I agree with this totally. I will be supporting whatever spec ThomasV/slush come up with using libbitcoin. Electrum is the way forwards.

I would like though (as we discussed on IRC) if you could give the protocol a different name to distinguish it from the client. This mix-up has been very confusing and unfortunate in bitcoin.

I have got the lube. Where do I sign up.

i was going to write a retort to this article, but the whole thing was so ludicrous i couldn't think how to respond

http://www.kernelmag.com/yiannopoulos/2011/12/the-online-currency-wars-are-coming/

"Since Bitcoin has no central repository it’s more like digital cash, used to exchange value anonymously. Critics ask how long that anonymity will last."

what the hell does that mean.

"Think of the entire internet as an app, circumscribed by a persistent Facebook login and punctuated with Pay icons"

No.. that's just stupid.

"Bitcoin and Ven haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s possible with online payments. With a ready user base of 800 million users, Facebook may be about to change the way online financial transactions are thought about and conducted. "

yeah right. bitcoin underlying protocol can do shit we havent even dreamed or ever thought possible. sky is the limit!

happy easter

zomg i cant stop laughing cracking me up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBfeLdjNVKY

The old client code sucked. The new code is great. This is a good switch that will pay off in the long run by making it more sustainable to develop satoshi bitcoin.

Thanks for the info. Yes, they provided me with the exemption. The bug I'm referring to isn't to do with OpenSSL though. It's that the AGPL requires not only that you give the sourcecode on demand, but that you're proactive in providing the sourcecode visibly. This is problematic because if you make a small modification while developing or building on a compilation based system (like gentoo) then the act of connecting to the p2p network means you have to provide source. There is no means to do this in the bitcoin sourcecode and the idea itself is problematic; every build must store the sourcecode in a bundle which is served using custom bitcoin protocol extensions.

From my understanding, modifying the AGPL for them is complicated and so far the last proposal was:


This means that you are able to provide the source code through some other means (such as sending it via email if requested) and it solves the issue.

------

In an ideal world, copyrights, patents, trademarks and censorship wouldn't exist. Proprietary software would not be able to support itself against rampant piracy. And I would put my sourcecode out in the open for anyone to use as they like.

However, we don't live in that ideal world. And I will use what little power I have in the form of the GPL to fight this asymmetric warfare. The balance is totally tilted away from our favour, so why wouldn't you use the only protection afforded to you as a developer.

Licenses like the GPL hack the law, twisting it to our will. It is the best example of subversion.

Thanks fellowtraveller Actually there are a bunch of licensing issues that have to be resolved. Me and the SFLC/FSF are trying to fix up the AGPL since there is a bug in it where bitcoin is concerned. Also OpenSSL conflicts with the GPL and LAGPL was discussed since they get a lot of requests for it.

But still got a lot of time since the project is far from maturity.

Hey,

This project is pretty old. I'm now supporting Electrum,

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52003.0

They have the right idea. Spesmilo will be revamped in the future to support Electrum and Electrum will be revamped to support libbitcoin:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=30646.0

We're all integrating our projects together.

Looking forward to this.

yawn, another economist who doesn't fully understand bitcoin.

If you're interested to speak to real economist who does understand bitcoin and holds some reservations against it, and favours it in other ways, then contact John Barrdear of the LSE.

This guy made several glaring mistakes during his article such as saying the bitcoin value reached $0.01 and that it is untraceable. Both demonstrate he only has a superficial understanding of bitcoin possibly gleaned from reading other publications.

Same as before, http://bitcoinmedia.com/

We have moved to a newer better platform which is more suited for Bitcoin Media than the current blog format offered to us before.

Apologies to everyone who has to repost their comments- there was some informative interesting discussion. However the new site provides us with a better base in which to expand in the future.

Interesting articles are in the pipeline and my aim for this site is to engage in outreach & education beyond the bitcoin community. I want to educate on the intracies of this complex system. Intracies which so far have could only be noticed by living, eating and sleeping bitcoin. Intracies buried deep in obscure IRC conversations, personal observations and long forum posts.

By putting this info out there, we are equalising bitcoin and democratising the community.

We did have a mistake once when we first migrated to the new Intersango from Britcoin. We accidentally sent 1 BTC to someone 500 times. This money comes out of our own pockets.

Since we only keep a small reserve online at a time (most funds are offline) then it is pretty safe. We have the reserve wallet covered: https://intersango.com/security.php

Me, molecular and Mitchell (worldly) weighed up the various options for the location of the next conference. Me arguing for London, and molecular for Berlin. Eventually we agreed that London is probably best. However not everyone is convinced. Hopefully we can get some community involvement in the decision making here.

- 7 out of 11 of potential notable speakers I have lined up live in London. They are far more likely to attend a London conference but would not take a plane ride because it isn't worth their time. I don't want to give their names away to keep it a pleasant surprise From running the UK exchange Intersango, we've had a lot of contact with high up financial types in particular.

- My press contacts are largely in London: BBC, Guardian, Independent, Channel4 news, Wired, Wall Street Journal.

- London is better connected internationally than Berlin.

- We held an after conference survey. 10 voted for London, 6 for Berlin, 5 for Prague. 4 others abstained. 70% of the respondents actually attended this conference.

- I am in London.

- 2 months ago I held the London Bitcoin Meetup at the London Hack Space. The space was small so we limited the event to 30 people, and denied 10 people on the waiting list. 40 people turned up anyway.

- London is expensive (50 EUR per night for hotel). However from speaking with a couple hotels so far, they were willing to negotiate a group deal. I also have friends in London and the London Hack Space who could donate sleeping bag space.

- Many of our previous speakers came from London: Amir Taaki (me), David Birch, Simon Dixon, Jason Chia, Max Keiser. We also had a nice turnout from UK participants although I agree that the attendance in Prague was much higher among Germans.

Together I think these points make a compelling case for London.

yossarian is going to respond below so please read his message too.

I really have no comment here. I think this TV episode will be great. Not everything illegal is portrayed as bad on TV. And the main character from reading the descriptions, sounds like the good guy while the FBI agent is the bad guy.

The bitcoin price has gone mental as a consequence.

814 views for this story: http://bitcoinmedia.com/bitcoin-tv-episode-confirmed
People are getting excited over that.

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/mtgoxUSD_depth.html

Buy side was HUGE earlier.

It went from 3.6 to 3.8 in 20 mins. Now it is at 4.10.

Deja vu?

This is total speculation and has nothing to do with the development of bitcoin. I would BUY BUY BUY then right before the day of the episode SELL SELL SELL

http://bitcoinmedia.com/bitcoin-tv-episode-confirmed

Holy shit, this is going to drive bitcoin forwards.

I dislike the dumb stereotyping though of us technologists :/ Would be nice if they could tell a good story with a nice structure rather than falling back on retarded stereotypes. A good story with interesting characters.

Who is more cool: some skinny geek nerd you always see in the movies or Julian FUCKING Assange who was an old school hacker and lover of unix.