Don't have time to read all 68 pages here. Can someone give me the executive summary of WTF is going on at 50BTC? Ever since they mentioned a denial of service attack and seeing strange balances I have been unable to get any info on my account. There seems to be a new web page but my account shows that my workers are inactive but my miner is busy hashing. What's going on? I have zero balance showing now at 50BTC and it says that I have no wallet?? Where is my mining credits going to??
Do I need to get into a new pool? No one is responding to help tickets.

After paying the zigzag fees the fees to CVS for cash gram and the EXTORTION on getting from $ to BTC that the bitcoin mafia hits you with  (way over the trading range) you can expect to be down 17% just getting from US$ to BTC. The mob is in the middle of it now.

I think he mentioned they could go over once the quota was met. Just depends on when he wants to lock it down.

When did ZipZap start limiting money ordersto only $100?

How much longer this group buy open for?
Through today at least?

I'm not happy with bitinstant - they STICK it to you with hidden fees greater than their initial fee by giving you a LOUSY price point on the dollar to bitcoin exchange rate WAY outside the trading range.

Who traditionally pays for the earnest of tea and crumpets during the transmit and verify period? Or is it customary to share closing costs? 

Not sure this question belongs in this forum but seemed to be the closest area to what I need help on.

I have a smartphone android app I am using ("Bitcoin Wallet" by ANDREAS SCHILDBACH) and getting familiar with.

I have generated my own vanity Bitcoin wallet pub-priv key-pair on separate high-speed computing platform that I'd like to incorporate into my Smartphone's Digital Wallet. I am assuming that this app is using standard format wallet storage base 58. My problem is this app has no way that I can discern to directly import just a single new key-pair except that I can get the public key in by having it scan in a QR image that I can externally generate from cut-and-pate of key into a webutility. But the only apparent way to get the private key in is to import it with a new wallet file. I can't locate the directory in the android device to find the unencrypted "archive" version of the wallet that it says is in existence to hand edit in the private keys and import this way. I suspect I would have to root it to get to that data but don't want to void warranties or screw up the OS etc.  I can however find an encrypted version of it but of course can't easily edit in the private key and re-import the whole wallet again.

Any ideas on how to get a new key-pair into my smartphone wallet around the app without risking losing the existing keys the app auto-generated at first activation?

 

Probably the motive and the source of the Denial of Service attacks at MtGox. Now that they have submitted they will swarm someone else into compliance.

Thanks - learning the culture is important. This is great info. Thanks.

I'm in ... ta ta NOOBs... 

This sounds pretty good. Is MtGox a foreign or US based company and does it conform itself to US banking laws when on the US side of the exchange? Isn't Dwolla US based also? To get from US to anything else I think requires giving up a lot of personal info. That kind of undermines the anonymous benefit Bitcoins.

It looks to me like the big banking cabal is quashing bitcoins and at best inviting them in to play as just another subordinate currency propping up the US dollar...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324373204578374611351125202.html

Thanks  - good info.

But I can see that these private sells want even to charge a higher exchange rate - which I presume is the premium they add for anonymity.

OK just wanted to compare notes and get some insights without having to read the whole FOLDER here to find info.

I just invested about $105 US to learn the practical ropes of getting conventional currency ($US) into BTC.

I was NOT at all surprised to see the cascade of junk fees and hands-out for "me too" fees and all the BTC exchange-rate gouging; not to mention the lost time value of money delay to there. Life is mortal and finite - time IS worth something - more to some than others.

My problem right now is I can't even get a live person at BitInstant.com on the phone to complain to about a TERRIBLE $-to-BTC exchange rate at about 5% ABOVE the going rate at the time of the transaction. And to make it worse - BitInstant boasts of fast service (30 mins from receipt of cash) but it was closer to an hour to see a transaction on the bitchain websites that after 4 hrs WAS STILL NOT VERIFIED. WTF with that?  

Here's the route I went:
24 HR ATM Withdrawal from checking account to Cash --> BitInstant.com order cash-to-BTC @ BTC Wallet-Address -> Zip-Zap Money Gram (via CVS Pharma Redphone Moneygram order), Pay CVS CASH (get receipt) ->Mail notice of transaction given to exchange.

Here are the fees I had to pay: $3.95 ZipZap Fee (3.95%); BitInstant Fee: $3.99 (3.99%); BTC sent:  0.8055036 (HIDDEN FEE(!)** $5.18 or 4.34% on exploiting bogus exchange rate at time of transaction). That's a total of $13.12 or 12.6% in FEES (exclusive of MY time and gasoline to run through the mechanics) in a process that still forfeit ALL my anonymity by forcing me to give names, address, phone etc. to "make it so".

Hidden Fee** : Going exchange rate at the time of transaction was about $114 per BTC; Realized BTC rate was $119.18 (A spread of $5.18(!). What is THAT all about - the traditional broker's house practice of making their vig from the volatility present between the bid and ask prices on the  BTC Exchange??)

Questions & Comments:
1) Is this the typical cost to get into BTC from $US? If so that's a HIGH price to pay for therapy from currency-paranoia for a digital currency who's price volatility seems programmed to give the money-changers every opportunity to gouge their vig from the gap between bid and ask currency exchange rates. Rather than mining BTC, one could make a LOT more money writing BTC options against that volatility to profit by it if there was simple arbitrage using digitally signed contracts between makers and buyers on the BTC exchange. Miners could dump their rigs and make an EASY 15% (DAILY!) surfing the volatility anytime it rises as options traders or as specialist making the markets. That would HELP moderate BTC price fluctuations and stabilize it. Right now the volatility is so high it could be used as a new white-noise source for a random number generator to hash against; assuming that is NOT the noise of the random seeds themselves.  

2) Is there a better way to go about getting better cost efficiencies to get into BTC from currency? And if so is there really a way to (legally) maintain anonymity short of mining your own BTC or bartering for goods and services with BTC as a quasi contract-currency online?

This made me think a bit which segues into more of a separate topic.

From this exercise I already tend to think BTC is ill-suited to take on the traditional currencies and will only make itself a target for legislation if it gets to become a threat. It's better off to shift BTC monetary semantics AWAY from traditional currencies to prevent it becoming "Just Another" currency for the money-changers to make their vig on going from one to another. This exercise I just did seems to make it look like "just another currency" that certain people can exploit for no real value added. Unless the risk-reward of going to BTC is MUCH better than traditional currency there's no real motive here other than holding a bit of doomsdayish insurance that one hopes never needs to be called on.

So, I'd encourage a shift to a principal notion of BTC "value" in it's ability to seal contracts/agreements and less on a notion of currency and mere earnest for agreements. Sell the concept of BTC on its superior mobility, limited finite supply, speed of transmission, and as a robust transactional substitute or BACKUP (the "Peoples" currency) to the national currencies. BTC's utility should really shine (both for governments and citizens) during times of political and natural calamity (e.g. wars, coups, economic SNAFUs and natural disasters) since all these other traditional currencies are entangled within the web of bureaucracy and political agreements and secret handshake deals. Governments can't be so stupid to imagine they are infallible. The more rational ones should welcome an alternative to themselves (and own incompetency) to work off-the-books from time to time and not suffer the fallout and sanctions from their cabal of partner governments who have no way of knowing what options are being used. No one should have a monopoly on risk-mitigation - not even governments. BTC exchanges can actually improve economic efficiencies to tap the hidden capacity hiding in the "paranoid" niches of national economies as well as mitigate the inherent risks of governments that come-and-go by the irrational spurious impulses in the elections and popular-uprisings or just the regular mistakes of governments when they often shoot themselves in their own wallets (or worse) but can't tell anyone without risking a run on the banks. This shift in value semantic would make BTC less a threat to the powers that be since it does not immediately compete with governments and the established stakeholders who prop them up (merchants and banks). In fact it gives THEM more options to mitigate their own risk to self through packaged derivatives. That's win-win for everyone.

So, rather than let BTC become just another currency with the traditional linkage to fiat monetary currencies let it rather become the currency of contracts and promises. It really is the perfect means to irrefutably publicly transmit (for record) the EVENT of promises for delivery of goods, services and conditional terms between any parties (in one-to-many or one-to-one modes of communication). Changing the linkage in the exchanges of BTC AWAY FROM national currencies toward linkage to a semantic of "promises" or "contracts" would possibly exempt it (at least till "they" closed that legal loop) from any concern of money laundering or passing new regulation that seeks to quash anonymity (which I believe only operates to inject economic inefficiencies and removes opportunities for commerce - since contracts are formed before any commerce is possible). After-all - NO ONE is required to register every handshake contract made between Alice & Bob at the county courthouse any more so than an agreement to buy lunch at the local diner. For all we know bitcoins were the currency-of-convenience that put the current occupant of the White House in the White House.  

Anyway - would appreciate answers to questions and comments. I just think BTC will never gain their full potential if it is pushed into just another alt-currency that plays into the same old money-changer non-value added parasitic pattern of usage. Going more abstract into the higher hierarchy of "value" would make a better and more rational market off the current paranoia and arbitrage than just pumping up currency fears that incites everyone to flee right into the jaws of the money-changers only to realize their worst fears sooner than they might have to otherwise.

Who's knows what might happen if we push BTC higher up into the Maslow Hearchy - we're essentially constructing a large Tera-Flop digital neural-network here with semi-human-in-the-loop assist that just might hash itself into digital self-awareness.  

I can see where that might lead given that all the hashing libraries were developed by the US government....


 

We're getting off topic here... but I'll dance for a moment.

I must be? Why categorize in terns of comfort as if suffering is a vice? I don't particularly seek to conform myself to other's mandates nor to over-confident oracles (but will take a lucky hash guess in a millisecond). Only those who's narrow world view precludes them seeing the value of suffering as a virtuous means to gain a-greater-good for themselves and their fellows (even as they reflexively suffer the boorish hum-drum venality of each other's ill humor to no profit) would find me unsufferable. I'd just depart a party if everyone appeared too comfortable - that's not my idea of a party - that's a assembly of social drones that's dressed in the same straight-jack uniform of conformity. Party's should be fun.



But this is just "the other" fallacy or more precisely the atheistic apologist strawman. The State imposing a philosophy of skepticism is not any different to some religions - except most of the latter are voluntary subscriptions and the prior inflict a sacrifice of life or time for not going with the intellectual-light (so to speak). Our very identity is based on what we believe not on what we don't believe. Making oneself the object of one's own contemplation that there can be no greater is to enter into the realm of vanity, cast off the benefit of the doubt and embrace the pallium of infallibility to make oneself God. I always wondered how atheists who find themselves in court feel about submitting their future oblivion to a trial of one's own infallible peers when their only hope for an acquittal rests in the notion of a reasonable doubt they don't extend to the possibility of God?  

The original common motive in these monstrous men's regimes (but terrible by what moral standard if there is none?) was really academic altruism more so than it was an organic desire for totalitarianism or fascism.  These desired THEIR particular vision for UTOPIA - at any price of blood and cleansing of wrong thoughts/beliefs necessary to gain it. I don't believe that any of these men started off with any maniacal desire to make themselves a supreme ruler or despotic monarch. Men want to be esteemed and loved and revered. That is an aspect of common human nature - from wherever it springs from. What good is esteem if there's no one left alive to hold that esteem or to impress - not even God? As GK Chesterton said "if there were no God there would be no atheists" - and I doubt that any believer or unbeliever would disagree with that.

You are being somewhat sly here by trying to blame the atrocities of Pol Pot, Mao and Stalin on the taints of some religious influence in their lives. Shame on you. I suppose you are intimating that these infamous men were not quite pure enough atheists in their orthodoxy of supreme skepticism (a philosophy of negativism that is not unlike religion in a strange counter-faith aspect). The truth is they were men who caved into malefic actions (evil) and let it consume them -- and everyone around them. If there were no concept of evil there would be no outrage or concern over anything - not even a motive to hate God or religion or even for believers to scorn the warp-speed reach of the FlyingHawkinSpaghettiWheelchair  (Stephen Hawking, that warp-speed traveling tower-of-genus who boldly-goes-to-where-no-man-cared-to-go-before to insist that the laws-of-nature existed without a law giver before time and space even existed).  

Opportunity can be good or bad - the devil of course is in the details, the motives and the ability of takers to wield power to productive and good ends. But if it's all for naught beyond the here-and-now then as the scarecrow of Oz said "Of course, some people do go both ways" and as someone else most recently said "what difference does it really make at this point?". Choices mean nothing in that case and there's not even a principal of causality that would make "yes" and "no" or "right" and "wrong" mean the same thing from one day to the next.


Thanks for suffering the read. Hopefully fun...

<<--- back to topic

This ties into political ideology also. "Wealth" requires at least the illusion of privilege. The good news is that your average American Middle Class person today lives better than any king of a few generations ago ever did.

Think about it. Here's just s short list of things that the secular new Princes of The Empire that The Fed built get to enjoy today at all ranges of the social and class(less) strata. Most every  Proletariat (via free vote-Democrat EBT virtual money) and the rising two-car divorced with children Bourgeoisie wanna-be have:

Air-conditioned/heated "castles", court-jesters (the talking heads on CNN, ABC, CBS et-al of the MSM politburo) and entertainment on-demand (HDTV with hundreds of channels of pump-up-your-hormone with feel-good pleasure/excitement [testosterone/endomorphins aka "endogenous morphine"/adrenaline]),  legions of available contracepting-females for easy buddy-sex-partners (bitcoin-wenches ),  mobility options (horseless carriages ranging from eco-fraud-electric to high-performance-gas-guzzlers), passenger-jets and cruise ships [with options for cattle-class to pretend-to class], weekend gladiator games in the football and sports stadiums, travel-adventures to exotic-places (that all have the same ubiquitous same Western Empire style franchises and strip-malls [once you have cleared the TSA Obergruppenführers]), pick-your-own-religion de-jur from the smorgasbord of Franchise Religious offings that are "close enough for government work (and We Trust in God too)" , communication (Snail-mail, Internet, Phone, smartphone, ever new hand gestures and emoticons [secure or not]) etc. etc. etc.

So this means that those who set up the structure "that is", whoever they really are , NEED BILLIONS of schmucks willing to trade their mortal lives to sharecrop on the plantations and give back a vig to the enabling and designated "rulers" who claim rights to the the arbitrary geo-political boundaries that said schmucks reside in (whether its the USA, Russia, China or virtual-land). They NEED servants and they need to have a down-line to sell to in order to have a master-slave relationship. There's an inherent co-dependency and if you're smart enough and good enough they invite you higher up into the food chain to your own indifference level depending on how much control and leverage over you that you give them and how much you are willing to sell one's soul (that fewer these days even believe exists so are indifferent to - spurning the notion of Pascal's Wager that there's might be a DEBT owed to the Creator come post-death-cashout).

NO THE DEBT CAN'T BE PAID. They will continue to inflate it away and let the natural mortality retire the old debt as people age and die off and keep progressing it on the youth. THE BIG PROBLEM is that the demographics are busted. The West at large is aborting its youth and being outbirthed by its ideological enemies all at the same time it is mortgaging ever more of the future on the backs of the youth yet unborn (and why the sudden rush by the ideological leaders to embrace non-traditional religions such as Islam to cover their bets and to import massive numbers of foreign "out of status" immigrants to replace or dillute the existing governed subjects here in America).

From a pure risk-reward analysis - the youth ALWAYS rebel once they figure out they are the stuckee's and all they have to look forward to is inheriting a lot of "wealth" that is under the perpetual assault of inflation from the prior generations to spend in a context that was ordained to bear the brunt of it all. And this too is another reason why "they" want to keep the population of the youth diminished to keep it below the critical mass of ideological flash point. At any rate, there are other uncontrollable external risks as well - natural "acts of god", disease (the cost of promiscuity in using one's own sex hormones to keep everyone on the reservation and sharecropping), generalized APATHY (no more response to Gov's glass-trinkets), and of course just insane rulers who start unsanctioned herd-thinning wars for ideological reasons (e.g. ref. the 100s of millions slaughtered in the last century by the atheist-Marxist ideologues Pol Pot, Stalin, Mayo).

There's two kinds of treasure folks - that treasure with fluctuating value (that always trends DOWN to increase entropy) that is tradeable and fungible for tangible things here and now in time-and-space;  and that other treasure who many are betting-on-the-come on the other side of Pascal's Wager beyond time-and-space who see the opportunity for a wide open pot with absolutely zero downside (status quo) if they're wrong.

The other mitigating thing here is that every other country is now in the same game. No one can really profit by the world's federal reserve currency getting taken out. In essence the USA is in a position to extort the rest of the world to do pretty much anything it wants "or else". Everyone should want to help the USA. The really bad news is there's NOT ENOUGH AVAILABLE FREE FIAT CURRENCY on the planet to PURCHASE US DEBT nor enough printing bandwidth to even print the currency fast enough to BUY BACK our own bonds to MONETIZE our own debt with the circular debts of promissory notes. It's comical when you think about it. And those in control are as incompetent as you and I or worse...  

Choose your bets and your treasures wisely,

There's a BUG in Version 0.8.1-beta Bitcoin QT. It will lock up if you add an externally generated address into the wallet when you go to associate its private key to it. It works but it locks up and if it does not crash you have to kill it taskmanager and restart.

Anyone know where I can report this?

Krunch which are the top 2 or 3 alt coins that you think will get critical mass in following?

It is a pain in the drain. I do a lot of reading here and I don't even get credit for logged in time if I stay on one page and read and try some of the tips. It seems to only credit time if you are active refreshing screens etc.

There's lots to pick from. Check this list out:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools