The difficulty of mining has gone up because a lot of people are mining because ... well it's still pretty easy. Right now most of the bitcoin market is for speculator.

Bitcoin has A LOT of potential as a currency but it's just that... potential. If you want to see the price really go up, you need to see real trade being made in bitcoin. That means goods and services, and not the type of services that are linked to bitcoin (mining contract, gambling).

You need to have people offering something of value in exchange for bitcoin... and those people will do it is they expect to get something of value in turn. Gambling and piramide junk are just spam that are keeping real economy from actually happening.

I'm a decent Go/Weichi/Baduk player.  I play at the 1 kyu level on the KGS server.

I can provide scheduled lessons for anyone from 30-6 kyu. I can teach in french or english

For a one hour class (30-40 min teaching game + the rest for review/question) I will charge 0.2 BTC  (Mostly available weekdays 22h00-24h00  Canada/US eastern time)
If you want, I can also simply review a game you played. Send me a .sgf and I will send you a fully commented .sgf back for 0.1 BTC
Other arrangement possible, prices subject to change (to adjust for BTC value).

I've made an addresse for this Baduk4Bitcoin@gmail.com and I will monitor it daily. Just send me a mail if you have questions or want to schedule a lesson.

That is a very good idea. Gambling and ponzy junk are just noises that keeps real economy from picking up.

I wouldn't get rid of it, but I would move them to their own sub forum... Buying and sellings should be for goods and services.

Maybe a large corp decided to devote some processing time to mine and pile some coin as an investement

I'm a newby but since I discovered bitcoin two weeks ago, the thing I notcied more is the relative pain you have to go through to get your initial bitcoins.

- Mining is not for everyone, but as of now, it's probably the most user friendly way of getting some coins (download a client, join a poll, leave your computer on).

- Buying coin... way too many hoops to go through.  It needs to be as simple as putting your credit card number and receive the coin... I understand the problem with the chargeback, but still this is where it hurt.

- Working for coin... Sure, I'd do that is I could find someone that want a service that I could offer. But as with real cash, most people are not entrepreneur. They will look at job posting and take jobs, but they don't have the skill to actually maket themselfs as a product and find clients.


Now comes the spending bitcoin...

A good part of the offer seems to be Lotto/Ponzi junk or web services. I don't buy porn or drugs.  So right now I have very limited use for the coins I have.

If the economy move to the next level, you need an easier way to find jobs that pay in bitcoin and find real value goods and services for bitcoin.

Doh Sorry, didn't think of looking in the Meta section 

Would it be a good idea to have a subforum for all the security related post ?

We could put in therer all the post regarding breach/hack and all the post on how to protect against them.

My entire bitcoin fortune is 0.04 BTC so for now I'm not taking any extra step to secure it.

If I get to the point where I have significant value, then I will.  But really basic security should be in builtin the client if you want bitcoin to really hit mainstream... a good chunk of people don't even know how files and folders work so you can't expect them to secure their wallet by themselves

I'm a decent Go/Weichi/Baduk player.  I play at the 1 kyu level on the KGS server.

I usually help out people for free if i'm online, but since I need to make a bitcoin living, I can provide scheduled lessons for anyone from 30-6 kyu. I can teach in french or english

For a one hour class (30-40 min teaching game + the rest for review/question) I will charge 0.2 BTC  (Mostly available weekdays 22h00-24h00  Canada/US eastern time)
If you want, I can also simply review a game you played. Send me a .sgf and I will send you a fully commented .sgf back for 0.1 BTC
Other arrangement possible, prices subject to change (to adjust for BTC value).

I've made an addresse for this Baduk4Bitcoin@gmail.com and I will monitor it daily. Just send me a mail if you want to schedule a lesson.

Switching the decimal in GUI might be desirable but I think that using bitcoin to mean microbitcoin is a bad idea.

On of the biggest appeal of bitcoin is the fact that there will never be more. You have a lot of legacy article and video that explain that there will never be more bitcoin in circulation. People have read that bitcoin will be limited to 21 millions. They expect the value of a bitcoin to go up constantly.

The last thing you want, for a currency that is designed to be inflation proof, is to create the illusion of deflation... even if it would only be an illusion.

Starting to use microbitcoin might be ok, but don't rebrand them as the new bitcoin.


These guys understood that stock splitting only make it more complex to identify real value
 http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=BRK-A+Basic+Chart&t=my   

I think it would actually force country to ballance their books.

Right now politician given people unrealistic expectation.... the government will fix everything. They then spend away and use inflation as a hidden tax to pay for it.

I think is more a question of established currency versus a youger less established currency.

I think that as the currency gets more and more used, you are gonna see less concetration in the hand of a few people which will help keep the value stable.

Are the any stats like total number of users, average cash in the account,...   Can we see if the rich are getting richer or is the wealth spreading ?

I agree.

If bitcoin is to be usable as an every currency, you have to be able to give small amount without high charge cost.

With the ever increasing value of the coin, you are gonna see small transaction more and more

0,01 BTC is worth about 20-25 cents.  which is huge is you are buying something like a pack of gum. What's the point of getting rid of governement intervention in the money if it's shakel ourself with a "transaction tax".

Maybe a flat 1% fee would be better.

I've started mining since I discovered bitcoin 3 days ago.

I get around 20Mhash and in three day I've made a whole 0,02 BTC.

Probably costed more than they where worth in electricity.

Hi,

I'm Thanak. I just learned about bitcoin a few days ago and been lurking in the forum since. I find the idea of a decentralised world wide currency facinating.

I'm not really tech swavy but I've manage to install the client and a mining software. I joined a mining pool and manage to get 0.02 BTC in 3 days    I guess every fortune have to start somewhere 

Actually buying the coins is not very user friendly so that leaves me with having to actually work to get my hand on those precious BTC. I figure offering a service is also the best way to help the projet.

I'm a decent Go/Weichi/Baduk player,  I play at the 1 kyu level on the KGS server.

I usually help out people for free, but since I need to make a bitcoin living, I can provide lessons for anyone from 30-6 kyu. I can teach in french or english

For a one hour class (30-40 min teaching game + the rest for review/question) I will charge 0.2 BTC  (Mostly available weekdays 22h00-24h00  Canada/US eastern time)
If you want, I can also simply review a game you played. Send me a .sgf and I will send you a fully commented .sgf back for 0.1 BTC
Other arrangement possible, price subjet to change.

I've made an addresse for this Baduk4Bitcoin@gmail.com and I will monitor it daily. Just send me a mail if you want to schedule a lesson.