we've got an exponential rise "bubble" in mining hash rate forming http://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate. So blocks are being produced too often, every 7 minutes on average instead of every 10. This is causing extra coins to to be minted and presumably some of those enter the marketplace. Yet the price is flat or trending upwards. So maybe 30% more coins then normal are being eaten by this "dead" market. I haven't bothered to quantitatively calculate it. So what's gonna happen when the bubble "pops" and hash rate flatlines or even descends?  |
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Hardly. Making payments with good privacy is the whole point of Bitcoin, isn't it?
No. I believe the whole point of Bitcoin is " A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution". Privacy is just a secondary objective. Back to the topic. Unless the salary is paid with 100 completely unrelated transactions, your friend could still figure out your salary. This will create a massive overhead and is obviously not sustainable. In addition, it would be a stupid idea to ask your boss to pay directly to a hot wallet on your smartphone. Firstly, it's unsafe. Secondly, you boss can see all your transactions. The right way is to ask your boss to send to your salary wallet, and use some coin-mixing scheme to move the money to your spending wallet. I think he's saying that payment protocol would generate new destination addresses so you would not leak other wallet addresses to your boss. Probably there is a happy spot between consolidation of transactions/leaking information and overwhelming the blockchain. I'd imagine that this would be both configurable and have defaults that get adjusted with each client release based ultimately on the ratio of the rate of growth of the blockchain vs. rate of growth in storage space per dollar. |
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Such melting can't be done safely by a small pool, coz a bigger pool can make an attempt to "remine" the block and collect the fees by itself.
So... why doesn't the "bigger pool" attempt to "remine" regular blocks worth a mere 25 bitcoins each? Coz next blocks give 25 BTC as well. Regards, your Captain Obvious. Well... they can "remine" that one as well? And the one after that? And so on? Every time a block is orphaned, somebody has remined that block. i just had a solo mined block orphaned for the first time. annoying as hell. how does that happen and how do i check the logs (ubuntu) to analyze what happened? As soon as a miner receives a new valid block, it will switch to mining the next one on that chain because clients consider the longest, highest difficulty chain the main one and the cost to switch to mining the block after the one you just received is negligible. But if someone finds a block before they receive your newly mined block there's now 2 valid blocks -- that is, the beginnings of a fork in the blockchain. Since the longest valid chain "wins" (clients consider the longest, highest difficulty chain the main one) the race is now on to find the next block; if it build off of their block then your block is "orphaned". Therefore to stop a fork it is good to: 1. Receive other miner's blocks as soon as possible to minimize the time you are mining on a shorter chain. 2. Broadcast your block as widely as possible to minimize the time others mine on the shorter chain. Once there is a fork the goal is to find a block on your chain first. To do this: 3. Broadcast your block as widely as possible to encourage others to use your chain. Obviously a larger pool has an advantage here as it starts with a lot of processing power that's going to be mining off its' block. Gavin is right that a rigorous analysis would be fun, but in the meantime you could do as much of all of the above as possible. AFAIK there are parameters, etc. that can be adjusted in the client to increase your connectivity, etc. But I haven't looked at the source for awhile for I forget if they are programming constants or are config parameters... |
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Hey guys, I'm not sure if this has been discussed before or not and I can't seem to find anything in regards to it. While governments have been talking about regulation of bitcoin and people worry about the government interfering with it, bitcoin seems to be extremely difficult to regulate or even attempt to regulate. My question is, if for instance, if the US government decided it wanted to destroy the bitcoin network wouldn't it be possible for them to do so by artificially destroying the value of bitcoins? Suppose they buy millions of dollars worth of bitcoins off of an exchange and then sell them for pennies. While the price when they purchase the coins will skyrocket when they start to sell them for pennies the price will drop to nothing - making mining not profitable and pretty much destroying the network. This would allow them to "regulate" bitcoin by destroying it's value. Is this theory even remotely possible or am I completely missing something?
Not gonna happen. It would be the end of that civil servant or politician's career if bitcoin recovered. And probably impossible to justify the cost a priori because the question "how can you guarantee it DOES not recover?" is unanswerable. It would basically just end up giving bitcoiners a lot of capital that they could then use on bitcoin related projects... |
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Not much going on in here so I might as well throw this question out:
If you want to buy for a large amount, say between $ 50k and $ 200k, what is usually the be way to buy them on the exchanges? I guess somekind of limit order would be preferable?
First off, don't post the question on these forums  . But seriously, that's not a huge amount -- ~500 to 2k coins at today's prices. The key questions here are: What's your starting point? (are you verified on any exchanges) What's your timeframe? Is this potentially a repeat thing? Are you interesting in cultivating new exchanges? The best short-term strategy that does not involve manipulation would be to purchase on multiple exchanges simultaneously. You could probably fill that order on bitstamp, btc-e, campbx and only drive the price up a buck or two. By using multiple exchanges and buying as soon as the money hits your accounts you minimize exchange risk. But that presupposes you have accounts in these places. If you had only one account (at bitstamp, say) and a longer timeframe, I'd break the purchase into 3-4 smaller wires to minimize exchange risk. That would also space the purchases out so you'd likely not move the market. But if you anticipate repeat business (and judging by your website, I'd guess you do), I'd register and KYC with every exchange I could find, including one in China. Because you never know when an exchange could disappear... and if you are filling whale orders you may need to produce on a short timeframe. Finally, you might want to create a relationship with one of the new exchanges that have been recently announced and risk a few $ filling out their bid orderbook. I'll bet a phone call could get you really low fees... |
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One important reason I'm not moving to an alt-chain is the distributed exchange between bitcoin and MasterCoin, which isn't possible if we are on an alt-chain, since it requires using data from standard bitcoin transactions AND MasterCoin transactions to work.
I don't think I've mentioned that reason anywhere else, but it is probably the primary reason I'm not even willing to consider it. There are other reasons, like total cost of development, and even the dirty stink of starting yet another alt chain (For instance, bitshares is doing it "right", but they were banished to the alt section with all those scam coins, which they of course bitterly resent).
I am totally convinced that building on top of bitcoin is the right way to go, for all the reasons here and above in Ron's posts.
It would be easy enough to build a client that could do atomic cross-blockchain txns... essentially the txn in mastercoin-chain would reference a bitcoin txn and maximum block and be invalid if that bitcoin txn "pair" is not in the bitcoin chain before that block. A subsequent mastercoin-chain "txn" could set a marker that explicitly validates or invalidates the mastercoin-txn so mastercoin-only clients could exist. None of your mining, minting etc. arguments hold water because its just a fork of the existing OSS bitcoin code. But really none of these arguments matter. Its great that MC txn fees encourage bitcoin use/velocity. And if it becomes an issue for bitcoin, Bitcoin txn fees will rise to the point where you will move. I think you are really feeling a backlash because you advertised MC as a service on top of Bitcoin rather than a competing alt-coin. But in truth it is a competing alt-coin that uses the bitcoin infrastructure. Its like you said you are going "sailing" but are actually just sitting in your car on a ferry. MC is technically a service on top of Bitcoin but in essence it is a separate coin.In contrast, Casascius coins are technically not a service on top of Bitcoin (to transfer them you don't use the blockchain). But they ARE in their essence. But the reality is that an alt-coin is an easy way to raise money without going to VCs. And projects (especially those about money) lose steam without some funding as we are seeing with colored coins. |
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you know there's a problem simply by the fact that ALL asset classes moved inversely to the USD.
after the announcement, USD down, everything else up. everything. everything except Bitcoin interesting enough.
Bitcoin users not affected?
absolutely ridiculous and indicates that this world of ours is responding economically only to Fed pumping.
Probably already priced into bitcoin... given the outlook of most bitcoiners. |
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"surprises" who? LOL  Me... I am not as good at guessing uncle Ben's dance as thou.  No man you guessed it -- who cares 83 or 85? today's whole FOMC exercise is the #1 reason why a centrally planned printing press favors those who control it.
i guarantee you someone other than just Ben knew ahead of time what the decision was going to be. which is precisely why the gold market popped a full 3 min before the announcement.
if there was ever a time and need for a "fair" money...
:-) I was sure. Sooner or latter $$$ have to be printing. Note it was trending since noon... someone knew but was playing it cool? Then panic buy? That was no panic buy. That was a "I know what's gonna happen" buy. By panic buy I mean "I'm KNOW I'm supposed to wait until 1 second after the announcement but what if someone scoops me! |
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"surprises" who? LOL Me... I am not as good at guessing uncle Ben's dance as thou. No man you guessed it -- who cares 83 or 85? today's whole FOMC exercise is the #1 reason why a centrally planned printing press favors those who control it.
i guarantee you someone other than just Ben knew ahead of time what the decision was going to be. which is precisely why the gold market popped a full 3 min before the announcement.
if there was ever a time and need for a "fair" money...
:-) I was sure. Sooner or latter $$$ have to be printing. Note it was trending since noon... someone knew but was playing it cool? Then panic buy? |
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Most of polls here are answered within 24h. So people are hanging here all day through. At the same time, polls show that most of us are "buy and hold". I.e. need to visit this forum maybe once a year. So, if we are not speculating, what are we doing at the speculation forum? Do you find yourself strangely drawn to these forums? There is something unique about most of us. Regardless of how you were introduced to bitcoin, you are the only ones who have recognized its potential. Most dismiss this "crazy idea" without true critical thought... We are like the people who left for America, arriving either in a wild land or without a dollar in the pocket. We are willing to risk time and hard earned $ in the hopes of creating a better world. Our concept of that better world may differ but we are distinguished in that we are actually trying, actually inventing this world. If I was a sociologist I would study us longitudinally... |
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"surprises" who? LOL |
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We appear to be breaking up out of the triangle that has been forming over the last week. We shall see if it actually happens.
without whale activity either... could get very interesting if a whale or 2 fears missing the boat. I wonder if the volume this past week reflects actual economic activity, rather then trading/speculation. The market is neither too high or two low to encourage trading... and Gox problems discourage arb. No big whale positions being taken. What's left except actual economic activity? |
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When too many people expect something you can be pretty sure it won't happen.
I have that line, embroidered and framed, hanging right over my bed. That's a keeper. When too many people expect something and can profit through an action that dampens the effect, you can be pretty sure it won't happen. |
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this thread becomes useless when you guys start posting fake charts whales breaching when there is zero volume etc. Please go outside and enjoy life. things will get exciting again soon...
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gold/silver futures lurching lower...
Yeah but silver is still over key support at 18. Next time we test it will we go under of not is the only realy question i have right now. Yeah but don't forget; the further it goes below 18 the richer you'll become. Only if im smart enough to load up at a good level. I will be looking for near 12 for the first big buy. That would be epic. An ounce of silver would be a bitcoin dime! Gut feel; seems too awesome honestly -- at least at these btc prices. |
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Well, I'm 100% in BTC - all 1.38 of them XD
Annoyingly, I bought in at 143, just before the big dump a few days back - after deliberating if I should.... as always.
I think the whales are connected to my brain, to do the opposite of what I need.
Seriously man, go make graphics, wait tables, mow lawns or something and use it to buy coins. You'll do a lot better than trading 1.38 BTC... not necessarily, check out a few compound interest calculators, altho you might have to rethink your trading strategy Let's say you can make $10 an hour which is certainly on the low side for someone tech savvy. Let's say you put in 2 hrs a night and 8 on the weekend instead of hanging out here and eyeballing bitcoinity. So that's $100 or .71 BTC a week. Do you really think you can make a 51% return in BTC (.71/1.38) per week trading? Sure the equation may change once you have 10 or even 100 BTC... but trading it is very risky whereas earning and buying is not (in terms of amount of BTC amassed). If you haven't reached your BTC investment goal, then if there is ANY time in your entire life where it makes sense to work weekends or skip expensive friday night bar hopping then that time is now. |
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Well, I'm 100% in BTC - all 1.38 of them XD
Annoyingly, I bought in at 143, just before the big dump a few days back - after deliberating if I should.... as always.
I think the whales are connected to my brain, to do the opposite of what I need.
Seriously man, go make graphics, wait tables, mow lawns or something and use it to buy coins. You'll do a lot better than trading 1.38 BTC... |
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Where we at zerg?
what price should I use?  EDIT: here is both: BITSTAMP: the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, nasdaq=3055, Bitcoin=5.4): Bitcoin is 126.96. Gold is 1330.00. Nasdaq is 3723.00 Bitcoin: 2251.11% Gold: -21.30% Nasdaq: 21.87% Gold Diff: 2888% advantage BitcoinNasdaq Diff: 1829% advantage BitcoinGOX: the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, nasdaq=3055, Bitcoin=5.4): Bitcoin is 140.57. Gold is 1330.00. Nasdaq is 3723.00 Bitcoin: 2503.15% Gold: -21.30% Nasdaq: 21.87% Gold Diff: 3208% advantage BitcoinNasdaq Diff: 2036% advantage Bitcoin |
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