It looks like Peter Todd understood why this is a good idea:

https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/510360423770898432
https://github.com/viacoin/viacoin/issues/5

Heute 16°. Sieht nicht mehr wie Sommer aus.

It wouldn't matter much if some clients didn't support it once the majority of nodes supported it. I assume most clients use listunspent, which arguably shouldn't return such locked outputs anyway.

My reading of the wiki is that this is indeed what locktime is for, but it's broken:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#A_warning_about_the_mempool_transaction_replacement_mechanism , and Flynn has pointed out how absurd the alternative is.

I was pretty disappointed to see that this doesn't work. I expected a transaction with a locktime in the future to be broadcast and confirmed, but that the outputs wouldn't be spendable until the locktime was reached (except the miner fee). This seems to have many advantages:

1. No need for a seperate service to store such transactions, they're in the blockchain
2. No risk of the sender double-spending his part of the transaction
3. Only one private key must be kept secret: the recipients
4. No danger that the transaction format may be changed in the future, making the transaction useless
5. Much simpler end-user experience - the coins appear in the wallet, but aren't spendable. No need to fiddle with transactions.

Can someone explain why it can't be implemented this way? Every node would have to start checking whether inputs come from transactions which haven't reached their locktime, but this seems fairly minor.

Check out the demographics information on Gaza Strip. They have a literacy rate of 99%, and five universities for a population of 1.6 million. The population density is so high, that mobile phone connections are sure to be good, and you don't need a full node to buy and sell!

Amazing how few people actually read what I posted. There are SIXTY countries who do not have "printing power" to give up!

Here's another suggestion from studying the list on Wikipedia: Gaza Strip. It has the high population density, very small, trust of government is low, there's a desire for more freedom in imports, they're poor, but I don't think they're too poor.

Thanks for the info. Let's agree not to mention Argentina again. Let's talk about a small pacific country with a relatively centralized population, say Cook Islands or Nauru. The higher population density would make the communications infrastructure more practical.


I said "less stable than Leichtenstein", you are really twisting my words to make that mean "unstable"! According to rumour, Leichtenstein is still holding onto copious amounts of Nazi gold. I don't think there are many economies that are more stable than Leichtenstein.


The same reasons anyone accept bitcoins? If they already don't have their own currency, what would they have to lose?

Here are some possible benefits for a state:
* Save money on the transportation and storage of physical currency
* Strip the anonymity away for strong tax control(?)
* Frictionless international trade without tariffs
* circumvent embargoes.
* end counterfeiting
* boost IT and communications infrastructure

I have never been the manager of a reserve bank, so I can't confidently say which of these are serious problems, or what other problems reserve banks suffer. If I were made manager of a reserve bank, I would certainly look into cryptocurrencies, and probably get beautiful young girls to dance for me while I did it.

I don't think you read my post very carefully. Check the Wikipedia link. There are 60 countries that DO NOT HAVE THEIR OWN CURRENCY. Therefore they cannot manipulate it to influence their economies.

Take Liechtenstein for example. Liechtenstein has a central bank, but they only hold gold and Swiss Francs. The Liechtensteinische Landesbank can't influence cash supply or monetary policy already! Again a Wikipedia link to back this up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_bank_of_Liechtenstein#Cash_supply_and_distribution

Now, I don't think Liechtenstein is going to move away from CHF (or gold), but some countries with less stable economies might.

One of the potential causes for an explosion in the price of BTC would be if a country decided they wanted use it as the national currency. What countries do you think are potential candidates?

There are currently more than sixty countries who do not have their own currency listed on wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollarization These are governments who don't think it's worth the hassle of printing and managing currency just to have a few extra economic controls.

Some countries, like Somalia, could obviously benefit, but lack the internet infrastructure. There's been a lot of talk about Argentina for example, but I know next to nothing about them. What if a private army like the infamous Kony started using it? Again, infrastructure is an issue. Maybe a rich region could declare independence from a poorer capital, and switch to BTC?

Any ideas?

The borrower hasn't reached his goal, but he keeps extending the deadline. Is there a limit?