In other words, they're trying to be a bank! - Only holding a percentage of the actual currency they've been given by their account-holders, then presumably trading it elsewhere for commission.

This is exactly what bitcoin was designed to avoid: central control and exploitation by some self-appointed middlemen. MT Gox could vanish and overnight and a dozen exchanges will spring up to respond to demand for BTC/cash conversion services. BTC cannot be controlled and monopolised by a single entity - it's that way by design.

I've never used MT Gox and never will. They're one of many.

diamonds are overrated

Love the analogy .... bitcoin a diamond being formed before our eyes ... just a lot quicker than diamonds get formed

Thoughts? I really believe in it, I just finally over a month accumulated a little past 1 btc... any thoughts or suggestions? I DO NOT want to make money off her but with the way the world is does anyone see if its beneficial for her at all?  THANKS@

The last leg of the contest to propose a name for the 0.0001 BTC unit is now underway. Details follow...

Please read carefully:

The four highest-voted names from the prior poll are up for voting. You only get one vote, and again, your vote cannot be changed. At the end of the voting period, the highest-voted name will be declared the winner, and the submitter will be contacted to receive their 0.1 BTC prize.

In the interest of time, the voting period will be roughly 48 hours. The voting on this poll will be closed at 23:59:59 CST on Friday night, January 10.

It's otherwise pretty straightforward, but anyone interested can review the original thread and the first poll.

For those curious about each name's origins:

bip - This name stems from the financial term "basis point". With a bp being 1/100 of 1%, numerically it works out to the same fractional amount, even though it has a different meaning.

bit - The original monetary bit referred to an amount commonly used in the colonial U.S., specifically 12.5 cents (1/8 of a Spanish dollar from the era.)

finney - This name was suggested in honor of Hal Finney, whose noteworthiness with regards to his contributions to Bitcoin and cryptography in general can be explored in this thread (and is summarized in his wikipedia page.)

nakamoto - Obviously a complementary name to "satoshi."


With that, the final poll of this contest begins; vote away, and again, may the best name win!

Basically, an escrow is some trusted by both parties of a transaction that ensures that the parties fulfill their obligations before letting the transaction resolve. If the transaction fails, then everyone gets their stuff back.

For example, let's say one person is selling a BTC to another person for dollars. The seller sends the BTC to the escrow and the buyer sends the dollars to the escrow. After the escrow has received both the BTC and dollars, the BTC is sent to the buyer and the dollars are sent to the seller.

Generally, only one of the parties places their goods in escrow. In this example, the dollars are usually sent directly to the seller. When the seller tells the escrow that the dollars have been received, the escrow sends the BTC to the buyer. If there is a dispute, then the escrow decides what to do.

It is important that both parties trust the escrow. Never use an unknown escrow because they could be working for the other party. Always contact the escrow directly because if you go through the other party, they could be impersonating the escrow.

odolvlobo,

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Unfortunately, due to a variety of high priority obligations, I will not have enough time available to give escrow the proper attention is deserves until after January 10.

Rather than provide an inferior and frustrating experience, I've chosen to suspend my escrow activities until that date.

Any currently pending escrow agreements will continue to be handled as promptly as I can, but I will not be initiating any new escrow agreements until after January 10.

Just wondering how many actual miners there are in the newbie community...

I've been mining for about a month

My orders were twice rejected by coinbase as high risk. I ordered a new visa credit card to try and authenticate myself for them (they don't accept anything other than visa - no discover no amex no debit visa cards).

My MtGox authentication is "20 business days" pending, up from the original 10 days.

Most promising Localbitcons ads use OKPAY which does not work for US (I'm not even an American, I just live here, so I don't have utility bills from other countries...).

Where the hell can I get bitcoins from , securely and relatively fast?