Ask Amir Taaki About Bitcoin

"Bitcoin," says the project's website, "is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions." Wikipedia offers a readable explanation of the underlying technology. In (very) short, Bitcoin uses a distributed database and public key encryption to allow users to reassign ownership of units of Bitcoin currency (BTC), and does so in a way that can keep the user's identity private. Bitcoin isn't yet accepted the way credit cards are, but it's more than theoretical. You can buy (some) things with Bitcoin, and trade the currency itself. Now, you can ask question about Bitcoin of Amir Taaki, a developer of client interfaces and stock trading software for Bitcoin, and owner and operator of trading exchange Britcoin.co.uk. Amir requests that questions focus not "so much on the mining (too many people get focused on that when it's a minor aspect of Bitcoin) nor simple technical questions (people can go find that info themselves on Wikipedia/the forums/sourcecode)," but rather on the harder-to-answer questions. Reading some of the related stories listed below may give you ideas on what those are. Standard Slashdot Interview rules apply: ask as many questions as you want, but please keep them to one per comment. Amir will get back with his answers.

Comments

Re:Is the gold rush over?

[DriedClexler]

US Government bonds seem to have a lot of the properties of a pyramid scheme, mainly:

- First adopters have an inherent advantage since they could buy lots of Treasury bonds in the early days of the Republic when they still traded at a discount.
- US Government bonds have no inherent value. The only value they have is that which is attributed to them by those whose trade in them.
- The more people that can be convinced to trade in US Government bonds, the higher the pool of real money available to exchange for US Government bonds.
- Creation of US Government bonds has now reached a level where they undergo unsustainable exponential growth.

Frankly, I'm skeptical of these cranks that are out there promoting US Government bonds, and their acolytes in the media who feel like they have to bombard us daily with information about their market fluctuations.