I devised a solution which could be called 'Android paranoid for Bitcoin'.  It was implemented by not letting my Android touch any Bitcoin related thing more sensitive than bitcoincharts.com public ticker site.

It wasn't just Android; Windows also.  And it wasn't just Bitcoin;  my real mail and all sensitive on-line activity are also included.

My 'development' preceded Snowden, but was triggered by unusual and unexplained exploitation of my accounts through my smartphone.  It was not the work of a professional I don't believe else they would have done more damage and left fewer crumbs.  If it was a professional, they got caught flat-footed by my unusual patterns of network connectivity, but I would have expected a sophisticated attack to be fully scripted and take only seconds.

I made my last purchase at just North of $2.00 which was the low-water mark on Tradehill.  For me it was not 'discipline' as much as 'frustration' and 'stubbornness'.  I would have made one more double-down at around $1.50's, but we didn't get there.

To me Bitcoin was obviously not a simple match for Ponzi (though there were and are some shallow similarities), and then, just like now, I could see an argument for enormous utility and the arithmetic for much higher valuations.  I actually considered myself to be playing a valuable supporting role simply by soaking up liquidity in those dark days.

I've mentioned this before, but I'll do it again because I think it will be interesting.

Bitcoin is an open protocol and an open-source project.  It is defined by what software users decide to run.  Most mining hardware is linked strongly to China since that is the world's technology center for such things.  At the present trajectory (associated with government and regulatory harassment), it won't be long before most of the computers running Bitcoin in some fashion are also running in China, most users are located there, and probably most of the BTC will be controlled by people living there also.  What will be very interesting to note is whether there will be differences of opinion on how the protocol should evolve and whether the development will eventually fork over such differences should they crop up.

Again I'll mention that if the policy makers in China made the same sorts of calculations that I did, and noted the utility of a disruptive technology such as Bitcoin and how it could be leveraged against a more dominant world currency such as the USD in times of crisis, then they have vastly more pragmatism and vision than I gave them credit for and/or the evolution of the governance of the nation is proceeding faster than I imagined.

Seems to me (without putting much thought into it) that anyone with a U.S. bank account could make some free money by arbing just about any exchange but Mt. Gox against Coinbase.  Since I've been a customer and watching things a bit (about a week), the price seems better than on Bitstamp and Bitcoin-E.  In my limited experience, I've got cash in the bank the day after I sell.

Now, I hope people don't do that because I'd like the price to go up until I finish a little block of sales.  But for the long haul I'm not terribly worried about it.  I figure that the weak hands are representing a good chunk of the lower sell side on the lesser exchanges and they'll blow through their liquidity fairly quickly.  Especially now that Silk Road is gone.

I could be wrong though...I often am.

I Googled around a bit.  I liked 'Hongkey' the best.

Thanks coblee.  I think that blockexplorer is probably rate-limiting some of Google's address space.  Manual queries I do work OK.  I saw some reference to Cloudflare in the output on the spreadsheet.  Dunno if blockexplorer has been using them forever or what (but I kind of doubt it, and was surprised to see it actually.)

I feel OK about necro-ing this thread because I've been using it off and on for the last several years and it's been pretty reliable.

The other day, my permutation gave me a start when it switched to Yuan from BTCChina.  Fixed that.

Now it barely works at all, though it seems to probably be an issue with blockexplorer producing odd results.

Anyone got a more modernized form and/or ideas about a more suitable data source than
'http://blockexplorer.com/q/getreceivedbyaddress/1blahblahblah...'

Also, I sort of ran out of capacity for Google docs to make remote queries at about the same time as I ran out of addresses that I wanted to query so I never bothered to look for other options.  A single source for balance on an address rather than several and some math would eek things out a bit longer.

I concur about the questionable judgement of not reporting, and I reported mine as well.  I just didn't get hit with some 50% or whatever crazy numbers you were mentioning were.  We got in at different times, however, and maybe that had something to do with it.  I just let my CPA deal with that shit.

BTW, however stupid it might be to cheat on the PM gain taxes, I'll bet it is 10x more so to attempt to do so on BTC gains.  The reason is that it will be one of the few vaguely legitimate reasons to attack Bitcoin should the government take a mind to do so.  And as the ecosystem continues to flourish I think there is a very real danger that they'll be forced into that course of action.

When it comes to direct PM<->BTC transactions it seems like the barriers to exploitation both legally and mechanically is a bit higher.  That is why I think it will be interesting to watch how things evolve if/when we get that far.

I'd considered some permutation of that strategy.  I'll bet there are a lot of passwords out there that have characters taken from noteworthy and widely distrubuted texts like the Christian bible or U.S. constitution.  I never considered it enough to research how much disparity there may be between various re-prints and such.  I'm guessing that a rainbow table like construct could be pretty effective against such a strategy, but my math (and interest and knowledge of table methods) isn't strong enough to analyze it in detail.

I cannot see how you got so screwed on taxes WRT gold.  I have a CPA do my books and I didn't seem to have gotten hit nearly as hard.  2013 is going to be an interesting year due to my starting to take BTC profits.

The really interesting thing will happen if/when people start to exchange BTC for PM's (and vice-versa) directly in a major way.

Huh.  I remembered it differently.  I suppose because I was doing the 'year performance' thing for a while in a (seemingly successful) attempt to annoy cypherdoc

Put a mark on the chart from when you started this thread and chuckle about how long you had to suck it up and take abuse from the likes of me.

The lesson to be learned here in my opinion is that diversity is a good thing.  I'm delighted by Bitcoin's performance and more hopeful then ever that we've not seen anything yet.  But I also would not be surprised to see a very ugly step function representing Bitcoin's failure.

 - edit: fix quotes.

In terms of unique access, the most important factor to me seems to be what operating system is being run.  Given the material released by Snowden, I would find it more likely than not that by Win-8 vintage it is possible for the NSA and whatever parties they choose to work with to access almost anything on a stock computer (including smart phones.)  That is not to say that they would probably make a habit of it though, and certainly not to snake a few BTC.  If/when they choose to do so, however, I would not anticipate encryption slowing them down excessively.

Even if one is simply worried about garden variety cyber-criminal ankle biters, the question of operating system is still an big part of the equation.  A brand new computer which has been treated carefully is probably fairly safe from this class of attackers until and unless they exploit holes arranged for higher category attackers.  I'm not aware of this being an issue at this time (though my Android seems to get hacked at will and from a fresh wipe.)

I was ready at the end of 2010.  The project interfered with enough interest in Bitcoin to have pulled the source code.  How many millions I lost by buying that house will never be known.  There is a small consolation in that the rental is providing a decent return stream...by mainstream investment standards at least.

...or could be if there were a significant price difference.  Actually though, even a very small difference could provide an opportunity if the legendary 'lack of friction' that Bitcoin is noted for could be employed.

Whatever the case, if I as participant in the Bitcoin ecosystem living under U.S. jurisdiction can achieve fair BTC pricing and convenience, I'm as happy as a clam.  So far, so good with Coinbase.  For me.

BTW, here is the article I mentioned:

  http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2013/10/btc-china/

The kidney thing is a joke, right?  I assume so, and find it wildly amusing due to my twisted sense of humor.

At 'ki' I first showed 'kindle' for me, but kidney did appear.  Interestingly there was no option for just "How do I sell my kid".  I wonder if Google specifically coded that out.

If they want customers who are simpletons and will trust them without question then there may be a reason for that.

The first thing I do when looking at an outfit is to do a whois to see if they are cloaked then check the 'about us' part of their website to see if they use an apparent foreign shell company and if anyone will use their real name.  Bitstamp seems to come up short on both these tests.

We say: "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."

---

I expected to have to give Coinbase my identity docs, but felt a bit better about doing so since the principles have used their real names.  As it happens, I can buy and sell BTC without even giving up such docs.  Better yet, I get a uniformly better price for BTC sales on Coinbase than I would at Bitstamp, and it's vastly more simple, fast, and convenient.  If they had been more clear about their capabilities, I'd have become a customer much sooner.

Every time I've looked since I've been a customer (last week) it seems like they've been between Mt. Gox and Bitstamp.  I like this because I feel that Bitstamp is probably depressed as a function of the amount that Mt. Gox is inflated.  BTCChina seems to display the same middle ground.  I kind of wonder if perhaps BTCChina is not being used by Coinbase for settlements.  But there is no real reason to suspect it.  A recent wired article pointed out that Lee of Coinbase and Lee of BTCChina are brothers however, and being siblings seems like on of the few reasons to trust someone in Bitcoinland.  Or at least work with them relatively more closely.

I'm sensing certain level of trepidation among some in the community when it comes to the general concept of BTC taint.

This reminds me that I should have done an update.

They got back to me within a few days.  They agreed that the mail they sent about the status of my level-1 achievement was premature and apologized.

I personally am satisfied with the interactions I've had with them, but I've had pretty good luck.  Like everyone, I want immediate results if I can get them.  I'm inclined to cut them some slack at this point.  Start-ups tend to have limited resources to fill many demands in my experience with them (both within and without.)  I do hope that they are making good use of the feedback that they can get to factor into decisions about where they focus their efforts.