noob (and probably 99% of users) will be running lite clients.  

Some optimization (multi-peer downloads, removing double validation, and pruning tx) will go a long way towards make the full nodes more efficient HOWEVER over the same period of time (especially under a $5,000 BTC scenario) transaction volume will explode to many magnitudes of current volume so net-net the requirements of full nodes are very likely to INCREASE.

TL/DR If developers make the client download the blockchain 10x faster but the blockchain is now 200x as large although more efficient the demands on a full node will have increased not decreased.

Any website asking you to pay in order to mine is likely a scam.  Every major miner developer can be found in the mining subforum and none of them charge and almost all of them are open source.  I would run away form any website asking for a fee to mine bitcoins sounds like a scam, or worse a wallet stealing trojan.  Like it was said above today you need pretty high end GPU (or more exotic FPGA) to have any chance to mine more than a few bitcents.

Um no but we will have close to 21 million in 2032.  The subsidy won't go to zero BTC for ~130 years.

It would require also finding and funding an address for 1gigabi first.  If you found a 1gigabitxxxxxxx address and funded it then it would be assigned the firstbit of 1gigabi.  Since finding a 1gigabi is less computationally intensive one could find an address with that prefix and send it a satoshi to act as a placeholder.  Luckily 1giga, 1gigab already exist otherwise they also would need to be found.

Incorrect.  Had a brain fart this morning.

Easiest?  FastCash4Bitcoins.

You get a guaranteed rate up front, send the coins, get paid.  What could be easier?

https://fastcash4bitcoins.com

I know you are joking but I think other people do have this misconception that you "reserve" a first bit address.  You don't.  Every new address added to the blockchain can have their first bit address calculated based on a set of rules.

Simplistically to find the firstbit (F) for any address (A):
1) scan the blockchain for A.  If A is not in the blockchain or doesn't have 6 confirmations on its first tx then it has no firstbit.  F = null
2) Find the first tx of A and record the block number (b) that it occurs in.
3) Create the smallest potential firstbit pattern (f) for A.  f = 4 leftmost digits of A.
4) Scan the blockchain (from block 0 to block b) for any address which matches the pattern f.
5) If a match if found then add one digit to f and goto step 4
6) If no match is found then F(A)=f (the pattern f is the firstbit for address A)

Who determines "stuck in an unused address"?  Say I have FirstBits address 1Crypto. I go to jail for 20 years but during those 20 years people keep sending funds to 1Crypto.  When I get out I learn that oops 19.9 years ago someone got 1Crypto changed to a different address.

Now lets make it more complicated.  Right now the way firstbit works is every client, website, user who uses firstbits SCANS the blockchain to find the first usage of an address matching the prefix.   There is no communication required to a central authority or a list of unregistered addresses.  

Say genuinely 1gig could be reassigned.  How do you notify every user on the planet using a variety of websites, exchanges, clients that 1gig not points to a different address?  What if some of those users are running clients which aren't updated?  They keep sending funds to the wrong address?

They break the psuedo-anonymity of the bitcoin address scheme.


deterministic as in from now until the end of time the "firstbit" of every single bitcoin address can be determined with nothing but an algorithm and the blockchain.  If addresses could be reserved, or assigned, or reassigned that wouldn't be possible. 

Would you rely on firstbits if someone could change it?  Vanity addresses are a bad idea but firstbits only works if the addresses are deterministic.  1gig will always be the first address beginning with 1gig that had a tx in the blockchain.

^ This.

try entering your password with first few digits missing and alternatively adding a space or carriage return at the end.  Not sure if the satoshi client accepts whitespace but if it does that will result in a different key.

i.e.  password is password.  You may have copied:
assword
passwor
ssword
passwo
asswor
password[SPACE]
password[CR/LF]
password[SPACE][CR/LF]
the last thing in your clipboard <- in which case you are probably out of luck

Although this doesn't help this time in the future I would strongly recommend the following sequence:
a) encrypt an EMPTY wallet
b) don't copy & paste passwords at least not on setup (the repeat password field is there for a reason)
c) after encrypting close the client & re-open
d) verify you can unlock wallet using passphrase
e) THEN SEND coins.

Also if the passphrase could be extracted from the dat file well there would be no security in that.  What would be the point of having a passphrase to begin with.

There is no max # of confirmations.

When a tx is included in a block that is 1 confirmation.  When another block is added to the blockchain it is 2 confirmations.  Another block = 3 confirmations.

100 blocks later = 100 confirmations.
210,000 blocks later = 210,000 confirmations.

The number of confirmations simply indicates how "deep" the tx is inside the blockchain and thus how difficult it would be to reverse.

Just because 6 is considered "very hard to reverse" doesn't mean confirmations stop at 6.  As long as new blocks are added the blockchain the number of confirmations will increase. 

I am not sure what you are asking?

And wear a dress with heels so people will think you are a chick.  Unless you are a chick in which case wear cowboy boots and a parka.

Exactly  Bitcoin does have a very low price:  ~$0.01 per mBTC and there will be a high number of units ~21 billion mBTC.    

You probably mean "fall" not "fail" in the title.   Normally I don't care much about grammar or spelling but it does change the meaning in this case.

Step 1.  Actually learn how Bitcoin works.
Step 2. Start trying to "fix" it.

It would appear you jumped right to step 2.

"what could go wrong with a stuck gas pedal?   Well if the gas pedal remained stuck the car could jump backwards in time or might achieve escape velocity.  Obviously gas pedals are fatally flawed.  Lets scrap cars and start over".

Collectively mining pools have gotten smaller (as a % of hashing power).
The largest pool has gotten smaller (as a % of hashing power).
The four largest pools have gotten smaller (as a % of hashing power) and now combined represent less than 50% of hashing power.
There are far more stable and well run medium sized pools giving miners a real choice on where to send their hashes.

So no need to dump anything.  

Also it is possible for block construction/validation to happen locally.  Two pools (p2pool & eligius) already support it.   Most pools will be forced to support this eventually due to significantly faster miners (FPGA & ASICs) combined with the constraint of the 32bit nonce.  When block generation occurs locally the reward is pooled (less variance) but the validation of tx are distributed.

Any more FUD you need refuted?  I will be here all day.

Wait so it is 5.5% load fee + 1% withdraw fee + 0.6% exchange trading fee = 7.1%.   

This is the lower price what was it before?

This.

Having a clear, open, and verifiable legal foundation removes barriers to entry.  Major corporations don't make a move without legal department giving the all clear.

There is also the conflict of interest risk.  Hypothetically in 20-30 years if Bitcoin has seen tremendous success MtGox is most likely a major publicly traded company and answerable to it's shareholders.  Smart or not there will come a time when someone great idea to boost the stock price will be to "unlock value and monetize previously under developed resources".

The bad news is once you do start a bitcoin venture you probably will get even less sleep. 

Coinabul my wife loves your posters.  She likes that they are trying to sell you anything.  The viewer doesn't walk away saying "I got to buy Angry Birds now".  It isn't a call to action.  It does help build mindshare.  IMHO I feel that is very important.  Your posters are interesting enough that someone will actually read them.  Maybe they don't believe it, maybe they don't completely understand it but they now know Bitcoin exists.  When they see an article or TV show or ad IN THE FUTURE about Bitcoin they are already prepared.  They have some awareness of the topic and thus are more likely to be drawn into the story, report, or ad. 

It is powerful stuff.   Companies spend billions to build mindshare.   Does anyone think naming a stadium the  AT&T stadium or sponsoring the olympics makes someone say "due I NEED to get me some AT&T right now"?  Of course not.   It does keep the AT&T brand in the top of the consumer's mind though.  AT&T is everywhere.  The subconcious message is "wow if everyone knows & trusts AT&T I guess I should too".

I honestly don't believe it would be possible for our company's service to trash your thread.  If anything the backlink probably boosted the search engine results of the thread.  I will leave though, I just didn't want any clueless noobs to think a 15% vig from someone without any rep was standard practice around here.  There are plenty of better options.

Best of luck!