Better bitcoin wallets

Simon Barber published a paper on improving bitcoins as a currency.  This section, taken from their paper, mentions improving usability through user wallets:

Super-wallets. To address the usability concern, we propose the simple idea of superwallet, i.e., a user’s “personal bank” where most of her coins are stored. The superwallet is split across multiple computing devices, using threshold techniques as above.  In addition, the user carries a smallsub-wallet with her on her smartphone.

Pre-approved transactions are setup so that the user can withdraw money from her super-wallet onto her sub-wallet, periodically in small amounts (similar to how real banks let people withdraw cash from ATMs today). The user now only needs her smartphone to spend money in her wallet, and in case her smartphone is captured by an adversary, the user only loses the small amount of money that she has in her wallet, but not that in her personal bank.  

Large amounts can always be spent from the super-wallet using a threshold of devices.  Both approaches can be implemented as backward-compatible and incrementally deployable wrappers, requiring changes in the signature generation but not verification.

Paymium is looking for a bitcoin community manager

Paymium is a start up based in Paris and is looking for community manager intern.  The position below is listed in French but here’s a quick summary:

  • Connect with the community, forums and social network to help promote our bitcoin products and services
  • Manage the communication, marketing and editorial of the website
  • Passionate about the new bitcoin economy
If interested, please contact Gonzague: gonzague.grandval@paymium.com

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PAYMIUM est une start-up (6 personnes) spécialisée dans les solutions de paiement innovantes et open-source.  En s’appuyant sur le protocole Bitcoin, la société conçoit des solutions qui vont bousculer les habitudes de paiement.  Les versions beta de nos wallets mobile et web sont prêtes et nous préparons actuellement leur lancement commercial.

Vous voulez participer à une aventure pionnière dans le domaine du paiement électronique ?

Dans le cadre du stage proposé, vous interviendrez sur la mise en place et le suivi opérationnel de différents de projets :

  • animation de communautés (forums et réseaux sociaux)
  • animation éditoriale de notre site
  • participation aux salons et événements (barcamp, etc.) de cette communauté
  • veille marketing et stratégique
  • réalisation de campagnes de communication
  • suivant l’actualité, vous serez amené à réaliser des outils de communication (édition, publicité, événementiel, sponsoring).

Votre profil idéal :

Vous êtes un passionné du web, débordez d’idées et d’énergie !
Vous parlez très bien anglais et idéalement une autre langue
Vous êtes à l’aise avec la technologie
Vous êtes malin (voire intelligent !), de culture commerciale, marketing ou technique

Convention de stage : oui

Durée : 6 mois

Localisation : Boulogne (éventuellement déménagement dans Paris à prévoir en cours de stage)

Rémunération : oui, à définir

Beamer's Bitcoin Revenue Calculator

bitcoinminer:

A post in the Bitcoin forum by community member Beamer leads to the Bitcoin Detailed Calculator.

This mining revenue calculator takes into account future difficulty adjustments based on your estimated rate of change.

Using approximate values for a typical dual AMD 6990 rig of 1400 MHash/s and a difficulty increase estimate of 25% every 10 days (change of 1.25), this rig will yield about 49 BTC over the next 6 months.  If the difficulty’s rate of increase drops to only 15%, then the BTC earned is 73 BTC., and going the other direction — if the difficulty increases 35% then only 35 BTC are earned.

It would not seem to be a good time to either enter mining or to be adding capacity.  Though these dry spells have occurred previously and miners who have been able to hold onto their production are those most willing to risk adding even at these levels.

Either way, it is nice to have a tool like this that helps show the diminishing yields as the result of future difficulty adjustments.

Previous Posts

NYTimes - Speed Bumps on the Road to Virtual Cash

bitcoinnews:

The NY Times carried an article that describes Bitcoin and delves into the topics of the past month.  Noam Cohen’s article reads:

“‘I have sold 24 collars, 13 leashes and 1 pair of ‘Disco Knickers’ with Bitcoin over the last few months’ - [Hungarian designer Judit Whelan of The Critter Casual]”
“[Bitcoin technical lead Gavin Andresen] said he imagined that after the bubbles, the currency would find enthusiasts, beyond the traders: ‘Anything that is purely in the electronic world,’ he said. ‘Digital downloads, Web hosting, programming services — especially if it is international — those would be the early niches’.

All News

Bitcoins, gold, and paper money

Detlev, who wrote “The Collapse of Paper Money”, writes about Bitcoins and compares them to gold and paper money.

He articulates another great fundamental:  

… the Bitcoin promise – if, in fact, it can be kept – that an international financial system is feasible that allows parties to interact freely and voluntarily without state oversight, intervention and the threat of confiscation through taxation and inflation, is indeed significant.

Star Simpson - I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It)

bitcoin:

Star Simpson visited Meze Grill (@MezeGrill), the first restaurant to accept bitcoins as payment.  She writes:

The owner responded so confidently, I felt as though I had asked if they took US dollars. What kind of a restaurant did I think this was — of course they accept Bitcoins!

I’m writing this to emphasize that Bitcoin is an experiment, which is something very different from a Ponzi scheme. 

We’ll have learned an enormous amount from it: how well can total strangers reach consensus about history without allowing anyone to rewrite it after the fact? How important is it to be able to reverse a payment transaction? What’s a limit order? 

It’s striking how polarizing the Bitcoin project has been.

I find it incredible that people are so captivated by the notion of Bitcoin as Ponzi scheme that they would simply overlook the potential appeal of these properties: of cash that we can spend on-line.

I have no patience for theories that say that I couldn’t possibly have bought lunch with my half a Bitcoin or that the restaurant was crazy to accept it.

[Update: This article has been getting quite a few comments on the Hacker News front page.]

Previous Posts

I’m a big fan of Peter Schiff because of his solid views on economics.  In the attached video he interviews Donald Norman, a bitcoin consultant out of London. 

Here are a few highlights:

  • Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of the bitcoin, could be from UK
  • Bitcoin is currently highly undeveloped and not scalable but has tremendous potential.
  • Gold is great because it has real world value, a store of value; bitcoins are great because the are a versatile way of exchanging value
  • Traditional ways of moving money internationally.  Wester Union charges 20% with a large spread.  Bitcoins have lots of potential to change this.  Donal noted  Swift is interested.
  • They talked about regulations to help with making companies liable for bitcoin loss.
  • There are many miners on the bitcoin network.  Miners also serve a purpose to verify bitcoin transactions.  The more miners the stronger the network.