I created 10 million powerball entries for tonight's drawing and put them in a file. The sha256 of that file is the private key to 1rn4UCAmX5vK4JdRtEZr84EPiBX8nzVoj, which I deposited 0.0001 btc as proof the file existed before the drawing.

I'll check my numbers and release the private key if I win (along with file location for proof).

Odds: 292 million to 1, so I'm still a huge underdog.

[Goal:]

I'd like to host the first NCAA pool with a contestant that has a perfect entry. The amount of entries needed should be in the hundreds of billions. Here are the details as to how I am trying to make it work.

Would you participate? Way too complicated? Advice on how it could be done better? For those unfamiliar, google "Perfect NCAA Bracket" or something similar.

Goal:
* I want to make history by hosting the first pool that has a contestant enter a perfect NCAA Men's basketball bracket.
* It should easily be the largest NCAA pool in history
* Last year Warren Buffet offered $1.0 Billion for a perfect bracket, and no one made it out of the first round.
* www.perfectbracketsearch.com

Incentives and cost:
* I'm putting up 2.000 BTC as an incentive for a perfect bracket (12yoo2eYjBLoqxqGw1BCM3BJ7uox4TT4hc)
* I'm putting up an additional 1.000 BTC to split among all entries that go the farthest (by round, must be perfect after first 2 rounds to qualify)
* Cost to enter is 0.0001 BTC for 1 billion entries (100,000 entries per satoshi). Paying 0.0001 BTC for 1 billion entries ensures random entries are economic losers.

What you win:
* Private key to 12yoo2eYjBLoqxqGw1BCM3BJ7uox4TT4hc. This private key will unlock all entry fees as well, as they are a "child" of this address.
* Furthest in tournament bonus.
* All media attention to being the first one to ever produce a perfect bracket!

How to enter:
* I can't host a website with 10+ billion entries
* Create a .txt file in very specific format with up to ~20 million entries on your own computer (file must be less than 250 MB compressed)
* Using EC math, prove this file exists by sending at least 1 satoshi per 100,000 entries to the public key of 12yoo2eYjBLoqxqGw1BCM3BJ7uox4TT4hc + sha256 checksum of file.
* I'll pay for the first few billion entries, just post checksum and how many entries are in it. Please no random files.
* post your checksums and transactions as well as how many entries

To claim a prize:
* entry filesize must be be less than 250MB (compressed). This is about 20,000,000 entries
* entries must be paid in full (100,000 entries for 1 satoshi)
* SHA256 of file must be sent to a specific address, and must have 1 confirm in the blockchain by tipoff on March 19th (approximately 11:00am ET)
* MUST POST any live entries 24 hours before the start of Sweet 16 games (March 26th). The whole point of this is the fun of hitting a perfect bracket in a pool for the first time.
* MUST MAKE AVAILABLE for public download your picks.txt file for verification of checksum 24 hours before tipoff on April 4th.
* May be asked to post bounty before I start downloading GBs of data.
* multiple winners will split the pot.
* no winners means it will roll over to 2016


The FORMAT of your .txt
* hex representation of the first 60 games (000000000000000 - FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
* Final 3 games are "E,W,S,M"
* Standard bracket (1v16, 8v9, 5v12, 4v13, 6v11, 3v14, 7v10, 2v15)
* Working down, assign '1' for top team victory, and '0' for bottom
* East round 1 (00-FF)
* West round 1 (00-FF)
* South round 1 (00-FF)
* MidWest round 1 (00-FF)
* East round 2 (0-F)
* West round 2 (0-F)
* South round 2 (0-F)
* MidWest round 2 (0-F)
* East round 3 and West round 3 (0-F)
* South round 3 and Midwest round 3 (0-F)
* East round 4, West round 4, South round 4, Midwest round 4 (true/false) (0-F)
* round 5 participant (E, W, S, M)
* round 5 participant (E, W, S, M)
* OVERALL WINNER (E, W, S, M)

Using 2014 as an example, the perfect bracket was:
DFDF95F39AB22E3EME (or DFDF95F39AB22E3MEE)

The 2013 tournament perfect bracket was:
9F89F6DF828C66FMSM (or 9F89F6DF828C66FSMM)

How to calculate the address to send to:
* the public key to 12yoo2eYjBLoqxqGw1BCM3BJ7uox4TT4hc is...
>>> 0454F43C007F5CFB3BD991FFABE00CC93B94DC93160E474821DD82869BA070CA2A9A51A58986D42 02B887B9E5449A0D47F9CA97FB7399A0FA05CA134329A2F64F3
* if the sha256 of your file is: BD510018E0510F136F0DE9C299E811432895B2615A2F4B82F60163C55F2CF98F
* using bitaddress.org, combine these two in "vanity wallet" to get: 18X4c1R8ueziGCENuxTxJPHiSFbHnaxZYn
* Once in the blockchain, your entry is valid for prizes!

Is a BTC bounty to recover the "lost" Lois Lerner emails legal?

- The person recovering would be anonymous.
- The content of the emails would only be seen by those in the investigation, not asking for them to be published.

Has a 3rd party transaction fee business been discussed?

A business keeps a public database of transactions. If one of the tx are included in a block, a bounty is paid to the newly generated coin address. Miners can choose to look at this database or ignore it, but they will get the bounty regardless.

* The 3rd party now has an incentive to include as many tx as possible, and could pay less for small blocks, more for larger ones - enough to offset the cost of not including them (not sure if the economics of that work out).
* could negotiate with MtGox / BitPay for bulk rates on transactions, customers wouldn't have to worry about fees sending or receiving.

In the thread How to use fiat currencies for Bitcoin offline transactions? I proposed an idea, which is to send coins to a special address using the serial number on a $1 US dollar note. To release the coins, you need 2 keys. 1 key is the serial number (public info), and another is one that I own (private). Nothing is written on the note. Bitcoins could then trade off-line using the counterfeit security of the USG, with me as a trusted party. To redeem, you must send me the physical note and another address to move the coins. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=305590.msg3443357#msg3443357)

As a resident of the US, am I asking for trouble? I would not exchange any fiat for bitcoins, just use the inherent security features of US fiat. I'm keeping the $1 as fees. I wouldn't issue the bitcoins, that is done by the person first holding the $1 bill and the address is calculated by him.

DeathAndTaxes's recommendation seem relevant in: Online Wallet/Holding Services FinCEN registration? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=322821.msg3456848#msg3456848
"If I were creating a e-wallet service that did not exchange virtual currency for EITHER 'real currency' or another virtual currency I would not register at this time"

However, using the term "3rd party" means regulation in my experience.

[0.80 btc]

Looking for someone to send me a $75 gift card code from https://www.fantasyindex.com/store. Will pay 0.80 btc, and you must send first, or escrow with john k for 0.75 btc (i'll give him 0.05 extra).

PM please.

edit: got it. Thank you

After verifying my bank account at snapswap.us, I was able to get $100 into ripple. I then bought dividendrippler btc ious, which I then redeemed in my client. Pretty cool - business got done with 2 independent gateways.

I have not tried to redeem USD ious to my bank account with snapswap yet.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/video?clipId=8905459&topVideoCatNo=237186&autoStart=true

Saw this on my local news last night. She starts out by saying "It can be a safer way to shop on line".

You have to search for it, but William H. Gross mentions bitcoins. If it wasn't Bill Gross, I wouldn't post.

Joking about a certain Cognac:

Even in a financial meltdown I thought, you could use it in place of cash, diamonds, gold or Bitcoins!

http://www.pimco.com/EN/Insights/Pages/There-Will-Be-Haircuts.aspx

I moved some coins into Armory last night. Saw the tx come in with 0 confirms. Satisfied, went to bed. This morning, I check the tx in blockchain.info, 74 confirmations. But it doesn't exist in Armory.

I close/open a few times to no avail, waiting about 5 minutes for the scan each time. Looking at the list of addresses in the wallet, I see the address I sent to, but it shows balance of 0:

https://blockchain.info/address/14aRxDLA8kCcTKMC8zMHNjoCbKbqH2qWfL

I've followed Mish for years. Don't agree 100% with his constant deflationary calls, but otherwise I find him worth reading. I had found it odd he never had a post about bitcoin, until today.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/04/mish-interview-with-bitcoin-jesus.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MishsGlobalEconomicTrendAnalysis+%28Mish%27s+Global+Economic+Trend+Analysis%29

[Summary:]

Trading is done on the ripple network, with DividendRippler.com creating the asset. This is DividendRippler.com first asset offered. Symbol is ‘TBL’ in ripple, the issuer rNF5qUPCcge7uSStj6oKuoQs38BaM8362s.

TBL page at DividendRippler.com: TBL
Offering document: https://dividendrippler.com/static/assetfiles/TBL/TAABL_0001.pdf

Summary:
TAABL.net is an anonymous lottery, with the site taking 1% of all games offered. Because TAABL.net earnings have been mostly retained since opening, there will be large dividends to start. Please note these dividends are inflated in the early stages of TBL as a new asset offered by DividendRippler.com

Dividend Schedule: 25% of all retained earnings plus monthly earnings.

Retained earnings at IPO (2013-04-28).
BTC: 11.5183
LTC: 32.6999
TRC: 48.8970

Dividends should be announced a week before end of calendar month, with payments made first week of each month. First payment will be in early May 2013.

Minimum first payment (collect all 3 dividends per interest right):
BTC: 11.5183 * .25 = 2.8796, or 0.028796 per IR
LTC: 32.6999 * .25 = 8.1750, or 0.8174975 per IR
TRC: 48.8970 * .25 = 12.2243, or 0.122425 per IR

Look in this thread for dividend schedules and updates. Post or PM me on how to get onto the ripple network using DR.


edit: added link

Giving away ~$5 worth of BTC/LTC/TRC (mixed, our choice) to the first 100 replies. Ripple haters welcome.

To participate:

1) Set up your ripple address on the DividendRippler.com site.  DividendRippler OP
2) Post/PM your ripple address after registering on the site.
3) We will send specie payments of BTC / LTC / TRC to the issue addresses. I'll reply with the tx(s). Total will be ~$5 worth. Our choice what to send, you get what you get.

edit: ** Forgot to mention ** You will need to trust DividendRippler.com for an amount greater than what I send. If this happens, you'll need to flag the server to try it again by sending an XRP.

Do whatever you wish with the coins - trade them, deposit in bitstamp, or just withdraw them. To trade them in ripple, the issuing address will need to be DividendRippler.com (rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX). But payments should just ripple through the system, if a path is found.

We'd like to get responses about the user experience, and of course any bugs.

To be eligible:
* Must have at least +32 posts to qualify.
* Only 1 giveaway per ripple address per user.

** To clear up some confusion: We have called this an 'anonymous' gateway. By anonymous, we don't mean a mixer. Anonymous means no username & password needed to use the gateway.

[The gateway is simple]

I’m pleased to announce DividendRippler.com (DR), an anonymous ripple gateway. The gateway’s function is to create and destroy ripple IOUs on demand. No logins or passwords. Not described in this post, but DR will also create and maintain custom listed and unlisted assets by users (link)

“Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” – Albert Einstein

The gateway is simple:
•   DR ties one of its own BTC/LTC/TRC addresses to each ripple address. IOUs are created and sent to your ripple account when specie payment comes to these addresses.
•   Similarly, DR ties your BTC/LTC/TRC addresses to a ripple address. When an IOU is sent to DR’s ripple address (using the assigned destination tag), the IOU is destroyed and specie payment is made to your client.

First time setup:
•   Add the contact ‘rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX’ to the ripple wallet,  named “DividendRippler.com”
•   Trust DividendRippler.com for the currencies in the amount you wish to use. (BTC, LTC and TRC).
•   Enter your ripple receiving address (r…) into the search bar on the DividendRippler.com website.
•   Enter BTC/LTC/TRC addresses you wish to have specie payments returned. You don’t have to enter all 3 at this time; they can be added / edited later.
•   Clicking ‘register’ will lock edit functions for 5 minutes. During this time, you must send 1 XRP to rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX?dt=1 from the ripple address requesting changes. If this is not done, the edit will fail.
•   Take note of your account number (destination tag), this is what you will need to get specie payment.

Issuing an IOU:
•   Send specie payment to the address created by DR for the given ripple address. These addresses will not change, so feel free to give it out to others to receive payments.
•   6 confirms required for all chains.
•   Once confirmed, the IOU will be issued in the ripple address.
•   If there was not enough trust for the IOU, the status will change to ‘error’. Give adequate trust and then flag the server to try again by sending 1 XRP to rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX?dt=1. You won’t get your XRP back.

Redeeming an IOU:
•   Send the IOU back to DR’s ripple address (rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX?dt=<account number>) will redeem it.
•   Using the destination tag (?dt=) directs DR on where to return the specie payment.
•   No fees to send the IOU back to DR. Keep this in mind. If the receiver of the IOU is going to convert to specie, it will be cheaper to send the IOU directly to DR.

Notes on trust
•   Only trust DR for the amount you are comfortable with in total balance. Consider the trust line can be exhausted at any time with no action by you.
•   No trust is needed to destroy an IOU. This means you don’t have to trust DR in order to accept specie payment from DR IOUs!

Fees:
Users will pay 3 fees when using DR.
1)   Ripple: While there is no fee to create an IOU and no fee to destroy an IOU issued by DR, fees are charged when IOUs are transferred to another ripple address. DividendRippler.com has set a maximum fee of 0.19%. The fees charged will not increase beyond 0.19% without a 30 day notice on the front page of DividendRippler.com. That said, DividendRippler is launching with a 0.15% fee, and reserves the right to lower or raise this fee without prior notice (up to 0.19%).
2)   When an IOU is redeemed, the end user will pay all chain fees if required. Example, destroying a 5.0000 BTC IOU may only return 4.9995 in the user’s client. This fee is payable to the network, not DR.
3)   The XRPs needed to communicate with the DR servers for setup and retries.

2013-05-20 Update: Chain fees are now fixed, which is the minimum fee requirement. DividendRippler.com will pick up any additional fees. BTC 0.0005, LTC 0.1000, TRC 0.0000, NMC 0.005.


Security:
•   Without giving details, we have created a redundant system. The web front end is separated from the server.
•   Please keep valid redemption address at all times. We may (or may have already) implemented a security feature which returns IOUs in an emergency.
•   The redemption addresses should only be pointed to addresses you control. If pointed to other address and coins are redeemed to your ripple account, specie coins will not come to your client.

Issues:
•   Transaction fees are paid by receiver as required. You can’t send an exact specie amount, because fees will be paid according to network requirements.
•   We have plans to implement a hard cap on the maximum fee, but currently not supported. If you need to move large amounts and don’t want to pay the fee, you will need to redeem the IOU and take specie payment. Remember you can also redeem the IOU with receiver’s destination tag to avoid fees.
•   While possible, it is not suggested to use DR to send specie payments to a merchant using your own ripple address. It is cumbersome, insecure, and exact fees cannot be calculated beforehand. However, please ask them to support ripple and DR IOUs!
•   DO NOT USE DividendRippler to play satoshidice or similar games where you need to control the sending address. It will not work.

If the markets are deep enough, here are some ripple tricks to try:
•   Try depositing BTC into Bitstamp without trusting Bitstamp.
•   Try depositing USD or BTC into Bitstamp with LTC. (Requires LTC markets – anyone?)
•   Send a BTC tip to my client, with whatever currency you happen to have at the time: rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX?dt=100000304
•   Get yourself a physical silver dime by sending me a DYM (PM me first is best).

>>>Finally, DividendRippler.com is in beta. We have done our best to keep everything safe and secure. We will try to make everything right in case of an error, but there are no warranties.

edited 2013-08-19 Added NMC

I am pleased to announce DividendRippler.com (DR). DR provides an easy way to pro-rate payments to asset holders, much like a dividend payment. BTC/LTC/TRC is currently supported. We are not an exchange; ripple is left doing the heavy lifting, such as trading and ownership maintenance.

DividendRippler is simple. When a BTC/LTC/TRC payment comes into the main asset address, DR calculates current asset holders and sends out pro-rated ripple payments accordingly. All information is public.

DividendRippler is set up to offer listed as well as unlisted assets. Listed assets will require a signed offering document. Unlisted assets won’t. Both listed and unlisted assets will require DR to create the asset.

Listed asset at time of launch:
TBL – The Amazing Anonymous Bitcoin Lottery (TAABL.NET) (rNF5qUPCcge7uSStj6oKuoQs38BaM8362s)

Trust:
•   In order to trade a DR asset, you’ll need to trust the underlying asset in ripple, such as rNF5qUPCcge7uSStj6oKuoQs38BaM8362s in the case for TBL.
•   Because payments are made in the ripple network using DR, you will have to trust DR’s gateway address for the dividend. This address is static: rfYv1TXnwgDDK4WQNbFALykYuEBnrR4pDX.

Fees:
•   DR collects no fees to issue payments. The user will face chain fees as required by the network. For example 1.0000 BTC redemption may only return 0.9995 BTC.
•   DR collects no fees on asset trading (because they are not technically DR assets)
•   DR does collect gateway fees if the BTC, LTC or TRC IOUs are transferred (currently 0.15%). Note ripple does not allow DR to charge a fee to redeem its own IOUs, so specie payment can always be taken free of charge. More information on the gateway is here.
•   Initiating a new asset will have fees, currently unknown. While in the initial testing phase of DR, the fee is waived.

Have an asset you would like to offer? While DR is in beta, we’re offering to bring a few assets public over the next month. If you’d like to have your asset considered, please PM.

[Note]

>>> Note: This post is for entertainment purposes only. It is not intended to be a complete portfolio solution.

Hope you don't mind me sharing this in the bitcoin forums. I've traded stocks/commodities/futures most of my life, and often asked where I believe the price of stocks/gold/bitcoin are headed. I'll always have an opinion and love to talk markets, but making money involves strategies, and managing those strategies.

Here is one. I applied this strategy to the Dow Jones Industrial Average for the last 90 years (April 1923 - April 2013). 12 trades a year, each one enters the market (long) with $100,000 and held for a week or so. The results:

Number of trades: 1058
Average trade net profit: $636 (0.636%)
Winning trades: 666 (62.95%)

Overall, you are in the market 37% of the time, flat the other 63%. The 90 year performance:


Skeptical? Here is the opposite strategy. 12 trades a year, you are long the market the 63% of the time, but flat 37%.

Number of trades: 1058
Average trade net profit: -$0.15 (-0.00%)
Winning trades: 567 (53.59%)

Here is the chart of the 90 year performance:


The super complex strategy:

Buy stocks on the 27th of the month, sell stocks on the 8th. The coded strategy gets in on the first trading day after the 26th, and out after the 7th.

as coded in Tradestation Easy Language:

Code:

buyx=100000/close;
If dayofmonth(date)>26 then buy buyx contracts today on the close;
If dayofmonth(date)>7 and dayofmonth(date)<20 then sell today on the close;

A 0.636% 12 times a year is 7.9% annualized, while only being in the market 1/3 of the time. Conversely, the Dow Jones has risen from 101.1 to 14865.14 in those 90 years, or 5.7%.

You could tinker with the strategy. Adjust position size based on volatility, add stops, etc. Thanks for reading, happy trading.

As always, past performance does not guarantee future results!

Because I saw a lot of silver traded in the goods section, I introduced a currency on ripple called DYM (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149533.0). In a nutshell, it is 10 cents of pre-1965 US silver. The OP has the details, but 1 DYM is 2.47g of pre 1965 US dimes, quarters and halves (my discretion).

If you send me 1 DYM via ripple, I will ship to you one pre 1965 silver dime (free *US* Shipping). If you ship me 1 silver dime, I will issue you 1 DYM (You pay shipping).

A market has developed in DYM, mostly for bitstamp USD and XRP. The markets are somewhat thin, but I have received hundreds of silver dimes by people I've never met, in return for DYM. I currently hold over $250 (face) worth of silver currency from others.

The idea: if you want to sell some silver products in the goods section, you can accept payment in DYM, which can be more marketable and less volatile than dealing with the lag in BTC payments. For example, if you are selling a random peace dollar, you may accept 11 DYM as payment which you can then convert to BTC. If you have US silver currency, you can opt to send to me for DYM, and try to convert to BTC in ripple. If it fails, you can always get your silver back with free shipping.

I will also send pictures of your DYM so you can sell them on ebay! After the auction ends, you instruct me on where to send the silver, while you get paypal in return. Conversely, you can buy US silver on ebay and have it shipped to me for DYM.

Why am I doing this? I believe in BTC and ripple. I have been surprised by the amount of "aha! this is cool!" moments in my PMs. Feel free to test it out with a dime or two.

Note: Got this from Drudge

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/digital-currency-bitcoin-surges-through-200-mark/article10932113/

I don't know if I can do it. Logging out of bitcointalk, no quotes, no bitcoin emails please. Will not return until Sunday night at this time. Driving me crazy to check this every 2 minutes.

Last: 87.95 bid / 89.94 ask.

I introduced a close friend of mine to bitcoin in august of 2010. He followed up with me just an hour ago. Now I think I am the fool for not hoarding a massive amount of coins.

.
On Sat, Mar 23, 2013 at 10:23 PM, Tom ........ <t.......@b........> wrote:
Yes, I hung on to this email.
 
Chalk it up as my unbelievably largest miss EVER!
 
Ugh.

On Sat, Aug 21, 2010 at 5:52 PM, Tom xxxxx <txxxxxx@b.......> wrote:
> Let me think on it.  I have heartburn over pay pal.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tim s.... [mailto:t..@t.....]
> Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 5:24 PM
> To: t.....@b.......
> Subject: bitcoins
>
> Tom,
>
> You may think I'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs, but I have an investment
> idea for you. Spend $5 - $20 on bitcoins. Go to mtgox.com, deposit
> $5-$20 via paypal and buy as many bitcoins as you can. Right now they
> are about 6.5cents each. I think these things can be worth $100 a
> piece in a couple years. $5 will get you 77 bitcoins.
>
> If you do so, you'll also want to download the bitcoin software and
> hold onto these coins with your own wallet.
>
> Bitcoins might be the currency of the internet. People will be able to
> buy porn, drugs & gamble on the internet with these things -
> anonymously. It's open source, and I don't think any 1 govt can stop
> them. Only 21 million bitcoins will ever be created, and there is only
> 3.8M in existence now.
>
> I bought 3,000 of them. They were 2 cents about a month ago. Its a
> high risk/high reward, but I know you love the penny stocks, here is a
> much more liquid investment opportunity.