BitInstant CEO Says World Operates "On an Inferior Monetary System"

Tracking money by Geoffrey.landis · 2012-09-16 04:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Bitcoin requires computer tracking of every single transaction, and requires distributing the information on each transaction to the public.

At the risk of getting flamed, I don't see how "Bitcoin as a currency and system collide head-on with the law" [requiring tracking of currency transactions]; the bitcoin system would require only trivial mods to do remove the privacy and track the "who" as well as the "what".

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http://www.geoffreylandis.com

Re:Tracking money by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 05:01 · Score: 5, Informative

the bitcoin system would require only trivial mods to do remove the privacy and track the "who" as well as the "what".
That's not how it works. First and foremost, the creation of public addresses can be done entirely offline, without connecting to the Internet and without any information leaving RAM. I can request money to be sent to one of these addresses and only the person sending it knows that it belongs to me as there is no other record of its existence. An infinite number of such addresses could be created and there is no way to tie them directly to me.
Secondly, any such non-trivial changes to the network would require nearly everyone on the network to agree, which is EXTREMELY unlikely given Bitcoin's user base and ideology.
Re:Tracking money by kelemvor4 · 2012-09-16 06:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

So basically, what you're saying is that a monetary system used almost exclusively for illegal transactions was designed to keep criminals from being caught, and the existing users would not like it if it was possible to catch the criminals. Interesting.
Re:Tracking money by jgarzik · 2012-09-16 06:18 · Score: 2

Incorrect. Even if you have 100% of the network computing power, you still cannot force core rule changes upon users.
Each P2P node validates transactions and blocks on their own, and refuses to relay invalid ones. Deviating from these rules simply segments yourself away from the rest of the network.
With sufficient network power, you may DoS the network, but not force unwanted rule changes.
- jgarzik, bitcoin core dev
Re:Tracking money by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 06:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Suppose there was a country-wide internet blackout.. perhaps due to a civil war with the incumbent government attempting to stop communications...

As various areas set up their own wans, bitcoin would continue to operate but in an entirely fragmented way..

It is possible, during this time, for people to trade the same coins multiple times by trading them in the different fragments..

When the civil war is over and the global connectivity is re-established, that global bitcoin swarm now receives conflicting information.. after all, how could John, who only had 7 coins to his name, have made 5 different 7 coin purchases?

Someone is going to get fucked.. and who that is going to be is determined by a kind of a popularity race.

Now, whats going to really ruin your belief in bitcoin is the fact that a civil war isnt required.. only a cleverly choreographed sequence of backbone and/or router outages.
Re:Tracking money by BenEnglishAtHome · 2012-09-16 06:59 · Score: 4, Insightful

Not just interesting. Wonderful.
You could characterize the use of cash exactly the same way. I like paying cash. It would be nice if I could pay cash over the intertubes. If Bitcoin does (the equivalent of) that, lots of people are going to like it for lots of reasons, some nice and some not so nice.
Just like cash.
Re:Tracking money by Teancum · 2012-09-16 07:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

Hash codes can still be sent around on "sneaker net" and other ways to ensure that Bitcoins can be transmitted to each other.
You don't need a 24/7 internet connection, all you really need is the ability to get your transactions processed eventually on the global network. Eventually means just that... it just has to be incorporated into the larger chain when it becomes convenient. As long as everybody acting locally agrees upon the values being exchanged there isn't even a loss of value among the bitcoins being exchanged. About the only thing "lost" is the ability to "coin" new Bitcoins and to receive payments for processing transactions as that sub-net will not be participating with the global network until it reconnected.
It is also possible to set up a "local network" that would be processing the payments between users using the regular Bitcoin system. It would need to be noted that such a local network would be in effect a different "bitcoin" currency though in terms of coining new bitcoins and payments received. That is something to keep in mind too.... there can be more than one Bitcoin network. In fact, there is a "test network" that has a different "root block" which is being used only for testing the Bitcoin network ideas and isn't really taken seriously by the rest of the developers as having value. You can set up your own "root block" if you care to only transmit values between close friends. Good luck on getting your own private Bitcoin accepted by anybody else though. In an extreme situation such private Bitcoin currencies certainly could be created (such as an independent Bitcoin network on Mars). There would obviously be an exchange rate between the alternate Bitcoin and the main "Earth" or "global" Bitcoin, but such alternate currencies certainly could be created.
Double spending can't happen because the subsequent attempts at making a purchase (or rather transferring the Bitcions) would be invalidated and wouldn't actually happen. The person "receiving" the Bitcoins might be pissed, but that is between you and the person who thought they were getting paid and didn't. Verification that the 2nd person didn't receive the Bitcoins is public knowledge, as it is in the Bitcoin chain itself and can be verified.
As for how to transmit information about transactions for eventual incorporation into the global transaction chains, you could use a system similar to RFC 1149. This system has been implemented in the past, and certainly could be used for transmitting transaction information instead of just Internet Protocol packets instead.
All of this of course would take somebody who knows the Bitcoin protocol very well, but it isn't impossible.
It is also possible to "print" Bitcoins as paper currency, but that is a whole other subject.
Re:Tracking money by Teancum · 2012-09-16 07:40 · Score: 2

Not quite. There still is the "Cartel attack" that doesn't require 50% of the computing power of the network in order to become an actor. It is the one kind of attack that could succeed.
The attack goes something like this:
You have a "cartel" that represents a significant fraction of the network (but not 50%). Among themselves they calculate and publish among themselves successful hashes and develop chains of blocks that attempt to out compete the network as a whole. Only when a "competing" chain might overtake the cartel's internal chain would that internal chain need to be published.
The main advantage of the "Cartel attack" is that the cartel is able to capture a large number or even most of the newly minted Bitcoins and transaction fees. On the other hand, there is a risk that the cartel could lose out on a number of those opportunities as well.
As for a single computing facility or "actor" being able to capture 50% of the computing power of the whole network.... I find that highly unlikely. There have been huge server farms that have tried including significant malware bot nets that have tried. The U.S. government as a whole, if it really tried, might be able to get that to happen. It would also require the cooperation of so many bureaucrats that it wouldn't be worth the effort. You would be surprised at how many computers are calculating the hash blocks now.
Re:Tracking money by Teancum · 2012-09-16 07:49 · Score: 2

Anonymity is not guaranteed with Bitcoin, and it is wrong to suggest that it is. There is some partial anonymity built into the system, but built into the protocol is a way to track where each coin has been spent, so far as what hash addresses it has gone to and where those "Bitcoins" eventually were spent. It is possible to trace each and every bitcoin to the block where the "coin" was generated.
Public hash codes such as something published on a website (including a Slashdot signature) or posted in a public place and has other information associated with that hash code certainly does not preserve any sort of anonymity.
This said, you can move stuff around from a public hash code to a private one rather easily, or do something like move your bitcoins in and out of one of the various exchanges to hide your tracks if that is what you want to do. The real headaches with Bitcoins happen when you try to convert them from one currency to another, and seems to be where most of the actual fraud happens as well.
Re:Tracking money by AK+Marc · 2012-09-16 08:49 · Score: 2

Then can you give the the 3 second description of how I can "own" three bitcoins and buy something from Alice with them, but not be able to trade them again to Bob for another transaction later? And then, how that verification is completely anonymous if Bob were an investigator looking to investigate me (with the assumption that IP address is tied to a person), and triggered an knowingly false trade in an attempt to verify information along the verification chain..

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Learn to love Alaska
Re:Tracking money by 1s44c · 2012-09-16 10:05 · Score: 2

What you describe is far less of a problem than it seems at first glance.
If any large part of the network continues in isolation from the rest of the network both sides will still be viable, people in both parts will still be able to send and receive coins. When the networks join back the longest block chain, which will be the side with the most miners, will become the 'correct' block chain and be uploaded onto all clients orphaning the transactions that were on the shorter blockchain. The orphaned transactions are not lost but get integrated into newly mined blocks, the dependencies between the various orphaned transactions are sorted out nicely.
There are 2 problems remaining:
1) If the same coins are really spent on both sides of the network split the transactions on the losing side will become invalid and will be dropped. This should not be a problem in practice as clients will be on one or other side of the split, not both.
2) If coins are generated and then spent on the losing side of the two networks all transactions based on those coins become invalid. This is the reason for the 120 block ( 20 hour ) delay between mining a block and having spendable coins. In my opinion this delay should be longer, at least a week.
However entire continents can be bridged with a single VLAN, SSH tunnel, WIFI link, satellite link, dial up, etc. The entire network would be really hard to split and keep split in practice.
Re:Tracking money by iluvcapra · 2012-09-16 10:11 · Score: 4, Informative

Then can you give the the 3 second description of how I can "own" three bitcoins and buy something from Alice with them, but not be able to trade them again to Bob for another transaction later?
Alice doesn't put your Oxytocin in the mail until she sees your transaction confirmed by six or seven nodes on blockchain.info -- the people calculating the blocks are validating the transactions against the rules of the system. Once the money passing to Alice is "spent" on the blockchain, all of the peers processing transactions will see your wallet as empty and any attempt to debit BTCs from a wallet that's empty will be rejected.
This can be broken if you get a peer to accept your transaction, stick it in as block and lie that it's validated; but other peers are seeing your transaction too and computing their own blocks against the truth on the chain. Six or seven different nodes have to agree on the validity of your transaction, and you have no control over which nodes will be able to validate a block containing your transaction. If you got some vast percentage of the computing power on the block chain (not a vast amount of power per se, but a commanding proportion of the total cycles computing transactions), you might be able to get enough confirmations to make your false transaction look valid. And that's a problem, and it's a way that a large single guild could possibly create rule changes, but at his time it's probably not a major issue.

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Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Re:Tracking money by 1s44c · 2012-09-16 10:17 · Score: 2

Once a transaction is accepted into the block chain no other transactions that spend the same coins will be accepted. I may be wrong but I think every client on the network will see that transaction as wrong and not even forward it.
For the second part it's not hard to work out the IP behind any given BitCoin address as long as that address has sent, not just received, coins. Blockchain.info will give this info. Feel free to send your transaction though a proxy, TOR, a VPN, or a SSH tunnel. If you are buying a physical product you need to tell the seller your address anyway.
Jgarzik could give you more complete answers but you wanted the 3 second ones.
Re:Tracking money by 1s44c · 2012-09-16 10:23 · Score: 2

The cartel attack you describe just won't work. You need a longer block chain than the rest of the network in order to get your block chain published and you can't generate that with less than 50% of the network.
Re:Tracking money by Teancum · 2012-09-16 10:50 · Score: 2

Sure you can. It does take a large portion of the network, and in fact it gets easier to do this if you have multiple competing cartels (including some "cartel" members in multiple cartels).
I've performed empirical simulations to see if this works and it seems to work as promised, although it hasn't been rigorously investigated as I would hope to give some specific numbers.
Yes, you need a longer block chain than the rest of the network. The point is once you have a longer chain then you can keep the longer chain going for awhile.
I've mentioned this on the Bitcoin forums before and it has been poked and prodded to death including several people who know quite a bit about the protocol who have supported this assertion. As a conjecture, I have suggested that the minimum size to execute such a cartel and be successful is to collude with about a third of the network.
You also can't be so greedy with this kind of attack as to prevent anybody else from taking blocks, as it does take some dumb luck as well, and you risk losing some blocks by trying to be greedy. You can skew some things to your favor by rejecting some competing blocks or slightly delay competing blocks. If a cartel can be two or more blocks ahead of the rest of the network and stay that far ahead, they have pretty much captured the network for a time.
One way to stop this kind of attack is to have the network reject new blocks that seem to have a skewed time stamp that seems substantially off from the current date-time stamp. That isn't a perfect solution though because the network protocol assumes that there isn't any central time server and that individual clients may have their clocks off by quite a bit. Apparently Satoshi anticipated this kind of attack after a fashion, but even he acknowledged that the lack of an authenticated "current time" schema in the Bitcoin protocol prevented this kind of attack from being completely stopped.

newsflash by etash · 2012-09-16 04:49 · Score: 5, Insightful

person A trying to sell product X, says all other products are inferior to his product

Re:newsflash by supremebob · 2012-09-16 13:06 · Score: 2

What's even more amusing that the #1 currency exchange for his product is still MtGox, which was formerly famous for trading Magic The Gathering playing cards.
Oh, and not only was that site hacked, but that hack was responsible for wiping out 2/3'rds of the currency's reported value overnight. Even now, it still hasn't fully recovered that value.
Wow, this sounds MUCH better than the existing monetary system! Sign me up!
Re:newsflash by Seumas · 2012-09-16 13:17 · Score: 2

When people first started wanking-off to the whole BitCoin thing with hourly stories on every site, I was constantly shouted down as a troll for commenting on how the whole concept just felt scammy and dirty. That even if it was entirely legitimate, describing how it works to any rational human being would make them instantly feel like that isn't a real thing, but is some sort of a shady ass scheme (and remember those shady fucking things about a decade ago where you could install clients on your computer and "sell processing power to some company" and maybe earn a nickel a month for it?).
Well, I'm not going to be smug about it, but . . . it'a amusing to see the mess they've all created for themselves and how the table has turned as far as public perception. Other than the guys building massive bitcoin farms in some sort of a nuts "I'm going to go be a prospector" sort of way.

Just like... by OldSport · 2012-09-16 04:50 · Score: 2

...Tim Cook says that we are living in a post-PC era. Does it really surprise anyone that people with an interest in seeing things change are advocating for such changes?

Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Blakey+Rat · 2012-09-16 05:01 · Score: 2, Informative

Bitcoin is useless from a PRACTICAL standpoint. Why?

1) Transactions aren't instant, you have to wait potentially for hours for your transaction to go through and the value in your account to change. (Even transactions between two accounts you own, because Bitcoin isn't smart enough to handle that.)

2) Every device using Bitcoin needs a copy of the Bitcoin database. As of about a year ago, this was 700 MB of data. Every device needs a copy of this. Every device needs to go through this file and parse it. Including your low-power cellphone.

I'm not against the concept of Bitcoin, but the implementation stinks.

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Comment of the year

Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by tibman · 2012-09-16 05:11 · Score: 3, Insightful

My credit card has pending transactions for days sometimes.

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http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 05:12 · Score: 5, Informative

1 - Ten minutes max, usually.
2 - Not true, there are several wallet tools now that don't hold the blockchain locally.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 05:12 · Score: 5, Informative

I think your comments are fair, but not entirely accurate any more;
I agree with them to a degree, and have raised those issues a number of times in the #bitcoin IRC channel on freenode;
The response to 1) is well, sure, transaction confirmations are not instant. So what? Neither are credit-card transactions. They can take days, even weeks to confirm. The banks agree to go with instant-confirmation based on probability. In a real-world implementation of bitcoin, I suspect that people would accept small transactions without 6 confirms. In fact, in a real-world implementation, I think most stores could do a lot worse than go down the "Starbucks" route; you have an automated payment app on your phone (or accessible via the web, or via a payment machine at the counter that uses your card number etc.). This "starbucks" account is filled by bitcoin, by you, at home. Or in store etc. but the point being that you fill it before you need it, 9 times out of 10. Ergo that reduces the need for instant confirms. Since it's only a small amount of cash in your Starbucks account, it mitigates the worries over hyperinflation & governmental interference that running all your finances in this way would raise.
2) Not every device needs a full copy of the database now. They have thin-use clients. I'm not sure on the exact specifics of how it does it, but I know it's supported, and will become "the norm" for most domestic users; I believe the main such desktop app is called "Electrum". The network as a whole isn't endangered as long as a fair number of clients continue to use the whole block chain apps. And a lot of people will. But on your iPhone or whatever, sure, thin-client, instant usage, no waiting on downloading the block chain.
Really, the way to get BTC into common, physical-world use, is to go down the accounts system aka "starbucks". A lot of retail chains are already set up for such a system, small retailers can easily roll their own thanks to the likes of OpenTransaction, and it makes it very easy to get btc into common usage without the worries over physical terminals, having to accept low confirm levels or make customers wait for ages etc.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 05:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

1) For low-value transactions (say, $50), 0 confirmations is usually fine. For higher value transactions, 1 confirmation (average of 10 minutes, sometimes more) is pretty good. If you're buying a car or a house, waiting an hour or two for more transactions is reasonable. You'd spend at least that time on paperwork.
2) There are several thin clients now that do NOT require the full blockchain. For example, MultiBit, Electrum, Blockchain.info, various cell phone clients... the implementation depends on the client, but there's more than one way to tackle the size problem.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 05:35 · Score: 3, Informative

Days before you get to sign the slip?
Those transactions are not actually "pending", the bank is holding your money for a few days to collect interest off of it before passing it on to the next gent.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Coryoth · 2012-09-16 05:49 · Score: 2

While it's believed the number of prime numbers themselves are infinite (it's not easy proving anything in mathematics with the word 'infinite' in it)
Yes, if only we could prove there is an infinite number of oprimes rather than just believing, presumably from some famous named conjecture. I'm sure any such proof would require extremely deep and difficult mathematics and not be something that is used in textbooks as a first example of mathematical proof as copied straight out of Euclid.

--
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by jfengel · 2012-09-16 05:54 · Score: 2

> Here in Europe, the creditcard transactions with Visa Electron are realtime and the amount you pay is immediately taken from your account.
Doesn't that make it a debit card? We have those in the US, too.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by TeknoHog · 2012-09-16 06:04 · Score: 3, Informative

You forgot something: Bitcoin supply decreases exponentially over time.
They're based on prime numbers, which become increasingly rare as the numbers increase.
Can I have some of what you're smoking? The exponential decay curve of Bitcoin supply has nothing whatsoever to do with prime numbers. It is simply a planned feature that after every 210000 blocks produced, the block reward will halve.
Also, as others have already corrected you, Bitcoins are fine for microtransactions. There are currently 8 decimals, with a possibility to increase in the future.

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Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by jgarzik · 2012-09-16 06:27 · Score: 3, Informative

Wrong on every detail.
1a) Using the "move" RPC command, bitcoin makes an instant transfer between two accounts that you control.
1b) All transactions are published instantly, and available instantly, via the bitcoin P2P network. There are also several websites like http://mtgox.com/ which facilitate instant transfers. After that, you wait on average 10 minutes per confirmation, each of which makes your transaction exponentially more secure. While not recommended, yes you can spend zero-confirmation transactions.
2) Did you bother to look at Android Market before posting? Only full nodes require the full block chain database (2+ GB now). Lightweight software exists for phones, or you can use a web wallet from places like http://blockchain.info/ or http://instawallet.org/
- jgarzik, bitcoin core dev
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by maxwell+demon · 2012-09-16 06:48 · Score: 2

I can reuse cash immediately. There's no need to put it on an account first.

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by Coryoth · 2012-09-16 07:23 · Score: 2

I thought you might have taken the time to look things up, but apparently not. Let's recap then; Euclid proved that there are infinitely many primes in approx. 300 BC. The proof is very straightforward and has been repeated many times. See here for a canonical example. But wait, there's more. Bored mathematicians have found other proofs, usually perverse ones for amusement value. See, for example Goldbach's proof, or Furstenberg's topological proof.
Perhaps your going to say that those are just a touch hand-wavy and not "derived directly from mathematical laws". That would be a mistake, but we can cover that too: here is a proof that is conveniently completely machine verifiable and traceable back to formal axioms -- specifically first order predicate calculus and Zermelo Frankel set theory (we don't even need the axiom of choice!).
There are infinitely many primes. But don't trust me -- work through the metamath proof in all the gory details if you really still don't believe.

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Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by zyzko · 2012-09-16 07:37 · Score: 2

> Here in Europe, the creditcard transactions with Visa Electron are realtime and the amount you pay is immediately taken from your account.
Doesn't that make it a debit card? We have those in the US, too.
Yes, but Visa Electron and Mastercard Maestro are always verified, you can't simply spend something you don't have.
Visa / MC Debit have an option to be verified, but it is not mandatory and when used in a non-instant way they will show up on your account either immediately or maybe 3 days later, depending on the chain of payment processing.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by jmcvetta · 2012-09-16 07:39 · Score: 2

Who in their right mind is going to be signing paperwork before the money, or a legally enforceable promise of money, is confirmed and in their hands when talking about very large sums?
Afaik, house sales usually involve an escrow process. Buyer & seller make a contract; buyer puts money into escrow account; seller completes deed transfer paperwork; then escrow company releases money to seller.
No reason this couldn't be done with Bitcoin, or any other type of payment mechanism.
Re:Ignoring the theoretical for a moment by gl4ss · 2012-09-16 07:41 · Score: 2

yeah it's a debit card. technically you shouldn't be able to overdraw it (it's possible when traveling, to some extent - it shouldn't be though).
but visa isn't really consistent with it's branding nor with it's actual rules globally. it's also supposed to be used only with the chip if possible, but the main point about "electro" part is checking it live if you have enough balance.
but visa electron, when travelling, works exactly like a credit card - whoever is charging it is just supposed to check that it has balance, however all hotels and such accept it as a credit card, metro system booths accept it as a credit card, online vendors accept it as a credit card(steam & etc), american atm's give cash with it as if it were a visa card... because it carries normal visa numbers, you don't really need more than the numbers to charge it.

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.

Erik Vorhees? by the_humeister · 2012-09-16 05:13 · Score: 3, Funny

Does he know anything about camp crystal lake?

Re:legal tender by MysteriousPreacher · 2012-09-16 05:20 · Score: 2

You'll notice that countries that have widespread acceptance of foreign currencies tend to either be heavily oriented towards tourism and/or have unstable currencies (high inflation typically). Those benefits make up for the additional risk and overhead. What are the benefits for developed economies with stable currencies?

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-- Using the preview button since 2005

Re:legal tender by digsbo · 2012-09-16 05:27 · Score: 2

Developed countries with stable currencies? Switzerland? I think it's becoming clear that the dollar and the Euro are no longer considered safe. At least not in the long run.

In the loose sense of "related" by fm6 · 2012-09-16 05:52 · Score: 2

Also related: can somebody spot me $50 until Friday? You know I'm good for it.

Digital currency is only as good by future+assassin · 2012-09-16 06:01 · Score: 2

as the network. Network goes and and you're fucked. People need to learn how to barter again and save on taxes and remove the usless currency. To me there's more value in buy/sell type websites than digital currency.

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by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*

Re:Digital currency is only as good by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-16 08:43 · Score: 2, Informative

People need to learn how to barter again and save on taxes
In general, countries that have sales taxes or value added taxes officially tax barter as well. In British Columbia, and in Ontario the last time I lived there, there is no sales tax on the resale of used personal items: i.e. you don’t have to pay sales tax at a garage sale/boot sale/flea market.
But if you trade computer repair for plumbing repair, the law says that you are required to collect the service/sales/value add tax for the computer repair and send it to the tax man, and the plumber likewise is required to collect the tax on the plumbing repair.
The government generally doesn’t try to track down and collect such taxes because it would be too much effort for too little return, but the law is clear, and if a significant portion of the populace switched to barter without paying taxes on it, there would be a tax crackdown. The government couldn’t afford not to.

Re:better than bitcoin though by Nursie · 2012-09-16 06:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

So all the folks running the exchanges and other hacked services, if indeed they were hacked and not just subject to fraud by the owners, were all fools who hadn't taken 10 minutes to learn basic security?

Face it, whatever the security of the protocol, the record of the bitcoin community and the services run by said community is deservedly in the gutter.

Re:better than bitcoin though by jmcvetta · 2012-09-16 07:32 · Score: 3, Informative

A different level of security vigilance is necessary for a Bitcoin exchange operator, than for an individual holder of Bitcoins - because it's a much more tempting target for thieves. Much like a traditional bank requires rather more security than one's wallet.

Re:What to use for personal finance by hairyfeet · 2012-09-16 07:38 · Score: 2

I'll get hate for saying this but fuck it, get Quickbooks. They now have a free version and its butt simple to use. If you were formerly using MS Money you should have no problem with QB, its even easier to set up and use and there are a bazillion tutorials on the web if you need to do anything fancy. Its quickly becoming my "go to" for customers that ask about money management and they couldn't be happier, not had a single complaint.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.

Re:legal tender by Teancum · 2012-09-16 08:06 · Score: 2

It is hard for the government of any country to know how many Bitcions you may have, as they can be stored in a "private" hash key that can only be known to you and recorded somewhere that a government can't discover. If there are laws of this nature that you must live under, it is up to you as if you want to comply with those laws voluntarily or not.

As for how to verify how many Bitcoins you may have or not have without the government discovering that quantity, that may be a bit harder. Not impossible as you could in theory even perform the verification "by hand" without a computer, or with a computer you are 100% certain has no spyware and no government agent would be able to view the calculations, but presumably a determined government might eventually figure a way out in terms of discovering the hash code necessary to find your current Bitcoin balance. It couldn't happen through a "brute force attack" (at least not until the heat death of the universe or the development of large scale quantum computers with thousands of qubits linked together) but a "TEMPEST" type attack on your computer system might be able to find the hash key necessary to investigate the current balance.

I could say the same thing about gold, but you need to take the gold and hide it in your basement or trade it in the "black market" where records aren't kept.

Don't worry. Until about the mid 1970's it was illegal for most Americans to even own gold bullion in large quantities without explicit government licenses and extensive record keeping. Your country isn't alone in idiotic laws of that nature. It wouldn't surprise me to see legislators and parliament members coming up with insane laws that prohibit transactions in Bitcoins and arresting people simply for having the software on their computer... even if from a virus or malware.

Re:legal tender by AK+Marc · 2012-09-16 09:01 · Score: 2

You are not taxes on gold's appreciation. You are taxed on the sale of that gold for profit. Also, if you were not intending to spend it immediately, you can roll that sale gain over into another investment. And the tax on that gain is the lowest tax rate in the country. I think you are in loonitarian zone, where taxes are theft at gunpoint and inflation is theft at gunpoint as well.

But your words, as stated, are simply false. You are allowed to store all the wealth in gold you wish. There are no rules against it, and no taxes on doing it. Note, you said "store". Then you complain about the rules on trading gold for profit, which isn't storage.

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Learn to love Alaska

Re:legal tender by JDG1980 · 2012-09-16 14:05 · Score: 2

If you believe that the gold defines value rather than the paper currency...

Why would you believe something that stupid? Gold is just another commodity. Gold prices in 1999-2001 were about $275 an ounce. The current spot price fluctuates, but when I just checked it was about $1770. Does that mean that the price of everything else has gone up in the past decade by a factor of 6.4x? Of course not, don't be silly. Even things that grow faster than inflation (tuition, medical care) haven't gone up in price that fast. Nowhere close.

Inferior Monetary System by Taco+Cowboy · 2012-09-16 14:19 · Score: 2

At the conference the duo stated that the world operates 'on an inferior monetary system'.

We live in an imperfect world, and the human civilization, too, is imperfect.

Same as the monetary system that the world is using, it is imperfect

But to say that the world is using an "INFERIOR monetary system" is to infer that there exists something much more "SUPERIOR" than the one we are using.

If that's the case, I would like to know what is it.

While I applaud those who have created the Bitcoins (and I do have a few of them myself) and their ideology to offer the world an alternative choice - I simply can't say that the bitcoin ecology is "superior" to the one the world is using, and has been using, for a long time.

I do reckon that the world needs a better monetary system, but until I (and many others) can find one, we will stick to the broken one that we are using, thank you very much !

--
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !

Re:Inferior Monetary System by Errol+backfiring · 2012-09-16 20:37 · Score: 2

Or that there HAS BEEN a better system. And our money system has deteriorated tremendously since the second world war. Especially the finance firms were given far too much freedom to just commit fraud, which caused bubbles and the inevitable following crises. In the "first" 18th century, at least a steam engine made things that represented some value. In this "second 18th century", data centres don't produce anything of value, yet almost all money is sucked into them.
If you are from the USA, Roosevelt has placed some half-way decent measures to keep the money system stable. Starting with Nixon, all those measures were dropped. And when the bubble tended to burst even more measures were dropped, postponing and aggravating the resulting crisis. And absolutely NOTHING has been done to stabilize the system again. On the contrary.

--
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!

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BitInstant CEO Says World Operates "On an Inferior Monetary System"

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