What is going on in the minds of the Chinese government? Why are they "allowing" Bitcoin to grow and grow? If they are trying to control capital flow, then why not make it difficult to put money into Bitcoin? Of course they don't want to attract more attention to Bitcoin so they wouldn't outright name/ban it imo but they seem to be doing nothing since the early talks over a year ago.

Of note and a bit interesting, this guy Cliff High predicts millions of Chinese wanting into Bitcoin this year using web bots (complicated to explain but if nothing else, fun to follow)! lol. He did call this current move up months ago. Mentioned in this summary report from a YouTuber https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Agi4kug7UJA Related, What is going to happen when even a small country starts getting its reserves of Bitcoin???

On the flip side, is allowing all the Chinese money into Bitcoin not a GREAT hedge against the Hegemony of the USD?
I mean if they inflate the price of Bitcoin with their inflated Juan and they control a large amount of Bitcoin, isn't that a great tool to hold value for the country (or anyone for that matter)?

Its About Sharing

You can follow ICO's coming here: http://www.icocountdown.com/ (Any others to follow ICO's on?)

I was excited about LISK and then WAVES, maybe a little bit of the DAO. Nothing on the immediate horizon excites me, but there are some interesting ones listed for later on.
If you see anything coming, would be interesting to know why...

Its about sharing

Hey, I have just a few Physical Casascius and Titans Bitcoins, and would rather have a little bit more BTC, so I figure I will sell them.
I am in Germany, anyone know of a place that does grading or is there a "community" so to speak, of a graders association? (Meaning, can I go to any grader who abides by standards.)
I'd like to get them in the sealed clear plastic boxes I see others using with a description and the grade on it.

Any idea on the cost to get one graded?

Any suggestions and such is appreciated,
IAS

Hey guys,

I'm looking to start spending BTC but I don't have a smart phone. My purchases have all been online but I thought I really need to contribute to BTC by more than just the occasional talk or such.
So, I am going to buy a cheaper smart phone as I don't need tons of features, really will use it for the occasional call, business, few apps and BTC. Rather have a mini than full sized as well.

Is a semi older phone like the Galaxy S3 mini a good phone to get? - I'm talking for the money. Is the security good enough considering I don't think they do any major Android updates for it? (I would only keep .5 BTC or so in the wallet to lower the security risks. (Web based or App, I lean towards the latter for use of ease.)

I also understand that there is security built into the hardware (chips) so is a more expensive (newer) phone better in that regards? I'm talking of Trusted Execution Environment and they spoke about it on the recent BTC game podcast (and hence it got me thinking.) - https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/the-bitcoin-game-13-rivetz-and-trusted-computing-with-steven-sprague
I see small plans for like 13 Euro a month (total), 250-500mb data, 100 minutes of calls (more than enough), 2 year contract.

Thanks in Advance,
IAS

ps - I'm in Germany, what is the best app/site to find places to spend BTC at in your city?

About my favorite video on the subject. Short (5 minutes) and Sweet...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98

In light of the recent Federal auction applications which have shown potentially huge buyers lined up for SR's Bitcoins,
I was wondering if Bitpay is doing the same thing? I mean why not charge a 5%-10% premium on coins
collected to parties who agree to it?

This article (3 weeks old) states that Bitpay does $1,000,000 of business a day. That is roughly 1700 bitcoins a day. http://www.coindesk.com/bitpay-now-processing-1-million-bitcoin-payments-every-day/
That is a lot of Bitcoins, and I'm not sure how many of those on a daily basis Bitpay could collect and sell directly
to investors, but for the same reason as the SR coins (Not moving the market), I imagine some LARGE investors
would want in. I imagine Bitpay must at least be doing this in part. I wonder how much it helps/hurts the BTC price...

Anyone?

Thanks,
Its about sharing

This looks like it, maybe why we are once again going up after the big drop off.
This might really start things rolling.

http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-apps-in-the-app-store-2014-6

It looks like Apple has updated its app developer guidelines today to allow for Bitcoin apps.

The new clause under section 11.17, which was flagged by folks on Twitter like investor Bill Lee today https://twitter.com/westcoastbill/status/473555837982900226, reads:

Apps may facilitate transmission of approved virtual currencies provided that they do so in compliance with all state and federal laws for the territories in which the app functions.

That sounds like Bitcoin!

I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the gold and silver markets and how they have been manipulated primarily through naked short selling of puts. They are also “managed” via sales from central banks. If you are curious here, just do a search on GATA. The last thing a government wants is a rush to a new (or old – gold) currency.

Bitcoin is something different, but don’t put it past governments, central banks, large institutions, intelligence agencies, etc. to work together to “control” cryptocurrencies from interrupting their monopolistic control of monies.

One of my concerns is that a large US Exchange (e.g. SecondMarket) will become the next GOX (too much control) and other exchanges will follow or be heavily influenced by its price. We need to have some form of transparency as the GOX debacle has shown us. If a new and big exchange comes out, what is to stop infiltration due to “National Security”? - Price manipulation would ensue and we would not be allowed to have real price discovery. Not to pick on SecondMarket, but if it is on Wall Street, big money is going to go there (maybe making it a leader of sorts) and it will be ripe for manipulation.

One thing that might have happened at GOX was naked sales (virtual) to drop the
price down. What is to stop this in a new and large exchange with the intent of “controlling” the bitcoin price? SecondMarket even talked about adding an orderly bitcoin price by having buys go through at pre-determined times in groups or the like (to orderly match buyers with sellers, so as to cut down on volatility). It seems to me we need adoption and not management here.

There must be accountability of private keys. We must be able to ascertain that buys and sells are real and not virtual. In gold terms, we must in a sense,
“take delivery” of our “assets”.  The technology is there for this. Do not be overly confident that the market will adjust. Bitcoin is the only free market left, that I am aware of. (Harder to control a decentralized market that is, in a sense, outside regulation.)

Clearly, decentralization of the exchanges would stop one exchange from leading others.

They can’t outright defeat bitcoin but be sure they will want to “manage” it.


Its about sharing

I found an old thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255572.0 but nothing that aids me in it.

I am running Ubuntu Linux 13.10 and under NAT port forwarding I have port 8333 on the LAN forwarded to 8333 "Public Port". I set a static IP using the MAC address in my router. When I check to see that port is forwarded using http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/, it actually says it isn't open but I've heard that can happen. Just checked again and it is actually open, when I set it up initially it never was.

Anyway, it starts making connections and I've seen it go to 46 or so. Then when I check the next day, without fail, it is back to 8.

Under BitcoinQT "Network" - UPnP is checked (default) and not the box below. I haven't touched any settings.

Is there something else I need to do with port forwarding on my router?

Any ideas here? I really want to support the network and have the computer mining 24X7 anyway, so it is perfect as it is always on.

I am not a sysadmin (ex IT guy though) and am a bit wet behind the ears these days. If you have suggestions, please try to put them in noob terms (names of tools, links, etc). Much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
IAS

It certainly has been interesting: Chinese and Russian news, more TV/Mainstream FUD, the GOX Debacle, the huge DDOS attack currently underway - where does it end? What is next?

It is looking more and more like BTC is some form of Torrent on steroids, drugs and lets not forget LOVE, and make no mistakes about it, that is troublesome.

I wonder if "they" try to pump a coin with potentially infinite coins in order to attract attention to it and then just suck from the btc system?
"Buy up" or rather raise the price with their endless money, get the news to talk about it, etc. Steer via Greed?
I think you know which coin I'm talking about. LOL

What methods might they* use and how can we prepare for it?

*They being institutions and their alphabet minions (That is close enough to spelling it out for you. LOL)

Lets  not lose sight of where we are. Do you smell victory? I do...

[pending]

I just started running Electrum on my desktop computer (moved the Bitcoin QT client to a linux box to act as a full node).
I sent 7 small transactions (around .002 btc) to 7 paper wallets (spreading the word!). I saw all 7 transactions listed as pending (I believe) and next time I checked
5 had disappeared and 1 of the 2 remaining removed the name in the description field (recipient) and replaced it with the public key (which I changed back.)
I sent one after the other (well, maybe 1 minute or so in between.) I wasn't charged of course, the btc fractions are back in Electrum.

I started again and slowed things down and noticed the first one got a confirmation, now working on the second.

Is there a 3rd party involved with the send (e.g. an Electrum Server) or is the Electrum wallet actually handling things?

thanks,
IAS

In a manner of seconds, things scroll off the first page. It makes finding even relatively new topics difficult. In the short time it took me to write this short post, the post I had just read is 3/4 of the way down the page!

There are many threads here relating to new Cryptos, their creation, support, software, etc. They need their own sub-forum.
Their are threads just posing questions in general, they should not be grouped with the above.
And perhaps a couple of other sub forums as well, ideas?

Thanks,
IAS

[Market Cap, ratios and number of coins:]

I started this examination while looking at other Cryptos (Quark in particular) as BTC and LTC are #1 and #2. And the price "appreciation" of LTC relative to it's increasing supply became concerning.

Market Cap, ratios and number of coins:
BTC has roughly 12 million coins so far with a market cap of around $9 Billion. (Todays price of $764) Prices take from coinmarketcap.com
LTC has roughly 24 million coins so far with a market cap of around $600 Million. (This is 1/15th the size of BTC) Todays price of $24.76
QRK has roughly 247 million coins so far with a market cap or around $27 Million. (This is 1/321 the size of BTC. 1/21 the size of LTC.) Todays price of .11

Over the next 3 yrs, BTC will create 1.3 million coins each year, and then for the next 4 years will create 657k new coins per year. At the end of 2019 it should have around 18.5 million coins.
Over the next 2 yrs, LTC will create 10.5 million coins each year, and then 5.26 million coins each year for the next 4 years, then 1.3 million coins the next year, so at the end of 2019, should have 66.9 million coins.
Over the next 6 yrs, Quark will create roughly 6 million more coins. So, that should put us at around 253 million coins at the end of 2019, or there a bouts.
* - I didn't pick 2019 for any particular reason. I just went out 6 years from now. Play with this if you have any reasoning.

At around the end of 2019 we have this many coins and a Market cap (with todays price just for comparisons sake, feel free to play around here.):
BTC 18.5 million coins. $14 Billion
LTC 66.9 million coins. $1.7 Billion (1/8 the price of BTC)
QRK 253 million coins. $27.9 Million (1/500th price of BTC, 1/61 price of LTC)

Notice how much LTC jumps in value (3X it's current value, 1/8 the price of BTC - up from 1/15th) as it is growing so quickly in supply. Now perhaps this just means the price of BTC needs to appreciate more than that of LTC, hence we use the ratio quite often. Can this keep up?
Comparatively QRK "depreciates" as not many more coins are coming online relative to it's initial amount and also relative to the ratio compare to the other 2 coins. So, all other things being equal, QRK should appreciate quite a bit.
One can clearly see the aspect of having a coin mostly mined already really changes the equation regarding evaluation is concerned. It's growth model is very different. How do we interpret this?

Network Strength:
BTC's Network is 11.5 Million GH/s Blockchain.info
LTC's Network is 89 GH/s (Scrypt, We can't compare these numbers directly)
QRK's Network is 678 GH/s (Again, not sure how to compare these numbers, but even more complicated here) Taken from Vircurex's website
(There are other coins with HUGE hash rates on SHA256 e.g. - NMC 8 million, IXC and DEV 4+ million)
Can anyone add something regarding this? I really would like to get an idea of how strong QRK's network is, this is a telling consideration (eventually anyway).

I don't get this, if there is a suspension on bringing money into Chinese Bitcoin exchanges, how is China up there with Gox regarding Volume? http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/
And, China is #1 with BTC purchases, just watch Fiatleak. I've had it going for a while and right now it is showing 37,500 BTC buys in CNY and 8600 in USD. http://fiatleak.com/
And of note, when the news was first made a couple of days ago, fiatleak showed 1 BTC bought. Then yesterday it just started going crazy again.

Ideas?


IAS

I thought to post some "BTC Bear Food" to quiet the bears down a bit. Can be anything you like: Charts, Stories, Anecdotes, etc.

Here is my contribution. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

[Wiki Leaks]

Living in a capitalistic world, we understandably want to have a certain standard of living and want to obtain more. It is programmed into us.
But the thing I don't understand, is that people brag about BTC being a disruptive technology, but I don't really see but a scarce few people talking about using their BTC's to help others, nor to further the disruptive cause, which helps all of us. If you haven't noticed, the world is sort of at a crossroads and needs all the help it can get. If I suddenly had millions of dollars from BTC, I can tell you that most of it would go back to the BTC cause. No doubt about it. No sense in investing in a house as the neighborhood is burning down.

I'd like all of you just to consider what BTC represents and how each of you can help to make the world a better place.

We have a great Crowd sourcing sort of phenomena in front of us regarding BTC wealth. Let's use it and continue what BTC started.
A new form of Philanthropy is among us and growing.

Some ideas as far as "donating" some BTC's, lets say 10% or more of your wealth (or more if you don't need million dollar homes), includes (add to the list):

Wiki Leaks - They are creating a lot of good disruption these days. They sort of started things in a sense.
Causes - Anything that helps people e.g. Sean's Outpost
Drug Reform - The war on people, I mean drugs, is an utter failure. It is slowly changing however.
Disruptive technologies - BTC development, dark wallet, investments in disruptive technologies in general, etc.
Banking reform - to help further change the corrupt system
Lobby-ism reform
Government Reform - At all levels
Political activism causes
Open Source Projects that help our cause
Edan Yago creating a cryptographic currency political zone - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=208333.0


Its about sharing

Not sure if anyone noticed it but you can change your order at Butterfly Labs (for free) to "Mining by the GH". Jan/Feb start date. (I know, don't say it.  )
https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage-new-products/1-gh-cloud-hosted-bitcoin-hashing-power.html
You can essentially transfer the value of your order to hosted Mining at the rate of $10.83 per GH. (No fee)

This is about $1 more per Gh than their 300Ghash/s card and $2 more per GH than their 600Ghash/s card.

I know there are better prices out there, but if you are trapped in your order it might be better to take a chance here. Depending on your shipping fee, perhaps to have 8X the GHash/s for the same price hosted.
This is also a savings for others who are out of the US as you won't have to pay any customs.
E.g. - For me, it is just over 450 bucks shipped to Europe (plus another 100 in customs, so say 550 total for a 7Ghash/s Jalapeno) or 42 or so Ghash/S hosted. I'll take that chance.

Just an idea and curious on what you all think,
IAS

Hey Guys,

Wonder if some of you knowledgable with Power Supply's can answer some question for me (and our GB) please?

I'm going to be having a Drill Bit mini plane with 4 boards coming in a few weeks. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266235.0

It is not real clear which power supply we should use as the boards use only the 5V side. A 4 board (8 chips X 4) setup is going to use around 80 - 100 or 120 watts (normal to overclocked) and need around 20-25 amps.

A few problems we are looking at:
1 - Not all mid range (450-650w) PS's give the needed amperage (Cutting it close maybe). And when you go up above this range, I'd imagine the 5V efficiency takes a dive.
2 - Not all mid range PS's give more than 100 watts at 5V. (Again maybe cutting it close)
3 - Not sure if running all the 5V and next to none of the 12 V (maybe a fan here) is inefficient or the like? (I don't see this in reviews as who runs just the 5V channel of a PS?)

Maybe a custom wired 5V only PS like this would be better (and just use a 5V fan), if one could do the wiring? http://www.meanwell.com/search/sp-150/default.htm
(This is a 70 buck or so PS, pretty much the mid range, price wise of PS's in general.)

The GB leader mentioned this, if it helps:

All the 5V pins are connected in the ATX. Standard ATX24 pin layout. Recommended to connect to all 5V pins to support the current.
All grouund pins in the ATX connector are connected. Recommended to use all ground pins to connect.
Estimated that each 8 board will consume up to 5A max, unconfirmed. Will need to test with hashing.
Using a 5V 25A power per miniplane you should be good but need to test the hashing first.
Running at lower hash rate will reduce the power consumption.
Any stable regulated 5V supply should be OK. So its OK to have a converter going from the 12V from an ATX to make 5V for the boards.

Once the test units are hashing we'll know the power requirements exactly, but the above is pretty much a close range.

Any ideas guys? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
IAS

This thread went over very well over at the BFL forum.   https://forums.butterflylabs.com/post-sales-customer-service/4943-how-about-upping-ghash-s-units-compensate-delays.html
Want to get your opinions here. Josh made his presence felt but customers came out quoting him and basically put him and BFL in their place.
The behavior of BFL and Avalon (Yifu here) is hopefully not a sign of things to come.

KNC Miner is not even late but because of the hash rate jumping up, they are, according to them, upping the units significantly.
Other companies, a few, are offering forms of insurance (discounts, more Ghash/s, etc.) in exchange.

I think our units, many of them if not most, will not even break even with the continued delays.

I see Jalapeno's have only shipped 2 days worth since the end of August, this is right before the big jump in hash/difficulty is expected. The September promise is clearly gone.
The outsourced assembly, well, what can we say? Where is it? Not to sound hard, but this is unacceptable at this time, unless they plan on catching up in 2 weeks.

Some form of compensation to benefit both customers and BFL is really in order here.

I understand that BFL can't keep up with orders as it is and more Ghash/s wouldn't help them, but some form of compensation needs to be dealt out. And, with due respect, I don't mean a discount on a Monarch or the like.

BTC Helper

[And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world.]

This is something we (now) have to consider, if you already hadn't. In the interview a few weeks or month back on Let's Talk Bitcoin with the computer scientist who discovered the low entropy of the android based random number generator that was generating 9 bits (and not 256, if I remember correctly) of entropy he stated he found 2 points of weakness and it was VERY suspicious to him.

Snowden released some more information and what I'm seeing is that SHA256 is indeed secure but the weakness would be in implementation and such. The NSA is becoming a Saboteur of implementation it seems.

The latest article regarding this (Sept 5) is here:
Latest Snowden revelation: NSA sabotaged electronic locks
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-nsa-introduced-vulnerabilities-into-encryption-snowden-reveals-20130905,0,2218463.story

Snippet:

The latest Edward Snowden-powered exposé published by the New York Times, ProPublica and the Guardian is, to me, the most frightening. It reveals that the National Security Agency has moved beyond its historic role as a code-breaker to become a saboteur of the encryption systems. Its work has allegedly weakened the scrambling not just of terrorists' emails but also bank transactions, medical records and communications among coworkers.

Here's the money graf:

"The NSA hacked into target computers to snare messages before they were encrypted. And the agency used its influence as the world’s most experienced code maker to covertly introduce weaknesses into the encryption standards followed by hardware and software developers around the world."

I'd be disappointed if the NSA hadn't figured out how to do that hacking trick. But adding vulnerabilities to standard encryption techniques? That's just making the job easier for hackers to make sense of the scrambled data they steal.

I wish I could add my help but I'm not a programmer. Hopefully bringing things like this to the attention of those capable of discovering these "flaws" will allow for their correction.

It's About Sharing