Video: Custom Cooling Solution For BFL Singles

This video shows how a Delta fan (from Dell) can be used to provide better cooling for a BFL Single FGPA mining card.  You may want to turn your speakers down before the fan starts up.

[Update: Unfortunately, embedding is disabled for this video, so you will need to click to view.]

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Ryan Taylor asks Adam Kokesh (@AdamKokesh) some questions in a post on Bitcoin Magazine.  Excerpts:

“Adam: Bitcoin kind of throws a lot of people like us for a loop and we go “Wait, wait, wait a second! It’s just another fiat currency, right?” because there’s nothing backing it.”
“Adam: Bitcoin is proving itself, at least in this controlled market, as an alternative, to be extremely effective to provide people with a way to opt-out from the US dollar.”
“Adam: I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a serious government crackdown attempt on Bitcoin because it is a huge threat to the government fiat currency scam. It is a huge threat to the Federal Reserve.”
“Ryan: Do you think fractional-reserve banking could happen once Bitcoin stabilizes and gets enough usage?”
 ”Adam: […] I can only issue certificates and promissory notes and say ”Here’s a promissory note for one Bitcoin and if you bring this back, I will redeem it for a Bitcoin”. Then it’s based on the credibility of my institution and me as an individual, not on special privileges granted by government.””
“Adam: I don’t want to say what I want Bitcoin to be because it would be a meaningless stance when, really, what Bitcoin will become will be determined by the market.”

- http://bit.ly/JlSUic
- https://www.adamvstheman.com/invest  (with Bitcoin address)

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A post by Adrianne Jeffries (@ADRJeffries) on BetaBeat reports that an FBI representative has confirmed that the previously leaked report did in fact come from the agency.  Excerpts:

“The report, titled ‘Bitcoin Virtual Currency: Intelligence. Unique Features Present Distinct Challenges for Deterring Illicit Activity,’ was the FBI’s first research report on Bitcoin. The report was not classified, but it was marked ‘for official use only.’
“Betabeat, Wired, and a number of blogs ran with the story without confirming the report’s authenticity, but today we got a call back from the FBI. ‘It is legitimate, but it was not leaked by the government,’ an FBI representative told Betabeat.”

- http://bit.ly/J6eet6
- https://www.dropbox.com/s/0nc35rpevjcu9p4/Bitcoin%20FBI.pdf

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A post on the Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) takes a look at how Bitcoin has a place in a world where trust breaks down.  Excerpts:

“Anyone paying any attention to the events in the world, particularly with what is happening in Greece, Spain and elsewhere in Europe does at least already have thoughts along the lines of ‘What will I do if the shit hits the fan (SHTF)?’”
“By the time it is apparent things are swirling down the drain it is then too late to only begin trying to adapt to and survive the new realities of life,”
“Actions taken now can begin to prepare us for the scenario where instability reigns. Not coincidentally, Bitcoin has a place in these preparations.”
“Preparations for a time in the future where banking systems fail and government protections are unavailable might include gaining experience with the #bitcoin-otc markeplace and earning a (Web of Trust) rating history.”
“With bitcoin being non-reversible, the escrow process becomes significantly easier to offer. […]  In addition to the Bitcoin ecosystem having trusted escrow partners, the bitcoin network itself can facilitate escrow thanks to a new feature referred to as P2SH.”
“By acquiring and then holding bitcoins locally (in a paper wallet even) one has an asset that is valued globally, yet usable locally. This asset becomes even more useful when institutions become unstable and trust deteriorates.”

- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/23061931511

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A post on Bitcoin Money (@BitcoinMoney) blog describes Bitcoinica’s plans for allowing customers to get access to their funds following the firms major security breach.  Excerpts:

“[Zhou Tong’s announcement reads]: ‘We are building an account claim page. You can submit your account information, financial information (balances) and trading information to verify your identity. We will then match with the records we have. If they have matched, we will [return funds]”.
“Current positions will all be liquidated at a settlement price [that has yet to be determined].”
“The [claim] page will be up in a few days but I don’t have accurate information on this.”
”It has not yet been determined if the service will continue to operate after returning funds. ‘Likely we will either shut down the platform or re-develop entirely’ Zhou writes in another post.” [see blog post for an update describing plans to re-open Bitcoinica.]
“[Kronos.io and MPEx) might be useful alternatives for those who were using Bitcoinica to hedge.]

- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/22977822600

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"I, Zhou Tong... will discontinue all involvement in Bitcoin-related projects after the Bitcoinica incident has been fully resolved until further notice. I failed at one thing... that is generating value for the society. Bitcoinica did create a place for people to trade more efficiently and provide liquidity to the market. However, speculation is a zero-sum game (or negative-sum, strictly saying). I know there can be many justifications for Bitcoinica's value, but all of them are against my intuition and values."

"I have started working on another project (not Bitcoin-related) that is going to make a little difference on the Internet. So far I have achieved great progress and I'm pretty confident about this new venture."

Jon Matonis (@JonMatonis) describes how Bitcoin can come to the rescue for Somalis in Minnesota who have been barred from making the small regular transfers to their family members in Africa.  Excerpts:

“Instead of trying to comply [with regulations], [banks] are electing to opt out so as not to encounter heavy federal fines. It sure would be nice if the world had a decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency that could be transferred to mobile devices in a secure fashion.”
“If it hasn’t happened already, a savvy merchant in Somalia will start accepting bitcoin for Somali shillings. Or a traditional currency exchange dealer could get in on the action too — the spreads are certainly there.”
“As a distributed network, bitcoin possesses the capability to route around interference and disruption. In fact, this was a key design consideration as resiliency has grown to become an imperative for privacy-enhancing electronic cash.”

- http://onforb.es/J7heXd

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- It's more serious than we thought. We need some additional time to come up with a compensation proposal.

- Likely we will either shut down the platform or re-develop entirely (which will take months instead of days).

- The preliminary decision: reimburse for the full amount, including margin balances and position P/L.

- The root cause of this problem is an email server compromise. The email server belongs to one of our team members.

- Reminder again: Please do not reuse your Bitcoinica passwords as the database server was compromised. Do not click any links in the email. All Bitcoinica announcements will be updated on Bitcoinica website when available.

Important Disclaimer: I'm not a partner of Bitcoinica LP after the corporate reorganisation. Therefore, I have no financial obligation in this matter as I'm only an employee of Bitcoinica LP responsible for daily operations (no shares, no voting). However, I'll do my best with the team to resolve this problem as quickly as possible and minimize the impact for the community. I appreciate your patience and understanding.

"Under the hood, ZipConf is what allows Bitcoins to be delivered instantly to remote exchanges, which is also a huge security bonus. Bitcoinica has persisted in having a zero sysadmin policy. Kronos is built by sysadmins, on top of software built by other sysadmins (ZipConf). Kronos uses SSH and SFTP to remain extra secure; I won't even have the keys!"

GoWest (@GoWestBTC) posted an alert that Bitcoinica was brought offline by its founder after the second major successful hack against the service.  Excerpt:

“Bitcoinica has been shutdown until further notice, following a theft of 18,000 BTC.”
“Bitcoinica was also the victim of a 43,000 BTC ($215,000 USD) heist back on March 1st.” 

- http://bit.ly/JhB3HE

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"Today, we have discovered a suspicious Bitcoin transaction that doesn't seem to be initiated by any one of the company owners. Some of them are not online at the moment so this is not conclusive.

 Suspicious transaction:

{
"account" : "",
"address" : "182tGyiczhXSSCTciVujNRkkMw1zQxUVhp",
"category" : "send",
"amount" : -18547.66867623,
"fee" : 0.00000000,
"blockhash" : "00000000000003f6bfd3e2fcbf76091853b28be234b5473a67f89b9d5bee019c",
"blockindex" : 1,
"txid" : "7a22917744aa9ed740faf3068a2f895424ed816ed1a04012b47df7a493f056e8",
"time" : 1336738723
},

We have contacted Rackspace to suspend all our servers and lock down our accounts. All your trading and financial data is safe (as far as I know), apart from the Bitcoin loss. Thank you for your patience and understanding while we investigate this issue in detail."

"Our data is kept inact. Any order placed before the shutdown will still be valid. However, no order execution will happen (no zhoutonging either).
If the market moves significantly, we will come up with a proposal to compensate disadvantaged customers once the investigation is complete."

Because Bitcoin transactions are pseudonymous, neither PCI security compliance nor a protective moat are necessary.  Because Bitcoin’s network architecture is peer-to-peer there’s no service level requirement that a mining operator must meet. The Bitcoin mining network has never delivered anything less than 100% uptime.

These low budget operators actually strengthen the Bitcoin network.  Because there is no master node or central authority for the Bitcoin blockchain the system then is reliant on computer power being distributed to where an attack wouldn’t be successful.  Each additional GPU crunching away makes it harder for an attacker to acquire sufficient computing power to have any negative effect on Bitcoin’s performance.

A bank might use marble columns to try to convey a message of strength even though financially it nears collapse.  Bitcoin doesn’t and can’t benefit from the same level of government protection banks receive though.  Bitcoin’s protection comes from transparency.  That photo delivers the exact message it must for it describes how Bitcoin is different.  It helps show how Bitcoin is the financial network of, by and for the people.

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A post on the Bitcoin Miner (@BitcoinMiner) blog features a photo from a commercial mining operation which helped to contribute to the latest difficulty adjustment increase.  Excerpts: 

“The leading GPU farms use economies of scale combined with low power costs to solve blocks at a lower cost than any solo miner paying residential rates could ever hope for.”
“The recent difficulty threshold for generating bitcoins went from 1,508,590 to 1,733,208, representing nearly a 15% increase in just over 12 days.”
“This increase is the biggest, in percentage terms, since June, 2011.” 
“The capitulation by the small miners suffering electric utility bill pain is benefiting these commercial operators whose facilities can accommodate further expansion and letting the overhead costs be spread out over a growing number of producing rigs.”
“If hardware costs are amortized much past when the upcoming drop in the block reward is expected to occur (sometime around December), then these commercial operators could be facing a rude awakening.”

- http://www.bitcoinminer.com/post/22769728108

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GoWest (@GoWestBTC)reports that Bit-Pay processed its largest Bitcoin transaction to-date, a purchase for 3,095 BTC (which is worth over $15,000 USD at current exchange rates).  Excerpt:

“The merchant? Butterfly Labs, selling one of its 25 Giga Hash mini-rigs.”

- http://bit.ly/JhB3HE

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Difficulty Destroyers - Commercial GPU Farms

While the FPGA is getting its share of the spotlight, commercial GPU farms such as the one pictured in this post are advancing in both size and number. The leading GPU farms use economies of scale combined with low power costs to solve blocks at a lower cost than any solo miner paying residential rates could ever hope for.

The operator of this specific mining farm posted the photo that enables its bond investors to do a visual audit, performed remotely, to help verify the assertion that 100 Ghash/s of capacity truly exists.

The recent difficulty threshold for generating bitcoins went from 1,508,590 to 1,733,208, representing nearly a 15% increase in just over 12 days. The difficulty readjusts every 2,016 blocks and this most recent adjustment happened when block 179,424 was reached. 

This increase is the biggest, in percentage terms, since June, 2011.  FPGA mining hardware units are shipping in larger quantities from some vendors though significant backlogs remain for BFL singles and the yet unreleased mini-rig.

FPGAs are an order of magnitude more efficient on electricity for the purposes of mining but GPUs are the workhorse for Bitcoin mining and are still competitive once considering hardware acquisition costs.

Those hardware costs been been dropping of late, especially for used hardware as operators sell off old hardware.  They sell either because of their expectation that used GPU prices will fall further in the future or because the rising difficulty adjustments have sucked the margins from operating GPUs for mining.

The capitulation by the small miners suffering electric utility bill pain is benefiting these commercial operators whose facilities can accommodate further expansion that allows the overhead costs to be spread out over a growing number of producing rigs.  The mining operation in the photo has grown its hashing capacity by 20% in the few weeks since the photo was taken, for example.

This strategy of continued expansion may result in gains in the short term but if hardware costs are amortized much past when the upcoming drop in the block reward is expected to occur (sometime around December), then these commercial operators could be facing a rude awakening.  The block reward drop will bring the yield from 50 BTC per-block to 25 BTC per-block.  Many miners are hoping the resultant decrease in production will be offset with a rising exchange rate once the market recognizes that there will soon be a sudden drop in the supply of mined Bitcoins.  Because even used GPUs are still very useful to gamers looking to trade up from lower-end hardware, mining operators are able to take the more risky move of adding hardware yet with the worst case scenario being a relatively small level of losses if future plans must change.

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Here's the first drone bomber.  

It's the RQ-7 Shadow armed with a Shadow Hawk smart bomb (Mike Hanlon over at Gizmag did a great job with his article).  

Drone + smart bomb is a scary combo.  Why?  As Hanlon points out, it is much cheaper than the manned alternatives.  The solution for maintaining expansive ambitions despite shrinking budgets.

Over the longer term, tech trends dictate, we're going to see this type of system get less and less expensive.  Also, each generation getting smarter and smarter, eventually reaching a high level of autonomy.

Given the precision of this smart bomb (8" from over a mile away), you don't need much explosive to do signficant damage.

In an anti-personnel role, we'll see smart glide bombs shrink to 1/2 a pound apiece or less.  The smaller the better.  

bitcoin:

A new version of the Bitcoin-Qt and Bitcoind clients from Bitcoin.org, v0.6.2, includes a number of bug fixes and and performance improvements.

• http://bitcoin.org/releases/2012/05/08/v0.6.2.html
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.6.2
• http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80187.0

Previous Posts

A new version of the Bitcoin-Qt and Bitcoind clients from Bitcoin.org, v0.6.2, includes a number of bug fixes and and performance improvements.

- http://bitcoin.org/releases/2012/05/08/v0.6.2.html
- http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.6.2
- http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80187.0

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A blog post on Bitcoin Money blog (@BitcoinMoney) describes the crowdfunded project Screw Banks, Use Bitcoin which resulted with the release of a video and promotion website.  Excerpts:

“The video started out as a project on Max Keiser (@MaxKeiser)’s Pirate My Film (PMF) (@PirateMyFilm) crowdfunding platform.  Pledges at $5 and up were made by the Bitcoin community, and once the project was fully funded, the only way to send funds was with bitcoins.”
“Fundraising for the project started in started in November, 2011 with the goal of raising $1,500 USD but the project was oversubscribed by the end of January and after funds were collected from all 114 “shareholders” the project took in an extra 15%.”
“Screw Banks was the first project on PMF in which Bitcoins were accepted for payment.”

- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/22683633233
- http://www.piratemyfilm.com/projects/304
- http://www.screwbanks.net

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Announced on the BitcoinTalk forum by Anthony Gallippi is the Screw Banks video and ScrewBanks.net website.  The announcement reads:

“After many months of hard work and collaboration, today we are proud to release ‘Screw Banks’.
 - http://screwbanks.net”
“Starring…the Vampire Squid, Jon Corzyne, a Bought Congress, PayPay, and a Colombian Hooker!  Check out this crazy cast of characters:
- http://screwbanks.net/credits.html
it’s a great video targeted towards people upset with the banking system, for one reason or another.
This video introduces people to bitcoin in a nice cartoon, focusing on usability, not on technicality.

- http://www.ScrewBanks.net
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CrOKDOyW-Y
- http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80190.0

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If you want to do a talk, then email me (genjix@riseup.net) and I’ll add you to the schedule.

11th May (Friday) at 20:00. For help, you can call +49 1577 1826 806.

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The development lead for Bitcoin.org, Gavin Andresen (@GavinAndresen), has placed a call for participation to create a Bitcoin Testing Project. 

In a post on the BitcoinTalk forum, Gavin writes:

“I’m creating a decentralized, transparent organization using the BetterMeans system. I’ll need help from people willing to be fundraisers, testers, project managers, toolmakers, troll-catchers, etc.”

Bitcoin.org is an informal association of participants who architect, design, build, release and support the Bitcoin.org client software.

Bettermeans bills itself as an open, democratic project management platform service.

- http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=80019.0

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Jon Matonis (@JonMatonis) writes in Forbes about the ability to add funds to a credit card (just like what might happen when getting a refund from a merchant).  Excerpts:

“[This feature] leverages a little-known type of transaction that is available on the VisaNet system called ‘Original Credit Transaction’. The other major card payment networks have a similar feature too.”
“Previously, it was cumbersome for bitcoin account holders to transact in national currencies because they had to go through one or more exchanges and then wait further for funds to arrive in a bank account or other intermediary.”
“Withdraw2Card’s] service fee is $9 plus 1.99% (for MtGox USD) with a $1,000 maximum transfer amount.”
“By removing friction from the process, bitcoin becomes easier to spend overall because not every merchant will accept bitcoin directly for payment yet and not all transactions demand irreversibility and privacy.” 

-  http://onforb.es/JM11Qv

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FPS Russia has a hit on his hands with this fake drone quadrotor video.

12,000,000 views and counting.

He's wrong on the tech.  All of it is available today and it's inexpensive.  He shouldn't have faked it.

Also:  given that rotor noise is repetitive, inexpensive noise cancellation tech is something we are going to see in most drones soon.

Cryptographer Matthew Green (@Matthew_D_Green) provides a brief background into e-cash and an overview of the problems that e-cash must solve once money goes digital.  Excerpts:

“The combination of easy-to-search electronic records and big data seems like a death-knell for our individual privacy. Cryptography holds the promise to get some of that privacy back, if we want it.”
“Funds transfer systems offer none of the privacy advantages of real cash. This is probably by (government) preference: untraceable cash lends itself to unsavory activities, stuff like drug dealing, arms purchases and tax evasion. Our modern banking system doesn’t necessarily stop these activities, but it’s a godsend for law enforcement: just about every transaction can be traced down to the $0.01.”
“Chaum’s original solution dealt with double-spenders by requiring the bank to be online, so users could immediately deposit their coins — and make sure they were fresh. This works great, but it’s damn hard to handle in a system that works offline.”
“While the Bitcoin block-chain is essential to security, it’s also Bitcoin’s privacy achilles heel. Since every transaction is public — and widely disseminated — there’s no hiding that it took place.”
“As our society moves away from dirty, messy cash and into clean — and traceable — electronic transactions, I really do worry that we’re losing something important. Something fundamental.”

- http://bit.ly/Jaq6Wv

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If we compare this to the historical price, we see there is not really any causal link between them. Therefore, drawing tenuous links between is risky without evidence.

If you look closely at the graph, you will see a red and green line. The green line is a 2000 point moving mean average (the current point is last point in moving average).

The following is a graph of the ratio between the moving average and spot price difference to the moving average.

As you can see, market instability in Bitcoin has gone way down, while volume is healthy. This is great news for the long term potential and growth of Bitcoin.

"I scratch my head that somehow most of you on some academic level believe in the theory of supply and demand and how market setting prices result, but yet you deny them in your macro thinking about the economy.

I scratch my head that somehow your conclusions about unemployment are so different than mine and that you call for the printing of money to boost “demand”. A call, I add, that since the founding of the Federal Reserve has resulted in an increase of the money supply by 12,230%.

So you then might tell me that stable prices are only a secondary goal of the Federal Reserve and that your real goal is to prevent serious declines in the economy but, since the start of the Fed, there have been 18 recessions including the Great Depression and the most recent Great Recession. These downturns have resulted in stock market crashes, tens of millions of unemployed and untold business bankruptcies."

"In this very building, deep in the underground vaults, sits billions of dollars of gold, held by the Federal Reserve  for foreign governments. The Federal Reserve gives regular tours of these vaults, even to school children. Yet, America’s gold is off limits to seemingly everyone and has never been properly audited. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? If nothing else, does anyone at the Fed know the quality and fineness of the gold at Fort Knox?

In conclusion, it is my belief  that from start to finish  the Fed is a failure. I believe faulty methodology is used, I believe that  the justification for the Fed, to bring price and economic stability, has never been a success. I repeat, prices since the start of the Fed have climbed by 2,241% and there have been over the same period 18 recessions. No one seems to care at the Fed about the gold supposedly backing up the gold certificates on the Fed balance sheet. The emperor has no clothes.

The noose is tightening on your organization, vast amounts of money printing are now required to keep your manipulated economy afloat. It will ultimately result in huge price inflation, or,  if you stop printing, another massive economic crash will occur. There is no other way out."

"Let’s have one good meal here. Let’s make it a feast. Then I ask you, I plead with you, I beg you all, walk out of here with me, never to come back. It’s the moral and ethical thing to do. Nothing good goes on in this place. Let’s lock the doors and leave the building to the spiders, moths and four-legged rats."

A post on Bitcoin Money (@BitcoinMoney) blog points out the reason why Bitcoin’s transaction volume has gone stratospheric.  Excerpts:

“While the daily transaction volume had been steadily growing at a casual pace since October, there’s been a development in the past weeks that has had a significant impact. The ten-day-old service SatoshiDice.com has been growing at a blistering pace.”
“There to be nearly four thousand blockchain transactions resulting from Satoshi Dice for the most recent 24-hour period.”
Satoshi Dice allows the Bitcoin wallet, whether it be the standard Bitcoin.org client or a hybrid Javascript-based browser wallet like My Wallet from Blockchain.info, to function as gaming terminal. What sets Satoshi Dice apart from most other Bitcoin-based online gaming services is the ability to play in an instant and to receive winnings back within seconds.”
“What may be occurring then is that Satoshi Dice is seeing some level of participation by those intending to alter the makeup of the coins held in their wallets. Satoshi Dice in its present form makes a poor solution for mixing however.”

- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/22374833252

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A post on Bitcoin Money (@BitcoinMoney) blog points out the reason why Bitcoin’s transaction volume has gone stratospheric.  Excerpts:

“While the daily transaction volume had been steadily growing at a casual pace since October, there’s been a development in the past weeks that has had a significant impact. The ten-day-old service SatoshiDice.com has been growing at a blistering pace.”
“There to be nearly four thousand blockchain transactions resulting from Satoshi Dice for the most recent 24-hour period.”
Satoshi Dice allows the Bitcoin wallet, whether it be the standard Bitcoin.org client or a hybrid Javascript-based browser wallet like My Wallet from Blockchain.info, to function as gaming terminal. What sets Satoshi Dice apart from most other Bitcoin-based online gaming services is the ability to play in an instant and to receive winnings back within seconds.”
“What may be occurring then is that Satoshi Dice is seeing some level of participation by those intending to alter the makeup of the coins held in their wallets. Satoshi Dice in its present form makes a poor solution for mixing however.”

- http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/22374833252

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A study by researchers released today finds that vendors not taking proper precautions could be vulnerable to double spending when accepting bitcoins as payment immediately.

The title of the paper is “Two Bitcoins at the Price of One? Double-Spending Attacks on Fast Payments in Bitcoin” and is believed to be the first formal study on the race attack double spending problem on the bitcoin network.  An excerpt from the abstract reads:

“We focus on double- spending attacks on fast payments and demonstrate that these attacks can be mounted at low cost on currently deployed versions of Bitcoin.”

The method of attack (race attack against a vendor accepting 0/unconfirmed as payment) was widely known previously and the researchers did not perform the study using the recommendations widely believed to prevent most race attacks from being successful.

A forum thread contains further discussion of the results.

- http://eprint.iacr.org/2012/248
- http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=79090.0

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PayPal, well renowned as a major headache for many online retailers, has been less than ideal for this business model, in part due to their percentage cut and questionable business practices.

New technologies have always had a way of changing people’s lives in unforeseen and drastic ways. The emergence of the Internet in particular has had an astonishing effect on the world in the brief time it has existed in the mainstream, with consequences that have upended entire industries and shaped new cultures – and we are only witness to the beginning.

This global hub has enabled millions of creative people to find an audience, and subsequently a career, where there were once towering barriers to entry. Online crowdfunding – raising money through high numbers of small individual contributions – is enabling development of projects that would otherwise never come about. These two parallel trends are having a powerful effect on the way creativity is expressed online; I can testify to this personally. Two years ago, I posted a Carl Sagan remix video called “A Glorious Dawn” on Youtube, with little to no following. By the end of the month, it had been viewed over a million times, and I had landed a record deal. Crowdfunding enabled me to pursue my ambitions to build off that initial viral success. The resulting web series I created, Symphony of Science, has grown to secure a healthy online presence, striving to bridge the gap between entertainment and education. Its continued existence is owed to the generous donations of thousands of fans, the vast majority using PayPal to conduct transactions.

PayPal, well renowned as a major headache for many online retailers, has been less than ideal for this business model, in part due to their percentage cut and questionable business practices. When I first heard of Bitcoin, the idea immediately clicked. Despite being in its infancy, I was eager to adopt it out of personal interest and its potential to revolutionize online transactions. Peer-to-peer monetary transactions offer a superior way of exchanging worth between individuals and organizations, by cutting out the middle man and ensuring that personal generosity is not partially funneled into potentially immoral organizations.

Bitcoin has begun to tear down yet another barrier between generosity and artistry. Electronic payment gatekeepers like PayPal have glaring downfalls; Bitcoin, despite debates about its viability, is quickly emerging as an advantageous alternative. Its potential is fascinating, and harkens back to the early days of the Internet, when then fledgling companies like eBay and Amazon began to take shape – their enormous potential lying in wait, ready to be unleashed.

It’s no longer a stretch to imagine a world where the flow of money and generosity is completely unimpeded by middle men, and free culture dominates, as ideas freely spread and incorporate themselves into a global “free culture”. I have been lucky enough to find a following in this new and emerging landscape with my series, and I look forward to seeing where crowdfunding, and Bitcoin in particular, will take us.

You can watch the Symphony of Science videos at symphonyofscience.com.
Symphony of Science Bitcoin address: 19q1MRGr92wgcvkh9evzrKe3czccWHYCoZ

Contact: john@symphonyofscience.com

Vitalik Buterin published an article in Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) which describes how Bitcoin has many similarities to payment methods already widely used in the developing world.  Excerpts:

“[In the West when using a debit card online] you have to effectively give the provider unlimited access to your bank account, protected only by the assurance that you have the option of a chargeback and the bank is ultimately responsible for all your losses due to fraud.”
“How do these systems get around the consumer protection issue? It turns out that they use exactly the same solution as that which has been proposed and sporadically implemented with Bitcoin: escrow”.
“In the developing world Bitcoin-style finance is already here.”
“As there’s no distinction between consumers and vendors — anyone can send money or accept it — the potential for a decentralized and bottom-up economy is maximized.”

Though this specific article was published online by Bitcoin Mage a few months ago, Bitcoin Magazine put out a press release (link below) that their first issue has gone to the printer.

- http://bit.ly/HeMh0b (March 7, 2012 article by Vitalik Buterin)
- http://bitcoinmagazine.net/bitcoin-magazine-press-release

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Adrianne Jeffries (@ADRJeffries) writes on the launch of a new online advertising network.  Excerpts:

“‘I feel that BitcoinAdvertisers.com is the first service to give web publishers exactly what they need to start making bitcoins and serve the bitcoin business community desire to raise revenue with the business model proven to work by Google with Adsense’” wrote [Andrew Bitcoiner, the pseudonymous operator] in an email”.
“He considered calling the site “BitcoinSense,” but some advertisers raised copyright concerns”.

The bitcoin-related online advertising space is heating up as the article mentions another new competitor and in the comments of the article was mention of yet another:

“http://throughads.com/ <— another Bitcoin advertising service launched over the weekend in addition to BitcoinAdvertisers. Both look excellent - large improvements over prior services. 

- http://www.betabeat.com/2012/04/30/the-next-wave-of-bitcoin-startups-ad-networks

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“The future of sexuality is here, and boy it’s predictably sad and weird: girls stripping for Bitcoin tips, a virtual currency that’s not really worth anything. Start mining yer coins, boys! Welcome to GirlsGoneBitcoin.”
~ Gizmodo

It’s easy to miss the true value here. There is an inherent complexity in understanding a decentralised form of money. Nothing like bitcoin has existed before. Money has operated without middlemen. So the true social benefit of early technologies is often ignored by major media giving the reader only half of the picture.

We got a glimmer of this recently when Rap News announced that they were accepting Bitcoin donations. Within 48 hours, they had received over $500 in Bitcoin donations – pretty good for such a specific genre of music.

A list of features fails to capture the driving imagination propelling Bitcoin. It is often said that Bitcoin users are intense proselytizers. This zeal is not without reason, for Bitcoin is more than an improved internet payment system. It is symbolic of a new age of global connectivity and technology. In the aftermath of revolutions across the middle east, a vast encyclopedia of the world’s knowledge and sharing networks have stolen the keys to locks held by gatekeepers. Out of this emerges a new way of codifying transactions and the democratic transfer of wealth: algorithmic money.

Bitcoin is a system without masters. Free from domination by central parties, and driven by incorruptible mathematics. Nobody owns the Bitcoin network. Nobody can stop you donating to Wikileaks or other political causes. Bitcoin removes the need for middlemen who control the system of transactions. They are replaced by mutual agreements written in code, an algorithm.

Bitcoin has the potential for massive social good. A common slander against people who don’t understand this techology, is that “oh it’s only good for drugs” or “it’s a money laundering mechanism” (to paraphrase Senator Chuck Schumer). In actuality, it goes way beyond and has the potential to be a catalyst of epic changes in our lifetimes. Changes which will realise a wealthier world.

Pornography on Reddit

In the last month, a new sub-reddit called Girls Gone Bitcoin (see Girls Gone Wild for the cultural reference) has emerged. On this sub-reddit, people (typically girls) upload full nude photos of themselves and include a Bitcoin address. In an amateur digitised version of a strip-club, viewers who want to reward the girls can send them a donation. To many, it is safe and harmless fun.

Chateau deCrypto is another sub-Reddit created by a splinter group of girls after there was worry over the commercial nature of Girls Gone Bitcoin. Essentially, it is the same format and the groups remain friendly.

Welcome to leChateau deCrypto (please pardon the dust) a cooperative of women dedicated to providing a safe and exploratory atmosphere for bitcoins, sex positivism, cryptography, and of course rock’n'roll.

Here we invite all of you sexy humans out there to step up and show off your bodies and all you wealthy bitcoin moguls to tip generously .

The internet underwent a similar early transition. In the public mind it was something used by computer hackers as all the stories during the early 80s focused on people breaking into public infrastructure through it.

Both groups enjoy Bitcoin, and internet freedom. Chateau deCrypto recently held a Wikileaks fund-raising drive, and Girls Gone Bitcoin actively encourages charitable donations to more worthy causes. For an unregulated forum, both groups display an unexpected level of sophistication and maturity when compared to the more conventional pornographic industries which are notoriously rife with exploitation, drugs and human trafficking. Bitcoin allows people to make money from pornography without any of the abuses of middlemen, financial or moral.

Many in society cannot see beyond their own inhibitions. Many do not see the more important ramifications, the grander picture.

Internet is for porn

April last year, I presented Bitcoin at a banker’s conference. This was the first time Bitcoin had any exposure towards the old world. Bitcoin was still a small niche currency that had not received any major press.

After my talk at the EPCA, a man in a suit came up to me. He commented, “Once Bitcoin is used for porn, that is when we know it is here.” He urged me to wait until pornography starts before investing in Bitcoin saying, “…that is when everything will kick off.”

It is undeniable that one of the drivers for the internet was the pornographic industry because people needed higher bandwidths to download images. Even today, a significant amount of internet traffic is devoted to porn. Pornography pushed the progress of the internet – an internet which would be responsible for opening governments, overthrowing totalitarian regimes and providing a global repository of raw potential with which to connect.

The internet underwent a similar early transition. In the public mind it was something used by computer hackers as all the stories during the early 80s focused on people breaking into public infrastructure through it. It was when Electron and Phoenix broke into NASA, that the Australian police started to pay notice and begin to work with policy makers on enacting rushed laws to combat computer crime (without understanding what the internet is).

As elaborated in Roadmap for the revolution: the future, one of the big uses of Bitcoin will be its potential to fund creative works ushering a new age of cultural revival over the internet.

We got a glimmer of this recently when Rap News announced that they were accepting Bitcoin donations. Within 48 hours, they had received over $500 in Bitcoin donations – pretty good for such a specific genre of music.

Chateau deCrypto and Girls Gone Bitcoin are a sign of bigger things. They mark an important turning point in the development of Bitcoin. A harbinger of change that is easily overlooked or trivialised (as seen in MSNBC and gizmodo articles).

When I wrote this article about Senator Chuck Schumer’s attack on Bitcoin, the story got picked up by The Observer, Gawker, Forbes and RT. But they totally missed the point. The point being that Schumer was looking to score political points by making loud public statements about the Silk Road – in effect providing them with the best free advertisement they could hope for.

Instead, these publications preferred sensationalism. In a sombre note, Forbes speculated at the ludicrous possibility of buying trafficked people online using Bitcoins. A game of Chinese whispers had unfolded.

The major media operates at a distance and in doing so routinely misses the deeper stories. We are seeing Bitcoin used as a mechanism here to fund digital creative works. This is distributed patronage. Without middlemen or pimps.

Amir Taaki can be reached at genjix@riseup.net

Bitcoin Block Origin Chart

Forum member kinlo shares his new site with an interactive real-time pie chart showing hashing levels for each pool.

The duration of the charted values is 2,016 blocks — the same quantity as are found between each difficulty adjustment, about two weeks of calendar time more or less.

In addition to the chart, the site provides a Block list page and also a complete list of top pools, ranked by hashing strength.

In the forum post announcing the site, an appeal is made to help identify IP addresses for more of the remaining 20% of hashing that is occurring and appears on the chart as Unknown.

Previous Posts

With the recent announcement of a potential joint-effort to mine asteroids, in combination with the acceleration in efforts toward commercial space-flight, some interesting tertiary considerations arise – especially in relation to the fundamentals of money.

Gold is valuable and stable. It is valuable in part because there is a stable supply. During the era of European expansion around the world, precious metals flooded the markets. That caused their values to decline, in some cases rapidly.

No matter what, gold has remained the most functional physical form of money thanks to its physical attributes. This doesn’t mean that it works best for price stability, though. What happens when supply increases rapidly? What will happen when asteroid mining hits its stride? An accelerating influx of resources would put pressure on market prices, of course. By one estimate, the amount of gold from just one asteroid could be more than 100,000 times the amount of all gold mined to date.

In the 2,900 cubic kms of Eros, there is more aluminium, gold, silver, zinc and other base and precious metals than have ever been excavated in history or indeed, could ever be excavated from the upper layers of the Earth’s crust.

That is just in one asteroid and not a very large one at that. There are thousands of asteroids out there.

Granted, these events may not happen for another two decades, but the likelihood of them eventually occurring is very strong. When that time comes, a currency under central control may work as the dollar has to maintain pricing stability. The question is: for how long? Looking at history, central control is guaranteed to fail. With gold experiencing a virtually unlimited supply as fiat currencies today, and becoming completely unwieldy when it comes to storage, another solution is necessary.

Anyone reading this site will quickly realise the solution is Bitcoin. Crypto-currencies in general will not just be an alternative, but absolutely necessary on many levels – especially ones structured as Bitcoin is, with a hard limit on supply. Unlike gold or any fiat/paper currencies, Bitcoin holdings today will be the same as they are a century from now – savings are both rewarded and protected.

Meanwhile, price stability is preserved by theoretically unlimited divisibility. For example: if I have 1 ounce of gold that’s worth USD$1,650 and want to buy something that’s only $165, I have a choice to make – walk away, or split up my gold ounce into tenths so I can use 1/10th as payment. Obviously, since gold is physical it can only be split so many times before keeping track of the divided pieces requires molecular tweezers. Even if it is held as a reserve in a Freegold or “reference-point” system, accounting can become unwieldy and prone to unscrupulous management. Any major influx of supply as discussed above would make its value plummet.

Bitcoin does not suffer these problems. Instead of expanding supply, it expands divisibility. It would be as if there were no more gold to be discovered in the universe and you could divide each ounce of gold into pieces smaller than atoms while still being able to easily keep track of it. Prices remain in a stable range and savings never erodes. For now, gold is an ideal money, and Bitcoin is a solution in search of a problem – what most don’t see is that the problem is approaching more quickly than we might think… two or three decades is a galactic sneeze.

With the recent announcement of a potential joint-effort to mine asteroids, in combination with the acceleration in efforts toward commercial space-flight, some interesting tertiary considerations arise – especially in relation to the fundamentals of money.

Gold is valuable and stable. It is valuable in part because there is a stable supply. During the era of European expansion around the world, precious metals flooded the markets. That caused their values to decline, in some cases rapidly.

No matter what, gold has remained the most functional physical form of money thanks to its physical attributes. This doesn’t mean that it works best for price stability, though. What happens when supply increases rapidly? What will happen when asteroid mining hits its stride? An accelerating influx of resources would put pressure on market prices, of course. By one estimate, the amount of gold from just one asteroid could be more than 100,000 times the amount of all gold mined to date.

In the 2,900 cubic kms of Eris, there is more aluminium, gold, silver, zinc and other base and precious metals than have ever been excavated in history or indeed, could ever be excavated from the upper layers of the Earth’s crust.

That is just in one asteroid and not a very large one at that. There are thousands of asteroids out there.

Granted, these events may not happen for another two decades, but the likelihood of them eventually occurring is very strong. When that time comes, a currency under central control may work as the dollar has to maintain pricing stability. The question is: for how long? Looking at history, central control is guaranteed to fail. With gold experiencing as virtually unlimited supply as fiat currencies today, and becoming completely unwieldy when it comes to storage, another solution is necessary.

Anyone reading this site will quickly realise the solution is Bitcoin. Crypto-currencies in general will not just be an alternative, but absolutely necessary on many levels – especially ones structure as Bitcoin is, with a hard limit on supply. Unlike gold or any fiat/paper currencies, Bitcoin holdings today will be the same as they are a century from now – savings are both rewarded and protected.

Meanwhile, price stability is preserved by theoretically unlimited divisibility. For example: if I have 1 ounce of gold that’s worth USD$1,650 and want to buy something that’s only $165, I have a choice to make – walk away, or split up my gold ounce into tenths so I can use 1/10th as payment. Obviously, since gold is physical it can only be split so many times before keeping track of the divided pieces requires molecular tweezers. Even if it is held as a reserve in a Freegold or “reference-point” system, accounting can become unwieldy and prone to unscrupulous management. Any major influx of supply as discussed above would make its value plummet.

Bitcoin does not suffer these problems. Instead of expanding supply, it expands divisibility. It would be as if there were no more gold to be discovered in the universe and you could divide each ounce of gold into pieces smaller than atoms while still being able to easily keep track of it. Prices remain in a stable range and savings never erodes. For now, gold is an ideal money, and Bitcoin is a solution in search of a problem – what most don’t see is that the problem is approaching more quickly than we might think… two or three decades is a galactic sneeze.