Bitcoins

csm888

I think nearly everyone agrees on this thread, its our current banking system that is the real problem, they are responsible for funding terrorism, drug dealing, illegal market manipulation, destroying the average persons pension and wealth, corporate greed, consumerism, high divorce rate, reality tv, helping conceal the secret alien lizard invasion... only kidding - about some of it anyway

Those who own banks, own the legislature and are almost immune to control.
Only the people have the power to change this, but until they believe in their own power, we have no chance.... viva la revolution

csm888

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

1 of the authors of that paper is adi shamir, who is the S in RSA - i.e. a pretty distinguished cryptographer. which doesn't make the paper correct, but i wouldn't dismiss it too readily.

I'm not dismissing it, I think it is very interesting, but the facts are missing. It's all conclusion.

JohnRo

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

1 of the authors of that paper is adi shamir, who is the S in RSA - i.e. a pretty distinguished cryptographer. which doesn't make the paper correct, but i wouldn't dismiss it too readily.

There are clearly a great many distinguished people with vested interests in maintaining the status quo. The question I find interesting is why would anyone who understands what the protocol is about and what it does, especially a distinguished cryptographer, want to try discrediting it like this.

All that tells me is that it truly is a threat to these people.

[Deleted User]

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-payment-processor-bips-attacked-1m-stolen/

csm888

citricsquid wrote: »

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-payment-processor-bips-attacked-1m-stolen/

If you have coins and are simply hoarding some of them for speculation, get them out of exchanges and online wallets, and into a paper or offline wallet.
My hot wallet is only .3 bitcoins, the rest is on an address where both the private and public key have never been seen on the internet.

BoracicLint

Satoshi wrote: »

That would be a perfect excuse to shut it down.

There are many reasons and ways to shut it down.

Look at tax on property sales slowly going up, what if they started taxing every bitcoin transaction?

I don't think Bitcoin could be shutdown per se, but news of that nature would certainly be devastating to its credibility as a mainstream alternative currency and cause a massive sell-off, further fueling the debate from the 'Bitcoin Bubble Brigade'.

I think the biggest risk to Bitcoin comes from the technical failings of the protocol. These failings (such as the 51% attack most commonly referred to here) are opportunities for new entrants into Cryptocurrencies which build on the idea, such as Peercoin for example; which uses proof-of-work and proof-of-state to mitigate against the risk of 51% attacks.

There is also nothing to stop the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England or any other financial/government body from creating a digital currency in the wake of Bitcoin's negative publicity.

Cryptocurrencies certainly have a place in our monetary landscape, but whether or not Bitcoin will stay ahead, who knows? The unfortunate reality is, buying Bitcoin is not conducive to investing in the technology itself so for all its potential benefits, it remains purely speculative for me. I for one will not be increasing my holding any further at this time.

JohnRo

BoracicLint wrote: »

Cryptocurrencies certainly have a place in our monetary landscape, but whether or not Bitcoin will stay ahead, who knows? The unfortunate reality is, buying Bitcoin is not conducive to investing in the technology itself so for all its potential benefits, it remains purely speculative for me. I for one will not be increasing my holding any further at this time.

What you are doing though is taking part and feeding the process of adoption, each individual transaction making very little difference but collectively and incrementally taking part in an organic, albeit hit and miss, piecemeal development and adoption program.

It's clear that the big challenge ahead is how to integrate something so elegant, seamlessly, into the less than elegant real world we all live in, as paddy amongst others has alluded to several times. This process needs fuelling though and unfortunately part of that will have to come from casualties and from which lessons can be learned.

Satoshi

csm888 wrote: »

If you have coins and are simply hoarding some of them for speculation, get them out of exchanges and online wallets, and into a paper or offline wallet.
My hot wallet is only .3 bitcoins, the rest is on an address where both the private and public key have never been seen on the internet.

I must admit I still do not understand how offline bitcoin could work? How do you know someone is not just making up they have bitcoins when they dont have them?

Are you talking about the new dark wallet? But even that needs internet to record transactions.

[Deleted User]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=346134.msg3709913

:whistle:

JohnRo

..and here's me debating whether to bother splashing some cash on a few more block erupters