I don't quite get it. Either you trust those services and use them or you don't trust them and don't use them. But advising everyone to withdraw their funds is problematic as it might break some perfectly legit businesses.

Not a good thing for Bitcoin in any case. It seems many people connect Bitcoin only with all sort of scams and theft anyway. But in this case the money might at least help to get rid of a few pigs ...

I too would recommend to use GNU/Linux not only for BTC but for everything else as well. While GNU/Linux might be even unsafer especially when used by a newbie its smaller userbase makes it currently a less attractive target for malware. When you use Windows you use a Blackbox and have to trust MS and all those providing Applications for Windows blindly. My main PC is a Box with Debian Linux and I never had a problem in years (I started using Linux back in 1995). I also have to use Windows for work everyday but I can't say I never had an issue with it.

As someone else already mentioned Kleiman seemed to be rather a network guy than a programmer. I have to confess that even though I had a look at the source code that I have no idea what the background of the programmer might be. But then I'm much more familiar with C than with C++. And another strong reason against him being Satoshi is not using any of his wealth making his life more comfortable in the end. Seems odd to keep your Bitcoins stashed away when you only have limited time to spend any of them.

That's not quite the same. Once real diamonds are mined and sold they don't have a connection to the mine anymore. That's not quite the case with Bitcoins. Bitcoins depend on miners even after they are mined.

The initial poster has definitely a point. Most of the hash power comes from one single country which happens to be China. That's just the way it never should be. The idea about Bitcoin was decentralization and having almost all the hashing power in one single country now is quite bad imo. The POW with SHA-256 should be replaced by something far more complicated that can't be done in an ASIC for years to come. That way more people all over the world would be encouraged to run a full node (again) with some minor mining capabilities instead of having hundreds of warehouses stuffed with ASICs in China.

I don't think that Craig Wright is Satoshi. But that assumption is not based on his looks. No idea why Satoshi couldn't be clean shaved nor be an Aussie for that matter. But that C. W. has currently some tax issues and pretending to be Satoshi might help to get either new creditors or the tax issues postponed looks just a bit odd. It also doesn't help that he seems to have no access to the PK of Satoshi.

So far I got nothing. Too many other transactions going on probably, so it got stuck somewhere. But I don't consider my intended investment crazy at all. After all those nickels have to be spent before they get rusty. In the highely unlikely case I receive 10 Btc on the provided address you get 1 Btc

That's easy. I will spend the 10 BTC on some well aged Whisky and some nice ladies. The course of BTC will probably skyrocket as everybody seems to hold and doesn't want to spend. So in any case that's a sound investment for every party involved.

Just send them over to:
1MZ2XtGCK9nzqK5fabU38T83GELhXgDKTe

I don't see how a rising value is a good thing for Bitcoin at all. That's only good for those hoarding Bitcoin but it certainly doesn't help to make the currency more accepted. A lot of small businesses won't accept Bitcoin (or any other crypto-currency) unless it's more stable and it's value somewhat predictable.

While Zug does have low taxes none of the people you mentioned does actually live there nor pay any of them taxes there. Schuhmacher lives in Gland which is located in canton Waadt, Tina Turner lives in Küsnacht which is located in canton Zurich, Vettel lives in the canton Thurgau. The low taxes in Zug concern the rich swiss citizens rather than foreign millionaires. Rich foreigners can get special tax-deals in other places than Zug easily and they often do.

It really doesn't matter who Satoshi Nakamoto is but, of course, it's still interesting to speculate. Contrary to many others I don't think that S. N. is a pseudonym for a team. IMO S. N. is (or was) a single person. That he never touched his fortune in years strongly indicates that there is no team involved but rather a single player. There are many possible reasons that the coins were never touched again. The explanation could be even something simple like a broken harddisk, a lost USB-Stick or a forgotten password. But there is also the possibility that S.N. died without leaving any instructions to his heirs.

I happen to disagree. The large miners have invested large sums of money in order to earn a lot of BTC.

The large ASIC mining farms are theoretically protecting the chain with their enormous hashing power. But the main reason for their very existence is to make money they care only so much for BTC as it concerns their money making industry. In theory this hashing power should be supplied by a lot of decentralized miners but in reality this hashing power comes from a few huge miners. And that's not how it was meant to be in fact it's now almost how it shouldn't be as the big miners have more weight than anybody else.

I don't see how this could be changed more easily than by changing the PoW from SHA2 to something much more complex.

I fail to see why the price of BTC should climb this high. Just because everyone holding a few BTC hopes that this is going to happen won't make it happen. So far BTC is still a niche currency and its acceptance is not as wide spread as it should be. It's still much easier to buy something with a credit card than with BTC. The Blockchain is a great idea and I'm pretty sure that this concept will find its way into the banking world but I really doubt that they will buy into BTC. Instead they are just going to create their own blockchain adjusted to their needs.

That doesn't mean that BTC will become obsolete but I really doubt that it will become a currency for the masses. Instead to wait for a price increase BTC should be better promoted as the one thing it was initially meant to be a currency for the internet.

Wouldn't it be sufficient to replace the PoW sheme with something far more complicated than SHA-256 to kick all the big ASIC-farms out? Just replacing SHA2 with something that can't be put onto an ASIC for years to come would be an easy solution to distribute mining again as the mining could be done by those running full nodes again. Mining wouldn't be a business anymore but more a compensation for running a full-node all the time.
If then some ASICs should show up in the future the PoW could be changed again. This also rather helps to secure the network in the long run as I just don't see how huge ASIC-Farms in third world countries providing more then 50% of hashing-power help secure BTC.

Ok. But if that ever changes I don't mind having the diff set skyhigh by the server by default. After all only huge numbers count when solo mining

And thanks for providing the solo-servers.

I'm solo mining as well (on de.ckpool.org) and just by reading this I wondered, would it make sense to choose a high diff when solo mining to reduce the server load?

You need to provide a good deal more information only to get some attention for your project. A few numbers from an online calculator combined with a plea for money won't do.

What country are we talking about? What are the cost's for the electricity? Who's in charge of the project? That's all mandatory only to get some attention. Of course you need a business plan to show those who are interested in this project. Too many people lost money in project like this, much better advertised projects btw. So it's not so easy to convince people to invest into projects like this.

I agree with you the U3 is definitely a fun device. It's not much use in case you want to make money but it's definitely fun to play around with. So you still burn money, of course, but it's not as bad as with an S7. But the U3 has some issues as you can read in the thread about this device. Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=827356.0

In case you don't want to read through all the pages, here is the short list:
-In case of overclocking it's almost guaranteed that the device will get destroyed
-Running the device within the official specs is no guarantee that it won't get destroyed
-The Power Bricks have a tendency to burn through
-The USB-Implementation is rather flaky: So lots of connection problems are to be expected especially if you run Windows

Despite all of this, I also got two U3s and they make nice lottery-devices even though the chances for hitting a block are almost nil and it gets worse with every day. Best share so far was only 153M, so still miles away from solving a block.

You can still buy the U3 from several places. I got mine from www.usbminer.ch and paid them with BTC but you might buy them over ebay or have a look at the marketplace here. In case you buy a used one, make sure it's actually hashing before you pay.

Hope that helps.

Did you connect the U3s directly with your computer or with the help of an USB(2)-Hub?

In case you don't already have an external powered USB2-Hub, you will need one (but not sure if one is sufficient). I only have 2 U3s and I run them also with a HUB but I'm not sure if I could connect 7 U3s over this HUB even though it offers exactly 7 USB2-Slots.