If so, would a MorphOS native bitcoin wallet application be a good idea?

Maybe I'm starting a shitstorm here but I'm all against bitcoins. I like the idea, but when everything is considered they are worth exactly nothing in real value because there is nothing at all to back it up with. People's will to use it as a currency alone simply isn't enough. The only difference between bitcoins and monopoly money is that you can make an infinite amount of monopoly money. But it's of no consequence since the sum of the even outrageous inflation with those are still 0 since they are worth that much in the beginning (0 x infinite is still 0). But since bitcoins are also worth exactly 0, having fewer of them makes them just as much worth anyway.

Bitcoin itself is a bad idea. Gambling and arms dealing.

@Hooligan

I was thinking of the idea of having a non-government digital currency. It's a nice idea for people who can't trade with their local currency for whatever reason. But the way you get bitcoins is just a big waste of computer power (and electricity) since all that power is used only to make more bitcoins.

I first thought that you got paid in bitcoins for helping out with difficult mathematical or other computer intensive problems. Something that goes to a goal that's useful in the real world. That misconseption made me sympathetic to bitcoins since I could at least appriciate the effort. But then I heard that all that is made are bitcoins I tried to explain that a curreny need something to back it up (gold, being exchangable for goods, industrial output, etc etc) I got beaten down by it's followers.

Like I said, the _idea_ is good, but I'm very much against it's execution. Making nothing out of nothing? It's just like if I would claim my apartment as an independent state. No matter how much I think it is: writing an constitution, having my own flag and anthem and passports and everything, I would still not be an independent state. Because the Kingdom of Sweden wouldn't back that claim up.

[ Edited by Yasu 20.01.2014 - 10:38 ]

It isn't my intention to force bitcoin upon anyone or even to disabuse anyone of their beliefs but, for the uninitiated...

Being backed by nothing is the modern reality of fiat currencies. Being able to gamble and buy prohibita with it also makes it no different to any other currency. In fact, I'd be more dubious about a currency if I couldn't do those things...

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Of course. But at the moment I see more cons than pros in Bitcoin. I wouldn't trust such unpredictable currency either, for example roughtly a year ago there was a huge bumb up, which melted 50% only a few hours later.

I do use bitcoin and looked into possibility of having a wallet on MorphOS. In fact it is only a matter of porting OpenSSL, which has been done already, multiple times. The original bitcoin client is written in C++, uses QT, Boost and other crap, but rewriting it in C and MUI is imaginable. The only huge requirement is diskspace, so called "full node" has to store the complete blockchain, which takes - at the time of writing - about 16 GB. Processor requirements are not high.

As for bitcoin myths being repeated in this thread... A cost of printing one 100 euro bill is something around 5 eurocents. All modern currencies are based on "nothing" and worth "nothing". They are also inflational, governments (or rather big banks controlling governments) can decrease their value endlessly by just printing (or even issue electronically nowadays) more. Bitcoin is deflational by design, so it is something like "gold of Internet" in this aspect.

Another myth is "only terrorists and drug dealers use bitcoin". This FUD is being spread by large finance companies and governments simply being frightened of loosing control of currency emission. Companies like PayPal, Western Union, Visa, MasterCard may be ruled out soon, so they will not just stand and watch. They will try to convince people that bitcoin is evil. Reading through this thread I see that they are succesfull with some. In fact plain cash is more anonymous than bitcoin (bitcoin transactions can be traced using the blockchain), and criminals much more like US dollars than bitcoin.

Then we have bitcoin "mining". In fact using regular computers for it is not financially viable. Currently people hoping to earn bitcoins by mining use specialized ASIC circuits, which are much more energy effective. Also "mining" is not the requirement for bitcoin. Just some people found an opportunity for business, rather temporary one, accelerated by December bitcoin bubble. Saying that mining bitcoins is waste of electricity is like saying that people riding motorcycles for pleasure, or making car trips around the country are just wasting gas.

Of course a 100€ bill only cost 5 €cents to make; the whole point of money is to use them as a substitute for something valuable. Basic monetary principle. Originally they used gold as the exchangable valuable since everyone wanted it and defined them as valuable (even long before it became actually useful for something).

It's true that money today doesn't use gold anymore. But they work anyway because of industrial output and other produced valuables in a country can be exchanged for that money without fail. And if needed, the government will make sure that you will be able to buy stuff for it (in America you can buy stored oil if that comes to that).

And even if it was true that every other currency is "fiat currency", then how does that make Bitcoins an alternative? First you say that money is worthless, but with the same token, because it is worthless Bitcoins becomes valuable? Strange logic. Just because other currencys are only valuable because we "think" it's valuable + history, doesn't make a made-up currency worth anything. Bitcoins works only because people using it think it works. If they stop thinking that, it stops to be worth anything. And this regarless how other countries moneys work. Or to be blunt: sheer speculation keeps Bitcoins floating.

As far as criminal activity, the only think I've read is that it's sometimes used for money laundry. Make sense to me, but hardly an argument against Bitcoins since all currencies have this problem.

@Yasu:

And even if it was true that every other currency is "fiat currency", then how does that make Bitcoins an alternative? First you say that money is worthless, but with the same token, because it is worthless Bitcoins becomes valuable?

No. I only say that bitcoin is valuable in the same way as fiat currencies are, but is not controlled by any government or bank. Then it cannot be inflated. Noone can confiscate your deposit, as it has been done in Cyprus recently.

history, doesn't make a made-up currency worth anything. Bitcoins works only because people using it think it works.

Euro is a made-up currency and works only because people using it think it works. The same with any other currency nowadays. There are perfect examples of how a fiat currency can be made worthless:

zimbabwe.jpg

Or to be blunt: sheer speculation keeps Bitcoins floating.

I advise you to read more about what keeps US dollar, euro and so on floating. You will be scared. Banksters are not your best friends.

[ Edited by Krashan 20.01.2014 - 20:11 ]

Quote:

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/536160/us_forces_silk_road_give_up_28m_bitcoins/

@Intuition

http://www.techworld.com.au/article/536160/us_forces_silk_road_give_up_28m_bitcoins/

This is misunderstanding. The guy was arrested for dealing drugs and paying for criminal activity. Then FBI seized his computers. Then either he was stupid enough to have the wallet not encrypted, or he gave the password to them "voluntarily". Cyprus affair was completely different, all the accounts in two main Cyprus banks, holding more than a threshold, have just been partially confiscated without any reason other than bankruptcy of these banks.

@Krashan I'd be satisfied to do without a local copy of the blockchain - if I'm going to transact via bitcoin, I'm just going to have to trust / have faith in the network.

I posted this on the HaikuOS forum but I'd appreciate your point of view -

Why do bitcoin users trust that their private keys are safe? What is stopping malicious software from sending that information (along with key-logged pass phrases) to a thief? That malicious software could be anything from the wallet application to any other part of their OS or other installed software.

The only satisfactory solution I can think of would be an offline wallet application that can generate a valid key pair and accept incoming transactions being 'ferried' to it via a flash drive or some-such, shared with an online counterpart this is only aware of the user's bitcoin address and never has access to the private key. The offline wallet would also have to be able to generate outgoing transactions for the user to again 'ferry' over to the online counterpart to send to the bitcoin network. Ideally, this offline wallet application would run on a secondary computer that is never connected to the internet...

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What is stopping governments from making it a criminal offence to not hand over your private key though?

It's already illegal in my country to refuse to hand over keys or passwords when the police demand them under anti "terrorism" laws.

Then there's the whole quantum computing effort that will theoretically make breaking encryption an matter of course.

So unless people memorise their keys , at some point they will be easily known to law enforcement, whether through legislation, insecure storage or brute force.

Just thinking out aloud.

@ausPPC:

I'd be satisfied to do without a local copy of the blockchain - if I'm going to transact via bitcoin, I'm just going to have to trust / have faith in the network.

In fact there is a clean way to cut the blockchain using so called Merkle tree. Having latest 1/4 or even less transaction is good enough in practice. There are also two solutions not requiring the blockchain at all, however one of them is external online wallet, which I do not trust, another one assumes there are enough full nodes on the network.

Why do bitcoin users trust that their private keys are safe? What is stopping malicious software from sending that information (along with key-logged pass phrases) to a thief?

Nothing, and in fact stealing wallets with malware on Windows has been done in practice (as a real crime, not a scientific experiment) many times. I'm going to move my wallet to Linux as long as it contains more than a few mBTC...

The only satisfactory solution I can think of would be an offline wallet application

It all depends on how much do you have, similarly as with fiat currencies. For larger amounts one can just print a wallet on some resistant medium and put it in a safe. There are many possibilities.

@Intuition

What is stopping governments from making it a criminal offence to not hand over your private key though? It's already illegal in my country to refuse to hand over keys or passwords when the police demand them under anti "terrorism" laws.

It is good that you start to see how our "democracy" really looks like. Bitcoin is an attempt to resist. Not perfect, but anyway.

Then there's the whole quantum computing effort that will theoretically make breaking encryption an matter of course.

On the other hand, quantum computing brings new cryptographic techniques, like messages self-destroying when tampered, and more similar things. Quantum computing is not the end of cryptography, it just takes it on a higher level. Anyway, quantum computing is being researched for 20 years and we are still far from practical applications.

So unless people memorise their keys , at some point they will be easily known to law enforcement, whether through legislation, insecure storage or brute force.

If you want to survive you just have to know IT better than the government. Sounds like Matrix, but the mankind is drifting in this direction.

@Intuition Those that do business as government like to pose as the good guys and, generally, people are prepared to go along with that. It is my hope that the more their motive for demanding other people's property is understood to be a blatant rip off, the less people will co-operate. Those that legislate against the interests of other people are necessitating many forms of self defence and, in that respect, bitcoin is a very interesting development.

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Oh I'm not "starting" to see it, I saw it for what it is even before the Eastern-bloc collapsed.

I'm certainly no capitalist, nor am I a Marxist (Well not since my rebellious teens anyway), though I do hold some "socialist" beliefs.

@Krashan

Well, I have a strong feeling we are not going to see eye to eye on this matter, but I respect your stance even if I don't agree (I hope you do the same). And I prefer to end this instead of going on in an endless loop since I've said what I think about this matter

http://www.coindesk.com/cash-invented-seen-media-today/
“A form of payment that cannot be used at a distance, cannot be used for e-commerce, cannot be used by mobile devices, cannot be used for machine-based transactions, or cannot be scripted or programmed, cannot be thought of as a payment system. I will admit, as a form of performance art, ‘cash’ transactions are an amusing experiment, but this has no applicability in the real world of banking, finance or commerce.”

Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox goes dark in blow to virtual currency

http://preev.com/

@hooligan:

Not that bad article, considering it is published by mainstream media. MtGox is a good example of IT security incompetence. It is also an example of people's greed and gambling. Red flags around MtGox were waving since November. Anyone who kept trading there after the New Year was either ignorant, or just decided to take the risk.

In traditional financial markets trading on exchanges is not easy, requires knowledge and risk management. There are also affairs and thefts on scales much larger than the whole bitcoin market cap, MtGox bankruptcy (not officially proclaimed, but very probable) is just a drop in the ocean. Bitcoin is no different. Trading it is not easy, requires knowledge and risk management. Long term investors, who just keep bitcoins in their private wallets, are not affected by MtGox affair. Of course the price went down temporarilly to $400, but already recovered to $600 and probably will further go up.

Forget bitcoin, I heard there's something even more suspicious being rolled out worldwide!1!

I've been interested since I heard about it, so if it comes pass here, I'd be in, but wouldn't the cal ulations tie up a system?

Bitcoin mining is resource intensive but I don't see why a wallet application should be at all. I'm still unconvinced that any portion of the blockchain should be required by a wallet to do transactions. I'm not able to confirm this but I believe the mobile phone wallet apps are much lighter than their desktop counterparts - that's what I'd like to see more of.