AdmiralBeotch

I have been doing offline transaction in bitcoin for years now. Private keys on the offline system sign unsigned transactions from an online computer and the interaction is completely over an airgap (webcams and qr codes on/from either side).

Electrum is primarily what I use to do this, but there is an android app called Bither that does essentially the same thing.

Additionally, the Electrum 2.4 client has multi-sig features and it is very easy to setup and use so the security of your funds is distributed across multiple devices/co-signers.

All 'yall need to be ashamed of yourselves if you don't own even a US penny's worth of Bitcoin. I'm not even kidding. If you've never witnessed a bitcoin transaction or held a bitcoin on an electronic device this far into the game, just hang your heads in shame.

I mined in mid 2010 from my CPU. I was not a hardware guy, so I gave up in about 6 months. I have managed to keep every bitcoin key I've ever owned, with the exception of one small mistake that cost me 1 bitcoin. During this mining period, they were worth $0.06 up to $1. It took me those 6 months to have my first epiphany about the value of Bitcoin. But it was just one of several more monumental epiphanies to come over the next 3 years.

I bought in to the BFL pre-order during the first few days of the announcement. It took me 12 months to receive the hardware. During that time, Avalon beat BFL to market and destroyed my expected difficulty. Fortunately, the $1800 I spend on the hardware has paid me back over 10x in dollar amount. It will take me about another 6-9 months to break even on the bitcoins I spend due to the massive rise in value since I made the pre-order. Fortunately, I bought a good number of bitcoins at the same time so I've made out on both investments.

I have purchase a BFL Monarch during the first few days of the announcement, but I do not expect to make the money back in any reasonable amount of time due to the flood of new ASICs and coming changes in difficulty. Fortunately, I do not have power costs.

The difference and what a lot of people seem to miss is the scarcity of bitcoin and the fact that its makers and followers are bootstrapping a new global economy. Having only $1B in liquidity is not enough to participate in all global markets. If bitcoin successfully acquires fractions of all global markets, there is but only one direction the exchange rate can go, and that is up until there are hundreds of billions of dollar value in bitcoin. Divide that by the 11 million bitcoins in current circulation, and each one will be worth thousands and thousands of dollars.

Get bitcoins from locals on LocalBitcoins.com

Most is probably being used for savings as the potential for it to increase in value over years is ridiculously high. If bitcoin succeeds in taking over fractions of global markets, which is is poised to certainly do because of its efficiencies, then the market cap will be hundreds of billions, and valued above several thousand dollars each.

But, bitcoins are being used in commerce too. New merchants added every day. I know of at least 6 brick and mortar businesses in Las Vegas alone that have sprung up recently.

I am a TOR exit operator and I strictly follow the guidelines established by the EFF. I never connect to my exit nodes for any purpose other than routine maintenance and when I do, it's well documented: times, purpose, etc. By minimizing my access, I remove myself from suspicion for any activity done through my node.

No because you'll eventually have something come up that makes you want to spend those bitcoins, even though you know they'll be worth more in the future. and when you do so, you'll be getting a significant effective discount on your purchase. For example, if you bought bitcoins now at $12, sat on them like a good little hoarder, knowing they'll be worth $1000 in 5 years and all of the sudden you need a new car and the bitcoins are only worth $24, you're getting a 50% discount on your car purchase by spending those bitcoins.

It will halve every 210,000 blocks for about 140 years until the reward is 1 satoshi.

Ridiculous argument. I've got old coin (purchased at a lower price) and every time I spend it, it's like getting a discount. It's a built in incentive to spend them.

the qt client, while being the baseline of measure, is a dinosaur. I use Electrum because it does not require the maintenance of a local blockchain, start up is immediate after long darkouts. It can be fully run off-line with no network connectivity. It supports aliases like email addresses instead if complicated bitcoin addresses. It uses deterministic key generation so I can literally backup my wallet in my head with a passphrase, erase my wallet, and recreate it from my mind. Oh yea, and it allows me to make transactions without any fees. Other worthwhile clients: Armory, Multibit. They are all viable and under rapid development.

Edit: electrum can be fully run offline as in you can monitor your balance without a network connection AND you can write transactions that can then be injected into the blockchain by a networked connection. But the electrum client at no time needs to be connected to the network.

Additionally, a networked computer can contain a deseeded wallet (no keys) for securely monitoring your off-line balances.

Bitcoin, the protocol, has never been hacked - only services built on top of the protocol.

You can certainly be fully anonymous with bitcoin but care must be taken... Mainly, you need to isolate your change to an identity wallet - a wallet used for specific purpose under a dedicated pseudonym. Identity of the pseudonym is protected by plausible deniability - "I bought those coins on MTGOX, but I sold some of them to some guy for cash on the street corner, that purchase wasn't me"

The more hops through a wallet (which can be created dozens of times), adds more plausible deniability and separation to any purchase.