The bitcoin client epic fail interface in my opinion is happily helping keeping users away from it. Add to that the management of the wallet (management? there is NO management) and of the blockchain (yeah sure -datadir) and you have the answer.
Are you aware of InstaWallet? BitcoinSpinner? My Wallet (from http://www.BlockChain.info/wallet )? For those who hold $25 worth of bitcoins these wallets are all more than adequate. Even those with amounts that need greater protection are served by some of these -- as My Wallet, for instance, offers a multi-factor authentication method. |
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There certainly aren't many other global micro-payment systems out there. The ones that do exist mostly are for accepting This new service called Kanzaloo aims to do that but taking a look at it I don't know how "global" it is just yet. Though they say they support 85 countries, the currency pricing is denominated in EUR, and the mobile phone networks supported looks to be mostly just EU companies: - http://www.kanzaloo.comIncidentally, Bitcoin is already there: - http://www.dialcoin.com (21 countries) - https://bitcoinmarket24.com/BuyBitcoinsForSMS/InstantBTCforSMS.php (U.K.) And there are numerous micro-payment systems for paying for gaming: - http://pocketchange.com (though not all like the concept: http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/02/23/editorial-virtual-game-tokens-exist-and-theyre-even-more-evil-than-dlc ) Even PayPal has one (5% + $0.05 per transactoin) but as we know all too well, their restrictions and frozen accounts can be brutal. Dwolla is U.S. only for now, but they allow don't charge for sub-$10 transactions. Whether or not they want to see a lot of sub-dollar micro-transactions though I don't know. Here's the scenario that will probably cause a bitcoin micropayments system to take off. It will probably be a site that already uses bitcoins internally and then sees its customer base explode for whatever reason. As a result, the amount held in all of the site's customer wallets gets huge as well. The service then finds other companies wanting access to these customers and their funds. So this service adds some API to provide that service and becomes a player in the micropayments space as the result. Maybe this will be Ogrr? - http://www.ogrr.comThere's no doubt though, Bitcoin is becoming more suitable for the task than any alternatives. Facebook Credits chewing 30% of the sale is one reason we should be confident that Bitcoin is better. In the U.S., for instance, being able to go down to a bank with $25 and end up with $24.25 worth of bitcoins a half hour later (thanks to BitInstant, in this example) is a tell that the frictions using Bitcoin are becoming less. And the exchange rate fluctuations appear to be getting less disruptive, at this point in time. In other words, watch closely -- conditions are becoming ripe for a decent solution to emerge. |
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I have tried many client versions and they all crash.
Not all wallet.dat files are compatible with each version. For instance, a wallet from 0.6 won't work with a v0.5 client, I believe. PyWallet is a utility that will let you export the keys. Perhaps if your wallet is corrupted, it will not give correct results? |
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I see Flattr added something that looks like a Pinterest + Flattr mashup: - http://flattr.com/exploreThe move to an internal currency is a concept that is gaining. Quora has Quora Credits now where credits needed to post are earned as the result of participation on posts by others. You can't buy Quora credits nor can you exchange them outside of Quora for items of value. That's getting closer, but the concept is advancing towards a more direct-reward model. For instance: Klout has Perks: - http://klout.com/corp/perksCalyp is a social media promotion service that gives agents rewards: - http://www.calyp.com/rewards.aspx (spendable using a prepaid debit card) and then RedKonnect (pre-launch) is centered around the concept of compensating users for their participation on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. - http://redkonnect.com - http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/3/prweb9271211.htmRedKonnect drives home the message: Online sites are making bank thanks to all of us doing Likes, Retweets, and Pinning. How about they start paying us for that? And once the breakthrough that users start expecting compensation for their participation, board and forum software will be pressured into enabling that capability as well. |
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Anyone know a way to directly output my wallet.dat into paper? I don't want to load it into some online wallet first; I want to turn it into paper directly on my PC.
PyWallet will let you dump the keys: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34028.0 |
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Here's an interesting post, about a crowdfunding platform that struggled to get (err, ... to keep) a credit card processing company for its payments from the crowd of contributors. If you are working with merchants in any capacity and processing payments for them, then you can probably expect credit card processors to give you a hard time. They might accept your account and then shut you down, or charge you prohibitive fees and cap the amount you can process, stifling growth. There has to be a smarter system out there for dealing with the risks involved in new business models. The current system is prohibitive for startups that are trying to innovate. If you don’t fit into the mold, then you are just not welcome. - http://streetfightmag.com/2012/03/14/when-credit-card-companies-cant-process-hyperlocal-riskIf only there was, huh!  |
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So I conclude a direct relation between adoption and difficulty.
Most mining is done in seeking profit. Right now there is profit (though at a fairly small degree) for mining using off-the-shelf hardware (GPUs). If the exchange rate (price) goes up, the amount of mining will go up as there is greater profit available. If the price drops and mining turns unprofitable, eventually the amount of mining will drop. This does not work the other way around. 7,200 BTC (approx) are produced every day, regardless of how much mining occurs. So the miners are all competing for those same 7,200 BTC. More mining does not increase the supply and thus push down the price. And more mining (in aggregate) does not make bitcoin "more secure", at least not at these levels. I'm not saying miners aren't an important part of Bitcoin's success -- but I am saying that bitcoin mining only needs to occur at a level sufficient to protect the value of the payment network. And to paraphrase a term someone else used once, bitcoin is currently protected (in terms of difficulty in attaining 51% control) as if it were Fort Knox with a sniper every ten feet, except inside there are only a few bags of pennies, nickels and dimes. As far as bitcoin adoption reflecting the startup curve ... if the exchange rate reflects the amount of faith in bitcoin, and that faith is correlated to adoption of the technology, then this can show the trend of bitcoin's adoption chart:  i.e., not that much different from Paul Graham's chart!  |
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if I'll want a full dedicated miner, then I'll need at least a rig of 3 video cards, which I'll need to invest much more money to buy all the other hardware too. Is it more wise to spend the money on hardware and get a small steady income of BTC, or use this money to instantly buy the BTC and try to speculate to earn more BTC this way?
Both methods have risk. Over the past year or so it was true that buying hardware and mining was kind of like a hedge -- if the bitcoin exchange rate crashed or difficulty rose too fast then you could always sell the hardware and come close to breaking even or maybe you would lose but at most it would be less than 50%. That might still be true but the risk now is that FPGAs will push GPUs out -- GPU mining might end up becoming unprofitable, unless you are getting electricity at a rate less than average (e.g., $0.11 per kWh). The problem with buying FPGAs versus GPUs is that you no longer have this stop-loss exit strategy as the used FPGAs either have no value or are not as valuable when compared to how used GPUs still hold a fair amount of their value. So, if you have cheap electricity and tech skills then buying some used GPUs and mining might not be the worst use of funds, but there is by no means a guarantee that you'll make any profit (e.g., positive return on investment and positive cash flow after a year or so, when including the equipment costs). As far as buying bitcoins themselves -- hoping that they'll increase in value in the future, well that is taking a speculative risk as well. Either way -- don't put more on the line than you can afford to lose. |
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While the likes of Square, PayPal, Mobile Network Operators and others might think they can circumvent the current bank and payments infrastructure with the 'cloud' or IP networks, the reality is that the need for auditability, security and cross-border interoperability means that complete circumvention of the banking system isn't going to happen in the next few years.
Movenbank, Simple, PayPal, Square, Dwolla, BitCoin and others are working at disrupting not the networks or infrastructure, but the friction in the system. - http://www.finextra.com/community/FullBlog.aspx?blogid=6350 |
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Yes, bitcoin should grow faster than Gartner's Hype Cycle
Especially since, unlike a startup, bitcoin is an open source project. It is not a small group of employees trying to forge some idea into gaining traction against the odds. Bitcoin is a concept that has so many interesting facets and continues to gain recognition and participation from an ever-widening subset of the population. Over a half decade ago in his book MacroWikinomics author Don Tapscott described what is happening. Mass collaboration + openness + sharing and collaboration = rebooting of an industry. Bitcoin is not a startup like Square, Stripe or like a PayPal even which are all just simply reducing slightly the friction of the banking system. Bitcoin instead is in the process of rebooting the industry of money. Here's another example showing this: YouTube: Bitcoin GitHub History Visualized [through October 3, 2011]  - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OztVYTS_Ei8And that is just for the bitcoin.org client. Add in all the software developed by the exchanges, daytrading and arbitrage bot developers, e-commerce sites, etc. Add in all the forum posts, news articles, blog entries, twitter and facebook updates, youtube videos, etc. Some day there will be a term that describes the model that Bitcoin is emerging as. It isn't just mass collaboration on an open system. It isn't just a type of crowdfunding, or just some type of startup. It is something entirely different. We all know this. We can feel it inside. What words will help to explain what this is? |
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I like the idea, but I don't know an easy & reliable way to implement it. As I said, bitcoind doesn't give much control over bitcoin addresses. If there is some simple & reliable tool compatible with bitcoind that allows doing it, I would definitely consider implementing this feature.
There is a patch to bitcoin that allows full control over the bitcoin addresses chosen for use as inputs: - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24784.msg804314#msg804314 |
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Hello 2 all good people out there I checked for Bitcoin some time ago and I was instantly amazed by ideas behind and now I managed to dig a bit deeper and all I can say my feeling is that the system is honest, maybe favorinf the ones who are in it from beginning, but that seems fair to me anyways.... Long story short, I decided to go mining myself (I see it as helping the network and general idea, and this could be the most natural way new bitcoins are released, possibly we're living in big times when real new honest monetary scheme is on its way up...) bla bla, that's something I just needed to say to people around because I'm actually overwhelmed by the power of the people displayed here. Honest, rightful people... That was not so short story ) ... hehe I wanna go mining because I have a fair amount of machines under my control and plenty of administration knowledge this should be no problem for me.. I need just advices what software to use, not to wander too much around and loose time with utilities not suitable for me. My network is comprised mainly of Windows XP 32-bit systems, several Windows 32bit ans 64bit servers and few Linuxes, and one Playstation 3. Got few NVidia cards around, maybe some ATIs too Still I think I will be able to use GPU on just a few machines. So primarily I'm interested in best CPU miners. - The mining program should have ability to run as service (preferrably natively), no problem if it's regular but can be started as service using one of the methods - Mining program should be able to connect to mining proxy (hope I'm using right terminology) through anonymous HTTP proxy, in this case ISA 2006. - Mining program should be able to change its priority not to interfere with foreground processes slowing down the regular man's work on a machine. - Found two programs that act as mining proxy: https://github.com/cdhowie/Bitcoin-mining-proxy and https://github.com/btc-shotgun/Bitcoin-mining-proxy. Second seems to be the branch of first with some new functionalities, right? Which one is better, or is there some other solutions? - Mining proxy should connect to what? Some pool or what? This is what I still don't understand enough. What would you advice? Thank you very much for (possible) answers... One decent ATI GPU mines at a rate faster than 100 or more of high-end CPUs. It just isn't worth anyone's time to try to do Bitcoin mining on CPU anymore. - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining_hardware_comparisonThere are alternative currencies such as Litecoin that will mine well on CPUs however whether or not that would yield a financial gain, or at what level that gain would be I wouldn't know. |
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