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Idea #1: Suppose a company can issue its own version of the bitcoin concept as "stocks" (bitstock?).  I know this has been talked about on other threads as well.  What would be the implications of high-frequency trading on the infrastructure borrowed from bitcoin?  For example, we trade thousands of stocks at a rate of thousands of messages per second (i.e. not all messages result in trades).  We deal in terabytes of data per day.  Is it even reasonable to consider a proof-of-work blockchain in this context? How would this disrupt the trust mechanism for resolving conflicting claims (e.g. could I send some "bitstock" shares to one person, but then change my mind an instant later by sending the same bitstock to another recipient, and then trying to convince the rest of the network that the second transaction was the valid one)?


I don't currently see any benefit in having stocks in a bitcoin like system. It's probably better to just have companies subcontract out their shareholder registry management to a company specialized in doing that sort of thing (exactly how they do now infact). Ultimately the investors are required to trust the company they invest in - if they don't there are a million ways things will go wrong and having the shareholder registry in a block chain won't stop that. With bitcoin as a currency there is now no single point of failure, with company stocks there is always a singe point of failure - the company. Having the company manage it's shareholder registry (or more likely subcontract it out to a register management firm) doesn't make any difference. If people want to invest in totally black companies that aren't registered with any government the same thing applies - the black company can still manage the shareholder registry with no additional risk. You're just trusting the management.. but you have no other option.


Idea #2: What if bitcoins could be used as an internal tip system to help associates track performance? When one associate wants to thank another one anonymously, the first could drop bitcoins in the second's tip jar. At the end of the bonus period, tips are amplified by actual group performance and bonuses paid out. Since there are no transaction costs, everyone wins and individual performance gets a little bit of measurement. Is there any reason we should consider a point-based system rather than use bitcoin?

bitcoin is already being used for anonymous tipping quite extensively.

Idea #3: What if our company could provide a "forex" marketplace for BTC/USD? This has certainly been done already (MtGox, etc.), however it seems there is still a lot of barrier to entry for many participants. How might a big player help? Would it hinder bitcoin's progress in any way?

It would probably be a good thing. There still is a problem depositing money into the exchanges. Paypal and liberty reserve and even wire transfers don't cut it.. people need to be able to log into their online banking and transfer money directly without incurring large fees. If they have to call the bank and organize a wire transfer it is a barrier to entry as well.. in the UK there is the 'fast payments' system that allows transferring money between UK bank accounts at zero cost and in under two hours. In Canada there is hyperwallet which seems to work quite fast well and in the US I believe there are various ACH schemes that people can operate from their online banking, or if the exchange could be setup to actually debit accounts from within the exchange (ie: users register their bank account and then the market can debit it -- much like paypal does).

Idea #4: Does bitcoin need a market maker in its exchange markets? Market makers usually help narrow the spread between the "bid price" and "ask price" by taking some of the risk in moments when there are no natural market participants (e.g. if you want to sell, but at this moment no one is willing to buy, you either have to lower your price to gain attention, or wait a while for more buyers to show up). My sense is that bitcoin is too young to need a market maker, and perhaps does not yet have enough volume to make the role worthwhile. What are your thoughts?

I would say yes, it does. However, making a market across the existing bitcoin markets basically means moving money through Liberty Reserve, Webmoney and Paypal.. there are margins, but the fees for converting these other digital currencies are high and the process tedious so it's perhaps not surprising that there isn't a whole lot of arbitrage going on at the moment.