Bitcoin doesn't require your identity. It perfectly lends itself to anonymity theoretically.

What does Electrum use to talk to bitcoind?   pynode provides a JSON-RPC HTTP server interface, just like bitcoind...

I was thinking of a feature that allows you to show a QR containing a signed transaction. Then you could grab your phone with Electrum and snap it and send without ever physically moving anything from offline machine to net-connected machine. Truly an "air-gapped" process.

But so is fundamental protocol failure of the bitcoin network at this point. Just a matter of degrees...

Seems legit.

U look at bitcoin as chunks of raw data. But it's information (interpreted data = information). If the state decides that Bitcoin is illegal u can't say it's "destroying the common law framework". If it was so then prohibiting to store child porno would be considered as "destroying the common law framework" as well.

The interview seemed to suggest a grudging acknowledgement by Turk that bitcoin is important. But it's obvious he still has lots of hang-ups and just can't bring himself to accept a few things; namely that bitcoin and gold are similar in that neither is backed by anything - they are *both* fundamental. He's also failing to fully understand the fact that bitcoin transactions *are* immediately extinguished at the time of transaction just like trading a silver coin for a meal. He seemed to imply that because bitcoin is a "currency" (his distinction vs. gold), it therefore has counter-party risk, whereas gold doesn't. He hasn't yet internalized the ownership model of bitcoin. It does take some getting used to, of course, so I'm not going to begrudge him too much... And obviously he needs to push his own goldmoney service (which *does* have real counter-party risk, clearly).

A lot of trojans and viruses considered to be open-source software (u can get sources) and look like random numbers (polymorphism trick). But u'll be punished if u try to send them to someone else.

U can't pretend that bitcoins r just random numbers. It's like pretending that dollar banknotes r just sheets of paper.

A USB key is something tangible, right?  I can put my wallet in it, can't I?  If I also erase the copy of my wallet on my PC, then this USB key becomes the only thing in the whole universe that can allow me to get my bitcoins back, right?

So to me, bitcoins ARE tangible.

And what is so magic about holding something in your hands, anyway?

I have 2 deposits of approx 10BTC from a couple days ago, and neither has moved... They normally get moved to a large wallet within a day or so, and it seemed like part of the normal mixing process, it possible the owner might have abandoned the site or died or something.

Felix also mentioned Hayek's theory of Emerging Order which fits Bitcoin to a tee:

Hayek’s key insights included a recognition that, because knowledge is dispersed and depends on time, place, and context, no central authority could acquire all the knowledge required to plan an economy. He also sought to better understand a phenomenon first identified by philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment – that of spontaneous orders. Many orders such as languages, Hayek noted, are not constructed by a central authority. Instead, millions of individuals acting on their own create an ordered way of communication with one another.

The interesting fact is that what I have called the monopoly of government of issuing money has not only deprived us of good money but has also deprived us of the only process by which we can find out what would be good money. We do not even quite know what exact qualities we want because in the two thousand years in which we have used coins and other money, we have never been allowed to experiment with it, we have never been given a chance to find out what the best kind of money would be.