Decentralized P2P infrastructure is Bitcoin's strength.  If one were desiring to suppress Bitcoin, are there easier ways?  Consider this approach:

Right now, it has become a de facto standard that the "official" price (USD/BTC) is obtained by looking at the market on Mt. Gox.  Even on Bitcoin OTC for example, offers are made in amounts relative to the "current market price" on Mt. Gox.

Mt. Gox acts as a spigot for the Bitcoin economy that spews Liberty Reserve USD since withdrawals from Mt. Gox are sent to your Liberty Reserve account number.  However there is no comparable inlet for LRUSD.  Today, the average Bitcoin participant cannot easily fund an account on Mt. Gox for which to purchase bitcoins.  The options available to these participants are to first buy LRUSD outside of Mt. Gox (takes too long, costs too much) or to wire funds to Mt. Gox (takes too long, costs too much) and even then, Mt. Gox buys LRUSD with the funds that were sent.

Thus there is an imbalance between the supply of one commodity (bitcoins) and the supply of the exchange medium (LRUSD MTGUSD).  This is visually apparent when looking at the Mt. Gox Matrix: http://bit.ly/mtgoxmatrix  

When those bitcoin sellers on Mt. Gox chase the buyers, the only remaining potential buyers are those whose accounts still have funds available in their Mt. Gox account.  Those remaining have the luxury of being able to sit on lower bids and let the sellers approach.  As the result of this, the price falls.   It is thus apparent, in my opinion, that the price at Mt. Gox does not necessarily reflect the supply and demand for bitcoins, but instead reflects the supply and demand for LRUSD MTGUSD.

To control the price of all bitcoins, simply buy bitcoins from sellers outside of Mt. Gox, transfer those bitcoins to Mt. Gox, withdraw in LRUSD, hold onto those LRUSDs by not selling, rinse and repeat.

Ironically, this actually becomes a less expensive endeavor over time as once the price on Mt. Gox starts to drop, the price to buy bitcoins outside of Mt. Gox drops because other markets use Mt. Gox's price as their reference.

It would make sense then that the ability to easily control the price provides the opportunity to suppress rapid adoption of Bitcoin as a currency.

This is an easily employable option that needs no legislation and can be accomplished without any brute force attack / internet filtering, etc.

[Edit:
  tl;dr: At this phase, insufficient access to LRUSD MTGUSD is Bitcoin's Achilles' heel.]

In testing something else out, I am getting the same symptoms.  I filed Issue #22:
  https://github.com/gavinandresen/bitcoin-git/issues/issue/22

What if I send the escrow payment from an e-wallet provider, ... MyBitcoin, for example. 

If I fail to release the escrow amount to the counterparty, after the 30 days the refund goes back to MyBitcoin, ..., which would not make it to my account with them, correct?

Can you see the transaction using BlockExplorer.com ?

[Edit: of course you can, otherwise #2 would never have occurred, sorry.]

Or, how about this one ....

To facilitate Anonymous Voting

It wouldn't work where one person gets only one vote, but for popularity type voting, casting votes by way of Bitcoin would be an quick and easy way to hold a secret ballot vote.

Setting a specified minimum amount (e.g., 1 BTC) would give a disincentive for submitting too many votes.

e.g.
Those supporting plan A send to [bitcoin address A]
Those supporting plan B send to [bitcoin address B]

How would this detection work?

Is the target to be able to function comparably to payment card authorization, which averages 2 to 3 seconds?

Would this be a separate service, or something built into the client?

How would I merge the keys from an old wallet.dat into current.  If I can launch the client, I can just transfer to address from a new wallet, but is it possible to add those keys into another wallet?

For comparison:





and

World Connection Density:
  http://www.chrisharrison.net/projects/InternetMap

though this might be better for comparison:
  http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/2716/worldnet.jpg

Saw this Twitter status update:
  Does the #bitcoin protocol have a version number that allows to upgrade if someone leaves the system for 5 - 10 years?
  http://twitter.com/stephanwehner/statuses/16224034316361728

I think what is being asked is, if a client were not upgraded for a very long time, could it still communicate?

Either way, will the future clients be backward compatible as far as being able to access today's wallet.dat?

A lot can happen in 5 to 10 years. 

  IPv6, various vulnerabilities discovered, encrypted wallet.dat, etc.

(Incidentally, ... isn't the reason most who have left the system for 5 - 10 years due to being incarcerated?)

Very awesome!

If anyone wishes to tag a marker, there is the collaborative Bitcoin Map:
  http://www.bitcoinmap.com

Yes, it is Flash based.  The data is stored in KML though so it can be viewed with Google Maps:
  http://j.mp/bitcoinmap

I guess I should have included Jimbobway's message to indicate what my reply was a response to:


I've decoded the ASCII character that represents the amount sent in each of those 8 transactions:
0.66 BTC  = B
0.73 BTC  = I
0.84 BTC  = T
0.69 BTC  = E
0.32 BTC  = [space]
0.77 BTC  = M
0.69 BTC  = E
0.33 BTC  = !

That is steganography, no?  And that is using bitcoins in a new way?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography

Though if I sent to you the following:

0.66 BTC
0.73 BTC
0.84 BTC
0.69 BTC
0.32 BTC
0.77 BTC
0.69 BTC
0.33 BTC

I would have failed -- not just because it cost me over 5 BTC (even before any transaction charges) just to send a lousy 8 bytes of data, but it would be easy to tell that I was sending data.  But as a channel for sending a message, in a pinch it might be useful.

And so it begins ...

Wake me up when 10 McD's are given out with each happy meal and OprahBux are accepted for coffee.

I'd love to see an update of that bitcoin faucet chart.  If I remember correctly, the faucet had about 450 last week, and it shows 393 now.  At 0.05 / new visitor, that means 1,140 disbursements.  In a week!

Uno mas.
http://www.techdrivein.com/2010/12/bitcoin-open-source-virtual-currency.html

I'm curious to know if there is a place for this idea though.

There's absolutely no need to build anything at this point.  Think Eric Ries' minimum viable product (http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-product-guide.html ).  

All you need is some performer to give it a try.  

The performer sends to every new connection a solicitation that gives out the URL from freebitcoins.appspot.com along with the performer's Bitcoin address.

If the performer gets enough positive responses (actual coin coming in), then the idea might just be a winner!

I try not to condone an idea that intentionally violates a site's terms of service but come on, ... this is ChatRoulette we're talking about -- something that is a violation of nearly every rule that exists.  :-)

The recent PC Word article described Bitcoin as a "decentralized virtual currency".  I believe the description would have been more correct if the term used was "digital currency", as Bitcoin's FAQ describes it.

I then read about Facebook Credits which were labeled as "digital currency".
  http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118028888?refCatId=1009
Facebook Credits can accumulate but funds are one way, they can only be spent within facebook (e.g., on e-cards and for Farmville Cash).

  Is this a mis-use of the term digital currency, or is there a blurring of the line between the two.

Thanks! Getting warmer.

<html>
  <head>
    <title>The Title</title>
  </head>
  <body>
     <table>
       [...]
     </table>

     <sript>
        [...   Traffic / Analytics Stuff here ...]
     </script>
  </body>
</html>


There's a validation service that you could run the site through:
  http://validator.w3.org/

Xip ID: sgornick
Bitcoin address: 1Le5k3YpzTgpx7gsFBm5uZjGD4pwnFmiW2

$5 for free for using the code POD, nice!  Edit: For use in "gifting" to charitable only.

How would one merge adresses from old wallet into a new one?