Quote from: nmat on March 01, 2012, 11:38:42 PM

I agree with edd about keeping things simple, but actually the game I described is no different in simplicity from a user's perspective. They're still just entering bills into a site. The site does all the rest of the work for calculations.

I also agree a note can't give credit the first time entered, or people will make up serial numbers. I think the key validation is having the second person verify the details of the bill. From the tech standpoint checking the I.P. geo location is the best way to guard against one person pretending to be many others.

As for the illegality of marking bills it's interesting that wheresgeorge.com has set a precedent. The Secret Service themselves commented that as long as the site ceased selling the rubber stamps to mark with they wouldn't look into it too much. If bitcoin created its own game that did nothing different what would justify a new crack down?

It's a gray area, but it's interesting that the current system has no problem using gray area to their own benefit, such as with so-called "voluntary" income taxes and capital gains taxes on legal tender gold/silver coins.

The anonymous features of Bitcoin makes it possible to safely take a political stand. It's just a question of whether the resulting PR would do more harm than any benefits of exposure from actions taken.

If you go by IP geo location, wouldn't that cause problems? Most bills stay in the same locale for quite a long time before moving elsewhere in the country.

Quote from: edd on March 01, 2012, 11:49:56 PM

I believe Phinnaeus was on the right track:

I don't see this solving the problem of people making up serial numbers. Sure, you can make sure the serial numbers match a specific pattern, but I could just take a legitimate bill and start incrementing values by 1. What would stop me? Or put a random set of numbers in.

The only way to protect from people making up serial numbers is to have numbers funded when they are initially entered. Don't give out any prizes or anything, but after the bill is entered a first time, you can give out BTC when it is entered a second time.