Doh!  Sorry all.  (sucks being OCD sometimes)


Ya, this one had a few different barbs to it.


That's why I was asking how they will be resolved in the future.

Fortunately, so far this bet had a relatively small amount wagered.  So this is the best time to experiment and see what works and what doesn't.  You're doing a fantastic job, and I really enjoy both the topic (a bitcoin-enabled predictions market) and the content itself (the bets I can place, and seeing the progress of bet statements that I've submitted myself)

In fact, it is progressing so well, I'm now concerned about something else -- hacked accounts.  Will there be an option for two-factor authentication (as an option only, of course)?  I see that google two-factor is what GLBSE added recently.
 - http://lwn.net/Articles/470764
 

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I didn't know there was such a metric.  Would you mind sharing how this is determined?   

So what happened was the bet was approved without realizing that it violates one of the criteria that is used in evaluating each new bet.  That criteria is that there must be an incentive to bet both sides.  This criteria was used to dismiss the "World will end in 2012" bet because there was no incentive to bet "Agree":
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=64471.msg756912#msg756912 (can't stop chuckling about that one)

So in this instance, if the bet can be manipulated easily to guarantee that the outcome for the statement is true (i.e., "Agree" wins) then there is no incentive to bet "Disagree".  And thus the only ones that would do so would be those that don't understand how the manipulation is possible.  To publish that bet would be predatory and I'm happy to see that BetsOfBitco.in did not allow it, in its original form.

The only question was ... in the future, will the details of bets continue to be changed after betting has commenced or will they be cancelled and re-posted after correcting for the flaw?

Sorry, reading comprehension fail on my part.

Ok, I think I get the concept now.  The chips are never spent in normal commerce, only used to transfer value or to have amounts added.  What's the button press for then though?

So If I make a purchase of 8.0 BTC and have in my pocket two chips with 5.0 BTC  each, I give them to the merchant.  The merchant gives back to me a different chip that has exactly 2.0 BTC on it already, or the merchant takes a chip with a smaller amount on it and tops it up until there are 2.0 BTC.

So instead of a merchant just having to manage cash (ensuring there are enough coin and currency to give change and making deposits)  the merchant will also need to manage a supply blank / small-value chips and redeem the ones received and not useful for change.

These chips will have a short lifespan between being blank and becoming too large to be useful.

Also, how do I as the customer remember which chip had what amount on it?

With the ability to buy a functional wi-fi enabled smartphone for $100 or less there's really little room for poker chips, mint chips and smartcard devices.  A mobile app shows your balance, recent payments received and sent, etc.   That's information that a poker chip or smartcard doesn't provide and with my money, yes -- whatever device that gives that information is the device I will use.  There may be a number of ways this will play out  (transfer value on QR code on receipt, or via NFC, etc., depending on the device's capabilities) but the platform (mobile smartphone) solves the problem (protecting a store of value) the best , to-date.

I knew it was only a matter of time before these started occurring.

Dwolla is the new PayPal ... shunned by the Bitcoin community.

I've seen mention that BitFloor has not yet had this restriction imposed on their customers.  You might try transferring funds there to buy bitcoins.

Your best bet might be to try and find a willing trader in the #bitcoin-otc marketplace.  Having a trust history in the -otc Web of Trust (WoT) will help in the future as well.
 -- http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-otc-foyer

Yup.  The same problem occurs from those sending redeemable codes via e-mail as well, though I don't know if that happens much anymore.

Here's Coinapult's reply to the "is not secure" argument:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=76493.msg849654#msg849654

Founded by a former big data person from Google.

 - http://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2012/03/is-loaning-money-at-a-350-apr-evil-1.html

I've updated the wiki article to have a section for Jurisdictions.  Please share what you've learned.
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Tax_compliance#Jurisdictions

- http://www.bairesclases.com.ar/espanol

Why would these have denomination ranges?


And that the address the change was sent to (and shown on the receipt) was truly the one generated by this device.



That is the only way it would work.  Otherwise how many people would have a copy of that private key?

You are basically describing an electronic version of this:



 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74978.msg831067#msg831067

Don't discount the composition of that hashing power though.  Individuals mining today on their gaming rigs are getting squeezed out by difficulty increases versus a stable exchange rate.  They aren't going to be buying FPGAs so the operators of these larger GPU farm ops and 25 ghash/s mini-rigs will representing a greater and greater share of the hashing.


That's the key point.  Currently, it's like having the equivalent of armed snipers every ten feet around a Fort Knox protecting only a few bags of pennies, nickels and dimes located inside.  Send half of them home and the pennies aren't left any less secure than before.

Which jurisdiction will you be operating from?

And will you be keeping domain and ownership information private?

There are some gambling sites usign hashing algorithms to generate a random number based on information from the blockchain.

For instance, http://SatoshiDice.com does a hmac_sha512(secret, transactionhash) to create a hash, and the first four bytes of that hash are used to determine the "lucky number" from 0 to 65,535.   Bets are placed on whether that lucky number will be below a certain level, with levels being

less than 64,000
less than 48,000
less than 32,768
less than 32,000
less than 24,000
etc,, down to
less than 4
less than 2
less than 1

Is the resultant four bytes of the hmac_sha512 hash truly random?

 - http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6234

BitLotto is another that uses the results of hashing based on the bet's transaction hash to determine the winner:
 - http://bitlotto.com   (Method for determining the winner: http://bitlotto.com/details.html )

Using the blockchain as a way to verify that cheating isn't occurring is a radical concept for gaming, but I'm not entirely convinced there are no advantages that can be gained by someone attempting to cheat.  BitLotto's approach seems to be more than adequately secure (hash message includes transaction id plus results of an event that happens after the transaction id was created.)  This one I'm not quite as sure about though the odds to the house are big enough that even finding a slight advantage probably wouldn't be profitable enough for the cheater to profit.

More discussion on the Satoshi Dice game here:
 - http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/segz0/anyone_want_to_run_my_bitcoin_casino

[Update: These sites return the winnings to the same address from where they were sent.  Do not send bets using a hosted EWallet service like your account at Mt. Gox, PayTunia or InstaWallet, etc, as someone else will be the recipient of your winnings.  Only use a Bitcoin client like the Bitcoin.org client, or a Javascript wallet like BlockChain.info/wallet or StrongCoin.]

Also, there might be a site or two that didn't yet make it onto this list.  One such is Dragon's Tale -- one of the earliest Bitcoin gambling sites.
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:Gambling

As far as the previously considered http://1209k.com/bitcasino it is now operated as: http://satoshidice.com

The domain was registered anonymously, yesterday.  The name is odd -- as it has nothing to do with dice.

Discussion of it here:
 - http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/segz0/anyone_want_to_run_my_bitcoin_casino

If there is wisdom in the crowd, then see:
 - http://betsofbitco.in/item?id=179

(hint: These prediction markets work in this manner -- if someone "knows something" better than the rest ... then generally the odds will change as wagers from those with access to that information are made.  Currently these odds are about 30:1 that there won't be new  software running by Jan 1st.)

Every hosted EWallet service does this.

That isn't YOUR bitcoin address, that is Mt. Gox's bitcoin address.  They simply will credit your account for any payments sent to it.  Payments from that address go to withdrawal by other accounts or in consolidation transaction that occasionally happens.  That's just how EWallet services work.

 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/EWallet#Things_to_be_aware_of
 

Yes, I've watched a couple of the videos and don't really get the approach.

My conclusion after giving it my 15 minutes?  

It appears to be a concept where the valuation of your startup (funded from Open Startup) gets locked in and if the startup succeeds 80% of the gains will be reinvested towards other projects and 20% of the gain can be cashed out.

Investors in startups are very selective on which companies they fund -- that's why they aren't instead choosing a managed fund somewhere that takes care of their money for them.

Because it is hard to attract investment with this "lock in" approach, Trout appears to think that those with proceeds from Bitcoin mining might be more willing to participate -- to invest with their rigs?.  I couldn't ascertain if the funded startups had anything to do with bitcoin other than that being the currency used for receiving the funds and paying dividends.

If GLBSE and MPEx weren't around, and this was the only other option that we'ld see bitcoin-related startups get funding then getting funding through this method (and committing to reinvest 80% of future gains) might make more sense.  But this approach has a lot of competition, especially now that the JOBS act / crowdfunding law has passed in the U.S. and the crowdfunding concept gains further traction around the rest of the world as well.

Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding the concept though.

From another thread:


Heh.  You wouldn't be interested in buying a bridge in a major U.S. city would you?  I might happen to have one for sale.

Next time, there's #bitcoin-escrow
 - http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#bitcoin-escrow

But there is no thread that shows up under "new replies" which is what many people use to see what's relevant to them. 

Perhaps what is needed is a post that acts as an index to the other posts.  This would be locked and only the post author can add to it maybe, to keep it from becoming another "press hits" thread.   Thoughts?

And that's exactly what was needed  If trading with perfect timing, the tiny little dip on Friday would have allowed a 1% to 2% gain after exchange fees.  By Saturday it was pretty obvious the direction was up so the ability to get back in a break-even levels or a 1% loss after exchange fees was a prudent move.

This current week's high is well above the previous week's high so another weekend to not consider the "weekend dip" strategy as a way to generate some trading profits.