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Just want everyone to know that I received the silver (1 2011 American Eagle and 1 g Bitcoin branded). The BitcoinMint.us website could use some polish and more selection, but the check-out process with bit-pay was seamless. In fact, the bit-pay system appears to be very solid and mature. Any merchant even remotely curious about accepting new payment options should give strong consideration to bit-pay. I received a confirmation email after I placed the order. Time from ordering to silver in hand was around 3 days. The packaging was simple and effective, though I think BitcoinMint should consider having a cover name for the return address so that no one handling the package gets curious. Overall, I'm very satisfied and looking forward to future purchases.   |
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ordered. will report back with review.
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Another twist would be drawing a graph of a transaction's 'score' as you describe it and any transaction fees associated with that transaction. This would give us a window into the current 'market' of what fees miners are demanding.
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Double-spend detection is the only real answer to speeding up trust in Bitcoin transactions, not decreasing block time like Solidcoin has. There are at least two ways that it could be implemented: 1) Listening nodes ( http://bitcointalk.org/?topic=423.msg3819#msg3819) 2) Querying mining pools ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40264.msg494150#msg494150). A less rigorous version of option 1 that focuses on tracking estimated total hashing power working on a given unconfirmed transaction The methods could be combined. Of course there's also the option of building true instant transaction layers on top of bitcoin like MtGox and Open Transactions servers. Double-spend detection, as originally envisioned by Satoshi, would also largely neutralize any problems arising out of sudden drops in Bitcoin hashing power.
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I've added all the big mining pools to my addnode list and also increased my connection limit to 400.
Is there anyway for you to display which mining pools have seen and are relaying a particular transaction? You could then calculate a rough estimate of how much hashing power (and what percentage of the total known bitcoin network) was aggregated behind an unconfirmed transaction. Imagine a table with the major mining pools, their hashing power, and a simple yes/no if they are working on a given version of a transaction. The chance of a double spend after all the major mining pools are working on a particular transaction would be slim to none. This information could help implement Satoshi's suggestions to the so-called "Snack machine problem" and significantly reduce any risk associated with accepting a unconfirmed transaction ( http://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=423.msg3819#msg3819). Here are some of my posts on the topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=19481.msg253928#msg253928, and particularly https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=19481.msg254559#msg254559 |
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Actually, expanding on this idea, a simple public website akin to blockexplorer could offer this service. For a given transaction, it would report how much hashing power was working on the requested transaction. Assuming pools do not reject a given transaction and relay transactions that they are working on, this would be done by simply requesting current transaction data from specific pool operator nodes to check what transactions they have seen. By estimating total network hashing power, it could then calculate a propagation metric (50% propagation = 50% of hashing power has seen transaction).
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A further optimization would be to focus on what the mining pools 'see.' Because pool miners work on the transaction data received by their pool operator, it should be relatively straight-forward to directly connect to pool operators in such a way as to see what transactions they have received. Hashing power working on the merchant's transaction could therefore be roughly calculated. Once a large majority of network hashing power is behind the merchant's transaction, the listening node processor could verify the transaction for the merchant.
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This scenario could be handled nicely with the concept of listening nodes: Transactions are nearly instantaneous. It's traditional network confirmations that require tens of minutes. However, as explained by Satoshi, merchants can significantly reduce the probability of a double-spend through the use of a listening period: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Point_of_sale_with_bitcoins_isn_t_possible_because_of_the_10_minute_wait_for_confirmationhttp://forum.bitcoin.org/?topic=423.msg3819#msg3819The longer the listening period the greater the assurance that the transaction will be confirmed as is. 10-30 seconds would probably be sufficient. Theoretically, it's possible that the attacker might have a huge cache of hidden miners that would only accept his version of the transaction. But this seems highly unlikely and a huge waste of effort for skimping on a simple meal. It's so much less likely that a payment processor offering the listening node service could likely guarantee the restaurant's payments for a fee far less than what banks charge for the use of credit cards. |
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As a (relatively) long-time follower of these boards, I've found the entire discussion of removing political discussion interesting. There was certainly a different 'culture' back in the days when bitcoins were just hitting parity with the US cent. I guess it's a sign of our growth as a community that we now have calls to 'remove politics' from the forum discussion. But still, I sometimes long for the old days when the forums felt a bit more 'exclusive.'
Nonetheless, I find Konkin's words reassuring:
"There will be a spectrum of the degree of agorism in most individuals, as there is today, with a few benefiting from the State being highly statist, a few fully conscious of the agorist alternative and competent as living free to the hilt, and the rest in the middle with varying degrees of confusion." -Samuel E. Konkin III, New Libertarian Manifesto
The truth is bitcoin is a deeply political development whether most people consciously recognize it or not. When you have a currency that is decentralized and pseudoanonymous with a predicitable money supply, of course it's political. Its usage is by definition counter-economic. But in our own agorist version of slowly raising the temperature of liberty from room temp to boiling so that the frog doesn't notice, we have to focus on the larger audience.
We have to remember that our ace-in-the-hole is the immediate, tangible benefits to the individual utilizing our developing ecosystem: minimal fees, increased stability, freedom of association, tax avoidance, regulatory avoidance, ease of contract enforcement, etc... They may not recognize the ultimate political ramifications, but they will quickly appreciate the system's practical value.
Here are just some of the many ways we can continue to draw them in:
More exchanges in more countries and less emphasis on the West - particularly the developing world where black/gray markets are already well established and the absurdity of government beneficence is well-known.
Distributed Contracts and Arbitration - in my mind a real potential game changer. Much more effective enforcement of contracts resulting in lower legal fees, more business relationship predictability, and increased commerce
Futures and Options - increased pricing stability, ability for merchants to lock in a price and mitigate bitcoin exchange risk
Meta-trading - trade oil, corn, wheat, stocks, etc... in BTC
Bitcoin capital formation markets
International Transfers
Micro-payment platforms
More Agoras
It's exciting to see that much of this work is already being done by so many. Much of this involves repackaging the growing Bitcoin toolkit for ease-of-use by end-users. We have much to be optimistic about. What happens to these forums just doesn't matter.
XC
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Definitely not a myth... the price used to be around $.0005/BTC when I first showed up
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The convention I hold to quite carefully is to call the technology "BitCoin" and the money itself "bitcoins". This is largely so that even at the beginning of a sentence it can be clear whether I am referring to specific coins or the technology as a whole. It is an arbitrary choice, but I feel it improves communication of the concepts.
Alternatively, try using Bitcoin for the technology and BTC for the money. Though, for those of us familiar with Bitcoin, context is sufficient to differentiate Bitcoin the system and bitcoins the money. "What a fascinating system Bitcoin is" "I have 10 BTC or 10 bitcoins" |
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These are documented contracts enforced in a court of law, and often very complex and in place for many years. Government has nothing to do with it. It's just a system for active agents in the economy to know where they stand, and know they have recourse if the other side breaks the agreement. Both sides benefit in other words.
Of course in very small companies (say family owned stores) more can be done for cash and on a word of mouth and trust basis. But for large and complex businesses this would never work.
Actually, contract law is a perfect area for Bitcoin to expand into. Read up on Smart Contracts ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_contract). Because Bitcoins, which are subjectively valuable, can be so easily manipulated at the program level, it's only matter of time before we have easily accessible contract enforcement outside of the traditional state court system (advanced escrows, specialized arbiters, self-enforcing contracts, penal bonds....). These implementations may occur both at the Bitcoin scripting level or through third-party providers (e.g. ClearCoin). Indeed, the simple act of sending/receiving Bitcoins already represents a simple, self-enforcing smart contract (a transfer of property rights in Bitcoins). Think of how many middlemen (banks, payment processors, government regulators) and costs are cut out just through a bit of Satoshi's code. I anticipate many businesses (large and small) will start giving strong consideration to adopting the Bitcoin ecosystem when they realize that they can conduct business more predictably and cheaply without inefficient state courts and lawyer overhead. |
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Satoshi created the transaction scripting system exactly for purposes like this. "The design supports a tremendous variety of possible transaction types that I designed years ago. Escrow transactions, bonded contracts, third party arbitration, multi-party signature, etc. If Bitcoin catches on in a big way, these are things we'll want to explore in the future, but they all had to be designed at the beginning to make sure they would be possible later." -Satoshi http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611He said he was working on it for two-party escrows, but now that he's gone it might be something for the current developers to consider prioritizing. Being able to so directly manipulate currency at the programmatic level allows for a full realization of the promises of smart contracts. Contract enforcement through code without violence. Decentralized, voluntary arbitration. Realized Cryptoanarchy. Imagine how much easier it would be to conduct business in such an environment. It's not mentioned often here, but Bitcoin, in addition to dramatically altering the monetary system, really could revolutionize the entire system of commerce law. |
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Brief mention in Washington Post Opinion (second page): "While there have already been some attempts to create a true electronic currency, such as Bitcoin, these have had difficulty getting off the ground. It is not hard to see why. If it is possible to imagine one private electronic currency, then it’s possible to imagine several, and there would be no guarantee that other people would accept the particular electronic money you use." http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/imagining-a-world-without-the-dollar/2011/04/26/AFjawKEF_story_1.html |
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I discovered Bitcoin in late 2009. It really was a totally different time. I guess that in the world of software one year feels like 5 in the real world. I had spent a lot of time up to then thinking about the e-gold fiasco and the problems of centralization. Loom.cc was an intriguing possibility, but still relied on trust in loom-asset issuing organizations and a central Loom server to keep track of everything. I surreptitiously stumbled on Bitcoin after relentlessly searching google for topics on agorism and crypto-anarchy. Information was hard to come by. There were zero mainstream references. The FAQ was very limited, but the careful eye would have been able to glean the key pieces that made the system genius: decentralization, open source, voluntary, pseudo-anonymity, predefined supply... The wikipedia page then was very basic (this was prior to the first deletion crisis). The only technical documentation was of course the white paper. Satoshi had just transitioned to the SMF forum. Satoshi walked freely amongst us then and answered our questions directly. I felt like I had discovered some secret club of cryptoanarchists. Posts were more like a few a day and it was easy to keep up with all the chatter. There must have been less than 100 members on the forum then. After having just read Alongside Night, one of my favorite posts from back then: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=39.msg345#msg345Mining was easy. All you had to do was download the client and hit generate. No modifications necessary. Because Bitcoin Market had not yet been created, we were without an accessible valuation discovery mechanism. The only exchanger was NewLibertyStandard. He had this really simple ad-plagued website were he offered to exchange BTC for paypal. There was no bitcoind yet, so everything was done manually through email. I think he was exchanging for less than $.0005 per BTC and based his pricing on how much it cost him to generate. He later started selling stickers for BTC, but I don't know if anyone actually traded for them. It's funny though. When it came to the economics and vulnerabilities of the system, we pretty much debated all the same 'fatal flaws' that newbies bring up now. Watching the Bitcoin economy grow and develop feels like watching a planet being born. Economic growth really is bottom-up and organic. |
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A close confidant of mine is looking to purchase BTC face-to-face in the Austin area at a public location with hard cash. Please PM if interested.
XC
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