Tell me about it... this is completely golden material, I cannot stop laughing. 

Gold is still being mined from the ground. If you support gold now, clearly you are in favor of inflation.

There are window builds (exe's which I don't think require Python?)... but I think MultiBit might be a better choice because it still requires a blockchain (although much more compact).

Yes I seem to be experiencing the same thing, as are many others, so I would like to know if it's normal.

I don't recommend eWallets for noobs because they aren't really as safe as using a desktop client.

But wouldn't it be better to recommend MultiBit or Electrum for noobs rather than the Satoshi Client?

It seems to me one doesn't really need to acquire the whole blockchain unless they have a real reason.

It's simply becoming too large too quickly imo. Let the heavy duty servers deal with it.

Not everyone needs to have the Satoshi Client and a full blockchain stored locally.

Most of the info is available on my website bitfreak.info

Glad you found it helpful.

Well I don't have a particularly good speaking voice. It's just easier to use a computer voice... although I know what you mean, it is a bit boring. Nothing I can do about that though. Not everything needs to be colorful and exciting. The information is what matters.

I just created an informational bitcoin video. Hope you guys like it.

BITCOIN [R]EVOLUTION

Yes but now it's slowly rising again isn't it? Any unbacked currency is based on trust and faith, market scares like that are to be expected. If bitcoin hadn't risen in price so much is might not have survived that sudden crash. What would happen to your EnCoin if a similar crash were to happen? You might possibly be able to stop the price rising, but you'll never be able to stop it from falling suddenly, because it all comes down to trust and faith. So it's still going to fluctuate in one way or another. Why not simply leave it alone and let it fluctuate in the way it wants to instead of trying to manipulate the money supply. In the end there's no real point to it as far as I'm concerned.

No the argument is that the Government should furnish its own money instead of essentially lending it. In the same way that bitcoins don't represent a debt to anyone, a Government fiat currency like the Greenback also doesn't represent a debt to anyone. They are both a type of fiat currency not backed by anything, not even backed by debt. The only difference with Bitcoin is that the quantity is limited, where as the Government can always print more Greenbacks when they want to. The idea is though, that the Government is lot more accountable than semi-private entities like the FED which can issue secret loans and debase the dollar when ever they want. It would be harder for the Government to debase the dollar because of that accountability, they would only issue more Greenback notes when ever they feel the economy is growing to keep the value stable (which is what the FED should be doing), which would essentially be the perfect type of fiat currency according to our friend Etlase2. However, I still think a limited quantity currency like Bitcoin is better, it just seems more natural to me than continuously creating more of a currency. The value of Bitcoin should just be able to naturally fluctuate in the same way other limited quantity commodities fluctuate, it doesn't matter if it isn't perfectly stable. It just seems more natural to me than trying to mess with the money supply to enforce some stability where stability might not even be necessary. I still don't see what is truly wrong with a deflationary currency.

Article has been updated to cover some of the issues brought up so far.

Thanks for the help.

Well all the Bitcoins wont be mined until 2140, so it will be a long time yet before they stop being created. And by that point in time I'm fairly sure we'll be reaching that threshold, the growth in demand will definitely be a lot more evened out by that point in time. And even if it isn't, I still don't see anything particularly wrong with a currency which gains value slowly over time. That's why it is made to be so divisible, so it can handle such growth easily.

The benefit of Bitcoin over other fiat currencies is that it is decentralized and obviously that the amount of Bitcoins in circulation will be completely predictable. I can see why you might desire a money supply which grows as demand increases, but I simply don't think it's a must have feature.

And if you can manage to turn your idea into a reality I will certainly be paying close attention to it because it will certainly be different from the other alternative crypto-currencies we have at the moment. It might just be able to compete with Bitcoin.

I wasn't talking about the total debt of the Government, I mean the debt they owe from buying Federal Reserve Notes. You're right, interest isn't necessarily a problem, the real problem is that whilst the FED can print their notes very cheaply, the Government trades them debt equal to the full value of those notes denominations. There's absolutely no reason they should need to go through this whole convoluted process to give the illusion the notes are backed by something. Because the result is that the Government goes into debt for things they don't need to go into debt for.

I can't see how the currencies you mentioned were debt-based, care to explain that? I just read a little bit about your EnCoin idea, and it seems the main idea is to create a completely stable currency. Personally I don't see the point of that, it's like continuously printing more money, but carried out at "just the right amount" so that the value of the currency remains the same over an infinite amount of time. I don't particularly see the point, what is wrong with a deflationary currency? And actually, I don't think Bitcoin could keep deflating forever, because economic growth and demand can only increase so much before it reaches some sort of stable position and maximum threshold. It's not like the early-adopters are going to benefit forever. What happens if the threshold of demand is reached with EnCoin but the system is still capable of creating more units? Even if it's not profitable could someone still mine more to cause inflation?

But we are getting off topic now I think...

EDIT: never mind the striked out bit, I read you wrong

The FED trades Government bonds for Federal Reserve Notes which they print very cheaply. So it's actually like the Government is buying Federal Reserve Notes on credit. But the Government never really intends on paying that debt back, and the FED will keep printing more money for the Government when ever they ask for it, not to mention debt has no real intrinsic value. So in that sense it's basically a fiat currency, they can just keep creating more for no real cost. But you do have a point though, if I'm going to demonize debt-based currencies I need to explain more clearly why that is. The reason is the basically the interest, and the fact the FED basically owns the Government because all the debt is owed to them. The point I was trying to make is that there's no real reason to have a debt-based currency when it's easier and fairer to issue a currency directly, as with Lincolns Greenback note. I was using the Greenback as the sort of ideal fiat example. It was a non-debt-based fiat currency which worked well. Bitcoin is similar because it can be considered a fiat currency and it's not debt-based.

I'll need to think about these points some more...

That's a good point. I didn't really think of it that way. I wasn't really trying to downplay the positive qualities of a gold backed currency, I was just trying to show how well a fiat currency has worked in the past. It's a bit confusing trying to explain how bitcoin is like a commodity such as gold but it's also a fiat currency not backed by anything. I hesitate to refer to bitcoin as a 'digital gold', even though that's pretty much what it is.

I posted that video so that I could basically start off by presenting the typical argument against fiat currencies, and to show how their whole argument is based on excessive printing, leading to inflation. The point obviously being that when excessive printing is taken out of the picture fiat currencies are a perfectly plausible solution.

It seems I'm going to have to rethink my approach a little bit after considering your statements...

I guess I need to explain how bitcoins are not technically backed by anything of intrinsic value, but they get their own value from their desirable qualities and usefulness as a decentralized currency. I'm mainly trying to deal with that fiat stigma which moans about currencies being created out of thin air with no backing.

I've just put together this essay on fiat currency and inflation for my website. I'm hoping some of you might have the time to read through it and analyze my arguments and logic and give me some feedback on it, such as pointing out any mistakes I may have made or giving me some suggestions to make it even better.

Bitfreak - Fiat Money

Cheers.

Something else I've also been thinking about: wouldn't bitcoin debit cards function in much the same way as a bitcoin bill? Instead of having the private key written onto the paper, it would be electronically stored on the card. The data on the card would be encrypted and the PIN could be the key to decrypt it. The public address would be written on the front of the card, and you could refill the card simply by sending funds to that address. The card would have no expiry date. The card would only be a one time purchase. Are there any projects like this?

edit: I found this but not sure how trustworthy it is.

I've thought a lot about this. Home made bills with a QR code is obviously the best way to do it, the holograms are just over the top and completely unnecessary imo. They're only good as a collectable item and exchange between friends, not for real world trade.

I remember a thread not long ago where some one had submitted some nice paper bill designs, can't be bothered looking for it though. It would be very easy to print your own bitcoin bills, so I think this is the best way to do it.

We have two main factors to consider when it comes to the price of BTC:

1) Change in the number of people buying/mining bitcoins (demand)
2) Change in the total number of bitcoins in circulation (supply)

An increase in demand results in an increase in price (assuming the supply is unchanged).
An increase in supply results in a decrease in price (assuming the demand is unchanged).

We know this much:

* The supply will continue to increase until 2140 and remain constant after that (apart from lost coins)

We can make this prediction:

* The demand will continue to increase for a long time but will eventually reach a relatively stable state

As the demand and supply increase, they help balance each other out. When I first started getting into Bitcoin I noticed that the price was steadily increasing, it went all the way up to $30 until it came crashing back down with all the hacking drama. This indicated to me that the increase in demand was slowly outpacing the increase in supply. Fear and speculation was what brought it back down. A lot of people probably cashed out and the demand went down.

Now I predict, the price will continue to slowly rise again (like it has been recently doing) as more people get back their faith in Bitcoin, and also as more newcomers start investing in bitcoins. It's clear to see that the price wont go down until the demand actually stops increasing or decreases, or the increase in supply outpaces the increase in demand. Wild speculation is the only other thing that will cause the price to come back down. And there is a lot of speculation when it comes to Bitcoin.

I think Bitcoin is designed so that even if prices are very volatile in the beginning, there's still incentive to use Bitcoin because people know the price is set to go up (long term), and it's worth while to get in as early as possible before things start to smooth out (when all the coins are mined and Bitcoin finds a solid audience). Bitcoin is still a rather new currency, but a large percentage of the bitcoins are already in circulation (over 8 million), which means demand is likely to outpace supply for a while.

I think that by the time all the coins have been mined, the price will be extremely stable because not only will the amount of coins in circulation be static, but the demand is also likely to be very stable by that point in time because it'll have a stable user base and if Bitcoin lasts that long the trust issues and rampant speculation will be virtually non-existent. A stable supply and a stable demand certainly seems to mean a stable coin in my mind. It's like Bitcoin is designed to be the currency of the future imo.

Update: I've extended the script so that it will also display addresses as QR Codes (by using the javascript library from ecdsa.org).

It also uses AJAX instead of meta refresh. It may be buggy in some really crap browsers like the PSP browser.

I also updated the OP with a screen and changed the thread title a little bit.