Mt.Gox is like a bank, it's not because one big bank fail (Lehman Brothers for instance) that the whole currency is bad. Mt Gox was poorly managed, bad software code, bad PR, often DDOS. They couldn't stand the #1 place they hold for too long. I'm very sorry for everyone who lost money with Mt. Gox but don't get me wrong. Bitcoin ecosystem still exist and many other exchanges services will emerge as of that. Users and investors will have to be very careful about where they hold their money. In my case, I trust my on own encrypted devices.
The blocksize is not a problem. Even if it's 250 gig... who care? Most client do not download the full blockchain and miners have no problem with 250 gig. It's also possible in the future to have a reference block every ~1 times and that block can remove all input that have been spend and *could* remove 1 satoshi addresses for instance.
Having a transaction Id that changed after being produce from the original broadcast is not basic nor expected/standard. Call it what you want, and ID should be unique and permanent...
Many pro bitcoin will hate me for saying that, but the transaction ID should not be change and once published it's value should be considered safe to check if a transaction is part of the blockchain or not. All the crap related to 3rd party modifying Sign script is pretty idiot compare the power for having a single ID to track a transaction. That said, this give no excuse for Mt Gox to not release the funds, the problem is not new, not even to them, and probably hide a much bigger financial problem.
How about how much Visa burn as energy to secure its network? How many buildings? Employee who burned fuel every day to go to work? That's energy too... and the result is the same, they both securing their network.
Humm, as a developer I feel a bit idiot because I never really ask myself the question... and always think it was the same thing. After a quick look it seems I'm right, both compile and run the same way... it's different name for specific version of ECMA Script.
http://stackoverflow.com/quest...
Yep but people *CAN* join another pool if they want. And that WILL happened, I expect their percentage to drop to 30% in the next month. A centralized authority like the government or the central bank you CAN'T bypass it. The voluntary aspect makes a big difference. People just warn that 40% is too much because once you have majority you can do nasty thing.
It's base on offer and demand, there is hundreds of copy/paste of Bitcoin (because it's open source) but none of them have the infrastructure and the acceptance as Bitcoin... that's a good reason why Bitcoin worth more.
Also the other alt-coin have even worst "early adopter" holding, for instance Quarks Coin have already 95%+ already mine in a 6 months, while Bitcoin we are at over half in *4* years.
There is no username and password, it's a public key and a private key but yes if you lose your private key someone can post under your identity. Just like if you lose your PGP private key, someone can send an email and pretend to be you.
Because other alt-coin are only copy/paste of Bitcoin, have no infrastructure and are less secure because they there is less miners. How many merchant accept Litecoin or Namecoin?
It's not banned at all, it's said that bitcoin can be freely buy and sell by the people but it's regulated like a commodity (gold, silver, oil) and there is no guarantee or protection from the standard financial institution.
Bitcoin will actually benefit from a statement like that. Governments and Banks stay away from my bitcoin and leave the real free market work!
The bitcoin already crashed multiple time read this forbes articles (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/04/11/an-illustrated-history-of-bitcoin-crashes/) everytimes calling the end of the bubble.
Dollar and Euro can be print at will from their central bank. Bitcoin cannot be print in mass, so yes it's fiat, but it's a limited fiat currency and it's value will not be destroyed by inflation.
I don't think you have any idea of the current network size, the top 500 supercomputer in the world don't have a chance against the current network. The NSA probably have a few super computer... so who care. And even if they managed to get equal to the network... they would mine half of the remaining and already half is mined... so 25% for the NSA and those super computer would stop spying on us:)
Ok you win, so unless it's adopted by everywhere it's not a currency... how do you think an alternate currency can start without government forcing to use it? I guess your answer it... only government issue currency are "real" currency. Fine I would accept that but soon or later you will realized that bitcoin has a lots of advantages. Right now I can send $10 000 in China for 5 and it's instant... try that with your "real" currency... it will take days and cost you over $100.
Bitcoin is not used for pricing... it's used as a payment method... just like Visa, Master Card, Paypal or western union.
People should stop looking at the price of bitcoin and learn how great this technology masterpiece is.
All currencies are based on trust. USD is based on the trust that the US gov will not print a gazillion dollars, the Amazon dollars is based on the trust of amazon. Bitcoin have no trust except in the cryptography, nobody can move your Bitcoin, add Bitcoin to the eco ecosystem without following the rules determined by the majority of the users. THAT is what makes Bitcoin unique and masterpiece!
How about 20,000 merchants including a bunch of subways around the world that accept Bitcoin. Ok it's a not a "real" currency from your definition because no government approved it. Fine, it's a public ledger where only the owner can change it's own value and can't be shut down or manipulated by anybody.
4100 stolen, not sure how many they had. The current total number of bitcoin in circulation almost 1.2 millions each at about $ 300 piece.
number of bitcoin in circulationprice chart
Unlike traditional bank, you can trace the money stolen where it goes but unable to get it back. Bitcoin have no way to force a transaction except if everyone would update their software to approve a transaction without the valid cryptographic signature something unlikely to happen considering the thousands of instance running.
This is for worst or better, online wallet that CONTAINS your private key can be hacked like inputs.io. That's why it's recommended to use wallet like blockchain.info where you hold the private key so they can't spent bitcoin for you. In some case where they must hold the key for you (exchange service for instance) most of their coin should be in cold storage / not allocate to direct individual.
In another news, Bitcoin value is at all time high over $300.
Having a 64-bit will not solve this at all. The problem lie in the software, if a 32-bit time structure as been used, no matter on what computer it's running it will be emulated as a 32-bit application with only 32-bit of memory for time allocation. It will bust, I can see a whole bunch of old program still running because "it work" and company, especially big companies, do not re-write the software in 64 bit.
Really? Why do Oracle claim ownership of the code and even the api to company like Google? Threatering everyone who implement their variant of Java?
On the other hand most of the C# library have been release the source code and the language is itself fully approved by EMCA and ISO (check wikipedia for reference), something Java is not (Because Java lacks any formal standardization recognized by Ecma International, ISO/IEC, ANSI, or other third-party standards organization, the Oracle implementation is the de facto standard.)..NET doesn't run only on Windows, Mono is project that exist for a while and it's use in many context. You can developer even application for Andriod phone in C#, because the language is open, you are welcome to make a compiler and re-use it everywhere!
I think you should see it the other way around. For me HTTPS is more about privacy than security...
Having my connection encrypted prevent my company, ISP, governments or any routers between to know what I'm doing.
Security is usually, as you said, related to your computer or the web site getting hacked or not. IMO the web should https by default.
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Mt.Gox is like a bank, it's not because one big bank fail (Lehman Brothers for instance) that the whole currency is bad. Mt Gox was poorly managed, bad software code, bad PR, often DDOS. They couldn't stand the #1 place they hold for too long. I'm very sorry for everyone who lost money with Mt. Gox but don't get me wrong. Bitcoin ecosystem still exist and many other exchanges services will emerge as of that. Users and investors will have to be very careful about where they hold their money. In my case, I trust my on own encrypted devices.
The blocksize is not a problem. Even if it's 250 gig... who care? Most client do not download the full blockchain and miners have no problem with 250 gig. It's also possible in the future to have a reference block every ~1 times and that block can remove all input that have been spend and *could* remove 1 satoshi addresses for instance.
If an oil company do a mess, they are responsible to clean it. If they have insurance fine for them, why we gouv need to pay them for their messed up?
Having a transaction Id that changed after being produce from the original broadcast is not basic nor expected/standard. Call it what you want, and ID should be unique and permanent...
Many pro bitcoin will hate me for saying that, but the transaction ID should not be change and once published it's value should be considered safe to check if a transaction is part of the blockchain or not. All the crap related to 3rd party modifying Sign script is pretty idiot compare the power for having a single ID to track a transaction. That said, this give no excuse for Mt Gox to not release the funds, the problem is not new, not even to them, and probably hide a much bigger financial problem.
How about how much Visa burn as energy to secure its network? How many buildings? Employee who burned fuel every day to go to work? That's energy too... and the result is the same, they both securing their network.
Humm, as a developer I feel a bit idiot because I never really ask myself the question... and always think it was the same thing. After a quick look it seems I'm right, both compile and run the same way... it's different name for specific version of ECMA Script. http://stackoverflow.com/quest...
Yep but people *CAN* join another pool if they want. And that WILL happened, I expect their percentage to drop to 30% in the next month. A centralized authority like the government or the central bank you CAN'T bypass it. The voluntary aspect makes a big difference. People just warn that 40% is too much because once you have majority you can do nasty thing.
It's base on offer and demand, there is hundreds of copy/paste of Bitcoin (because it's open source) but none of them have the infrastructure and the acceptance as Bitcoin... that's a good reason why Bitcoin worth more. Also the other alt-coin have even worst "early adopter" holding, for instance Quarks Coin have already 95%+ already mine in a 6 months, while Bitcoin we are at over half in *4* years.
There is no username and password, it's a public key and a private key but yes if you lose your private key someone can post under your identity. Just like if you lose your PGP private key, someone can send an email and pretend to be you.
Because other alt-coin are only copy/paste of Bitcoin, have no infrastructure and are less secure because they there is less miners. How many merchant accept Litecoin or Namecoin?
It's not banned at all, it's said that bitcoin can be freely buy and sell by the people but it's regulated like a commodity (gold, silver, oil) and there is no guarantee or protection from the standard financial institution. Bitcoin will actually benefit from a statement like that. Governments and Banks stay away from my bitcoin and leave the real free market work!
The bitcoin already crashed multiple time read this forbes articles (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/04/11/an-illustrated-history-of-bitcoin-crashes/) everytimes calling the end of the bubble.
Dollar and Euro can be print at will from their central bank. Bitcoin cannot be print in mass, so yes it's fiat, but it's a limited fiat currency and it's value will not be destroyed by inflation.
I don't think you have any idea of the current network size, the top 500 supercomputer in the world don't have a chance against the current network. The NSA probably have a few super computer... so who care. And even if they managed to get equal to the network... they would mine half of the remaining and already half is mined... so 25% for the NSA and those super computer would stop spying on us :)
Ok you win, so unless it's adopted by everywhere it's not a currency... how do you think an alternate currency can start without government forcing to use it? I guess your answer it... only government issue currency are "real" currency. Fine I would accept that but soon or later you will realized that bitcoin has a lots of advantages. Right now I can send $10 000 in China for 5 and it's instant... try that with your "real" currency... it will take days and cost you over $100.
Bitcoin is not used for pricing... it's used as a payment method... just like Visa, Master Card, Paypal or western union. People should stop looking at the price of bitcoin and learn how great this technology masterpiece is. All currencies are based on trust. USD is based on the trust that the US gov will not print a gazillion dollars, the Amazon dollars is based on the trust of amazon. Bitcoin have no trust except in the cryptography, nobody can move your Bitcoin, add Bitcoin to the eco ecosystem without following the rules determined by the majority of the users. THAT is what makes Bitcoin unique and masterpiece!
How about 20,000 merchants including a bunch of subways around the world that accept Bitcoin. Ok it's a not a "real" currency from your definition because no government approved it. Fine, it's a public ledger where only the owner can change it's own value and can't be shut down or manipulated by anybody.
4100 stolen, not sure how many they had. The current total number of bitcoin in circulation almost 1.2 millions each at about $ 300 piece. number of bitcoin in circulation price chart
Unlike traditional bank, you can trace the money stolen where it goes but unable to get it back. Bitcoin have no way to force a transaction except if everyone would update their software to approve a transaction without the valid cryptographic signature something unlikely to happen considering the thousands of instance running.
This is for worst or better, online wallet that CONTAINS your private key can be hacked like inputs.io. That's why it's recommended to use wallet like blockchain.info where you hold the private key so they can't spent bitcoin for you. In some case where they must hold the key for you (exchange service for instance) most of their coin should be in cold storage / not allocate to direct individual. In another news, Bitcoin value is at all time high over $300.
Having a 64-bit will not solve this at all. The problem lie in the software, if a 32-bit time structure as been used, no matter on what computer it's running it will be emulated as a 32-bit application with only 32-bit of memory for time allocation. It will bust, I can see a whole bunch of old program still running because "it work" and company, especially big companies, do not re-write the software in 64 bit.
Really? Why do Oracle claim ownership of the code and even the api to company like Google? Threatering everyone who implement their variant of Java? On the other hand most of the C# library have been release the source code and the language is itself fully approved by EMCA and ISO (check wikipedia for reference), something Java is not (Because Java lacks any formal standardization recognized by Ecma International, ISO/IEC, ANSI, or other third-party standards organization, the Oracle implementation is the de facto standard.). .NET doesn't run only on Windows, Mono is project that exist for a while and it's use in many context. You can developer even application for Andriod phone in C#, because the language is open, you are welcome to make a compiler and re-use it everywhere!
Yeah and Adobe have a long reputation of having seriously security with their PDF reader. Wonder why they want to make it run without the plugin...
I think you should see it the other way around. For me HTTPS is more about privacy than security... Having my connection encrypted prevent my company, ISP, governments or any routers between to know what I'm doing. Security is usually, as you said, related to your computer or the web site getting hacked or not. IMO the web should https by default.