Assume for this question that whatever caused bitcoin to fail (for example, crypto crack) did not also apply to altcoins (I know that in reality that this isn't realistic).

My prediction is that in the short term altcoin prices would crash too, but in the long term they would absorb the old market cap of bitcoin and (one of them) would head towards world domination. 

My feelings are that as long as you diversify your crypto holdings, you are practically certain to become extremely rich in the future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_reserves#/media/File:EXCRESNS.png

Excess reserves, to my understanding, are the reserves beyond which a bank needs to comply with regulations.

It acts as a 'cushion' against loan defaults and people withdrawing deposits.

So it seems to me that excess reserves are SO huge now that a bank can safely have a huge chunk of its loans default and a huge proportion of its depositors withdraw their money in cash and they will still be solvent. Just look at that graph!

So why aren't they offering loans to everyone, no questions asked?

Also what incentives to banks currently have to take appropriate credit risks with such huge reserves?

"The increase will be executed by raising the interest rate the Fed pays on excess reserves held by banks to 0.5 per cent, effective on December 17, as well as the use of an overnight reverse repurchase programme."

This is from FT.com. I don't understand it. In order for an increase in rates to be transmitted throughout the economy, shouldn't the rates the fed CHARGES on excess reserves go up!?

If they pay banks more for reserves held at the Fed then surely the banks can then lower the rates they charge their customers?

Am I being paranoid?

In other words, what are the intermediate stages between the central bank agreeing to increase interest rates and my mortgage going up?

I've always wanted to know.

Thanks chaps.

Hey chaps,

I want to use the Blocktrail SDK for my site but my level of technical ability is too low to follow the documentation provided. Is anyone out there willing to help me!? I cannot afford to offer money or anything, just maybe there is someone who enjoys teaching this kind of thing!

I'm not a programmer, this site is just something I am doing in my free time for fun, but I am not a complete noob, I am familiar with php and I also successfully set up the blockchain.info API myself. I am also extremely familiar with bitcoin itself. But I have never used an SDK before (I'm not really sure what the difference is between an SDK and API anyway). I'm not sure why it's something I need to 'install' as opposed to just sending data to a url.

Specifically, I'm not really sure what to do with the instructions at https://www.blocktrail.com/api/docs#installation

Thanks in advance!!

Hello chaps,

I'm creating an esports gambling website using bitcoin. I need an API to enable me to receive payments, but I don't want to use a US one so I don't get sued. I intend to IP block all US addresses.

The only one I know of is the blockchain.info API which I already tried. It was easy to set up but unfortunately in practice seems to be quite shit, I often wait many hours after payment before receiving a callback. This is completely unacceptable.

Also... is it possible to receive bitcoin payments without an API at all? All I need my site to do is forward all payments to the same address (presumably via a random address given to the customer) and then I need to know when the payments gets confirmed.

Hey chaps,

Every week or so I find myself with some economics related question which is sufficiently technical that I can't find the answer with a simple google search. What I would really love is to have a 'go to guy' to ask these questions to. I know personally how much I enjoy teaching others about something I know a lot about (for example bitcoin) and so I'm hoping that there are others who know a lot about economics who would enjoy teaching me!

It doesn't have to be on skype of course- just an email address would be fine!

I want to state though that I'm not an economics noobie, my questions are relatively 'high level'. Please do not volunteer unless you are really quite clued up about this kind of thing! My particular interest (and most of my questions I imagine) relate to central banking. I am from the UK so may have slightly UK focused questions but I don't think it would matter if you're not also from UK. Example questions I have right now/have had in the past:

1) What is the relationship between the UK base rate and LIBOR- why are they not identical? Does LIBOR involve 'central bank reserves' or regular money supply?
2) How does physical money (notes/coins) enter the economy? What does a bank do or sell to increase its supply of physical currency?
3) When a central bank reimburses banks at the base rate- does this money come from anywhere or are balances simply increased by X% on the central bank's computer?

I am not asking for these specific questions to be answered now- just giving these an examples of the kind of questions I have!

Thanks in advance chaps!

Hello,

That warning appeared in the console when installing it on my raspberry pi. Can I safely ignore it?

Incidentally I had another issue- after installing electrum using the commands in the readme, a LTC application icon appears (in the folder as well as in the 'start menu') but double clicking it does nothing? Why is this?  I am able to open it through the console but I would rather open it the normal way if possible.

EDIT: I should mention that if I double click on the 'electrum-ltc' file the wallet will open. But the thing which says 'Electrum Litecoin Wallet' and has the logo does nothing when I click on it.

They are the largest bitcoin holders whose identity is known and it seems that they could have real power to influence things one way or the other if they choose to.

I am creating a new site which accepts bitcoin, and of all the available APIs I found the documentation for blockchain.info's to be by far the easiest to understand, so I have successfully implemented it into my site.

The problem is that I am frequently experiencing long delays between a customer sending me bitcoins and my site receiving the callback to confirm that a customer has paid. Sometimes the callback is instant- but other times the delay can be hours, at one time over 12 hours.

Has anyone else experienced this? It seems to be that this makes their API effectively unusable?

I'm creating a bitcoin site which automatically pays out bitcoin under certain circumstances. My plan is to have a php page which accepts data via POST and if the received data is correct it will pay out bitcoins.

I am wondering whether this is safe? The data sent over POST contains all the information required to send bitcoins. Is it possible for some '1337 haxor' to sniff out POST data?

If so, what about if the page that sends data via POST- and the page that receives data via POST- are both hidden behind a logon. I.e. the entire contents of both pages are hidden within a if($login->isUserLoggedIn() == true) statement- is this enough? Or is it trivial to get around this too?

Thanks chaps

Hello hello,

I'm just wondering how strong, or how many 'bits of entropy' as you chaps like to say, my electrum wallet password should be.

If my password was just a dictionary word, would that make it trivial, or is it still a major undertaking to crunch all dictionary words?

Thanks chaps!

Hello chaps,

I'm trying to build me a website which accepts bitcoins. I'm half way through implementing blockchain.info's receive payments API but I'm having a couple of issues. Is there anyone here who has already been through this process and is ok with me pm'ing them now and again when issues arise (which they have already)?

It is possible that those who are experienced in php would be able to help me even if you are not familiar with the API (which is at https://blockchain.info/api/api_receive). I am an amateur programmer, I only do it for fun so I may ask stupid questions.

Thanks!

Or any other hack which requires a rewind of the blockchain.

My thoughts are: yes. Of course, it would be terrible for bitcoin's PR. There would be potentially hundreds of thousands of people out of pocket (everyone who made a transaction after the rewind point), most of them with little chance of getting their money back. Bitcoin's price would surely plummet. But would it go all the way to zero? I think not. Unlike last time this happened (2011 I think?) there are literally millions of people out there with a vested interest in bitcoin's continued success. We wouldn't be so quick to throw in the towel. If this happened tomorrow, and after the patch and blockchain rewind the price dropped to say $50, would I be trying to sell the coins I currently own? Certainly not, I'd be buying more.

And furthermore, following a successful patch, the system would be stronger than ever before. In this sense bitcoin is 'antifragile'- everytime it breaks, instead of getting destroyed, it actually gets stronger and more resilient.

Would you rather place your trust in a system that had never been hacked, or a system that had been hacked X times and recovered every single time?

Per https://i.imgur.com/rhArHSS.jpg

I do not understand how China's currency can be almost twice the value of USD? USD GDP is almost double that of China, PLUS USD is the global reserve currency, so there's even more of it out there than there otherwise would be.

Please, someone explain this to me!?

Pls? So that it appears about
.
.
.
.
<-- here?

I understand that all money enters the economy through loans. So, a deposit and loan asset are created (on a computer) when someone takes out a loan. If someone wants to take out $500 cash from their deposited money, how does the bank transfer computer money to real money?

...apart from growth of an altcoin instead (couldnt fit this in the title). But even that seems increasingly unlikely these days, more and more we hear of new coins being built on top of the bitcoin blockchain instead of their own thing.

Please could someone detail a plausible chain of events, other than an altcoin, preventing bitcoin from reaching dat moon?

I havn't done any research on this subject, but it seems that it has to be?

If it did work (by work I mean, allow you to predict future short term price movements from past data with more than 50% accuracy) then everyone would do it, and the profit would be eliminated, so it would no longer work. Any method of predicting future (short term) price movements cannot consistently work by this logic, without insider information.

Am I missing something?