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781
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Is bitcoin network unique in nature - or could there be many in parallel?
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on: March 20, 2013, 08:12:23 PM
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That's true In a financial ecosystem completely removed from Bitcoin it's growth might behave similarly. Maybe on a space station...
But in the world that most people live in Bitcoin pretty well owns its niche.
Also true, but for now it's a very small niche, which is why I said this in my Solution to the Bitcoin Foundation post: So the solution is simply to promote at least one other cryptocurrency in the market (ideally there might be 2 for better distribution), and do it before Bitcoin gets a stronger foothold. The timing of TBF announcement is fantastic, because it leaves room in Bitcoin's life for competition to check it.
Your new blockchain would have to distinguish itself somehow. By reward structure, inflation rate, hashing algo... Etc. Or else simply get eaten by the great red spot on Jupiter that is Bitcoin.
Yes, and LTC and NVC do distinguish themselves. LTC substantially reduces block confirmation time among other things, and NVC adds proof-of-stake to proof-of-work for protection from 51% attacks. But my favorite difference for these two chains ( which are gaining traction) are simply that they are not Bitcoin. That allows for two important safety measures: an outlet to express dissatisfaction with circumstances surrounding Bitcoin; and a technical and economic backup if a problem arises with Bitcoin like the unforseen chain fork we recently experienced. |
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783
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: FinCEN addresses Bitcoin
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on: March 20, 2013, 02:56:00 AM
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I just had a thought on this line: In addition, a person is an exchanger and a money transmitter if the person accepts such de-centralized convertible virtual currency from one person and transmits it to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency. That last part "or other value that substitutes for currency" I think was included to refer to MoneyPaks, Amazon Gift cards etc., possibly other things too, but I think that's what they had in mind primarily. |
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784
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: FinCEN addresses Bitcoin
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on: March 20, 2013, 01:56:08 AM
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...
Maybe everyone who has ever sold a Bitcoin for money should start sending FinCEN their registration information and asking for guidance? ...
The following I think helps clarify. Excerpt from prepared remarks of Jennifer Shasky Calvery, Director, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network She gave the keynote in Miami this morning for today's session of the MoneyLaundering.com's 18th annual AML conference. To date, FinCEN’s analysts have explored and produced reference products for law enforcement on many traditional and emerging payment systems. These include: cross border funds transfers and correspondent accounts, money transmitters, online payment systems, prepaid cards, and mobile payments. FinCEN’s analysts then follow up this work by providing in-person analysis and training to thousands of investigators each year.
In addition to developing products to help law enforcement follow the financial trails of emerging payments methods, FinCEN also develops guidance for the financial industry to clarify their regulatory responsibilities as they relate to emerging areas.
In fact, just yesterday, FinCEN issued interpretive guidance to clarify the applicability of BSA regulations to virtual currencies. The guidance responds to questions raised by financial institutions, law enforcement, and regulators concerning the regulatory treatment of persons who use virtual currencies or make a business of exchanging, accepting, and transmitting them.
FinCEN’s rules define certain businesses or individuals as money services businesses (MSBs) depending on the nature of their financial activities. MSBs have registration requirements and a range of anti-money laundering, recordkeeping, and reporting responsibilities under FinCEN’s regulations. The guidance considers the use of virtual currencies from the perspective of several categories within FinCEN’s definition of MSBs.
The guidance explains how FinCEN’s “money transmitter” definition applies to certain exchangers and system administrators of virtual currencies depending on the facts and circumstances of that activity. Those who use virtual currencies exclusively for common personal transactions like receiving payments for services or buying goods online are not affected by this guidance. Those who are intermediaries in the transfer of virtual currencies from one person to another person, or to another location, are money transmitters that must register with FinCEN as MSBs unless an exception applies. Some virtual currency exchangers are already registered with FinCEN as MSBs, though not necessarily as money transmitters. The guidance clarifies definitions and expectations to ensure that businesses engaged in similar activities are aware of their regulatory responsibilities. - http://www.fincen.gov/news_room/speech/pdf/20130319.pdf - http://bit.ly/YpohMG <-- PDF Viewer in Google Docs. It sounds like they're interested specifically in exchanges. |
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785
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin and me (Hal Finney)
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on: March 20, 2013, 01:18:40 AM
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Hal,
Thank you for sharing! We Bitcoin enthusiasts are often captivated by those involved in the earliest days, and you appear to be right next to Satoshi! You will have a place in history like the first scientists sending messages over the Internet, or those first words spoken over a telephone from Alexander Graham Bell to Mr. Watson: "Mr. Watson — Come here — I want to see you."
You, sir, are Satoshi's Mr. Watson and I salute you! Thank you also for the work you continue to do.
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786
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: FinCEN addresses Bitcoin
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on: March 20, 2013, 12:54:55 AM
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Everywhere else there is a distinction between virtual currency and real currency. This line just says "currency". It is quite vaque in that it could say "if the person accepts (Bitcoin) from one person and transmits it(Bitcoin) to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of...value (that substitutes for currency)." Would that mean that every node on the network transferring bitcoins from one person to another is an "exchanger and a money transmitter"?
I think if it just says "currency", they are referring to the FinCEN definition of currency, which excludes "virtual currency". Yeah, because "currency" here means US and foreign currency. This is a limitation of 31 USC § 5312 (a)(3). They can not just throw "virtual currency" in there. They really deserve to get slapped for trying. Ok, that makes things more clear. But what is meant by "value that substitutes for currency"? Yeah, I focused in on the "value that substitutes for currency" too. I think that was intentionally included to give themselves broad interpretation. I think context is the key. FinCEN deals with finance related items. Precious metals can be used to finance buying things, so that would qualify as "value that substitutes for currency" IMO. What's most interesting though is that virtual currencies themselves might eventually be used to finance buying things (if they became popular enough); at that point they would also qualify as "value that substitutes for currency" so an exchange that transacted no fiat, but only well established crypto-currencies might also then be targeted. They basically want to regulate exchange of currencies; and currencies, by definition, become currency when a large number of people accept them as such. |
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787
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: FinCEN addresses Bitcoin
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on: March 19, 2013, 07:29:39 PM
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Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
tl;dr - if you people want to say your thing has value, and swap that amongst yourselves, then our hands are off. However, if you want to say your thing can be traded for our thing then we regulate that.
------------
First, note this applies to the U.S., but Bitcoin is global. So any one govt's reaction to it never affects all of Bitcoin.
The U.S. reaction I think can be viewed in simple terms: use of Bitcoin in its own economy is fine and not subject to regulation. The govt appears to concede it can't prohibit people bartering with bitcoins if they choose to. That's huge.
At the same time, the govt isn't going to stand idly by while bitcoin merges with its own monopolistic hold on "real" currency. Therefore, the reaction appears to target the two points at which this, in their view, happens: mining (bringing bitcoins into existence) which sucks away USD value into bitcoins; and exchanges which allow the trade of bitcoins for things of financial value, thus establishing their value.
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788
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Economy / Speculation / Re: All quiet on the Western front
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on: March 18, 2013, 08:11:54 PM
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I guess I expected the price to be more volatile. For example, the market for, say, silver is much larger than btc, yet currently it is more volatile. It seems strange to me that such a relatively tiny market can be so stable.
This is a good point, but I think the BTC market is structured far more efficiently. With BTC pretty much everything is a 1:1 correlation, sender to receiver, trader to exchange, etc. A lot of time wasting and bs is cut out (market hours, brokerages etc.). Also many people say the metals markets are manipulated anyway. |
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789
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Experts : Expect a continent wide bank run
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on: March 18, 2013, 07:25:47 PM
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...
So, it may be emblematic of the ongoing failures of the banking system, but it's not something that Bitcoin really solves.
Yes, with bitcoin you can still do fractional reserve....but not to the same degree system-wide as with fiat. Things shouldn't lever as far with bitcoin as the monetary base, since there's no way to backstop it (print more) if/when failures due to leverage occur. Thus, depositors would get freaked out at lower leverage levels, preventing these huge bubbles from getting created. So in a bitcoin world, Cyprus' banking system wouldn't've gotten to the point where it needed the bailout; thus there would've been no talk of deposit confiscation. #bitcoinUsersNotAffected Very well put. I agree entirely. |
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790
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Economy / Service Announcements / Re: Announcement: Tradehill is back
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on: March 18, 2013, 05:41:47 PM
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Welcome back! Always liked TradeHill. Competition: Much needed, if one exchange does most of the volume then we're not very decentralized.
I've always enjoyed Bitcoin competition, nothing else like it.
Very true. We need more exchanges! Moar! The ability to add dollars to a trading account via ACH push is something that no service offers yet. Will Tradehill be able to add this?
We would like to. ACH is so reversible that it's understandable why no one in Bitcoin wants to use it. I believe Coinbase offers it successfully. |
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791
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: BTCe Apprroaching Worthless
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on: March 16, 2013, 08:56:33 PM
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I've had just the same issue with btc-e, today seems ok but for two days previous it was impossible to get on the site the odd time the site loaded as soon as I tried logging in the site would crash. Once you sign in to vircurex.com it works very well worth a look  Yes, I expect Vircurex will give a much less problematic experience, for now, at least. That site is not a popular and also doesn't rely as much on AJAX as Btc-e appears to. Using AJAX is nice for visual effect but can accentuate site loading issues and result in the endless "spinning" the OP complains about. The downside, of course, is Vircurex has no where near the same market depth. |
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792
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: BTCe Apprroaching Worthless
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on: March 16, 2013, 08:14:34 PM
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It comes up and you try to place an order and the god damn thing sits there and spins and no idea if the order went through or not. Then the next ten times it won't load.
It's a bit slow sometimes, but it's loading fine for me. Try using Google Chrome (if you're not) and make sure you're on a good Internet connection. There are a lot of quirks to getting a clean server to client exchange, and sometimes hang ups are not only at the serving site's end. Edit: also, in general, if a site won't load right away try giving it a few minutes before reloading. When a server is experiencing snags the last thing it needs is everyone refreshing in frustration. |
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794
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Economy / Service Discussion / Re: BTCe Apprroaching Worthless
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on: March 16, 2013, 07:01:04 PM
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I think that's actually due to growing pains. Alt-coins like LTC and NVC are catching on as I advised would be healthy. Accordingly, trading interest in these coins has picked up substantially. BTC-e is the MtGox of LTC and NVC, but you might also try Vircurex. |
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795
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Amateur hour
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on: March 15, 2013, 08:23:37 PM
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One last thing, Blinken. You're obviously intelligent, very much so it seems, but Bitcoin has attracted many intelligent people to it. So around here your published IQ is probably in good company. It doesn't do well to challenge such a group and not expect to get checked, hard. I think you could offer the project/effort much of value, but you might re-think your approach to introducing your ideas. More flies with honey than vinegar and all that.
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796
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Amateur hour
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on: March 15, 2013, 05:49:36 PM
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It's ridiculous. Furthermore, IME, most "professional" coding efforts are an order of magnitude more horrible than "amateur" work.
I just read that line. +1 That's not always the case, of course (Blinken certainly appears to know what he is doing) but earning a good salary for programming certainly isn't always a measure of superiority over programmers that don't. BTW, Blinken what I do consider a great measurement of intelligence mixed with programming ability are things like Google's Code Jam and the Netflix Prize. Those are tests not winnable by simply learning by rote. The qualification round for Google's 10th Code Jam actually starts April 12, 2013. If you compete and make it anywhere near the finals then you'll have my respect. Considering the prize is $15,000 (plus a likely Google job offer) for what amounts to about 1 day worth of coding the pay scale isn't likely beneath many. |
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800
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Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [VIDEO] - Bitcoin is Bloomberg's Buzzword of the Day
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on: March 13, 2013, 07:42:16 PM
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Incredible. Many of us always predicted this sort of thing, Bitcoin starting to enter mainstream consciousness, but still kinda crazy to see it play out. I agree this guy did surprisingly well explaining, so much so his "chainblock" slip up doesn't dilute his powerful explanation. Fed comments at the end FTW definitely  |
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