Since you seem to have difficulty reading .... Free transactions will always be possible. The mandatory fee is only imposed on low priority transactions. |
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Are you talking to yourself?
Can you leave the hyperbole & strawmen out of the discussion?
The reality is Stephen is right, over time the mandatory fee is likely going to be LESS relvent. Market forces will determine what fees are required and they will vary depending on what the user needs (i.e. to have a guaranteed placement in the next block might cost 0.01 BTC, to have a high confidence of being in the next 20 blocks might require 0.0005 BTC). Users who want fast access are likely going to pay MORE than the minimum fee. Free transactions will always be possible. The mandatory fee is only imposed on low priority transactions. If you are willing to wait for sufficient coin age AND willing to wait for space in a block you can continue to use bitcoin without a fee.
Also I would like to put into perspective we are talking about a sub cent fee. A fractional cent. There is no other transaction system on the planet which is that cheap. None. Not even cash. Most banks impose a fee of 0.1% to 0.3% on cash deposits over some threshold on business accounts. If you have enough cash to warrant armored car service the fee is even higher. Even at $0.01 per tx Bitcoin is the cheapest payment system on the entire planet. Period. The idea that it must be even cheaper to compete is laughable.
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VPN (or whatever you think that means) won't do anything, as the "P" in P2P is peer - by the very definition, you are sharing with others you don't know, who can monitor your downloading - just making the connection with peers "secure" doesn't matter, since you can't "trust" anybody not to be the bad guys. You can block some suspect IP addresses though. What are you talking about? By using a VPN proxy the bad seeders only get the VPN proxy address. Your ISP ip address remains hidden to the entire p2p cloud. |
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A blockchain.info wallet and BitInstant are a great option for someone new to Bitcoin.
It's greatest option to lose your bitcoins when service operator decides to shut down and take all losers bitcoins for himself. Remember mybitcoin.com? Download Bitcoin client on your computer, secure your computer (no malware or other persons acessing your PC), backup your wallet. Hey troll if Bitcoins are worthless then it doesn't really matter does it? Blockchain.info has no access to your private keys. You can backup your wallet offline (or have it sent automatically to your email address). Private keys can be extracted from the backup and imported into any client. |
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Honestly it was pure luck from some bad luck. MtGox is a USD dead end and I had funds stuck there so I put in some buy orders while I waited for a need for the funds.
Still trying to figure out why someone would dump coins like that?
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Sweet. My funds held semi-hostage by the Gox came in handy.
As the price fell my "what the hell the money isn't going anywhere" buy orders said "NOM NOM NOM" and I got a nice load of cheap coins.
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Do you know the purpose of the physical coupons? Presumably, in order to collect payment, you had to physically present the actual bond certificate, and could only collect payment if the appropriate coupon was there (not yet removed) or was not there (i.e. not yet stamped)?
Yeah that was the purpose. Remember we are talking before computers, before electronic communication, before national ID cards. The bank may maintain its own records but those could be lost/destroyed. The physical coupon provided a payment record on the bond itself. As long as the bond wasn't lost you could get paid. |
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Isn't this where Bitinstant steps in with a pre-made Greendot intermediary, all set up and ready to go? Yessir, all wrapped up in a tidy package for you, they will take the Moneypaks, and send you an ACH to disburse to your customers as you see fit. For a fee, of course.  If not them, someone needs to do it. I don't think so. In our talks with GreenDot they simply prohibit anything to do with Bitcoin even indirectly. We spoke at length with a sales agent. At first he was skeptical of the demand. I indicated we would be looking at hundred grand the first month and probably double that (as FC4B is supply limited). When he seemed to indicate we were unrealistic I offered to open our books subject to an NDA. I was also willing to guarantee 5000 transactions in the first 90 days and pay GreenDot the difference (i.e. up to $25,000) if they didn't materialize. I think I made the offer as generous as possible even indicating we would consider things like a discount rate (MoneyPak merchants normally don't pay a fee), a fraud reserve (depsite MoneyPak being sold to merchants as a low risk option), and limiting our acceptance to $250 or less per Pak (to give GreenDot a bigger cut). We went back and forth but GreenDot is just completely adamant (and unreasonable IMHO) about having absolutely nothing to do with Bitcoin. Period. We were even "creative" looking at potential solutions where MoneyPak would be use to fund a "cash card account" which then could be used to buy digital goods (to include bitcoins). Nope. They aren't interested. If Bitcoin is anywhere in your proposal (even in the small print at the bottom) it is an auto-rejection. I think I convinced the sales agent though. Bitcoin is going to move mainstream and companies which embrace that (like ZIpZap) will profit indirectly and companies that don't (like GreenDot) will be shut out. Now we (or someone else) could form a shell company, lie to GreenDot about the purpose of the merchant account (selling golfballs or whatever) then use that company to funnel Bitcoin sales. We have no interest in that and I am sure BitInstant doesn't either. GreenDot merchant agreement also prohibits third party transactions so we won't be seeing a general purpose TrustCash or ZipZap type middle man for GreenDot MoneyPaks. It is their loss but sadly it did waste a significant amount of our time. It could have been extremely profitable for both us AND GreenDot. |
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I think you missed this: As I said we know how and where the USD moved, so yes.
They know to whom the funds have been transferred. Where does not equal whom. We have no idea what method of withdrawal was used for the USD, but it';s unlikely that the hacker tried to get it payed into their bank account. While unlikely, we don't know it. Keep in mind, that all those more or less anonymous withdraws take weeks, so either MtGox helped to speed this up, in which case they very much know with whom they dealt, or yes it was redrawn to some bank account. Or it was transferred to a handful of throw away account w/ fake info and used to buy BTC and removed from the site. Or it was transferred to Accrum Exchange and used to buy Liberty Reserve. Lots of methods to get USD off MtGox nearly instantly. Not all of them are low cost but I doubt any thief was worried about that. The idea that the thief did a wire transfer to their personal bank account is just stupid. |
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Is it possible to create USD payment network based on Bitcoin? - Fork Bitcoin project.
- Change the way new coins created. Instead of coinbased transaction from a miner, new coins can just appear in a block as a transaction from preprogramed set of inputs owned by central authority.
- Create infrastructure where people can exchange their money for crypto USD and back, in a non reversible way.
- Change address generation and validation with an additional step. Normal address gets encrypted with a private key owned by central authority, to send money you would have to first decrypt it then verify that the address is correct. In effect, to get new address you would have to comply with every requirement from central authority e.g. submitting legal documents, that would make it possible to track every transaction to a person.
- Replace the term coin with US Dollar and market it as payment network that has best security model.
- Pay fixed amount to a miner who found last block to bootstrap the network, later on it could be replaced with transaction fees.
Sure but pointless. If you are going to have a central authority simply make all transactions go through the central authority. The reality is the blockchain and distributed network of miners have a significant cost overhead. That cost is the PRICE of having a decentralized network. Having a centralized network with the cost of a decentralized network is simply the worst of both worlds. |
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The one thing these sad stories have in common is ... no 2 factor authentication.
I have never seen a report yet of someone account protected by 2 factor being compromised.
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........and the $$/fiat is worthless how the hell are we going to cash out if we so choose to  IF BTC is $100 USD then USD isn't worthless it is worth 1/100th BTC.  If USD was truly worthless then the exchange rate would be infinite USD : 1 BTC. At which point why would you want to cash out? |
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Is it an integral property of these blocks that brute-force is the accepted and preferred method? The intricacies of mining are a little over my head what with how little research I've done, but I would think that there ought to be a more efficient manner than brute-forcing, such as an algorithmic approach. Would such an approach inevitably introduce issues that brute-forcing wouldn't?
Yes. I recommend you read Satoshi white paper but blocks are SUPPOSE TO BE HARD. They are a "proof of work". If the work is easy/trivial then it isn't a proof of much is it. The blocks prevent double spending coins. Making the blocks difficult to produce means an attacker needs more computational power than all "the good guys" combined. The economics of mining mean that even if an attacker had that much computing power it would be more profitable to "do the right thing". Obviously you could make producing blocks "easier" but the system would be easier to attack. Locating a solution by brute force has two major advantages. Solutions are found random. This prevents large miners from locking out smaller miners. If blocks were found in a deterministic manner then larger/faster miners would always win. Essentially the miner equivelent of a central bank. The second major advantage is that FINDING A SOLUTION is difficult but VERIFYING A SOLUTION is trivial. This means once a solution is found the rest of the network can verify it in a fraction of a second. I strongly strongly strongly recommend everyone interested in the technical aspects of Bitcoin to read Satoshi paper. Once you read it (and read it again) you start to realize the elegance of the system. It is at the high level very simple and yet very robust. |
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So you likely now are thinking where the hell did the word "coupon" come from. Way back in the dark ages before the intertubes bonds actually had a physical coupon. Notice the coupons at the bottom. They indicate the interest payments due. Depending on the bond coupons were either removed or stamped to indicate the were paid.  |
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Coupon is a financial term, not a Bitcoin specific one. A coupon is a periodic interest payment. In this case it would be paid in BTC as GBLSE has no mechanism to payout coupons in anything but BTC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_(finance)#CouponYou can also have zero coupon bonds. For example a bond could have a face value of 1 BTC but is sold by the issuer at 0.7 BTC. In 3 months the bond will mature and bold holders will be paid 1 BTC per bond. During the 3 months the bond would issue no coupons (no interest payments). The yield would come from the difference in issue price and maturity price. |
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Would those coins be limited in quantity? I find it hard to believe they would, as this prevents them from printing more money as they like.
Would those coins be pseudo-anonymous? I find it hard to believe they would, as this prevents them from tracing money transfers and controlling.
Would those coins be given out on a 10-minutes basis to miners? I find it hard to believe they would, as this prevents them from holding on to all the coins.
This. The idea that the powers that be will simply give up all control if silly. Lets look a little deeper. Say they were willing to make a system which is as open and transparent as Bitcoin. Why? Why not simply use Bitcoin. The very fact that they don't means the "GlobalCoin" has some "bad news" attached to it and thus Bitcoin is still superior. |
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None of that made any sense. Not being rude but have you read Satoshi whitepaper? If you haven't it is like proposing an alternative to gasoline vehicles without understanding how internal combustion engines work.
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Yes. Your wallet can't "see" received coins until you are up to date. You can go to blockchain.info in the search box copy the ADDRESS you sent coins to. If the transaction with your coins shows up then STOP WORRYING. The transaction is part of the bitcoin network, you just need to wait till your wallet is current. Remember coins aren't sent to your particular wallet they are broadcast on the network. Your wallet simply has the private keys which allow YOU and only you to spend those coins. If the coins show up on blockchain.info you are fine. Now would be a good time to make a secure backup of your wallet.dat file (if the private keys are lost the coins are lost forever - no recovery possible under any circumstances) |
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Not trying to be picky, I'm just wanting to know exactly how this works....
Would you need the original private key to spend the coins, or just any private key that ultimately hashes to the address? Any. To spend coins sent to an address you need a private key which can sign the transaction. Any private key which produces the same public address can properly sign a transaction. For all intents and purposes Bitcoin addresses have 160bits of cryptographic strength. Still there are certain advantages to making the keys 256bit. |
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That is correct. The stength of private keys from a brute force attack is 2^160th. An attacker doesn't need the exact private key they simply need any private key which produces the same address. Still 2^160th is very large many many many magnitudes larger than what could be brute forced even with all the computing power on the planet AND a century of Moore's law at work.
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