Just switch your client to report values in mBTC.  Done.
Hey I am selling this steam game for 2,000 mBTC.  Anyone want it?

To change the value of Bitcoin would require increasing the supply (i.e. turn every BTC into 10 BTC).  That is simply never going to happen.  Not today, not next year, not ever.  While in theory it "could" happen (any change could be made to Bitcoin with enough of a consensus) you will never find the consensus necessary.

All of which have been doubling in terms of x/$ for decades now.  While they don't all follow Moore's law exactly they are all exponential.  It is inconceivable that 50 years from now RAM, storage, computing power, and internet connectivity bandwidth won't be many magnitudes higher than today both in absolute terms and in performance per dollar.

Still as SgtSpike pointed out there are lite-nodes which don't require the complete blockchain.

Yes although due to the "lottery effect" most miners participate in mining pools where they split the reward when a block is found by any of the members.  To answer your second question.  Correct however the scale is likely a little off.  It would be more like you get 1 lottery ticket and a high-end rig get 40,000 lottery tickets and the biggest mining farms get 20 million lottery tickets.

You don't.  CPU mining is dead, and your laptop doesn't have a compatible GPU.  Even if it did given the specs of most laptops you could expect to earn maybe a cent ($0.01) worth of Bitcoins a day by spending far more than that in electricity.

Mining either requires high end GPU (and preferably a lot of them in a special built "rig") or dedicated hardware (FPGA and ASICs).  The days of just gabbing any computer off the shelf are long gone.  Mining is far more competitive now.

In 1980 a 26 MB hard drive cost ~$5,000 (or $193,000,000 per TB).
Obviously angry birds isn't viable.  I mean who is going to spend a couple hundred dollars in storage on a free game.

A feature I would like to see is a "sweep" option.   Set a Bitcoin address and funds are transferred there.  Could have a min amount (possibly user set).  Similar to how mining pools work.

As Bitcoin continues to grow in popularity that is an unreasonable demand.  It may be a good practice to personally protect your wealth but an exchange should expect that a portion (probably a majority) of its users are logging in from a Windows machine.  I would point out that session jacking isn't just a windows issue.  There are exploits in MacOs, iOS and Android OS as well.  Users logging in from public wifi risk MITM attacks regardless of the OS.  Cross Site Script vulnerabilities in browsers, extensions, and plugin (java) are generally speaking OS agnostic.

You probably are right and I likely understated that risk.  Still the far easier and more direct attack is to simply to withdraw the funds.    Not requiring OTP on that highest risk transaction is a vulnerability. 

For highest security OTP should be on both the login and withdraw.  Optimally the user should be given the choice. Still if an exchange had limited resources offering OTP only on login is worse IMHO than offering it only on withdraw.  The reason is that OTP on withdraw means 1 OTP = 1 withdraw.  Having it at login means 1 OTP = unlimited access to site including withdraws until session expires.

Security is always a tradeoff; an exchange could require a unique GPG signed message for every user actions (login, trade, cancel trade, change info, download history, withdraw, etc). Most users would not want that level of security.  So the goal becomes the most security for the acceptable amount of complexity.   The withdraw is the point of highest vulnerability.  If an attacker can withdraw BTC, he can steal quickly and with little chance of getting caught.  That action, having the highest risk of being fraudulent should require explicit (not implicit from the session login) authentication.

One Word. Magic.



(seriously though is someone actually KNEW why the price is spiking they wouldn't tell you.  they would either be buying or selling.  Even more seriously Magic.)

It takes a few minutes.  The system "graduates" noobs like every 15 minutes or something like that. 

That isn't limited to exchanges though.  Why kidnap the family member of an exchange operator?  He/she may not even have access to the full value of wallet(s).  It would essentially be theft/embezzlement by the operator.  As exchanges get large enough hopefully they will adopt policies and procedures that make that impossible.  I mean if an operator can steal client funds to pay a kidnapper they can just as easily steal client funds to start a new life in the Caribbean.  

The method of payment shouldn't change the target of kidnappers.  The target of kidnapping paid in BTC are probably going to be the same as the targets of kidnapping paid in USD.  Any rich person can acquire enough BTC to pay a ransom.  Bank managers tend not to be targeted for ransom specifically because "their" bank holds a lot of cash.  Kidnappers are looking to add complications.   Find someone rich, take their love one, get paid (in USD, Gold or BTC).  

I do agree that Bitcoin (sadly) has certain properties which make it ideal for paying a kidnapping (or shipping piracy).  I expect it is only a matter of time before that headline is on every news site in the world.

While I don't think I blasted Graet as I pointed out if he simply said "no or sorry it isn't worth the effort" that would be fine.  His pool (private property), his rights, his choice. 

The thing drawing the ire is the dubious counterarguments.  Acting like he needs legal action to choose who he lets connect to his pool.   Then pretending that GPUMAX is only loosely associated with Pirate.  That people are jumping on it as a result of guilt by association or some kind of mob justice.

The absurdity of those rebutalls is well .. annoying. I am done but I will leave this:
http://www.corporationwiki.com/Unknown/Unknown/gpumax-technologies-llc/101278778.aspx

Priate (aka Tredon Shavers) is one of three direct owners of GPUMAX.  It is insulting to pretend otherwise.

Having 2 factor checked only at login is a security issue.  Please consider following MtGox's lead and properly secure withdraws with an explicity authentication.

Having 2 factor at login is "good" (certainly better than no 2 factor) but it still leaves the user vulnerable to session jacking where the attacker can impersonate the already authenticated user.  For sites that allow 2factor to be disabled from an authenticated session without a final 2factor verification a simpler attack is possible where the attacker simply disables 2factor from an active session and locks the user out.

Example session jacking attack:

Eventually this WILL happen; it isn't a matter of if but when. When that happens it will undermine confidence in users.  "See even WITH strong passwords AND 2 factor AND a reputable exchange with partial cold storage you can still lose everything in a second".  

MtGox's setup with a complete security center and ability to configure multiple OATH devices for various options is ideal but it is also a lot for a smaller exchange to take on.  

The simplest fix (more like a patch) is to just limit 2factor to withdraws (and removing/updating 2 factor and editing/adding pre-saved withdraw options).  Obviously changing 2factor should always require 2 factor verification.  While in theory if 2factor is limited to just withdraws an attacker could force a user to sell (and attacker ensure he has the highest bid) however max loss would be the % difference in the bid ask spread.  (i.e. user sells $1,000 worth of BTC and only gets $997 worth of USD).  It is a pretty weak attack vector and certainly less profitable than session jacking.  The largest attack vector is removing funds from the exchange account moving the 2factor to that action hardens it.

A better solution would be to have multiple choices on 2factor configuration page.

• No 2 factor
• 2 factor on withdraw
• 2 factor on login
• 2 factor on login & withdraw

Way to miss the point.

If the post you deleted was:


do you think you would  be getting a scammer tag?  No?  Can you think of any reason why you might be getting one?

Which I think it a .... load.  So ozcoin supports suspected botnets?  trojan horse infected miners?  Does it wait for a court order signed by a judge before kicking malicious users.

Um isn't that kinda minimalizing it.  Pirate owns GPUMAX, he always had.  He never hid that fact.  Not sure what "legal justification" has to do with it.   Pirate has no legal right to connect to your pool (private property).  You don't need any legal justification to tell a third party they can't connect to your server.  Do you require a court order to kick botnets from your pool?  I mean a pool is private property why hide behind a need for "legal justification"?

If you answer is no ... why not just say no. Pretending Pirate, the same guy who defrauded millions, doesn't own and profit from GPUMAX is kinda lame though.   I mean if nothing else the fact that he has absolutely no ethical standards should make people at least question if it is a good idea for a significant fraction of global hashing power to be in his (indirect) hands.  Right?

BTW: Never invested or lost anything in Pirate stupidly transparent ponzi scheme and have little symathy for those who did despite the overwhelming evidence that it would end exactly how it ended.  None of this has anything to do with getting funds back from victims or seeking vengance.  It is about pools not associating with a known scammer (possibly the biggest one in Bitcoin history).

Just beware their seller protection isn't bullet proof. 

"Mr. PayPal LoweryCBS mailed me an empty box".
or
"Mr. PayPal the item LoweryCBS mailed me was materially different than as described I would like to return it <after transfering the funds>".

Now you see why Satoshi used a subsidy to bootstrap the economy.  You can also see why the subsidy can decline.  Remember Bitcoin is a work in progress (BETA) so nobody has all the answers.

Today if there was no subsidy for miners to make the same (in USD terms) would require a fee of roughly $2.67 per tx.  Ouch obviously not viable (still cheaper than WU though ).   The good news is that roughly a year ago the cost per tx would have been ~$6.00 per tx and roughly 3 years ago the cost would have been closer to $50 per tx.

http://blockchain.info/charts/cost-per-transaction?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

If tx volume continues to increase then the unsubsidized cost of the network gets cheaper per tx.  

VISA processed roughly 80 billion tx last year.  If Bitcoin was someday 10% of the size of VISA that would be ~8 billion tx annually.  At an average tx fee of $0.01, it would be the cheapest global payment network and would produce ~$80 mil per year in revenue for miners.  Today with a subsidy of 50 BTC miners are compensated ~$28 mil annually at current exchange rates.  Will Bitcoin grow that large?  I don't know just pointing out that a small fee on a lot of tx can result in a very large number.

Some incorrect terminlogy being used.

A block is solved roughly once every 10 minutes.  Unconfirmed (pending) transactions are hashed together and included in the block being solved.  When the block is solved (a very difficult math problem) the block becomes gets added to the end of the blockchain (a historical record of all blocks solved and all tx recorded).  Currently the blockchain contains 198,637 blocks.  The process of solving blocks has been happening continually since the genesis block (block #0 created by Satoshi) roughly four years ago.

Miners are provided a subsidy for solving a block.  The subsidy is (and has been) 50 BTC per solved block.  At block 210,000 the subsidy will be reduced to 25 BTC per block and it will continually halve every 210,000 blocks (~ every 4 years).  The reduction in the subsidy is well known (known since before the first block was produced) IMHO it is unlikely to surprise the market.  Just because the subsidy is cut in half doesn't mean the value of each coin will double.  

Well Bitcoin is what a majority (preferrably a near consensus super majority) say it is.  There already has been one hard fork to the protocol.  The fork which is known as Bitcoin is what people say it is.  It is just for something as controversial as changing the minting rate it is unlikely you will ever get enough of a consensus to pull it off.

The worst case scenario would be two incompatible forks both supported by a sizable fraction of the bitcoin "community" (merchants, exchanges, developers, miners, users).   The confusion and chaos would likely undermine both chains.