I just made my first Bitcoin ATM withdrawal... 3BTC from my printer.

[pointbiz]

How would one verify an offline wallet, OFFLINE?

You can verify that the Bitcoin address corresponds to the private key if you have a smart phone with qr code scanner and a saved version of bitaddress.org (you can download the zip from github).

As for the balance you need data from the block chain.

[Gyrsur]

epic epic stuff:)

could be!  

really, i see a need for a second blockchain for bitcoin bills. an "authority" has to observe the transfer from bitcoins to "papercoins" and back somehow. the "authority" can also be distributed. the money supply has to match against each other between the two blockchains. at the moment "papercoins" would be behind with money supply but this doesn't matter because the need for "papercoins" is low but could be raised in the future. exchange rate is 1:1. if you "transfer" bitcoins into "papercoins" the bitcoin amount would be frozen like a lost wallet. the amount is now on the "paperbill". you can change it with trust together with other parties. if you want to transfer the amount online you have to change back "papercoins" into bitcoins 1:1. then the amount of money is available in the bitcoin network and the bill is destroyed. very similar like central banks deal with cash.

[cbeast]

epic epic stuff:)

could be!  

really, i see a need for a second blockchain for bitcoin bills. an "authority" has to observe the transfer from bitcoins to "papercoins" and back somehow. the "authority" can also be distributed. the money supply has to match against each other between the two blockchains. at the moment "papercoins" would be behind with money supply but this doesn't matter because the need for "papercoins" is low but could be raised in the future. exchange rate is 1:1. if you "transfer" bitcoins into "papercoins" the bitcoin amount would be frozen like a lost wallet. the amount is now on the "paperbill". you can change it with trust together with other parties. if you want to transfer the amount online you have to change back "papercoins" into bitcoins 1:1. then the amount of money is available in the bitcoin network and the bill is destroyed. very similar like central banks deal with cash.

"Papercoins" as you put it are traded purely by trust unless you use a Bitcoin Checkbook which is treated like any bitcoin transaction.

[Gyrsur]

epic epic stuff:)

could be!  

really, i see a need for a second blockchain for bitcoin bills. an "authority" has to observe the transfer from bitcoins to "papercoins" and back somehow. the "authority" can also be distributed. the money supply has to match against each other between the two blockchains. at the moment "papercoins" would be behind with money supply but this doesn't matter because the need for "papercoins" is low but could be raised in the future. exchange rate is 1:1. if you "transfer" bitcoins into "papercoins" the bitcoin amount would be frozen like a lost wallet. the amount is now on the "paperbill". you can change it with trust together with other parties. if you want to transfer the amount online you have to change back "papercoins" into bitcoins 1:1. then the amount of money is available in the bitcoin network and the bill is destroyed. very similar like central banks deal with cash.

"Papercoins" as you put it are traded purely by trust unless you use a Bitcoin Checkbook which is treated like any bitcoin transaction.

goal should be to manage bitcoin bills completely offline until you will transfer the amount via bitcoin network. there should be no need for a receiver of bitcoin bills to convert it to bitcoins until he will transfer the amount to anywhere online. concept of Bitcoin Checkbook has the need to check the loaded amount online to trust into it.

EDIT: reason for the need to be completely offline for a while could be a natural disaster, a war or something other where an online access is not possible. in this case you can take your bitcoin bills with you at least.

EDIT2: intention is to fit this requirement

How would one verify an offline wallet, OFFLINE?

[PrintCoins]

Just created a web based way to print these bills as well as printcoin bills.

Take a look at it here:

http://tinyurl.com/bitbill  (pdf link)

Note: Do not use this set of bills generated by this url. They are using private keys that will be available to all.
 
Go to http://print.printcoins.com to generate your own.

[jago25_98]

So to scan it you'd need a mobile phone, what's the benefit of having paper at all then? I'm trying to think of uses for this and it seems there's very limited and specific scenarios it'd be useful.

I guess because people might finally get it

[Tril]

EDIT3: there may be a need for a trusted third party which prints bills for bitcoins. you send this party your amount via transaction. they print the bill with a private key which is not allowed for transactions and send the bill to you. if you want to convert "papercoins" into bitcoins you have to send the bills to the trusted third party and they will send you the amount via transaction. divide and rule

--end--

Like an exchange? It's a little more complicated than you outline, but I take my paper money to this place called "a bank", they convert the paper into bits for me, which I wire over to an exchange of my choice and they let me convert it to BTC. The process works in reverse too, converting Bitcoins to third party paper money.

If you need a trusted third party, Open-Transactions already has the protocol and implementation for what you're discussing in one of its modes.  See this link to decide which mode.  The O-T server is the trusted third party or bank. It's not the same as bitcoin, but you can issue new currencies and trade bitcoins for them.  You can certainly print it on paper.

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Instruments

videos thread-  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93086.0

[Gyrsur]

EDIT3: there may be a need for a trusted third party which prints bills for bitcoins. you send this party your amount via transaction. they print the bill with a private key which is not allowed for transactions and send the bill to you. if you want to convert "papercoins" into bitcoins you have to send the bills to the trusted third party and they will send you the amount via transaction. divide and rule

--end--

Like an exchange? It's a little more complicated than you outline, but I take my paper money to this place called "a bank", they convert the paper into bits for me, which I wire over to an exchange of my choice and they let me convert it to BTC. The process works in reverse too, converting Bitcoins to third party paper money.

If you need a trusted third party, Open-Transactions already has the protocol and implementation for what you're discussing in one of its modes.  See this link to decide which mode.  The O-T server is the trusted third party or bank. It's not the same as bitcoin, but you can issue new currencies and trade bitcoins for them.  You can certainly print it on paper.

https://github.com/FellowTraveler/Open-Transactions/wiki/Instruments

videos thread-  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=93086.0

very interesting! thanks!