Just curious........ what if the amount of money funneled into mining is so much greater than other endeavors (such as businesses that accept or deal with bitcoins) that it somehow drives up the cost of transactions from miners seeking to recoup their costs from their investments? Is it possible to have this transaction cost increase without a corresponding increase in the value of a bitcoin? Will mining simply decline at a point when it becomes counterproductive to do so naturally?

Does ripple allow everyone to basically use different currencies in some interconnected payment network without needing an exchange?

I was just wondering...... with some people not wanting bitcoin to be able to scale by changing the hard block size limit do any others deal with this issue better?

It seems like a good way to make the news would be to somehow involve bitcoin with geocaching and treasure hunting.
Funds can be added to a treasure during the middle of a hunt
The treasure can actually exist in pieces...  like this page suggests http://bitcoininformant.com/2012/06/update-splitting-bitcoin-secrets/


I don't really know how this would work but it seems like there could be fun involved.

IMO the price is going to stay under 32 until august/sept  . Until then it's gonna stay in the 20's. Maybbbbbe dip into the teens for a spell. Mayyyybee go over 30 for a spell.

I think all the good news about bitcoin is great.... but it takes time for people to catch up to that news. Sure thousands of people may have heard about bitcoin in the past few weeks that want to join in.. but I don't think we will really see great gains until the end of this year when we are in the 40's!


I think over time as more people hear about bitcoin... there are going to be more and more people that get hold of some bitcoins and WON"T let them go until they actually reach what they think they are worth.

Just guessing!!

Just curious

Just thought it would be a funny idea... but if there was an email system that used bitcoin (small fees) for sending messages. You could make it so that if someone sent you a message and it cost them a small fee... you could somehow reply and return the fee to the sender. this would make it even cheaper (since no one will probably respond to spam but they might to a valid user)

I suppose it would work like this: There is some kind of bitcoin clearing house where you set up an account. You can input a bitcoin amount and it will allow you to send a message. When the message is sent the bitcoin fee is put somewhere in reserve. If the person you email replies... then the fee is returned to you. Otherwise it's used to finance the actual service itself. Whatever the fee amount would be something low but not so low that a spammer could afford to spam the network .

the truth is that the "hoarders" are what gives bitcoin power. They raise the price of bitcoin itself and that allows bitcoin to enter new worlds. It allows it to do things that it couldn't before. If a bitcoin was  100 instead of 30 it could even go to further heights because it would now be a viable option for more types of transactions.

First let me say this is my Dad's house. I have talked him into getting involved with bitcoin.  Also I don't really know how this transaction would work. But I thought it can't hurt to throw it out there.

Here is the house listing: http://mrislistings.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Portal.aspx?ID=50360864849
The list price is 298k. (So that would be about 10k bitcoins)

Any offers or inquiries (or knowledgeable help) are welcome.



edit: there is no outstanding mortgage on the house it is fully owned by the seller, my father

Just thought I would throw this out there. If you are a slave then typically your housing, room and board and food is paid for. All of the work you do though, goes towards the benefit of someone else.

If you are taxed 100% then technically you couldn't even pay your room and board. So that makes it worse than slavery.

Following this logic... at what point is it when we become slaves? 95% taxation? 90%?

Bush had a saying and it went something like this........... You are either with us or against us.

I think obama is going to go down as having a saying that is tied to him as well and it will go like this

"paying your fair share"

Both of those sayings are sinister to me in what they imply.

Tax evasion is not something I am morally against in the least. But I wouldn't simply because the risks outweigh the benefits.
I feel like the populace as a whole is so stupid that even a thousand thousand years of evolution will not be enough to return to a society where we are not taxed so greatly.
I feel like tax evasion is almost becoming the only form of rebellion.......... but it doesn't really do anything in the end.

/rant off

Just joking........... aha.  Bad idea

[edit]

It's pretty clear that the lead developers want to raise the max block size. From what I've read it seems like a good idea because it will improve the network. Anyways...... this requires a hard fork. Do you think the chances of this fork are 100% ?  When do you think the fork will be?

edit: [I posted this in here because I don't want it to be a technical discussion. But rather a general discussion of an impeding fork(if that's even possible). That seems a little too important to leave in the developmental forum]
edit2:

Why wouldn't miners reject interactions with miners who set the block size too high, for instance?

Yes, I believe they would. So far, most miners and pools are VERY conservative; I think the idea that they will create huge blocks that have a significant risk of being rejected, just so they MIGHT get an advantage over marginal miners that can't process them fast enough, is loony.

But I might be wrong.

So I'd like to wait a little while, think deeply some more, and see how miners and merchants and users react with the system we've got as transaction volume increases.

BTC

And if they do how would it work? Would you just generate a new wallet with a private key and have it be shared with the marchant and then the merchant would simply deduct funds from that wallet on whatever timed schedule they have? 

if this card was successful it seems like it could have massive implications. What are your opinions on it? It seems an incredibly bold venture. But I also have this bad feeling. The reason why I am somewhat skeptical is because they say "in order for it to work you only need 3 people per block" . That seems like a problem to me rather than a good thing.

The only way I can see it working is if they first start in some highly populated city such as new york(or some Japanese city) or something where there is an actual movement of people that they know will use it. It can spread from there. But if they try to pan it out to the entire world all at once in the beginning I just see it as being something that will fail because not enough people would be in close proximity to others that also use it.

still if it does succeed it could be an incredible thing for bitcoin.

http://bitcoincard.org/

This is just a first draft on something I am writing up so bear with me.

    In the coming future... maybe it will be 1, 2 or 3 years you will see a media attack against something called bitcoin. The reason why you will see this is because residing in bitcoin is one of the most powerful tools of freedom mankind has ever had. It may seem an exaggeration when I say this considering that it is still relatively unknown and new, but it's potential as an instrument of freedom is comparable to the internet itself. Bitcoin is a new form of money born of this internet age. No one owns it and there is no controlling entity. It's decentralized and therefore out of the power and hands of governments and in the power and hands of regular people. Because of that governments and banks will not like it.

    Making a propaganda attack usually goes as follows: if you want to take down something good then try to slander it or make an association to it with something bad so that it also seems bad. For instance, let's take a 20 dollar bill and slander it. It's not bad or good right? And yet, quite frequently 20 dollar bills are actually used to do "bad" things. Buy some drugs. Gamble at poker. Strippers... but does that mean a 20 dollar bill is evil?

    This is essentially the slander attack they will use on bitcoin. Bitcoin was created to be a better form of money than what was before it. Because it is better people will use it. That includes good people and bad. So just like the 20 dollar bill it can be used to do what some people consider is wrong. Yet the reason why the media will go after it is not because bitcoin is wrong or evil (since that is logically flawed), but because governments don't control it.

    Lets consider another example... cell phones. Do criminals use cell phones? Probably. Why does a criminal use cell phones and not morse code through the telegraph system? Because cell phones are a better and more convenient form of communication which is why they replaced corded phones which replaced the telegraph system. Just like bitcoins are a better form of money than what we currently have.

    So you may be wondering how it is better or an "instrument of freedom". There are several examples. 1: No one can print more bitcoins therefore if you earn bitcoins or have them your wealth can't be confiscated through the printing of more. 2: Payment processors and credit card companies have the power to shut off the funding to anything they deem undesirable. 3. With bitcoins you can store them in a variety of ways... and you can completely avoid the need for having a bank if you wish. You can send your money to another part of the world at little to no cost, whether that money is $100 or $100,000 dollars. It's a borderless, global and secure form of payment and it beats the heck out of using something like western union and paying for exchange rates into other currencies.

    

Just curious on what you guys think. I didn't buy one :T

my email: " I thought I would toss an idea your way. It would be very cool if  the mobile software part of ubuntu supported bitcoin as a form of payment in the future. You would be the only mobile platform to do so and that alone would attract  (freedom-loving) users and interest. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency with no central authority. It's payments are irreversible. And if you reply to me with good news I hope you don't mind if I share it"

response: "It's a super suggestion, thank you."

I realize that isn't a yes or not but it sounds good to me anyways.

just curious. I read that transaction times are something like 10 minutes. as asics get more powerful will this be reduced? or will bitcoin be forked?

disclaimer: I'm not a journalist so there are better opinions needed

It seems to me that journalism is one area that can really benefit from bitcoin. Here is why........ currently if a journalist wants to make an online professional career out of journalism they have to blog. Essentially they have to make money through advertising........ but that is an inefficient way to make money. Someone who loves your article may not click on any of the advertisements. And even if they do click it may not be in proportion to their level of interest. It seems to me that the ability to just bitcoin tip anyone on the net will make professional journalism have a natural kinship with bitcoin.

What may be needed is a site that congregates professional journalists and even gives them ranks. So it would be like an online version of the washington post but it could be done totally ad free. If such a thing was viable, then it might attract the best journalists with the best stories since they could make decent money. Possibly

Just a thought.

Do you think it will? I guess first there has to be a reason why people would use it rather than current means. So here is what I can think of:

People use bitcoin in the supermarket with their smartphone because it's cheaper than using a credit card. 3% less or some amount than a credit card. Now that businesses are free to charge more for credit card purchases they might opt for something different.

But why would a regular consumer use bitcoin rather than say.. a debit card linked to their bank account?

The one reason I can think of is because they would rather hold their value in bitcoins instead of dollars before they are spent.