The miner delivers the computation needed to secure the network.

Who enjoys network security ? In the first place those with significant holdings in BTC.
This makes me think that a demurrage (cost of storage) should be imposed on holdings that is to be distributed to miner.

Note that older transactions (means older money) enjoy higher security and until they do not move disallow pruning the merkle tree, therefore also imposing added bandwith on the network. These observations support a demurrage too.

Demurrage would also foster trade since storing money is associated with cost. Note that if storage cost is benefited to miner, then this is not inflationary and but mining (that delivers value to everyone) more attractive.

Like the current client BTC, yes. You are right it is not user friendly and too remote from concepts they know.
But it will get better AND people might be willing to learn new things IF there are added features they do not get with the credit card!

Yes and for that we need to reduce the barrier on usability, but not by compromising key values.

An other possible route is to offer a service not available with other currencies consider the trust chain I have thrown in here: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=25409.0

With disputable payments you lost low transaction costs with credit card association the anonymity, and you require me to trust an operator and expect me to believe that it is backed by gold ....

... for all that I have a choice of currencies, that already have the infrastructure and need no explanation.

Anonymity and irreversibility are key values of BitCoin transactions. Merchants however might want to build reputation and customer might want to provide feedback. To add these features without touching on core values may I suggest you to consider introducing an additional "trust chain" as follows:

Assuming A buys from B a gadget using BitCoin whereby A only knows B's receiver address b. B as most merchants requires payment before delivery. A transfers funds to b and runs the risk until he receives the gadget. As the gadget arrives A is happy that b is a trustworthy address and might want to share this information with others by signing the transaction on a trust chain that is built similar to the money chain. B might also appreciate this since it gives him reputation for the next business. Note that neither A or B reveal more about their identity than available on the main Bitcoin chain.

B might be tempted to forge the trust chain to increase his reputation and generate transactions where he is the payer of BitCoin from other adresses then vote for himself. This however would be revealed if money chain is consulted, since he needs money for each transaction that will be reconcilable to a small number of sources if he were attempting to generate a good history in a short time frame.

May I invite you refine or reject the idea ?

hi gabriel, a noble goal !

Passwords suck, but not having any protection because it is not the primary scope of the client is also a bit harsh to enter mainstream. I guess with time we will have a choice of clients some with embedded feature like password protection of the wallet.

There is an obvious need to protect savings against theft, and just like gold is usually stored in a vault, we need to come up with something, i keep thinking...

Thanks Joel,

so transfering private key is an off network payment (intentional or not) to the one first using it to transfer the money to an other key.

i assume this will generate the need for an extra secure store, it might sound contradictory, but let me ask: could the network help here too?

Please confirm or correct:

The private key associated with the receiving address enables you to transfer all BTC owned by the address now and even in future.

Means protecting the wallet is important but is the private key leaked your BTC can be stolen even if you earned it after the wallet was compromised.

I think it applies here too. Assume a shop sells a gadget for USD or BitCoin. What would you use to pay ?

In case you understood BitCoin's deflationary nature you would use USD and hoard BitCoin.
In case you did not understood BitCoin you would pay with USD since you have no BitCoins.

No matter you use USD. This is why I do not see BitCoin picking up for trade.

To encourage trade and discourage hoarding we might need to use either inflation or demurrage. We know and do not like inflation, rule that one out for now...

Demurrage means a block created yesterday would be accepted for less than a block created today. If parameters are chosen right block creators, who contribute to the function of the system would make up for this devaluation. Success rate of mining would have to be aligned with demurrage and total amount of money in circulation remains constant,  favors those who invest into the system, until they keep doing it, others are encouraged to spend it.

This would also end the disproportional reward for early adopter, foster trading and allow hoarding only if aligned with CPU power to keep up with demurrage, that is again common interest.

I assume above arguments are not unknown to some seniors here, please tell me if and why they were rejected at design ?

The bonanza is in mining is over, do not try to trick me into that now low (if any) margin business.

I am after a sustainable model to lure new merchants and discourage speculators.

Yes, Bitcoin is constructed for both savings (deflationary) and transactions (anonymity, no transaction fee, no trust).
This noble dual nature makes wide adoption difficult since it is too good to spend.

It seems savings aspect (or I should rather say investment) is currently predominate and even turned into speculation.

I believe we need to focus on how to support bitcoins more for transactions and how to remove speculation incentives without being inflationary.

A concept that might be helpful is to introduce demurrage. I read some references here that this was considered but rejected in design, I could not figure why.

Would someone support me with the arguments why demurrage is not in design ?

My point is that there should not be a party and there should not be late or early for this to be adopted by ordinary merchants.

A chainless "lite" client would have to trust other nodes to verify a coin, and this would be contrary to design principles of bitcoin.

That might help to sustain a pyramid scheme for yet some other round but not for the long run.

Do not get me wrong: I believe in the good intents of the creators here, they even deserve a big chunk of money for creating something of common value for the internet, but I see the construction has to evolve to attract other than get-rich-quick folks.

I wonder how to attract late adopter of bitcoin.

Like myself... although I was an enthusiastic PGP user 20 years ago, I somehow missed the wave now.
I began buying gold because knew that paper money sucks, as it was below $300 and did well, so I know how it feels for those early in this new theme.

Unfortunately I am late and all good intents, I understand and appreciate leave me thinking that this looks a bit like pyramid for those who are late.

I also wonder how you relate to Gresham's observation that is: bad money drives out good.

Now bitcoin is good, no doubt. But if I have the choice to pay for a gadget using USD or bitcoin I would prefer to give USD and save bitcoins, just like I would not pay with gold until I have anything else of less quality to give away.

If other potential late adopters think like myself how will this economy grow beyond the tulip phase ?