I'm having a few serious account related issues that I need to contact coinbase support about, but unfortunately, I am unable to actually do so. Their phone number is only for compromised accounts, their AI help system just tells me to use their contact form, and their contact form doesn't allow me to contact anymore since the last two drop downs are disabled no matter what I select. I have this issue on both Chrome and Firefox, and on both a Windows PC and Chromebook. Weirdly, if I try to contact from their Android app, it opens a browser window within the app that is somehow able to contact.

Is anyone else having this issue? I've been trying to contact them for over a month before I figured out that the Android app worked.

Hi, I hope this is the right place, but I tried donating a coupon (for the purchase of an Antminer) using the email address of the receiving account on Bitmain and it just said

error

A poorly worded error message to be sure. Since Bitmain takes forever to respond to messages I was wondering if anyone else encountered this "error" and what steps can be taken to resolve it? Thanks!

We've had a coinbase account for a number of years and for the entire time we used our business checking account and business debit card for all transactions. We submitted to them our partnership agreement and forms from the IRS with the EIN and we submitted our EIN to them when the account was set up, and at the time my partner's name was listed as the contact person.

We contacted them on multiple occasions, wanting the name of our business to be reflected on our account. Initially, they told us they weren't set up for that yet so we waited. Then there were significant reductions in how much we could buy or sell at one time so they acted like they never got the documentation. Then for a while they disabled use of our business checking account for transactions because they claimed it was a business checking account on a personal coinbase account. Around this time they also lost the photo IDs submitted.

In the latest bout, which has gone on for a few months now, they changed the date of their responses to 2 weeks prior to the date that we said we still needed support (and no email actually went to an inbox - this is just in their "my case" section) so I have no idea when they actually did respond. In it, they claimed:
 

Richard
Dec 18, 2017 04:34PM
Hi Melissa,


I apologize for the delayed response. In order for you to operate a business account and wire funds from a business bank account of the same name we will need you to fill out an Exchange Business Application. You can include the necessary documentation as well as work through the application at the following link: https://www.gdax.com/signup/identity_view. Please keep in mind that this application is necessary to operate your account as a business account.


Warm Regards,


Raymond

Client Services

(this was AFTER we submitted, yet again, the IRS documents with the name of our business, the registered agent, and employer identification number on November 29th, and after we tried to get them to respond January 3rd)

However, we aren't looking for any new services. We don't wire money anywhere - we use ACH transfer for sales and either that or debit for purchases. We also are not an exchange business as we don't accept cryptocurrency payments for anything. Our business is one part agricultural and one part cryptocurrency, and earn money on both fronts and have been working on integrating the two models together. Since we only sell our produce to grocery stores with a state whole-seller license we have no need to accept cryptocurrency payments anyway. Additionally, the link they sent us to is to upload a personal ID - yet again - and this time using a webcam as well. 

All we want them to do is recognize that the transactions we carry out are all carried out in the name of a registered business. We file taxes as a business, maintain a business ledger, and it would really screw things up if they continued to report business transactions as personal transactions. It could cause problems if we are audited - either as a business or as a personal entity in different ways - and if we are ever sued it would look like we were mixing personal and business assets which would increase our own personal liability. I thought that registered financial institutions had rules to follow. They can't tell the IRS that a business is personal, or so I thought, but they are acting like they don't have to treat the account for what it is.

Does anyone know of any way that we can proceed on this? Can we report anything to the IRS so that they know that Coinbase is knowingly submitting business transactions as personal transactions? Even if another exchange becomes registered in Illinois (last time we check, Coinbase was it) we still need to make sure their records about our business activity is accurately reported.

Hi, I decided to have NEMA 6-15P outlets installed in my home to run mining hardware, due in large part to recommendations for 240v in mining and given that this was a standard available in America. It definitely runs better than my experience on 120v (and as a side note I'm detecting around 10% the EMFs from the 240v wire compared to my 120v wires), but my concern here is that I can't seem to find surge protectors, voltage regulators, or even a single watt meter and I was wondering if any other miners encountered any, or else what their solutions were.

For reference, this is a NEMA 6-15P outlet:

http://internationalconfig.com/prod_shot/5642-i.jpg


All of the 240v surge protectors and voltage regulators I can find are for european outlets, which probably wouldn't work right given a frequency difference even if I could find an electrician to install outlets like that (and I can't, since it's not approved by code)

I was able to find a power strip for it, but it doesn't specify that it's a surge protector and I couldn't run more than 2 miners on a single 15-amp breaker anyway.

http://www.internationalconfig.com/icc6.asp?item=60400

The electrician said that I can have installed a surge protector for the entire house, directly on the line - but only after I update the breaker box because there's no more room for it. Even when I do, I'd prefer having more than one line of defense. They had no idea about voltage regulators, even though I currently use them for all of my 120v computer equipment. I thought about installing an inline meter, since I was going to end up with 2 panels - one panel for business use only, so figured it could go there, but they weren't familiar with anything.

I would hope that, considering the importance of protecting such equipment, someone else has found a solution. Thanks!

I have been trying, for a few weeks, to send Litecoin and Ethereum from my Coinbase wallet to an external wallet, but Coinbase won't allow me to do so. No matter how much I send, it always says:

"Amount is below the minimum (0.00100000 LTC) required to send on-blockchain."

and

"Amount is below the minimum (0.00100000 LTC) required to send on-blockchain."

The amount I have been trying to send is way more than that minimum, and I always have plenty left over to cover fees, but all Coinbase will let me do is buy and sell. I can't actually use it. For starters, it makes no sense to impose arbitrary limits, but isn't it a bit... well... scammy to lock people out of using their cryptocurrency? I can't even exchange it for Bitcoin (which will send without any problem) because they don't allow buying one coin with the funds of another coin (which makes no sense either) so if I want to send anything my only option is to sell the coin I just bought, pay them yet another fee, then buy Bitcoin, and pay them another fee still, just to be able to send what I should have been able to send.

Of course, we contacted Coinbase support, but no response to that in over a week. Similarly, my business partner has been trying to have our business account setup to use our business name since they've had all our business documented and FEIN and business checking account setup for multiple years, but every time we ask them about about fixing that they just ignore us. Last try contacting them was a month ago, with no response.

So without the ability to use a coin, and without any responsiveness from coinbase, what can we do? Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find any exchange to switch to that will do business in Illinois, so we usually combined Coinbase with Shapeshift. Didn't expect this type of problem though.

Here's a screenshot of the most recent attempt as proof, with address censored out.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=19Tec5rMEx2d9e4_LkWNfq5ozh_OFoVqr

Is there a reason why Bitcoin doesn't have an implementation of dynamic scaling the way it has dynamic difficulty settings? For example, instead of having to argue over how big a block should be every few years, why don't we let the network itself decide? From there, maybe offset the increased bandwidth of node operators with some kind of reward for running the node itself?

It just seems to me that this type of approach would allow the size of a block to increase or shrink according to the actual needs of a network, so it would be larger during times of major spending, and smaller during times of relative inactivity, leading to a lower average bandwidth usage than just increasing it. Even if there a reason to keep it from going above a certain point, wouldn't it make more sense to use an arbitrary ceiling so the block can shrink to below that size, but not rise above it - at least initially - and maybe implement some kind of community agreed upon protocol that would set concrete rules for if and under what circumstances the ceiling is raised, and then does so as some secondary dynamic system after a period of initial testing?

So, for example, one dynamic rule would increase or decrease the size of a block according to the actual needs of the network, whereas a second dynamic rule would set the floor and ceiling value that the first rule has to work within even if doing so causes a bottleneck. From there this second rule would adjust the ceiling value according to the average capabilities of the people running the nodes, so if enough people want the ceiling to go up they just have to upgrade their equipment to handle it, and by rewarding people who run the nodes (maybe based on network activity) it gives them incentive to help scale up the network.

I've had this thought for a long while actually. At first glance it would seem to benefit miners more to have more fees, but I argue that the miners are hurt because with higher fees people are less willing to make transactions and then Bitcoin itself becomes a store of value rather than the transfer of value that I feel it should be. With an improved network, the transaction fees go down and more people make more transactions and so the miners are able to survive on transaction fees alone when the last coin is mined.

While secondary coins could also be used to make purchases, there would be exchange fees involved and that would also influence the prices of each coin and other coins have the same problem. By my calculations, in order for Bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency with the same number of coins) to gain the status of a world reserve currency it would need to be worth around a million dollars a coin, which makes a single Satoshi worth around a penny. From there, the maximum digits past zero would need to be increased for the value to increase much more and still be functional in the same manner. I'd argue that there should also be an agreed upon ruleset that says when a digit is added, well in advance of the need for it, based on some predicted value to occur within the network automatically.

Is there any real reason why something like this can't work, or is somehow less preferred than a scenario of people arguing over small details every so often in perpetuity?

I once had a brand new EVGA PSU literally erupt in flames in front of me after just a week of mining. It was powering two overclocked Antminers. I kept everything within the power rating of the PSU, but it wasn't enough. In my case though I traced the problem to voltage irregularities in my home wiring (which also, incidentally, causes light bulbs to burn out more often than I'd like). The fire didn't turn the devices off either, so thankfully I was home and there when it actually happened. That was the scare that pushed me into the foolishness of cloud mining, where I made profit overall, but was scammed enough times that I don't consider them worth it, especially since electricity in my area is only 0.10148724 cents per kwh (including delivery charge) and since I otherwise use electric heating for my Spirulina farm so can consider the energy costs negligible since I'd spend that money anyway.

Well, I'm getting ready to run miners again, but only ordered the latest models after testing voltage regulators with my high end development machine pushing it's limits and it seems to do the trick. However, I am still wary. I'm getting a Bitmain PSU this time to run an AntMiner S9, but the voltage regulator I settled on (this one) has a limit of 1200 watts. While I'm not sure what the power draw from the wall will be, I can be fairly certain that if it outputs 1200 watts at 120 volts it will draw more than 1200 watts at the wall and therefore would either push the limits of the voltage regulator or not work at all.

I thought about underclocking the PSU until the power draw is under 1200 watts, but that still seems like it would push it. Instead, I'm planning on using two Bitmain PSU per 1 AntMiner S9, but their product page says not to use one PSU per board. I know there are only 3 plugs per board plus 1 on top, but what I don't know is how much power is drawn per cable. Is it an even distribution? Does the one on top use less than the others? I figure if I spread it out more evenly things would be safer.

I was thinking of running a single heavy duty extension cable from different parts of the house to the area where I will be mining (so I can effectively control the temperature and pump the heated air where I will need it and so I'm not drawing too much from a single outlet - similar to how I am already using space heaters everywhere) until I reach the safe limits and then use earnings to upgrade the electrical of my house. I would have a single surge protector plugged into it which will have two voltage regulators plugged into it, each voltage regulator having a single Bitmain PSU, and both PSU's together powering a single AntMiner S9 (so I expect the total load per extension cable will be less than 1500 watts) Can anyone recommend a good heavy duty power cable and surge protector for this use?

Now, when my fire occurred, the cable melted as well and looking at other reports like this thread it seems that melting wires is a potential problem. I also can see how short their cables are overall. In which case, would running 6 pin power extenders make such damage less likely or more likely? Can anyone recommend good ones that are long and reliable for my needs? or are they too risky to recommend? Right now I'm thinking of using this power cable and this surge protector.

When I upgrade the wiring and have several new 220 volt outlets installed by an electrician I figure I would then have extra power supplies to use with more miners, but I know that the frequency of the power is different in North America compared to the rest of the world so wasn't sure how that might affect anything. Additionally, I'd have to buy new voltage regulators. I could replace them with 220v versions like this one, but haven't used that one yet and it's product page here says that it's not for North America, and actually, all 220v voltage regulators I looked into said something similar so not sure if I even can run those. I was curious if anyone else tried using voltage regulators with miners and what they'd suggest. Alternatively, was wondering if whole house voltage regulation and surge protection can replace - or should supplement - these individual units.

For the internet connection, what I was planning on doing was setting up a WAN Load balancer so that I can use more than one ISP (to protect against internet outages or drops from a single carrier) and then run a single long Ethernet cable like this one to the mining room where I'd run one of these splitters to the miners with a short Ethernet cable like this one. Does anyone else have any alternative suggestions though?

Also: I currently use battery backups for all of my work equipment, which is amazingly useful in brown out situations and I definately plan to at least have the modems and routers running on them, but if a house had tens of miners would a whole house battery back up be worth the money? I mean, I'm sure it wouldn't run them for any length of time, but maybe for a brown out situation? Or is there no problem letting them all reboot when the power flickers?

Thanks.

[Important Note:]

oh, I found PROOF that they are running a scam! I compared the minimums that I am getting to that of my associates, and to the terms in their own help pages.

Firstly, let's take a look at the mining reward between two different customers of theirs per 1 TH/s SHA:

This is mine: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1nMcs19-6P5KtUM-LoKO5BHwQaesFMC9_



This is hers:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=16LMhgPIYkcdj7XjImdZQo2_FVXy9oJj-



Important Note: There is an odd offset, where the dates on her device don't completely match the dates on mine and clicking one date shows the details for another differently between devices (i.e, the date listed above doesn't match the date actually clicked on) so it is technically possible that my interpretation of the above is a mistake based on a fault in their system. I'd need to see more data points for that.

Both of us had the exact same pool distribution, but through each day there was variance in earnings. If they were running all hardware as a cloud pool, and then taking percentages onto another mining pool according to user preference, this variation shouldn't exist. Alongside the fact that the earnings they report here do not coincide with what is displayed in the mining pool records and it's fairly obvious that different customers get different hashrate, which goes along with the observations many have had that complaining results in a dramatic loss of hashrate. If this were a ponzi scheme they would be more interested in keeping those with more to invest happier, and in our scenario the customer who invested the most has the highest hashrate per TH, meaning more overall profitability.

Now, let's look at minimum withdrawals. This is their minimum withdrawal policy:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=15ZR05W_949fPJR12_wNOHp1kR0UfZSNX



However, a "system message" indicating a "temporary problem" significantly raised this. In my case, in my case, it's now 0.2 BTC minimum as you can see here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FpKs4mB143omRHo9GIAc13V34VgS1M2w



Which, given how much I am getting from my no longer unlimited contract means that I will NEVER get paid ANYTHING more IF they stick to this. In her case, her minimum is now 0.1 BTC, but she invested twice as much as I did so she'll be able to cash out in, maybe, 3 months.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1tkN9r0EE7bZ_0K45bt1oBMDPY0F41r6x




There's no way to misinterpret that data. Both screenshots were taken at the same time, although the date of the message is different indicating that is at least possible that they just don't send the same message to all users all the time with the same timestamp. Either way it's a bad scenario. Naturally, I cropped the names out of each record because I fully expect them to hit our accounts if I didn't.

Of course, if there is anything wrong with my observation I'd happily be wrong on this. This is one matter I don't want to be right on. Unfortunately though, the warning signs of a ponzi scheme are all falling into place: contradictions in payout, increased minimums, increased fees, long delays in getting paid, breach of contract. Given the way they are handling system messages, I also expect that when they do run with the money they will give ALL of their customers an unrealistically high minimum just to sidestep the issue and to try and keep their site up without paying anyone for as long as possible before actually running off.

Seeing the two hard forks coming, I am far more interested in Bitcoin Gold than Segwit2x. My interest in Bitcoin Gold is that I do like GPU mining and would like to see an emphasis on that (although I also own hardware which will continue to mine in Bitcoin and do plan to purchase more). My disinterest in Segwit2x is primarily due to it wanting to use the same name, and so comes off as a hostile takeover. If it was dedicated to using it's own name though and competed purely on the merits of what it had to offer I'd probably be more interested. In any case, my inclination is to pull my Bitcoin out between the forks and just not hold any while I wait and see what comes of SegWit2x

Now, I maintain a single Electrum wallet running version 2.9.3 and their documentation  on the subject mentions features that I just don't see in my client.

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/hardfork.html


So I was wondering if someone could tell me, clearly, how I would go about transferring my Bitcoin to Coinbase without also inadvertently sending Bitcoin Gold and to avoid replay protection and how I would at a later date access my Bitcoin Gold when clients become available. On a similar note, I am curious about if my addresses on Coinbase created prior to a given fork will exist across forks, even if they don't support it yet? So if, for example, Bitcoin Address A exists on Coinbase and then a hard fork occurs and then I send Bitcoin to Address A, but a replay attack causes the Bitcoin Gold to also go to Address A, will I have access to the Bitcoin Gold in address A when (if) support is made available? Of course, I'd prefer not having that scenario happen, just want to cover all my bases here.

For my other question on the topic, I was wondering what software I would need to start mining Bitcoin Gold and how that might work. Are there any planned pools I can join with existing software, or will new software need to be created before I can do anything to support it?

[EDIT:]

So I went to spend money from my Electrum wallet - 1.9.8 - which I intentionally did NOT want to upgrade because I wanted to keep it safe with all the settings intact -  and had a rude awakening with the notification that all my money is essentially locked until I upgrade.

I read up on some issue with addresses being related to some vulnerability with the addresses themselves, but this explanation makes no sense to me because in order to recover my Bitcoins it has to be transferred from my address.

In any case, I was forced to upgrade so I downloaded the latest Electrum Wallet, imported my Wallet and my Labels, checked that the seeds match up, but none of my History (which I need for accounting purposes) or lists of addresses used and unused (which I had labelled to keep track of what Bitcoin wallet was being used for what) is showing up at all. On the bottom left corner my old wallet shows the balance just fine, but the new wallet is just "synchronizing" (and has been for like an hour). I can restore to another Electrum 1.9.8 install just fine, but 2.5.4 just doesn't work which means that my money is frozen.

The main selling point of Electrum was the idea that my Bitcoin would be SAFE from external threats. That if a website went down, or any number of other problems happened, it would all be SAFE. This is obviously not true. I can no longer touch my money and to say that it bothers me is an understatement. I hate forced upgrades, but even more so, I hate the idea of a third party having the power to lock me out of all of my money.

So how do I recover my money so that I can move it onto a safe wallet?

EDIT: It has been synchronizing for 2 hours now and still will not show that I have any money at all. If Electrum can't even recover from the actual wallet and label files how am I supposed to believe that it can be recovered from seed? This is exactly why I did not want to upgrade!

I was thinking about writing a program to do the following if no one else has done it first:

Problem: Ponzi Scheme operators can, at a glance, seem legitimate. Payouts can appear to be the same as a real mining operation. When a scheme is revealed people will have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, there will be no one to take responsibility, and legitimate companies suffer from reduced business because people have no idea who to trust.

Solution: All Bitcoin has a point of origin. Even a scam has to use real Bitcoin that is tracked. The idea is for a program to look at a transaction ID, look at the source Bitcoin, and figure out the exact dates and locations that all the Bitcoin was generated in. It would track the total number of transfers it took for the Bitcoin to go from it's origin to the payout destination and compare this value to each other and give a high/low value. It would also compare the date of origin margin. It would use this information to advise the user as to the likelihood of the coin being genuinely mined by the given service.

If it could then be applied as an app for an Electrum module and/or the Coinbase API it could also provide real time protection. For example, a scam artist might try to fool people by leasing hashing power at least initially and then switch over to being a ponzi scheme. If at any point the address receives Bitcoin from a non-genuine mining source it could alert you so that you can take the appropriate action.

What this won't solve: If a scam artist takes your money to buy real mining hardware and never runs it as a Ponzi scheme, but then decides to stop paying you shares it won't be able to catch that. However, if it's possible to track the Bitcoin to specific mining pools it might be possible to track the location of the mining hardware to at least some degree, but I'm not yet sure how possible that is.

Would there be demand for such a program? Do any similar programs exist? I have experience programming, but I have not yet programmed for Bitcoin so I feel this would be a good program to write to get myself familiar with everything. I would of course plan to release it open source in the hopes that others can make sure I did everything correctly and for the utmost transparency.

I am using Electrum 1.9.8 and for the most part I haven't had any problems (except that it always "stops responding" while sending a transaction), but lately something strange has been happening. Occasionally the transactions show as -1 confirmations unless I close Electrum and reopen, but that only seems to happen if I leave it running for a long time. I started instead only turning it on occasionally and at that point I noticed these red labels - even over addresses that recently received transactions. At the same time the history tab shows "pruned transaction outputs" on the bottom with most of the history missing. If I close it and reopen a few times it usually fixes itself, but that seems pretty serious. I do backup the history file, labels, and wallet file often, but why would the history just disappear like that? And if the red labels really indicate what addresses won't be recovered from a seed, why would the red labels disappear?

Also: I am aware that the latest version is 2.0.4, but I heard that the entire seed system changed and I am concerned about loosing access to my wallet. Do I need to create a new wallet every time there is a change to the software, or can I keep my old wallets indefinitely? I tried looking for a change log, but whenever I click documentation on the electrum site it links to a wiki that just loads forever and never actually opens anything.

Oh, and is there any way to manage multiple different wallets on the same machine? Right now I am handling two different accounts and I keep the transactions completely separate, but it requires that I constantly freeze and unfreeze addresses and it gets tedious.

[EDIT:]

I was reading up on projects for a decentralized internet such as Bitcloud and MaidSafe, but these projects still depend on the existence of a physical infrastructure. More specifically, the lines in public spaces connecting the different homes together. In order for there to be a truly decentralized internet without an ISP there would need to be a solution to this.

Here's a possible solution, though it is probably a few years off. The idea is to take advantage of the Solar Roadways project. Or rather an aspect of it. For those who don't know, the project aims to be a decentralized smart grid. Solar panels are placed as modules and there is a canal/storm drain under the side walk that takes the place of telephone lines. A given section of road can easily pay for itself by solar energy production alone, but because the established utilities don't have lines and trees to maintain contracts can be formed to assume responsibility for a given section of the grid. (in fact, existing telephone lines are typically owned by one company who lease access to others which is why you can only purchase services from a company who has leased access to your line, so a competing line would be very price competitive) Even the storm drain would be smart, cleaning and transporting water as it is needed.

Now, the critical detail is that this infrastructure would be suitable for the placement of any type of cabling. It's an inbuilt feature and I fully expect average homes and businesses to begin building up sections of driveways and at least sidewalks for the benefits they provide.

What's needed is a module based system for running new Fiber optic lines in this infrastructure. I am picturing a kind of "box" that would act as a Fiber optic repeater (fiber optic lines plug into it to repeat the signal sending it along) and a coaxial outlet (for bringing it into any house that might be along the way). If each box could be programmed with a "wallet address" it could work like mining hardware in that it keeps track of how much activity is provided to the network by it's use and rewards that contribution accordingly. What's important is that it needs to be such that your neighbors could plug right into it and be able to identify their hardware to their address while allowing these units to be password locked to keep said neighbor from tampering with it.

Now, the only problem with this suggestion is that you will need many already established lines to replace the ISP, but that can be solved rather easily. If the coaxial line had TWO ports per box it's use could begin rather differently. Those with an ISP service could run their coaxial line from their modem to the box and then from the box to their house. If their neighbor did the same that would be two different IP addresses. Now, let's say that each house had a bandwidth cap of 500 GB a month. One house uses more than the other so "buys" coins from the other to represent this difference. Now suppose a third person connects, but this person doesn't have internet service. No problem! This person "buys" bandwidth from the other two. Additionally, it would act as an additional IP obfuscation layer. If a given area has 500 IP addresses in a connected grid before connecting to an outside network these 500 boxes would act as nodes. There would be no way of telling who owned a given IP address or even if the person being tracked has an ISP contract to terminate since there can be more connected homes than people with internet access through an ISP. Even if you could get past the IP scrambling at the global level and round it down to a local level (such as by the kind of attack used against Tor) once you trace the signal to a given house there is no way to know for sure that this house was really the end user. The most obvious initial use though is the ability to sell a portion of your bandwidth to bring your costs down or to purchase more bandwidth than would normally be allowed without dealing with over limit costs followed by a gradual increase in people who want to subscribe to the internet anonymously.

 (EDIT: There is no reason why the output back to a given home has to be coaxial. The boxes just need coaxiel input to make it compatible with existing ISP inputs. It could be Fiber optic output as well leading to Fiber optic modems for much faster connections and the same box module system and cables could easily out of the ground in large apartment buildings thus allowing the owner of large complexes to reap additional rewards. The modules should also be EM shielded to protect against interference and internal redundancy and power surge protection. A stackable form with special outlets connecting two modules directly together could be employed to allow for an automatic bypass in the event of module failure with a notification sent to the owner. Stackable would also make it easier for adjacent land owners to directly connect their units together.)

As such a network expands it would slowly transition from ISP controlled to a fully decentralized meshnet. You would still pay for your internet access and bandwidth, but instead of paying to an ISP you pay to the network itself which encourages individuals to maintain their own connections while further rewarding faster connections. Of course, individuals who provide more than they use will earn money while those who provide as much as they use don't have to pay for internet service at all. This idea wouldn't prevent an ISP from getting on board with their own decentralized investment, but by it's very nature it would solve the same problems.

For me this isn't just theory: This is something I would seriously like to invest in. I live in a prime location for early adoption of the Solar Roadways (close proximity to the Mississippi River and a Train system along with inexpensive property for factory investments) and I expect that within 5 years my investments in Bitcoin will have paid off enough for me to seriously make such investments which is also around how long I expect it will take before the creators are ready to expand out. My plan is to invest in a 900 feet section of road on a steep hill and every driveway on that road and make deals with the city and established utilities to transition the cables into the underground canal. By then I will also have learned enough with my Computer Science second major to do my own engineering work if someone else doesn't apply the idea first (although I would love it if someone would! The equivalent of the mining hardware companies!) and with a test street established I can show the benefits to the city and use that as a model to gradually expand the investment. More importantly, I would create a model with which land owners can not only turn their driveways and parking lots and sidewalks into solar panels to earn an ROI, but establish an additional income stream from a Meshnet coin while also helping to establish the infrastructure for a fiber optic internet access. Large investors could buy from the city a given section of street that either they become responsible for, or that they hire another company to help manage.

There are already companies that have turn key plug and play Fiber optic data systems. Here's one example I found with a quick search. It seems like a company like this could easily be contracted to produce the specialized hardware required provided that a software implementation also existed. It's going to be very important for the average person to be able to set it up, plug it in, and forget about it.

As an additional idea, there are also problems with a decentralized solar power distribution system. Namely laws that vary in regards to if you can sell power or not. When I install a solar road way I would have to connect the established electrical grid through it with meters and from there Net Metering laws vary. (In my state I don't even have the right to sell power to the utility. If my energy production exceeds my use the balance is zeroed out at the end of the year and they get to keep it for free!) Then there is the issue with electrical cars being able to go through inductive charging while driving with no way of tracking this use. The same decentralized internet system could have a secondary function which would help encourage adoption: An energy coin. If my driveway produces energy it can automatically sell this energy to those who draw from it. In this way I could produce energy on my property and spend that energy somewhere else in the world. The same decentralized internet could be dual built for a decentralized energy trading mechanism. Something that even the builders of the Solar Roadway concept never thought of. (they were thinking more along the lines of individuals selling excess to the grid by Net Metering alone) Now, if the decentralized internet hardware was also designed to handle this power trading mechanism (and it seems like it would be the most logical way to handle it) that would create a reason for individuals who are investing in Solar Roadways for energy purposes only to purchase and install this extra hardware even if they don't care about the decentralized internet movement. By encouraging multiple groups of people to adopt the technology for their own varying self interested reasons it helps to push us into that future. We can have decentralized energy and a decentralized internet. It would also provide for an emerging market of people who invest in energy intensive coin mining hardware because it would help drive down the cost of energy and make these systems more affordable.

(EDIT: I envision "energy coins" to be created when energy is produced, transferred like a coin, and then "burned" when the energy is consumed. They are not meant to have a value separate from the value of energy that they represent which allows their price to reflect that. Since the energy is locally stored until it is used there won't be a problem with more coins being created than energy available to distribute and the network could even be setup to determine the availability of energy at the local area to prevent issues with trying to purchase energy from an isolated location. A small transaction fee could also support "miners" in theory, but each module should be capable of verifying other module transactions so in all likelihood these fees would ordinarily cancel each other out so I really don't see the point.)

Any thoughts? What does everyone think of this approach? I feel that if we are ever going to have a fully decentralized global internet without an ISP there needs to be a simple system put in place to encourage individuals to invest in their own part of the grid - even if it's just their driveway. Without some approach to the cabling we will always have to pay an ISP for the first leg of our internet access and our speeds will always be restricted. What better way than to make use of another project that will get all the hard work out of the way?

[EDIT: This idea does not propose removing any Bitcoin from circulation.]

I had this idea for a while: What if, instead of using entirely separate kinds of alt coins for specific sized transactions, a special kind of alt coin were created which would act as denominations of Bitcoin?

1 bit equals 100 Satoshis or 0.000001 BTC, but these are just words. They still transfer the same way. If I want to send a Satoshi to someone I really can't because the transaction fee of .0001 Bitcoin exceeds that. Even if you could it would likely congest the network to send many transactions like this.

What if "bits" were an actual coin? Instead of being created via mining, you "destroyed" an amount of bitcoin to create an equivalent number of bits (and vice versa, so no new coins are really being created keeping the value intact). From there these bits would be optimized as limited size transactions which might work better on computer hardware than dedicated mining hardware. With a smaller data size more transactions could be processed at once which would realistically allow for a lower fee and thus allow for smaller amounts to be sent. This could be done easily behind the scenes. For example, attempting to send anything below a certain threshold would trigger it to be sent as the most appropriate denomination.

If, for example, I send 100 Satoshis it would send as .01 Bit which would occupy 4 digits. The transaction fee could be 0.001 Bits, or a single Satoshi. It would only be possible to send a transaction as a Bit if it was 0.00009999 BTC or smaller.

0.00009999 BTC = 99.99 Bits = 9999 Satoshi.

Above that is another denomination of 6 digits in size: Millibitcoin. It's 6 digits in size because it must include everything of a lower denomination or risk creating problems with a single transaction trying to verify in multiple ways at once. So if I want to send 10,000 Satoshi (or 0.0001 BTC) it would have to be sent as a single mBTC transaction of .01 mBTC. (Not part mBTC and part Bit) An mBTC transaction would include transactions in size smaller than 0.01 BTC and larger than 0.00009999 BTC.

Above that, the normal Bitcoin Protocol could take over for transactions .01 BTC and larger with the normal fees.

The point is that it requires less memory to send a 4 or 6 digit number which means that more transactions could be processed at once. More importantly, it would facilitate a decentralized approach to micro transactions and prepare us for the day when Bitcoin is worth enough for a single Bit to be worth enough to buy a cup of coffee. (which it would be if Bitcoin increased in value 100 fold)

Of course, if I am wrong about any of my assumptions please correct me. Assuming my assumptions are at least mostly correct the only real problem I see is that since the miners would be working on transaction fees only (not minting any coins) it might be a challenge getting enough hardware online unless the existing miners would be set up to process these smaller sized transactions in multiples. If, for example, a miner can process enough smaller transactions at once to equal the time it takes to verify a larger transaction they would get the same reward for the time spent which would make them happy.

Any thoughts? Would it work? Would it not work? Why or why not? As far as the exact conversions go, that's just a general idea based on the names that exist. The overall idea is to use denominations to streamline transaction processing.

EDIT: This idea does not propose removing any Bitcoin from circulation.

I sent Bitcoin from one of my Coinbase wallet to Electrum. In Coinbase it shows as completed. It Electrum it shows as a -1 Confirmation. In Blockchain.info it says there are 29 confirmations for the transaction.

Similarly, around the same time, I sent Bitcoin from Bitminter earnings to the same Electrum address. It also shows as having a -1 confirmation, but Blockchain also shows it as having 29 confirmations.

Since I am in control of all points I can see that the Bitcoin has indeed left the originating addresses, but I am not really sure what to make of this problem. Exiting Electrum and opening it again refreshed to show that each does indeed have 29 confirmations, but what causes this type of mismatch problem? What should I do in the future if it happens with Bitcoin that someone else sends me? And if this is a bug in Electrum 1.9.8 why isn't there a refresh button for cases of people using it in a bootable mode?

I tried installing Electrum for Android on both my Xperia Z 2 Tablet and Samsung S4 phone. I followed the guide here and got as far as installing Python for Android.

The problem is e4a_install.py which I simply can't obtain. Whoever wrote that article should reasonably expect that someone would be reading from an Android device, but a QR code can only be read by a camera on a phone. Not the phone itself (a shame an app can't scan a screenshot). So I had to open up the guide fresh on another device and try scanning the screen, but when I click to add from QR barcode within SL4A it crashes each and every time on both devices and since all of my devices capable of scanning a QR code can't find it I can't obtain it since there is no download link for it.

I'm assuming the QR code is linking to a site that is down. I know I can install from file so does anyone know where I can get this file?