---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ryan/baslisks baslisks@gmail.com Date: Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 8:25 AM Subject: [ArchChat] anyone else heard of bitcoins? To: AR Public chitchat@lists.archreactor.org
They sound a lot like simoleons from Neal Stephenson's short stories.
http://www.weusecoins.com/getting-started.php
They generate their coins from solving complex math problems on your pc. _______________________________________________ ChitChat mailing list ChitChat@lists.archreactor.org http://lists.archreactor.org/listinfo/chitchat
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I've heard of bitcoin, find the idea interesting, but doubt it will ever be widely accepted as a currency. Governments will legislate against it if it looks ilke it's getting any traction at all. Look no further than the guy who was sent to federal prison recently for "economic terrorism" by minting gold coins he called "Liberty Dollars". The Fed has a monopoly on creating money in the US, and doesn't like it when people try to compete.
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 7:39 PM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ryan/baslisks baslisks@gmail.com Date: Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 8:25 AM Subject: [ArchChat] anyone else heard of bitcoins? To: AR Public chitchat@lists.archreactor.org
They sound a lot like simoleons from Neal Stephenson's short stories.
http://www.weusecoins.com/getting-started.php
They generate their coins from solving complex math problems on your pc. _______________________________________________ ChitChat mailing list ChitChat@lists.archreactor.org http://lists.archreactor.org/listinfo/chitchat
Did you know: This list is synced to our forums. Messages posted here show up there, and vice versa. Consequently, when you quote people's entire messages (like most email clients do automatically), it shows up in your post on the forums. This is bad, because it clutters things up for forum users.
Quote responsibly. Quote succinctly. _______________________________________________ KCLUG mailing list KCLUG@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Monty J. Harder mjharder@gmail.com wrote:
I' the guy who was sent to federal prison recently for "economic terrorism" by minting gold coins he called "Liberty Dollars". The Fed has a monopoly on creating money in the US, and doesn't like it when people try to compete.
Is that what happened to him? When? Please provide a source.
The bitcoin people aren't trying to compete with federal dollars, though, and they don't have any misleading instructions -- like suggesting that the middle people in their multi-level coin sales scheme misrepresent liberty numismatic coins as federal currency, which is what they were in trouble for IIRC.
having googled for liberty dollar, I found that NotHaus was convicted by a jury about a month ago. That's distressing.
Proud claims from the FBI that they will continue infiltration efforts to protect our democracy are also distressing.
Well, after reading several articles on the subject it seems clear the jury really had no choice but to find him guilty. It seems he stopped telling people it wasn't legal tender and even put out his coins as "new $10 gold pieces". Making metal coinage is against the law, and has always been. He was probably OK with the paper money, backed by commodity. Got to be careful, there's an awful lot of laws out there.
I doubt bitcoins is in the same market, but that is not to say the Fed will not be threatened by them. In fact, you could make plastic coins and be perfectly fine with the US laws. To a degree. It's all about boundaries.
Although, I'd probably opt for a plastic loadable barter card, with a home reader.
I do remember hearing about the bitcoins sometime back (probably on /.).
Not surprised on the FBI bit. They seem to be going back to the behavior in the good ol' 50s and 60s.
Jack
--- On Sat, 4/16/11, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
From: David Nicol Subject: Re: [ArchChat] anyone else heard of bitcoins? To: "Monty J. Harder" Cc: ccckc@googlegroups.com, "KCLUG" kclug@kclug.org Date: Saturday, April 16, 2011, 3:22 PM having googled for liberty dollar, I found that NotHaus was convicted by a jury about a month ago. That's distressing.
Proud claims from the FBI that they will continue infiltration efforts to protect our democracy are also distressing.
The liberty dollar user community were becoming something of an attidudanal nuisance, insisting that hot dog vendors at sports games take their silver pieces and stuff.
I think the proper thing that should be chilled will be expecting the downline of revolutionary MLM schemes to fully "get" a really subtle product, not alternative currencies like bitcoin or local hours.
furthermore, to totally and completely get off the topic of Linux, one might provocatively mark the current sesquicentennial by referring to USD as "Union Currency."
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 8:39:36 pm Oren Beck wrote:
They generate their coins from solving complex math problems on your pc.
No, the SHA256 bruteforcing serves no purpose but to prevent someone from taking over the network. Basically, the idea is that by making it difficult to find blocks, someone needs to outpower everyone else on the network combined to effectively chargeback. In exchange for contributing your GPU power, you are rewarded with the newly minted coins. These days, you need a good Radeon to profit over the electricity costs (CPUs and nvidia GPUs cost more in electricity than they would earn mining now). So, the math secures the network's integrity, it does not itself create the coins.
On Friday, April 15, 2011 10:12:57 am Monty J. Harder wrote:
Look no further than the guy who was sent to federal prison recently for "economic terrorism" by minting gold coins he called "Liberty Dollars". The Fed has a monopoly on creating money in the US, and doesn't like it when people try to compete.
He was sent to prison for counterfeiting, because his money looked too much like US Dollars, and he suggested people pass it off as such (eg, giving it as change). While one might try to argue that in the latter case, the person is getting the same value as real money, the fact is that his "American Liberty Dollars" carried a (significantly) higher face-value than their actual worth in metal. In any case, nobody can argue that Bitcoins can possibly be confused with US Dollars.
...and we just hit mainstream media: http://techland.time.com/2011/04/16/online-cash-bitcoin-could-challenge-gove...
I am not a financial advisor, but I will say /I'm/ buying. :P
On Friday, April 15, 2011 9:43:40 pm Luke-Jr wrote:
On Thursday, April 14, 2011 8:39:36 pm Oren Beck wrote:
They generate their coins from solving complex math problems on your pc.
No, the SHA256 bruteforcing serves no purpose but to prevent someone from taking over the network. Basically, the idea is that by making it difficult to find blocks, someone needs to outpower everyone else on the network combined to effectively chargeback. In exchange for contributing your GPU power, you are rewarded with the newly minted coins. These days, you need a good Radeon to profit over the electricity costs (CPUs and nvidia GPUs cost more in electricity than they would earn mining now). So, the math secures the network's integrity, it does not itself create the coins.
On Friday, April 15, 2011 10:12:57 am Monty J. Harder wrote:
Look no further than the guy who was sent to federal prison recently for "economic terrorism" by minting gold coins he called "Liberty Dollars". The Fed has a monopoly on creating money in the US, and doesn't like it when people try to compete.
He was sent to prison for counterfeiting, because his money looked too much like US Dollars, and he suggested people pass it off as such (eg, giving it as change). While one might try to argue that in the latter case, the person is getting the same value as real money, the fact is that his "American Liberty Dollars" carried a (significantly) higher face-value than their actual worth in metal. In any case, nobody can argue that Bitcoins can possibly be confused with US Dollars.
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David Nicol -
Jack -
Luke-Jr -
Monty J. Harder -
Oren Beck