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You guys are so quick to jump down ex-trader's throat. Slow down.
Yes this question has been posed many, many times, but the point still remains: the business model cryptocyprus is trying to pull off is HARD, and trading your way through heavy dips in price will be a site to see.
Even if they have what they think is a successful trading model (which they won't share because it's their secret sauce), there is still the possibility they will not be able to handle what they thought they could. Point being, pegged accounts are not a sure bet, no matter how good of a trader you are. This is a scary proposition, so no amount of spreadsheets with possible scenarios should quell the prudent investor.
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Satoshi is exactly right about alternate implementations. They are hard to do right, and can cause a hell of a mess when done wrong.
But, it comes down to which of the two bad options do we like least. Virtually no one currently active on the project wants a monoculture. We are willing to take on the challenges and risks of multiple implementations because we feel that the risks of having just a single client are even worse.
Perhaps he'll turn out to have been right about this too, in the long run. We should be able to answer that question fairly well in another 10 or 20 years.
Talk to us about the kind of mess it could potentially cause. Satoshi's "menace to the network" statement was maybe a bit vague. On the discussion of alternative implementations, I am torn; I think it's a double edged sword, largely because the potential upside is real. That being said, Satoshi has a point. The hell of a mess he was referring to would be a fork, or some other disastrous scenario where an alt implementation is not kept up to date with changes to source or was poorly implemented in the first place. Or perhaps it's not prepared for some fringe race condition. Who knows... what might happen exactly depends on the context. I don't take a side in this debate, because honestly it wouldn't be appropriate given my programmatic experience (or lackthereof). Regardless, these are real issues with real consequences. |
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I would not accept it if there is no way to redeem the BTCs from their associated banknote and if such possibility exists, then we need to have a mean to test if a banknote still holds its BTC value.
If it were not possible it would be a problem, because in 5 to 10 years that banknote could be worn out to the point that you cannot circulate it anymore.
Or the government could make all the (now) new 100 USD bills no more legal tender from january 1st 2040... and we would lose all our associated BTCs.
spiccioli
It doesn't matter whether government is invalidating $100 notes. - You created the transaction during 2013, and paid 10 BTC to a $100 bill - 2050, You are spending it - to spend / transact, you just need to give that particular $100 bill - if the scrypt requires, then you should also broadcast the transaction to the network There would be no transaction to broadcast if the TXO (transaction output) is unspendable. Solving that problem would probably require a central issuer who uses a two factor password for the coin. When you want to redeem the Bitcoin value you would have to send them the bill and they could unlock its contents and send you the Bitcoin. If the Bitcoin is spendable whoever has the private key could spend the coin; how could you trust someone giving you the bill that they won't spend the coin when you turn your back? Unspendability solves that problem, but it creates another (if the bill is destroyed, so is the coin). That's a hard problem, but one might argue that is the cost of doing business in this scenario. Regardless, such a scheme requires consensus, and that is hard to achieve. |
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I have a plan for that: Build some very useful apps on OpenTransactions to show the use cases for those kinds of scripts and to grow demand for doing those things on the blockchain instead of requiring users to trust transaction servers.
There are tons of things that are already possible. No one uses them. Armory, Multibit, Bc.i, and android wallet can't even send to a P2SH address, so _other_ people who want to do fancy things with script can't choose to do so on their own. Almost seems like a waste of time to think about anything advanced at all.  IME there needs to be a proliferation of these ideas. Right now there is 0 traction because people 1) don't know about them or 2) if they do know about them they don't know how they would even go about building a tx with a complex script or 3) they know how to build them but they will never be accepted in a block. The wiki is a bit confusing and not the most helpful on this subject. I was thinking of gathering some info myself and adding it to demystify the entire process. Regardless, the the fact of the matter is that miners simply won't accept them without some incentive. Perhaps creators of custom scripted txs should append a higher tx fee or something. At the very least we need some wallet implementations that make it easier to send/recieve these types of txs. All it would take is one hit app to use some cool scripts or something and everyone would jump on the bandwagon. But it's one of those chicken and egg problems... |
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genjix, I am curious what you think about this post by satoshi:
I don't believe a second, compatible implementation of Bitcoin will ever be a good idea. So much of the design depends on all nodes getting exactly identical results in lockstep that a second implementation would be a menace to the network. The MIT license is compatible with all other licenses and commercial uses, so there is no need to rewrite it from a licensing standpoint. |
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So those people who selling BTC physical coin online is require a MSB ? This question is only can be answered if BTC is a legally currency.
Technically, yes they are. Bitcoin has already been deemed a "convertible virtual currency" by FinCEN so it need not be called a "legal currency" per se. An administrator or exchanger that (1) accepts and transmits a convertible virtual currency or (2) buys or sells convertible virtual currency for any reason is a money transmitter under FinCEN's regulations, unless a limitation to or exemption from the definition applies to the person |
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What will be in case if BTCquick can't sell Bitcoins? What will be with shares on bitunder? They will be refunded?
This is only sell Bitcoins, not exchange service like assets exchange platform. You can sell lots of stuff on internet, sb. even sell Bitcoin on ebay or amazon. So the legal issue of selling bitcoin should not be a big issue. But I think just this concern makes lots of people panic, or else others wouldn't have such a good opportunity to buy shares at such a low price. Profit and risk exist together, usually the higher risk the higher profit. People have to make choice by themselves. The legal issue is releasing unregistered security to a lot of unaccredited investors. If the company is 100% privately invested, like coinbase, it will be much safer. Do you think btcquick need a MSB to operate? Of course they do. Bitquick is breaking the law in a few ways, and I am concerned for their future. The security is illegal from the perspective of the SEC, and there is a good chance they are breaking the MSB rules as well. They would argue that because they are simply "selling" Bitcoins in a one-way street manner (there is no movement of funds between multiple parties like an exchange) they are exempt but I am very wary of this argument. I say this because if you look at the recent regulatory guidance, FinCEN classified Bitcoin in the same category as a traveler's cheque. If you allow people to redeem traveler's cheques for dollars int he US you are an MSB. Thus I think btcquick is an MSB... and they are certainly not registered as such. I hope they do this for their own benefit, I want to see everyone succeed. |
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Our fund has now completed the process of exiting all positions, finishing with a NAV per share of 0.08838512, a change of -0.76% from our last monthly report. As previously announced, the full NAV of the fund will be distributed shortly in the form of a dividend.
...
Payment of the final dividend brings NAV to zero and officially marks the end of the BTC-GROWTH fund. Thank you again for the opportunity to operate the fund, even if only for a brief time.
Lol. You people should have listened to me. After your rigmarole earlier you don't really have a right to say that, sorry. Also, the whole "told ya so" doesn't make you cool, especially when your predictions weren't correct. You had grand claims that the man didn't know how to manage his fund etc... etc..., but when the going got tough he handled it as well as possible and helped people cash out as quickly and at as low a loss as possible. How this makes you right about him is beyond me. 75%? The fund was down .76% from the last months report. It started at .1, didn't it? Your math... sucks? |
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I will not be disclosing why. That is like giving away all the questions for a test. Just know that we are working very hard to collect sufficient data to prevent fraud. There is no guide on how to prevent fraud related to bitcoin and we are learning as we go.
The entire "we won't say what's going on but we're working very hard" hasn't turned out well for anyone. What test, from whom do you surmise you need to keep this information? So, pro tip #1: there's so much to do and so few people capable of doing it in Bitcoin that if your plan makes sense and you seem even remotely competent everyone else who is competent will breathe a sigh of relief. They aren't going to "steal" your idea of doing the absolutely fucking obviously banal, cause so much is needed I couldn't begin to tell you. Pro tip #2: if you are incompetent, the people who are competent aren't going to steal your business early. They are going to steal it late, just like MPEx demolished GLBSE. They don't need early mover advantage, they will come to your market six months or a year late, break off your arms and beat you over the head with them until you are reduced to a bloody mess. So, forget about anyone "Stealing" your business. When S.DICE was announced, a bunch of forum muppets rambled on about how it's not worth its valuation because "everyone could do it". And I laughed at them then and so to prove my point that they're laughable idiots they declared that they shall do it! It's been months, who has managed to steal the business? You can't steal any business from the competent, and if you're competent yourself you don't even try to, cause it makes no business sense. That whole working without a guide issue? It gives you an opportunity to do something potentially very valuable for bitcoin: document your experience, and do it well. You know what's funny? They wouldn't tell us their 'big secret' in here but they will tell the world in a Coindesk article. Bit odd, no? |
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Crypto Financial (CFIG) is pleased to announce that we will begin to accept applications for our Fiduciary Financial Services and Trading Platform during the month of November, 2013. The customers that will first be able to participate and open a Beta account with us will be any individual or corporation that will be holding TEN (10) or more shares of our company (CFIG) through Havelock Investments at the time that they submit an application. You will be able to provide proof of ownership by sending us an e-mail to contact@cryptofinancial.io using your Havelock e-mail address. After a 30 – 45 day Beta run of our system we will open our application to the general public. We appreciate all of the support and patience shown by our shareholders and we are looking forward to serving you. Thank you, Crypto Financial If we will not finish development for a few more months (+-3), would it be prudent to apply or should we wait until we are 100% ready? |
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If you are insistent on KYC, PayPal is not going to solve your problem from the eyes of the SEC.
And what good do you think KYC will do you exactly? Do you plan on barring US-based persons? Because that's what matters. Not what addy is on their PayPal address, but where they reside when they purchase the shares. If you logged the IP and made sure it wasn't US-based and then used a service like miicard to verify people's identity, then you'd be on to something.
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A centralized, color coin use-case would make this technique all the more valuable. In theory you could tie a color coin to a bank note and trading this note would be the equivalent of transferring whatever value is embedded in the bill, entirely offline. When one party wants to redeem that value (e.g. contract, property, asset) they bring the bill to the issuer.
Not sure how legal it is to modify legal tender and/or give it more than face value, but let's consider it a thought experiment for now.
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Converting shares to havelock wont help. Havelock and all centralized exchanges will be blocking US investors. US investors will have to go to direct shares and a decentralized exchange until crowdfunding law takes effect.
Bitcoin can be legitimate and a Bitcoin stock market can work if its part of the blockchain itself. Instead of people looking for the next point of failure exchange people should be looking at how to remove that point of failure using technology. Bitcoin would never have existed if people thought about how to regulate it before innovating. You innovate first and think about how to regulate it after you innovate. Spot on! Mastercoin seems to have the right idea. The blockchain itself has every necessary component to allow for issuing shares in a decentralized way. As long as the shares can be tracked to some digital signature nothing else is needed. Any exchange asking for your full name and address is probably doing that to try to block you if you're a US investor. All any issuer needs is a Bitcoin address and a digital signature. Bitcoin itself allows for digital signing so the best idea is to get out of all centralized exchanges, it's over.
I will not buy any shares in anything until it's built into the blockchain. I would buy shares in NeoBee. Out of every Bitcoin company out there I think NeoBee is the most important but I wont be able to trust anything like Bitcoinfunder so unless they will do direct shares, go decentralized via the mastercoin protocol, or wait for the SEC laws to take effect, I cannot invest.
I hear you on the decentralized exchange, but in this case it won't help the company issuing the shares skirt US laws. They would have to make sure that US custies couldn't get their hands on the shares. That will be near-impossible with decentralized exchange where the investors hold the shares themselves. I am now awake, just waiting for TAT's return so we can make official announcements.
We had discussed contingency plans and have our own ideas that can again move Bitcoin onto another level of legitimacy.
Honestly you should host the exchange yourself, don't leave the fate of your stock in the hands of a 3rd party! |
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-the website then displays the amount of Bitcoin to send and an address
-the consumer then sends the Bitcoin
-as soon as the payment processor detects a payment the processor uses an automated telephone service to call the merchant
-the automated voice announces through the phone the amount in local currency that was sent followed by a pin number (the pin is setup by the merchant initially to prevent spoofing)
-if the message announces the correct amount the sale is completed
-the payment processor then sends the merchant the funds as normal I wouldn't do it this way exactly, although you are onto something clever. Let's say I'm a merchant, and I don't have a smartphone or computer handy in my store but I want to accept Bitcoins, what do I do? All I have is a feature (see: dumb) phone. Well, let's say BitPay had a solution for this, what would it look like? First, I would have to sign up for BitPay when I got home. I enter my cell number and all other relevant details. They would give me a QR code to print out. In that QR code is an extended public key for an HD wallet. I take that QR, stick it on my checkout counter. Now you come into my store, wanting to buy a stick of gum. You scan the QR code in you smartphone's Bitcoin wallet application, and send me whatever amount I told you. When the transaction has been broadcast to the network and BitPay's nodes successfully recieve it, either an SMS is sent or a USSD connection (depending on the locale, needs GSM) is made to confirm the receipt. The problem is the conversion rate. The QR code should go to a website so not even the merchant has to convert their currency to BTC. It's done on the purchasers phone on the website. That way when the merchant is notified they are notified of the local currency amount they received. Perhaps I don't understand what you are trying to accomplish. Why would you want a customer to have to go to a website in a point of sale scenario exactly? That seems like it wouldn't be very fast. Or are you talking about online merchants only? |
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-the website then displays the amount of Bitcoin to send and an address
-the consumer then sends the Bitcoin
-as soon as the payment processor detects a payment the processor uses an automated telephone service to call the merchant
-the automated voice announces through the phone the amount in local currency that was sent followed by a pin number (the pin is setup by the merchant initially to prevent spoofing)
-if the message announces the correct amount the sale is completed
-the payment processor then sends the merchant the funds as normal I wouldn't do it this way exactly, although you are onto something clever. Let's say I'm a merchant, and I don't have a smartphone or computer handy in my store but I want to accept Bitcoins, what do I do? All I have is a feature (see: dumb) phone. Well, let's say BitPay had a solution for this, what would it look like? First, I would have to sign up for BitPay when I got home. I enter my cell number and all other relevant details. They would give me a QR code to print out. In that QR code is an extended public key for an HD wallet. I take that QR, stick it on my checkout counter. Now you come into my store, wanting to buy a stick of gum. You scan the QR code in you smartphone's Bitcoin wallet application, and send me whatever amount I told you. When the transaction has been broadcast to the network and BitPay's nodes successfully recieve it, either an SMS is sent or a USSD connection (depending on the locale, needs GSM) is made to confirm the receipt. |
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Uh huh. You must be over 18 to view the material on this site. Are you over 18? Residents of the US are not permitted to access our gambling services. Are you a resident of the US? Only accredited investors, as defined by the SEC, are permitted to invest in the Bitcoin Investment Trust. Are you an accredited investor? Erm...it's slightly more tricky than that. A good amount of documentation is required to prove that you are an accredited investor. Second market requires the same sort of accreditation proof that retail stock brokerages require if you claim to be an accredited investor. This is not simply a tick box that any 12 year old can deftly ignore. This isn't suggested by the signup form. You self-certify all the information you enter into boxes. There are no mechanics to allow the uploading of any documentation in the accredited investor portion of the signup sheet, though maybe they do this later for every individual (I didn't get past the page asking for information for a background check - I wouldn't know). They indicate they do a background check, but don't indicate what they're looking for. I can confirm you're right - it's a self-certification, persay. I find that incredibly difficult to believe. Second Market operates in the United States as a brokerage that accepts accredited investors. I've witnessed that rigamarole before and if you provide fake documentation to assert your status as an accredited investor, that's potential jail time. I'd like to hear from someone who has had to go through the process. If such a person went through the signup process without receiving even a phone call to go over their documentation, Second Market could be in a lot of trouble. But then, it was the SEC that had all of their employees busted for sitting about watching porno during business hours so... As hard as it is for you to believe, that's what I'm saying. I know people directly that have gone though SecondMarket's process. I hope for their own sake they change their methods. You imagine with this Bitcoin fund the spotlight is on them, the SEC will come knocking at some point. |
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Bro, I think the only way to make wallets "unstealeble" (more on that) is to inject all differend codes and private keys of a wallet in all sorts of files.
Like key 1 is stored in wallet.dat, key 2 in a metadata of a .mp3, key 3 in a register of Windows/Linux/not worth noting.
Impossible to steal is a big word and that is why we have offline wallets, becouse every freak can hijack your PC and copy the Wallet.dat and even if you set a password with 30 characters on that file he could usea keylogger which would require you to encrypt the passwords and keep going...
Long story short: Inpossible if you ask me.
I hear you, but this method above would split control of the address into 2 keys, one of which is on your computer and the other is held in a trustless peer to peer network behind rules which cannot be bent. In this fashion, a thief could gain complete access to your computer and still be unable to immediately spend your BTC. You would have every opportunity to thwart the transaction before it is finalized in the Vault Chain and forwarded to the bitcoin Blockchain. Hacking your computer would be necessary but no longer be sufficient to stealing your funds, making it much riskier since the payout only possible if you're not paying attention. Splitting the key in this manner seems like an odd way to go about it. Perhaps a slight manipulation of this protocol works better than a 'trusted' peer network? The method provides two encoding methodologies...another permitting a shared private key generation scheme where the party generating the final key string and its associated Bitcoin address (such as a physical bitcoin manufacturer) knows only a string derived from the original passphrase, and where the original passphrase is needed in order to actually redeem funds sent to the associated Bitcoin address. Or perhaps a two factor wallet with one time password to protect the coins? You could probably use a CoinCovenant to limit where the funds could be sent. Have the private key of the receive-enabled coins located on a different server or something... |
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Here is one solution to the 0 conf problem, not sure how viable/practical/feasible it is. It's probably been proposed before, and [may] require an Oracle. When checking out, two transactions are created by the payer instead of one. The first tx (0-conf) is broadcast immediately by the payer, for amount x. The second tx is broadcast (as a fidelity bond) and given to the Oracle. This second tx spends x amount, but it spends different coins in the payer's wallet. If the Oracle sees that the coins are double spent or somehow didn't make it to the merchant, the fidelity bond is triggered and the coins from the second tx are broadcast to the merchant. If the original tx is confirmed, the funds from the second tx are returned to the payer. Obviously this method kinda sucks, because it requires you to have twice the amount of Bitcoins you want to spend. In POS scenarios where you may not be spending huge amounts (e.g. buying a stick of gum) this could be useful. please debunk edit:nm, peter todd has a more robust version of this: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=29185108 |
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Well, I don't think its consider legal in the US. If so please explain the close down of https://btct.co/ and mtgox getting their bank frozen. Mtgox didn't follow regulatory guidance put in place by FinCEN. That is why they had their accounts frozen. BTCT is an entirely differnt conversation, as they were concerned with regulatory pressure from the SEC. Nothing to do with Bitcoin directly per se. It was the issuance and distribution of unregulated securities. That is why they shut down. Thanks for the explanation, what do you think about bitfunder? I am quite dilemma after what had happen to BTCT. From the perspective of a US official, Bitfunder is breaking the law. Whether or not they will comply with those laws in the future is yet to be seen. At the very least they would have to deny US customers access to their listed securities. |
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