First of all, do you have any evidence "the market" would accept $700 before BFL had working products? Judging by this thread, precious few ppl seemed willing to pay even $499 without bullet proof evidence. It seems unlikely they sold out all 100. Besides, even if only as a publicity stunt, it must have been well worth the few $1000 it "cost" them.

As for why "only" $700 now; economics 101 teaches us lower price will increase volume. Particularly if it turns out there is an s-asic  under that heatsink, its not very hard to see why they are undercutting the other FPGA by so much. Because they can, and because they have to to achieve their volume. The window of opportunity isnt going to stay open forever, if they have an open standing order for 1000 or several 1000's of these chips, it tends to have an effect on how much "the market will accept". Keep in mind just 1000 - what you stated was the minimum order for HC s-asics- so 1000 of those singles would represent ca 15% of the entire bitcoin network.  You might find a few fools willing to pay $2000 for it, but you wont find 1000 of them.

How I wish more people would argue against them. People like Steve Keen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGkmgnprrIU

Wait; are you saying in only a few weeks some scammers (that one would generally expect to not know an asic from a 4004) who never intended to produce anything, managed to produce a completely professional looking and totally plausible PCB, custom housing, firmware and software thats not only good enough to fool someone like Inaba, but thats actually vastly better than all the other FPGA designs out there ? Seriously?

Fixed that for you.

Yeah - unless Paypal suspects you are committing fraud (or violating customers privacy, or are involved in currency trading, or doesnt like the color of your website, or suspects you from having an extramarital affair, or its the 4th day of the week,..).

An acquaintance of mine had his paypal and associated bankaccount frozen the first month his business accepted paypal. He wanted to withdraw 2500 euro from it, enough for Paypal to find it "suspicious" even though his business is well established and does well over 1M per year. It took several weeks to get it cleared.

Im not saying it cant be done, I just dont think the effort BFL have clearly put in to this could be worth that risk. And I dont understand the assumption its a fraud when so far no one who knows what he is talking about seems to disagree that what they are promising is actually completely achievable. Seriously, if its not BFL, then someone else is going to make s-asics for this. The efficiency and cost gains are very substantial. The only thing weirder than BFL having done this is that no one else has done it yet.

Found it.
1PuepC3QTWsveqHx64FKUaQnp2jHQzmpHZ
(post 399)
So if I send 10 you will be sending 20 on the same conditions, right?

Agreed they should close the bets now. But it does go both ways. If inaba publishes its findings and announces the first units are being shipped, anyone can still bet a few 100 BTC against the statement diluting my bet completely even though I was one of the first to bet against it when odds where 4-1 of this being a scam.


Yep.

Indeed you dont know shit. But sure, if it makes you happy Ill double the bet on the same terms. Post the address as I dont feel like wading through this thread and Ill send another 10BTC against 20 for you.

Open a new paypal account. Receive $10K. Try withdrawing it to your bank. See what happens.


I didnt say that. I havent seen anyone invest this much technical knowhow, money and effort in a barely worthwhile scam that depended on paypal not freezing your account.

Its not a prediction, its a hypothetical to explain the problem of hoarding and why doesnt exist now. Hoarding money can only be a problem if most wealth is stored in that money or exchanging it is difficult.


Nonsense. You can buy your bitcoins even before you purchase in btc; it doesnt matter how fast bitcoins are going up, there is no reason to avoid spending in BTC unless you have no spare dollars or other currency to replenish your btc holding; in which case, thats the real reason for not spending, not btc deflation.

Do you really think if this is a scam, that they would accept paypal? They would have to be insane. A scammer will accept bitcoin, Western Union, cash, even bank transfers - anything but Paypal. PP will freeze your account and even associated bank account for a million far less valid reasons. There is no way anyone with a brain is going to invest at least $10K on an incredibly elaborate hoax that will only make them a few times their investment when it all depends on being able to run away with Paypal funds.

Its just not plausible.

OTOH a software glitch causing a minor delay.. well, somehow doesnt strike me as particularly implausible.

I dont mind a healthy level of skepticism, but this thread really reminds of fake moonlanding discussions.

There are two ways to create paper bitcoins; either as IOU, and then bitcoin would act as gold under the goldstandard (with the notable difference that it still wouldnt be legal tender, so you have to trust that particular bank's solvency, and not the financial system as a whole).

Or you could device a system quite similar to cascadius coins; have a private key underneath a peel off or scratch off mask. The trust issue would be different, as youd not have to trust the banks solvency but youd have to trust the bank not to have a copy of the key and therefore the ability to steal it.

Still, either approach could work IMO.

You could call casascius the "bank"here; whether physical coins or paper, the trust issue is similar: you have to trust whoever issues it.

I do see the point of paper bitcoins though. And why not let banks do their fractional reserve banking with them? It would be no different than paper money vs gold under the  gold standard. If you dont trust the banks' paper money, use bitcoins directly.

I think its important to distinguish bitcoin as a store of wealth from bitcoin as a transaction facilitator.  Currently these functions are still almost completely unrelated. As a result, for now it doesnt make sense to "hoard" bitcoins, you can freely spend any bitcoin you have on anything you want to buy and just replenish your wallet the same day and continue "hoarding". So for most people there is no brake on spending bitcoins.

Now imagine a distant future where your salary is paid in bitcoins and your utility bill is due in bitcoin and most of your wealth is stored in bitcoins. If bitcoin value is rising sharply or you expect it to, then you might be very reluctant to spend your coins as you have no way to "replenish" them. That is when hoarding might become a real issue, but thats still decades away IMO.

A falling apart of the euro zone doesnt mean euro's will become worthless. They will just be converted in to whatever new/old currencies those counties adopt. There might be a haircut involved, but its not like you will be using 100 euro bills as toilet paper. I also think its unlikely the euro will disappear completely, its more likely a few countries will drop out.

The biggest opportunity for bitcoin in this context is not that it would be a safe storage of wealth (clearly its not), but that it could gain usefulness to avoid currency exchange costs.

Question to anyone that preordered: have you received any news or updates about the delivery schedule? Is there anyone who is past his chargeback deadline or who already did a chargeback and if so, how did BFL handle it?

Interesting, though its not exactly the first time it makes fox or is it?
Anyway, I have a feeling awareness is growing. Im actually starting to meet more and more people who have heard about it, although very few understand it and you get all the typical questions and preconceptions. But awareness is just a first step. From there to adopting is quite a mountain to climb.

As a small anecdote, I have a nephew in law who is a high level executive at a small-ish local bank and insurance company (AXA). I met him a month or two ago and brought up bitcoin. Unsurprisingly, he had never heard of it and I must have done a bad job of explaining as he was very dismissive of the whole concept. He just shrugged it off, uninterested. Not that I was too surprised by that; while one of the smartest people I know, he is also a complete PC neophyte that hardly knows how to turn on his laptop and one of the most "conservative" people I know.  Not conservative in the US political sense, just a really 'old fashioned' person.  I figured he'd be about the last person I could "convert".

When I met him again some weeks later, to my surprise he was the one to bring up bitcoin; he had in fact googled it and was no longer dismissive; still skeptical but clearly intrigued and he bombarded me with questions. I wouldnt say he is a firm believer and advocate yet, but he is one of many  I think, who are interested, but not quite willing to jump in already, instead closely watching how this unfolds. Of course I just had to make him a stakeholder, so he is the owner of a casacius coin now . The day he calls me asking me how to open an account at Mt Gox is the day Ill jump in with both feet .

Does that laptop have only 512 MB Ram? If so, newer live cds wont work because you do not have enough ram to load the ISO and the OS. You need at least 1GB for that.  But you can install ubuntu 11.10, you just need the non graphical "alternate" cd. Grab it here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/alternative-download#alternate

Its only the installer thats not graphical, once installed you have the same OS and GUI. Dont expect uber smooth performance, but it will probably work.

If you dont trust the PPA, compile yourself.  Try this


Instructions courtesy of DiThi

Honestly I wouldnt bother with bitcoin cpu mining. No one does that anymore. If its on you todo list, move it to the bottom