Look what you have done.

"Meanwhile it comes out that a cabal of developers has de facto control over the Bitcoin network and is devaluing very small wallets. The net effect of this is to reduce the money supply, deflating Bitcoin to benefit those with large holdings."

http://www.redstate.com/2013/05/16/tech-at-night-bitcoins-central-bankers-kim-dotcom-censors-mega/

The absurdity of the article is not in being distrustful of bitcoin, but in the author talking about bitcoin like a corporation (when in fact it is a network protocol), which leads to humorous gems like "One cannot possibly imagine that Bitcoin is paying for all of its servers and IT systems with its own product." or "The only thing keeping Bitcoin from flooding the market with a bunch of Bitcoins to meet demand is its word.".

Just for laughs. I had to share this gem I found.

http://www.toledofreepress.com/2013/05/09/treece-the-bitcoin-fallacy/

That would be sufficient proof, but in order to get your computer, they would need a warrant, and in order to get a warrant, they would need to have some proof already.

Also, you could (and should) use a program like TrueCrypt to encrypt your entire hard drive. That way, it will be impossible to know if you had any wallets on your PC.

Yes, but as I mentioned before, they are in my mother's name, not mine. You must have not read my first post. That IS the problem - to have them appear in my name, my mother would have to transfer the ownership of the apartment to me.

Or maybe more like:

start company,
enter agreement,
organize DDOS attacks to hinder the ability of MtGox to fulfill the agreement,
not have it fulfilled,
sue for 75 million.
retire

The moment I heard of MtGox's plans to become partners with a US based company, my first thought was - "WTF are you doing Gox?? Are you stupid?? You WILL get burned by the US - they are probably going into this 'partnership' only to be able to burn you harder". Sadly, it seems I was right.

So if you rent your apartment to someone, the tenant does not pay any taxes, the utility companies turn the utilities off, then you announce that you are living in the apartment yourself again, they will turn the utilities back on? You won't have to pay for the debt that your tenant incurred? After all, if it is in his name, how could they force his debt on you, even if you are the owner of the apartment?


I thought MtGox is a Japan based company? Anyway, I have not had any official letter since.....well, frankly I can't remember ANY such letter AT ALL. Our government issued ID's do not include residence address. Any utility bills I pay online, directly through online banking. I have done this for more than 5 years now. I have never used a subscription based mobile service in my life (and most of the people around me never did), but even if I did, I would choose to have the bills integrated into my online banking too. Can I get a traffic violation if I don't have a driver's license? It looks to be the only possible way left...

Maybe it is very different in different countries, maybe in the US people get a lot of "official letters", but in Lithuania, if you got one, it would probably mean you have done something really wrong, and now are in a lot of trouble. I noticed how you wrote "Owner still pays mortgage, taxes and insurance.". From this I assume that in US many/most people have their apartment on mortgage loan, and have insured their apartments? In Lithuania, almost no one has a mortgage loan, and even less people have insurance. Just the differences of culture/mentality I guess.

"When people rent apartments does utility bill still come on owners name?"

Yes. The owner of the apartment is responsible for the apartment, and of course responsible for paying taxes for that apartment. The tenant pays the owner, and the owner pays the state any taxes.

I would argue that this is a fairly reasonable law - otherwise, there is a huge opportunity to avoid taxes. If anyone can become responsible for the payment of apartment's utility bills, what stops someone from hiring a bum to agree to become "responsible" and stop paying the bills? Then all the legal action would be on the bum's head. In my country, it is always on the owner's head.

"What country is this?"

Lithuania.

Exactly same happened to me, and kudos to Gox for that.

Bitstamp, however, repeatedly and explicitly denied verification without "proof of address" and told me that "if I can not provide such a document, then I can not become verified" (I could paste all correspondence with bitstamp here, if anyone is interested).

I am not bringing this problem up just to make a fuss and/or problems for exchanges. I only wanted to receive "verified" status - I am from EU member country, I uploaded scan of both sides of my government issued ID, I sent a SEPA transfer to them from a bank account registered in my name, but apparently all that was not enough to convince them that I was "real". But a scan of a "pseudo-document" which contains no signatures or stamps and which could be forged by anyone owning a printer, would convince them?? (by "them", I mean bitstamp.net)

United Kingdom - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHc5J-x4EnM

Of course, the law may not say "gypsies don't have to register a place of residence", but the law has exemptions for "traveler ethnic groups", which creates conditions where gypsies (and other similar groups) are put into legal gray area. You should watch the video above, and research more on the internet - I am really not an expert on this - but from my understanding (I may be completely wrong) you can declare that you will not be settling, and will be on constant travel, therefore you will not have any permanent or temporary residence.

If you are on constant travel, you don't need state electricity, water or transportation systems, therefore you don't use them, therefore you can't be taxed for what you don't use, therefore you don't have any taxes at all (?) (again, I may be completely wrong on this). And even if you have some taxes, you still don't have a residence address.

Imagine an example of three brothers living in the same apartment, and they all want to register to a bitcoin exchange. Even if in some countries you can change the person to whom utility bills are addressed, (without changing the ownership of the apartment), I still doubt you can do it more than once a month. So the first brother would have to register, then change the utility bill receiver to the second brother, wait a month to receive a new bill, and then repeat the procedure for the third brother? All that, to produce what is really a "pseudo-document" (like someone accurately noticed)?

Even PayPal (which is notorious for locking people's accounts and then requesting to provide a bunch of documents to unlock it) never enforce the "proof-of-address" requirement. It is enough to call them and tell them that you have no way of providing one.

Also, what if you are homeless?

Also, what if you are a gypsy, or belong to any other "traveler" ethnic group? In many countries such ethnic groups have law exemptions, which exempt them from having to officially register a place of residence. Based on that, this requirement is potentially racist.

You are wrong - in my country the utility bills are in the apartment owner's name. My mother does not pay for me, I pay all the bills, but they are still in her name. For them to be in my name, my mother would need to officially transfer the ownership of the apartment to me.

In several bitcoin exchanges (bitstamp, mtgox, probably some others too) in order to become verified, you have to upload a scan of two documents. The first one is "proof of identification" - any government issued id with a photo and a person's name qualifies for this, so no problem here - 99,9% of people have at least some form of ID. The second one however, is a ridiculous thing called "proof of address" - "a utility, phone, or internet bill, issued in your name in the last 3 months and containing your address; or official letter which you received to your name and address, no older than 3 months, sent by a registered company or government agency".

Here is the problem:
1. Our family pays all taxes online, we literally haven't had any paper bill for more than 5 years.
2. The apartment where I live, belongs to my mother, and she is the registered owner of the apartment, so any bills are in her name, not mine.

It is not just me, I did a quick survey, and 80-90% of people around me would be unable to produce such a document for themselves. Maybe it is because I am surrounded by technically-savvy people, but most people dealing with bitcoin are technically savvy. Most technically-savvy persons I know, opted out of receiving paper bills when it became possible, if only for the reason that in my country you have to PAY to receive a paper bill, and online bills are free. The only other document I could think of, that would qualify as "official letter which you received to your name and address<...>sent by a registered company or government agency", would be a letter the police sends you if you fail to appear in court for your trial.
Even if you decided to opt-back-in to receiving paper bills (if only to receive this "proof of address"), what if you are living with your wife/husband/parents, and the apartment is registered to them? Then all the bills would be in their name, not yours.

I am not sure WHY these exchanges are implementing such silly "security measures". It is some law they must obey? It obviously has nothing to do with "security", because anyone with rookie MS word skills could forge such a "document" in 5 minutes (a utility bill features no stamp or signature). I was tempted to do it, but in the end decided to just use a different exchange.

In my opinion, it would be impossible to prove that you own bitcoins, unless you officially admitted it.

Consider the example of computer hacking - it is impossible to prove that you personally was doing the hacking, even if your IP gets logged during the hack. I have read about many cases where hackers were tracked by their IP and convicted, but in ALL those cases the hacker has admitted guilt. I have never ever read about a case, where someone would be convicted of hacking, only because of their IP, while they denied doing the hacking. If you have heard of any such cases, please correct me.

The same applies to bitcoin - it would be impossible to prove, if bitcoins were used by you, or just by someone pretending to be you. Even if a bitcoin address was posted on your facebook page, who could prove, if it was really posted by you, or by someone who hacked your facebook?

My guess is that they didn't add ANY fee. Does that mean that transactions without any fee has the potential to be delayed substantially?

rach2Jj71pLRAXTgydhaSapbgHXjGGTGb

And what if I use bitcoin-QT wallet? Would a paper backup of such wallet become invalid instantly, or only after 99 more transactions?

It got the first confirmation after an hour, but why did this happen?
There were several blocks created after the transaction, but it was not encased in any of them. Why?

Thank you for answer! So this would invalidate a paper wallet? Or I would have to do 99 more transactions for paper wallet to become invalid?

I withdrew money from bitcoin-central (not sure if this is important), and I see the transaction in my bitcoin client (Bitcoin-QT), however it is not getting any confirmations after an hour now. (transactions made before this one are getting confirmations added normally).
Transaction ID as given by QT client and bitcoin-central is 34c1347a3a395a992210f9348b2874327e20f91390b594e39dfa4a2a5cfc44be , but blockchain.info says "transaction not found".