Dear cryptobretheren,

In order to take Bitcoin education to the next level, so that every last human and their grandma can wrap their heads around Bitcoin easily, we're going to need a series of professional-looking, well-indexed, short, focused, and highly shareable youtube videos covering all questions bitcoin newbies will have.

I've taken it upon myself to start up just such a series, soon to debut on the World Crypto Network... But I've never done animation before and I'd really appreciate your feedback!

On the following page I've published the first 3 videos, under 2 minutes each, and all are a little rough in quality but otherwise finished and awaiting your feedback:

http://blog.coinosphere.com

Please take a couple of minutes to watch them and let me know here any questions & concerns you have... Keeping in mind that these films are intended to be the front line of bitcoin education for the next 7 BILLION people on earth. (And yes I'm looking into translators now.)

If you have a minute, please upvote the Reddit page for this too:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2yuv7l/upcoming_series_of_bitcoin_explainer_videos_needs/

Thanks in advance; I really hope you guys find these useful!

[Story behind these:]

Ready for a challenge? These should be fun for us real bitcoiners:
(Not for noobs!)









Story behind these:

I recently helped an Etsy mom learn about and start accepting bitcoin in her Etsy shop, where she makes all kinds of customizable kids activities like these and coloring sheets. Now she's really excited about bitcoin, has made an awesome kids Bitcoin activity book there, and wanted to give back to the community already. Please spread these around, especially to any bitcoiner parents you know! Her activity book is a wonderful educational tools for the next generation and I think they may turn out to be a real asset to this community.

Enjoy!

Recently I've helped an Etsy mom become a real fan of bitcoin, and on top of accepting bitcoin in her shop, she has created what I believe to be a real asset to our ecosystem already!

Gina Spence of the Etsy shop CustomizableArt just finished this excellent Bitcoin Activity book aimed at elementary school kids, and also has plans in the works for activity books aimed at other age groups too:



I have checked over the contents and it is all good stuff, very accurate and helps young kids grow their bitcoin-using skills!

Please check it out, and even if you don't have kids yourself, send her book's link to someone who does.

Fortune Magazine posted an article yesterday comparing Gold to Bitcoin as money after some sort of Apocalypse:

http://fortune.com/2014/03/19/gold-vs-bitcoin-an-apocalyptic-showdown/

If anything this article is leaning towards bitcoin, (!) but the tally at the end for the four categories they deem important criteria for such a currency is 2/2; a tie.

Naturally I left a long comment filling in the blanks on the other 5 important criteria they forgot to review.

Apparently Facebook is about to enter the remittance market by opening a financial service out of Ireland:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2143200/report-facebook-about-to-enter-emoney-market-in-europe.html

Doesn't say in what currency. I'd guess they'll limit to Euros at the start?  Very odd.

Dear Satoshi, (The real one)

Here's a way you can protect that poor guy in California without revealing your own identity:

1. Quickly go to some famous landmark far away from Temple city California.

2. Grab today's newspaper once there, and a disposable camera.

3. Write on the newspaper (but not over the date) that Dorian Nakamoto is not you, and you have not revealed your real name.

4. Take a picture with the disposable camera of the newspaper and the landmark together.

5. Using a net cafe or other safe spot, send the picture to news outlets and us, using your PGP key that confirms you are you.

Since poor Dorian Nakamoto is under siege by the press right now, he would not be able to send this.

Thank you so much for your vision and hard work!

-Luke

By now you're starting to hear of the Florida sting of 2 ordinary LocalBitcoins sellers.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/02/florida-targets-high-dollar-bitcoin-exchangers/

Before anyone runs around shouting that the sky is falling; they screwed up; it's their own fault:

According to court documents, the agent told Michelhack that he wanted to use the BTCs to purchase stolen credit cards online.

...documents show that the undercover agent told Reid he wanted to use the BTCs to buy credit cards stolen in the Target breach.

Of course bitcoin isn't money by law and therefore this can't be considered "Money laundering" - But they'll probably try to convict Michelhack & Reid for being accomplices to crimes.

Therefore, if you sell on Localbitcoins; DO NOT EVER sell to someone who tells you that they are going to commit a crime with your coins!

This should be really obvious, but it must be said... A real criminal doesn't want you to know what he's going to do with your BTCs, so you can COUNT ON it being a sting operation if they tell you they're up to no good. 100% of the time.

This is how they are going to hurt bitcoin as a whole; picking off less-than-brilliant people like they did Michelhack & Reid here and I have no doubt the press is going to run with headlines of the moneylaundering to scare more newbies away from BTC.

Please tell everyone you know on Localbitcoins to be ready for a jail cell if they ever sell a millibit to anyone that says they're going to use it for a crime of some kind. This "successful" sting operation is only going to embolden the authorities.

[there are literally somewhere between 35,000 and 50,000 merchants out there]

Coinosphere.com will completely solve the age-old problem of "where can I spend my BTC?"

Let's face it, BTC always seems to be a pipe dream to newcomers because they can't see it as a spendable money yet when it's not accepted nearby them... And they are not going to bother search very hard to do so.

But listing merchants & service providers in one place, like the BTC Wiki or Coinmap has proven to be a real challenge... These wikis and blogs all rely on the merchants to come to those websites to list themselves... And so far only a very small percentage of BTC-accepting merchants are doing so. (And yes I can state this for a fact.)

Bitpay says they now service 15,500+ vendors.
Coinbase says they service 16,000+ vendors.
Blockchain services thousands as well.
Heck, you can service your own damn merchant needs; just by placing a BTC address on your page...

So there are literally somewhere between 35,000 and 50,000 merchants out there accepting bitcoin right now! Some are sure to be near you, but are not listed on a map anywhere. For now, they might as well have set up shop on the moon.

So I have created Coinosphere with the intention of getting proactive about finding all these merchants. We can't just sit here any longer and have every mom & pop shop come to us... We must go to them! All services that serve the industry will be found too. -And then I'll list these sites in my directory for the world to see in a sort-able, searchable format!  

This thread will serve as the official Coinosphere thread, so feel free to ask any questions you'd like answers to below. I don't bite. However first, please check out the Bitcoinstarter.com crowdfunding campaign for Coinosphere, where I've answered a lot of questions already:

http://bitcoinstarter.com/projects/391

It's not asking for much BTC; I've already finished coding the "Eye of Sauron" engine that finds these sites for me... But displaying them in a searchable frontend is what I need some more funding for... Only enough to pay for some directory coding and the artwork for Coinosphere.com, so on January 14th I can Launch on schedule.

However, if we make it up into the stretch goals the real magic happens... I think you're really going to like what you read there!

So please, ask any questions you have for me below, check out the campaign and say hi, check out the cool prizes there, tell all your BTC-loving friends about it, and maybe even stop by the Coinosphere facebook page too if you have a chance.

Hope you like it!
Luke
Coinosphere.com

["There's An Electronic Currency That Could Save The Economy — And It's Not Bitcoin"]

Full title: "There's An Electronic Currency That Could Save The Economy — And It's Not Bitcoin"

Sounds like rumors of Fedcoin are finally here, fellas...  

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/theres-electronic-currency-could-save-121228399.html

So what's the answer?

University of Michigan economist Miles Kimball has developed a theoretical solution  to this problem in the form of a n electronic currency that would allow the Fed to bring nominal rates below zero to combat recessions. He's been presenting his plan to different economists and central bankers around the world.

If he's gotten this idea into Bernanke's fat little head then it would explain why Ben is not so aggressive against virtual currencies.

Of course someone will have to accept it first. Lulz.

[fully distributed]

This thread is for project development of the Distributed Exchange known as DEX. All help, advice, thought donations, and cheers are welcome.

Any opinions, comparrissons to other distributed exchanges, and talk that doesn't move the project forward will be shunned. You can always add that stuff to the DEX announcement thread if you must:

ANN: Whitepaper for the Distributed EXchange (DEX) is here! (If you have general questions about how DEX works, add it over there too.)

For anyone who hasn't seen the DEX whitepaper yet, you may download it here:

Whitepaper for DEX Distributed Exchange (.pdf format, 22 pages)


Let me start out by saying thank you to all who participate with DEX in any way.

I, like most of you, share a vision of the future where commerce is something that cannot be regulated by any state nor manipulated by any DDoS attacks. With bitcoins' very fate riding in the balance, the time is clearly NOW to create a P2P, fully distributed exchange that even our grandmothers can figure out how to use.

Even Ripple doesn't offer all of that. Even their biggest cheerleaders admit that their gateways are few and regulatable. So just reading through the threads on this forum, you can almost smell the desperation for this need, however. DEX is certainly not the first, or even in the first 50 attempts at making a distributed exchange; but I hope all of you will come to agree it could actually be the last.

I hold no illusion that it will be easy to code, so I am going to need a lot of help. My coding skills are minimal, mostly HTML and PHP, so all I can do from here is direct the vision and funds of DEX to ensure it stays on track until completion. I have managed projects many times in my previous career, so I will direct the overall project and all fundraising. (In bitcoin for transparency!)

If we have to hire any full-time coders, I will take them on after a community vote from contributors only. There will likely be other things we vote on, simply because I know there is more I can learn from this community. Be assured that everyone involved will have a voice in DEX's direction.

The help I need from you guys comes in all forms... DEX could literally grow to replace Wall Street one day, but at this time exists only in concept.

I don't even know what language is best to program DEX in! So here is a list of help we are going to need soon:

• 1. Framework Dev - Get the overall shape of DEX started on Github! (github.com/p2pdex/dex)
• 2. Logo design - Any graphic folks want to design DEX's logo? Post em' in this thread and we'll vote on it!
• 3. UI Dev - Design the UI interface for all of DEX, with the aim of making it 'Apple-product easy' to use for noobies.
• 4. Encryption code - Like bitcoin, DEX uses a lot of crypto. It's likely that we'll need encryption specialists to make the matching and escrow engines secure.
• 5. Other coding - I honestly don't know yet what else I'll need, but certainly there will be some general coding needed.
• 6. Monetary donation - For most things in life there are coders... For everything else, there is bitcoin... We'll definitly need some to pay coders for various parts of this sytem, so any donations in bitcoin would be most welcome. You have my word of honor that every millibit donated will go towards coding and creating a USEFUL, open-source product. Funds will be appropriated towards DEX first and then VenDEX. I've even started the fund off with 2 of my own bitcoins, and I'm in talks with some other donors now.

Main DEX donation Addy: 1BrysB64u8C57pJxW4WpHvhMJsRRgRTfLR

Did I leave anything out? Please tell me below!

Got any questions you can't ask in public? You can PM me here if it's semi-private, or use Bitmessage to email me if it's even more private:

BM-opuWHZ8YdsHcKd9L9kkt3aMWc9A3hTvRN

Thanks again all!
-BTCLuke

I have finally completed my long-awaited whitepaper for a distributed exchange named DEX. Thank you all for your patience.

Whitepaper for DEX Distributed Exchange (.pdf format, 22 pages)

DEX is a complete solution, designed to be the simplest way possible to turn fiat into cryptocurrency & back without any kind of central authority or even bottlenecks. Everything about DEX is trustless with person-to-person exchange only, yet offers real time trading with graphs like MtGox does!

DEX is also noob-friendly, provides financial incentives just to simply download and open the software, and of course allows for trading between any type of currency we can imagine. (Coins, National fiat, BitShares, future cryptosecurities, etc... Totally agnostic.)

But most importantly, DEX's unique solution to the fiat replacement problem, called a "Cryptobond," actually moves value as easily as we move bitcoins, follows all of the rules that make money desirable, and at the same time represents national currencies better than any other solutions presented here to date.

So please download and read over DEX before asking questions or sharing your thoughts & opinions below. Please save your improvement ideas, voluntary offers, and any other kind of help for the Development thread instead:

PROJ DEV: THE DEX DEV THREAD


To our financial freedom!
-BTCLuke

Awesome piece on SovereignMan today.

http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/us-treasury-denies-it-is-trying-to-torpedo-bitcoin-12056

Highlights:

In remarks given late last week to the curiously named United States Institute for Peace, the head of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) vociferously denied any attempts at regulating digital currency… specifically Bitcoin.

It’s clear that Bitcoin is smack dab on the US government’s radar, despite the digital currency’s tiny market size. But it’s also clear that they don’t understand Bitcoin at all.

They claim, for example, that a digital currency is a ‘financial service’, as if Bitcoin is some sort of mutual fund or home equity line of credit.

In this short 4-page speech, the Director twice made a connection between Bitcoin and (you guessed it) terrorism. Twice more connected Bitcoin to those who would exploit children. And four times linked digital currency to ‘criminals’ in general.

It’s certainly enough to scare most people away.

And, even though they cannot control Bitcoin, FinCEN is obviously laying the foundation to regulate every business that touches Bitcoin, from exchange houses to swap websites to digital wallet providers.

I'm just spitting these things out like watermelon seeds this week:

How about a P2P Facebook Replacement that only uses Bitcoin? - Bitcoinfinger

This idea would take a talented coder or nine, but right now the world is weary of Facebook because of the PRISM leak and its' membership was already headed south quickly for reasons of privacy... So replacing it with a totally distributed, P2P social App would be just what the doctor ordered!

The best part is that Bitcoin would be the only payment used with this app, so if a bigtime advertisers wanted to buy ad space across the whole network, he would be forced to buy the bitcoins and send them to all these millions of people!

If this thing even took a small but healthy chunk of bitcoin's business, the price of bitcoin would go stratospheric.

Enjoy!

What a press extravaganza for bitcoin that would be if one of our brave young travellers decided to pull this off!

80 BTC is worth over $10k right now, so the airfare to get around the planet is certainly possible within that amount.

Food & Hotels shouldn't be an issue either if you're sticking to big cities and use Gyft at the time of purchase.

Bonus points if everything you take with you was bought in those 80 bitcoins too, from your clothes to your laptop/ipad/smartphone directly from a store that sells in bitcoin directly.

Who wants to go for a trip? For the press value alone I bet we could crowdfund this idea easily.

http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/is-this-the-next-shoe-to-drop-for-bitcoin-11949/

Liberty Reserve’s cardinal sin was not making any effort to validate the identities of its customers. And for this reason, the US government labeled it a ‘primary money laundering concern.’

After all, only criminal terrorists want to bank anonymously.

The biggest issue is what this may mean for Bitcoin… because it certainly does seem to be a huge flashing warning sign that the government is out there targeting digital currencies.

One major difference is that Liberty Reserve was centralized.

[because a P2P distributed exchange is a VERY specific thing!]

I've seen no less than ten different threads pop up here from people wanting to start a P2P decentralized/distributed exchange, but each and every single time, without fail, the definition of what a P2P distributed exchange actually is gets totally forgotten and the thread dies... Sometimes without a single mention of the word Ripple, too! 

The sad thing is, Bitcoin desperately NEEDS a P2P Exchange... It's not like we don't know already that MtGox is a single point of failure that could severely set us back any day now... We all instinctively know this, and most of us know that if uncle sam made bitcoins "illegal," they'd come after ALL of the exchanges at the same time, yes, even in England, Germany, Canada and Oz too. Obomba's done worse already.

So we all agree that we need to replace these central-points-of-failure (CPOF) allowing access into the bitcoinoshpere, but we simply have not yet been able to agree on what the replacement should look like.

...Which is silly actually, because a P2P distributed exchange is a VERY specific thing!

It must have all the functionality of a full, real-time trading platform (MtGox or better) yet be completely distributed software with no CPOF. This marriage of unique properties would require a very specific feature set and design, yet every time a thread pops up on here calling for one, half of the forum chimes in with comments like "Open Transaction can do that," "Buttercoin was made to do that," "LocalBitcoins can do everything you need," and of course: "Ripple already does it!"

I got news for you weekend bitcoin warriors: Those services ARE NOT distributed replacements for MtGox... They just aren't, by design.

So in order to combat this huge problem that we all desperately need solved, I'm making this thread to DEFINE what criteria exactly a P2P Distributed Exchange needs to meet. These are my ideas, but please feel free to throw in your own.

A P2P Distributed Exchange MUST:

• 1. Be without any central points of failure, since a government or two WILL be coming after it one day. I suggest a Bitorrent-like software schematic.
• 2. Show everyone a very large number of possible trades to choose from, (thousands?) so assets can form a stable price. (e.g. a Bitcoin is going for $120)
• 3. Transact trades pretty much INSTANTANEOUSLY, so when you're watching a graph and want to trade at a very specific time you can do so. (This is extremely important for arbitragers and other traders who help keep the price fluctuation down.)
• 4. Offer Graphs and APIs for for graphing like MtGox does.
• 5. Have three-user (trustless) trading, so a non-interested 3rd party always hosts the trade between the buyer and seller. (And should provide Escrow too!)
• 6. Hold and transfer VALUE, not just IOUs. (With Cryptocurrency this is easy... With fiat? Not so much.)

Those are my must-haves. I will never spend a second helping out any software that doesn't meet all 6 of those criteria. You shouldn't either. Again, if you know something I've overlooked, feel free to add it below.

Having thought really hard about this nonstop since the April bubble pop, I've devised most of the system and exactly how it would work, with the exception of exactly one thing... Holding the value of the Fiat (nationalized currencies) within the software.

If we can solve this one issue, I'm convinced we'll change the entire investing world with this software and make bitcoin safe from all attacks that don't involve nuclear weapons... However even if we don't fix this, the system can be programmed up right now to trade between cryptocurrencies just fine.

Before someone says: "Hey, colored coins can move Fiat..." I assure you that so far everyone talking about them has only suggested holding an IOU in colored coins, which is simply not good enough for our needs. Any attempt to have some kind of bank fulfill an IOU is to make a CPOF again.

But we know that the actual value of Fiat can and already is held in software now! Most of the planet's Fiat DOES exist only as digital currency, and moves just fine through networks like Wire transfers, SWIFT, SEPA, and ACH. -So if those networks can get access to the value of nationalized currency, then we should be able to as well... As an example, think of doing an ACH transfer to a software client, and from there it exists only in your online wallet as fiat credit.

So that's the final problem to solve, and once we fix that, the rest of this program will fall into place:



That's a diagram of the parts of a fully P2P Distributed software client that is self-promoting. All you have to do is download this thing, keep it running, and it will make you money as fees for other people's trades. Like bitcoin miners, first adopters will get paid the most often, so it's sure to take off and spread worldwide easily like bitcoin did.

How would a transaction work? I've charted some of that process too:



After the trade is matched on Mary's machine, both Tim and Bob send their currencies to Mary's escrow wallet, and as the 2nd of those is received, she sends out the traded currencies MINUS HER FEE from both. (This amount could either be hard-coded in, or a user setting like the BTC transaction fee.)

All of that will be done hands free, and Mary's client will send out a "stop" signal to all clients for those traded amounts. An API feed can also be generated for anyone to graph all of these trades from the viewpoint of any particular client.

Anyway, long post I know, but I hope we are starting to get on the same page here. THIS is a P2P exchange, and of course it's not the only way to do one but no one else here has mentioned anything else at all that meets all of the criteria for a truly distributed P2P exchange before.

Again, if you can think of more necessary criteria for my list above, please add it here.

Now let's get this thing made!

[What services and products would you like to see created for Bitcoin?]

Let's pretend that you happen to be owed favors by every venture capitalist in Silicon Valley.

You could say to any one of them: "I think X service would do really well." -And they'd pony up any amount to help get it started.

Question: What services and products would you like to see created for Bitcoin?

These could be services and products that you feel are needed to help bitcoin grow and prosper, be they for endusers, merchants, miners, or anyone else that touches bitcoin at all.


I'll start with two ideas:

1. A completely decentralized, peer-to-peer replacement for Mt.Gox. A full exchange with charts and API feeds and the works, but completely unstoppably decentralized so no more DDos attacks and no more FinCen nonsense.

2. A tiny, pocketable, indestructible, cold storage computer. Like a slimmed-down Raspberry Pi that exists only to run the Armory client and could never crash or be smashed. Every hoarder would have one of these in his or her safe, so these could actually be pretty profitable to produce.


Add your ideas to the pile! If this thread gains traction, perhaps the right entrepreneur will see one of these ideas or more and make them happen!

[1. Invent a decentralized Exchange.]

Now that we're all agreed that Mt.Gox must not be the Single Point of (massive) Failure in Bitcoin, we've got to have a serious discussion.

Sadly, I don't see any exchanges on the horizon that can actually handle the volume that bitcoin ALREADY has... Even after we lose the tire-kickers today, the runner-ups like BTC-E and Vircurex are spotty and never even had a real-time API for a decent trading platform to track.

...And if one of them or a new exchange did step up to fill Mt.Gox's shoes, then we'd be in the same boat again... One point of failure that'll be DDossed into similar problems.

It's really pathetic if you think about it. Bitcoin's future is going to look extremely dim to professional analysts after today.

So how do we SURVIVE this re-occurring problem?

I only see a few options: (Please add more if you can think of one!)

• 1. Invent a decentralized Exchange. (The perfect option, but it would be extremely challenging; likely a challenge for Satoshi himself!)

• 2. Find a way to somehow equally split the use of exchanges. (Decentralize membership. It's cheating the free market, but hey, it might work!)

• 3. Go back to being a sub-$1 bitcoin that only the most freedom-minded people would want to own. (And somehow keep it down there artificially.)

• 4. Approach a Wall Street exchange and convince them somehow to take us on. (Pandora's box 2.0)

Options 3 & 4 sounds scary as hell to me, so it appears that all the best options require that we find a Decentralized answer of some sort; and it's likely going to take another coding genius to do it.

Until that occurs, Bitcoin will always be way too volatile for most people to take seriously as a currency, because today's events could happen at any time, and even Bitpay can't save anyone from serious financial pain when this occurs.

Help us Satoshisan Kenobi, you're our only hope...

[trustmark service]

Forgive me if this has been done already, but I can't find any mention of it.

Most Libertarians I talk to instinctively know that what free markets desperately need is a trustmark service, kind of like the BBB or at least like a simple Consumer Reports magazine.

This would be a great business for someone who's ready to make it their fulltime job. A travel budget and a simple website/graphics design would be your only startup costs. Perhaps a little bit of an advertising budget if you want to scale fast. (Need cash? Use BitcoinStarter or Coinfunder to start this biz up!)

The main purpose of this business would be to check out & provide accreditation for other bitcoin-based businesses, so bitcoin consumers can know that said business doesn't run off with their coins.

Start out with the big guys like Bitpay and Mt.Gox, manually review them for free in person and pay special attention to their finances and safety procedures. Publish your accreditation criteria on your website and put a form on it for all bitcoin businesses to ask for accreditation themselves. Once they've passed and you can show on your website how safe this business is to do business with, you give them a cute little badge for their website that shows consumers that they are accredited by your company.

After you've bagged a few big names, start charging all other bitcoin-based businesses what you need to keep your business running. A couple different levels of service (1 time and annual) would help them decide to pay you easier.

Your success will depend on assuring consumers that you have thought of all the ways that each business out there can harm them, and show why in each instance you've accredited, that they are safe.

I would do it myself, but I've already got a business to run... But the bitcoin community desperately needs this service, as witnessed by the recent bitcoin companies that flit off into the night, taking trust in the whole bitcoin community away with them.

Possible names:

• Cointrust
• Bittrust
• BitVerify
• Accredicoin
• Coinsafe

Get your mark, get set.... GO!



P.S... Don't worry about competition reading this post... There is room for competing trustmark services in this market, and different countries and languages all have room for a dominant bitcoin trustmark service too.

I just put together a new rig with a pair of MSI Raedon 7970s, and I want to run the latest Ubuntu linux for them to mine with.

But everything I've seen here shows me AMD or Saphire drivers for 7970s, and I don't have a clue how to find the right ones... The MSI site doesn't have a single instance of the word "ubuntu" in it's search results!

I admit, I'm a total linux noob,  and have no idea what a sudo is... But if I could just find the right drivers and SDK to get these cards recognized in Ubuntu 12.10, I should be able to figure the rest out from some of the other directions on this forum.

Thanks in advance!
-Luke