I'd like to try this.

Starting posts: 61
Bitcoin address: 16uLZqppJySWCitsNrfamhB6o2ehwJXiT

Do I change my footer now or wait for confirmation?

EDIT: So, changed the footer hoping that I'm in for this month.

I think a PAC could be a double edged sword. Given BTC adoption rates, I'm thinking that donations would be limited because it would be hard for them to strike a balance between the varied 'goals' of potential donors in who the PAC supports. What if a politician is accused of taking 'drug money' because of the SR association and the politician refuses the PAC money? So, could the PAC could be pointed to as a 'failure'.

On the other hand, it could get a lot of PR related to BTC, so that could be good.

I expressed repeated (positive) interest in the experiment (post #42 and #47).

Someone wanted the thread closed and deleted. I didn't think that was fair to the donors and I expressed that (post #44)

It would have dropped at that point... Except that the OP started posting in a defensive/snarky manner about how OP could actually just disappear with the funds and (in my mind worse) denigrating valid posters to this thread. That, in my opinion, was unprofessional and I voiced a defense of the community (post #49). If you look at my posts, I have not tried to derail OP's experiment, rather, I've tried to counter OP's statements like in post #48:


But, OP seems to be up to 7 donors at 0.00689843 BTC / $5.80-ish  ( https://blockchain.info/address/1FxQJWfQm1g6eQjDj7KwCp4ovZ1o1QMhjk ).  So either way, the experiment should be able to go forward when OP decides they have banked enough BTC users. So, I'll just watch this thread because, as OP has posted in post #32 of this thread:


So, to comply with the request of ledmaniak - a donor (post #62), I will just monitor from now on until the publication of this ground breaking information. But, honestly, for all we know, my dropping out of the conversation is also 'breaking the experiment', but such is life.

But, isn't this a little bit like if they'd seized CISCO Stock Certificates and instead of just selling them through a trading vendor, they put them up for auction?  There is already a sort-of set value for BTC. This makes me wonder if they would auction of stock certificates instead of just selling them through existing exchanges.  Because, if you think about it, the auction site is going to take out a percentage of the value that they get at auction and they're not likely to get a higher bid than the current exchange rate. So, they're almost certain to come out about 10% behind.

Thanks for the honest feedback!

Okay, I do a lot of MTurking... and experimenters assure people by posting their IRL information. So if what you say it true, you should post your IRL information. No need to explain the experiment. But, for all we know, you're an 8yo kid trying to see if he can get the bitcoiners to give him/her free BTC just for the asking. Surely, you are not a part of the experiment and your IRL info will not sway the experiment.

Previously, you said you could move forward with 5 people. You have 5 donors, but now it sounds like you still can't move forward for some reason?

Also, not sure why you posted that you have $4+ in BTC when you were only asking for $1 equiv?

You have not stated if the donors will ever get their donation back or not.

All the cloak and dagger is not working in your favor. That you didn't expect back-lash for it, seems to say that you're not very familiar with online fund raising. As someone else has posted above said, go on any website looking for donations and you'll get the same scrutiny. That is not a failure of the bitcoin community. Once you've collected your data, post it and your interpretations and I'll bet you that I can match your 'experiment' tit-for-tat through pre-existing community threads where people solicit donations for anything from sick animals, to baby formula, to pizza.

I am personally amazed by the bitcoin community and I don't see anything unexpected in this thread. (Well, except for FalconFly who is wonderful and I wish them every good thing on earth!)

You know, I started to make a post about this, but was unsure about etiquette and didn't post it.  But THANK YOU! That gots me 1/4 of the way to staying online so that I don't have to sit outside in my car using wifi from the local gas station (BTW: most Sheetz have wifi for those who live out in the country side and need it).

So, I would like to have this added to the "social experiment" because FalconFly has been completely generous to a total stranger for no other reason that because FalconFly is a nice person (and everyone should upvote his account).

So, what would people be willing to upload / see on a gifting tracker?

I can put together a basic Gifter record, that could include:

• Gifter's LoginID (some username - this would be your login ID to create/update records)
  
• Gifter's IRL Country
  
• Gifter's IRL PostalCode
  

Then under the Gifter, they can enter as many Giftee Records as they like:

• Generic Association: Relative, Vendor, WorkMate, etc, etc... what general categories?
  
• Giftee's IRL Country
  
• Giftee's IRL PostalCode
  
• Date Gifted
  
• BTC Address - this wouldn't be shown in public, but would allow to check for activity?  Would people upload that? (This would also double as the index for the record)
  

With the country/postalCode, they could be shown on a map (that would take longer)
The record would only look for if a new transaction is added to the BTC Address (buy/sell, doesn't matter, but a transaction implies that SOMEONE used the paper wallet)
Then it could report:

• Average days till gift is used
  
• Percentage of reported gifts that have been used
  
• ?Any other data desirable?
  

If there is no interest, then I can't really spend the time creating it. But, if there is interest, then it could be a permanent data source with it's own URL and I'll put up a couple "how to use your paper wallet" tutorials.

What kind of services are you offering? That might make a difference in where you would want to advertise.

Have you done the basic Craigslist thing?

So sad... is threatening to be a scammer part of your experiment? 

You do realize that there are plenty of people who do try to scam people for BTC, so it is not unreasonable for the members of this forum to have strong reservations about someone who has recently joined and then asks for donations for a "social experiment".  The only thing that you've revealed about this experiment so far is that it involves getting people to donate BTC to a wallet that you control. Maybe if you gave your real world information or you explained more about what your experiment involves, people would be less skeptical about the experiment. Either way, you need to grow a thicker hide if you want people to continue giving you BTC just because you asked for it.

TO BE CLEAR: I still support keeping this thread open because the donors deserve to see an outcome from this experiment one way or another.

If anyone has BTC burning a hole in their hard drive, I think I have an address in my signature bar. Life is tough for me right now and I promise to use any donations to pay for my continued online access that is about to be cut off... And, if I'm not back... then I'm out scrambling in the carbon based world for the money to pay my ISP bill :-)

Wouldn't this be a good thing (not legal tender) in that they're explicitly saying that they're not going to regulate is as an official Canadian currency.

I think the FBI auction does set a precedence because (a) they've recognized the BTC as an asset with value instead of a basic computer file and (b) they can't auction assets that are not legal - hence, in the US, the auction implies that the BTC are an asset that is legal to own and exchange.  There are also legal exchanges in the US that are operating under US regulations as money exchanges. That also backs up the legality of cryptocurrencies.

Are you tracking them to see if they're used or not? Too bad we can't start a db of gifted coins to see if they're used. It would be nice to see how effective gifting is.

I think that they'd probably have to look at how much of this they were doing because it sounds like it is venturing into investment banking areas if they are holding TOO much BTC for the purposes of doing what might be very close to day-trading. For example, if they started just buying and selling real estate as an investment (instead of a by-product of opening retail locations), they would probably end up triggering REIT regulations.

Going back to Germany. Just because they create a national coin (and it would be tied to their country because of the n-party resolution), as long as users accept the German mediation, there is no reason that their coin couldn't be used globally. Accepting the german resolution process would be no different than when you log onto web sites that have user agreements that say all disputes will be handled in xyz state of the US. As long as the communications are available in a decent number of languages (including English), there should be no problem is the 'escrow agent' is in the US or the EU.

I agree that a small country or a country famous for corruption could not make a go of such a thing. But, if Ireland were to make a coin, I would be interested in using it just because I am Irish and I've enjoyed vacations to Ireland. Then there is Iceland who have built a reputation for themselves. If they were to create a coin w/automatic escrow protections, that could be a very attractive coin.

This is exactly why I don't touch alt coins.

But, I think it would be interesting to see a country decide to make a national coin. For example, what if Ireland decided to creation a national cryptocurrency that is properly mined and has security and all of that. Germany has given a go-ahead to cryptocurrency. What if they decided to create a German currency with a slightly higher miner fee that paid for automatic multi-signature transactions. So, if a transfer is okay with both parties, no one gets involved, but if the transfer fails into mediation, a standard sub-section of the courts collects documents and breaks the tie. That way you don't have to go looking for an escrow agent and they could be a preferred currency for large transactions. Their coin would also probably be shunned by SR type vendors to they could trade as the "clean coin" instead of the "criminal coin".

But, if they don't convert to USD (or a currency of some sort) fairly quickly (as in the payment processor returns USD), doesn't the transaction become a barter transaction instead of a direct sale? There isn't anything wrong with barter transactions, but it brings in new paperwork and having to substantiate the 'value' at the point of sale (There's over a $100 spread in values right now if you look at different exchange sites. -- MTGox = $903 ... Coinbase sell = $803 that's a huge difference when you're looking at tens of thousands of dollars a day.)

Thanks for the response. I put the topic on "watch" so I can check back. I'm interested in hearing what this experiment is going to turn out to be.

It seems like a lot of people gave paper wallets over Christmas. It would be interesting to see how those wallets are doing. Did the people use them at all or not.

So, you are saying that all of Romney's accounting staff are criminals? Not to mention that even in my small town are accountants recommended for their ability to shuffle money. It's a grey area, just like derivatives, and completely legal because the point of the shuffling is to keep the information from the public eye (or a spouse, or a business partner, or ... ).  While the general public might not take up with it, I would be willing to bet that there are accountants out there looking very hard at the capabilities of BTC because there is no central report that can be pulled based on your SSN or EIN. It is no different than running a cash based business. And, if you think a cash based business is illegal, then you need to talk to about a bazillion farmers out there who operate almost entirely on cash only.

Of the comments I read, most are all anti-government and anti-obama?