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Thanks to OnkelPaul for the replies.
Here is a good article that's not too technical that explains how not reusing bitcoin addresses would make bitcoin virtually anonymous. But when businesses reuse addresses, they become easy to spot. see:
http://www.bitcoinnotbombs.com/innovations-that-enhance-bitcoin-anonymity/
I guess a simple example of this might be: if anonymous buyers, "A", "B", "C" buy something from a seller "S" who does not change their bitcoin address, and the seller S then uses the money from A,B,C to buy from a supplier SS, who also don't change their bitcoin address, and S and SS constantly deal with each other you might get a diagram like: A, B, C <--> (single link from each buyer to S) to S, which then has multiple links to SS and back to S in the blockchain (and SS never deals with anybody but S). You can conclude that A, B, C are random retail customers of S, S is the middleman, and SS is the sub-contractor or supplier to S. At least that's the way I think of it.
Another example might be if a unique Bitcoin amount that is very distinctive like the sum of 789.12345678987654321 bitcoins is passed around, but each time it is passed between parties then 10 bitcoins are subtracted from the sum, and everybody except S and SS in the above example uses new bitcoin addresses, and say S and SS are known drug dealers, and reuse their bitcoin addresses, and the 'word on the street' is that a large cache of meth is circulating, being passed from party to party, then it follows that everybody who processed the bitcoin sum of 789.12345678987654321 (minus 10 every transaction) is a drug dealer who is trafficking this meth, and taking 10 bitcoins for their trouble (sorry it's kind of stupid but it's the best example I could think of at the moment).
TonyT
Here is a good article that's not too technical that explains how not reusing bitcoin addresses would make bitcoin virtually anonymous. But when businesses reuse addresses, they become easy to spot. see:
http://www.bitcoinnotbombs.com/innovations-that-enhance-bitcoin-anonymity/
I guess a simple example of this might be: if anonymous buyers, "A", "B", "C" buy something from a seller "S" who does not change their bitcoin address, and the seller S then uses the money from A,B,C to buy from a supplier SS, who also don't change their bitcoin address, and S and SS constantly deal with each other you might get a diagram like: A, B, C <--> (single link from each buyer to S) to S, which then has multiple links to SS and back to S in the blockchain (and SS never deals with anybody but S). You can conclude that A, B, C are random retail customers of S, S is the middleman, and SS is the sub-contractor or supplier to S. At least that's the way I think of it.
Another example might be if a unique Bitcoin amount that is very distinctive like the sum of 789.12345678987654321 bitcoins is passed around, but each time it is passed between parties then 10 bitcoins are subtracted from the sum, and everybody except S and SS in the above example uses new bitcoin addresses, and say S and SS are known drug dealers, and reuse their bitcoin addresses, and the 'word on the street' is that a large cache of meth is circulating, being passed from party to party, then it follows that everybody who processed the bitcoin sum of 789.12345678987654321 (minus 10 every transaction) is a drug dealer who is trafficking this meth, and taking 10 bitcoins for their trouble (sorry it's kind of stupid but it's the best example I could think of at the moment).
TonyT
Not sure if I understood your original post, but using new addresses does not automatically make you safe and anonymous. If you have 10 btc and get it from coinbase, they probably have records. Even if you send it to a few different addresses, and have those addresses send it off to more addresses, it's still relatively easy to write a script to group them together when you spend any one of them. If you're paranoid about that, better find a coin mixer, mix your coins after acquiring them, and then transfer them to a multitude of HD wallets.
I enjoy the swings. it makes things exciting. 
The swings will come and go and past some point they get boring too
. I just buy a little each time it drops. We're coinhako.com , the first bitcoin startup from Singapore to get incubated in the valley by Boost VC. We just launched our site and i'd like the Singapore community to try it out and give us some feedbacks.
A coinbase-like service for SG? What are the features? Is it multi-sig?
spot on Newar. it's a wallet service with buy/sell options for now. do try it out and give us feedbacks!
And yes, multi-sig is on our short term roadmap.
I see that coinhako uses xfers for fiat transfers.
Where do you get your liquidity from?
Are there any daily limits?
Ben here, I've been into Bitcoin for a while and live in SV. I met the Coinhako guys at Boost and tried out the service. Still new but it works, and got my coins seamlessly!
I'm hoping they'll be able to increase Bitcoin adoption and liquidity of BTC-SGD back there.
I believe they connect to Bitstamp as one of their liquidity providers.
Re: Video Intro: Hardbit wallet-android-based hardware bitcoin wallet
so.. they removed the simcard slot and antennae of an android based phone and installed their custom software on top, making essentially an offline wallet. they used QR codes to pass transactions back and forth form the "offline" wallet.
Hanging out here and viewing small bugs may help:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
Also consider subscribing to the mailing list to see what's being talked about by the core devs:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues
Also consider subscribing to the mailing list to see what's being talked about by the core devs:
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
Pardon me if this has been asked before, but there are a few 0.10.0 features that I'm really interested to put into use.
Right now I've compiled it myself but I want to know the Bitcoin core release cycle/dates.
When is 0.10.0 likely to release and what's the release cycle the devs use?
Right now I've compiled it myself but I want to know the Bitcoin core release cycle/dates.
When is 0.10.0 likely to release and what's the release cycle the devs use?
you add the script to run in your bitcoin.conf:
blocknotify= %s
walletnotify= %s
alertnotify= %s
and when blocks or notifications come in the script will be called with arguments.
for example if you use blocknotify the argument will be the block id e.g. 000000000000000003a5ff0d28a8f9b71623c2328727937160582d1b44cb3cec, if you use walletnotify then the argument will be the new transaction id that came in, e.g. 1e621e60f7ea7195ff1ec7c31867dc7c9d896123ead6ec43f053f51137c31676
make yourself a script (python or your favorite language) that logs the arguments somewhere and test it out with the scenarios you want.
blocknotify= %s
walletnotify= %s
alertnotify= %s
and when blocks or notifications come in the script will be called with arguments.
for example if you use blocknotify the argument will be the block id e.g. 000000000000000003a5ff0d28a8f9b71623c2328727937160582d1b44cb3cec, if you use walletnotify then the argument will be the new transaction id that came in, e.g. 1e621e60f7ea7195ff1ec7c31867dc7c9d896123ead6ec43f053f51137c31676
make yourself a script (python or your favorite language) that logs the arguments somewhere and test it out with the scenarios you want.
The article seems to say that 40% of the nodes being in the US.. which may be true.
However the Bitcoin network isn't controlled by the nodes, it's controlled by the miners. I run 3 full nodes in the US but don't mine at all.
More accurate way to tell "control" by country would be to look at the mining pools / operators and classify where they operate from.
However the Bitcoin network isn't controlled by the nodes, it's controlled by the miners. I run 3 full nodes in the US but don't mine at all.
More accurate way to tell "control" by country would be to look at the mining pools / operators and classify where they operate from.
Re: Small fee transactions + shops which trust 0 confirmations
In this case I feel the problem is the fee being too low. The transaction may never be confirmed if there are no miners going to put it in the chain.
If I were the merchant I would not honor this transaction because of the lack of fees. Most wallets will include the fee by default for you, so the fact that it is lower than normal would be suspect to me.
It would be interesting to see what the behavior is at bitpay / coinbase if you author a transaction with fees low as this. Chances are they won't accept it?
If I were the merchant I would not honor this transaction because of the lack of fees. Most wallets will include the fee by default for you, so the fact that it is lower than normal would be suspect to me.
It would be interesting to see what the behavior is at bitpay / coinbase if you author a transaction with fees low as this. Chances are they won't accept it?
Re: 2-of-3 P2SH multisig "working", but not being relayed by many nodes?
this is the transaction:
https://blockchain.info/tx/19f868c7cc8729ddec2c78a0f00f307824391905fe89456c3c699958f7e4fe9a
it seems blockchain now shows it as it has been accepted on the chain following my submission via coinbin. prior to that, blockchain would not show it (as an unconfirmed transaction).
this is the rawtx:
0100000001227c1d32530734974d09e778d88212f67ff52e572433158f86e8c8c0b189a46a00000 000fdfe0000483045022100e9b171318581a287327cb852b011f0e9a8b2538e4ddd5213d66e388a d0bdf75302207e97c8fd7c692b889c4d38b190d018fcdfc08bb64ea01b32a620b170fe8874ce014 830450221008e5d30379f3cfb02b786ba6c55481dba16e0494679ff5a19a5e2c0e6f7ec8d2a0220 268fbed3845858e342c2eeb4cf9ec711fda9943de2642bcf2e2a5ce3fe158846014c69522102550 6dcef68aceb74afd04cf11d78111f3be0274eb5e7b57f0e9b541a38fe43492102a7bc1d861dd37f 19c74b83dfad3471e78870a9180328074428d9e16cecb71d95210305b1f042793916aecf5ffc406 f17345b7427e66e8c1ab5f7cd7f337b56e8273a53aeffffffff0170742f00000000001976a914e6 a3996ef18c69cb1dd44720332bc9513510d13288ac00000000
https://blockchain.info/tx/19f868c7cc8729ddec2c78a0f00f307824391905fe89456c3c699958f7e4fe9a
it seems blockchain now shows it as it has been accepted on the chain following my submission via coinbin. prior to that, blockchain would not show it (as an unconfirmed transaction).
this is the rawtx:
0100000001227c1d32530734974d09e778d88212f67ff52e572433158f86e8c8c0b189a46a00000 000fdfe0000483045022100e9b171318581a287327cb852b011f0e9a8b2538e4ddd5213d66e388a d0bdf75302207e97c8fd7c692b889c4d38b190d018fcdfc08bb64ea01b32a620b170fe8874ce014 830450221008e5d30379f3cfb02b786ba6c55481dba16e0494679ff5a19a5e2c0e6f7ec8d2a0220 268fbed3845858e342c2eeb4cf9ec711fda9943de2642bcf2e2a5ce3fe158846014c69522102550 6dcef68aceb74afd04cf11d78111f3be0274eb5e7b57f0e9b541a38fe43492102a7bc1d861dd37f 19c74b83dfad3471e78870a9180328074428d9e16cecb71d95210305b1f042793916aecf5ffc406 f17345b7427e66e8c1ab5f7cd7f337b56e8273a53aeffffffff0170742f00000000001976a914e6 a3996ef18c69cb1dd44720332bc9513510d13288ac00000000
2-of-3 P2SH multisig "working", but not being relayed by many nodes?
I have been doing a little experimenting with setting up a multisg wallet using only the vanilla client (full node).
These are my steps:
1. Create the wallet using bitcoind createmultisig and save the redeem script
2. Send some money in a transaction
3. decode raw transaction from above to get outputs / script pub key
4. create a raw transaction with syntax like:
./bitcoind createrawtransaction '[{"txid":"idfrom2","vout":0,"scriptPubKey":"pubkeyfrom3","redeemScript":"redeemscriptfrom1"}]' '{"destinationaddress":0.01}'
5. sign the raw transaction on 2 machines with the private keys
6. do sendrawtransaction
Unfortunately I got a -22 transaction rejected error!
I then tried submitting it at https://blockchain.info/pushtx but got error "Script not of right size, expecting 2 but got 4"
I searched online and found another site, https://coinb.in/send-raw-transaction.html, and managed to successfully send the raw transaction there.
It seems to be it's been 2 years since P2SH was committed to bitcoind. Am I doing something wrong or are these transactions not yet accepted on all nodes?
These are my steps:
1. Create the wallet using bitcoind createmultisig and save the redeem script
2. Send some money in a transaction
3. decode raw transaction from above to get outputs / script pub key
4. create a raw transaction with syntax like:
./bitcoind createrawtransaction '[{"txid":"idfrom2","vout":0,"scriptPubKey":"pubkeyfrom3","redeemScript":"redeemscriptfrom1"}]' '{"destinationaddress":0.01}'
5. sign the raw transaction on 2 machines with the private keys
6. do sendrawtransaction
Unfortunately I got a -22 transaction rejected error!
I then tried submitting it at https://blockchain.info/pushtx but got error "Script not of right size, expecting 2 but got 4"
I searched online and found another site, https://coinb.in/send-raw-transaction.html, and managed to successfully send the raw transaction there.
It seems to be it's been 2 years since P2SH was committed to bitcoind. Am I doing something wrong or are these transactions not yet accepted on all nodes?
kudos to pushing out bitcoin to more people.
i wouldn't attend because other than gareth emery i'm not into those artists.
but would love to buy a beer with btc there.
i wouldn't attend because other than gareth emery i'm not into those artists.
but would love to buy a beer with btc there.
Bitcoinqt can clog up your bandwidth.
I know that my gaming servers ping goes from 300ms to 29ms after I close bitcoinqt
I know that my gaming servers ping goes from 300ms to 29ms after I close bitcoinqt
I've also has this issue. So the question is am I using that much bandwidth, or is my ISP throttling me?
This affected me during initial sync only. Do you experience it after your initial sync?
an ISP over DSL, which typically has a decent download speed but a pathetic upload speed.
why is that? that always pissed me off.
Just the way that it was designed. They had to split the freq spectrum between download and upload. Since high download speeds sell better they portioned a greater amount to it.
you should make it understood that a transaction isn't considered sent until it is confirmed.
a transaction with no fee is no better than someone writing u a check and not paying the bank to maintain their account.
a transaction with no fee is no better than someone writing u a check and not paying the bank to maintain their account.
Re: Colored Coins and Coinprism takes Bitcoin to a whole new level
Creating bitcoin put and call options with colored coins
I think it is possible to create put and call options for the USD/BTC price with low trust requirements using colored coins.
Heres an example:
You might want to buy a put option to hedge your downside risk on the bitcoin exchange rate. Say the price of bitcoin is currently $450. You buy an option to sell Counterparty A a certain number of bitcoins on July 31, 2014 at $400. If the price of bitcoins is less than $400 on July 31, then obviously you exercise your option and sell the coins to Counterparty A at $400 / BTC. If the price is higher than $400, then your options expires worthless.
Now heres where the idea gets unique: Rather than settling in dollars, if the contract is written for settlement in bitcoins, then it would be possible for Counterparty A to prove that they are adequately capitalized to settle put options in bitcoins rather than dollars. A reserve of bitcoins spendable with the same script used to issue the colored assets automatically become the proof of reserves.
So now Counterparty A has shown they have sufficient reserves to make good on the put options. Next, we must somehow force transfers from the reserve address to the outstanding colored coins, should the puts expire in the money. I dont think this process can be entirely trustless because we need to agree on the bitcoin/USD price; however, I think by using multisig with keys held by neutral third parties, that we could at least make it completely transparent. Any fraud should be obvious and provable.
There is one catch of course: The reason you buy a put option in the first place is to hedge your downside risk. But if the price of bitcoin completely collapses, receiving settlement in bitcoins would be impossible since they would no longer have any value. I dont think this is a show stopper, but it would mean that the put options would be able to settle in bitcoins for all values of bitcoin greater than, say, $100 / BTC. The floor price could be made lower by increasing the bitcoin reserves held at the colored coin address. Put options with lower floors would be more valuable.
I think it is possible to create put and call options for the USD/BTC price with low trust requirements using colored coins.
Heres an example:
You might want to buy a put option to hedge your downside risk on the bitcoin exchange rate. Say the price of bitcoin is currently $450. You buy an option to sell Counterparty A a certain number of bitcoins on July 31, 2014 at $400. If the price of bitcoins is less than $400 on July 31, then obviously you exercise your option and sell the coins to Counterparty A at $400 / BTC. If the price is higher than $400, then your options expires worthless.
Now heres where the idea gets unique: Rather than settling in dollars, if the contract is written for settlement in bitcoins, then it would be possible for Counterparty A to prove that they are adequately capitalized to settle put options in bitcoins rather than dollars. A reserve of bitcoins spendable with the same script used to issue the colored assets automatically become the proof of reserves.
So now Counterparty A has shown they have sufficient reserves to make good on the put options. Next, we must somehow force transfers from the reserve address to the outstanding colored coins, should the puts expire in the money. I dont think this process can be entirely trustless because we need to agree on the bitcoin/USD price; however, I think by using multisig with keys held by neutral third parties, that we could at least make it completely transparent. Any fraud should be obvious and provable.
There is one catch of course: The reason you buy a put option in the first place is to hedge your downside risk. But if the price of bitcoin completely collapses, receiving settlement in bitcoins would be impossible since they would no longer have any value. I dont think this is a show stopper, but it would mean that the put options would be able to settle in bitcoins for all values of bitcoin greater than, say, $100 / BTC. The floor price could be made lower by increasing the bitcoin reserves held at the colored coin address. Put options with lower floors would be more valuable.
You may not to have the risk of settle in bitcoins if there exists a USDCoin token.
Would this work:
1. Assume another party (e.g. Fed or whoever) is running USDCoin, issueing USD tokens which they guarantee is redeemable for cash.
2. Assume an oracle service (also another party) which will be known to sign the transaction given that a script (could be in the metadata) evaluates to true, in this case BTCUSD < 400 AND date >= Jul 31st.
3. Create 3-of-3 multisig address with you, oracle service and Counterparty A. With this address as the input:
a. All of you sign an NlockTime transaction dated August 2nd, transferring 400 USDCoins to CounterParty A. CounterParty A gets to keep this transaction to broadcast if the option is not exercised on by August 2nd.
b. Both you and counterpartyA sign a transaction containing metadata condition "BTCUSD < 400 AND date >= Jul 31st", which the oracle will sign if is true, giving you 400 USDCoin and CounterpartyA 1 BTC.
4. Counterparty A, knowing that they can get the money back using above transaction if option is not exercised by August 2nd, constructs and signs a transaction with SIGHASH_ANYONECANPAY and the outputs:
a. to the multisig address sending 400 USDCoin (they would sign an input for this one)
b. to their own address containing the price of the put option.
5. You take the transaction above, add your input to pay output b as the price of the option, and broadcast the transaction. This will put the 400 usdcoins into the multisig address.
6. Come Aug 1st, if BTCUSD < 400, the oracle service will sign the multisig transaction in 3b for you and you can get 400 USDcoins. If you don't redeem by Aug 2 then CounterPartyA can just redeem their USDCoins.
This would not require you to trust counterpartyA, but would require trust of USDCoin's issuer and also the oracle service. Since both of them are (hopefully) large and unrelated to CounterPartyA and run a business by taking fees, they should not have interest in cooperating with either you or the option counterparty.
The biggest threat to Bitcoin is people not using it. Many have it as a store of value, but few trade in it. Merchant adoption has been hopeful but aside from the initial buying boost, purchases in bitcoin go down after. I always make it a point to pay in Bitcoin at as many places I can, e.g. Namecheap, Tigerdirect, local restaurants.
Nevermind litecoin and dogecoin, they don't provide much of an improvement over the original protocol.
Check out mastercoin, counterparty or electrum, they propose some interesting ideas layered on top of bitcoin and that's what I'd love to see.
Check out mastercoin, counterparty or electrum, they propose some interesting ideas layered on top of bitcoin and that's what I'd love to see.