I believe mybitcoin's database was hacked.  You may also be an idiot.

I posted similar idea before, except with shorter time but coin sitters hated it. I still think it's a good idea.

Don't you think it's a bit unfair if you just sit on coins for 30 years without a single transaction while OTHERS provide security for the network 24/7, also for you? If heartbeat would need need a transaction fee to be accepted, that would mean the miners would be paid also by those who just hoard money for years.


Forget to connect once per 7 years???!


It's very easy, Bitcoins with transaction older than 7 years can't be spent. So heartbeat transaction would be basically transaction back to the same address done automatically by the client for coins that are for example more then one year old. If it got older, the numbre of coins would be simply mineable again.

It would also help keep transaction chain reasonably short.

As we all know, the true number of Bitcoins in circulation will always be some unknown number less than the total number of Bitcoins mined. This is not ideal. Wallets can be lost, deleted, or the underlying media on which they are stored on can be damaged beyond recovery.

Are Bitcoins in it for the long haul? Or are they just a five year experiment?

I'm proposing a solution: wallet 'heartbeats'. I'm not sure if it is technically compatible with the existing software infrastructure, but I think it might be. If we define a heartbeat as connecting to the network, then perhaps wallets should give a heartbeat at least every seven years in order to remain valid. Any coins in a wallet that has not connected to the network for seven years become invalid and are made available to be remined, by some method that allows for their easy mining. Because I don't fully understand the mechanics behind the software, I don't know if this is possible, but if it is, I believe the idea has merit.

For those who are waiting for their claim to get processed, I have the following point:

I think that even if the first 20% of the claims will get processed reaaaly quick (like in 12 hours) the exchange will stay closed because MtGox will wait for the other - at least - 50-60% of the user DB to get their claims submitted. Reopening trade before the majority of the users is cleared would be just unfair! And of course those users above 20% will have forgotten about Mtgox and wont look into the issue for another week or two.

Keeping this in mind one can say that ETA for Mt.Gox exchange is at least 1 to 2 weeks, or even longer!

So everyone just relax in the mean time... :-)

Unless you signed a private contract with them stating otherwise, all you can do is trust them and ultimately they're in control. Again, the reality of the situation.

Problem... make a new transaction after paying somebody... That has a fee higher fee.  Means that double spends are easy.

Why wouldn't the next guy just pay 1500 BTC to reverse the 1000 BTC "earned" by the first miner?

Cunning. It wouldn't work as you've proposed it, though - in order for the rewritten block to be accepted, you'd need to build a longer chain than the original one, and since all the mining pool that didn't find the first block would have no incentive to do so that's unlikely to happen. The obvious solution is that whoever builds the first block gives an incentive - in the form of a transaction fee - to find the next one, and so on. Even with this, it'd only work if mining pools making up significantly more than 50% of the total hashing power were in on the conspiracy.

The real barrier is that this would undermine trust in Bitcoin itself, which would probably make the conspirators' profits worthless.

If I were just looking at bitcoins as an outsider, not knowing a thing about mining etc.. I'd probably pay around 20 bucks each because they are quite abudant at the moment.

Maybe up to 50 bucks if fiat currencies start sinking in relation to gold/silver, and crash due to an economic crisis etc.

$1000+? Not in this lifetime without a very good reason. (Like the devaluation of dollars)