What factors determine the proving time?

Can't it be parallelized somehow by proving different parts seperately, and then use these proofs as inputs in another SNARK-proof?

Well, there is unlikely, and then there is so incredibly unlikely that we might as well just call it impossible. An address collision falls in the second category.

I'm surprised this thread didn't get any attention.

Couldn't this be used to make confidential transactions more efficient as well?. Miners could validate the range proofs of all outputs in their block, and everyone else just verifies the miner's SNARK-proof. This would make the range proof redundant as soon as they get in a block, and they wouldn't contribute to the peak in bandwith usage when a block is found.

Also, what's the size of a typical SNARK-proof?

From my understanding, mimblewimble does the most basic transactions in a better and more private way than Bitcoin does. IMO, those are the features we want in the main chain. Privacy as an addon will lead to the very use of it being considered suspicious. I'd rather have privacy as the default and more advanced scripts as the addon.

That said, I do understand how extremely difficult this would be to roll out in a backwards compatible way. Maybe it would be possible to build sidechains on a sidechain, thus with time making the first sidechain the most used chain, while still offering full backwards compatibility by supporting the legacy chain.

Something like this diagram:

                             Bitcoin
                                 |
Mimblewimble with Lightning Network (Bitcoin 2.0)
      |                          |                          |
Sidechain 1          Sidechain 2          Sidechain 3

This would let everyone transfer over to the mimblewimble chain in their own pace. People who prefer the old blockchain could keep using that, but overtime, the mimblewimble chain could become the default payment method on the network, while still providing more advanced features and scripts through its various sidechains.

Would it be possible to build sidechains on a mimblewimble chain with the lack of scripts?

What kind of blockchain analysis could one reasonably expect with this scheme? It seems to make regular blockchain analysis just from looking at the blockchain close to impossible, but what about someone that monitors the network in real time? Couldn't you make the connection between inputs and outputs before they get into a block?

I believe that does indeed help.

If I dump the private keys it will include all my change adresses, right? I'd be surprised if it doesn't, I just want to make sure.

I have an old encrypted QT-wallet with a substantial amount of BTC on it. I also have a new Trezor that is configured and ready to receive funds.

I want to move the funds from my QT-Wallet onto my Trezor without any risk of losing the funds. Thus, I don't want to decrypt it on any computer that is connected to the internet.

My best option as far as I can see is to import the private keys to an offline computer with Armory, then use offline signing to send the funds to my Trezor.

Is this my best option? If so, is there anyone who have some experience with importing keys from a QT-wallet to Armory and could guide me in the right direction?

I'm trying to wrap my head around the security implications of HD wallets. The vulnerability I'm a bit unclear on is where a private key and a master public key together can leak a master private key.

As far as I understand HD-wallets, they consist of a pair of master keys, derived "account master keys", and then a pair of keys for every single address in every account. Say my xpub master key is known, what would someone with a single private key be able to do with this? My guess is that he could get the private account key, thus getting access to all the coins in that account, but not any other accounts. Correct? Any other things I should be aware of?

Secondly, apparently there is this thing called hardened keys as well that makes this leaking impossible, which is why it is isolated to single accounts. I assume there is some sort of drawback of this, since otherwise all keys should be derived in this manner. What's the deal here?

If there is any other non-intuitive possibility of leakage of private keys that I'm unaware of, please tell me.

Thanks.

I was a bit unclear. I was really only reading from the graphs for your "Estimated Accumulated Investment" stat when I wanted to disregard the 2013 data that didn't really seem representative of the current market.

My estimate was that the point for January 1st 2014 had about 34 million in accumulated USD investment. And that should be close enough for my calculations.

I don't think that is true. I tried to look up the details and from what I understand, the swedish central bank always uses the "steering interest rate" (reporänta), and either subtracts or adds 0,75% to the actual interest rates for loans, depending on which way the loan is going. So the interest rate for lending from the CB is -0.10+0.75 = 0.65%, whereas the interest rate for lending money to the CB is-0.10-0.75 = -0.85%.

I'm still not 100% sure though

So that's an average investment of about 136.000 USD/day since inception. While an inflation rate of 3600 BTC/day corresponds to 792.000 USD/day at todays prices.

So if their historical trend continues, it means that Secondmarket can be "expected" to buy about 17% of the daily minted coins.

Of course, your graph seems to suggest that the investment demand was a lot higher the first few months, and seems to have been fairly constant on average since about 2014. If I disregard the 2013 data I get an expected investment rate of about 10% of minted coins at todays prices.

I was just looking at the plots in your graph though, but I shouldn't be off by that much.

Anyone know if you can see the order book of the Coinbase exchange somewhere without signing up?

Also, what is up with the flat "price top" on coinbase this last day as seen here?
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/markets/coinbase/btcusd

Why are bitcoin gift cards not a thing?

I think someone like circle should easily be able to team up with a big merchant to sell something that is redeemable for bitcoins. The price could be fixed at either the time of purchase or at the time of redemption.

Give cash -> Get receipt -> Go home -> Redeem bitcoins with code on the receipt

Or better yet, the receipt could be a paper wallet itself, and be swept by any app you want. Although the incentives are probably stronger for a company that wants to get people to sign up for their wallet.

48.000 BTC bought.

https://twitter.com/BitcoinTrust/status/542341054557872129

No, he calculated it with the formula in the first post and the daily updated numbers from bitcointrust.co.

I also noticed that both of the buys were done on a Tuesday. So this is possibly one person/entity who is spreading out his buys in order to not raise the price to quickly. So the question is whether he is done or not.

But those buying from the mining farms are buying from them instead of buying elsewhere, such as an exchange. So the downward pressure on the price is essentially the same regardless of where they sell.

But still, lets do some math.

1.5 million USD/day*365 days= 547.5 million USD/year.

According to Coindesk the 2014 YTD Venture Capital investments in Bitcoin companies is 159 million USD. If we assume the VC investements will continue at the same rate this year that will add up to be roughly 250 million USD this year by the end of 2014.

So in other words, in order for BTC to sustain its price, we need about twice the amount of money going directly into Bitcoin, as we have VC capital going into Bitcoin companies. I don't think that's very unreasonable, especially not considering some of the VC funders probably want a Bitcoin position as well.

1. Create a transaction with lock time from adress A to adress B.
2. Save the signed transaction and delete your private key to adress A. Give the private key to adress B to the recipient.
3. Hope that the protocol doesn't change so that your transaction is still valid when the lock time ends.

Alienware is kind of overpriced to begin with though, and I assume a very niche product in China. I'd be interested to see what the price difference is for more "standard products".