PK358vHVECXcJDBZaURxCZUcWKoNTFTUaR

Ty. 

raiMgrfqrnyNwsPx6tLifEGupSUuKmTcfG

Yep, that's part of this research but it isn't obvious that they refer to a decentralized system. They refer to banks and banknotes, essentially suggesting that each bank should issue its own notes. Can confer that idea with gold receipts but it would be preferable to eliminate such counter-party risk, while anyone can verify the authenticity of the notes it doesn't say that the overall supply would necessarily be limited or follow a well understood trend. On the latter point you'd need all the transactions to be transparent (pseudo-anonymous or not) like bitcoin in order to maintain trust. I don't know if they have considered that.

My first fear was that they hadn't heard of Bitcoin, but on the first page of their paper they make a reference to Bitcoin. This wouldn't rule out negligence on their part but (also in the first paragraph) they state that they which to avoid any, and all, third parties. That would include the block chain which is essentially a distributed third party.

This is quite a lengthy document so not sure I'll digest it in a day, but I'll dive into it and see what I find. Good find though.

Was that actually written by Reuters? It isn't a great piece. It is factual but offers no new information or opinion; all the information is already in the ECB report. "Point X gives Y... which you already know".

+1



A very well written and constructed article. They actually acknowledge the innovation of Bitcoin; some detractors say that Bitcoin offers nothing new, but it isn't always about the ingredients but about the recipe that makes something new. The ECB definitely recognise this. They have researched the topic well and provide numerous references for their statements.

While it is mostly uncontentious, there are a few points that would be worth addressing: the various risks assigned to Bitcoin. It is hard to accurately discern what proportion of these risks are a result from the lack of popularity with Bitcoin. They mention liquidity and operational risks but minor/ exotic ''real'' currencies can also carry similar risks. They don't quite seem to draw that parallel.

If they don't check (as suggested) then he might have a point but I can see it opening up a can of worms if a lot of people try it, or someone tries it for a large amount. Surely taking it offshore would be safer.

They could ask you to reveal your public bitcoin address. If they think you owe them a lot of money then I don't see them simply rolling over.


0.02btc

I think the ''segmentation'' they refer to is a variation of a known fault. In a simpler scenario an impatient seller doesn't wait for the full number of verifications before they send the product to the buyer. The segmentation attack seems like a more advanced version, not sure if it has been addressed on the forum already but given this report is from 2011 I would imagine so.

Good question. I don't know of anyone that has broken down the transactions into economic sectors, not sure if that's feasible at this stage. Given the relative anonymity of the transactions it is obviously a hard task. Just as is shown in the Shamir paper:



There was also a similar study by a German team as you can see at this youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FaQNPCqG58  There are problems with some of the points being made but you can see the comments for the video underneath. One thing they did was to create a histogram of the transactions (size vs frequency), that is at least the first step.

Of the hot money, I'd guess a high proportion of transactions is mixer spam.

I was wondering the same thing as OP. With regards to ASICs, it seems that the BFL ASICs versions are just optimized for computing SHA256 hashes but surely there are other companies that sell similar technology? I'm a bit of a noob with regards to the actual workings of the ASICs but just taking a guess from what I'm reading.

Account opened and ready to roll.