Bitcoin press hits, notable sources

[julz]

SCPR - Southern California Public Radio

Bitcoin: Who needs the almighty dollar after all?

Matthew DeBord
2011-11-29?

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2011/11/29/3906/bitcoin-who-needs-almighty-dollar-after-all/

"In this way, I think it's illiquidity waiting to happen. And of course illiquidity did doom Bitcoin 1.0.

Any future version that actually works would have to solve this problem. Probably by striking a compromise between distributed and centrally managed value."

[julz]

This is quite a high profile hit!
Congrats to Rick Falkvinge.

Special Report

The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers
Foreign Policy presents a unique portrait of 2011's global marketplace of ideas and the thinkers who make them.


December 2011 (published 2011-11)


http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/11/28/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=full



98 Rick Falkvinge
For taking pirates into politics
Founder, Pirate Party | Sweden

"It's more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy," the late Steve Jobs once said. No one had to tell Rick Falkvinge, founder and chief evangelist of the growing global Pirate Party movement. A former software entrepreneur and Microsoft employee, Falkvinge founded the original party in Sweden in 2006. It rose to prominence following a government crackdown on the Pirate Bay file-sharing site, and Pirate parties are now active in more than 25 countries.

Indeed, 2011 may be remembered as the year Falkvinge's big idea broke through into the public consciousness. His Pirates still aren't exactly mainstream, but the issues they focus on -- government transparency, Internet privacy, and copyright law -- are very much in the zeitgeist, and their ranks are growing. The Swedish and Swiss Pirate parties have aided WikiLeaks, offering the controversial site server space and web hosting; a self-described Pirate Party activist was named secretary of youth and sports in Tunisia's revolutionary cabinet; and in September, the Pirates won a shocking 8.9 percent of the vote in Berlin's state elections.

Falkvinge also made Internet waves this year with his high-profile advocacy of Bitcoin, a digital currency that is either the future of global commerce or a high-tech form of money laundering -- depending on whom you ask.

...

Best idea
Bitcoin. Distributed cryptocurrency will change the economic game entirely, wrestling financial power from banks and governments.

Swedish Pirate Party founder named a ‘Top 100 Global Thinker’

Justin Massoud
2011-11-29

http://www.myce.com/news/swedish-pirate-party-founder-named-a-top-100-global-thinker-55176/


Falkvinge made the cut thanks to his staunch advocacy of controversial p2p transaction system BitCoin and “for taking pirates into politics.”

[julz]

A blogger gives a fairly thorough 6 part series on how Bitcoin works

Bitcoin Explained

2011 Nov,Dec

http://onusprobandy.blogspot.com/2011/11/bitcoin-explained-i.html

[Boussac]

Swedish Pirate Party founder named a ‘Top 100 Global Thinker’

Justin Massoud
2011-11-29

http://www.myce.com/news/swedish-pirate-party-founder-named-a-top-100-global-thinker-55176/


Falkvinge made the cut thanks to his staunch advocacy of controversial p2p transaction system BitCoin and “for taking pirates into politics.”

Great achievement by Rick Falkvinge, who, incidentally, gave an inspiring speech at the prague Bitcoin Conference (his presentation).
However, FP's Top 100 "Thinkers" list is also smeared with names like Bernanke or Trichet...

[julz]

Ambitious Decentralized Projects That Aim to Create a Better Internet

Chinmoy Kanjilal
2011-11-30

http://techie-buzz.com/foss/decentralized-project-bitcoin-darknet-yacy-internet.html?tb_spage=true

[julz]

Another Wired reaction piece.
John Geraci sees the potential of p2p currency - but like others, seems to have been led by that article to the premature conclusion that Bitcoin has had a permanent fall.

Did Bitcoin “Fail” or Is it Just One Step On the Road to P2P Currency?

John Geraci
2011-12-01

http://johngeraci.com/blog/2011/12/did-bitcoin-fail-or-is-it-just-one-step-on-the-road-to-p2p-currency/#comment-1273


Reading the article, I feel like the unmistakable conclusion, which the author doesn’t make, is that Bitcoin failed, but in doing so it blew a gigantic hole in the concept of money, broke a lot of new ground, and that new ground is bound to be claimed by some other player in the next few years one way or another.

[julz]

Matthew DeBord follows up after some bitcoin community comments on his recent Bitcoin post...

Commenting on the commenters: Bitcoin

Matthew DeBord
2011-12-02

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2011/12/01/3923/commenting-commenters-bitcoin/

What I've learned from writing about Bitcoin is that...Bitcoin has some passionate advocates! It's been debunked in the popular media. But clearly, there's a thriving subculture of Bitcoin enthusiasts. They've got my respect, even if they haven't convinced me that Bitcoin — or another type of currency not backed by a central government — will ever work

Discussion thread here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53566.0

[molecular]

Matthew DeBord follows up after some bitcoin community comments on his recent Bitcoin post...

Commenting on the commenters: Bitcoin

Matthew DeBord
2011-12-02

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2011/12/01/3923/commenting-commenters-bitcoin/

What I've learned from writing about Bitcoin is that...Bitcoin has some passionate advocates! It's been debunked in the popular media. But clearly, there's a thriving subculture of Bitcoin enthusiasts. They've got my respect, even if they haven't convinced me that Bitcoin — or another type of currency not backed by a central government — will ever work

I just had to comment on "commenting on the commenters".

Also, julz: thanks so much for posting all this stuff here. This is one of my favorite morning-coffe-threads.

[paraipan]

Matthew DeBord follows up after some bitcoin community comments on his recent Bitcoin post...

.....................................................

I just had to comment on "commenting on the commenters".

Also, julz: thanks so much for posting all this stuff here. This is one of my favorite morning-coffe-threads.

+1

[MoonShadow]

Matthew DeBord follows up after some bitcoin community comments on his recent Bitcoin post...

Commenting on the commenters: Bitcoin

Matthew DeBord
2011-12-02

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/economy/2011/12/01/3923/commenting-commenters-bitcoin/

What I've learned from writing about Bitcoin is that...Bitcoin has some passionate advocates! It's been debunked in the popular media. But clearly, there's a thriving subculture of Bitcoin enthusiasts. They've got my respect, even if they haven't convinced me that Bitcoin — or another type of currency not backed by a central government — will ever work

I just had to comment on "commenting on the commenters".

Also, julz: thanks so much for posting all this stuff here. This is one of my favorite morning-coffe-threads.

I let him know how I felt about him too.  +1 on the morning-daily-check thread.

[julz]

Not a mainstream press hit or anything.. but the idea of the site "A scientific approach to earning more money" is interesting.

Making Money With Bitcoins – An Interview With Philip Daniel

2011-12-01

http://www.experimentincome.com/moneybitcoins/

Hypothesis
It's possible to make money bitcoin mining, but it's getting increasingly difficult

...

Conclusion
Right Now, Bitcoin Mining is an unprofitable enterprise. The future of Bitcoin is uncertain.

About Experiment Income
"Our mission is to find out what can earn you more money and what can’t."


Philip Daniel appears to be 'a senior economics major at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo' who is into bitcoin.

[julz]

I wouldn't normally report on advertisements - but Roger Ver of Memory Dealers does them in a way that promotes Bitcoin itself rather than directly promoting his company.
Here's his latest.

Zeus Radio ad
Bitcoin

MemoryDealers - Roger Ver
2011-12-02


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pV9ptoCMyc&feature=g-u

[molecular]

I wouldn't normally report on advertisements - but Roger Ver of Memory Dealers does them in a way that promotes Bitcoin itself rather than directly promoting his company.
Here's his latest.

wow! so much revolutionary power! Thanks, Roger!

I think it's legitimate to report ads here if they are for bitcoin and only slightly for some bitcoin business (which is not even the case here)

[molecular]

I'm not sure this can be considered "press", but I think it's notable:

http://ia700801.us.archive.org/5/items/MaxKeiserRadio-TheTruthAboutMarkets-03December2011/TaM-031211.mp3 (start listen at 31:30 for bitcoin)

Stacy Herbert, Max Keiser and Richard Bluestein talk in Paris, partly about Bitcoin and the Conference.

Stacy seems genuinly impressed by having actually used bitcoin.

Here's a quote:

Now, that's the thing that I really learned at the Bitcoin Conference. Now, I guess I got a little bit confused by a lot of the trolls and propaganda out there who don't understand, because, a lot of shreekers, who actually haven't used bitcoin. Now I assumed, like they, at a certain point, you know, people are like: 'it's a ponzy scheme!'. But what it is: it's a unit of transaction. If you've actually ever used it, you can see the simplicity of using it just to friggin' purchase something, not to speculate and hope to flip it to somebody at a greater price. You just convert your currency that day to whatever... there's some place that'll convert it to gold for you, you can convert it to euros, swiss franks, dollars, whatever you want.

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Stacy seems genuinly impressed by having actually used bitcoin.

Max is too, here's his quote:

I think of it like Western Union. You go to Western Union and you send money. You go to Bitcoin and you can send money. Now, you can also buy or sell stock in Western Union and speculate on what direction the stock price might go, but that doesn't mean you can't use it as a service to send money unless you buy or sell stock. That's not true. Same thing with Bitcoin. Yes, you can buy and sell Bitcoins if you want to, but that's not the primary purpose of Bitcoin. The primary purpose is to send money for virtually free on the web.

[julz]

Bitcoin for beginners, Part 2: Bitcoin as a technology and network

Dirk Merkel
2011-12-06


http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2011/111206-bitcoin-for-beginners-part-2.html

[MoonShadow]

Bitcoin for beginners, Part 2: Bitcoin as a technology and network

Dirk Merkel
2011-12-06


http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-2011/111206-bitcoin-for-beginners-part-2.html

Wow, wrong right from the start...

"Bitcoin uses public-key cryptography for signing transactions. In the Bitcoin marketplace, coins are transferred between users via an exchange of keys."

EDIT:

And again right after that...

The public key serves as an address to which Bitcoins can be sent,"

(the address contains a hash of the public key, and a checksum of that hash, but not the public key itself, which is not disclosed until funds are sent away from that address.  I'm sure someone will correct me if I wrong here.)

[netrin]

Of course it is supposed to be a technical journal for programmers, but perhaps you are too critical, considering that same paragraph is filled with other loose analogies such as ATM PINs?:

...are transfered between users via exchange of keys
...are transfered between users after the exchange of keys
...are transfered between users after the sender receives the recipient's key
...are transfered between users after the sender receives the hash value of the recipient's key

[MoonShadow]

Of course it is supposed to be a technical journal for programmers, but perhaps you are too critical, considering that same paragraph is filled with other loose analogies such as ATM PINs?:

...are transfered between users via exchange of keys
...are transfered between users after the exchange of keys
...are transfered between users after the sender receives the recipient's key
...are transfered between users after the sender receives the hash value of the recipient's key

No, because the loose analogies are presented as such.

[grondilu]

And again right after that...

The public key serves as an address to which Bitcoins can be sent,"

(the address contains a hash of the public key, and a checksum of that hash, but not the public key itself, which is not disclosed until funds are sent away from that address.
I'm sure someone will correct me if I wrong here.)

Well, the public key is used to make the hash, which is encoded in Base58 to make the address, so in a sense the public key serves as an address.  When the guy says "the public key serves as an address", it does not necessarly mean litterraly.