Only the red ones, so just throw those ones out and you are still a Super Patriot (TM).

Well actually it was.  Internet speeds will improve over time, CPU power will improve over time BUT transaction volume will also increase over time as well.  If anything Bitcoin tx volume has grown much faster than internet speed improvement and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.  It is very possible under a rapid adoption scenario that tx volume could grow much much faster than Moore's law.

The idea of a 10 minute internal is somewhat simplistic.  Bitcoin mining is a poisson process, so while the average interval is x minutes roughly 2% of blocks are found in less than x/6 minutes and roughly 10% are found in less than x/3 minutes.  The simple version is a significant fraction of blocks are found much faster and those faster blocks are the issue when it comes to orphans.

But it is somewhat academic.  Changing the block interval would be a hard fork.  The chance of that is essentially 0%.  Still Bitcoin ALREADY (with relatively low block sizes) is showing some orphan concerns.  A much faster block time would vastly increase that problem.

It is highly unlikely but possible.  You can however:
a) Edit the wallet to DELETE the tx locally.
b) Wait 24-48 hours.  This will cause other nodes on the network to drop the tx.
c) Create a new tx using the same coins.

I have yelled at people in the past saying such nonsense.  It is far better to say Bitcoin has low fees.  WU charges about $50 to transmit $500.  The average tx is ~400 bytes so Bitcoin's cost would be ~$0.05.  $50 vs $0.05.  Even if you add 1% on each end converting fiat to BTC and BTC to fiat you are looking at say $10.05 vs $50.00.  Looks like lower fees to me.  It is never going to be free (someone has to pay the cost of the network) but don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

Agreed so rant and rave about those sites.  Give them some bad publicity.  They should be acting in good faith.  If they aren't make sure others know about it.  Public pressure will get them to adapt.


There actual is.  It deals with orphans and miner efficiency.  That directly affects tx fees.  As a hypothetical say a miner knows with a 250KB block they have a 1% orphan rate but with a 500KB block they have a 2% orphan rate.  Revenue on the 500KB block would need to be 1% higher to warrant the increased loss due to orphans.  If tx fees don't boost gross revenue by 1% then they actually make LESS in the long run.  Shorter block interval would mean additional tx will have more of an effect on orphan rates and thus miners will demand HIGHER not LOWER fees to compensate.  Doubling block sizes might requires 3% or 5% higher revenue to compensate.

If you wanted the lowest possible fees then a much larger block interval would be more efficient.  Everything is a compromise.  There is no "perfect" block interval.  10 minutes was chosen as a compromise between responsiveness and orphans/efficiency/security.

Relieved the price is going down = you might not have enough Bitcoins.
Relived the price is going up = you might have too many Bitcoins.
Bitcoin goes up and down $300 in one day and you say "meh" = you might have the right amount of Bitcoins.

I would keep your expectations of government in line with reality.  Keep the old cliche in mind.  "How do you know when a congressman is lying?  His lips are moving".

The truth is FinCEN already dropped a massive legal and bureaucratic nightmare on companies (and often forgotten they lumped miners* into that nightmare) back in March.  They warped and twisted definitions in feats of legal gymnastics crammed Bitcoin (a round peg) into the single most expensive, complex, and regulated square hole they could find in the law.  Them saying "we don't need anything more" is probably true.  They just used tortured definitions of existing law to somehow reach the conclusion that while exchanging USD for EUR is NOT MONEY TRANSMISSION, exchanging USD for BTC IS MONEY TRANSMISSIONS.   Why would they need new laws, they just interpret new ones out of hole cloth.

* Don't forget under the guidance as written by FinCEN (not enforced and downright idiotic but it is still FinCEN "official" view, every single miner in the US who sells Bitcoins for Fiat that hasn't registered with FinCEN as a MSB and implemented the BSA is in violation of not just civil law but criminal law as well.  I am not saying they will but under FinCEN's guidance the DOJ could seek civil and criminal charges against most Bitcoin miners located in the US.

http://fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html

Fees are never a %.  I agree the interface could be better.  I recommend you set your wallet to ALWAYS (even on tx which "could" be free) pay the min fee of 0.1 mBTC per KB. 

In your future Pizza shop scenario there is work to introduce "parent pays child" code to the tx selection algorithm.  The Pizza shop would take your payment, make a new payment from it and include a fee.  The miner would include BOTH tx in the next block.

You do have to remember Bitcoin is in beta, it is an experiment in progress.  To avoid situations like your OP I would just set your wallet to always pay the min fee (currently 0.1 mBTC per kB).

I put a letter in the mail with no postage and it had unpredictable delivery times.

No fee = charity.  It will be included when there is space and there may be thousands of free txs ahead of you.

There is a plan for that, it is called "tx replacement" and it is partially complete no idea when it will be included in a release version of the client.  Obviously there are certain harmful double spend and other type of issues which need to be considered.

Another easier to implement option would be for one or more pools (HINT HINT HINT POOLS A WAY TO MAKE SOME EXTRA COINS HINT HINT HINT) to have a webform where you can supply a tx id and the pool will offer you a price (say 0.15 mBTC) to guaranteed inclusion in the next block the pool solves.  Give them the tx, send them the fee (as a new seperate tx) and BLAM your in the next block.  A "get our of limbo" card if you will.

In the interim using a 0.1 mBTC fee (or slightly higher) for ALL transactions (including high priority ones which "can" be free) is a good way to ensure you will be rapidly included in a block.  I have made about 80 tx in the last two days.  All but a few were included in the next block, the "slow" ones were included within three blocks.  Honestly it is a couple pennies and this is one instance of being penny wise and pound foolish.

Nodes which "know" of the first tx will drop the second tx as an invalid double spend.  It is very likely outside of some rare conditions that no miner will ever see the second tx or include it in a block.

And "Cash [USD] is still the best way to launder money."

My point was the "asia" can't snatch away coins that people don't sell.  Given the difficulty in moving fiat in and out of China it may be very likely that China simply has a higher exchange rate and doesn't experience a massive inflow of coins.

If you wanted to sell your mined coins for Yuan (and thus increase the share of Bitcoins owned by China) how would you?

Well at the risk of nonpayment penalties and estate auctions tend to get pretty low dollar.  So your $10,000 tax bill might be $15,000 with penalties, fees, and interest and the state may confiscate $30,000 worth of goods to auction off.  Any excess from the auction will be returned to you as legal tender.  Also while this may work for one or two years habitual tax evasion is a crime and you will end up in jail.

So saying legal tender is voluntary is like saying food is voluntary.  You can voluntarily choose to starve to death.  See you don't really need food, air, or water either.  You just want those things to avoid an untimely death.  When you stretch a definition to the point of stupidity well it is just stupid. 

Blocks are not full. Pools can already create 1MB blocks they simply don't.  Devs can't "solve" that.  Complain to your favorite pool to increase the block size they target.

The MPP only guarantees more hashing power (with a cap) it doesn't guarantee an positive ROI.  Guaranteeing a positive ROI would require the MPP to offer unlimited additional hashrate and it clearly indicates it is capped at 400%.  I am not happy about it but a judge (if you want to waste your money and potentially see the inside of the court room in 3-6 months) is going to take a neutral aproach to the reading.  Just because someone "could" be confused isn't the standard of proof.  HashFast could probably have been more "creative" with the language and still win in court.

+1 Have they responded to any of your requests.

How will the "asia" snatch coins from my cold wallet exactly?

I agree we should stop responding and ignore the topic just like the person before me did!  1.2.3 Ignore now!

If you have assets and no legal tender and owe taxes the agents of the state will confiscate your assets and sell them at auction to pay your tax debt.  If you resist said confiscation the agents of the state will use violence to ensure the confiscation is successful.  If you defend yourself against that violence you will be going to jail unless you catch a bad case of dead first.

There is no significant support (or at a minimum unproven support) at 500.  Just because a short term chart reverses on low volume at a price doesn't make it support.

The above post (not saying I agree or disagree with it) is saying Bitcoin has an increased chance of testing new short term lows HOWEVER if it moves above 772 then that trend is broken and staying short is probably a mistake.