I say we design the "end user experience" around a hardware wallet (that does nothing but sign transactions) and make the vendors house the blockchain. Then the average end user only needs to know/keep the private key, and can use bitcoin at Point of Sale.

First step is to design a low cost bitcoin pos machine - that we can provide for cheap or no cost to the the vendor. If it's marketed correctly, we could see stores hanging bitcoin signs and offering discounts for using it.

I'm in my mid 30s I work a regular job - I invest in things I both like and think will make me money. I've had some failures and some successes. I've made some good decisions and some bad ones. I've only been in btc since june. I looked at it briefly - mined for like a day back when btc was worth 0.02 usd and decided it wasn't worth the electric cost. Took another look during the bubble and decided I'd wait for it to break. Then I bought some btc (20) and spent about 3 grand on hardware for mining. I've been re-investing about 50% of my mining profits into growing my gpu/fpga farm. I didn't start buying BFL hardware until their ship times came into an acceptable range (between 6 and 7 weeks). But my invest there is on track to earn itself out before asics hit.

I've already paid to have 1 bfl single upgraded - the other 2 will be ordered after I have that one in hand. I'm in the process of getting some bASIC stuff funded (will probably wait until it ships tho). If nothing drastic happens to bitcoin once ASICs hit, I'll be liquid enough by jan or feb to make that investment, it will depend on ship times / real world specs what exactly I buy... but I'm leaning towards BFL SC rig(s) at this point.

I guess the answer to your question is this: If you're diligent with what you have... manage it well, make good goals (like getting debt free and having good savings/emergency funds) then when you come across the 'chance of a lifetime' you'll have to option of investing.

The road to financial freedom is a hard one, but it's worth the effort. But if you're planning on using bitcoin as your vehicle then the best advice I can give you is simply 'invest then reinvest' you've got a keep upgrading your income stream via reinvestment in order to make a long term profit.

If you aren't in mining right now - it's not the time to get into it - you won't hit ROI before things change. If you want to get into it - start small or wait until you can start big. If you look at it like a monthly bill, 150 > bfl for a jally or 100 a month and you buy a bASIC every 6 months... then you've got the right idea. Before you know it you'll have an income stream to rival your day-job (and that's when it gets really hard). Frankly scraping up the desire to goto work every day is a huge problem for me, since I'm making slightly more than my wage from mining atm. I've chosen to keep my employment for the time being, for the simple reason that ASICs and the halving are going to introduce some instability in the next year and I'd hate to have to deplete savings to pay bills.

Bitcoin may or may not be the chance of a lifetime - it might or might not turn out well for everyone involved - but I'm glad the way I live my life has put me into the position to choose how much and how I invest. Because if bitcoin doesn't make my fortune, something else will.

Because if 'the feds' are targeting an exchange, the next step is to go after the users of the exchange, I'd encourage everyone to just take the loss and move on... as that's the only sane thing to do.

The best part about this troll thread is that you haven't gotten a single donation yet! You can't curse a market... well you can, but it'll never stick.

I don't disagree with this.

But I intend to be involved in the usb hardware wallet that includes a biometrics reader.

Plug it into the POS machine, confirm by swiping thumbprint. This would be awesome.

That's about the long and short of it.

I'm thinking no big drops, but if it happens I'm ready to go long.

Honestly - I'm only sitting on about 20 btc --- the rest is cashed out once a month and put towards purchasing new hardware, paying bills and letting my wife shop.

I'm also planning to drop between 40 and 100 grand on more hardware after ASICs are in the wild and we can see what the real world numbers are.

I'm totally taking pictures of first order of BFL ASICs on my boat.

It's about mainstreaming. A physical device that the average person can use to buy things at point of sale is essential in the mainstream adoption of bitcoin. If dude makes this device that's one step closer to a keyfob for every day use...

like fun.

The markets been undergoing a period of steady growth. We can observe the effects of that after the pirate fiasco and the resulting pump&dump, we got down to 9.50 ish before the support kicked in and drove us back over 10... and steady growth resumed.

You won't see the correction (whatever it is) for the halving until after its happened. . . and then, you may not even be noticable for quite awhile.

As a miner I don't sell coins every day, or even every week... sure every now and then I do --- but as my profits increase, I convert less and less of it to fiat. So while we might see some increase in price due to less coins being created - it's just as likely that those higher prices will entice older coins to be sold - in which case we'd just continue to see the steady growth we've been seeing.

with this sort of thinking... "read a web site" & "sign up for pool membership" & "download and run cgminer" all count as skills too.

anyone who can read directions can assemble a computer or a mining rig. Sure some can do it better than others, but that's not what mining is. Mining is the daily management of your hardware, moving between pools at the correct times and maximizing profits.

Even after ASIC release some of us will still be making much more than others. Actually mining already does what you're describing... just slower.

You've got it exactly backwards.

ASIC is raising the entry barrier because you can't profit from existing hardware. How much fiat will someone be forced to spend before they can start mining.
The only skill aspect to mining has always been programming related... most users aren't writing their own pool software or their own bitstreams. So those skills don't typically belong to the miner.

I hope it will lead to wide-spread mining - that's the point of this, strengthening the network. Profitability will always be in how well you manage your investment- period. This is a different skillset that most miners have already, and it won't be affected by ASICs.

Yah that's what I thought - so you're basically adding no service level at all --- and running a passthrough. Nice 

I wouldn't worry about the update-ability - if something drastic changes, you get to sell new hardware. If you make it cheap enough it shouldn't be a problem (and sha2 isn't going anywhere anytime soon)

The disadvantage is that it's an amazon account and very easy for the original owner to reclaim.

I'm thinking probably not.

dang it - you keep sucking my back in with your 'real hardware' arguement.

Yes Quote me on that 208v w/management and one of those massive rack cases. And some weight in patch cables or cable fragments...

I'd consult with yubi-key on this one. A couple of key points however.

1. You don't make the software update - you put that on a rom and that's that. This protects the end user. (and you from liability).

2. I like the idea of not having to feed it a block chain information, so it's simply a dumb device that does one thing and one thing only. And that thing is takes a req for payment from the computer it's attached to, verifies it via LCD screen, yes/no/whatever buttons. then signs the transaction.

3. you'd need a very large / high res screen on it, since I'd want to see the entire address it's sending to, also BTC amount (and probably a conversion to usd/eu/cad/whatever).

4. number 3 might make the cost fairly high, but I still think people would go for the idea.

5. in this scenario the only 'settings' needed would be the private key (which there wouldn't be a way to read from the device) and a location currency setting (that's if you're showing btc & fiat).


Good idea let me know when you've got them for sale =P

It basically says "he paid his debt to society"...

Just because someone had a conviction doesn't mean they can't change. Anyway - if you'd rather not take that risk, there are plent of others who will.

That's the perspective of the small-time miner, recoup costs quickly so he can grow his operation... those of us who are more established - will likely hoard more coin. I sell between 18% and 22% of my mined coins just to pay ongoing costs (inet+electric) another ~20% goes back into buying new hardware so my income doesn't decrease. That leaves about 60% that I'll hold.

Of course if I see massive price swings in btc/usd then I'm just as likely to pay my monthly costs with fiat and hoard even more coin --- with the intention to sell it slowly once the price calms down.