0.7 release?  With raw transaction capabilities?

Government jumping in?  Like trying to require social security numbers?  What would be the purpose?  Why waste the effort in convincing 51% when you only have to convince ~275 "representatives" to make it illegal?

Assuming it survives making it illegal, the government would then be pointless & powerless.

Although majority rule allows changes, they will most likely be minor.  Think DDOS vulnerability fixes & multisig features.  Major changes will most likely be easier by forking & starting your own currency instead.

This article really emphasizes the importance of keeping exchanges up & running as long as possible.  I honestly didn't think governments were this far along with tracking bitcoin.  I thought we were limping along as "they aren't even worth talking about."  If wikileaks can be cut off from all major funding sources then so can mtgox.  And a blow to one of the largest exchanges would definitely cripple bitcoin in the short term.  I'm hoping wikileaks was cut off a little premature because it wasn't really a business the government could play along with.  At least bitcoin gives everyone (including government employees) the ability to participate in sensitive activities.  This selfishness may be the only reason we will last long enough until it is too late for them to save the only reason they are in power to start with - money control.

That is actually a great way of looking at it.  I agree with you, there really isn't any difference other than the label.  And I've been struggling with this acknowledgement myself.  What if this is the best it will/can be?  Just like free market forces, we've reached a government equilibrium.  Although that might be the case, the government we know today was formed before the internet or bitcoins.  It is now possible for every citizen to have access to the material & vote on every issue.  It is also possible to hide your money in plain sight & use anywhere the internet is available.  I'm not sure how long governments will operate as we know them today if citizens have the ability to voluntarily defund them.  How long will the world allow so few people to make such important decisions for them?  I can't think of a greater precursor to a revolution.

There also would be less crime in an AnCap society.  No/less taxes & competition would make unemployment low & products/services cheaper.  Crime will never be nonexistent, but an AnCap society would remove a lot of the incentives to commit crimes.  The remainder would probably be handled w/ self-defense and community courts/jails.

I don't think i've convinced a single person that bitcoin is the currency of the future.  Then again, I'm a horrible salesman.  

To start off, it is really difficult to explain.  It took me a long time to understand the protocol & I'm still learning new things everyday.  Most of these people don't even know how bittorrent works, so there's a huge knowledge barrier.  And some even use bittorrent, so I guess knowing how it works isn't 100% necessary.  I doubt most of them know much about the Federal Reserve.  I'm convinced that if we build it easy enough, people will come.

Beyond understanding it is justifying its benefits.  I personally think the main reasons to join bitcoin are tax evasion, silkroad, and some speculation.  And based on the poll I conducted previously, even people using bitcoin aren't 100% onboard with the tax evasion part.  I even tried to hype up silkroad but was told it was too risky from a guy that used to have his drugs shipped to him.  At first, I tried to talk about how much bitcoin was rising in value, but that still didn't get any takers.  And it definitely didn't help when I told them about the crash last year.

To sum it up, bitcoin is new & complicated.  There are still several hurtles to overcome.  Some people aren't going to be convinced until walmart or mcdonalds starts accepting & paying in bitcoins.  There's definitely a huge chicken & egg issue, but I think it is progressing at a reasonable pace.  Changing money is a tough sell no matter how easy or complicated the solution may be.

Now is not the time to put more than you can risk losing into bitcoins.  As others have said in this forum, there are many things that could make the price plummet again.  Mtgox is still one of the largest trading websites.  A bad piece of code was found the other day.  If anything happened to it, the value would definitely fall.  Silkroad is one of the largest merchants.  If the it went down, that'd be another reason for the price to fall.  There are still too few merchants & exchanges to keep the price stable.  Don't get me wrong, I doubt any of these things will destroy bitcoin.  But there is no telling how long it will take until we get better/more exchanges & merchants to help stabilize the market.

If you really wanted to steal from a vending machine, you could just break the glass/plastic.  And $1 sounds like a small amount to go through the effort of double spending.  The benefits of using bitcoin probably outweigh the risks of double spending.  Like not having to collect the money, people stealing the money, using fake money, adsorbing credit card fees, etc.  And since you are most likely connected to the internet anyways, the vending machine could use an intermediary to take the risk of double spending.  Or only take mtgox or bitinstant credits for hopefully a smaller fee than credit cards.  Lots of options.

These 2 guys should run for office.  I've never listened to 7min of a more vague & clueless lecture.  People get paid for this?  Obviously I'm getting underpaid.

I propose all unused bitcoins after 60 days can be re-mined! jk...

1. Possibly.  More value for me.

2. Sure.  That's why escrow services w/ mediation exist.  But having the option is nice.

Stoll got one thing right.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1995/02/26/the-internet-bah.html

Although I didn't previously know, it appears Google did this in 2005.  But I couldn't find any other examples with large companies, so it appears to be pretty rare.  So sounds like for the most part, the number of shares stays pretty set unless it is split (which is no different than moving the decimal point in bitcoin).  I still think this is a good example of a successful deflationary system that carries similar characteristics.

Stocks are deflationary.  Aren't we told to keep our money in stocks to counter inflation & grow our money for retirement?  So if everyone is hoarding stocks & they are deflationary, how come they haven't failed yet?

Whether you like it or not, Silkroad is definitely one of the driving forces of bitcoin's success.  It's one of the few merchants worth the hassle of exchanging dollars to bitcoins to purchase from.  And if you are worried about it stunting bitcoin's growth, don't be.  There are many benefits of bitcoin that overshadow its black market use.  Besides, the slower it grows the better.  The devs need time to work out the kinks.

People don't know how anything about the dollar/euro, but still use it.  As far as they are concerned, someone gave them dollars for their hard work which they can use to buy other goods & services.  Same thing will happen with bitcoin.  Eventually, business will start switching to it to avoid taxes, etc.  Then people will start being paid in bitcoins for their hard work which they will use to buy goods & services.  The best we can hope for is the sooner the better. 

And by then, tools will be developed to make it easier than cash.  Maybe a smart card that you can add your private key to (but not read).  Then you can swipe the card to read the merchant's address & payment.  During the swipe, the smart card generates a raw transaction from the supplied data & your private key.  Finally, the merchant's reader captures the raw transaction, verifies, and transmits to the network.  That way your private key is never exposed.  And you could have that be your low-balance daily/weekly address.  When the balance gets low, you could temporarily add your high-balance address to the smart card and swipe on your home computer to replenish your other address.  Now you've mimicked that card Canada just came out with or the ones colleges/cafeterias use.

You could also turn it into a 2-swipe process so that you can verify the merchant's requested payment amount.  Or add a salt to the card.  Then every time you want to make a transaction, while verifying the merchant's requested payment amount, you add your 4 digit pin to the smart card.  The smart card adds it to the salt & sha256sum it into a private key.  Now your private key is hashed from something more secure than a 4 digit pin.  If someone steals your smart card, they will need the 4 digit pin.  If they see you type in your 4 digit pin, they wouldn't have access to your other accounts without knowing the salt.  Technically they could brute force the 4 digit pins, but by then hopefully you realize your card is missing & move all your money onto a new smart card with a new salt.

BCT?

I'm not sure how saving money hurts an economy.  Whether bitcoins are increasing or decreasing in value, I still have to purchase food, water, etc.  Even for luxury items, I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference.  If prices are rising, I may believe they have plateaued & choose to buy my boat now.  If prices are falling, I may believe they will continue to plummet so I want to buy my boat now.  Assuming bitcoins increase in value forever because they are deflationary, there are other factors that will make me want to purchase the boat.  Summer may be coming, the family would really enjoy it, or I'm about to retire/quit my job, etc.

There are also huge benefits to hoarding/saving.  The inflationary nature of dollars force people to make risky investments to fight inflation or risk their savings becoming worth nothing.  So people either lose their money in risky investments or decide to spend their savings now before it buys even less.  Now none of these people have any savings for retirement or hard times.  Maybe a deflationary currency is exactly what we need to spur savings & eliminate the need of so many welfare programs.


I agree with CoinCidental that it is easier to hoard bitcoins right now because there's not much to spend them on.  And if anything this is driving the price up which is giving bitcoin more attention.  But just like the bubble last summer, there will be a value where people will stop hoarding & start selling.  Is this creating a lot of volatility now?  Sure.  Will this get ironed out?  Absolutely.  The higher the price, the more attention, the more merchants start accepting bitcoin, the less volatility there will be.  This is all part of the chicken & egg situation new ideas face.

Good point.  Just seems unlikely.  Why join a anarchist community that agrees to accept a certain currency when you can create/join one that doesn't require you to accept any particular currency?  A community will naturally gravitate to a particular currency regardless.

Why would an anarchist community sign an agreement to forcibly accept certain currencies?  Doesn't that defeat the purpose?  What if something better than bitcoin comes around?  Doesn't sound much better than our current system.

I understand that the point is to build up infrastructure, but that infrastructure is being built now.  And it won't take as long as VISA or MasterCard or AMEX to setup.  Any business can accept bitcoin now if they have a smartphone.  Bitcoin still has a ton of development ahead.  By the time these anarchist communities form, bitcoin (or something similar) will be the dominate currency w/ a well functioning infrastructure.  A decentralized currency will be the only reason they form in the first place because the state will have lost control by then.

I was using the FED & government interchangeably because both are required to accomplish the abilities I listed above.  Without the government, the dollar would be worthless.  We would have switched to a non-inflating currency a long time ago.  The only reason bitcoin is succeeding is due to decentralization.