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The entire system surrounding the dollar is set up for two decimal places of divisibility. Do you have any idea how much it would cost to add more decimal places? Every fucking thing would have to change.
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¶1: Computers are machines that are very good at perfectly copying information. The cat's already out of the bag.
¶2: Holding a gun to someone's head provides a powerful incentive for them to do what you say, but it does not justify the action.
¶3: You're assuming that you would not be paid without IP law. I don't acknowledge IP as valid, yet I still purchase books, movies, music that I enjoy or find useful.
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I have some questions/comments regarding this article. The currency was "no doubt developed for altruistic purposes by conscientious people, and there are perfectly legitimate, legal and philosophical reasons for wanting the financial anonymity that [Bitcoin] gives, but the other reality is, if this type of currency takes off, it will be a dream for the bad guys," I found this quite hilarious, given Satoshi's apparent purpose for creating Bitcoin, which seems to be to circumvent bank and government controlled financial systems. By using multiple e-mail addresses and anonymous proxies to disguise their locations, criminals can open a new Bitcoin account for each transaction and ensure that their money movements are "virtually bombproof and untraceable to an investigator," What do email addresses have to do with Bitcoin? At first blush, the origin and value behind bitcoins will likely seem strange to some. Few, if anyone, has met Nakamoto, organization principal Gavin Andresen said, during a March 15 interview with EconTalk. Control of the organization is decentralized and based on the premise that all users can have a say in monetary decisions. I feel like they are misunderstanding what Bitcoin is. There is no organization, other than that which is spontaneously formed by the community. Gavin (in my opinion) is a principal only in the sense that he is filling the role, not that he was appointed or has an official title. (For what its worth, I think he's doing a great job.) The currency, which is traded through software anyone can download, is not backed by precious metals or other commodities but relies on the fact that it is accepted by a group of consumers and merchants whose transactions are vetted by one another on a volunteer basis. People just don't understand that all currencies rely on the fact that they are accepted by a group of consumers and merchants. Still, court orders may be served to bitcoin exchanges, users and other operators, ordering them to "ban" specific bitcoins if needed, he said. How did he get that idea? Would a court have authority to order an exchange to do such a thing? What does it even mean to "ban" specific Bitcoins? "It avoids every reporting requirement out there, which is scary, and it's open source software, meaning someone could start their own currency
...
"There's nothing preventing drug dealers from starting their own bitcoin currency - nothing," This is my favorite quote of the article. If drug dealers started their own currency, presumably only drug dealers would use it, and it would be a dead giveaway. They need to be part of the main Bitcoin network if it is to be useful at all. Like with Tor, if only spies are using the software, it kind of defeats the point. |
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+10
+1 (don't want to inflate the rating so I stick to +1, not +10 nor +100) Actually, since Bitcoin uses fundamentally a deflationary economic model, shouldn't we be writing "-1" when we like something? Bitcoin is not fundamentally deflationary. Today, there are 7200 Bitcoins introduced each day. In 80 years, only 0.01 Bitcoins will be introduced daily (math might be slightly off). If by the time inflation reaches zero the economy is still growing, we will continue to experience falling prices, but not monetary deflation. Long story short, it would be more like .1, .01, .001, .0001, etc, but never go negative. |
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On the flipside, see the baby-sitting coop story: http://www.slate.com/id/1937/If the money supply gets too limited, there's a tendency towards hoarding that reduces overall trade and economic growth. So long as monetary expansion is predictable, the "lubricant" trait of money is optimized, whereas the loss of storage value can be minimized through contracting. I don't think this story is comparable to Bitcoin, or any general purpose currency. Their scrip was centrally issued, not at all divisible, and only exchanged for one thing - baby sitting services. Their problems were distinct from those normally ascribed to deflation - the unwillingness to spend what will tomorrow be more valuable, to purchase what will tomorrow be less expensive. They literally had not enough currency to allow for savings and spending simultaneously. Think of it this way: When consumer confidence declines, it is as if, for some reason, the typical member of the co-op had become less willing to go out, more anxious to accumulate coupons for a rainy day. This could indeed lead to a slump--but need not if the management were alert and responded by simply issuing more coupons. Consumer confidence declining, to me, means that people are saving more and spending less. This is actually a good thing. So the answer is to dilute their savings with an inflated money supply? Ridiculous. Perhaps because of its aging population, perhaps also because of a general nervousness about the future, the Japanese public does not appear willing to spend enough to use the economy's capacity, even at a zero interest rate. Another example of this fallacious idea. Why do people think that reduced spending and (I assume) increased savings is a problem? The point of an economy is not to get bigger, but to supply people with the things they need and want. If they don't need or want the things a company sells, the company should change its business model or disappear. The answer is not to "stimulate" consumer spending by lowering interest rates. |
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I just installed the new client and sent myself 2.71828183 BTC to celebrate. Worked fine. I wonder how long it will be until such transactions are "safe" (i.e. until a supermajority of users have the new client). Probably not too long provided we maintain a steady influx of new users. My understanding is that old clients will accept the transaction without issue, but only display two decimals of precision. I could totally be wrong about this, but I believe this is the case. |
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Let return to the bitcoin holiday question:
Do you think we should celebrate a special occasion for the disappearance of satoshi from our world?
Yes. We can start some traditions meant to bring Satoshi back, and create prophecies regarding his reappearance. Some ideas for traditions... Burning fiat currency Sending encrypted messages |
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Keep in mind that there is no lender of last resort for Bitcoins. If a Bitcoin bank practices fractional reserve banking, and there is a run on that bank, they will have to either borrow reserves from their peers, or go out of business. There can be no federal reserve to create more coins to cover their liabilities. I think any potential banks supporting Bitcoins will be acutely aware of this fact.
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But it leads to potentially unfortunate project-management dynamics if, when the one chosen as "development lead" is asked to speak somewhere, he pockets the fee as if he has earned it personally rather than as a result of the efforts of the community of developers. First, as far as I am aware, Gavin was not "chosen" to be development lead, by the community or any individual; he just stepped up. Second, he is not being paid because he is the creator of Bitcoin, nor the lead developer. He is being paid because he is knowledgeable on the subject, a good speaker, and willing to spend his time doing so. You sure do seem to have a sense of entitlement. |
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If you're willing to go to 70 BTC, I'll take them off your hands.
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I'm going to retract my bid for now, given the massive fluctuation recently.
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That is the VALUE of bitcoin imo. The real use for bitcoin is onshore-usd < --> bitcoin < --> offshore-usd in an untraceable and VERY cheap fashion. Bitcoin is a temporary medium of transfer for USD.
That is one of its uses, sure. IMO, the real use is as a currency that is not subject to control by any central authority. If you remove the USD from your equation, Bitcoin is even MORE useful, as you can send money directly to anyone, anywhere. |
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And that may be part of the problem. There is no significant business in America/Europe that we can see. I can't see Silk Road or business from China/Russia contributing to much of the $50,000 per day volume we have been seeing traded daily. Hell, the market is too bubbly for money laundering imo. And this is just my opinion - I'm not claiming to have any omniscient powers. How would you "see" business? That is, how would you know how many Bitcoins are being traded for goods and services each day? The only thing you can say is that there is at MOST X BTC exchanged for goods and services each day, with X being equal to the total value of all transactions in that day's blocks. Trading volume has no inherent relation to monetary exchange volume. |
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Now, there also has to be some contingency for when a runner receives a package that violates his requirements. I think the runner should just dispose of the package as he pleases.
I was under the impression that the system would be taking care of package routing, why should the customer be penalized in that case? A runner should be able to notify the system of any exceptions (damage to package, unable to deliver, etc) and it will give them a drop off point leading the package back into the system. |
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You have not established that he is representing the community. Gavin is an individual that spends his time improving a free software we that use. He has been invited to speak on his time and is being compensated for it. How do you fit into this picture exactly?
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immature answers and pocketing speaker fees while purportedly representing the community I found your mistake. Gavin has never claimed to represent anyone but himself. |
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Have you updated to 0.3.21 yet? It fixes some deadlocks which cause the daemon to become unresponsive.
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