What is the point? You don't like Luke's Prayers?

He attacked Coiledcoin. He says with personal resources, but I'm pretty sure the eventual consensus did not point to that being true. Here is a Google search that turns up a number of threads on the subject. I'm not sure which one is the best to read: https://www.google.com/search?q=luke...ks+coiled+coin

This is more reason to like Luke than anything. This was his brightest hour. I wish it happened more.

Over/Under until we start to seeing criminal tax evasion and/or money laundering and/or regulatory stings originating from local bitcoin exchanges?

Betcha its under 2 years.
Two years or less before we see at least one (but most likely, a bunch at once) prosecution stemming from someone using a local bitcoin exchange to either sell bitcoins for unreported cash, or buy bitcoins with illicit cash

Consider this post a call. I'll link back to it whenever the Northern District of (Wherever) makes the press release announcing the indictments.

Again, I guess I can see where you're coming from, but it is not ideal to me that someone has so much power in what is supposed to be a decentralized system. While you may agree with him on this (for what reason, I cannot understand), what happens when someone does something that you do not agree with and you are powerless to stop them because they control 12% of the hash power of bitcoin, or have friends that can decide not to process your transactions, or not mergemine your sidechain, or something else?

There will always be low hanging fruit and I think you're right that these types of transactions are under scrutiny. There have already been instances of undercover agents showing up in place of buyers and having discussions with sellers in more than one country I believe. I don't think the main point of these discussions were tax evasion though.

This already has happened. Dumbasses sold to people who explicitly said they were doing it to buy drugs, and it was part of a sting.

Attacking a scamcoin protects people and protects the value of Bitcoin.

It shows how decentralized systems can still coordinate actions against threats as needed.

This is precisely why sidechains and merged mining are bad ideas in most cases. Peter Todd made it pretty clear.

Elgius doesn't mine Satoshi's dice. People are free to mine with him or not. The world moves on.

Protecting Bitcoin by attacking other projects is not something I want. I would prefer it if Bitcoin succeeds or fails on its own merits. If Coiledcoin was a scam, fine. What happens when the line blurs in one, five, ten, or fifty years when there are only 2-3 miners?

This is showing how a semi-centralized system coordinates. Certainly there was no vote. It was a decision made by one person or a very small group of people that have more power than other people within the system.

The coordination of decentralized systems will come eventually, but it has not happened yet, at least to the extent that I hope it does.

Only 2-3 miners? That would be bad. There's virtually no chance of that happening.

No one said every person has equal power. It's decentralized and it takes a considerable consensus to change the rules.

Mining pools are only as centralized as miners want them to be. Miners can change their allegigances nearly instantly and nearly painlessly. The ideas that these pool operators (e.g. not miners in most cases) can just do as they wish without consequence is laughable. It shows a fundamental misunderstanding on how mining even works.

We are seeing specialization into mining now. Things will consolidate now, but when the outdated chips become available at next to nothing to become space heaters or water heaters, then you'll see it spread back out again.

I see these common misunderstandings and misconceptions about mining and pools all the time on reddit whenever anyone freaks out about a pool getting to 33% or something. Some punk kid kicking over a sandcastle (Eligius and scamcoin) is not really relevant.

There are only 12 or so miners now. In fifty years, if things continue as they are, there will be consolidations and there will be even fewer miners. Unless treechains or something else comes along, it will most certainly happen. Saying it won't is similar to saying there would never be only 12 miners a couple years ago.

I don't really understand your point about outdated chips. They will be used to mine altcoins most likely as that will be profitable while competing with huge mining operations with new equipment, will not. Even if mining bitcoin with outdated Asics was actually profitable, which seems super unlikely to me given decreased block rewards and increased competition, mining alts and instantly converting to BTC could/will be a better choice.

There are only 12 miners now? And I know all of them!? Amazing. Because I know of 12 individuals who are mining right now! I can't believe I just happen to know them all, and they all are located in Austin! What a weird coincidence.

The outdated chips don't mine alt-coins. It's a different algorithm. The mining with them becomes profitable in any case where you have surplus electricity, need to generate heat with electricity, or have free electricity, and can get the chips for free/extremely low cost.

Your statement about mining alts and converting to Bitcoin makes no sense, even if the the alts were SHA-256. Hashpower will be distributed optimally based on value of each alt anyway, and there's no reason to think that the efficient chips will be on one network and the inefficient chips will be on the other. They should be equally distributed, just some more profitable than others. Otherwise, someone would take their efficient chip, put it on the alt network, and do exactly that.

There are twelve or so miners that actually build blocks and package transactions or whatever. I do understand that there are a number of people "mining".

People with surplus electricity, with free electricity, or without a more efficient way of heating space are edge cases. How many people have more electricity than they need or get free electricity without stealing it?

I have to assume your last paragraph is valid.

I'm off, it's been fun debating.

Comes as no surprise.
Without bothering to google, I'm guessing the charge was "Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering".

They love them' 'conspiracy' charges.

i think that is what jed mccaleb is doing in his secret bitcoin project. can't wait to see the beta on that one. hope it's good.

There are more than that, 2-3% of the hashpower alone is using p2pool, and every one of them have that power. And you do realize that any miner can change allegiances very easily. There's no reason to think that pools will consolidate further.

Tons of people use electric space heaters. Tons of people have electric water heaters. Lots of people have leases that include electricity. Not edge cases. Surplus electricity comes from power being supplied at rates different than usage, such as hydro power, or wind.

You also will see mining power able to be leased and put on any pool you wish (or solo). This already occurs today. When one pool gets too big, miners move to other pools as well to avoid threatening Bitcoin. Perhaps with some improvements to p2pool or with tree chains we'll see even greater decentralization.

I've spoken to people who are much more informed on the issue than me and I can only disagree. I'll certainly speak to them again and raise the points you have here. Thanks again for the debate.

We've recently launched an alt coin exchange. https://coinnext.com

Curious what you think about it.
Also if you ave hany particular coin you would wish to see on it, let me know.

Greetings,

I would like to offer a service. I have done this with a few people already for bitcoins but I need certain coins at certain times since my trading volume is steadily increasing.

My offer:

I will make a new post when my needs change as well as if any new people gives me loans. If you don't possess any coins and are interested in investing in certain coins that I am posting long term, then this is definitely a good time to do so.

I will give 0.5-1% interest per MONTH for coins that are loaned to me. Every month is compound, for example, if you lend me a coin for X months you will receive 1.00 x 1.01 the first month, 1.01 x 1.01 the second, 1.01 x 1.01 x 1.01 the third and so on.

I must keep the coins for minimum one month, only after a month do I have the choice to give back the coins or ask for another month. Obviously this is your choice as well, however you can not ask for the coins back within any month, only at the end of each month.

If both parties agree to stop the loan earlier, then this is fine as well.

If the coins are lost or stolen by an exchange, or if an exchange shuts down, this is my responsibility.

If the coin itself is destroyed or something happens, (for instance what happened to AC) where I can't send back the coins due to the coin itself, I obviously am not responsible for this as it would be the same thing if you had kept them yourself.

---------------------------------------------

Coins I am looking for and the amounts: (to start all loans will be at 1% interest)

DRK - 1000 coins
XLB - 15,000 coins
YC - 60,000 coins
ZET - 20,000 coins

---------------------------------------------

As far as references go, I am good friends with FrenchDawg, Duhamel, Pass72, McLaughlin.

are you trying to short these coins? I'm not interested in loaning out coins, but if that's what you are trying to do, I can see the rationale of paying a small % fee. otherwise, you could just buy them yourself for a one-time fee of .2%.

No, I day trade but I don't want to change all my bitcoins into alts even though I need the coins to keep up with the volume I am currently doing. I already have a bunch of these coins but I would rather give interest at this point and borrow them.

Seems like a terrible proposition. Loaning you our coins, something you are able to acquire yourself but don't want to, for a measly 1% and a decent risk of you just disappearing. Even if you were my best friend I don't think I'd loan you the coins for 1%. Seems pointless.

Just set up a multisig account as escrow where he puts up his bitcoins and has a trusted 3rd party as the arbitrator.

guess you'll be doing that then Tom

I don't see what the difference is between that and being staked, either way I can "run" with the money. Pretty sure if you do a little research on me you would know that this would be very unlikely. I would, however, not mind one bit sending Stars as an escrow to someone that I mentioned as a reference.