[1] I was planning on using MtGox, but letting the user configure that would be a smart option.

[2] Do you mean like plain wallet.dat export?

[3] I think I'm going to use TrueCrypt one way or another (embedded if possible), that way it's some sort of a standard and also pretty damn safe.

I've discovered Bitcoin around two months ago, and like the majority of the users on this forum fell in love in the concept of Bitcoin in such a way that caused me countless hours of sleep, nerves, and friendships, but even so, I'm still in love with this beautiful, amazing, smart, and dangerous project like I've never been before.

Bitcoin is beautiful, no mistakes about it, but it's so young that's it still doesn't have any sense of fashion, and it's not exactly an approachable idea. If you are a techy that has some free time on his hands, you probably will invest the extra hours needed to understand what this all means, but we want all our friends to know how beautiful our new cash is, how smart it is and how it's going to change the world. The problem is it wears the most hideous cloths around, and sometimes theses cloths make it very hard to communicate with Bitcoin and people just don't see it's underlying beauty, and miss out on all the fun they could have with it (and boy, it's hell of a lot of fun, even when you consider Google+).

This introduction is how I view technology and the idea of Bitcoin, it's awesome and genius, it will change the world (at least one of it's iterations), and I simply must tell everybody I know (and trust me, I have) about it. It's like a new girlfriend that you're so in love with, that you just to shout out to the world. The problem is I'm like a fashion designer, and all my friends are really into fashion, and this new girl is showing up with the most hideous interfaces that it could find, and doing something useful with Bitcoin almost always requires a third party (which in turn is not a bargain interface/design either usually).

I want to change that and introduce to you how I see the Bitcoin client, how it should look and behave (let's face it, the current one behaves like a spoiled brat that requires 100% attention all the times, or else it will make you regret the day you started using it).

I've introduced it at first on the Bitcoin sub-reddit a few days ago, and got bothing but positive responses, so I guess it's time to show it here, and let you judge it

Introducing: Your Bitcoin Wallet (the name and the logo, like everything in this project, is open to suggestions...)

These are two screens I have designed so far for the client (I'm sorry to be so shallow and start with the looks, I'll get to it's brains in a moment):


I won't go into explaining everything that you see in the previews, I hope that you'll understand most of it by yourself, and after reading the features below, I'm sure that the rest will follow, so bare with me

Technology
The app is going to be developed in two stages, first I will start with relaying on the current client and it's JSON-RPC for communicating with the network, and only work on the User Interface and User Experience part of the application, which in my mind are the most two important factors right now for this project, and this is what I'm really good at. At stage two if there is still need, I will work on a custom Bitcoin client to make it work as needed.

It's not set in stone, but I think I'm going to use Python with web.py as the back-end for the application, communicating with the default Bitcoin client using JSON-RPC, for the front-end I'm going to use a Chromeless Chromium (I have three options to chose from for now: Awesomium, Berkelium, CEF) and HTML5, Javascript and CSS as the UI part of the app.

Using Python as the back-end and HTML/Javascript as the front-end will allow for a lot of flexibility, easy extensions from a variety of developers, and it's something I know pretty well (enough to support a nice salary in the past 7 years). It will also mean that this will be very portable, and will run out-of-the-box on Linux, Windows, and Mac. With little adaptations it will also run natively with the new Windows 8 UI, iOS, Android and perhaps even other platforms that I can't think of right now.

The application will be open-source except for some business related stuff (which I hope to make money of in the future, thin Dropbox if it had an open-source client) and code will be available on GitHub as soon as I start coding it, so you will be able to see exactly what's going on under the hood in the true spirit of Bitcoin, and develops will be able to help if they wish to.

Features Overview
There are tons of features I'd like this to have, some of them will make it, other won't. Here's a list of the features that I think and want in the app in no particular order (not listing interface look & feel features here):

• Easy Currency Display and Payment - Want to know how much you have in US Dollars or Japanese Yen? Need to pay in Israeli Shekel? Directly show the value of your bitcoins in other currencies, send Bitcoin while entering a $ value and the app will do the conversion for you
• Dashboard - Information at a glance - get all the details you need about your wallet in less than a second after opening the app
• Human Readable Log - Want to know what your money did last month? Need to see why you have so much money all of a sudden?
• Smart Address Book - This actually two features in one: a) A server managed address book where users can register and the system will manage Name -> Bitcoin Address conversions on-the-fly, and b) stupid-proof address issuing within the app that will generate a new Bitcoin address every time the user wants to make a transaction - that way we ensure that even our moms and dads enjoy the anonymity that Bitcoin offers and make the network safer and harder to track in general
• Future Payments - Have a monthly/weekly bill to pay? Need to transfer a weekly paycheck? Want hassle-free monthly donations?
• Offsite Backup and Safe - Store your wallet on a remote location, use the wallet anywhere you like (not a hosted solution - I don't believe in those, and they don't conform to the Bitcoin spirit)
• Intrinsic Encryption - Bitcoin wallets will be encrypted by default, and app will periodically make sure that data is not accessible to anything and anyone (who isn't authorized)
• Offsite Backup and Safe - Store your wallet on a remote location, use the wallet anywhere you like (not a hosted solution - I don't believe in those, and they don't conform to the Bitcoin spirit)
• Compartments in the wallet - Want to save up for a collage fund? Putting a little something every month for that new iPad you want so badly? Easily divide your wallet into compartments
• Easy Wallet Loading - The app will not be tied to a single wallet like it is right now, but rather you will be able to easily open and close wallets (securely!)

I hope that this feature list will grow, but even as it is right now, there is enough work for a year, and all of those features is something I know that I want and need, and these kind of features is what in my opinion bring even the lay person types to be able to use Bitcoin without feeling like they don't understand it. It will be just another PayPal for them.


About me and how this came to be

I'm a 26 years old entrepreneur and a web applications designer and developer. I found about Bitcoin a little over a month ago, and as I've mentioned above, fell completely in love with this idea. I've lost countless hours of sleep because of Bitcoin, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future. Bitcoin is just that amazing to me - I'm sure that at least some of you understand how I feel

I truly love simplicity, aesthetics and easy of use, and I believe that one of the most important drivers for Bitcoin in the future will be something that is easily approachable, looks good, and works the way people need it to work, and that includes features that I haven't seen anyone even talking about. I think that what Bitcoin needs is an iPhone - a piece of software that makes a huge pile of ground braking technologies go down to the consumer level, and give them the tools they want and need, and let them feel like they've found a gem. The problem with Bitcoin as I see it, is that we constantly need to explain to others how it works and then they think it's just too damn smart for them, or they found the single most important flaw in Bitcoin that no one noticed, and walk away. To use Bitcoin you don't need to understand the underlying technologies or even the ideas behind it the same way that people don't understand the underlying principles of our regular monetary system and have no problem using the money to finance those who do.

The metaphors I used throughout this post are intentional to try to convey to you how I feel about Bitcoin and how outsiders view and perceive it. It is hard to explain and understand Bitcoin, and I think the Wiki is more than enough, and we should start trying to make it accessible to everybody, and the sooner the better.

I have all the will and most of the knowledge needed to make this thing a reality and with the amount of attention this got on the original reddit post it looks like I'm going to invest quite a lot of time in this in the coming future. I'm willing to quit my nicely paying job to work on this full-time with nothing but bills, food, and rent covered, but unfortunately I don't have enough saved up to do just that, so the fate of this project is in your hands basically. The more funding I can get for it, the faster it will become a reality.

And that brings me to the subject of you support - donations!


Show your support!

If you want to help me make this a reality and bring Bitcoin to new levels of adaption and exposure you can help me fund this project or start coding with me!

You can help by spreading the word about this project, the more people join in and help with coding and funding,t he faster it will become a reality!

For direct Bitcoin donations use this address: 1Cm554iqhU9dLnZsi2LA5s1b576DdfM1GM

After I setup a website for the project, donations will be publicly visible, they are visible right now actually over here, and if you'd like your name and link showing up, just let me know.

You can drop me an email with the exact amount you've donated or the outgoing address, and I will add you to the thank-you-page.

If you're interested in investing in this project as a business, please contact me directly, I'm open for suggestions and options, I'm thinking of at two business models that can go with this and still be free and open-source.

P.S.
Moderators: I'm considered a n00b by the forum software and it won't let me post this to the Project Development forum, so if you feel like it belongs there more than here, I'll be happy if you move it there!

It feels like they completely ignore questions like these

I'm trying to create a mining app that works with JSON-RPC, is it possible to do it with the standard bitcoind client?

I have the standard Bitcoin installed on Ubuntu 10.10

I'm trying to create a mining app that works with JSON-RPC, is it possible to do it with the standard bitcoind client?

I have the standard Bitcoin installed on Ubuntu 10.10

Am I asking the question wrong or something?

On the mining forum I asked a similar question yesterday, and it simply sank down

Please just tell me am I doing this calculations right or not, I think I'm just wasting electricity

I'm trying to understand how mining works, so I set myself to build a mining PHP script (I know it's not efficient! I'm just trying to understand the processes that go in mining bitcoins).

Basically I'm doing bitcoinRPC -> getwork(), which returns always the same hash1 and the same target (except when target changes).

While the target I have in the database is the same to the one I just got from getwork(), I should keep counting from 0 until I fend the golden ticket, or should I start counting from 0 again using the new midstate and data, or should I continue using the old ones that I have?

The reason I ask is because I'm trying to create a pool client/server in PHP, and my client is a php script that goes to the server script which is the one that gives "work" to clients, basically just counts from 0 up to 1024 for every new client that asks for data (1Kh/client I know, I will improve this!).

Thanks!

Hey all,
I've been lurking here for two weeks or so, and lately I started working on a project similar to http://bitp.it/, but I seem to miss some very basic ideas in bitcoin mining, and I would love some help if you could.

My idea is to create a simple PHP work distribution app, I am able to connect to bitcoind and poll some data from it, but I don't understand how do I offload data to other clients.

Like so:

My understanding of bitcoin mining goes something like this:

• Connect to bitcoin network
• Get the latest target
• Calculate some numbers and hash the result using SHA256 function
• Compare my result with current target
• If my result smaller or equal to target, I got the winning hash
• Send something to bitcoin saying "I have found the somethig"
• Network then verifies that I did found the correct something and rewards me with some bitcoins

From what I've gathered by reading and re-reading the wiki, this is the process that takes place when mining for bitcoins.

But the problem is that I completelly miss what it is that is being calculated and how it is being calculated.

From playing around with bitp.it I understand that what it basically does is sending "clients" a starting point and an end point, and those are simply calculating the data, and if their hash is correct, they reply with the correct hash back to bitp.it and I'm rewarded for the effort.

To my question:
Can you please show a very basic function that does the mining from start to finish? I prefer it to be in PHP, but I'll understand other languages (I hope).

Thanks a bunch!