Hey, you can read up a bit on potential improvements in the milestone .9 release which is in the pipe:
https://bitcoinfoundation.org/blog/?p=290

I mention it because it has some very interesting stuff related to this problem.  Of note:  Headers first downloading, and Provably prunable outputs.  I'll pause while every reads and absorbs the wisdom.    ... ... ...

Of note for your question: 
Headers first is a breakthrough that will allow true bit-torrent style parallel downloading of the blockchain.  The reason it's quite slow now is that it must be downloaded in serial sequence from block 0 to now.  Headers only means you can essentially just grab all the block headers to build a "table of contents" so to speak for the whole chain.  Then AFTER this, you can fetch the transaction details of each block to fill in all the gaps in a massively parallel way.

Proveably Prunable outputs is a new way to help mitigate future size explosion in the block chain by allowing a legitimate way for messages to be inserted into the blockchain - and most importantly to let nodes ignore these messages if they don't want to archive them.  It creates the potential to have "archival" nodes on heavy duty servers that store everything for everyone, and then "normal" nodes which just store transactions.  Currently we all store everything which is not sustainable for average users as you have discovered.

Not mentioned but coming hopefully before release 1.0:  methods to remove spent transactions from the blockchain to start to prune the size down and hopefully level off at some plateau size that is more stable and less exponential.  There have been many proposals on how to do this, but i suspect it would involve the spin off of another "type" of bitcoin node which is intended for desktop computer use which has a version of the blockchain that has fully spent transactions summarized by some cryptographic method like merkle trees and then removed to save space.  This is a really gnarly / ugly problem though so i think it's been lowered in priority compared to all the other key useability features they are working on.

As for mass adoption:  the future will not look like today.   Pulling out my crystal ball, i see:  Full heavy weight nodes will shift into serious players hands - ie: serious investors, financial institutions and hard core hobbyists.  "Light chain" clients with compressed or summarized block chains will fill some middle ground.  Light weight clients with no local block chain (like Multibit) will fill another niche.  And then for the unrully mobs and unwashed masses - they will use banks with possibly bitcoin backends (using full heavy nodes).

Why?  The idea of having the responsibility to keep wallets safe and not letting them get stolen for example by malware is a responsibility which most average folks do not want to have.  They will prefer some protection from a bank-like institution to help keep their money safe for some modest fee - kind of like online wallets - or the idealized version of the current banking system from old hollywood films.

Hello Jochen,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlestick_chart

Friendly advice:  Go study and learn for yourself and then come to the forums when you're stuck on something hard that you can't figure out.  I mean this in the nicest possible way when I recommend that you do not skip the step of trying to learn for yourself before coming to the forums and asking.  ;-)

All the basics are available out there for you to learn on your own.  Wikipedia - and the help pages of the various sites.  Also use the SEARCH feature on this forum - 99.9% of all questions have already been answered.

After that:  We guys on the forum love a good puzzle - go work hard to learn everything you can and then come here with your tough questions so we can help out.

Happy bitcoining!

Sorry, not gonna happen.

The issue here is that you want to use a horrible payment instrument to buy a wonderful payment instrument.  Nobody in their right mind would accept paypal fiat in 1:1 exchange for BTC as paypal caries the extreme risk of reversal or paypal seizure / account freeze.  BTC's on the other hand are an irreversible currency with many (if not most) of the properties of Gold or Silver with the added benefit of high liquidity and fungibility.

Those brave rare few that accept paypal payments for BTC will price in a heavy percentage markup to cover the fraud and seizure risks.  Even if you paid via paypal and were an honest customer with no intent to cheat, paypal can (and will) freeze the sellers funds for any reason without effective recourse.  So you run off happy with BTC, while the seller is probably gonna be screwed one way or the other.  That's not even mentioning the ridiculous percentage cuts Paypal skims from every transaction.  In short paypal is great for buyers, but horribly evil for sellers.  (I speak from experience as one who's been screwed by paypal.) 

So.  If you want to buy BTC:  Man up and register to do direct bank transfers to an exchange (which are safer than paypal for the seller), or give someone on localbitcoins.com cash if you care about privacy.  But I'm guessing you don't care about privacy if you use paypal....   ;-)

Isn't this thread getting a bit out of control guys?

Burnin, I suggest you start a new thread if you have a sub-project to propose to the crowd so that your needs and what you are offering are clear.  I've read back 6 pages trying to figure out what's going on here and am confused.  But I know there are enthusiastic folks who trust you on this forum.

As a happy owner of 5 XX boards (who paid by SEPA transfer so I know you at least got my money , I'd be very interested in any future projects you've got planned - even if it's just a mini-project to boot strap and cover some of your losses I'd be happy to participate.  You are the only dude who came through for me in the end with mining hardware where several others failed and it saddens me to hear you've made a loss on the deal.

And wow, it really pisses me off that Paypal are screwing you and Cryptx.  I've been screwed hard by Paypal also, and have vowed to never use them again (and will tell anyone who will listen to ban them).  They still have a chunk of my money locked up after a year - money a family member paid me back - because I can't show a receipt for any shipment.  There was no shipment, they are just mafia bastards who will lock any funds with no reason at any time.  Good luck and don't give up the fight!

Long live bitcoin.  Long live Burnin Mining!
(Death to paypal.)

Your progress sounds damn cool!!!!!  Better honestly than i was expecting!!  Ive been fretting on other threads about this in the past, but the world urgently needs a solution that allows local blockchain browsing a-la blockchain.info.  So if you can also deliver an engine that efficiently does this without a horrible rescan every time, then Armory "server" will have a killer app that others will lust for!  :-)   This is totally above and beyond the existing core coolness from your current feature set!

Woo hoo, ill tip you again fat style when the day comes that i can do an arbitrary blockchain query without waiting ages for a chain scan, and without telling everyone who is spying on web traffic the addresses i'm interested in by visiting blockchain.info.  They have a great service but frankly it's dangerous.  A query there is enough to publicly link your real world identity to those addresses that you are interested in.  Tor has its limits in terms of performance and market penetration.

No reason my isp or random law agencies deserve this info, its enough that the spies of the world could filter and log my transactions if they wanted to.  They don't deserve to also know all the other addresses i might peek into.

Thanks, you made the point i wanted to make.  I'd just add that the existence of bitcoin may have a stabilizing influence on fiat currencies due to competitive pressures which are likely (but not guaranteed) to develop.  It might "keep them honest" to a degree.

If this happens, then bitcoin growth may slow as bitcoin will only hit sectors where it has an uber obvious competitive advantage such as international transactions.

If however the USD is driven deep enough into the hole, then hold on to your horse - it will be quite a ride.

Possible but not helpful for average users.  https://blockexplorer.com/ is a fine backup for  https://blockchain.info.

Yes.
https://blockexplorer.com/

And yes I've sent and received bitcoins during the blockchain.info problems.  Don't panic! 

Indeed it seems they are struggling for the last days....  

FYI to others who come here worrying and wondering:  the bitcoin network where transactions are stored and blocks are added exists completely independently from all websites including blockchain.info.  So this problem is local to their web service and has no effect other than preventing you from getting up to the instant data from their website.

Let the bitcoins flow!!!  Your bitcoin client will still work fine at sending funds, counting confirmations and what not.

Yeah, got my btc out the next day after a customer support guy answered and said its a bug and that i should keep trying....  So i sat there like a pigeon at a laboratory cage feed reward button and kept bashing the pay button 4 or 5 times every 5 minutes. For an hour.  It eventually worked.  Bit i definitely ran up the internal index counter on my yubikey.  Heh, not that it matters.

Fix this Mt Gox!  It strikes fear in the hearts of your customers when you lock their funds!!!!  Bug or not, there is little excuse.

I know the shine is fading from our Avalon group buy due to shocking diff increases, but I'm interested.  Whats the procedure?

Just chiming in that this "Invalid bitcoin address, please confirm your input" BS is still alive and well.  Count me as another screwed pooch.  I can't even believe how cross this makes me...  Mt. Gox can't expect to survive with this kind of "Paypal'esque" customer abuse can they?

Srsly wtf.  Telling me my addresses are bad to cover their lack of funds?  What evil.  Do they care how much time I wasted trying addresses from 4 different wallets before coming here to find kindred souls? 

Tip from experience both sending and receiving international wires, make sure you specify that the buyer tell their bank the Euro side payment and that they tick the option to pay all bank fees.  The bank should then back calculate the origin currency from that.  It is not automatic, its down to options on the form the sender fills out, and depending on the bank it can cost the sender a lot.

You may still get nailed with a 25 euro fee by your bank for the privilege of getting paid- but varies from bank to bank.  Good luck.  There's a reason bitcoins will ultimately slaughter the international payment industry......  When int'l wire transfers go wrong, the receiver must waste time endlessly getting the missing balance paid or they must accept a loss.  Horrible, and the main reason so many wont accept int'l wires.  Im so glad i have a euro zone bank account.....  SEPA is by comparison heaven - though still sucks against btc. 

Good point.  Who would you rather see gain rapid wealth?  A few random people from all walks of life who saw potential in a new and exciting technology?   Or a few guys who were skillful enough to be born in an ivy league family which yielded a shot at becoming a banking executive?

Another point, (last one i promise :-) you and i cannot participate in the revolving door between high finance, government office and private contracting.  This is the real evil that allows the regulated to suddenly become regulators.  Such bull sh@t needs to end.  No better way than to over the long term marginalize this entire corrupt sector of human activity.

Well guys, seems like the news ( http://thegenesisblock.com/significant-merchant-improvements-planned-for-bitcoin-v0-9/) brings excellent tidings for recurring payments!  When i read this today, i realized i should come here and post as in effect this thread can be marked "solved"!  :-)

The core devs are awesome and i cant wait to see this new messaging system start to be put to use...  Even if it relies on central signed certs for vendors to demonstrate some degree of legitimacy, its a good pragmatic, real world engineering decision which after some thought sounds like the right choice to me.  No vaporware- service providers already know how to buy and manage certificates for https, so this eases the learning curve to get solutions implemented.

Huzzah!

You're on the right track, but the risk is mechanical, not thermal.  We're not dealing with a huge amount of heat here like you would get with a high end CPU or GPU, and the temperature differential won't do anything exciting.  (Unless you were totally bonkers and were using liquid nitrogen or something...  badideadontdoit)

These chips are just designed to cool from the bottom, not the top.  You can't turn screws with hammers, use the right tools for the job.

What bitcoin is lacking is a systemic in built toxic infrastructure which was crafted over centuries to perpetually funnel money to the top of a pyramid.

So yes, i do wish bitcoin was held more democratically, but this is easily solved by making people want to get their hands on some.

But...  Once actual economic activity migrates into crypto-currency realms, these economies will suddenly find themselves free of the crushing burden and corruption which the current banking system places upon everyone as it pipes our money up the hill into non-deserving pockets.

This is the promise that has so many excited:  That with bitcoins, much can be fixed.  The current banking cannot be fixed, one can only turn away from it and use an alternative - of which none existed until now.

Didn't see anyone mention it, but keep this dynamic in mind when speculating on Mt. Gox price movements:

If events happen which restricts Mt. Gox's ability to convert BTC to fiat funds for bank transfers, then there is a rush to buy BTC so that they can be transfered out of the exchange to somewhere that has less banking restrictions - price on that market goes bump.

If liquidity is foretasted to improve - whereby it looks like it will become easier to convert BTC to liquid fiat, then there will be a short term selling spree on that exchange and prices will fall as pent up need to extract fiat is fulfilled.

Growing pains of a very young market - don't be discouraged.    There is logic behind all the movements even if it's mostly just driven by popular news releases....  Wish i worked in the bitcoin news industry - they must be making a killing in buying and selling before news breaks....  Just like in the old non bitcoin world i guess....

Hey guys, to all who are concerned about cooling from the other side of the PCB, please chill (pun intended) and study "thermal vias" - a common method to cool modest wattage surface mount components from the back of the board.  Read up here and feel better:
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Thermal_Management/Heat_Sinks_and_Thermal_Materials/PCB-cooling_techniques_and_strategies_for_IC_packages.aspx

Bottom line:  Don't put heat sinks on top of your avalons - it won't do anything good or bad, but will risk breaking the chips off of the board if the heat sink gets twisted or bumped or over tightened.  SMC's are not the strongest type of chip package, and these babies are not really designed for top cooling.  Chips you should cool with top heat sinks were designed for top heat sinks - and if you study the package form factors closely you will see clever reasons why they should be top or bottom cooled.  (Like for top cooled chips, too many lead contacts on the bottom, or the chip fits in a socket which blocks downward thermal flow, or the wattage is just too high for through PCB cooling, blah blah etc..)

These asics want back side cooling, and we should rejoice because it's a reliable and easy (cheap) way to go.  They have a metal pad on the bottom designed for heat flow into the PCB, with a kind of thick layer of plastic on top which does not really conduct heat that well.

And to all the liquid coolers and mineral oil guys - the wattage of these ASIC's is not super high so they don't make big heat like a hard core top end zillion core super clocked beast chip.  So spend the money on fancy cooling systems if you want, but the only real benefit might be noise reduction.  I don't think the ROI would be in your favor on technical merits, Burnin has demonstrated that he knows what he's doing.  Now I love liquid cooling as much as the next guy and have a pretty sweet water chilled silent rig, but pragmatism is a virtue.  ;-)  Remember these ASICS are killer tech because they do more work for less power which means dramatically less total heat per square mm per hash (generally speaking) than an equivalent old school rig (cpu, gpu, fpga, whatever).

So keep cool when keeping it cool, peace out.