Looking for people to store some of the forum's money

[paraipan]

This is a real problem that deserves a real solution. How about specifying the parameters of a useful solution and offering a reasonable bounty for an open source solution to this problem. Then you could use that solution to store the funds securely, plus the project will have contributed a secure way to store funds to the community.

+1, I agree to this theymos

[tacotime]

Not sure if there's a point to overcomplicating this thing with multi-sig, multiple people owning split keys, etc. You get a bit more security for a lot more headache, versus just having very few very trusted people hold the keys and send only the amounts you request.
Consider that if you have an n-of-m multisig address with $10,000 in it, you might only have the option to send the entire $10,000 at a time, and then store the unused portion in another m-of-n setup, going through all the requirements again.

This sounds suspect, as you are someone who wants to hold the money, and counter-intuitive to the goals of the bitcoin project in general.  An open source solution that decentralizes the funds and places the funding for the forum securely in the hands of the community rather than a select chosen few is ideal.  The suggestion I gave allows for the partial retrieval of funds given partial community support.

This is a real problem that deserves a real solution. How about specifying the parameters of a useful solution and offering a reasonable bounty for an open source solution to this problem. Then you could use that solution to store the funds securely, plus the project will have contributed a secure way to store funds to the community.

+2

[Jouke]

I think it is nice that theymos wants to let trusted users share in the opportunities that a certain bitcoin fund provides. We could definitely use it in our business.

We wouldn't charge anything for it, as the funds would repay itself. The reserve policy: the funds will be used, but it will be automatically recharged within minutes (depends on confirmation times), so the whole amount would be available in 99% of the time (estimate) and within a weeks notice I have no doubt that 100% will be available.

[payb.tc]

The reserve policy: the funds will be used

if you read the whole thread, you'll see it's already been established that there are plenty of people (probably even more than needed) who will keep a 100% untouched reserve

[Jouke]

The reserve policy: the funds will be used

if you read the whole thread, you'll see it's already been established that there are plenty of people (probably even more than needed) who will keep a 100% untouched reserve

I did and I get what the rationale is.

But it would also be an opportunity for businesses to increase their working capital so they are able to improve the bitcoin economy as a whole.

[John (John K.)]

The reserve policy: the funds will be used

if you read the whole thread, you'll see it's already been established that there are plenty of people (probably even more than needed) who will keep a 100% untouched reserve

I did and I get what the rationale is.

But it would also be an opportunity for businesses to increase their working capital so they are able to improve the bitcoin economy as a whole.

Well, just to prevent another bitmarket from happening, I don't think using the storage funds to invest is a smart move.

This Forum should create a user voting and donate 10,000$ to the winner of the voting.

Options should be something like

red cross
unicef
greenpeace
etc.



But  the winner will ONLY get the coins if he provides a bitcoin adress.

That would be a nice promotion for bitcoins.

What do you think folks?

No. We have Bitcoin100 for this, and this topic is on how to store the money, not to use it at the moment.

[Jouke]

Well, just to prevent another bitmarket from happening, I don't think using the storage funds to invest is a smart move.

Not all companies gamble with funds they don't own...

The funds would be kept in a way that it could easily be checked by the public.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Not sure if there's a point to overcomplicating this thing with multi-sig, multiple people owning split keys, etc. You get a bit more security for a lot more headache, versus just having very few very trusted people hold the keys and send only the amounts you request.
Consider that if you have an n-of-m multisig address with $10,000 in it, you might only have the option to send the entire $10,000 at a time, and then store the unused portion in another m-of-n setup, going through all the requirements again.

Of course that is true of any Bitcoin transaction.  You can only spend a full ouput never part of one.  Luckily there is this concept of change and the change address can be the same address as the source.  Still I think the point is that this is more like  savings account not a checking account.  The forum has ~5000 BTC in funds.  All 5000 BTC aren't needed tomorrow even if the forum was buying a server, or hiring a developer.  So some portion (say 3000 BTC) are put into mult-sig cold storage.  It may be months or even years before the funds are needed.  The day to day can be handled by theymos using the remainder of the funds and thus not need any involvement of the keyholders.  If/when the operating wallet runs low, it can be reload via a one large multi-sig tx.  If the operating wallet gets too large then more funds can be moved to the multi-sig cold storage.    It probably would be good to do a test tx moving a token amount out of multi-sig storage every couple months to ensure no keys (or keyholders) have been lost.

[TECSHARE]

This is a real problem that deserves a real solution. How about specifying the parameters of a useful solution and offering a reasonable bounty for an open source solution to this problem. Then you could use that solution to store the funds securely, plus the project will have contributed a secure way to store funds to the community.

+1

This could become a useful tool not just for the forum but many other decentralized organizational structures. IMO it would benefit the Bitcoin economy as a whole in addition to benefiting the forum, and spur development by utilizing some of this surplus donated BTC. Bitcoin regularly has problems with investment scams. Maybe this could be the beginning of a solution to the problem.

[TTBit]

After some more thought, i dont want to be part of any m of n. Last thing i need is for a large amount of btc to go missing, and i own a private key. Put me down as someone who would just take responsibility for a small amount of coins.

[JoelKatz]

After some more thought, i dont want to be part of any m of n. Last thing i need is for a large amount of btc to go missing, and i own a private key. Put me down as someone who would just take responsibility for a small amount of coins.

Ack, that's a good point. If you have an m-of-n, and some money is transferred, you can't usually tell who revealed the key parts. You would just know that it's some m of those n people. That might provide enough cover and plausible deniability for some of them to conspire. Nice catch.

[weex]

After some more thought, i dont want to be part of any m of n. Last thing i need is for a large amount of btc to go missing, and i own a private key. Put me down as someone who would just take responsibility for a small amount of coins.

Ack, that's a good point. If you have an m-of-n, and some money is transferred, you can't usually tell who revealed the key parts. You would just know that it's some m of those n people. That might provide enough cover and plausible deniability for some of them to conspire. Nice catch.

I'm pretty sure you'd know exactly which keys signed it. Each member would need to provide their public key in order to create the multisig addresses right?

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

> "This is a real problem that deserves a real solution. How about specifying the parameters of a useful solution and offering a reasonable bounty for an open source solution to this problem. Then you could use that solution to store the funds securely, plus the project will have contributed a secure way to store funds to the community."

That's easy to say, but we already have this solution. Multisig.

You could always wrap it round nicely, add voting or whatever, but it's going to revolve around multisig.

[Monster Tent]

Why not just directly invest a portion of the funds in legitimate 3rd party investments directly.  This has a double advantage in that the investments can be made public such that you are not trusting someone to hold the funds on reserve etc. just that the investments themselves are not a scam but allows all to see where the forum money is sitting when they donate and secondly the returns on investment can help secure a consistant future income to sustain forum operation over the long term future.

Obviously you would need to secure investment across a wide range of investments and varying levels of liquidity in order to mitigate risks.

There are no legitimate bitcoin investments and most of the large bitcoin companies are privately held and dont ask for lines of credit.

[Monster Tent]

Really, I am the one looking scammy. I dont want the coins, others have been drooling over the idea. I dont care. Why wouldnt he want to lend the coins out to the people who donated the coin in the first place. Why wouldnt he want to make money off the fund not lose it to you crooks. Trying to charge fees to hold the peoples donated money and i am the crook.

You're probably the guy who posted the more in that thread and you really, really don't fit the profile theymos is looking for. What are you looking to gain here?

Nothing I am not in this for me. I just want the money used properly not given to people who happen to have coins under their name. The money should be used for the improvement of the community. I was thinking of donating, but not if that is where it is going to friends the forum host. If I donate it is to grow the community not to line the pockets of an insiders club.  

Your ideas are asinine.

[JoelKatz]

I'm pretty sure you'd know exactly which keys signed it. Each member would need to provide their public key in order to create the multisig addresses right?

There are two types of schemes. One where each holds part of a single key and one where each holds a key and multiple keys are needed. The accountability problem is a problem with schemes of the former type.

[Monster Tent]

Please dont give any coins to people remotely involved in hyip's or lending.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

After some more thought, i dont want to be part of any m of n. Last thing i need is for a large amount of btc to go missing, and i own a private key. Put me down as someone who would just take responsibility for a small amount of coins.

To be liable you don't need just to own a key, you'd need to be one of the people whose key was lost/stolen.

Also, it's not necessary to have just one big m-of-n group. We could have several groups with wallets of different sizes.

I'm pretty sure you'd know exactly which keys signed it. Each member would need to provide their public key in order to create the multisig addresses right?

There are two types of schemes. One where each holds part of a single key and one where each holds a key and multiple keys are needed. The accountability problem is a problem with schemes of the former type.

And that's why we're not going to do the former type (in addition to it being much less secure).

[John (John K.)]

Well, just to prevent another bitmarket from happening, I don't think using the storage funds to invest is a smart move.

Not all companies gamble with funds they don't own...

The funds would be kept in a way that it could easily be checked by the public.

Yes, and the only way would be to placing the funds in a public Bitcoin address where the contents would be publicly verifiable. Any investments have the chance of failing, and frankly I've seen my fair share in the Bitcoin world.

[Namworld]

Would be willing to do 100% reserve / multi-keys scheme