That's besides the point.

You promised a carrot, not $400 worth of carrots.  And the developers were committing their resources expecting to get the full carrot. How you get hold of that carrot is your problem.

But perhaps this could be seen as exceptional circumstances … I don't want to pick a fight here. Of course it’s totally up to you how much you give; it’s your reputation you are risking in the end.

This should be a lesson to all of us to ensure the credibility of future bounties.

Either reserve the pledged BTC in a place where you will never touch them (like I have done).

Or denominate your pledge in a different currency.

What is the point of pledging a fixed amount of BTC if you are just going to arbitrarily reduce it later?

You should have just said "I pledge whatever I feel like giving".

Conventional wisdom does not apply here. Bitcoin is a class of its own. It is a commodity the world has never seen before. Exponential growth so far reflects exponential growth of users. Nothing unsustainable about that - the userbase, and price, will stabilise eventually.  Once every tech savvy person on the planet has found out about bitcoin and it CONTINUES to grow exponentially, then it will definitely crash. We havent reached that point yet.

...until eventually, NO transactions happen on the bitcoin network, and the block chain is simply a historical archive proving how much money each of those banks owns.

Ok, I have verified vinced's signature.

Before I send my donation, I'd just like to make sure that the public key on github is trustworthy. Could somebody please confirm this?

Sorry for my extreme paranoia, but I been on this forum for a while and seen a lot of scammers... I just want to make sure it goes to the right person.

Right from the beginning, the Bitcoin economy has not relied on contract enforcement.  The Bitcoin economy is held together by reputation and ostracism,  not contract and force.

I think they are a great tool for small expenses while you are on the move.

Don't keep 1000 BTC on them, obviously.

Yes, they could run off with my money, but the chance of losing my physical wallet to a mugger is bigger I think.

Best to choose a web wallet run by someone who has a reputation to lose, preferably someone who is also running other businesses that accept bitcoin.

I agree.

The best way to debunk misconceptions is not to talk about the misconceptions at all, but to present the positive facts that contradict them.

Semantics semantics. Yawn.

It's also called e-mail even though it isn't literally mail.

Who cares? Really?

I tried to do a test trade and got the same message.

Seems that mtgox is a victim of it's own success and can't keep up with such a massive growth of users in such a short time.

The internet is the steam engine.

Bitcoin is the railways.

And Chuck&Joe are the stagecoach lobby calling to crack down on railways because they cause motion sickness.

These conversations about the price of BTC are getting just about as interesting as conversations about the weather.

over 9000

So, Bitcoin is a company and Paypal has started accepting it? 

What kind of fucking amateur wrote this garbage?

I always have a tough time calculating how much I really can afford to lose.

I might get diagnosed with cancer tomorrow and then I might need every penny of my savings.  When I think about it that way, even $100 seems to much to invest in Bitcoin.

On the other hand, if I lose $10,000 on Bitcoin, perhaps I won't be able to afford a few luxuries for a few months.  Not that big of a deal.

Bitcoin as a store of value/ financial instrument is not a market?

Why not? Most of those people are passionate about Bitcoin, and will do everything in their power to make it succeed. If they become super-wealthy we will stand a chance against the old wealthy elites who will try to fight Bitcoin.

Proof by assertion?

If a few early adopters chip in, we should be able to afford this, now that BTC has almost hit 20 USD!

The advert will be aimed at decision makers who are not familiar with Bitcoin yet.

The point of the advert is to pre-emptively debunk gross misconceptions about Bitcoin.

If the first thing they hear about Bitcoin is that it's "an online form of money laundering", then this misconception will stick. And it will be perpetuated by mainstream media.

If the first thing they hear about Bitcoin is that it's "an open, decentralised accounting system where all transactions are public" they are going to have a hard time imagining it is "a form of money laundering"


But we need to be fast!

I reckon it's 2-4 weeks max now, before the tabloids are all over Bitcoin. We are at a pivotal point now. Let's do everything in our power to make Bitcoin successful.

wanted to bounce this idea off the community first before posting a bounty...

Maybe you should pay with Namecoins instead of Bitcoins, because they have a use value in addition to an exchange value.

In that way they are even more similiar to gold than Bitcoin.