I am very aware of what a secure idea it is to use pass phrases, but when you can't quite get yours right, and have 5000 Nxtcoins locked in your phone - what do you do?

is there any way to find the private key and convert it back to the secret phrase - so I can write it down?

Its the Android wallet, but not sure what version, but guess its auto updated to the latest one!

Don't need any told you so responses - just some practical advice! ;-)

Here is a simple test to highlight how few people have a practical knowledge of bitcoin.

When did you first hear about the internet?
When did you get your first email address?
When did you send your first email to someone you didn't know about something you wanted to buy?
When did you first use the internet to chat to someone you didn't know?
When did you first use the internet to do something with your local government office?
When did you first buy something online, and how much did you spend?

The answers will give you an idea of how long it will take before bitcoin is mainstream.

I am an Uber geek, and a reasonably old one, so I've been online since the early 90s - but my relatives are different, and that is who you ask the questions above to!

We need to get to at least 30% of the population being able to answer yes to a bitcoin version of the above before you can say its reached mainstream!

BTC-e have just switched on their OKPAY service again for a few days, to allow people to move their cash into their exchange, before they switch off the service for another 2 months.

We are seeing all the various financial services throughout the world getting their cogs spun up to make the movement of fiat to a bitcoin exchange so difficult that without already having your cash in the exchange, you can't take advantage of any movements in value.  If you do want to move your fiat into bitcoins the whole process is taking longer and longer - last time it took me 2 weeks.

I don't expect US users to note how difficult it is for the rest of the world, but at this rate its going to be impossible to get enough bitcoins / altcoins into the mainstream to gain enough traction to make any success happen.

Anyone else having this problem, or am I just looking in the wrong place? - BTW, I really don't like MTGox, I don't trust them, and to only use that service to get your bitcoins seems to defeat to object of having them!

Being a netbook user, I never contemplated mining as a way to get bitcoins and altcoins, but now I am!

However, I can't work out if its not cheaper to trade coins rather than buy the hardware to do the mining.

For instance, a decent graphic card and the motherboard hardware is going to cost a good £500.  That is around 200 Litecoins, but its going to take a year to mine that many coins with that sort of hardware.

I can't see how it isn't cheaper to just buy the coins and trade them over a year to make more money than mining!

Am I missing something here?

Thought it was time we had a frank discussion about what Bitcoin and the altcoins, are good for!

If we want bitcoin to grow and find a mainstream use, it needs to be highlighted as being better for something than any other way of doing it.

For instance, if I want to buy something on line, I can use bitcoin, or paypal or even a credit card over email, but each method has its own strengths and weaknesses. What we need is a list of services that bitcoin can do, where its strengths outweigh the strengths of other methods in doing the same thing.

The problem so far is that the only thing that bitcoin is fantastic for is to buy and sell outside society!

You can buy drugs and other illegal services and you are not going to get traced.

We need some other services in here where bitcoin not only shines, but the service is wholesome and a benefit to society!

The only thing I can think of is to fund an on-line business in Central Africa!

What do you think?

I've been playing http://coinbomb.com/ for the last few days - its a really cool mix of bitcoin trading, gambling and social media - and its a really clever way to introduce bitcoins to the general public.

Before anyone starts thinking its just a piece of self publicity - it isn't - I had nothing to do with it, I've just been playing it.

It just strikes me that games are the great way to introduce ideas to people in a way that isn't threatening  - and that is exactly what bitcoin needs.

What do you think?

Is coinbomb.com the answer we have been looking for to take bitcoin to the next stage, or is it missing something?

Would love your feedback!

I have noticed how a pattern emerges between the value of BTC and the value of other crypto coins - especially at the moment with LTC going a bit higher because of some news involving MTG - maybe!

Anyway, The practice of increasing a price through buying a small quantity at increasingly higher price, has been illegal in the money markets since Noah was a boy.  However, Bitcoin is the wild west!

This post isn't an instruction guide - its to collect advice from everyone on how to spot such manipulation.

First thing I notice is that the price is going up while trade volume is very low. 

Secondly, you will have people buying a handful of coins at strange valuations and this continues until you get to a certain price where a load of orders are waiting to be processed.

Anyone else notice a few indicators of price manipulation?

Just advertising my services.

Buy bitcoins from NWBitcoin.com


I use localbitcoins.com - I use Escrow, and only sell max of 2 BTC to first timers

Look forward to hear from you!

[$40]

I am very interested in seeing if its possible to forecast the value of these alt coins acurately, seeing we now have a guide in the way that bitcoin has gone sky high?

I don't want to do a poll - I was just hoping to find out why people think that their valuations are accurate?

For instance:

Litecoin will be $40 by the Dec 31, 2013 because it should have enough spending infrastructure to justify that price.

PPCoin will be at $5 by the Dec 31, 2013 because it has the potential to be more useful than bitcoin, but still won't have the infrastructure to prove it.

DVC might be worth 1c by the Dec 31, 2013 because enough projects will be using it to make it easier to imagine how a niche crypto coin would work.

What do you think?  Are these similar to what you think, or do you have different ideas?

Please share!

I found this site - don't know if its been highlighted before, but its interesting to see how wide Litecoin adoption has been.

https://www.fxbtc.com/s/btc_ltc

Not sure how the prices match up to the likes of BTC-E but all competition is good!

Anyone used it?

Hope this isn't a April 1st deal!

Read that MTGox are about to add Litecoin to their exchange - its half the reason that Litecoin is going through the roof today.

Can anyone confirm if this is true?

With MTGox support, Litecoin could go from $1 to over $20 practically overnight!

Bitcoin is rocketing away, but I am wondering if Litecoin is likely to do the same eventually?

I know there are differences in both coins, but the basics are the same.

We had that little spurt a while back when Litecoin went up in value over 3 days or so, but is the growth similar to what happened to bitcoin?

Would love to know if I can expect a $100 Litecoin in 2015!

Has anyone got any graphs of both currencies starting at the same time to compare?

I'm feeling a little dim - I put a bunch of coins into a litecoin brain wallet, but never worked out how to take them out again -

I assume I have to import the public and private keys into another wallet.  However, I am not too sure how to do that - as I can't find an import facility.

Do I need to do this by hand?  Do I need to edit a wallet config file or something?

What is the best wallet to use for litecoins?

thanks in advance!

If we are looking to bring bitcoin to the mainstream, it has to be easy, safe and advantageous for the public to use.

We already know, as geeky early adopters that there are plenty of reasons for using bitcoins rather than fiat, but it would seem to me that we need more!

Imagine the scene, a drive through selling Mc SubKings. They take the order, they accept the payment of 1.1 btc deliver the food, and then wait for the confirmation - for 40 minutes!  Even if they used Litecoin, there is a 2 minute delay - that's longer than it took to make the fast food!

For someone who doesn't have ideological reasons for using crypto coins - it sux!

So, what we need is a way to remove that doubt from the transaction.

There isn't really a technical solution I can offer, however, what if this is where business enters the equation?

What if I set up a company to insure the confirmation against fraud, double spending, or whatever might not let the transaction go ahead as planned?  We could then combine the advantages of credit cards (piece of mind) with the advantages of bitcoin (etc, etc) in a nice and consumer friendly package.

Does anyone think this idea has any legs?

Does anyone know anyone who could help me put this idea together?

Would love your feedback!

Bitcoin to grow by 4000% in 14 minutes!
Cash to die out in 6 weeks!
If you don't have bitcoins, you will be poor forever!
Bitcoins will remove all evil in the future!
etc
etc!

Raising people's expectation to a level which is unreachable is a sure fire way of making everyone turn against you!!

I'm noticing the same types of extrapolation that were around in the mid 90s in relation to the internet. How it would take over the world, and the first people in would be the winners - and so started the stupid dot com boom (linked with that other stupid idea, the millennium bug!) that brought a whole industry to its knees in the start of the Century!

What do we have now?  The internet has changed the world, but the world is still here.  We buy more online, but we now spend more money in Coffee shops! We download our music, but spend far more time actually seeing the live music. But we still have to visit the corner shop to buy bread - just like my grandad did! Some companies have grown from nothing - others had died a death!

The reality is that bitcoin is still very, very unstable - compared to credit cards, and little bits of paper.  There are currently as many bitcoin transactions in a day that the credit card companies deal with in a few seconds. Bitcoin is sometimes having problems dealing with its daily amount!

The reality is that if bitcoin survives this gold rush insanity, its going to have to find a niche that keeps everyone happy - or risk lots of government intervention.  After it does that, then we will see some growth, maybe the sort we see in the picture.  But its going to take a lot of time.

We are reaching a tipping point soon where bitcoin is either going to become respectable, or the currency of the tin foil brigade.  If its the latter, the brand will die, regardless of how technically good it becomes.

What do others think?

Do you care?

Are you just in it for the big bucks - even if they just turn out to be a mirage?

We all want to see bitcoin succeed but what is the best way of measuring if it really is growing?

Using the value of a bitcoin vs Fiat is flawed because of speculation driving prices.
Using market cap is essentially the same thing
If we look at trading volumes we see a few spikes, but generally, its never more than 20k coins traded an hour - more like 1k per hour.
If we look at blockchain transactions its only about 20k a day
If we look at general awareness, as in marketing measurements, we could use Google, or Twitter, but its not very substantial.
We could count press releases and the number of times they get published
If we look at the numbers of members of this forum, its not peaked more than 3k and that was in 2011 - although there are far more forums than their used to be.

So How do we measure if bitcoin is taking off in the real world, or if its just the activity of those who are interested that is increasing?

Bitcoin is meant to be a decentralized system where anyone can do business and nobody is in control, but - it doesn't seem to be panning out like that.

MTGox has the vast majority of exchange transactions.
The official bitcoin price is based on their average. 
We also have MTGox being courted by Wall St and suddenly the bitcoin price goes nuts!

For a decentralized system, that is an awful lot of influence on bitcoin from one location. 

While I know that anyone could set up their own exchange, it does seem to me that being centralized is benefiting bitcoin.

How does this work with the whole ethos of nobody being in control of bitcoin?

Is it important to the success of bitcoin or is a little bit of 'rebellion and dangerous out of control' decentralized PR just a hook to catch initial interest?



BTW, This is a serious question!

I really can't afford more than a couple of BTC at a time - and I only discovered them a few weeks ago.

However, I can afford a load more LTC.

What I am most interested in is how LTC values against the Dollar.

It just seems to me that the recent spurt in LTC prices was in addition to the bubble that is happening with BTC vs the Dollar.

So does that mean that you get twice the growth by buying LTC?

Having used the search facility a bit, all the discussion on lost coins seems to be focused on its only a bit, and it will make the rest more valuable so its not an issue.  However, I think there is a problem with this thinking.

All physical currencies have a percentage that are lost.  Its generally around 2-3% per year, and mostly effects the smaller denominations.

If we have a situation where we know there will only be 21 million coins, eventually, all the coins will become lost.

As things were, when you had so many coins that thousands are needed to buy a pizza, then that's when even the biggest denominations are worthless enough to lose.  You also have the issue with losing wallets and that whole learning cycle that early adoptors suffered.

As the mainstream start using the coins, they too will lose a few coins as they get used to the security needed to not lose this new currency.

Assuming a 2% lose per annum, within 20 years, half of the total number of coins will have been lost.

Does anyone else see this as a problem, or is the idea that because the coins can be split down, there is still enough currency to be used by everyone on the internet - for ever?

Bitcoin has the potential of becoming the preferred choice of currency for the internet.  But, is all this speculation, mostly by Americans, going to limit its appeal to other, less well developed countries?

The internet is full of language based preferred websites, why would a currency be any different?

Are we going to see Bitcoin being the currency equivalent of Facebook, where world domination is dependent on the base language being English?

Where the rest of the world use the equivalent of Qzone or Orkurt and currencies don't mix or develop?

Would be interested in getting your opinions