Rmilb

I think the perception that all Bitcoin advocates think that Bitcoin will "Destroy" all fiat money and we will all be worshiping Satoshi for delivering us, is wide spread and mostly false.

You make a good point, however I'd like to point out that explaining how money is created through the federal reserve system is no less complicated to the average person.

They don't need to understand it, only trust it.

>1. The few companies that accepted it are gradually stoping to support it (Microsoft for instance).

Microsoft still accepts it. http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/14/microsoft-stops-accepting-bit...

Bitcoin's utility is still valuable for empowering those people stuck with a currency they don't want to hold like Argentina. http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2014/06/bitcoin-ar...

Edit: Forgot to point out the lack of utility for us in the developed world is very true.

I don't buy "scratch-off ticket" analogy. How are those crates with randomized prizes different from a pack of pokemon cards that are randomized with cards with differing value? They are pretty identical in the terms we are talking about.

A failed suite was brought against pokemon in 1999. [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/24/nyregion/suit-claims-pokem...]

Would the funds still be held if he was sending the money to reimburse a fiend to one of the many businesses with "Isis", in its name?

http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-with-the-name-isis-...

I use Glympse on Android and this works well with my Iphone carrying friends. What advantages do you have over glympse? I am not affiliated with Glympse, I am just a big fan of their product. https://glympse.com/

It's on their road map.

Love the simplicity. Do you have Screencast functionality on your road map?

Does anyone have a mirror? I'm seeing an Azure message that the "app is stopped".

Too bad ripple was premined. They are seeing some success as end points with banks though.

Side chains, lightning network, and other off-chain transactions can solve this problem.

ie, Mandate of Heaven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven

Why is this the year for the 51% attack? I'll take a shot in the dark and assume this is post block reward halving?

Followup, will the attacker be a nation state actor or not?

>Uber says that if you have enough VC funding, you can make lawbreaking and regulatory blindness a central pillar of a billion-dollar company.

Welcome to America.

Tons of profitable companies still run on a lot of paper. I worked at an insurance company where the head of the most profitable division (earth quake) that actively discouraged the Idea of moving huge insurance contracts to digital. Anecdotal, but I assume this is not unique.

What advantages does the Yuan have over the USD? I think the next generation will value the transparency and predictability of issuance of a crypto currency similar to bitcoin has far greater advantages. Which doesn't mean that central bankers will be in favor of it. But it has a 'long shot' at getting on that graph.

> If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy.

This still rings very true to this day.

This is very interesting. Right now Hedgy is the only option for a trusted third party oracle though. I'm not sure if this is a "real" smart contract... They are just a legal notary service and oracle for prices right now. Could this off blockchain? I think that would only require publicly posting every contract that is agreed, maybe obfuscating the identities.

They will be hashing legal agreements and adding that meta data to the bitcoin transaction so there is a permanent record of it.

Does anyone know of a real world example of a blockchain holding up in court? I know that www.proofofexistance.com does something similar with hashes of documents to prove it hasn't been tampered with. Used for wills and other documents that are traditionally notarized by a person and not a blockchain.

The CIA(1), and other Fortune 500 Companies have internal prediction markets that work quite well. However, internal politics inside of the organization sometimes spell the death of those markets.

This is more good data that gives me more faith in the www.Augur.net decentralized prediction market premise.

[1] https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intellig...

>It’s incumbent on anyone creating a new network of any kind not just to avoid using it yourself for criminal purposes, but to design it so that it’s not useful for criminal purposes.

What happens when your point of view is "criminalized"?

Previous HN discussion 3 months ago with some good gems: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9799631

Fascinating. This MircoRisk Insurance market is closer than most people think. If Ethereum[1] and Augur[2] are successful(a big if), then these types of mirco insurance contracts are just around the corner. The possibilities seem endless if this technology can work.

1. https://ethereum.org/

2. http://www.augur.net/

I tried to find this article and couldn't. Could you point me to it please?

I'm interested in it because I'm in the middle of building a Tiny house my self.

I'm building one right now. It's going to be about 20k when I am finished. https://goo.gl/photos/dPnx7jttphUvQXcj8

In Africa, Bitpesa is doing a great job of commerce over sms[1]. A third of Kenya's GDP flows through Bitpesa[2]. With people more people having access to a cell phone than proper sanitation[3]; commerce over text will increase faster in the developing world than in the west. It is definitely a trend to keep an eye on.

1. https://www.bitpesa.co/

2. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/31-kenya-gdp-spent-mobile-1759...

3. http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/11/18/on-un-...

>If people foresee the bubble, why do they participate in it? Why aren't the on the "short" side?

From John Maynard Keynes himself, "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”

The head of Fincen ((Financial Crimes Enforcement Network)The US agency that goes after money laundering) has said that it is still easier to launder US dollars. [1]

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qx7ik/head_of_fin...

>I have a box of foreign money at home which I use every time I am abroad. I bet most people have something like it. If I were to trust you on this, I'd have to record the price of that currency with every cup of coffee in every airport I buy. In practice nobody has done that, ever. I'd say that's safe.

This is not true.In the US there is a tax exemption for small denomination purchases in foreign currency's(I think $200) [1]. I can't find a source right now...

*Edit updating citation: User icebraining cited this source in this discussion.

1. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/988

Uber uses Braintree for payment processing[1]. Braintree already has integration with Coinbase[2]. I assume that bitcoin transfers being push (instead of pull like credit cards) is the reason they haven't activated it.

1. https://www.braintreepayments.com/case-studies/uber

2. https://www.braintreepayments.com/features/coinbase

Blog is in progress right now.