Wha?  The International Monetary Fund got rich from hard work?

You spent way too much time on that.

I'll just point out that the supply of Bitcoins actually inflates.  And it won't begin to deflate until the amount lost is higher than the amount created.  When that happens, obviously it will not be due to theft, but due to idiots who lose their Bitcoins.

“The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyber attack that cripples our power systems, our grid, our security systems, our financial systems, our governmental systems,” -CIA Director Leon Panetta

I hope you gentlemen are ready for an October surprise.

Ebay can very easily verify transfer through a message trail and the public block chain.  There are no extra liabilities involved.  Certainly no copyright issues.

The profitability of mining depends almost entirely on your hardware costs at this point.

Be careful what you wish for.

Could you, in your view, explain the practical difference between a currency and a barter medium?

Thumbs up.

100% grass-fed chickens?

Unfortunately I have to agree that you don't seem particularly qualified.

First of all, "coining money" is not a "right" but a "power".  No one has the right to coin money.  Specifically, it is the power to stamp a piece of metal with your seal or face or whatever, distribute the coin to others, and yet still claim ownership of the metal.  This is the reason the US may also "regulate the value thereof".  They own it.  In any other case this would be considered an act of fraud and unjust force.  However, since this power was granted to the US federal government by the states, through the Constitution, it is collectively tolerated.  And the reason this power was granted to the federal government exclusively was primarily to prevent sovereign states from melting down each others' coins, as well as to provide individuals with a unit of exchange with a recognizable standard of weight and quality:


Furthermore, coin, money, and currency at least (of the terms you listed) each have distinct definitions that pre-date any US government:  (emphasis mine)


Coin is just one type of money.  Money is that which has currency.  Currency is current value.  Pop Tarts constitute currency in some places.  There is absolutely no reason not to refer to Bitcoins as currency.

Frankly, your advice to avoid these well-defined terms in favor of more vague ones recently-coined by some three-letter agency is laughably bad.  The fact that you do so behind an anonymous account with a Simpsons avatar makes me seriously question your motives.

The US Treasury told you that Bitcoins are "stored value"?  Why the hell would you believe them?

I wouldn't call bullshit so quickly.  I have some suspicions that there are a couple of major problems lurking.

You all should really be more careful making these sort of grandiose statements with regards to terms and laws you don't actually understand.

A Bitcoin doesn't represent any type of "stored value".  It isn't denominated in anything.  It's not a claim or a security.

And it's debatable whether more than a few Bitcoin-based businesses actually engage in "money services".

Try the following:

Short answer: No.

Long answer: See the deflation thread.

Anonymity is a "standard feature" of Federal Reserve Notes and bearer bonds.  This entire argument just reveals how little a lot of geeks truly know about the real world.

The juxtaposition of Jeff, on his webcam in his room surrounded by computers talking about the "good guys", and the dejected looks on the faces of the hipsters interviewing him, who only want to know whether they can use Bitcoin to buy drugs without going to prison, is precious.

I think so too.  I'm using the following script to "mine" my addr.dat for valid nodes, and then connecting manually.


And this is what I get at the moment:

I can't really pretend to be proficient in BerkeleyDB.  But, from a little hacking, it looks like my original addr.dat has 160,000 IP addresses in it.  One that's been connected for only a few hours already has 30,000 entries.  This doesn't seem right.

Silver, copper, aluminum, platinum, palladium?