I was searching on Google a few minutes ago while doing some research on the current situation of Bitcoin in China and found an ad at the top of the page for LocalBitcoins or perhaps some sort of clone of it. Except instead of Localbitcoins.com, the URL was Locolbiticenis.com.

Upon entering the site, it looks exactly the same as LocalBitcoins. Even the title, layout, etc. looks identical.

So does anyone know what this is? Is it someone promoting their referral link? Is it a phishing site? Is it some sort of local/regional variant of LocalBitcoins? The name does sound vaguely Spanish.

Very strange.

Screenshot:

Just an interesting observation:

I was surprised (and slightly saddened) to see today that Alpaca Socks is using BitPay to process bitcoin transactions which certainly wouldn't have been the case when they were active in 2010-2011. They were one of the first merchants to accept Bitcoin. Now it's highly likely that they don't see any bitcoins at all since BitPay handles all that and converts the bitcoins to fiat automatically. I guess it was happening before BitPay existed except the BTC-to-fiat conversion was manual and probably explains why the business owners aren't rich and retired today.

http://www.grasshillalpacas.com/alpacaproductsforbitcoinoffer.html

I've always wondered if it's possible for someone to make a living on Bitcointalk alone. Obviously, people like dooglus and Stunna can but they don't count since they have their own sites. For example, someone could make money by posting in a sig campaign, marketing and managing services, selling/trading on the marketplace, etc. And if this is possible, then are there any people who do actually earn a living this way?

If they get $20 per week from sig campaigns, $20 per week from services, and $20 per week from selling/trading on the marketplace, that would be $60 per week. That might be enough to meet the needs of someone who lives in a poorer country such as Moldova, Bangladesh, Haiti, or most African countries. Although they would need to have Internet access and I'm not sure if that is cheaper than in Western countries.

Not sure if this is the right section for this.

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I'm considering launching a new Bitcoin-related service. Now, as a webmaster myself I know how hard it can be to get customers. One popular way to get new visitors is via signature campaigns. A typical signature campaign might have 30-300 members who are paid about 3-30 cents per post. Obviously, the number is higher for those with higher rank since their signatures tend to stand out more. In order for a signature campaign to be successful for the advertiser, each post should make over 3-30 cents in increased traffic and sales. Now, is this generally the case? I know PrimeDice canceled their campaign and a few others have ended theirs too (e.g. ActionCrypto) so I'd imagine it's not actually all that profitable?

I have three laptops; two with Windows XP and one with Windows 8. These are the specs for each:

1.4GHz Pentium M
1 GB RAM (upgraded from 128MB)
40 GB HDD
Intel Integrated graphics
Approx date: 2004

1.6 GHz Core Duo (dual core)
1 GB RAM (upgraded from 512 MB)
80 GB HDD (upgraded from 60 GB)
Intel integrated graphics
Approx date: 2006

1.1 GHz Intel Celeron 847 (dual core)
2GB RAM
320 GB HDD
Intel integrated graphics
Approx date: 2012-2013

Basic things such as emptying the recycle bin, opening tabs in IE, navigating windows, accessing the control panel, selecting text to be copied and pasted, closing prompts, viewing file/folder properties, opening device manager, accessing the task manager, etc. are much slower on the new laptop compared with the other two laptops which do everything virtually instantly. The Windows 8 laptop is brand new and has absolutely nothing installed compared to the other two which are cluttered with junk.

Does anyone know why this is? I've also used a netbook running Windows 7 and it was also slower than the XP laptops I had.

And yet, I see that others on the Internet have reported that their PCs run FASTER with Windows 7 and 8 which seems completely opposite to my experience.

EDIT: Also, it seems that the more I use the Windows 8 laptop, the faster it gets?! Hmm...

When I registered in late 2013, most of the coins being released were based on Litecoin but with a different name/logo and slightly different specifications (e.g. different coin supply, faster/slower block generation, etc.). The first altcoin I tried mining was Kittehcoin, followed by Coinye. Looking at the announcements board, it seems that there aren't quite as many altcoins based on Litecoin anymore and the popularity of the scrypt algorithm seems to have dropped for new coins. I'm guessing this is due to scrypt now being dominated by ASICs.

Is there still any interest in coins based on Litecoin? And if not, then what is the coin that most altcoins are based on these days? Peercoin? Blackcoin? Darkcoin?

If you look at some of the threads here using Google's cache and turn off all images, you regularly see posts made by a hero account called "1424241872" which has 1,424,241,872 posts.

I'm curious. Who or what is this, and what is the purpose of this odd account? And why does it only show up on Google's cached pages but never elsewhere?

Continuing on from this thread; So I was able to find another chart that looks to be from the same website. I have no idea what these charts are doing in my hard drive so perhaps some insight into their content might provide a reason for why they are there. Anyway, this one seems to show the mining difficulty from Jan 2013 to Jul 2014. Is the trend correct? What is the reason for the spike in difficulty in early 2014? Was it due to the introduction of ASICs?

For example, the top shows an average compact late-model car. It's available to rent at a discounted rate for $35 per day which works out to $245 per week minus fees. Such a car would typically cost about $20,000.

The bottom shows a house. It's available to rent for $70 per week which works out to $10 per day minus fees. Although rather small, there is no doubt that this house would be worth much more than the car above.

Why is this so?

When I typed in "is the bitcoin" in the Google search bar, this is what I saw:



Assuming that search suggestions reflect the most popular search queries, it's interesting to see what the general public thinks of Bitcoin today. Some of the search queries seem reasonable and it seems that Bitcoin's comparison to ponzi schemes isn't going away anytime soon, but "mark of the beast"? Really? And what does it mean by "one world currency"? And why are so many people interested in the trademark status of the Bitcoin logo anyway?

I've noticed that along with Bitcoin, the earliest altcoins all have relatively low total coin supplies. Bitcoin, Namecoin, Ixcoin, and I0coin all have 21 million coins. Litecoin has 84 million. Peercoin, Primecoin, Tenebrix, and Fairbrix have supplies that are technically unlimited however the rate of inflation is low enough that Peercoin currently only has 22 million coins and Primecoin has about 8 million. I couldn't find any numbers for TBX and FBX but I think they have the same thing going on.

Feathercoin has 336 million total coins - exactly four times Litecoin's supply and Freicoin has 100 million. According to this article, BBQcoin has a total coin supply of 88 million although I get different numbers elsewhere. Terracoin has 42 million. All four coins were launched after Litecoin.

Then fast forward to late 2013-2014 and suddenly coin supplies start to go up dramatically. Dogecoin has 100 billion and is technically unlimited. Kittehcoin has 100 billion too. Many of the scrypt clones that appeared during this time (e.g. Flappycoin) had very high coin supplies. NXT has 1 billion coins as well as most of its clones. Both NEM and Qora have ~10 billion. Then there are coins like Pennies/CENT and Colossuscoin which had hundreds of billions and sometimes even trillions of coins.

Auroracoin and Darkcoin buck the trend as both only have ~21 million coins. Ethereum and Counterparty also have smaller coin supplies too. Bytecoin has a high-ish supply while Monero's is quite small in comparision so it's really more of a general trend than a strict rule.

Somewhat relevant (notice how many older coins there are between Freicoin and Bitcoin at the bottom of the chart):

From reading his webcomic, it seems that he is an expert in not only programming:

http://xkcd.com/163/

and computer science:

http://xkcd.com/399/

but also physics:

http://xkcd.com/505/*
http://xkcd.com/849/

astrophysics:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/129/

rocket science:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/85/

advanced mathematics:

http://xkcd.com/1310/

statistics:

http://xkcd.com/696/

and cryptography:

http://xkcd.com/936/

*Note:

Graphs

The three diagrams in the "Physics, too. I worked out the kinks..." panel are, from left to right:

    The Normal distribution of the Gaussian curve marking the points that represent a standard deviation of σ and 2σ. This is one of the fundamental building blocks of statistics. In quantum mechanics particles are viewed as inherently random, therefore the time at which a particle will decay, the position of a particle and its velocity are all calculated using similar curves. A deviation of at least σ occurs 50% of the time where a deviation of 2σ or more occurs about 5% of the time.
    The Epitaph of Stevinus, an explanation of the mechanical advantage of using an inclined plane. The inclined plane is one of the six classical simple machines, one of the fundamental building blocks of mechanical and civil engineering.
    The last graph is unknown. It may represent coupled pendulums, length contraction, or a hypothetical solution to something we haven't derived yet.

The graph that represents particle interaction is a Feynman Diagram. This shows the interaction of subatomic particles that collide and exchange some momentum via a photon. The slope of the middle line represents the distance moved and the time lost/gained during the interaction.

It seems that he is now writing full-time after a brief stint at NASA. A bit unfortunate I guess since he's no longer contributing to science but it seems to be what he enjoys most (plus his comics are pretty popular!). William James Sidis was also very similar. He was a genius in mathematics and cosmology but later chose to focus on his hobby of collecting street car transfers instead.

For example, if a single Electrum seed was used to deterministically generate address A and address B, would it be possible to somehow link the two addresses together and deduce that they are both owned by the same individual? (Of course this is assuming that both addresses are kept separate with no mixing of coins occurring between them.)

From an earlier analysis, I was able to find out that Namecoin's current hashrate is ~100 PH/s and Bitcoin's hashrate is 200-250 PH/s. Unlike Namecoin, Peercoin doesn't support merged mining so its network hashrate is just 140 TH/s. Since PPC is actually bigger than NMC but has hundreds of times less hashpower, I think it's safe to assume that most of the people who are mining NMC are merge mining with Bitcoin.

What surprised me was that the percentage of Bitcoin miners who are also interested in mining Namecoin is so high. I was under the impression that most Bitcoin miners aren't interested in alts. If the comparison of hashrates is true, then does this mean that ~40 percent of Bitcoin miners are also mining Namecoin alongside Bitcoin? If so, then what do they do with all these namecoins?

Recently, ICANN has been accepting applications for new gTLDs. It used to be that there were only a few gTLDs such as .com, .net, .org, etc. Then a few more were created including .info and .biz until recently when the policy was changed so that pretty much anyone can register their own gTLD for a $185,000 fee. Hence the reason why there is now an explosion of new generic domain name extensions including .ninja (such as the former dice.ninja), .guru, and .club.

Now I know that Namecoin uses the .bit domain extension. Doesn't ICANN's new policy mean that anyone with $185,000 could register the "official" .bit gTLD and force Namecoin out of existence? ICANN is currently the most widely used DNS root and Namecoin is an alternative DNS root which is hardly used by anybody. Even worse, it seems that usage of Namecoin as a currency is declining as well. Browsers such as Firefox and Chrome always use ICANN's domain name system by default so the existence of official .bit domains would probably wipe out any chance of Namecoin's DNS system ever becoming mainstream.

Google filed applications for over 100 new gTLDs. Amazon has already registered the .book gTLD. There seems to be no reason why .bit cannot be registered as well. It seems unlikely that the Namecoin community will attempt to register it since the philosophy and core beliefs behind ICANN and Namecoin are completely at odds with each other to the point where they can't really co-exist in any meaningful manner. For example, ICANN demands WHOIS information from registrants whereas Namecoin's .bit domains are completely anonymous. ICANN also demands registration and processing fees that cost well over a dollar whereas Namecoin's .bit domains only cost pennies.

If the .bit gTLD were to be registered, how would this affect Namecoin's prospects and what would be the appropriate course of action for the NMC community to take?

[Virtual goods store]

While I am quite a fan of NXT overall, it's interesting to note that the founder of NXT admitted he had very little knowledge of economics:

Economics is not my area of expertise.  I can say nothing about the issue.

Which was posted in response to:

4]  Virtual goods store.  The goods will be provided by ordinary users (books, links, game codes, anything represented as plain text)

It's hard to sell goods for bitcoins due to ever-increasing price. Nxt will have even "worse" deflation, number of Bitcoins is increasing while number of Nxts is set in stone. The store will fail unless sellers adjust their prices each day.

NXT is somewhat unique in that its goal is to create an "ecosystem" rather than a simple coin. Hence you have things like an asset exchange, digital goods store, monetary system, etc. Because of this, you would think that an understanding of economic theory would be very important for a dev.

And yet despite the founder admitting he knows very little about economics, NXT has still maintained its position in the top 10 and new features continue to be rolled out successfully.

Where do you stand on this issue? How important do you think it is for a dev to understand the economics behind their creation?

I can easily imagine that if someone had been one of the very early adopters, they would have reason to view Satoshi Nakamoto as their "God". Perhaps not the God who created the Universe, but a personal god that fulfills many of the desired attributes of a deity worthy of worship nonetheless.

One can think of being financially rich as the closest earthly equivalent of "heaven" - and indeed perhaps the only possible "heaven" for someone who does not believe in an afterlife. Thus, Satoshi Nakamoto - via his invention of Bitcoin, allowed a few lucky individuals (i.e. his followers) to attain this plane of existence in exchange for their faith in his creation - the Blockchain.

The fact that Satoshi is completely anonymous and no longer interacts with the community which he created makes it much more likely that some form of Satoshi-worship will develop in the future - especially if Bitcoin is to become mainstream. Normal humans have flaws which are bound to be uncovered over time but by permanently leaving, our conception of Satoshi is now set in stone, and we can only gain an inference of his character from the writings and code he has left behind. And these writings and code portray a picture of a infallible, almost god-like being. A genius mind shrouded in mystery. In reality, he could very much be a flawed human being. He may even be a murderer or a con-man, but of course we will never know.

There are many examples of societies where human beings were elevated to the status of gods. The people of Ancient Egypt considered the Pharaoh to be half-man, half-god. Many Roman emperors were declared gods by the Roman Senate (generally after their death). Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia was God.

If Bitcoin is to become mainstream then we must accept the likelihood that various groups will attempt to deify Satoshi. If Bitcoin is to replace fiat currencies and become the primary vehicle for all economic activity worldwide then we must accept the likelihood that some form of Satoshi-worship will emerge a major force within the religious and political landscape of the future. Currently the people who are most likely to start or join such a religion are the early adopters who have gained the most benefit from Satoshi's creation. Hence this is why I ask this question. After all, I wouldn't be surprised if there are early adopters today who may already possess the "prototype" of this future religion.

Has anyone heard of this? Not to be confused with Nick Szabo's BitGold or BitShares' BitGold, BitGold.com is a website that will be opening in 13 days. Supposedly you will get $20 worth of gold for free if you register your email before the launch. Its business model looks almost exactly the same as E-gold which also let users own and transact online payments denominated in grams of gold. However, that site was shut down a few years ago by the US government so it's interesting to see another company attempting the same idea:

BitGold is Launching in 13 days, 21 hours, 6 minutes, and 2 seconds

BitGold's mission is to provide global access to gold for payments and secure savings, making this extraordinary element useful and empowering again.

BitGold provides customers unprecedented simplicity in acquiring, storing, and transacting with fully reserved vaulted gold.

Register your email with BitGold before the countdown ends & we will deposit USD $20 worth of gold into your BitGold Account when we launch.

Link: http://www.bitgold.com/

Thoughts? Opinions? Here is an article about them on CoinDesk.

If increased Bitcoin adoption results in higher Bitcoin prices then why didn't gold prices plummet when we decided to stop using gold as a currency (i.e. gold adoption fell)?



It used to be that currencies represented a specific quantity of gold. The value of these currencies were pegged to that of gold and could be converted to physical gold if desired. Hence, it could be said that gold was very much in demand. Bakers sold their bread for gold. Farmers sold their crops for gold. Teachers taught their students for gold. Of course, people preferred to transact in paper representations of gold for the convenience.

This was true until the Great Depression when societies began to leave the gold standard. Suddenly it was realized that gold was no longer attractive as a currency as it was hindered by its inflexible supply. No longer did the baker demand gold for his bread. No longer did the farmer demand gold for his crops. No longer did the teacher demand gold for her teaching.

And yet despite discovery of this flaw and subsequent mass abandonment of the usage of gold as a currency, gold prices didn't fall but instead they doubled during this period.

While leaving the gold standard meant that currencies were no longer paper representations of gold, they were still backed by a reserve of physical gold and it was still possible to redeem US dollars for gold until 1971. After 1971, it was decided that a currency without any ties to gold whatsoever would make a better medium of exchanging value. Yet despite this, the price of gold still rose.

Why is this so? Isn't decreased adoption synonymous with decreased demand? When people decide to abandon a currency - whether it be cowrie shells or gold in lieu of another currency (in this case, paper), would we not expect to see the value of the old currency drop as demand for the new currency increases?

I have a NXT account and I've received three random assets so far including RGDO, FIMventure, and nxtegregor. RGDO seems to be a real business based in China called RigidLube that manufactures and sells automotive oils and lubricants. nxtegregor has sent me assets five times in batches of varying quantity and occasionally pays a small dividend and FIMventure regularly sends out dividends (usually ~2 NXT per week).

I also received a small payment from a NXT account called "VULTMINING" despite never owning any of their assets.

I have a few jl777 assets too including SuperNET and NXTventure which generate dividends in the form of other jl777 assets but the above three assets have no relation to jl777.

I am guessing the reason behind this is marketing? Has anyone else received assets that they did not ask for? Did you keep them? Sell them? Buy more of them?