Yeah, but what if the coins are stored on gambling servers?
With bitcoin, a gambling site doesn't need to store the gambler's coins. I expect to see poker sites soon that never take posession of coins, they just deal cards and create multisignature transactions to manage the pot and rake. Exactly. The technology exists to run it like this so why wouldn't they? Provably fair falls into same category also. Far out there it could be a p2p network that funds participating node resources through the rake. |
|
|
|
I thought of the stamp set but every set I found is just the capital letters. Maybe you could do the letters upside down to signify lower case.
Lower case alphabet sets are not hard to find ... not sure how hard you looked. http://www.pjtool.com/metalalphabetlettersstampingset-1.aspxThe biggest flaw is the possibility for human error transcribing the private key ... whilst thinking of the millions that could go into your address your hands might start sweating, trembling and the hammer slips, letter's all askew and you've skinned your knuckles ...  Edit: you'll want at least 63 piece set or the deluxe 72 ... upper lower and numbers, punctuations also if you like http://www.ebay.com/itm/72p-Mazbot-2-5mm-Steel-Letter-Die-Stamp-Metal-Punch-Set-/270669621438#vi-content ... a nicely weighted ball-pen hammer is the best for stamping, could be useful against intruders looking for your private key hidey hole also. |
|
|
|
I'll take a look at the media safes. etch your key onto a small piece of metal and store the metal in a heat proof box.
Do you know how I could etch the key without owning laser etching equiment or similar tools? Use your noodle? A strip of ally or copper should do fine ....  Google "Letter and Number Stamp Punch" Edit: Run Linux LiveCD on offline computer, botg.sh https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=23081.0 (on a clean USB stick), metal strip, number-letter punch and you're done. Probably as simple, and cheap as you can get, yet effective. |
|
|
|
|
Bitcoin is basically a big honey-pot, tailor-made for law enforcement data-mining and linking financial transactions with IP addresses.
You have to be very, very careful to not leak identifying information, before it can be used anonymously. In fact, it is such a PITA that I'd say it is useless to 99% of users as an anonymous transfer mechanism since most internet users have no idea how much they are actually leaking.
But the myth, aka perception, of anonymity seems to be more important to most users than the reality so the party rolls on .... for now.
|
|
|
|
|
gobry appears to be an extreme lightweight who has just demonstrated that he is well out of his depth commenting on anything to do with monetary economics with that article ... i wouldn't have wasted any more breath on it that, but there, I did.
I do not know what Forbes do to vet their writers but someone dropped the ball with this guy.
|
|
|
|
Yes, that is a real life economist. And, yes, he thinks that matter and energy cannot be depleted. Do you see just how screwed we all are? Well, as far as it goes, it is true. But it's really hard to run your economy on nothing but waste heat and ash, ya know? Quite. Explaining a concept such as thermodynamic entropy to an economist is risking a brain-explosion moment. |
|
|
|
this wont work on Ubuntu Lucid: checking for PKGS... configure: error: in `/home/k1773r/git/Open-Transactions':
configure: error: The pkg-config script could not be found or is too old. Make sure it
is in your PATH or set the PKG_CONFIG environment variable to the full
path to pkg-config. pkg-config is working therefore clearly not my fault. i tryd this now twice, still dosnt work (following compiling guides). Probably your pkg-config version is too old (as the error says). The docs assume ubuntu 11.04 (natty) or later I think. NB: as quick hack try changing the line in configure.ac to your version of pkg-config (no promises it will work) and in /home/k1773r/git/Open-Transactions/configure.ac PKG_PROG_PKG_CONFIG([YOUR-VERSION-HERE]) and do the $autoreconf and etc ... |
|
|
|
As for having this done by default on the main client,,, please stop dreaming.
Why stop dreaming about good features that could be technically feasible? A private p2p payment system was nothing but a dream as little as 4 years ago. Should Satoshi have stopped dreaming about such a grandiose, idealistic, pie-in-the-sky notion? Private banking and predictable inflation are the two key qualitative differentiators between Bitcoin and all other currencies. Faster transactions, less fraud, lower transaction fees, all such things are wonderful but can eventually be imitated by traditional banks, while true privacy cannot. If eventually the Bitcoin community mistakenly starts believing that privacy features are merely peripheral and not worth allocating resources for improvement, it will significantly increase the chance of Bitcoin being rendered irrelevant. Personally, I'll put my coins where my mouth is and happily donate to any Foundation (or independent) development initiatives to build full anonymity into Bitcoin or as an altchain/fork. Hear, hear. Besides an argument like "please stop dreaming" is about as vacuous and irrelevant as they get. If a client is released with this feature it could quite quickly become the 'main' (greater than 50%) client .... |
|
|
|
Joel, do not want to hijack the thread but the below statement is incorrect or you might be not be saying what you are meaning. The big downside to open transactions is that in order to perform a transaction, each issuer must actively participate in that transaction. There are many ways in Open Transactions to perform transactions that do not involve the issuers. Many transaction types involve the client and server but some can be purely client-client and the password protected blinded tokens can be exchanged completely out of band, involving neither client, server or issuer. |
|
|
|
Ratings services and agencies. Lots of them, the more competitive, brash, intrusive and scathing the better. Holding the bastards feet to the fires. Ruthless routing out of incompetence and corruption is one of the free market's strengths.
What is it you are looking for with regards to the rating services? Someone who could give pirate@40 bonds a junk (or ponzi) rating would be a good start ... and have the analysis available to back the ratings up if need be. |
|
|
|
|
Ratings services and agencies. Lots of them, the more competitive, brash, intrusive and scathing the better. Holding the bastards feet to the fires. Ruthless routing out of incompetence and corruption is one of the free market's strengths.
|
|
|
|
Inflation and Deflation in themselves are not a problem. I want voluntary, competing currencies that are trying to convince me to use them with their features, privacy, and ease of use. If one is inflating and one deflating, then it is fine. People will have a choice as to what money they want to use. The problem with FRNs is that we must use them, court judgments are monetized in them, and taxes must be paid in them. There isn't another option. This monopoly of money is the problem. Inflation and deflation are only a problem when you are forced to use that inflating or deflating currency.
Yes, we need more free monies. |
|
|
|
I had a recent discussion with some EFF guys over Bitcoin.
They are way more candid if they are not being forced to speak on the record.
I highly doubt the EFF's lawyers are advising them to not accept Bitcoin. I will just leave it at that. Calling them pussies serves only to persuade them that the Bitcoin community isn't grown up enough for them to take seriously.
So if the EFF lawyers didn't advise them to not accept bitcoin ... who did? It sounds like more lawyer weasel words FUD, trying to distance themselves from a big FU due to their previous yellow behaviour ... politics is rotten with this kind of double-speak, back tracking, half-truths, off-the-record, PR management, spin BS. ... are there any honest lawyers? Yeah, and the bitcoin community isn't grown up. Would help if the legal community got past 10th grade schoolyard, he-said, she-said tactics and fessed up when they are wrong .... Edit: it all hit the skids when Clinton was arguing with the grand jury what the definition of "is" is .... from that point, politics was thoroughly contaminated with legal dishonesty and has never looked back (not to say it wasn't bad previous to that). |
|
|
|
The "part 2" problem could be "solved" if bitcoin.org did not link directly to bitcoin-qt. Before downloading bitcoin-qt, everybody should be exposed to the fact that it will download the entire transaction history, and index it locally, what's a very costly operation. People should be prevented that, if they want to avoid that, they can download a lightweight client like MultiBit or Electrum. What I mean is that I think the direct links on bitcoin.org should be removed and everybody should have to pass through this page (or an equivalent) before downloading anything. Hadn't noticed that welcome addition to the bitcoin.org site .... note those are all GUI clients ... why is bitcoind CLI client not listed there I wonder? |
|
|
|
Just had a weird realization - right now it costs a not small fortune in fuel costs to go out to space, and is cheaper to stay down here. Once we're more or less space-bound, it will be cheaper to stay in orbit, and cost ridiculous amounts just to come down to visit a planet and come back up.
At some point in the future, it will probably be necessary to leave earth as the sun has a limited amount of years it will exist before it burns out. This is still very far into the future though. Yeah, I was thinking about much nearer term. Like, "I've been living and working on this mining station on this asteroid for a few years now, and it's pretty cheap do fly-by's around Earth's orbit while I drop off the raw materials, but I better not screw up and get caught in the gravity well, otherwise I'll get stranded down there, and it will cost a fortune for me to get back home." Or even just that visiting neighboring asteroids is cheap, but visiting family at home on earth is not. Cost of energy for propulsion, i.e. energy conversion mechanism efficiency, is the underlying factor here. As far as space propulsion goes we haven't got past 1G tech. yet ... and space-bound rockets as a working concept have been around for almost 8 decades. Controlled fusion and/or gaseous fission tech are on the roadmap and who knows what else innovation may throw up, but it is a pretty safe bet to follow the propulsion energy vs. cost curve into the future and assume it will get cheaper. Flying across the Atlantic was impossible 100 years ago, now those flights can be got for as cheap as 5 barrels of oil. |
|
|
|
It may make sense if you consider that the large trades are for users who want to change from one fiat currency to another, and they are using bitcoin/MtGox as the vehicle for doing that (for various reasons). I.e. what you are describing might be simply the market moving money out of euros/aud/gbp and into/repatriating usd?
That doesn't make sense. Paying 2.5% + trade fee for currency conversion? And often when it is already known that the AUD/GBP/EUR price will be much better the next day, making the effective conversion fee more than 3% in the USD -> currency direction? (MtGox only change their exchange fee once a day.) Even credit cards have better exchange rates, and the timing is exceptionally bad. Some users may be quite happy to pay the 3% for the user-defined anonymity features of bitcoins .... |
|
|
|
|
Good. We now know which side of the fence CNN is on .... is about the only positive thing to come out of such an affront to intelligence.
|
|
|
|
Agreed, Mt. Gox is a big FU in many ways ... let's not revisit that. He should have gone localbitcoins.com (or similar) for the "full" off-the-grid bitcoin experience. I found this comment interesting for its insight into psychology of a noob ... I am rather proud of succeeding and now kind-of like the adventure. I feel like I am a member of a club and in a way he is correct. He has joined a club, of people that are technically competent enough to set themselves up as their own banks. Lets see if he can hang onto his monies ...  |
|
|
|
I have been watching the trade feed from MtGox for currencies other than USD, and have noticed very different behaviour for traders using USD compared to other currencies. While the USD traders keep selling, often large amounts in bulk, traders keep buying in other currencies. GBP, EUR and AUD are especially active. The prices in GBP, EUR and AUD are almost constantly 2.5% higher, which is where the currency's bid meets USD ask. (Asks are matched from the USD order book, and exchanged at a 2.5% fee. This is shown as mixed currency in the feed.) Large USD sales are often satisfied from bids from the other currencies, and followed by large buys in other currencies. Recently, when the price hit 13.9 USD, the buying from 13.5 and up was mostly done in non-USD currencies. Same thing happened when a 10k sale for USD, followed by other large sales in USD, made the price drop below 13 USD. Large AUD buys pushed the price back up to 13.3 USD. The last week 18716 BTC was bought in AUD, 10359 BTC bought in GBP and 6767 BTC bought in EUR from the USD order book at a 2.5% fee. Mostly triggered by bids in those currencies, but also by market sales in USD. There were no matches in the other direction (where an order from another currency was matched against the bid side of the USD order book).
Is this significant? Why are the USD users so very pessimistic, while the users of other currencies are so very optimistic? Is it just dumb users buying BTC in other currencies, while the USD market is speculators selling? I assume most serious investors would do a currency exchange in their own bank when transferring to get a better rate than the 2.5% MtGox offers.
You seem to be approaching the analysis with the assumption that the motivation for trade is buyiing/selling bitcoins. It may make sense if you consider that the large trades are for users who want to change from one fiat currency to another, and they are using bitcoin/MtGox as the vehicle for doing that (for various reasons). I.e. what you are describing might be simply the market moving money out of euros/aud/gbp and into/repatriating usd? |
|
|
|
Please keep the off topic shit out of this thread.
Just out of interest, was that comment directed at me? |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
