No the typical casual user will use a lite node.  Also I would point out that in e-wallets like blockchain.info your private keys ARE under your direct control.  Blockchain.info only handles the higher level processing (validating tx, calculating balances, submitting tx to the network, parsing blocks for incoming tx, etc).


If the human race keeps doubling every 15 years then in a thousand or so years every square inch of our planet will be covered with humans.  Assuming exponential growth will continue is flawed. 

Developers have indicated there IS a plan.  
The combination of:
a) new DB structure
b) removing the double verification
d) pruned DB
d) better memory management
e) multi-threaded block verification

have the potential to improve throughput by a magnitude or more (i.e 10x faster blockchain verification).  It isn't going to happen overnight though.  There are no bitcoin offices in Santa Clara with 20,000 salaried bitcoin employees working 40 hours a week of improving the client.

Longer term even those improvements will be insufficient.  If Bitcoin becomes very large (which we all should hope it does) the demands on full nodes will increase exponentially.  This doesn't mean developers shouldn't work on solutions but those solutions likely will only keep pace with tx growth.  If a future client can process 100x as many tx per second but network volume is 200x higher then the node will be "slower".  The reality is full nodes are ill-suited for noob or casual users.  Period.  As time goes on that will become more and more obvious.

For those who spend nights awaking worrying about it how much time, resources, or even bitcoins have you donated to the development of better clients?

the coinbase tx can contain arbitrary data.  It is referred to as the "extra nonce".  If you need a new header and no other data has changed you can simply change the arbitrary data in the coinbase field.  It is never used for anything by the bitcoin network.  It simply servers as a source of extra entropy (and is also used in merged mining - it is what links the bitcoin block to the alt-chain block).  One pools has even used the coinbase field to send short messages.

Also the time field doesn't have to be exact.  The network will accept blocks with timestamp within 3 hours of the network normal time.  So once can "cheat" and simply increment the timestamp field into the future.


Still in current pool setups (except p2pool) the pool server does all the block header computation (including ensuring each miner is working on unique data by setting the coinbase field).  When miners can perform 1000x as much work it is going to put 1000x as much load on the pool server.  Some clever use of n-time rolling will help but the load increase is going to be large.

One solution is to change how pools talk to miners.  Have the miner construct the blockheader locally.  The pool simply becomes a mechansim for sharing the reward (p2pool essentially does this now).  In hindsight Satoshi should have made the nonce field 64 bit and this would be a complete non-issue.  That is never going to change now so we work with what we got.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds? 

On Windows GPG puts public keys in this folder:
C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\gnupg

The simplest option would be to launch GPA (also installed with GPG4Win package), highlight all the keys, and click export.

Alternatively you can use the command line program gpg2.exe (Kleo & GPA are simply GUI frontends which execute commands against gpg2.exe)
C:\Program Files (x86)\GNU\GnuPG\

Public keys can always be obtained from key servers but you should ALREADY have a backup of your private keys.  If the reason Kleo is failing is because your keys have become corrupt you will have no choice but to re-import them from key servers.   If your private key is corrupt well you have lost your OTC ratings if they used that key.

I think there may be some confusion.

Velocity =/= moving money around.

Velocity = GDP/MoneySupply.  There has to be real production or the velocity is zero.

If the entire bitcoin network consisted of nodes randomly transfering BTC to each other than regardless of the transaction volume the production would be 0 and thus velocity would be zero.

If I withdraw $500 from my checking account and then deposit it back that is not economic production (GDP) and thus it doesn't contribute to velocity.
If I buy a new xbox360 for $500 then likely Microsoft will build a replacement and that transaction does add to economic production (GDP) and thus raises the velocity of the economy (increase to GDP over no change in money supply).

So in the example there is 350 BTC of economic activity.  The velocity would depend on how large the money supply was.  Lets assume the entire money supply is only 200 BTC.  The velocity would be 350 / 200 = 1.75.

More on velocity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

Now estimating the velocity of the Bitcoin economy would be difficult.  In any economy velocity can only be estimated and usually entities like the Fed have extensive data provided to them by businesses, banks, govt agencies, etc.  With the psuedo-anonymity of Bitcoin and lack of central oversight the traditional method of computing these stats won't work.  I would imagine if Bitcoin became large enough eventually there will be value in researchers trying to pin down economic data like velocity.

In traditional fiat economies when functioning properly Velocity will tend to have a v=1 as a lower bound and v=3 as an upper bound (so GDP is 100% to 300% of the money supply).  Velocity of < 0 indicates that a substantial portion of the money in the economy is simply idle (it isn't used for new goods or services).  Velocity of 0 would indicate no economic activity (or at least none using that currency).

Just a heads up MP are only up to $500 ($1,000 at Walmart).

Halfway there.  You are right money supply != economic production.  However you can't say the relationship between GDP and money supply is coincidence.  The two are very much linked.

(Money Supply) * (Average Velocity of Money) = (Economic Production)
One reason the US money supply has grown so much is the depression combined with poor govt policies has caused a collapse in the velocity of money.  The two numbers are very close because velocity is only a little over 1 (each $1 in money supply is only changing hands once per year, think about how pathetically bad that is).

We can make educated guesses about the velocity of money in the bitcoin economy and thus solve the above equation for money supply.

Well no it is a debt service default.  A technical default would be if there was some convenant attached to the investment.  Hypothetically say Pirate agreed to keep 100K BTC in a publicly known address.  If that were the case and he moved the funds he would be in technical default even IF he made all scheduled interest and principal payments.  Still both debt service defaults and technical defaults are both defaults and the default didn't occur on 08/29 just because he finally admitted it.

He failed to pay principal upon demand on 08/17
He failed to make interest payments upon demand on 08/19.
He failed to live up to his promise to bitlane for delayed full repayment on 08/21.

It is a debt service default.

Default is a failure of the debtor to meet the terms of the debt obligation. On 08/17 "investors" attempted to make withdrawals.  The terms of the BTCST were that principal and interest could be drawn on demand (demand account).  Pirate failed to pay out those investors on 08/17.  He also failed to make the next regularly scheduled interest payment.  Two weeks later he also stated he will not be paying out any interest post-closure.  All of those were causes for default.  Under any possible definition of the term, BTCST defaulted on 08/17 when it couldn't honor the terms of the "investment".  Pirate could have made the terms anything he wanted.  He could have indicated that upon demand accounts would be paid in 30 days.  Of course doing so would make the scam less attractive.  He set the terms and then couldn't meet them.

Try this on for size.  Don't make your mortgage payment instead call the bank up and saying you are closing the mortgage.  When the bank asks when you will be paying off the balance tell them you are stopping all interest and will pay them when you get the money.  Also be sure to let them know you aren't in default until you tell them you are in default.  Let me know how it works out.

Pirate admitting default 2 weeks after the fact doesn't change the fact that he was already in default the day he couldn't meet the terms of his obligation to creditors.

That likely mean you are too long.  When the price enough I see it as a chance to buy more. 
When it drops a little I get excited it might drop enough to hit my entry point.
Sometimes I get depressed when it doesn't.

You need to start reaching your own conclusions of value and when the market disagrees you have your course of action.

Stall, delay, divide is classic scammer operating procedures.

A week ago people wanted full balance plus interest up to the minute or repayment.
A couple days ago people would accept 50% to 80% of full balance and drop the interest since closing.
Today most would probably take 50%.
In a couple weeks most will take 20% or less.

Eventually Pirate will probably be able to repay a tiny fraction of what he took in and claim the situation resolved.

I think Rarity needs some drugs.

People like Rarity scare me.  Drugs about bad because they kill people?  Like achohol which is why it is banned right?  Oh wait that is one of those "acceptable" bad drugs.  What about cheeseburgers?  Fatty foods kills far more people in the US than "bad drugs".  Hell today it kills more people than even cigarettes that "bad drug" which is "bad" enough to publicly shame but not quite bad enough to ban.

Even if drugs are a problem, why would it be the govts job to help a citizen stop doing something they choose to do?  That kind of statist govt is the answer to everything mindset if far more harmful than someone getting high.

Appologize in advance for the thread derail.

I think time will also help.  When Bitcoin is still around 10 years after genesis even those who don't understand exactly how it works but first heard about it in a CNBC snippet 7 years prior will have a little more confidence it isn't some pyramid scheme or HYIP.  SR also helps.  It is an "must have site" for some users and the only way they can pay is Bitcoin.  Not saying Bitcoin should rely on SR but having things that people want which require Bitcoins is useful.  People are more likely to try somethng new if they "have to" rather than just because "it isn't PayPal".

There is no difference.  The backup is a copy of the wallet.dat

In your example no second backup is necessary.  The satoshi client wallet file uses a concept of a "keypool".  By default the wallet keypool is 100 private keys.  So a backup contains all the used keys PLUS the next 100 keys.

Receiving coins to an existing address uses no keys.
Sending coins uses 1 new address/key for each send (change address).
Getting a new address from the wallet uses 1 new address/key (clicking new address button).

If your keypool is 100 then you are good for the next 100 new addresses/keys.  The tx involving the 101st address/key will be lost forever.

You can make the keypool as large as you want although anything over 1,000 addresses can take a while to generate.  IMHO the default keypool should likely be increased to 300 or 500.

Sweet crap guys.

1) You can login on Vanilla VISA website and see all activity on the card.  Pretty easy to prove what happened.

2) You must set the zipcode on Vanilla VISA website for online purchases.  Likely it is set to seller's zipcode and buyer used the buyer's zipcode in the purchase.

If it is the "satoshi" (reference) client and you ever sent coins to any one (even yourself) even once you have a change address.  That is how Bitcoin works.

you may (almost certainly) have change address which don't show in bitcoin-qt client.
You can do a dump of your wallet to see all addresses including change addresses.

Did you accidentally encrypt this post?  It obviously isn't English.