Even for the average user it makes sense to go to the place with the highest liquidity, because there you are likely to get the best exchange rate/ lowest spread.

I don't even think mtgox is the best exchange in terms of user experience, but somehow it managed to become the largest (perhaps because it was one of the first), and because it's the largest it attracts most people and becomes even larger.

Market forces will always push towards a small number of big exchanges dominating the market. There is little we can do to prevent this.

When I try to do name_update I get this message:

error: {"code":-1,"message":"there are pending operations on that name"}

I have waited for a day and still get the message. I only get this message for a name I name_firstupdate'd with an older version of namecoin. I doubled checked in my transaction history that I really firstupdate'd this name.  For all other names I own, name_update works fine.  Using linux 32 binary.

Any idea what could be the problem? Help much appreciated.

A 100 character password is uncrackable for all practical purposes.  A 100 character password isn't that difficult to remember. Even if it's completely random it can be done in an afternoon of reciting. 

1) I would only lend to users connected to me via bitcoin-otc wot. My interest rate would depend strongly on my trust connectedness. Thus it would differ on an idividual basis. My rule in the bitcoin ecosystem is: if something must rely on (some) legal system in order to be viable, it's not worth doing.

2) btc i would only borrow at a negative interest rate, personally.

3) can't we use bitcoin-otc for this?

1. No need for two installations. Just replace wallet.dat with your current working wallet.

2. The original bitcoin client won't send to invalid addresses. The safest way to go about a savings wallet is to create it offline, back up encrypted vesion, then send coins. Use block explrorer to check if coins have arrived.

Try doing several practice runs with 0.01 btc first.

If you sell your BTC as soon as you recieve them, the risk is very low. Some merchants use scripts that place automated orders on mtgox for this purpose.

Speculation will never die down. It will continue to coexist with "actual commerce", and it will always constitute a large part of the economy, as is the case for most commodities.

 

Since the beginning of this year I have donated thousands of USD worth of BTC at the present exchange rate, so I kind of feel like I have exceeded my donation budget many times over for this year.  It's wrong to think of it that way of course, since I assume some of the recipients sell their BTC donations as soon as they come in.

Still, I have to force myself not to think of it that way. Human psychology is a bitch.

Competent people already encrypt their savings wallet with something like Truecrypt.  This isn't too hard to do.  So I am assuming this feature is aimed primarily at non-technical users.

It's not a bad thing to this include feature in the client, as long as you make it clear to non-technical users that the feature by itself will not protect them against thief viruses, and that additional measures are required.

This would give users a false sense of security.  It would offer very little protection against viruses or hackers who know what they are doing.  All they have to do is sit around and wait until you spend some coins.

The weakest link in the security chain IMO is not lack of wallet encryption but lack of a good firewall.

What we need more badly than automatic wallet encryption is a live CD/ live USB stick with a pre-configured firewall that has been tested for intrustion.

1) Anonymity is a bonus when you use Bitcoin, not a requirement. Most users don't care about strong anonymity anyhow.

2) Virtual Private Networks can be layered on top of a censored internet.  

3) Pseudonymous Networks (such as i2p, Tor, Freenet) can be layered on top of a censored internet.

4) Since it's low bandwidth, the bitcoin protocol can steganographically communicate over almost anything, such as email attachments.

5) Push comes to shove, Bitcoin doesn't need the "official" internet.  Bitcoin-over-shortwave, anyone?

6) The US does not control all of the internet.

I fully agree with that.

So were electricity, the automobile, and the internet shortly after they were invented.

No, I'm happy to pay my 50 BTC. 

This is now going to be the most valuable single donation I have ever made in my life.    But the developer deserves every Bitcent of it for making Namecoin reality. 

How should we go about this, kiba? Are you going to collect the donations first, or should we send them to the developer directly?

awesome project.
 
"in cryptography we trust" 

If you are talking about Reuben Grinberg's paper, it's a good analysis, but his conclusion that Bitcoin could be a security is based on a misconception of the nature of the Bitcoin community/ecosystem.

The blockchain genie is out of the bottle.  Soon, block chains aren't going to be used just for virtual curriencies, but in a hundred other applications too.   Distributed naming systems, birth certification, obituaries, legal notices, deadline verification, identity management, and many others we can't even imagine right now.

In fact, block chains are only the beginning. The world will see an abundance of new technologies that will make the following inevitable:

data promiscuity
data ubiquity
data permanence  

Lawrence Lessing argues that the legal system eventually adapts to technological change, not the other way around.

The point is, some jackass isn't just going to write CP to the BC,  Some jackass is going to write CP into RFID-tagged milk cartons in the supermarket. Some jackass is going to write CP into CCTV cameras, and vehicle sensors, and patterns of sand grains.  Some jackass is going to encode leaked state secrets in bacterial and pollen DNA.

One day, we will all be covered in insurance.aes and we are all going to have parrot porn coming out of every orifice.  

The law will change eventually, and it will stop prosecuting people for data "possession", unwitting or otherwise, it will prosecute for data divulgation alone, because,

Planting kiddie porn to incriminate your enemy?  Sounds like a brilliant plan that could definitely never backfire.

Seriously?  Do you really think that those "groups" you are talking about would do something so stupid? 

Tell us something new.  Anybody can manipulate the market if they own enough BTC. Anybody can manipulate any commodity market if they own enough of the commodity.  There is nothing unique to Bitcoin about this.  DeBeers and diamonds comes to mind.  
 
If that bothers you, don't invest in Bitcoin.


Tell us something new.  That's why it's called beta software.

If that bothers you, don't invest in Bitcoin.


Agreed. But  I think that anybody who invests a large amount of money in BTC has researched the technology beforehand and is well aware of this.  If they haven't, then they are fools, bluntly put.


Securities fraud??
Bitcoin is a commodity, not a security.  Why? Because owning Bitcoin doesn't involve guarantees or contractual obligations.  It's just a number stored on your computer.


No such thing as "official" Bitcoin forums. That's kind of the point with a decentralised project. bitcoin.org is just a website run by an individual who is involved with the project, that's all.

And do you realise that the Bitcoin forums are the public?

So I guess the public is misleading the public?


Agreed. We should stress more often that Bitcoin is still beta, also on wesuecoins.com


Libertarians prefer to use the word "consistent" rather than "extreme", to describe their system of ethics.  They would counter that inconsistency is juvenile.  But I agree, some people on this forum are very idealistic.



I don't get this type of reasoning. Why do you care what other people are doing with their bitcoins? I mean, there are lots of deranged people who buy carrots. Does that stop you from buying carrots?


Does it take "at least two good analysts" to demonstrate that the sky is blue?

Obviously the block chain can store data steganographically.  Anything that can store data, can store data steganographically.


Some evil biotechnologist could (theoretically) encode child pornography in a carrot's DNA.  That means that every time you buy a carrot you may (at least theoretically) be propagating child pornography.  

OMG! We should all stop eating carrots!


You're contradicting yourself now.

Your own words from the beginning of your post:


So I guess that wasn't advice at all but just a brainstorm?  Thanks for letting me know, I was just about to take it.

If 21 Million tons of gold were "hacked" and stolen from Fort Knox, would that mean a massive loss of trust in gold?

No, it would mean a massive loss of trust in Fort Knox.

Facebook/Twitter is little more than a fun toy for most users. Bitcoin is potentially way more useful and serious than that. It takes the internet to the next level.

I'm not saying that Bitcoin will ever have as many users as Facebook, but if it does, market capitalisation will be orders of magnitude higher than Facebook's.

 

If you use Bitcoin in its raw form, no, there is no accountabilily. But there is personal responsibility.

With Bitcoin, users are forced to think for themselves whether they trust the counterparty.  

There is no nanny to bail them out if they are gullible, careless, or irresponsible with their business dealings.

Of course, if you want a nanny to worry about those things for you, you can use an escrow service such as clearcoin.  But you'll have to pay for the overhead this incurs out of your own pocket.

The point is, Bitcoin gives users this choice and Paypal doesn't.