X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/49c2cd00a35c2fe2a4622cd74213723ccc6a64ee..6178191f7f848fd8f20cbfa2aa1244ce847bc415:/blog/archive/2010/12/12.rss diff --git a/blog/archive/2010/12/12.rss b/blog/archive/2010/12/12.rss index 84976ffb2a..b9f3867504 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2010/12/12.rss +++ b/blog/archive/2010/12/12.rss @@ -177,5 +177,82 @@ kan.</p> + + Some thoughts on BitCoins + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Some_thoughts_on_BitCoins.html + Sat, 11 Dec 2010 15:10:00 +0100 + +<p>As I continue to explore +<a href="http://www.bitcoin.org/">BitCoin</a>, I've starting to wonder +what properties the system have, and how it will be affected by laws +and regulations here in Norway. Here are some random notes.</p> + +<p>One interesting thing to note is that since the transactions are +verified using a peer to peer network, all details about a transaction +is known to everyone. This means that if a BitCoin address has been +published like I did with mine in my initial post about BitCoin, it is +possible for everyone to see how many BitCoins have been transfered to +that address. There is even a web service to look at the details for +all transactions. There I can see that my address +<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a> +have received 16.06 Bitcoin, the +<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3">1LfdGnGuWkpSJgbQySxxCWhv8MHqvwst3</a> +address of Simon Phipps have received 181.97 BitCoin and the address +<a href="http://blockexplorer.com/address/1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt">1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt</A> +of EFF have received 2447.38 BitCoins so far. Thank you to each and +every one of you that donated bitcoins to support my activity. The +fact that anyone can see how much money was transfered to a given +address make it more obvious why the BitCoin community recommend to +generate and hand out a new address for each transaction. I'm told +there is no way to track which addresses belong to a given person or +organisation without the person or organisation revealing it +themselves, as Simon, EFF and I have done.</p> + +<p>In Norway, and in most other countries, there are laws and +regulations limiting how much money one can transfer across the border +without declaring it. There are money laundering, tax and accounting +laws and regulations I would expect to apply to the use of BitCoin. +If the Skolelinux foundation +(<a href="http://linuxiskolen.no/slxdebianlabs/donations.html">SLX +Debian Labs</a>) were to accept donations in BitCoin in addition to +normal bank transfers like EFF is doing, how should this be accounted? +Given that it is impossible to know if money can across the border or +not, should everything or nothing be declared? What exchange rate +should be used when calculating taxes? Would receivers have to pay +income tax if the foundation were to pay Skolelinux contributors in +BitCoin? I have no idea, but it would be interesting to know.</p> + +<p>For a currency to be useful and successful, it must be trusted and +accepted by a lot of users. It must be possible to get easy access to +the currency (as a wage or using currency exchanges), and it must be +easy to spend it. At the moment BitCoin seem fairly easy to get +access to, but there are very few places to spend it. I am not really +a regular user of any of the vendor types currently accepting BitCoin, +so I wonder when my kind of show would start accepting BitCoins. I +would like to buy electronics, travels and subway tickets, not herbs +and books. :) The currency is young, and this will improve over time +if it become popular, but I suspect regular banks will start to lobby +to get BitCoin declared illegal if it become popular. I'm sure they +will claim it is helping fund terrorism and money laundering (which +probably would be true, as is any currency in existence), but I +believe the problems should be solved elsewhere and not by blaming +currencies.</p> + +<p>The process of creating new BitCoins is called mining, and it is +CPU intensive process that depend on a bit of luck as well (as one is +competing against all the other miners currently spending CPU cycles +to see which one get the next lump of cash. The "winner" get 50 +BitCoin when this happen. Yesterday I came across the obvious way to +join forces to increase ones changes of getting at least some coins, +by coordinating the work on mining BitCoins across several machines +and people, and sharing the result if one is lucky and get the 50 +BitCoins. Check out +<a href="http://www.bluishcoder.co.nz/bitcoin-pool/">BitCoin Pool</a> +if this sounds interesting. I have not had time to try to set up a +machine to participate there yet.</p> + + +