There was a question asked by a forum user stuck in Newbie jail:

I just tried and the homepage loads fine for me.

In the future you can always confirm this type of problem with a proxy tool:
 - http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/www.bitstamp.net

You are understanding correctly the "simplified" version of how Bitcoin works.  But that is because the simplified version hides how things really work under the hood.

So that people can use Bitcoin in a way that it isn't too foreign to them, the term "wallet" is used as we already have wallets and purses, ... you use the wallet in your back pocket to hold money.  There is money stored in it.

But a Bitcoin wallet does not really hold any money.

A Bitcoin wallet simply holds the private information necessary in order to spend the money.

So it doesn't matter how many places this private information is copied to, the money can only be spent one time and only from a device or service that holds a copy of that private information.

The money is actually replicated and "stored" in tens of thousands of nodes around the world.  So you can have a copy of the wallet on two or more computers.  Either of those two computers can be used to spend the money, and both hold the money just as does each of the tens of thousand of other computers that have a Bitcoin blockchain on them.

[But as far as using the same wallet.dat one two different computers, that is a bad idea.  The contents of the wallets change after each transaction and the two will differ over time.  If you're already doing this (spending from two computers), then from one computer you should transfer all the money showing for the balance to a new address obtained from the other.   Then stop using the old one.  The old one might still show a balance, but it will no longer be the only wallet with funds that the other might not.  

If using only one is inconvenient, then consider using a hybrid EWallet like Blockhchain.info/wallet which lets you access a wallet via the web or mobile.]

By chance, have you had a chance to look at the current hashing level? If not, pleast take a look.



Do you happen to notice something over on the right side?

That is telling us that a lot of mining capacity is getting powered down.

Allow me to share a little secret with you.   Those aren't FPGAs (e.g., BFL singles) shutting down -- because the bitcoins earned by those is still greater than the cost of electricity.    Those that are dropping out are those mining with GPUs.  The current profitability chart shows that anyone mining on GPU and paying about $0.10 per kWh or more is losing money with every hash. (i.e., you are paying over spot rate for those coins.)

This is the result of the halving of the mining block reward subsidy that occurred at the end of November.  

As soon as the first ASICs from the multiple manufacturer currently racing to be the first start going online, then not even $0.10 per kWh will help the GPU miner, even one with "a couple of decent GPUs".

I'm not sure I'm understanding your question correctly.  

When a node running the Bitcoin.org client learns of a transaction and its inputs are unspent, it will always relay that transaction (with the exception of transactions that are too spammy, e.g., spending less than a bitcent and not paying a fee, for instance.)

So if you your node sees Alices block 101 as the longest, it will accept and relay any transaction whose inputs are not already spent.

There can be other clients that behave differently, but that's how the Bitcoin.org client handles it.

Does that answer your question?

Well, SatoshiDICE did exactly what a merchant that accepts on 0/unconfirmed will likely need to do ... become discriminating on 0/unconfirmed.  Fireduck changed which 0/unconfirmed bets will be processed:


So the "spam-like" payment that was originally sent to SatoshiDICE will no longer be processed (it will sit unprocessed until it gets one confirmation).

Just to be clear, it isn't easy for one to send a payment and then "accidentally" spend the same funds to somewhere else except with the second time include a fee that happens to cause the second transaction to get included in a block over the first.  That is fraud -- which might be why Fireduck offered to let people test this approach against a version of the service for testing purposes:


So the chances of getting caught double spending to defraud SatoshiDICE are low, as bitcoin has user-definable anonymity (hat tip to Jon Matonis for defining it that way).    But buying a candy bar and double spending those funds is probably not something you can do anonymously.

I don't know that Green Addresses are the approach to get behind.   What I think this proves though is that a merchant that likes to DIY will be more at risk than one using a payment processor that can figure out how to combat these types of risks.

I wonder what would happen though ... where let's say I'm at a merchant and I pay with bitcoin but the payment processor flags it as a high risk payment because it included 2K of data and I didn't pay a fee.     The Bitcoin.org client doesn't let me do that but with Blockchain.info/wallet, for example, I could do that.

If you are going to copy and paste the entire article you could at least give a link to the source:
 - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/rise-of-the-robots/

Nailed it!

Good thinking.  The registrar is Microtronix, a vendor that takes bitcoin, so they should be able to justify complying with a takedown.

I'll write them and report back.

Well, there's never been any claim brought to the community that the B with two vertical lines has been registered as a trademark symbol,     That doesn't mean every raster or vector art image using it can be copied though.    

Here are some promotional graphics, and some of them have sources listed in the references at the bottom.
 - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Promotional_graphics

i.e., you're probably safe using any of those.

Yup.  


The TorWallet post has been updated by a mod in hopes to discourage anyone attempting to use it:

Ah, clever.

Just to clarify, does date that the secret is used correspond with UTC? (versus some other timezone?)

Yup, now that Blockchain.info/wallet supports Faster Payments directly, that might be a better option for the next time:
 - https://blockchain.info/wallet/deposit-bank-transfer

It might help to use in your argument that a competitor of theirs (at about the same price level) is already accepting Bitcoin for payment:
 - http://www.BitcoinStore.com

There is this question from a forum user who is still stuck in newbie jail, so I am reposting it here as I don't know the answer:

Related:

Towards a unified exchange protocol
 - http://polimedia.us/trilema/2012/towards-a-unified-exchange-protocol/

You can even use their "Desktop Sync" browser plugin which connects to your Bitcoin.org client and syncs your hybrid EWallet at Blockchain.info/wallet with your wallet.dat, so you can use the website blockchain.info/wallet, the mobile app Blockchain for Android or iOS, or your Bitcoin-Qt client.

Related:

Further discussion of this topic:

Liberty Dollars ban goes into effect at eBay
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=130372.0

and

SELLING: NORFED .999 RARE Silver Bullion Collectables BUYING AT SPOT! LIVE PRICE
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=58518.0

2012-12-15 Forbes.com - U.S. Secret Service Bans Certain Gold and Silver Coins

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131064.0