Banks are charging big fees for overseas CC purchases and not bothering to inform customers which option increases fees (pay in local or Australian dollars).
does this apply to US citizens traveling abroad? |
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3. Not fast. I cannot complete a person to person transaction in less than 20 minutes. You have been around long enough to know this is not true. The transfer is instant. Confirmations just make it even more secure. Bullshit. 0 confirmations txs are not secure. Challenge accepted. Send whatever amount you feel willing to bet on you being right to the following address and then reverse it. Show us how it's done. For that matter, anyone else who feels like giving it a go. 1hcuqVjbHbUujuvtt1iDZf2aRTu2LYSE6 don't embarrass the poor sucker |
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Here is my thoughts on bitcoin powered remittance:
Stage 1 is companies in each country cooperating with each other to offer transfer and conversion between two fiats. Each company can be local to a country, does not need license to do foreign exchange. They can be an exchange, or work with a local exchange. They can offer short time fixed exchange rate gurarantee through options, cooperation with someone offering options, or just make a deal with a few individuals who offer to take that exhange rate risk. No single company has to be an international company. They can offer transfer fiat to fiat.
Stage 2 is when one party in the remittance transfer is a bitcoin user. In this case, only one local company need to be involved. For instance, a sender in Europe is a bitcoin user, the receiver somewhere in Asia is a fiat user. The bitcoin user transfers fiat to to a local company in Asia operating as an exchange, who sends fiat to the receiver. For this to work, bitcoin adoption has to increase among the foreign workers.
Stage 3 is of course when both parties are bitcoin users, who do not need to convert to fiat right away, but will do it when they need to.
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113814/bitcoin-and-m-pesa-what-stands-between-themYep, in my categorization, M-Pesa is a local fiat (or local fiat equivalen or extension) and bitpesa is one of the local companies in stage 1 or stage 2. Coin.ph is really cranking it. from what i understand, the delivery is almost instant as they keep BTC and fiat stores on hand in both locations. that seems to be the best and most efficient way to speed the process. Bitcoin eliminates the transmit process compared to traditional means. |
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Here is my thoughts on bitcoin powered remittance:
Stage 1 is companies in each country cooperating with each other to offer transfer and conversion between two fiats. Each company can be local to a country, does not need license to do foreign exchange. They can be an exchange, or work with a local exchange. They can offer short time fixed exchange rate gurarantee through options, cooperation with someone offering options, or just make a deal with a few individuals who offer to take that exhange rate risk. No single company has to be an international company. They can offer transfer fiat to fiat.
Stage 2 is when one party in the remittance transfer is a bitcoin user. In this case, only one local company need to be involved. For instance, a sender in Europe is a bitcoin user, the receiver somewhere in Asia is a fiat user. The bitcoin user transfers fiat to to a local company in Asia operating as an exchange, who sends fiat to the receiver. For this to work, bitcoin adoption has to increase among the foreign workers.
Stage 3 is of course when both parties are bitcoin users, who do not need to convert to fiat right away, but will do it when they need to.
http://cointelegraph.com/news/113814/bitcoin-and-m-pesa-what-stands-between-them |
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that type of market intervention from on high is probably going to cause all sorts of unwanted side effects like driving some of the payment processors out of business. the others will find a way to pass on fees to customers in other ways like maybe decreasing service. in general, it's a good thing however and being driven by alternative systems but mainly by Bitcoin. these heavily infrastructured companies will never be able to compete in the long run however with Bitcoins low costs and speed. and they totally ignore the SOV function Bitcoin so beautifully enforces. bottom line: it's a stop gap measure. they need to do more. |
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Bitcoin will never reach that point again.
You're welcome.
I love your dedication to being here. It's inspiring to know we're on the right track. |
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Imho there is no jump to be expected until next halving. Everything else happening is just noise. I've never seen the halving-drives-bubbles argument fully explained. It seems to me that since we are talking about CCMF price jumps of at least tenfold, and the inflation rate is nowhere near that, then either most bitcoins are immovable or the halving isn't in fact that important. For example, if we have an inflation rate of 10% per year but investment increases tenfold during the year, then we still get roughly a 9x increase in price. Now if half the coins are immovable, either because they are lost or because for some reason the holders refuse to cash any out, then the effective inflation rate looks more like 20%. If 3/4 of the coins are immobile, then 40%. And if investment only increases by say 4x per year, then I think that's only like a 2.5x price increase during the non-halving years. But 4x vs. 2.5x is still not that much of a difference. If the halving does make a huge difference, I would have to conclude that it's because few bitcoins actually make it to market for whatever reason. Perhaps it's the Bitcoin Baron's Paradox: "After the first few million dollars, why cash out any more? Fiat currency is a downright dangerous place to park your money!" (It could get frozen, banks could fail, dollar could collapse, etc. Gold has jurisdictional risks. Bitcoin is the ideal place for savings, so even if the price rises there is no reason to cash out very much more.) I believe the halfing will have strong impact and I think you answered your own question (why?) at least partly: a lot of coins are immobile. You're looking at inflation rate. Let me offer another way to look at this: (I'm assuming miners are selling 100% of mined coins for simplicity, the argument works with less) 3600 BTC are mined each day. At current market price that's $900,000 worth. These BTC are being bought every day by demand. Now this selling pressure halves and the demand stays the same. Surely what will happen is the price will rise. In case of constant demand of $900k/day it should rise to 500 USD/BTC (merely double). But neither supply nor demand stay constant in such a scenario: supply is likely to decrease, because miners get to hoard more and most importantly demand will rise. Yes, I know, economic theory says demand should drop with a higher price,... but that's forgetting human psychology and the hype a 100% price rise will cause. In other words: the halving (reduction of supply) itself is just the ignition, the real momentum comes from increase decrease of supply. It worked last time, I think the Q1 2013 rally was caused (or at least substantially contributed to) by the halfing. Does this make sense at all or is it wishful thinking? Up |
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Just got a pop-up in Armory for 0.93.1... so are the issues fixed?
I was just about to post a message about this. We believe we've resolved a bulk of the issues. It's not perfect, but most of the issues were related to a database issue that has been resolved. Please try it and let us know. has the dependency fix for Ubuntu 12.04, 32 bit been implemented? I don't think so. A more permanent fix is about to enter the testing phase. Until then, a workaround is discussed here if you want to give it a try. It worked for me when I gave it a try a few days ago. it's actually the online version that is giving me the dependency error. It should work for both versions. EDIT: Derrrrrrrrp. Was conflating two issues. Sorry about that. Online 32-bit is still busted no matter which OS you use. What I posted should work for 32-bit offline and 64-bit online setups. ok, getting frustrated now. my online 0.92.3 online totally stopped working on 12.04, 32 bit. when are we going to get that dependency required i've been asking about? 12.04 and 32-bit are both broken (for different reasons) in 0.93+. You will have no choice but to use 0.92.3. We should have a testing version of 0.94 soon which will work on 32-bit (Linux and Windows), but 12.04 still won't work yet. Unfortunately, it's more than "a missing dependency". We're working on a solution, but it's requiring a reworking of the build and packaging system i'm getting this in the Armory Dashboard: There was an error starting the underlying Bitcoin engine. This should not normally happen. Usually it occurs when you have been using Bitcoin-Qt prior to using Armory, especially if you have upgraded or downgraded Bitcoin-Qt recently. Output from bitcoind: StdErr: bitcoind: ./db/dbformat.h:99: leveldb::Slice leveldb::ExtractUserKey(const leveldb::Slice&): Assertion `internal_key.size() >= 8' failed. |
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Just got a pop-up in Armory for 0.93.1... so are the issues fixed?
I was just about to post a message about this. We believe we've resolved a bulk of the issues. It's not perfect, but most of the issues were related to a database issue that has been resolved. Please try it and let us know. has the dependency fix for Ubuntu 12.04, 32 bit been implemented? I don't think so. A more permanent fix is about to enter the testing phase. Until then, a workaround is discussed here if you want to give it a try. It worked for me when I gave it a try a few days ago. it's actually the online version that is giving me the dependency error. It should work for both versions. EDIT: Derrrrrrrrp. Was conflating two issues. Sorry about that. Online 32-bit is still busted no matter which OS you use. What I posted should work for 32-bit offline and 64-bit online setups. ok, getting frustrated now. my online 0.92.3 online totally stopped working on 12.04, 32 bit. when are we going to get that dependency required i've been asking about? |
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Dearest NLC, It's "inseparable from bitcoin" only according to pyramid schemers like you. Bitcoiners: "So we have this blockchain thing, it's a "DECENTRALISED" distributed ledger and it has potential but bitcoin is a necessary component, you are forced to adopt it if you want the blockchain"Everybody else: "Ok, but we don't need this bitcoin currency "I don't think anyone needs this bitcoin currency", only drug dealers, paranoid libertards, scammers and ponzi speculators do"
Bitcoiners: "We don't care. You want the blockchain? You need to adopt bitcoin"Everybody else: "Alright, then we will create a blockchain/CONSENSUS/distributed ledger thing that doesn't force people to adopt, use, and give a high value to a new currency they don't need. If it's a little CENTRALIZED it's not a problem FOR ME, cuz I THINK decentralization is for libertards."
Bitcoiners: "You can't. It's impossible™"
Everybody else: http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/01/22/blockchain-things-bot-not-internet-things/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkYVc1YsGCcMore coming soon. Avoid being disingenuous by omitting relevant information. Stop conflating your opinion with fact. that post just shows he doesn't understand the first thing about Bitcoin and is only here to troll. |
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you promised me you'd be happy when the volatility went down!!! waaaaaaaaaa....  |
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Could be a bunch of Bitseeds being tested. |
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well isn't that purdy. all that talk about the Bitnodes Incentive Program and that cool new Bitnode plug & play:  |
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The published piece to read would be: 'Ideal Money', John F. Nash, Jr., Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Jul., 2002), pp. 4-11.
If someone can't get access and has a public repository where I can put a copy, I'd be glad to.
As for Nash being Satoshi ... very doubtful (the incomprehensible video starts with: "Bitcoin might not be it ... but gold or silver ..."). But he, like Hayek before him, has been talking about a nationless currency whose supply is outside of political control.
i'd not heard this one before today: Satoshi Nakamoto = IAmNash sato koto interesting... Yup.. and also Szabo is a word in Chinese spelled Nash backwards or something. He talks about ideal currency and hints that USD with central bank inflation targetting is ideal but not really ideal...just good enough for now because there is no alternative and smart money is searching for the asymptotically ideal currency which offers a better more stable token based on non political control over supply... hello proof of work (owing debt) based on the efficiency of energy can't get a better source of a commodity that can't be manipulated. Unless you can create free energy, proof of work will always be worth atleast the amount of energy put into it (although it doesn't right now because of speculative pressures). and it's more than just the electricity + hardware that a gvt would have to overcome. there's the unfactored costs related to sweat equity, entrepreneurship, and ancillary supplies put into mining. take my word for it, there are numerous cables, heatsinks, extra power supplies, risers, racks, AC, fans, etc that need to be bought and assembled. there's the knowledge factor of programming all that hardware to maximum efficiency. and all the time and frustration. i have a busy day job yet i was willing to put in the time at night and on weekends to get my hardware up and running. and that doesn't count the problems that take more time troubleshooting or going in on weekends. that's all voluntary and uncompensated when doing the calculations for ROI. i'll tell you what drives that; the profit motive. massive profit motive as we've seen since 2011. mining BTC with expectations that they will increase in value as digital gold and possibly as a replacement reserve currency. how many gvt workers would be willing to put in all that time and effort towards launching a 51% attack? answer: none. many of them probably own some BTC and would be somewhat reluctant. and this doesn't account for Bitcoin miners holding some hashrate back to protect against such an attack. i'm holding back an admittedly smallish 2TH/s to bring online in case of an emergency. how many others are doing the same? anyone who wants to attack the network better factor in at least another 50% HR in costs if they dare do such a thing. and if Gavin is right about stuffing such an attack quickly and easily, who's gonna take the blame for wasting $100M of taxpayer money or whatever the # is? there is such a thing as suing the federal gvt that needs to be considered as well if they mess with private property outside the law. |
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The published piece to read would be: 'Ideal Money', John F. Nash, Jr., Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 69, No. 1 (Jul., 2002), pp. 4-11.
If someone can't get access and has a public repository where I can put a copy, I'd be glad to.
As for Nash being Satoshi ... very doubtful (the incomprehensible video starts with: "Bitcoin might not be it ... but gold or silver ..."). But he, like Hayek before him, has been talking about a nationless currency whose supply is outside of political control.
i'd not heard this one before today: Satoshi Nakamoto = IAmNash sato koto interesting... |
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whoa! i guess if Peter Todd said it, it must be true! look, i like Peter for the most part, but his specialty is stirring the pot. Every one of his statements is true. It isn't that the split of hash across pools is fake, it is that there is absolutely no way to know, and the incentive to lie is both there and has increased. It's quite silly to pretend this isn't a concern. The security model of mining is based on any actor's share being small. Small doesn't mean <=50% or even <20%, its more like 2% or maybe 0.2%. you're certainly welcome to be concerned. i'm not. Nash's Equilibrium, whom we just happen to be talking about, looks to me to have distributed the hash rate nicely since the ghash incident according to the game theory. and probably for the last time as the hash rate technological advances have plateaued. this was expected as hardware is now becoming commoditized and comparably powered units can affordably get into the hands of smaller miners again. they still have to associate with a pool, of course, but those pools are being diversified and spread quite obviously. any attack by a gvt has also been discussed quite a bit. there are thing that can be done by the network to block the source according to Gavin: http://gavintech.blogspot.nl/2012/05/neutralizing-51-attack.htmlIf a 51% attacker stopped including all broadcast transactions in blocks "we" would quickly figure out a rule or rules to reject their blocks.
Something like "ignore a longer chain orphaning the current best chain if the sum(priorities of transactions included in new chain) is much less than sum(priorities of transactions in the part of the current best chain that would be orphaned)" would mean a 51% attacker would have to have both lots of hashing power AND lots of old, high-priority bitcoins to keep up a transaction-denial-of-service attack. And they'd pretty quickly run out of old, high-priority bitcoins and would be forced to either include other people's transactions or have their chain rejected.
I'm tempted to code that up and run some tests on a testnet-in-a-box, but there are much higher priority things on my TODO list; I don't think a 51% attack is likely. You'd spend a lot of time and money on an attack that "we" would neuter within a day or two.
there are lots of ppl monitoring the BC for just such an attack. and for what? double spend for a cup of coffee? i don't think so. |
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