How to grow the Bitcoin idea?

[The Madhatter]

But you are better of trying to tell gold-bugs that bitcoin is a great *compliment* to gold, not a *replacement* (OM NOM NOM NOM)

I totally agree. This is the exact argument that I use on my gold-bug friends.

Most gold-bugs believe that money should exist separate from government, and Bitcoin falls into that category. I usually use this argument as my proverbial 'foot in the door'.

[fresno]

Bitcoin will have to earn its place in the economy. If it's good, it will make it. If not, the best parts will find their way into something more appropriate.

[caveden]

FreeMoney is right.  Unfortunately, hard-money Austrian-economic libertarians are immediately critical of bitcoin when they find out that it is backed by "nothing" ! 

Exactly like gold and silver. 

We need to make they understand that...

[caveden]

This is definitely true. I contacted Mises.org about publishing my Bitcoin article. Of course, they rejected it because they said it would "appear to be a promotion". I think they're worried about the legal ramifications of it.

I guess Mises is too academic anyway. Best to spread the word to other groups that would be more willing to endorse it.

Nice that you tried. Once I have some time I'll do the same. Maybe multiple people writing them might convince them to at least read something about it.

I tried with Brazilian Mises Institute as well, and they also rejected so far, apparently because it's money "backed by nothing", as said above. I'm waiting a little before trying to explain them the difference between bitcoins and fiat currencies, but I'll try.

[fresno]

This is definitely true. I contacted Mises.org about publishing my Bitcoin article. Of course, they rejected it because they said it would "appear to be a promotion". I think they're worried about the legal ramifications of it.

I guess Mises is too academic anyway. Best to spread the word to other groups that would be more willing to endorse it.

Nice that you tried. Once I have some time I'll do the same. Maybe multiple people writing them might convince them to at least read something about it.

I tried with Brazilian Mises Institute as well, and they also rejected so far, apparently because it's money "backed by nothing", as said above. I'm waiting a little before trying to explain them the difference between bitcoins and fiat currencies, but I'll try.

Maybe you shouldn't have given them the impression that Bitcoin is money!

Maybe this deserves another thread. I'll start one and see what happens.

[The Madhatter]

FreeMoney is right.  Unfortunately, hard-money Austrian-economic libertarians are immediately critical of bitcoin when they find out that it is backed by "nothing" !  

Exactly like gold and silver.  

Not exactly.

As a commodity; gold and silver are backed by the labour/energy that has been expelled to mine and refine it. They also have inherent value because these metals are rare. (Well, rare for now. There are some situations that *could* change that.)

As a currency; gold and silver are backed by what others are willing to trade you for it.

Bitcoins are similar. As a commodity; electricity/energy is required to "mine" them virtually. They have inherent value because they are rare. (Only 21,000,000 will ever be mined.)

As a currency; they are backed by what others are willing to trade you for it. (Bitcoin is seriously lacking here. Sell more stuff, guys! *hint* *hint*)

Now, if the power/internet went out for an extensive period of time, and I needed to buy something, I'd rather have gold/silver. (Food and other supplies would be even better actually, but I'm trying to limit the scope of my post to gold/silver/bitcoins.)

For conducting transactions over long distances, I'd rather use Bitcoins.

As it was said before, they are complimentary to each other.

[caveden]

Not exactly.

As a commodity; gold and silver are backed by the labour/energy that has been expelled to mine and refine it. They also have inherent value because these metals are rare. (Well, rare for now. There are some situations that *could* change that.)

It is not really correct to say that.
First, there is no inherent value in anything (I explained that in another thread). The value of everything is subjective, it is not a characteristic of stuff... it's an opinion people have of stuff. But anyway, I understood what you meant.

And also, the labor/energy spent on the production of something does not determine the price of this something. That's by the way the labor-value theory used by Marx to justify his theory, which, obviously, is wrong.
Something may be worth less than what was spent to produce it (that's why many business have losses!). Actually, I think that the current value of bitcoins is below what we spend in energy to generate them, but I never tried to calculate it.

Now, if the power/internet went out for an extensive period of time, and I needed to buy something, I'd rather have gold/silver. (Food and other supplies would be even better actually, but I'm trying to limit the scope of my post to gold/silver/bitcoins.)

Ok, point taken, without computers/internet, no bitcoins. But if these things cease existing, bitcoins will be the least of our problems!
(unless you meant like people who do not have access to these things... that is not a problem... I think that if bitcoins ever get enough popular, there will be physical means to exchange little amounts easily... )

[caveden]

Maybe you shouldn't have given them the impression that Bitcoin is money!

 

But then what would be the point of my e-mail ?

[fresno]

Maybe you shouldn't have given them the impression that Bitcoin is money!

 

But then what would be the point of my e-mail ?

The same. To introduce Bitcoin. But not describing it as money (see related thread).

[The Madhatter]

First, there is no inherent value in anything (I explained that in another thread). The value of everything is subjective, it is not a characteristic of stuff... it's an opinion people have of stuff. But anyway, I understood what you meant.

Ok. Perhaps "inherent" is the wrong word to use. Things have value if there is demand. I made an assumption earlier that gold/silver/bitcoins have demand.

And also, the labor/energy spent on the production of something does not determine the price of this something. That's by the way the labor-value theory used by Marx to justify his theory, which, obviously, is wrong.
Something may be worth less than what was spent to produce it (that's why many business have losses!). Actually, I think that the current value of bitcoins is below what we spend in energy to generate them, but I never tried to calculate it.

Ahh, but labour/energy itself is valuable. No one in their right mind would apply labour/energy to produce something that has no demand, for it would be a loss.

Nice talking to you. You know your stuff.

[kiba]

Didn't somebody show how bitcoin didn't violate the Mises' Regression Theorem?

[mizerydearia]

Since it is possible to detect majority of all nodes in the p2p network by visiting the bootstrapping irc channel, it seems fairly easy to determine where exactly all the nodes are in case any attempt to disconnect Internet, seize hardwares or some other action ever occurs.  Is this something to be concerned of?

For example, I can determine all the IP addresses of p2p nodes available

Code:

/who #bitcoin

and then proceed from there.

[em3rgentOrdr]

Since it is possible to detect majority of all nodes in the p2p network by visiting the bootstrapping irc channel, it seems fairly easy to determine where exactly all the nodes are in case any attempt to disconnect Internet, seize hardwares or some other action ever occurs.  Is this something to be concerned of?

For example, I can determine all the IP addresses of p2p nodes available

Code:

/who #bitcoin

and then proceed from there.

Which is why I use TOR proxy.

[theymos]

Since it is possible to detect majority of all nodes in the p2p network by visiting the bootstrapping irc channel, it seems fairly easy to determine where exactly all the nodes are in case any attempt to disconnect Internet, seize hardwares or some other action ever occurs.  Is this something to be concerned of?

For example, I can determine all the IP addresses of p2p nodes available

Code:

/who #bitcoin

and then proceed from there.

All non-darknet P2P networks have public lists of participants. Tor publishes a list of all relays (except bridges) to the directory servers, I2P floodfill routers maintain RouterInfo data, Freenet has seednodes (in OpenNet mode), Gnutella has GWebCaches, etc. If an attacker wants to target every public user, nothing can stop them.

Every Bitcoin user could use Tor hidden services to communicate, but this would be even worse than the current situation, because then someone would have to destroy only the single Tor hidden service authority to bring down the network.

Generators will always need to be located in free countries. Clients can use Tor and/or connect to only a few generators.

[S3052]

There could be a big way to grow the use of Bitcoins massively: via a musicdowlnload site where users pay small fees for music tracks. this could be competing with Itunes, etc.

what do the experts here in the forum think about this one?

[chaord]

There could be a big way to grow the use of Bitcoins massively: via a musicdowlnload site where users pay small fees for music tracks. this could be competing with Itunes, etc.

what do the experts here in the forum think about this one?

There are a couple other threads discussing this.  Overall though, I agree that bitcoin could make a great complement for file sharing/downloading.

[em3rgentOrdr]

Since it is possible to detect majority of all nodes in the p2p network by visiting the bootstrapping irc channel, it seems fairly easy to determine where exactly all the nodes are in case any attempt to disconnect Internet, seize hardwares or some other action ever occurs.  Is this something to be concerned of?

For example, I can determine all the IP addresses of p2p nodes available

Code:

/who #bitcoin

and then proceed from there.

All non-darknet P2P networks have public lists of participants. Tor publishes a list of all relays (except bridges) to the directory servers, I2P floodfill routers maintain RouterInfo data, Freenet has seednodes (in OpenNet mode), Gnutella has GWebCaches, etc. If an attacker wants to target every public user, nothing can stop them.

Every Bitcoin user could use Tor hidden services to communicate, but this would be even worse than the current situation, because then someone would have to destroy only the single Tor hidden service authority to bring down the network.

Generators will always need to be located in free countries. Clients can use Tor and/or connect to only a few generators.

Actaully, in another thread, we are talking about using OpenSwarm.  I think this OneSwam has great potential because (1) it allows customized privacy per-file and per-search, (2) has performance almost comparable to regular bittorrent, and (3) is compatible with regular bittorrents (so there is already a large base of files connected to the network from the get go).  Would be a great darcnet to use in conjucntion with bitcoin enabled p2p file sharing...

From http://oneswarm.cs.washington.edu/index.html:

Although widely used, currently popular peer-to-peer (P2P) applications offer no user privacy. By design, services like BitTorrent and Gnutella share data with anyone that asks for it, allowing a third-party to systematically monitor user behavior. As a result, using a P2P network means that your online activities become public knowledge.

OneSwarm is a new peer-to-peer tool that provides users with explicit control over their privacy by letting them determine how data is shared. Instead of sharing data indiscriminately, data shared with OneSwarm can be made public, it can be shared with friends, shared with some friends but not others, and so forth. We call this friend-to-friend (F2F) data sharing. OneSwarm is:

Privacy preserving: OneSwarm uses source address rewriting to protect user privacy. Instead of always transmitting data directly from sender to receiver (immediately identifying both), OneSwarm may forward data through multiple intermedaries, obscuring the identity of both sender and receiver. For more details, check out the OneSwarm overview screencast or our papers.
User friendly: OneSwarm’s interface is web-based and supports real-time transcoding of many audio and video formats for in-browser playback, eliminating the need for casual users to master a new application’s interface or search for custom media codecs.
Open: OneSwarm is freely available and built on existing standards. OneSwarm can operate as a fully backwards compatible BitTorrent client, and its friend-to-friend data sharing features are built on cryptographic standards, e.g., X.509 certificates and SSL encryption.
For more details, check out FAQ, wiki, forum, and screencasts.

[TylerJordan]

Greetings, 

I've been pondering BC for a month or so now and have been promoting it through the earth society blog.  Today I had a thought about Government's attacking BC and searched on the forum. . .I'm curious about the use of IP blocking software to limit potential intrusions. It seems to be an effective measure against recording industry attempts to discover 'illegal' down-loaders, could it be a useful tool for BC?

As for the Mises people and what to call BC, I think many mises peeps are heavy into heavy metal, so they don't want to hear that people can just run a program on their 'puter to get money.  No matter how noble the original intent of mises organisation or ANY organisation, they all build and grow and have self-interested people at their helm. I wouldn't expect that BC is going to get attention from that quarter, in fact I expect that, to paraphrase Ghandi, first they'll ignore it, then they'll attack it, then we'll win.

BC is money, but maybe we'd be better off referring to it as a 'trade regulation medium' (or something along those lines) - I think that'd really get their goat as they couldn't deny it.

Just my two BC's,

Cheers

[kiba]

As for the Mises people and what to call BC, I think many mises peeps are heavy into heavy metal, so they don't want to hear that people can just run a program on their 'puter to get money.  No matter how noble the original intent of mises organisation or ANY organisation, they all build and grow and have self-interested people at their helm.

No, it's mostly their fans who say that.

[MoonShadow]

BC is money, but maybe we'd be better off referring to it as a 'trade regulation medium' (or something along those lines) - I think that'd really get their goat as they couldn't deny it.

Yes, they can.  Because Bitcoin is not money, it's currency, and they do know the difference.  They may not think highly of it, but most at Mises.org can respect the attempt at a voluntary alternative currency.  Particularly one that solves the online commerce problems so elegantly.  Bitcoin just isn't mature enough to warrant attention from policy wonks.