Google Engineer Releases Open Source Bitcoin Client 280
angry tapir writes "A Google engineer has released an open source Java client for the Bitcoin peer-to-peer currency system, simply called BitcoinJ. Bitcoin is an Internet currency that uses a P2P architecture for processing transactions, avoiding the need for a central bank or payment system. Cio.com.au also has an interview with Gavin Andresen, the technical lead of the Bitcoin virtual currency system." Update: 03/23 16:22 GMT by T : Confused? BitcoinJ author Mike Hearn points out this video explanation of how Bitcoin works.
will he go to jail? (Score:2)
So will he be treated same as this man? [slashdot.org]
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No, that guy was doing something that was borderline counterfeit. He was intentionally trying to pass his currency off as Federally-backed and issued tender.
There are plenty of alternate currencies [wikipedia.org] about that are perfectly legal.
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Given that the exact currency that has seen the guy being referenced convicted is in that list, what makes you so certain all the other ones aren't also going to be treated the same way by the government?
Re:will he go to jail? (Score:4, Interesting)
18 U.S.C. 486:
"Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both."
OK, so it's not made from metal, or an alloy of metal. It's just data.
Unless they decide that the "coins" are made of bits of the hard drive, and the hard drive is an alloy of metal ... just a minute, there's someone at the door...
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That's not the only thing they charged him with though (I have no idea what things he actually got convicted of).
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Did you even read the wiki page you referred to?
# Barter clubs or corporate barter organizations are an example of alternative currency systems. ........
# BerkShares
# Liberty Dollar is a private currency backed by silver, designed to be a nationwide alternative currency in the United States.
The guy is releasing SILVER DOLLARS. By definition they are worth much more than whatever garbage the Fed is printing.
The real counterfeit operation is what the Fed is involved in. This guy wants sound money back, and the Fed is destroying him for it.
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Did you even read the wiki page you referred to?
# Barter clubs or corporate barter organizations are an example of alternative currency systems. # BerkShares ........
# Liberty Dollar is a private currency backed by silver, designed to be a nationwide alternative currency in the United States.
The guy is releasing SILVER DOLLARS. By definition they are worth much more than whatever garbage the Fed is printing.
The real counterfeit operation is what the Fed is involved in. This guy wants sound money back, and the Fed is destroying him for it.
No they're not. If they were worth more than US dollars, why can you buy them with US dollars? Why is the value of the silver in a Liberty worth less than the face value on the coin? I bet the guy running this scam looks at his bank balance and laughs at all the idiots who fell for it.
If you absolutely had to purchase a precious metal as a form of security against currency fluctuations there are far more secure ways to go about it.
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Shill more.
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So I guess American silver eagles, released by the US Mint, are a scam too, since they have a face value of $1 , while they are currently trading for about $40?
That demonstrates a clear disjoint from reality.
Interestingly, you can't buy them directly from the Mint at face value, either.
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I am not saying that purchasing gold / silver is a bad thing. Just that if you do so through liberty dollars or some shady gold exchange in response to exhortations of Glen Beck then you are an idiot. There are far better ways to buy and sell precious metals. Liberty dollars were and are just a glorified MLM scam
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So then is this a case of copyright violation? Because if it is, then given what MPAA and RIAA are trying to charge people with, I understand that the punishment in this case (15 years + 250K fine + confiscation of $7,000,000 worth of silver) is even too small.
Obviously he should be charged with like $10000 fine per coin that he released, because clearly, just like Metallica is losing money from the copyright pirates, the Fed here is hurting, right?
(In case somebody has sarcasmometer broken, this is a warni
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No, you don't understand copyright. It's closer to a case of trademark violation: the marks confuse the consumer into thinking the items are US Federal dollars, but they're not.
You also don't understand what "remotely" means. These "Liberty Dollars" are quite close to US Federal dollars, especially the famous "Liberty Dollars" circulated in the early 1900s, also made of silver.
You don't understand what "valuable" means. Silver is valuable because of convention, not utility (except for the rare dentist or me
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So when you nip down the local 7-11 they whip the scales & assay kit out?
Don't think so, somehow.
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Except (A) there have not yet been any injured parties who have actually claimed they've been defrauded, indeed the selling point is that it's not legal tender, and (B) Even if someone did mistake it for genuine US currency, the silver is worth quite a bit more than the face value of US coin.
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Yes, patriotic people who create governments to protect our rights are pretty strong in America and elsewhere that reads Websites. Bad arguments from anarchists tend to provoke that kind of patriotism even in ordinarily apathetic people who still can tell when our liberty is threatened.
Your paranoia is a good explanation for how these "forces" mysteriously downrate your posts that "have no connection between each other". Your paranoia, and the low quality of your posts that any moderator can recognize.
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Policies of the Fed --> Economic policy.
Random guy trying to make "dollar-like" currency --> Criminal law, especially when that such counterfeiting could undermine the legitimacy of the existing currency and defraud people.
Both are completely unrelated.
If you do not believe counterfeiting could be endangering national security, you do not understand fundamental economics very well. Now calling it terrorism may be over the top, but remember that in countries engaged in conflict, it is very common for o
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Random guy trying to make "dollar-like" currency --> Criminal law, especially when that such counterfeiting could undermine the legitimacy of the existing currency and defraud people.
- I don't understand the purpose of the arrows there, is that an implication or something else?
Anyway, the really counterfeiters of the US dollars are US Fed and Treasury.
The guy minting his own silver coins, and going out of his way to make sure everybody knows they are NOT in fact 'legal tender' is now deemed a terrorist, because the people who really counterfeit the US dollars are afraid that their worthless currency won't be staying in use too much longer.
Congratulations, by the way, on completely swal
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Just because you disagree with their policies does not make them counterfeiters. I too disagree with some of their policies -- I just have a different set of solutions in mind.
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Far from it -- however, your comments have not discussed anything of substance on economics, other than how much fiat currency sucks and how a currency backed by precious metals would be great.
Anyone could be an armchair economist, spewing forth opinions, but it is difficult to put together something tangible with the historic and economic burden of centuries behind you. There is a reason we switched to fiat currency, and there is no going back. It simply is not feasible, nor realistic. While I disagree wit
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There is a reason we switched to fiat currency, and there is no going back. It simply is not feasible, nor realistic.
- speak for yourself. I have switched and I am not going back.
JP Morgan also understands it now, they accept gold as collateral from their counterparties.
Central banks are buying gold, have been for a few years now.
So you do not understand what is happening - fiat is being deliberately destroyed, and in fact all central banks understand this perfectly, as they keep buying and holding US debt in desperate attempt to keep the value from dropping to 0 in 1 day.
Why am I saying this? Look at Japan - they hold a
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No, the stupid ones are those, who believe that whatever crap the US Fed and Mint are releasing is actually money.
How about this:
The US Constitution dates back to 1787
From 1792, when the Mint Act was passed, the dollar was pegged to silver at 371.25 grains (24.056 g), or 24.75 grains (1.604 g) of gold.
How about the Fed and the Mint actually producing reserves, and exchanging all of the dollars that are in circulation already for silver/gold?
Unless they do that - they are the counterfeiters, not the guy who
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Silver, not so much, but gold is money.
learn something while you are on /. [npr.org]
In any case, any commodity is actually more valuable than the dollar, and the dollar has been on a steady decline since the Fed was created in 1913, as well as the IRS (and the Constitution was subverted for both of those abominations to take place)
The US dollar gained 100% of value over 19 century. It lost 98% of value since 1913. If you think you know what money is, then tell me, what kind of money is that? I'll tell you what kind o
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But hey, feel free to continue your campaign of disinformation. It's a "free" country, after all.
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Why is silver so valuable?
- because there is much less silver in the world than there is even of gold. But silver is not very good at being a monetary metal, the only real money is gold.
However silver is almost as good, but it has too many industrial applications, so that's the only problem.
Of-course this problem is completely non-existent for US fiat - nobody needs them, nobody can buy anything for them. Well, in non-trivial amounts anyway. When some Arabs from Dubai tried getting rid of their dollars to buy an asset in USA - some
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By the way, if the US gov't wants to be paid in US dollars for whatever taxes it wants to collect, then it better not include any transactions that are NOT conducted in the US dollars in calculating the said taxes.
--
And really, this story we are in is exactly about that - people are transacting in some form of a currency in a way, that makes it impossible for the government to collect taxes upon.
Which is always a plus.
But that's why I am telling the Bitcoin developer - watch out.
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Well that's the thing. Those who print money have real power.
If all of a sudden whatever it is they print is not recognized as actual money by actual people in real life, they do not have that power anymore.
They are fighting this with the biggest guns they have - terrorism accusations (that's because they can't stick child molestation to it yet) because they are afraid of losing power over what money is and over what they can do by printing it.
In reality they should be MUCH more scared of Bitcoin than of th
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CBC Radio Spark, 139 [www.cbc.ca] has an interesting show about this. What the people in Kenya are doin is most interesting.
The amount of money they're transferring is huge.
We are really behind.
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Hmmmmmmmmm.
Smells like fraud to me.
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US dollar coins have 7 cents worth of metal in them. Does that mean they are fraudulent?
Also, there is this thing called "minting costs". There is this other thing called "numismatic value". Look them up. No one lost any money on buying a Liberty Dollar. Well, except those who didn't get their orders filled because the US government stole their silver.
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bitcoin-alt is a full client implementation (Score:5, Informative)
I've been working on a full client implementation in python https://github.com/phantomcircuit/bitcoin-alt [github.com]
Just so people know BitcoinJ is not a full p2p node.
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If anybody is interested you can purchase bitcoins through https://mtgox.com/ [mtgox.com]
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_kr%C3%B3na [wikipedia.org]
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I cloned the project but I can't get it to even minimally execute without a lot of changes. What versions of Python and SQLAlchemy are you using? I have Python 3.1.2 and SA 0.6.3 as shipped with Ubuntu 10.10.
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SQLAlchemy isn't actually being actively used. I'd appreciate issue reports on github though.
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Not that I'm aware of, the protocol is more or less packets sent over TCP port 8333.
Error in summary (Score:2)
Uh yeah make your own currency (Score:2, Funny)
Emperor Norton the first, of the USA and Mexico would be proud.
Not Peter Norton, he ran out of ideas and sold his company to pay for freezing himself in suspended animation until the economy of the world got better.
So far Peter Norton is still frozen. Needs his girlfriend to dress up as a bounty hunter, and her brother the farmboy who wants to be a pilot/Jedi to rescue him with his Wookie first mate an
Bitcoin is good, but problematic. (Score:4, Interesting)
I really like BitCoin, But the biggest problem is the "goldrush" is over. While new bitcoins can still be mined, it's expensive, and takes time. Oh, the other big problem is that not enough people accept them. But, meh.
More implementations of the software are always good. But, they don't actually matter. It's the blockchain that matters. So long as the various implementations use the same blockchain (which is the cryptographic chain that indicates which address has how many bitcoins), things will stay together.
The biggest potential problem is Google, or another big organisation, starting a new blockchain, and splintering the bitcoin community. Google actually probably has enough processing power to mine quite a lot of bitcoins from the current blockchain anyway.
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I really like BitCoin, But the biggest problem is the "goldrush" is over.
The biggest problem for you, you mean, since there's no "free money" any more. For Bitcoin as a currency, it's a good thing. There's little value in something that can be easily produced.
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I accept BTCs as payement for freelance development.
Mining is not the normal way of acquiring BTCs. Just like mining gold is not the usual way to get money when you have a money based on the gold standard.
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More implementations of the software are always good. But, they don't actually matter. It's the blockchain that matters. So long as the various implementations use the same blockchain (which is the cryptographic chain that indicates which address has how many bitcoins), things will stay together.
I saw someone else say this was not a full P2P implementation. One concern I see is if too many user run "client only" implementations then the network may fall apart.
Bitcoin uses cryptography to verify who performed an action but it uses a P2P network of many cooperating nodes to track what transactions have happened so far and reject transactions that would conflict with previous ones (the "spending money you have already spent" scenario). Without this tracking the system would fall apart.
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It is at the moment still quite profitable to mine on AMD GPUs, assuming your electricity costs are about $0.10/kWh. You will easily recoup at the very least half the price of a high-end video card if you jump in right now. Also the network continuously self-adjusts itself to distribute coins over a long period of time, as this graph shows: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/File:Total_bitcoins_over_time_graph.png [bitcoin.it] As you can see, we have only generated about 5 million coins so
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Also, the value of existing BitCoins rise as more people want to buy it (deflation).
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Why is splintering bad? It provides alternative currencies, each with their own inflation rates and relative values. The currency market among them is easy to automate, also distributed without a controlling middleman, so holding multiple alternatives at once doesn't prevent liquidating any into another. The result is the purest free market for value possible, so long as the information used to value items in the market is freely available.
Multiple alternatives after "splintering" sounds like the logical ex
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I really like BitCoin, But the biggest problem is the "goldrush" is over. While new bitcoins can still be mined, it's expensive, and takes time. Oh, the other big problem is that not enough people accept them.
Difficulty of generating new Bitcoins is a feature, not a bug. If it were easy, they would have no value. The purpose of Bitcoin is to function as a form of money for saving and exchange, not to get rich by using your processor to print money. But you're right on the second part, the biggest obstacle is the lack of businesses that accept them.
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Except if 10% of users (who joined early) accumulate 90% of the wealth, then the economy will not be able to...
oh wait...
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Yep, people don't realise how bitcoin actually works. Anyone can fork it and fork the currency. If google get a majority of users on their new client they can simply update the client to accept whatever rate of inflation they want, and the currency will fork, which usually causes the minority to follow.
Which I'm not sure why is a good idea and how harmful it is supposed to be to bitcoin.
Bitcoin is also fundamentally flawed because any government could crash it. Bitcoin cannot possibly be secure against attack unless more than 50% of the worlds available CPUs were all committed to non-colusion. At the moment its something like 0.0001%, even private companies would have the CPU power to take it down.
This might be true. Probably not 50% but we can at least say that we need a lot more. At least in reserve, to counter an attack. But you are saying that anything anyone does that governments might not like is fundamentally flawed, aren't you. It's a little hard to swallow for me. Also there is no apparent reason to assume that they will carry out such an attack, states don't work that way. I would be more worried about leg
Bitcoin already bootstrapped itself (Score:3)
Of course, there is still a long way to go (most of them are individuals or very small shops), but the very fact it has already grown so quickly and so fast is very encouraging. It was possible because of its truly unique and revolutionary features that really no other currency provide, nota
Anybody can answer this one Bitcoin flaw? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see a problem with bitcoin in theory... but throughout history no currency has been stable without an army to enforce its existence. Disband the USA police/Army and the dollar would collapse. Gold and other universally liked-by-all-humans minerals retains its value for the new owners if someone steals it. Cant say the same about BC.
That's why this will never go anywhere... look at e-gold, it was doing millions of dollars a day in transactions and then as soon as the owners ran into legal trouble (wh
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The thing with bitcoin is that there is no central authority to control it. New bitcoins come about by "mining", not by some central authority minting new coins, or printing new notes. Gold too has collapsed in value before.
What makes a currency worth something, is that people are willing to accept it in exchange for goods. Gold is only worth as much as it is now, because people are all like "ooh, shiny". It's intrinsic value (what it can be used for), is not anything like how much people are willing to pay
Answer: (Score:2)
Its enforced by cryptography.
The reason why police/soldiers don't have to guard transactions carried over SSL is the same reason why they're not required by a currency like Bitcoin.
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Armies do not enforce currency or value. At best, they can create a stable environment for an economy to fluorish.
Let's say the local military forces the town's smith to
Power of Taxation (Score:2)
I don't see a problem with bitcoin in theory... but throughout history no currency has been stable without an army to enforce its existence. Disband the USA police/Army and the dollar would collapse.
You almost hit Bitcoin's problem spot on. The reason that fiat money like the US$ is viable is that there is an entity - the US government - that can force a US$-denominated debt on you via taxation. This taxation creates demand for the money, which is what ultimately underpins the money's value, once you go beyond all the circular reasoning of "You work for US$ because Walmart accepts US$ in payment for goods because Walmart needs US$ to pay its suppliers because the suppliers need US$ to pay their employe
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because nobody has the power to jump-start the economy out of a recession by unilateral stimulus spending.
And when has 'unilateral stimulus spending' ever 'jump-started any economy out of a recession'?
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One example that is difficult to disagree with is the unilateral government spending in the late 1930s that ended the Great Depression.
There are plenty of other good examples, but some people find them easier to disagree with.
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Yes I can answer (Score:2)
The only risk is social: in other words people could simply lose interest in it. But its network strength (hash rate) has demonstrated a remarkable exponential growth recently. It has doubled every 27 days, continuously, in the last 15 months: http://blog.zorinaq.com/?e=49 [zorinaq.com] This implies, of course, popularity. So I would say it is very improbab
As a money system, no. But maybe for email. (Score:3)
This might potentially be a solution for spam. To send an email, you need a bitcoin. Bitcoins are easy to get in small quantities, maybe even free, but hard to get in bulk.
As a payment system, I don't see it. DigiCash [cryptome.org] had more promise as a distributed payment system, but Chaum blew the negotiations repeatedly.
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Your post advocates a
(x) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses
(x) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the mone
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Your responses are wrong. They do not accurately describe the anti-spam system that was proposed.
The idea of "email stamps" to directly counter the essence of spam's advantage (bulk messaging is extremely cheap) is a solid one. Indeed it underlies the limits on junk postal mail, which are reversed to encourage junk that subsidizes individual items' postal delivery.
Your form response is a good example of the lack of imagination and abundance of inertia that leave us with a badly managed spam problem.
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The idea of "email stamps" to directly counter the essence of spam's advantage (bulk messaging is extremely cheap) is a solid one
Actually, he's right, and it's not. The idea was beaten to death years ago, although he missed a few.
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Without a hard limit, there's always the risk that some time in the future, processing power will take a sudden leap, and the market will be flooded with a huge number of BitCoins.
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This is the fundamental aspect of bitcoin which I think will simply make it a curiosity. Deflationary currency encourages hoarding, because simply holding currency is better than spending it. It's also problematic because rational participants would never borrow a bitcoin (with interest) because it will likely cost more (in nominal terms) later. That doesn't even touch on the psychological effects related to nominal amount
What's the exchange rate... (Score:2)
Why bother creating a new electronic currency when there is a perfectly viable one already in existence...
rgb
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Actually, I think using World of Warcraft gold as currency should work very well in the short term for those who want to trade real-world goods of lesser value, but it has a number of drawbacks:
1. It's dependent on a centralised server, so can be easily tracked or disrupted.
2. It's controlled by a single company, so it may lose its value the day Blizzard decides to discontinue the game.
3. The supply isn't fixed, but may be changed at a whim when the rules of the World of Warcraft game are changed. This coul
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What is bitcoin [video] (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.weusecoins.com/ [weusecoins.com]
It was just made very recently (today!)
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rgb
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That's the nice thing about Bitcoin: it is less dependent on trust than all other payment systems.
Most significantly, as a Bitcoin user, you do not have to trust a central authority or 3rd party (eg. Paypal or a bank) that may initiate chargebacks, or freeze your accounts, because there is no middleman in Bitcoin.
Of course you need to trust the Bitcoin design itself. But the system has proven its robustness so far, and will (hopefully) continue to do so. If you are curious you may find a list of attacks
Re:Sounds risky (Score:5, Informative)
Written by someone who has absolutely no clue on how it works. Thanks for your incredible insight.
I've used Bitcoin and I can tell how it works. It's an elegant system for producing cryptographically signed "currency" which can be exchanged over P2P. However elegant it may be, it's also quite naive and/or dishonest to overlook some of it's shortcomings.
Namely, it is the people who got in early and mined coins or bought them at a low exchange rate who have most to gain. Latecomers have little to gain and the most to lose. If the system collapses or is regulated out of legitimacy, it is the latecomers who will suffer the most. I would not go so far as calling it a pyramid scheme but it certainly shares some similarities in terms of who benefits and who does not.
How could it collapse? In numerous ways. Various governments might start auditing / taxing people who use it as a form of currency. They might legislate against it, deeming it to be bogus financial instrument. It might get a reputation for money laundering and all the popular exchanges get shutdown along with the accounts. A rival to bitcoin might appear which is easier to use or has other benefits.Someone might develop a crack / exploit which allows them to inject "poisoned" transactions over P2P where the database is corrupted, or worse compromises Bitcoin such that wallets are wiped or drained of funds. A popular exchange is hacked and all the money is stolen. There might be a run on bitcoins if the system shows sign of collapse / compromise and the exchanges refuse to exchange bitcoins into dollars.
All of these scenarios are feasible and I think it only a matter of time before the system is hit by one of them. I have no issue with bitcoin per se but I do not see the long term viability in the system.
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Namely, it is the people who got in early and mined coins or bought them at a low exchange rate who have most to gain. Latecomers have little to gain and the most to lose. If the system collapses or is regulated out of legitimacy, it is the latecomers who will suffer the most. I would not go so far as calling it a pyramid scheme but it certainly shares some similarities in terms of who benefits and who does not.
had you read anything about the idea behind this, you would know that that 'shortcoming' you speak of, was devised as a means to increase adoption rate of the system at the start - if you contributed to system early, you would get more coins. if you bought coins early, the would be worth more. this provided its fast adoption rate.
please dont talk out of your ass next time.
as for 'auditing/taxing' people, taxing is already a reality regardless of what means you use as money. tax is not relevant to mone
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I can only surmise that only fools would invest real money in this system. As I sa
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But then, that's about all any form of fiat currency is--a pyramid scheme. It goes from those with the printing press to the government to the corporations to the businesses to you. You pay the most to the inflation tax demons, while those higher up the pyramid gain purchasing power by getting quicker access to the freshly printed money.
This is why no fiat currency has ever lasted more than
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I've used US Dollars and I can tell how it works.
It's an elegant system for producing paper "currency" which can be exchanged for products. However elegant it may be, it's also quite naive and/or dishonest to overlook some of it's shortcomings.
Namely, it is the people who got in early, when the purchasing power of those pieces of paper was higher and there were much fewer of them, or they got them at Fed discount window who have most to gain. Latecomers have little to gain and the most to lose. If the syste
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It's also amusing how you're bleating how we shou
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That's exactly how it works. You get all the information from people you don't know on the internet. It's money verification via an anonymous mob.
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I think you missed the point behind releasing it as open source.
It needs no central authority, a manager, owner or anything like this. So it does not depend on the party it comes from. Once it's in the wild it's completely independent.
The open source is a prerequisite for proof that the above is true - no hidden hooks, no backdoors and killswitches. Many eyes can prove this is legit.
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Agreed, many can. How many do ?
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When it comes to risking real money - I'd say enough.
What I am potentially concerned with, is not that the code itself contains some nasty stuff, but more that the algorithm behind creating and using the "coins" - the mathematics involved in it - is sophisticated enough that while some people will understand the general rule and find it sound, the author may know of some little-known caveat, exception, some specific parameter value that may compromise the security.
Still, the concept is interesting enough th
Re:Sounds risky (Score:5, Funny)
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Well, if it's done by people who read Java, and understand the problem domain well enough use it, it's ok. If they share their insight with the less fortunate individuals, even better. But generally don't expect everyone to do their homework themselves. Think about it. Nobody (as in 'most of us') questions the authority of paper money despite the fact that paper money isn't what it used to be anymore. Nobody cares to look at how exactly paper money is generated (its value that is, because, obviously, it's j
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My question is, how much electricity will be spoiled to "create" the 21 million bitcoins?
Let me answer your question with a question:
How much electricity will be spoiled to create the next 21 million actual/physical coins?
Mining, milling, and transporting actual silver (or zinc or whatever the government mints are making coins out of these days) isn't exactly an environmentally friendly operation, either. At least once the 21-million bit-coin market is established, the virtual coins will last indefinitely, which is more than one can say for their real-life counterparts.
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Just so we're clear, to "spoil" electricity means to use it for something you personally don't approve of?
How much electricity are you spoiling by posting here?
after all, you have lots of machines around the world pretending to be creating money, but they may just as well be sending spam
Ah, ok, you think computers are magic, don't you?
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Reliably enforcing taxation is pretty much impossible regardless of the currency. The main way western countries (at least the USA the UK) have got arround this is by collecting most of the tax from larger entites, the more transactions an entity is involved in the greater the chance of getting caught cheating and the more thay have to lose when they do cheat. While it is nominally the employee being taxed the taxes are required to be calculated and collected by their employer. Similarly sales tax/vat is co
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I think you might be conflating two books; in Snow Crash, there was still definitely physical currency. A memo was forwarded around the US Government, instructing not to use US Currency as toilet paper, and YT pays drug dealers for Snow Crash in physical Kong Bucks.
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