This offer to sell was added to the list of Bitcoin Firsts.  If there are actual buyers, please update the wiki to reflect the change from first offer to first sale of a Bitcoin-only CDS.
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Firsts

Smartphones are now at 50% penetration in the U.S. (with 2/3rd of all new phones sold being smartphones as well):



 - http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-smartphone-penetration-2012-3


What I am concerned with is "the Linode problem".  All these mobiles are managed devices.   They can be fully controlled by someone other than the owner of the device.  Yes, they are managed by the carrier but possibly that carrier has people that cannot be trusted or, just as bad, has people who don't maintain secure systems themselves such as what reportedly is what happened at Linode.

The importance is thiis.  An attack that defrauds M-Pesa's customers en mass means Safaricom figures out at some point that there's a problem, halts all affected systems to prevent further losses, and in the end eats some, most or all of the customer's losses.  A similar attack through the managed services of the mobile network to steal bitcoins from mobiles means just that the individual mobile user alone loses out.  Just like how Linode disavowed any responsibility to Slush, Bitcoinica, etc. for the tens of thousands of bitcoins lost, Safaricom would likely maintain the same position.

So, this is a fundamental question -- is the practice of storing bitcoin private keys on the mobile something that exposes it to too much risk to where it shouldn't even be considered?  i.e., bitcoin apps for mobile need to be under the same model that mobile banking (like M-Pesa) uses?

What % of ticket sales does MegaMillions pay out for their jackpot?  At least 8% (in that range) of ticket sale revenue goes just to pay the convenience store and other ticket sellers.

You could have bought a ticket in BitLotto instead which pays out 99%.  All ticket sales appear in the block chain so there's transparency protecting players from cheating by the operator.
 - http://www.bitlotto.com

You don't mention what your marginal rate for electricity is.

 - http://tpbitcalc.appspot.com

If you are at $0.15 per kWh, then that rig will break even (profits accumulated will match the amount invested in the hardware) in one year.

That's assuming the exchange rate vs. difficulty doesn't drop further:
 - http://blockchain.info/charts/miners-operating-profit-margin

Imagine the break-even had you paid list price for everything though. 

When I want a secure, offline paper wallet, currently I boot to a USB flash drive running with a bootable Ubuntu Live-CD distro and load from that same drive a copy of the page from BitAddress.org
 - http://BitAddress.org

Though this seems a trivial effort, it is disruptive to me if I have to first shut down, reboot, print, reboot and then log back in to get back to the point I was at when I wanted to create the paper wallet.

If I had a spare computer lying around I'ld use that but at the moment I don't.

In the near future, however, I might have a Raspberry Pi around.

I've not touched one of these yet nor learned much about them either but I'm supposing this unit could be useful as a paper wallet generator.  BitAddress has everything that is needed 100% in Javascript so the technical complexity to build this should be low.  Though there would need to be an alternative to wiggling the mouse for gathering entropy with this.

But for something inexpensive that would let you create a paper wallet and print it out, this seems to be capable.

It might have even more use if it could print paper wallets on demand like tickets.  I could see using a $50 printer like the Brother QL 700, for instance, where the first ticket / printout is the private key and QR code, followed by a second printout that has the public key and its QR code.   (Though I now wonder if thermal paper printouts will fade and become too obscure to scan, as time passes?)

So together, for under $100 of hardware, an individual would have an offline bitcoin paper wallet generator.

Or at least an excuse to order a Raspberry Pi.  

Then all you are describing is the granularity for how something is sold.  In the physical world, commodities have this property and most everything else sold does not.  The individual components can be purchased individually but the value when you are buying generally comes from the fact that you are getting a complete product.

Or for instance, let's use an example from the physical world where I am buying equipment from NewEgg for a new mining rig.  Say they don't have everything in stock.  They bill me for each shipment.  If they ship the mobo, chassis, RAM, psu, etc. -- but not the GPUs, I've paid for something that has essentially no value to me (as a mining operator).

Now instead if I buy a contract for 100,000 banner ad impressions of online advertising but I settle at the close of each day, the granularity is per impression.  If I had 4,700 impressions for the day then I pay exactly 4.7% of the total contract.

I don't know of many virtual goods that have a granularity smaller than the unit in which they are commonly sold.

Do you have a use case where what you are describing is needed?

Paranoia?  

If the system was infected with malware that does screen captures even when offline, then even your "offline paper wallet" is at risk.

- http://www.technewsworld.com/story/74461.html

Also
 - http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/key-logger-key-stroke-and-screen-capture.pdf

Now if you are storing small amounts to the paper wallet, ending up with a paper wallet created from a compromised system might be a risk you are willing to take.  But since some people are putting larger amounts or are using the wallet for long-term savings of bitcoins, they should know that doing the above only after booting from a trusted live-CD (such as an official Ubuntu release) is the significantly more secure approach.

Satoshi's protocol when Bitcoin was first made available failed.  And so did subsequent revisions. On August 10th, 2010 [the leading implementation of the protocol] failed spectacularly even:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Incidents

But because the protocol can be modified through a certain process, the flaws are being solved (see BIP 30 as an example.).

Because the protocol started out as an experiment does not mean it hasn't or won't become a widely used and valued piece of our financial infrastructure.

And that ticket purchase (worth 25 BTC) puts this month's BitLotto into the record book with over 600 tickets for the month (as far as the most number of tickets sold for a single monthly lotto) as well as giving this draw the record high in terms of BTCs (now over 150 BTC).

There still is one more record to break -- the highest value monthly draw, when converted to USDs.  The current recordholding draw using that criteria occurred back when the exchange rate was higher.

The record draw in terms of value in USDs might be the June 1, 2011 draw  when tickets were 1 BTC each.  On the day of that draw that jackpot of 134.6 BTC was valued at a BTC/USD north of $8 but when that payout occurred a few days later the BTC/USD was north of $15 (yes, it was that crazy last June).  For that reason, there could be the argument that the record draw was instead the July 6, 2011 draw when the jackpot of 87.86 BTC was valued at a BTC/USD of around $15, putting it just a little higher (in terms of USDs) than June's jackpot was.

Perhaps the ability to purchase multiple tickets with one payment will some day boost BitLotto's monthly jackpot above the previous "valued in USDs" record, but that probably won't occur this month.

Maybe some of those who don't win the MegaMillions jackpot (now at a record $540 million -- exceeding the previous record of $390 million which has stood since 2007) will learn of BitLotto and its blockchain-verified 99% payout and will next time give BitLotto a try instead.

I haven't seen this link posted yet in this thread.  Copumpkin wrote:

 "Why you might want to sell Credit Default Swaps"
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74586.msg826093#msg826093

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

To save a couple of seconds for anyone stumbling across this thread, the link to the CDS offer referred to by OP:
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=74552.0

And, just in case anyone isn't aware, security-based swaps are an activity that is regulated in certain jurisdictions, such as in the U.S.:
 - http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/dodd-frank/derivatives.shtml

I just changed so that it now comes from the spot futures daily data from Wikiposit (Front month data)
 - http://wikiposit.org/p?futures

I choose Crude Oil, Gold and SIlver and then download the results using the link for the CSV.

I then run it through a formatter script (python):
 - http://pastebin.com/ZX5XZGWM

And then from that script's output I can copy and paste the new data each month into the spreadsheet.


Google Docs spreadsheets have an Insert Charts menu selection.

Hand them a Casascius physical bitcoin instead.  Let them figure it out from there.  When that happens at each event they'll get the message.

There are businesses and individuals who accept bitcoin for their art and services:
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Art_and_Artwork

If you are an artist and would like to receive bitcoins, you can do so using any existing site / service by simply soliciting donations using your bitcoin address (in the description field, for instance).  If you wish to sell art (digital goods), there are a few options.  If you are lookiing for freelancing work, there are other options.

Does this help with what you are looking for?

So you then send a wire transfer to APMEX.  Interesting approach.

> No reload fees. No ongoing monthly fees. Instant reload available.

Wow, that is a great product.    Do all reloads need to go through you, or can normal reloads (payment at Australia Post retail outlet or load online using "'Pay Anyone") still be done with the card?

Prove to the merchant there is a revenue stream by showing existing purchases made through another mechanism, like gift cards.

Consider yearly sales numbers that SpendBitcoins would show if lots of us bought only using Kroger (Ralphs supermarket, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry's Marketplace, etc.) gift cards paid for using bitcoin.

Now if there was a similar option for buying gasoline.  Together those annual volumes might be attractive.  

And it is easy to onboard bitcoin if that transaction is simply to exchange BTCs for a prepaid debit product.  The ecommerce and in-store point of sale systems don't need to have any concept of bitcoins, just the special page for converting from BTCs to their prepaid USDs is all that is needed.

Ideally the merchants accept bitcoin at the point of sale, but those kinds of changes are more radical.  When they see that there is a respectable volume using BTCs, and they have a chance to be the first to offer it (gives a competitive advantage), that's the type of persuasive argument that is needed

 

Heh, I guess should have asked -otc trust or someone with 5,997 forum posts. 

So that configuration is fine, but I want to make sure that the terms are, this is an experiment and is not the wager / challenge as was described above.  i.e., If you do get any BTC payments from me that you'll return them?  If so, then I'll go ahead and make an attempt on trial #1.

I've only expressed interest when the condition is that the target is using the default configuration (accepts incoming) and is on a typical consumer network (e.g., w/ UPnP).   You've not stated that you'ld follow this configuration.

This experiment isn't too hard to perform, yet I've not seen anyone report attempting it and reporting either success or failure at double spending.  It probably should be performed where the target is on a separate network from the attacker, so I couldn't do both sides of the experiment myself.

For the purpose of having at least attempted the experiment, will anyone serve as the target?   The target would be a clean install of the client using the defaults, on a consumer network (w/  UPnP).    In each trial, I make double spend attempts of 1 BTC.  For any trial where the target shows at least two confirmations with my 1 BTC payment then that trial has failed and the target returns that 1 BTC to me.

If a double spend is successful, this will mess up the target's wallet (e.g., leave a 0-unconfirmed transaction) so use a clean install.  (wipe the wallet.dat and the addr.dat before the client is launched.  Keep the blockchain files though.).

Looking for someone with a trust rating in the -otc as I'ld like assurance that I'll get my 1 BTC back.  

Or like that nuisance deemed to be "unripe gold" -- Platina   (or, as we know it, Platinum):
 - http://dailyreckoning.com/the-other-precious-metal/