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1  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bounty: Study on retail or business use of bitcoin on: July 22, 2011, 04:33:29 PM
@bitcoin_for_fun: thanks for publishing your data. I had to ask for access. Could you make it public somehow so that people don't have to request access to see the data?
2  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bounty: Study on retail or business use of bitcoin on: July 22, 2011, 04:32:02 PM
@ampkZjWDQcqT: I can assure you this isn't a scam. I am a well-known member of the bitcoin community. I published a paper on SSRN regarding some legal issues related to bitcoin. I have posted my full name. I am a graduate of Yale Law School. Although I appreciate that someone might start a scam using this kind of bounty, this isn't that.

Also, you have fairly good circumstantial evidence that it is really me who started this thread and not a scammer who is co-opting my identity. I sent bitcoins from the address I put up for donations for my paper to the address I posted here. Thus, a scammer would have to get the password on my account here on the forums and also somehow compromise my wallet.
3  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bounty: Study on retail or business use of bitcoin on: July 22, 2011, 04:20:04 PM
@evoorhees: I agree that 3.5BTC isn't nearly enough for work of this sort.

First, I'm hoping that it will motivate, as an additional bonus, someone who was already planning to do something like this or has the skills to do it. For example, I got some donations for the draft of my paper (and block explorer will tell you that I re-sent part of those donations into this bounty). If you count the actual number of hours I spent on that paper and the hourly rate that my employer will be charging for my work, the paper is worth somewhere between $20,000 and $50,000. But I didn't do it for the money and I hope the bounty here will be a partial motivation rather than full payment.

Second, I hope that others will add to the bounty.

@Gabriel Beal: thanks for your offer -- I hope others add more to the bounty! Please send any amount to: 1HSSicqMoMm4FXpH6UgQya7xaQbN9EJXit
4  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bounty: Study on retail or business use of bitcoin on: July 22, 2011, 03:15:14 PM
Apparently there is a bug in the forums that cuts off messages right after a bitcoin address, which is why I had to split my message into two. WTH?
5  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bounty: Study on retail or business use of bitcoin on: July 22, 2011, 03:13:09 PM
I've already sent my 3.5 bitcoins to that address. I will distribute this bounty for the purposes above, in my sole discretion. Note that if I do not distribute the bounty because nothing meeting my standards appears, I will donate the bitcoins in that account to the bitcoin faucet, or if that isn't available or isn't prudent, to another bitcoin-community focused venture.

Feel free to ask questions. I am taking the bar in a few days, so I might answer questions sporadically, if at all, before July 28th.

To enter your paper/study, you can post a link here to it or you can send it to me at reuben.grinberg+bitcoin at gmail. Questions that you want to ask offline can be sent there too.

Best,
Reuben
6  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Bounty: Study on retail or business use of bitcoin on: July 22, 2011, 03:10:53 PM
Hi Folks,

I'm offering 3.5 bitcoins (close to $50 at today's rates) for a paper or otherwise easy to understand and use data regarding how much retail and business-to-business trade is being done in bitcoins. The ilst of things on the trade page on the bitcoin wiki keeps getting longer, which is great, but there has been no reliable information about how much trade is being done in bitcoin. Every single article (including my interview in the German online newsaper, Zeit Online) mentions the alpaca socks, for example, but no one knows how many they've sold in bitcoins vs. dollars, etc... I want to be able to cite something in my legal paper, when it is published in a few months in the UC Hastings Science and Technology Law Journal, that will give an idea of how big the bitcoin economy really is. The person creating this study can retain copyrights and authorship rights, but agree to allow free academic and fair use of the study.

To do this well, you'll likely have to send out surveys or in some other way get sales data from some bitcoin merchants. The document you provide needs to be trustworthy, so you should explain your methods, use citations where possible, and try to edit carefully. Something that looks flashy but has data that seems made up -- or where I can't confirm the methodology won't fit the bill. Similarly, something with the world's best data in the form of an excel spreadsheet without an accompanying explanation won't work either.

I will award the bounty in my sole discretion. I reserve the right not to award it if nothing meeting my standards is created within a reasonable amount of time, which I will also determine in my sole discretion. I also reserve the right to award part of the bounty or split the bounty between two or more papers or studies. However, if there is a standout, I will likely award the whole bounty to one paper/person.

A source like this would be very good for the bitcoin community because it would put in context what is going on in the bitcoin economy, and might act as a counterweight to those who think that bitcoin is only used for purchasing drugs on silk road. (To that end, a comparison between the amount of money spent on silk road vs. other things would be helpful, but certainly not necessary).

If you think such a paper/source would be good, please contribute to the bounty by sending donations to 1HSSicqMoMm4FXpH6UgQya7xaQbN9EJXit
7  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Support U.S. HR 1098 Free Competition in Currency Act on: July 15, 2011, 01:28:53 PM
@CryptoCommodity: Others have made the same comment you have regarding fiat vs. not. See http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=6247. I agreed to change it in the next draft, but its far from a "fatal flaw" when in the same paragraph I clearly explain what I mean by that term. Your argument regarding bitcoins not being a security is not convincing because you are not engaged in legal analysis. Instead, you are saying, "does this feel like a security? Obviously not." That kind of thinking is relevant and and important but never dispositive. Instead, one must turn to the language of the statute itself, the relevant cases that have interpreted those statutes, and legislative history and other clues that help indicate what the legislatures purpose was. Another lawyer has written a post disagreeing with my conclusion about bitcoins being a security, but he used the same methods I did: methodical legal analysis. See http://www.lextechnologiae.com/2011/06/26/why-bitcoin-isnt-a-security-under-federal-securities-law/.

@Big Time Coin: If you had taken a look at my paper you would have seen that I thoroughly covered the Liberty Dollar "travesty." In fact, I looked at the laws and the case filings. I called the prosecutor and also spoke to Bernard von NotHaus. That case has _nothing_ to do with alternative currencies. It's about NotHaus and his associates defrauding people. More importantly, if _you_ had read the counterfeiting statutes that the Act refers to, you would see that they all only apply to metal money and have no application to Bitcoin. Thus, their repeal is irrelevant to Bitcoin.

MsBitcoin's response to your last paragraph is on point. Nothing in Ron Paul's act would be directly relevant to bitcoins except the repeal of legal tender laws. Even the tax section likely does not apply to bitcoins because that section is clearly aimed at _metal_ coins. The only general word in that list is "coin" and when reading statutes, general words are generally read to be limited by those in a list with it. Thus, the fact that bitcoin has the word "coin" in it is irrelevant.
8  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Support U.S. HR 1098 Free Competition in Currency Act on: July 15, 2011, 03:40:22 AM
@CryptoCommodity: I never said that Bitcoin was clearly illegal. There is a huge difference between saying that bitcoin is "clearly legal" is definitely wrong, as I did, and saying that bitcoin is definitely illegal. Earlier threads on here had relevant discussions relating to money transmitting and money laundering laws that likely apply. Unfortunately, I didn't get to discuss those in my paper (which has been accepted for publication). I am planning to getting around to it either in my next draft or another paper. But I did address, for example, the application of securities laws. Have you read my paper?
9  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Support U.S. HR 1098 Free Competition in Currency Act on: July 15, 2011, 03:18:24 AM
Hi Folks,

My quick reading of this statute indicates that it would have almost no impact on bitcoin. The counterfeiting statutes already have no application to bitcoin, as I explained in my paper (http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1817857). Similarly, taxation of physical coins as commodities is not really relevant to bitcoin. The other aspect -- legal tender -- is relevant to bitcoin but is less important than most would think, as @gmaxwell's link regarding legal tender status shows.

There are _tons_ of laws that place bitcoin in a legal gray area, many of them orders of magnitude more important than legal tender laws, such as money transmitting and money laundering rules, securities laws, and so on.

@Denicen: How can you flatly state something like "it is very clearly legal." Reading these forums and searching the web would indicate to you a number of ways that bitcoin is not "very clearly legal" or even "clearly legal."

And now, back to studying for the NY Bar.

Best,
Reuben
10  Bitcoin / Project Development / Re: www.btcbalance.net - View your balance easily online. on: July 14, 2011, 12:42:44 AM
It would be nice to be able to add optional labels for accounts.
11  Economy / Goods / Re: new real tangible physical bitcoin coin on: July 01, 2011, 09:26:31 PM
Just ordered one of them. Will be a nice little memento of my adventures with Bitcoin  Cheesy

Same here. Very neat!
12  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Is it "Bitcoin", "BitCoin" or "Bit Coin"? on: May 05, 2011, 01:32:38 PM
The name of the project is Bitcoin (with initial capital), and the currency units are bitcoins (without initial capital).

I agree with ribuck. That's the distinction I made in my legal paper.
13  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: feedback on preliminary draft of legal paper on: May 05, 2011, 01:05:17 AM
I would also like to thank the several individuals who acknowledged my paper by donating a total of about 7 BTC - enough for dinner and a drink under current exchange rates!
14  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: feedback on preliminary draft of legal paper on: May 05, 2011, 12:38:31 AM
Spenvo and I had some back and forth on the issues he brought up and settled, I think on the following:

First, it's difficult to understand the claim that bitcoin is a security without knowing what impact that will have. Will it affect miners, software developers, exchangers, speculators, businesses accepting bitcoins, and consumers using bitcoin to make purchases all in the same ways or in different ways? These are important questions that I will try to get to in my next draft, although I can't promise anything.

Second, the tax implications of bitcoin are important, and I hope to get to them.

(Spenvo - I hope I haven't misconstrued our conversations).

@moa and @gareth69: the fiduciary suggestion is an interesting one that I will consider in more detail although the word "fiduciary" carries a lot of legal baggage with it that I think will probably make it inappropriate. For example, a "fiduciary" usually has a number of fiduciary responsibilities to the beneficiaries of the thing in question, and must act solely in their best interest -- and can be sued for failing to do that in court. Do you guys believe that, e.g., Gavin should be treated like the director of a corporation (who, in general, have fiduciary obligations to shareholders), sueable whenever he does something that some bitcoin holders believe is not in the best interests of bitcoin holders? Anyway, I'm not dismissing this idea out of hand, but I just want to point out that it is fairly complex and would have many consequences, some perhaps unintended.
15  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Update] Bitcoin-Contact - Send messages to bitcoin user & Your Bitcoin Identity on: May 02, 2011, 10:33:53 PM
I find the "my account page" very confusing. The difference between the three tables where the first column is "Public" is unclear.

Also, the directions for validating a bitcoin address could be better presented -- maybe in numbered Steps that are easily visually distinguishable? Furthermore, no need to show all of the steps at once; why not just show the relevant step at the relevant point in time?

Finally, the right version of bitcoin isn't available for OS X yet, so I can't follow through on registering an address yet. Not your fault, obviously, but something to consider.
16  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Update] Bitcoin-Contact - Send messages to bitcoin user & Your Bitcoin Identity on: May 02, 2011, 10:24:55 PM
Just registered and hit yet another bug. Hitting so many bugs is somewhat disappointing. What kind of testing do you do?

Quote
My Public Bitcoin identity
Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /var/alternc/html/b/bitcoin/web/bitcoin-contact.org/lib/db/schema.php on line 429

Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /var/alternc/html/b/bitcoin/web/bitcoin-contact.org/lib/db/schema.php on line 429
No public address yet.
17  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Update] Bitcoin-Contact - Send messages to bitcoin user & Your Bitcoin Identity on: May 02, 2011, 10:22:15 PM
Interesting.

Can someone explain why we should trust a message like the following, which purports to be Jimmy Wales giving a bitcoin donation address (which seems highly suspect to me).

http://bitcoin-contact.org/?msg=23
18  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: [Update] Bitcoin-Contact - Send messages to bitcoin user & Your Bitcoin Identity on: May 02, 2011, 04:35:38 PM
I am getting an error message when I click on a message:

Quote
View message :

Fatal error: Class 'message' not found in /var/alternc/html/b/bitcoin/web/bitcoin-contact.org/template/pageViewMessage.php on line 9
19  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: feedback on preliminary draft of legal paper on: May 01, 2011, 12:36:05 PM
Hi all,

Thanks for the continued discussion and sorry I haven't responded promptly. I'm in the middle of studying for finals.

Let me say that although I think there's a good argument calling bitcoin "fiat" (as I mentioned in an earlier post), that word seems to confuse more than clarify. I will probably not use that term in the next draft and may allude to the discussion (of fiat vs. not) in the footnote.

Best,
Reuben
20  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin Conference 2011 NYC on: April 27, 2011, 05:15:04 PM
I'd probably come if it is in June, very early July or August. In late July I am taking the bar.
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