Haven't used the account in years, and I just realized it has $100 in it.  Getting a check would cost me $20 (and likely weeks).  If any players are interested willing to sell it for BTC.  Carbon Poker is one of the few online poker sites which accepts players from the US.

Looking to get $100 in BTC or $100 MtGox code.  Will consider lesser offers but since I can cashout $80 no sense in low balling below that.

If governments can't stop/impede blackmarkets what do you think a bunch of forum nerds will do?   It is counterproductive and a waste of time.

Now if I run a cross some evidence of child pornography I am going to report it to the authorities.  I will report it if it involves Bitcoins, or USD, or Yap Stones.  It isn't my job to actively try and find it though.  If I wanted to do that I would have joined law enforcement.

It doesn't need to know the length of the file.  The script doesn't make a dat file of your entire blockchain just through the last checkpoint.  Currently the last checkpoint is block 193,000.   If you run that script on any node it will produce the same file.   Exactly the same file.

Now currently the script has 193,000 hardcoded but I could see future version either getting the checkpoint from the client or making an API call to get the block #.  The script could be included with the client or even better it could be built into the client so you click an [export blockchain > torrent] button and it generates the proper file based on the current checkpoint.

Lots of interesting options.

I recommend reading a lot more.

No idea if BFL will deliver on time and on spec but lets say they do.  It won't be "the cash cow the century".  The network adjusts to increased hashing power because the purpose of mining is to secure the network not to get "free moniez".   

So if you could buy a device which is 40x as powerful as other devices used today then so can tens of thousands of other people and quickly the difficulty will jump 40x as high.  So redo your payoff math using difficulty 40x as high and reduce the block reward from 50 BTC to 25 BTC.

Hmm.  I didn't realize that was possible.  I assumed that changing the torrent would result in no seeds (and all prior seeders needing to download again).  I was thinking many wouldn't and thus it would be a challenge to keep the number of seeders high.  I guess bittorrent is "smarter" than I realized.  

That probably is a good idea but I don't think updates that often are necessary.  Think of the torrent as just a jumpstarter.  It doesn't need to get you within days of the current block just rapidly build the "ancient history".  Even having a single base torrent to block 193,000 allows new users to bootstrap ~90% of the blockchain.  

It could be as simple as making a new torrent for each checkpoint. Say in 6 months we are at block 240,000 and there is a checkpoint 220,000 a "torrent2" could be added which contains blocks 193,001 to 220,000.   New users could download both torrents and be within 20,000 blocks of "current".  I think at most quarterly updates is all that is necessary.

On edit: looks like it will take me ~30 min to download the torrent.  If a user can download 80% to 90% of the blockchain in half an hour and then index it in another hour that is a pretty nice jumpstart.

Nice one.  I will dedicated some bandwidth for it.  I could imagine with a couple hundred seeds new users could bootstrap very quickly.  Even if you only updated the torrent once a year it would still provide a significant portion of the blockchain at a high speed.

In related news the launch of 2013 year car lineups is causing uncertainty over the viability of year 2012 cars. 

"I drove my 2012 Toyota Tundra off a cliff, I mean with the release of 2013 Tundra the 2012 must be fatally flawed"
- ElectricMucus

Current US securities law makes it prohibitively expensive.  Registering a security has costs in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (note that isn't the offering that is the additional cost), requires a 42 page filing with the SEC, hundreds of hours of due diligence and legal fees.  So it really only makes sense when raising tens of millions in equity.  



What is wrong with this chart?  Is small biz is the growth engine for job creation what do you think the net result of inability to raise "small" ($1M to $10M) amounts of capital would be on a major economy?

There are "Reg D" exceptions but they generally require shares to be untradable for 12-24 months and require significant fees to get the restriction removed.

So while you could in theory open a bitcoin based brokerage it isn't going to be useful for anything a small biz would need.  Even raising $10M in equity is prohibitive under the the current regulatory system, and $1M defacto impossible, so forget about $100K or $10K GLBSE IPOs.   The jobs act (crowdfunding rules) will make it EASIER to RAISE equity but the restrictions on trading are unlikely to be removed.

Maybe offshore ...  

180 days?

The protocol will allow you to transfer 0-confirm txs however the Satoshi client will not.  There is no override (other than compile your own fork) possible.

You can send after 1 confirm.  I believe the GUI will let you but if it doesn't then it is possible using bitcoind (or debug window in GUI).

bitcoind sendtoaddress <address> <amount>

Yeah I was trying to hit edit and hit delete.  Well glad at least someone saw it (because I don't feel like trying to recreate it).

No.  In theory it could but PP "investigation" doesn't really care.  They are more like "checking the block" and looking for signs of blatantly obvious fraud.  There goal isn't to protect you but merely to protect PP brand/image.  They have no interest (or time) to do any detailed research of authenticating emails, learning about the blockchain and how that can prove funds were sent.

Because it isn't a large number of people.  Price discovery is the aggregate of all buyers and sellers.  Just because a tiny (i.e. rounding error) of trades occur at 50%+ over the median price doesn't mean that is the "true" price.  Even if you want to say "exchanges are too hard and don't represent real price" in our fastcash4bitcoin service we have bought over 80,000 BTC and on average pay about 4% LESS than MtGox.  For someone looking to sell coins for "cash" it is about as easy as it gets.  Fill out a web form, send coins, get some cash.   On the other end you have BitInstant selling coins for ~5% over MtGox price.  I don't know if they publish any sales volume numbers but my SWAG would be in the hundreds of thousands of BTC.

So here you a group of users who for one reason or another don't want to use an exchange and the prices ranges +/-5% (maybe +/-50% in extreme cases) of MtGox.   50% over is simply an outlier; outliers happen but it doesn't mean you should throw out the 99.5% of trading data and focus on the 0.5%.

More than "true" price ebay selling for >50% over MtGox simply shows an inefficient market.  In a free market sellers should attempt to get the highest possible price.  Competition is low on ebay and that means higher margins, if volume grows more sellers will join and that will drive down the prices.  Still he seller isn't getting a net price of 50% over MtGox.  Part of what you are seeing is the transaction cost.   Some back of napkin numbers, say seller loses 20% in fraud and ebay/PP fees are another 10%.   So even with no profit the markup would have to be ~30% over MtGox.

What partnership has shareholders?
Answer - none. 

See the bigger answer above.

Well that is why making up these "quasi pretendo companies" is not a good idea.  If it was actually a general partnership then yes all partners are equally and fully liable.  If it was a limited partnership then the non-active (passive) partners would have limited liability while the general partner (Nefaro?) would have unlimited liability. Of course that would require a partnership agreement and partnerships don't have shares, stock, or shareholders.   It is almost like Nefaro took the worst aspects of a partnership, sole proprietorship, limited liability company, and corporation and turned it into some franken-company (and yes I use that term loosely).  

Maybe that is the lesson in all this.  Forming a real legal entity is trivial these days and cost a nominal amount of money.  It then lets us answer questions like the above and prevents any ambiguity.  Everyone getting involved knows exactly what they are getting involved in.  I mean how many of these "partner-shareholders" made up nonsense realized that under a partnership they have unlimited personal liability (i.e. you can lose everything you own, your house, your car, all your assets, the money from your bank account, and even the clothes from your closets)?  All the limitations of a shareholder with all the liability of a general partner.  Yeah that is a match made in heaven.

Generally equity owners (not be confused with directors, executives, employees, officers) are not held liable for the actions of the company or its agents.  I mean should the shareholders of GM (who already lost the capital they invested) be considered "scammers" because the company was so poorly run it was run into the ground.  By that logic any shareholder of any Pirate bond should also get a scammer tag.

I think it sets a bad precedent and basically makes the tag useless.  Now if you had active role in the day to day management that might be different but even then I don't think anyone has ever gotten a scammer tag without intent of malfeasance (i.e. just being foolish or naive isn't grounds for the tag).

Bitcoin is Bitcoin's silver.   Rather than marketing speak think about why silver (and copper) coins were created in the first place.  Why wasn't just gold always used for everything from a Kings ransom to a poor man's meal?  Does Bitcoin have that limitation?

I don't think decentralized means what you think it means.  Gold mining is far more decentralized than printing USD for example.  Is the gold supply not decentralized because every single person without skill or resources can't just dig a hole in their backyard and find gold?

Also the "everyone should solo mine" & "everyone should only use the largest 3 pools" is a false dichotomy.  What about p2pool? using smaller pools? spreading hashing power over multiple pools (it actually reduces variance)? solomine (if you understand the risks and the huge volatility in payment)?

Mining will become more and more specialized over time.  Like ANYTHING in the world to be competitive it will require more resources, capital, and skill.   Would you say webhosting is decentralized?  Is it still decentralized even though starting and operating a datacenter is beyond the capabilities of 99.9% of the planet?

Regarding ASICs, the technology exist, period.  The "good miners" not using ASICs doesn't prevent "bad miners" (govt, attackers, banks, etc) from using them.  I mean it isn't like as long as all legit miners pretend away ASICs they can't still be used to attack Bitcoin.  Using the most efficient equipment available is the only way to prevent "bad guys" from being able to cheat and force them to engage in an expensive battle of brute force.  Today lets say it takes $30M in GPUs (total cost not just GPU cost) to 51% the network, thus the network is safe unless an attacker is willing to spend tens of millions right? Of course not.  Nobody looking to spend millions would use GPU, they would spend $2M to $3M, build enough ASICs to 99% attack the network and kill Bitcoin at a fraction of the cost.  Now when the network is protected by $30M in ASICs an attacker could still 51% the network but they can't do it "on the cheap" by using superior technology.

Of course they
Where do you get that idea from?  

So if I hack your PayPal account and send $10,000 to a friend of mine as long as I (the hacker) leaves positive feedback then it is irreversible?   Awesome.