Thanks for the update.

Here's where I'm currently at. Things might move around.

Part I:
1. Introduction
2. How Bitcoin Works
3. Why Use Bitcoin
4. What is Money
5. Peer-to-Peer Technologies

Part II:
6. Satoshi Nakamoto & the Cypherpunks
7. Bitcoin's Competition
8. New Technology, Old Companies
9. Inflation, Deflation, and Stability
10. The Future

The first half generally deals with the basics needed to fully appreciate Bitcoin. It's geared towards people who have heard of Bitcoin but don't know very much about it. The second half contains more original research and analysis. My general goal is to relate Bitcoin to things people already understand.

I will probably publish them separately as ebooks and together in a paperback later on.


I guess by "business" I mean that I look at Bitcoin from the perspective of a business person rather than a computer programmer (i have no programming background). We both have the same goal of introducing Bitcoin to newbies, just in different ways.

zhoutong, just to let you know I am currently working on a Bitcoin book that I will also be publishing as an ebook soon.

This shouldn't stop you from writing your own book as our books will definitely be different. There are a half-dozen books on Starbucks, for example. Each of them is unique.

From your outline, it looks like you are focusing on the technical and philosophical aspects of Bitcoin. I focus more on the business aspects. The more information out there on Bitcoin the better.

Good luck.

I noticed that some of the countries tend to disappear and reappear on the list.

For example, I saw Vietnam (~90 nodes) and Nigeria (~30 nodes) disappear and then reappear a few hours later. Since they each have more than a few nodes, I doubt that everyone in the country is turning of their clients.

Is there a particular reason for this?
 

Wow, great charts.

I have a few questions:

How close do you think the total 60k hosts is to the actual number of hosts. Is it even possible to be certain that you counted the vast majority (ie. 99%) of active hosts?

In the chart depicting the number of hosts in each country, you list "other" as a category. Does this category of around 10,500 hosts consist of other countries and unknown locations or just other countries?

I recommend making cold storage free initially to drive early adoption. Your first goal should be to grow and become the dominant bank before competitors arrive.

It amazes me that most Bitcoin exchanges charge fees right now. They should instead focus on attracting customers today and monetize later. How else can they hope to diplace Mt. Gox?

Good luck.

http://i1195.photobucket.com/albums/aa387/bituser1/Untitled3.png

Notice that each breakout (diagonal arrows) was preceded by a sudden collapse in the price (vertical arrows) with the exception of the breakdown in October 2010 which occurred after the uptrend started.

Brown line is the 50-day moving average.

Not shown is one other horizontal consolidation and leg-up in May-July 2010. You can see that on the Bitcoin Market USD/PayPal chart.

thanks for the response.

so what incentive does some one have for maintaining a node?

Can anyone tell me in precise and simple terms what constitutes a node? I read Satoshi's white paper but it is still unclear to me who counts as a node.

For example, which of these are nodes and which are not: a mining pool, an individual in a mining pool, a solo miner, and an individual running the client but not mining.

Thanks.

Too much sensationalism and no thoughtful analysis.

I hope they clean up the data. numbers like that really make analyzing the charts annoying.

This 

The entire point of a appreciating currency is to by-pass the whole chicken and the egg problem. That's one of the reasons Satoshi is so brilliant. If the currency is worth an astronomical sum, both consumers and merchants will jump at it.

This is not to say we shouldn't work on the problems the OP list. I'm just not so concerned about "running out of time".

I agree. We aren't trying to be mean or rude when we say let your guests talk more. Its just a suggestion to help improve an already great show. 

The original poster is asking what gives fiat its initial value.

In the United States, the market set the initial value of currency. Originally, no force was used on the American people. They used British pounds and other currencies even after the revolution. Americans were not "forced" to use dollars. See A Midwife's Tale, a diary by Martha Ballard (1734-1812) who details among other things, every trade and purchase she made in the last 27 years of her life.

Other countries may have used force to initially impose currencies, but not in the United States.

coins are more expensive on Ebay because there is a "risk premium". If you sell on Mt. Gox, you can be sure you are not cheated by the buyer (ie. no chargebacks.) You do not have that protection on Ebay, so sellers demand a higher price for their increased risk.

Great segment. Definitely worth the 18 min.

LOL.

True, the order book is very full. To bad we can't see all the dark pool volume. I wonder if BTC sellers are more likely to use the dark pool. Perhaps because large sellers of BTC are also long time users of BTC and are more likely to know that dark pools exist.

Is this thread long enough yet to include an anology to Nazis and/or Hitler?  

But really, seems like we should just wait a few months and have the market vindicate or disprove the OP.