2 bitcoins something tangible to easily spend it on.

I notice that Coinabul.com sells old silver coinage, and at prices closer to spot (currently $2.28 for a silver dime,) but you have to buy $1 face value--10 dimes, or some other coin combination--at a current cost of about 5.5btc, and I'm not sure what they charge for shipping. In that light, I really don't think buying 1 or 2 dimes for 1btc each is unreasonable.

So... is there interest? If so I'll probably run with this. (Newbies who haven't been whitelisted can feel free to PM me if they like the idea. To some extent, this is intended for those who are new to bitcoin or just don't have much, and want to buy something small and tangible with it to try it out.)

Quick question: Have you by chance contacted a company like Bit-Pay, to see if they could streamline the conversion to USD for you? Granted, you probably don't *need* to do that, but if the process they offered was simple and guaranteed (IOW, they charge a set small fee, give you the remainder in USD, and take the risk of losing money when slowly selling the BTC), it might allow you to entertain BTC offers closer to the USD price.

Sweet! I'd heard his product being raved about on Free Talk Live; knowing he accepts bitcoins means I may actually try it.

The most crucial thing, for me, is to be able to pay for the basic, necessary requirements of modern life with bitcoins:

 - Gasoline
 - Groceries (including toiletries)
 - Utilities & Insurance
 - Clothing
 - Household Items/Consumables (towels, batteries, candles, dishwashing liquid, etc.)

Toss in small "consumable" electronics like blank CDs, micro SD cards, etc. and I'd probably be able to reduce my reliance on FRNs by 90+%. Of course, you'd have to make the purchase process simpler than using Amazon through spendbitcoins.com to be competitive (probably not very hard.)

Now, some of this may not be too feasible. You can't mail gasoline, but if you're in the U.S., maybe there's a large gas station chain that sells gift cards? Also, shipping groceries probably won't allow for fresh bread or produce, and things like liquids (juice) may not be cost effective to ship, but surely some things could be sold. If you could also include long-term stored food, like they sell at wisefoodstorage.com, that would be great. Toiletries like deodorant, toilet paper, toothpaste, and household items like batteries and towels... those should be among the easiest to handle.

Utilities and insurance couldn't be done directly. But in my case, I could do just fine with you mailing me blank money orders with the amounts already filled in... both my insurance and utilities would take those.

Finally, least important of all to me would be the clothes, just because the hassle of not having a good look at the clothing quality and styles and sizes would have me make online purchases pretty infrequently. And it would probably be quite a hassle for you trying to stock all the options too. Although if you were to, say, just stick to an inexpensive, reasonably-well-known brand of comfortable jeans, I'd know in advance exactly what I need and would no longer have to shop for those locally either.

I like it. I think I'll be able to use that one.

To answer the one item...

BitcoinSpinner operates with only one address. All spends are from that address, with all change going back to that address. I believe this address is generated when the app runs for the first time, and stays constant from then on.

That said, you could backup the (single-address) wallet, then uninstall and reinstall the app. That should cause the app to generate a new address, and by carefully backing up the current wallet and restoring the saved one, you can swap between two or more of them as desired. Probably not exactly what you want, but in a pinch, it may be helpful.

No problem. It's hardly a mission-critical bug.

Found a new bug. I'm using BS version 0.5.2b on a Droid X.

I open BS with an address already in the clipboard (call it C.)

I goto my address book and select a friend's address (we'll call it F.) The menu appears, and I choose the option to show the QR code.

The QR code appears, and I press the "copy to clipboard" button. A quick dialog message tells me the address was copied.

But then when I paste the address to a field, either within BS or in another app, address F does not appear. Address C does not appear either. Instead, my BS receiving address is what is pasted into the field.

Repeated copying attempts produce the same result, even when I place other data into the clipboard before trying to copy an address.

I don't see micropayments being a problem. Even if the average tx-fee paid rises, there will likely always be free transaction processing, even if it's just the company accepting the micropayments that mines those blocks. It will just take longer on average for such transactions to be processed and receive their first confirmation. So unless you're wanting that $0.05 you sent to your friend to be available for a resend in 30 minutes, micropayments should be handled just as well later on as they are now.

My point still holds. Alt-coins being attacked by legitimate bitcoin pools that take it upon themselves to police the world of cryptocurrencies has a chilling effect on dissatisfied bitcoin users who might otherwise have tried to create a non-pump-and-dump alt-coin.

I personally don't need to be saved from the scammy alt-coins. I'd rather be saved from all those trying to change bitcoin into their vision of an alt-coin.

While I don't think I'll trust EasyWallet with any funds just yet, I have to say I like their feature of generating new receiving addresses for you. InstaWallet should consider copying this.

Because it's culturally entrenched. Here's the origin of it:


Like it or not, that's going to continue to be the perspective of many people for a long time. Myself, I understand the meaning; I have no problem with it.

I've found myself asking this more than I would have expected lately.

Although to be fair, when you have an entire mining pool willing to use it's resources to attack any new alt-coin that springs up (in similar fashion to this, I note,) then it's not as if people are very free to just create their own alternatives and go run with them... they're pretty much stuck with Bitcoin if they like the idea of a cryptocurrency but want changes to it.

The law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head again.

You seriously think, at current prices, that a miner charging a 0.01btc per-tx fee is exorbitant? And in the same context as comparing Bitcoin to Western Union, no less?

While I can see how many would think that's a bit much (as I do,) I hardly find that to be anything close to "lunacy." In fact, such a strong reaction to the idea has me wondering who exactly it is that's desperately grasping for every last BTC they can get at.

Another way to look at that: the reduction in the mandatory fee for large transactions was reduced too much, too quickly within the main client. While I personally pay those fees often enough, it hardly amounts to much. At the very least, the mandatory fee shouldn't be reduced again anytime soon (a $100 price for bitcoins would still make the 0.0005btc fee be only worth $0.05. At current prices I pay one-quarter of one cent per fee.)

Similarly, what is the default optional fee that the latest version of the standard client is set to upon install? If it's less than 0.01btc (currently $0.05 per tx,) perhaps raising this default optional fee to 0.01btc in the next release would be a good start at addressing the long-term low-fee problem, since it wouldn't change any aspect of the code or protocol, and could be reduced by users as needed.

Even if it defaults to 0.01btc already, maybe an additional notice could be displayed whenever the user reduces the optional fee, including text such as "Lowering this fee, while possible, is strongly discouraged.")

I can't see any practical objections to at least starting with that.

Then Haplo's clarification is correct? (Thank you for that, Haplo.) So it means instead of forcing miners to include transactions, they would instead be forced to access recent blocks and extract data from them.

What's still a little confusing about that on a conceptual level is this: mining ALREADY requires access to recent blockchain data, in the form of a hash of the prior block. Even if it required new code, couldn't the method already being used to distribute that prior-block-hash to all the nodes on a botnet be copied/modified to also distribute the newly-required "proof of verification?"