I suspect this might be harder than many think.

If so, it might make a great pay feature of the product.

Yup.

Anyone whining about how the lack of regulation means their yuppie neighbors (or Wall Street, egads!) will turn their noses up at Bitcoin just doesn't get it.

And the division seems to be growing more stark every day.

It would help matters if the pro-regulation people would stop talking as if they're just trying to be "realistic" ("well, you just need to have such-and-such or it won't work") and would just admit that they like the entire concept of financial controls and regulation, but also like Bitcoin, and HATE that Bitcoin doesn't have those controls, and are dead set on seeing such controls implemented so that they can have their cake and eat it too. They don't want to bother having that conversation though, so they'll just work to change Bitcoin, and to force everyone involved with Bitcoin to accept the changes, without ever really considering the protests.

Sad, but at least they can't hide their activities, and the community still has final say.

My answer (NO) actually relies little on the future valuation of bitcoins.

I simply believe their widespread use is inevitable. To never be able to hold (and so, realistically, to use) them again is going to be quite cumbersome at some point down the road. Plus I'd lose the ever-increasing benefits of doing so.

I'd need a lot more than $5000/btc to forgo that. At least enough to create and push another cryptocurrency (that I could hold) to prominence through sheer marketing power.

And this is why your assertion that we agree more than disagree is absurd.

No one has a right to steal from others. Period.

If you find a rich man who is exploiting poor people, you could argue that the poor people should be helped through charity, or maybe even that they should just sneak into his place and take food as needed, regardless of any right to. But I somehow doubt bryant is one of the rich bankers destroying the economy for his own personal gain. If he's just minding his own business, earning a legitimate income, then the only way you will ever get people (except for other thieves) to go along with your program is through force. Arbitrary, institutionalized, damn-the-innocent, kick-down-your-door-and-shoot-your-dog-and-lock-you-away-for-decades force.

The utter immorality of this is why we will never agree.



I thought rights weren't absolute?

Who says? Why do people have a right to survive, and where does this come from? Who gets to define "survive?"

Where's the equation for your moral calculus giving Bob's "right to survive" a higher objective valuation than bryant's property rights?

(Bonus question: What makes the divine right of the majority any more legitimate than the divine right of kings?)



What if he needs the money to give his children what he considers a decent education, or an adequate life? I guess that's irrelevant, as long as your definition of a decent education or adequate life is met, right?


Again, nice, cozy rights-stomping opinions there. Don't be surprised when those of us who see right through it fight such sugar-coated wrongdoing every step of the way.

The majority of the super rich already opt-out. If you think that it is most such people who are subsidizing the poor (rather than exploiting them,) then I have a bridge to sell you. Anyone who thinks most such people should subsidize the poor rather than simply stop exploiting them, is just revealing the true nature of their character; and no, that nature is NOT "I'm generous and moral and believe in a peaceful society."



Well, that about says it all then, doesn't it? If you don't believe there are absolute human rights, regardless of their origin, then you will simply NEVER AGREE with those who do, and frankly, we will fight you and your inconsistent opinions as long as we are able.

As an aside, I've always wondered why people who say they believe rights aren't absolute don't all just go into politics, acquire money and power, and do whatever they heck they want and "die happy" rather than wasting their time on internet forums. It's all just arbitrary, right? 



Institutionalize theft may have benefits to some, but it's ridiculous to try to sell (to the people being stolen from no less) the idea that it's a "good thing", particularly when the people doing the stealing are both horribly inept and disgustingly corrupt, to whatever degree.


You are free to hold those opinions if you wish. You shouldn't be surprised when those who see through the absurdity of it, and understand that rights are either inalienable or are being suppressed by some at the whim of others (i.e., immorally) refuse to play by your rules.

My opinion...

BTC-e is the key to all of this.

You seem convinced that they aren't an issue because you hadn't used the site in so long. I'm not sure why you feel this matters. If anything, were a malicious employee to access the emails and passwords of users of the site, the lack of activity might be the very reason they decided to target you, perhaps figuring that they'd be able to do their deeds and it would be weeks before you noticed.

1) BTC-e seems to be chronologically the first target.

2) Your email wasn't compromised, and your system wasn't compromised. This seems pretty clear.

3) The common link to these sites was the password.

4) I would think the most likely means of retrieving the password would be from the (unencrypted!) data in one of the site's databases.

5) The password reset business is irrelevant (although whether you're being lied to by btc-mining isn't.) Seems clear to me the hacker did it just to throw you off the trail, and likely to lock you out of the account too (if he's going to just sell your stuff and not profit, might as well add one final slap-to-the-face while he's at it.) He apparently did his business, requested a bunch of password resets from the same session (or not), then changed the password on you.


It all seems to boil down to your accounts being compromised by an inept, petty and vindictive thief who got your password and was expecting to hit gold. The only real question seems to be how he got the password. Presuming you don't have younger family members who dislike you poking through your stuff, my money is on BTC-e being the source of the password one way or another.

EDIT: You might consider asking each site if their user password data is encrypted in their database, and if so how (md5, etc.) Not that any one of them couldn't just lie to you, but three sites giving quick, solid responses and one ignoring the question for a week or two would be pretty suspect.

Have you ever taken a look at people who try to be productive and work, and also try to not pay taxes? The force quickly becomes evident.

EDIT: Of course, I'm speaking of within countries where they steal your labor and call it an "income tax."

This should be stickied somewhere for new users.

For accepting and spending bitcoins away from home, my recommendation is to use Mycelium.

1) Make sure you have an Android smartphone or tablet. If you don't have one, go buy a cheap Android phone for ~$50, and activate your Google account on it (it doesn't need phone service as long as you have wifi access.) Yes, it's worth it if you plan on having more than a meager amount invested in bitcoins.

2) Download the Mycelium bitcoin wallet from the Google Play store.

3) Open up the app. It will immediately create an address for you.

4) Under settings, set a PIN for the app.

5) Click the warning sign to MAKE A BACKUP of your wallet. Always, always do this, no matter what wallet you use. Write down the passcode Mycelium shows you. Have the PDF that's generated be emailed to yourself, and print it out.

6) Verify your backup is correct by scanning it with your phone from within Mycelium. You will need to enter the passcode you wrote down. Once the backup is verified, store the PDF and the passcode somewhere safe.

7) Go out and do your business. Whenever you need to receive or send bitcoins, open the Mycelium app, and click "Send" or "Receive" as appropriate.

No blockchain downloading, the Mycelium servers are fast and have great uptime, and you keep control over your private keys and over your funds. It's a great complement to having a more robust wallet at home.



Browser-based wallets managed from a central server have known vulnerabilities. As one example, just search the archives for "StrongCoin" to see what that company was able to do (albeit for allegedly "good reason") to a user's money. Blockchain.info has a similar setup. You could just trust them, since at the very least they don't have direct access to your private keys, but considering the StrongCoin incident, why would you if you don't have to?

If you're using their phone app rather than accessing Blockchain.info through a browser, then the situation changes to some degree. I still recommend Mycelium.

EDIT: snipped non-helpful thought caused by my own confusion. Oy!

Oh, and yes, awesome work Amir! Bitcoin needs more people like you!

I'd argue that "hardcore" conservatives just tend to refuse to explore anything until it's already become mainstream.

Anyone else run across different term usage IRL? I believe someone suggested that gambling sites went with powers-of-satoshis (kSat, MSat, etc.) which seems cumbersome in speech. Any other local/group trends?

Of course not. My toothbrush isn't valuable to anyone else. My factory and my mines would be, so it makes sense others would want to steal those.



Thats the problem here. If someone "needed" to use my toothbrush, or my house (remember quartering soldiers?) or my factory, that doesn't give them the right to just take it. That's called stealing. You should contract with the actual owners of property, because doing otherwise requires violence or threats of violence, creates conflict, and is immoral.



Anarchy isn't supposed to avoid hierarchies or inequality. Those are inevitable, communistic protestations not withstanding.

What anarchy is supposed to avoid is one person pretending to have legitimate authority over another, when they really don't, and using that illegitimate position to do things like steal land and factories.

People are willing to talk "cents" and "kilos" and would likely do "decis" and "micros". It's when the prefixes stay attached to the base unit ("kilo-dollars") that people start changing it up.

There's nothing wrong with it per se, or with using metric terms for that matter. I don't even have a strong aversion to either, myself.

But how often do people or cultures apply either to their money? No one walks around talking about kilo-dollars or deci-dollars, or using scientific notation when selling either mansions or bubblegum. It's mainstream for measuring quantities... not for abstract tools like currencies.

The "millibitcoin" term obviously originates from the geekier parts of Bitcoin culture, and is going to face some resistance from non-technical types (read: most people) even outside the USA. Had there already been a name (even a metric shorthand, the equivalent of "cents") for the 0.0001 BTC unit early on, no one would have ever even suggested mBTC, uBTC and the like.

How does my holding onto my stuff, or me and a buddy agreeing privately on payment for a job threaten violence (or just "not avoid" it?)

It's probably safe to say that those who voted for bit really don't like millibit/millibitcoin as a name.

And the winning name, 29.3% of the votes to the 24.8% of the runner-up:

One bit = 0.0001 BTC

The 0.1 BTC prize belongs to jakioflap for the initial proposal.

The acceptance of the name is still up in the air, of course; the final competition wasn't far behind vote-wise.

Congratulations on the win!

The poll isn't going to force acceptance of a name, and you can always present your own ideas and alternatives on the forum. But if 0.0001 BTC is to become a commonly-used unit, it'll have to be because at least some portion of the community embraces it. I'm just trying to spark debate about the idea; there's no need to drag it out for months if no significant number of bitcoin users are interested. But if the interest is there, then I'm sure further discussions will ensue, and/or the unit will just start to be used, and some conventional name or term for it will be adopted.

TL;DR - This poll doesn't have to be the end; it's intended to be the beginning.

+1