That is correct. And we still have an enormous amount of work to do. I want one million people to take this class
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1. What kind of control will you exercise over your investment. Will you engage in operations, strategy, others? For a grant, it would be for the production of peer reviewed research thus none whatsoever. For an X-Prize, I fund a trust that has triggers to give the money to someone who "wins". These would be based upon BTCLuke's criterion amongst other factors. I probably wouldn't be the only party involved in this investment. 2. Have you ever bought a business / invested in one? Yes, and those affairs are private as are yours.
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That it's a terrible idea But making Bitcoin more valuable for everyone is a good business strategy and one I suppose people here would get behind regardless of how much they dislike me.
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The formula I'm using is based upon my current holdings in bitcoin. If I was to divulge it, then I'd be instantly telling everyone the approximate size of my holdings in bitcoin as soon as I make an investment and state my expected return.
If I invest in someone's project, then it will be in the form of a grant without any equity or return expectation. My returns come directly from the appreciation of bitcoin. Sorry mate.
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Lol, there really isn't one because I'm basing my ROI on the impact a P2P exchange would have on the price and stability of bitcoin. It wouldn't be possible to measure this outside of saying it has a significant impact.
Let's change the question to asking what factors would it take for the value of bitcoin in USD to increase an order of magnitude? First, I believe bringing several millions of people into the ecosystem would be a significant factor. Second, large business adoption would also contribute to this increase. Finally, stable exchanges that are beyond the scope of regulation and capable of scaling to any amount of transactions.
I firmly believe that if these three factors are properly implemented Bitcoin's value will be over 1,000 USD per coin. I have fairly sizeable holdings in BTC thus I have an incentive to see them through. Hence I launched the Bitcoin Education Project to bring millions into the ecosystem. I've been discussing with many people in the community how to bring large corporations into the Bitcoin ecosystem. And the last piece is the P2P exchange. I'll guess each have an equal part and thus are worth 1/3 of the order of magnitude price increase.
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For a venture of this nature, I'd like an ROI around 200-300 percent of capital at risk over a 24 month period.
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I think we share in that frustration, which is why I launched the Bitcoin Education Project. Do you happen to know the leadership of the local exchange?
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I understand that. I think everyone would like that.
How long will it take to develop, and how many opportunities will be lost if we're not effectively using the tools that already exist while we're waiting for that to be ready? Well perhaps we can help each other. Are you the founder of this website?
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Convince every Bitcoin owner you know to open an account on Localbitcoins.com and sell Bitcoins there.
Even if you want to accumulate Bitcoins it's fine to sell - set your price formula high enough that you can immediately buy more BTC via Bitinstant, etc. to replenish what you sold. If you're willing to hold on to a pool of fiat you can add an advertisement for buying BTC as well to help liquidity in that direction.
Almost every person I've sold to on Localbitcoins has been a first time buyer. That means that I'm getting the opportunity to make or break their first impression of the Bitcoin economy. It also means I've got a growing list of potential collaborators and customers for future BTC ventures in my local area. This is where the major growth area for Bitcoin adoption is - away from the keyboards and out in the real world. If you want exponential growth in your BTC holdings, then you should help achieve exponential growth in the user base.
It's not a perfect solution, and it's not as exciting as yet another computer science project, but it's a good enough solution that will do a lot of good right away and avoids the opportunity cost of waiting to act until a perfect solution is available. I want a button I can click just like the bitcoin-qt client that allows me to connect with a swarm of peers and do stuff with them without any outside entity save an objective protocol telling me how to do it. Such a button would effectively ensure bitcoin is forever immortal.
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The nobel prize is an outdated metric to partition the academic world into a hierarchy over betters. It serves no purpose nor benefit to the Bitcoin ecosystem. Instead market adoption and remove to central banks will be the final metric of success and validation for Bitcoin. Besides, they gave the peace prize to someone who strapped bombs on kids to kill israelis. The award is forever compromised in my opinion. maybe the bitcoin community should start their own awards/prizes, mainly for development and new coins/protocols/programs etc, recgontion for some of the best ideas from within the bitcoin community where there is presently lots and lots of people working tirelessly on their ideas and inventions to make this new economy of ours work/work better, maybe give them out at the conferences, maybe btcs as prizemoney too , maybe bitcoin itself and satoshi could be given some "posthumous" award, or become the name for the biggest "breakthrough" achievement of each year, forget nobels, bitcoin should do its own thing !!! I like the idea of a Satoshi prize that awards some jackpot of money to someone for doing something the community needs. Like developing a P2P exchange or bringing a certain amount of people into the ecosystem. It could be community funded and have a list of objective criterion.
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Can you please specify the rate of return you expect to get on your investment and over what period of time? It is incredibly difficult to determine VAR in something related Bitcoin and it is entirely possible to design a P2P exchange without any profit to a central hub. I may assess my ROI based upon the effect having an exchange like the one BTCLuke described would have on the value of my current bitcoin holdings. For example, this exchange would functionally remove most of the liquidity issues resulting in actors like Amazon and Paypal likely entering the market. Such an increase in demand could drive the price per BTC up at least an order of magnitude. As the initial investment is measured based upon its effect on the price of bitcoin, my investment would be proportional to my holdings of btc. To answer your question, I would view an investment of this nature as a gamble. I would be entirely ok with losing everything for a chance at seeing this work. Thus I may consider an X-Prize style investment with a set of criterion and the first person to satisfy them would receive the prize.
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+1 So true! The whole problem is using national currencies in the first place. Trade Bitcoins for Goods & Services and vice versa. Abandon the banking system altogether.
And how will I pay my taxes? Bitcoin will not achieve its goals without a P2P exchange due to the central points of failure being regulated and controlled by the fiat barons. We need a decentralized way to move into and out of bitcoin at any time and any place without oversight. This ensures Bitcoin will be adopted by players like Amazon and Facebook and ends the reign of central banks.
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How much money do you have available for this investment? Seriously, give a rough estimate in USD or BTC I'd be happy to discuss investments over email or in a PM. Investment would be proportional to return and likely around low 6 figures for the angel phase. Is there a single threat on this forum you contributed and didn't yet mention these fantastic courses of yours? Probably not because the course is community built and forever free. I will continue to solicit feedback, contributions, marketing support and donations for the Bitcoin Education Project until it has reached its goal of educating one million new people on Bitcoin. I can't accomplish that alone and it is in everyone's best interest to bring well-informed people into the ecosystem.
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Luke I read your post and I have a few comments.
First, Mary is the agent of escrow between Bob and Tim. How would one prevent Mary from simply stealing both of their funds? Second, should distance be the only factor in determining who gets to be the agent of escrow? All networks require some form of maintenance, perhaps you could adopt a more robust metric combining network distance with contribution to the network's health? Third, how do we verify Tim's holdings in fiat? Even if we could do so, then how does one avoid double spending without a global fiat ledger? Finally, wire transfers are not instantaneous for example and thus the party who acquires Bitcoins would have access to the money far faster than the fiat party.
One could resolve the fiat/Bitcoin access lag by implementing a system that sends coins to a new address with the private key encrypted by some method (say AES). Split the key in two parts with one going to both Tim and Bob and keep the other part in the global transaction ledger until the fiat transfer has cleared. Once it clears the other half of the key gets sent to Tim. Thus Tim cannot access his funds until Bob can. Should Tim's wire transfer fail, Bob gets the other half of the key to access his original Bitcoin.
I agree that IOUs are no sufficient because they have to be exchanged at some point and such points violate criterion number 1. Overall, this post is significant and exactly what I wanted to generate in my original thread.
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Summary: Retarded idea. There is currently no way to implement a p2p exchange. The problem is there is no way to move fiat. Thanks for your kind words.
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Lol, the purpose of the thread was to ask about the community's interest in P2P exchanges. It definitely has worked. That said, fucking nice thread Luke. Seriously its exactly what I was looking for.
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This honestly doesn't make any sense at all. Why would anyone try to discredit ripple? This community isn't filled with low info retards. They would just be wasting an enormous amount of money.
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The Twins have a long way to go before they are legitimate players. There is a storm coming in bitcoin land and it's going to be fairly harsh for wannabes.
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