Thread conclusion?

A bitcoin bank can exist, and there have been several.

They pose some serious issues with both trust and security. There are various levels of security (likely depending on your holdings).

Bitcoin banks present an easy way for new users to get started, which is pretty bad as they are the people that know very little about what they are getting into.

I think wallets have a long way to go on usability & security (some better at one than the other) and it would be great if they get to a point where they are easy for someone new (potentially a poor old grandma) to use without getting confused.

Doesn't look like there was a clear algorithm though.

This is for a $100 Apple giftcard. I can send you just the giftcode, or if you would like the actual physical card, I can mail it to you for the price of shipping (I am located in the USA).

Apple giftcard FAQ: http://www.apple.com/go/giftcards/faqs.html

Post your bids in this thread. Bids are in USD but are to be paid in bitcoins. If you would like to make a private bid you may contact me via private message. Bidding starts at 30USD and is made in increments of at least 1USD.

If any valid bids occur less than 60 minutes before the auction end time, then the auction will be extended by 60 minutes. If any valid bids occur less than 60 minutes before the new end time, then the auction will be extended again, etc. The time will continue extending until bids stop coming in.

The auction ends on January 21 2012 16:00 GMT+0000

Excellent suggestion. This is more what I am looking for.

Top ways:

#1 Buy something from someone who didn't accept bitcoins before. Be sure to help them out.
#2 Sell something yourself for bitcoins
#3 Buy something from someone who accepts bitcoins.

I would cut out buying bitcoins with fiat and mining. I don't think those are productive ways to boost the bitcoin economy.

Some other ways:

* We use bitcoins at my work place to gamble in foosball. 1BTC per side. People that don't have 1/2 bitcoin get teamed up with someone that does and gets a .25 bitcoins out of the 1 for winning. Gambling seems to be a great way to spread around bitcoins.

* Give a gift of a bitcoin to someone who is likely to use it and help them get started.

Yep there have been quite a few banks. I am waiting for MyBitcoin to open back up so I can put some bitcoins in.

My grandma kept her money in here sock drawer and under the mattress. She has no trust of banks.

It is fairly common for those who lived through the great depression. That and an affinity for condensed canned milk.

For a bank as a store of money, I think that there is no reason to store your coins with a bank.

I think having a seed for a deterministic wallet stored on multiple machines and backed up on paper that needs to be combined with a password of some strength is all you need. Once you have that, you don't need a bank.

Let's say there are some large number of users that use a single bank, and it is open about its book for transparency's sake (very important to prevent fractional reserves). How many millions of dollars could they be trusted with. Does the trust really matter? Remember, the criminal underworld is becoming an early adopter of bitcoins. People that would have no problem pulling up to some bank owner's house in a black Cadillac and some serious muscle ready to brute force a password out of someone. At that point, it isn't a matter of trust. The bank will be compromised by its weakest link.

This isn't a fantasy folks, and that is a reason so many coins should never be trusted with one individual. That combined with the trust in that person's moral fiber is a bit much.

Bitcoin banks only work when they don't have the ability to walk off with your money. Especially with a money system such as bitcoin which has no legal recognition. If someone took or lost your coins, what are you going to do about. Try to sue for virtual currency? That would be the same as trying to sue for WoW gold, or Zynga goats.

Was there a conclusion to this thread?

I would like a method where I can create private keys and public addresses from a single seed on my local machine, and on my server generate those same public addresses, but not be able to generate the private keys.

This will accomplish:
* Having a deterministic wallet - which is nice for backup and syncing
* Be able to generate an infinite amount of addresses on my merchant site and possible web game
* Make it so if said web server was hacked, the hackers wouldn't be able to make off with the money.

I know I could upload a large set of addresses to the server, but I would rather just have it so one would be created whenever it is needed rather than be pulled from a pool.

Does anyone have a good idea as to how this could be done?

You can download the entire code for Bitaddress and run locally offline. It will prevent that that possible case where they have been hacked and a tiny snibbit of code has been changed that no one would notice for a little while. I think it would be great if they just made a github repo that you could download from, and this way you can keep track of any changes easily.

You should also consider using botg.sh if you run linux on any boxes. I am going to be switching to that for PrintCoins this way I don't have to copy and paste from Bitaddress (I'll just enter quantity and denomination and click print)
https://github.com/RobKohr/PHP-Bitcoin-Address-Creator/blob/master/lib/botg.sh

If you want to have some fun, take this url:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5

and just keep incrementing up the topic number. You will see a play through of old posts.

The next button at the bottom of the thread doesn't really do this.

If you are on ubuntu, try:

sudo apt-get install bc

I had to do this on one of my servers to get it to work.

Also, just check each of the commands executed in the script (it isn't too long). Check to see that you have each installed.

Let me know the results, and I will update the readme if you have a solution.

Go into lib and
chmod 777 botg.sh

then do this:
./botg.sh

Tell me what happens.

I think gnu has been vital in the development of software technology, but I do see how it presents issues to this project. Keep in mind that many of the utilities used for cryptography in bitcoin related software are gnu based.

Wow, so I should just start mining bitcoins and get enough gpus going to heat my house with, and do it till springtime. It would be great to rig up my thermostat to control my mining rigs, and then when it gets warm enough it just shuts them down.

Mining takes on a whole new light when it is no longer wasted energy.

Once it gets warm out, I could just sell all of my equipment to someone who lives in a colder climate.

In the end, everyone that lives in Alaska should just be mining bitcoins.

All bills have a public address on them that is visible, and is easily checked via a cellphone qr scanner.

I did a set of 20 of these for IBB with their logo on them. I don't think I would do it for smaller batches though as it is a little laborious to do.

That is great.

Ok, so we have an Alpaca, a Camel (silk road), a Gnu. I could see doing an animal series. Any other suggestions on animals that would be related.

Yep, I agree. It would be nice to present symbolic representations of this idea, and I would be open to any suggestions you have for this.

*Fame*  LOL

I'll drop it into their customer support email, but you should too.