FWIW, My coins (minus the fee) just showed in my fog account, 24 hours after the necessary confirmations.

I'm not sure what's going on but the lack of transparency is going to kill a business like this. Already done.

I used to use them all the time so I didn't even think to search to see if there had been an issue or an exit scam. Now I see posts everywhere. Feeling real stupid.

I something happening again?

I've been waiting for my couns to show up in my BTC Fog account all day and I'm still at zero. I'm showing 30 confirmations plus blockchain.info shows coins in the address.

Now I'm on several sites and people are crying scam. What is going on here.

I'm having the same issue with v0.8.5-beta, specs at bottom of the post for reference.

This happens any time I close and then reopen Bitcoin-Qt. I was having an issue with another application last night, so I manually closed it and all other applications (including Qt) and rebooted. Sure enough, when I reopened Qt, it prompted me to re-index (which takes several overnight sessions with my processor pinned near 100%). My entire system is backed up, so this time I closed Qt and restored the .../Application Support/Bitcoin/ directory, and then re-opened Qt and received a different error that I stupidly closed because I was so pissed. Instead I RErestored back to the unindexed version that existed and just let the reindex start. Again.

Is there some issue that prevents the data directory from being restored from backup?

Well that's good. "Tried and died" is a better position that riding the hype to shut it down. I had known they wanted to shut down some of the markets, but I didn't realize they wanted to "shut down" bitcoin itself.

I'm still worried about the how the bad press will affect wider adoption, though.

No idea how they would attempt to accomplish such a task (from what I understand, it would be akin to making linux "illegal," probably more difficult). But that wouldn't stop some senator or congressman from using the child pornography/terrorism angle from trying to make a big deal about it (and a name for his or her self) in congress. And then what happens to any attempt to encourage further legitimate adoption?

It would fall under the same stigma that Tor seems to be getting. I run a relay from my PC often, and I had friend over who say Vidalia running on my machine. He looked at me and asked, "what are you doing? looking at kiddie porn or something?" That's the rep it has, at least with some folks. I don't know the very long term goals of the project, but I know that growth is essential to the Bitcoin project. If people recoil, laugh, or assume you're a terrorist when you mention Bitcoin, then we will have a problem.

I have no idea what the power of the SEC would be in this matter, but I'm sure there is some government acronym that has the power to declare all Bitcoin commerce illegal. No legitimate business or non-profit can use bitcoins to transfer funds. Then what? \

I guess all I'm saying is that bad press is bad press, especially when it's fear mongering, bullshit press.

Not necessarily. When the only press is completely devoid of facts, insists that it's a scam, or insists that it's only purpose is child pornography and terrorism, then the next step is an uninformed congressman lobbying to "shut it down." (Which, ironically, would make the lies of the sensational press come true.)

They don't know what they are talking about, plain and simple.

There's a point where someone is so monumentally wrong, so ass backwards on every point made, that arguing would serve no purpose. That's where Gizmodo is. They are a tabloid and a joke.

Anyone know how long Easwallet has been operating?

I'm wary of ewallet services, but I trusted Instawallet because of the faith the rest of the community has (had?) in it.

I like the idea of several alternative wallet sites like this (I think blockchain.info offers a similar service).

You haven't defined your criteria for safety. Who or what do you feel you need to be safe from? What are you expecting bitcoin to protect you from that traditional finances do not?

What you're describing has nothing to do with safety. You're attempting to say that bitcoin is not strongly anonymous. These are not the same thing.

This should address your concern.

Someone with the kind of funds you are talking about has the time to make transfers in such a way as to strengthen the anonymity of the transfer.

But this "crash" was old news right?

I remember a lot of tech blogs discussing the "rise and fall" of bitcoin as though it were now a failed experiment, but I don't see it that way at all. My layperson take on it was that it was a speculation bubble, with a vastly overinflated price. It's been stable for a while now though.

I never saw Bitcoin as an investment opportunity, just a trading medium, and an experimental one at that.

This definitely ties it together for me, thank you. I wasn't sure why coins were "sent back" to me if I transferred them, but that makes sense now. I really think I have a handle on the basics.

It seems like every simple question I ask ends up being a few days long adventure in learning and reading, but it's worth it. Thanks again for your help and for being so patient. On to the next adventure!

Ok I think this is the part that was initially confusing to me. Is this what's being described on blockexplorer.com when viewing an address history?

So the key pool contains 100 addresses, and a new one is used for this process when you send coins.

Either way, my understanding of how the software determines the balance is correct?

I was going to start a new thread, but I figure I'll just a bump a relevant thread to reduce clutter (please let me know if that's not good mojo on these boards).

I'm currently running Bitcoin-QT on both Windows and Mac. The Windows software was just a test, the Mac is mine and likely where I'll keep any actual store of bitcoins. I use the OSX backup software "Time Machine" (for those who don't know, it does a differential backup every hour). I assumed this was sufficient and in the case that wallet.dat was corrupted, I could restore from the most recent uncorrupted version. However, some of the keypool stuff I'm reading in threads like these, as well as the info on deterministic wallets, is really throwing me for a loop.

Please bear with me, I geek out over this stuff and I really like to understand how it works so I don't make any mistakes (and because BTC is such an incredible idea)

How I thought it works:
 - wallet.dat contains the private keys associated with each address (each address is really just a hash of the private key?)
 - the balance in your wallet is based on using the private keys for each addresss and verifying against the Block Chain.
 - if the wallet is corrupted after the creation of a new address but before it's freshly backed up, you could lose any coins sent to that new address
After reading about the keypool I assumed that this addressed the above problem scenario, but further reading made me realize that this is not the case

How I now think the keypool works:
 - wallet.dat contains 100 private/public key pairs
 - key pairs are associated with your addresses as well as some (but not all?) transactions
 - when a new address is created or a transaction occurs to/from an address a key is pulled "from the bottom" of the key pool, with remaining keys left to be used at a future date — and a new key repopulates "at the top"
 - my wallet balance is based on private keys for both addresses and transactions, and then verified against the block chain
 - restoring from a backup will maintain my current balance, so long as fewer than 100 actions have taken place since the backup (address creation and transactions)
 - the keypool can be made larger (in some way that I haven't figured out how to do on my mac yet)

How I now think a deterministic wallet works:
 - wallet.dat stores a seed or some other piece of info that determines all future key-pairs (based on the seed? that part might be beyond my current ability to understand)
 - in the case of a corrupt wallet.dat, restoration from any backup, even the original, will restore your full address list, balance, and transaction history to the client, re-generating the "determined" keys and verifying against the block chain.

I think that's it. Am I completely far off? In the ballpark? Assuming I've got the basics down, further questions:
 - How tested are deterministic wallets? Has the re-generation ever been shown to be incorrect?
 - I assume that my current system backup is fine (I have 2 addresses and 3 transactions to date, not exactly a power user)?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hello all!

I'm not much for introductions, so I'll keep it quick. I'm just another newb among 1000s trying to get a handle on this whole bitcoin thing. I  think I'm getting the hang of it (I've spent the last few weeks riveted to the Wiki), but I definitely have a few technical questions. Hope to get those answered and then be a help to other newbies in the future.