It would be very risky for Kobayashi to accept claims after the posted deadline (which was determined by teh court, not by Kobayashi, and specifically says "Japan time").

Victims who posted their claims in due time may decide to challenge those late claims, since they will reduce their own refunds.  If such challenges go to court, I bet that the court will insist that the deadline be strictly respected; and Kobayashi will probably get sent to bed without dessert.

It is extremely irresponsible of Kraken to tell victims that late filings will be accepted, without first asking Kobayashi and getting his explicit approval

Actually the possibility of spamming the network was the first question that I asked on the devs subforum, more than a year ago.  I got the same answer you give above.  But the spamming is still disruptive because it blocks transactions that were OK before.  Joe got used to sending transactions with 0.00001 BTC fee and having them confirmed after 2-3 blocks at most.  But then his last transaction gets blocked for hours on end.  What can he do?

Spamming could also be used by miners to force an increase in the minimum fee.


Gavin's proposal, IIRC, was to deploy the new version of the software (v0.11) now, but program it to increase the max block size only one year from now, around the time of the next halving.  That is what I meant with "too little, too late".

Correct me please if I am wrong, but I believe that most miners in pools do not even know what is in the block that they are mining; they only get the header and hash of the transactions.  If so, they will not be affected by block size increase.  Is this correct?

I feel that the full implications of yesterday's stress test still have not sunk in.  Before, for many opponents of 20MB blocks, it seemed to be a case of "not seeing is not believing".  Still now, it seems that they would rather ignore the test than reverse their positions.

On the other hand, even an increase to 20MB a year from now already seems too little, too late...

Reminder: last couple of days to enter the 2015-->2016 BTC price prediction contest.

The period for filing claims ended today, May 29, Japan time.  The claims will now be evaluated by the trustee, and he has until September 29 or thereabouts to decide which are valid and how much each client will actually get back.

Two observations about GBTC and Bitcoin Tracker One:

The volumes of BTrOne notes traded in the first two weeks were equivalent to 3269 BTC and 2534 BTC, respectively.  According to the Blockchain.Info piechart, KnC has ~5% of the total hashpower; that means that they should be mining ~1300 BTC (about 300 k USD) per week. 

The average BIT share was originally sold for 485 USD/BTC.

It is just data.

For whatever it is worth too:

KnC's  Bitcoin Tracker One notes (BITCOIN-XBT) -- daily trading summary:

    Date       ! NTr ! SpN_LO ! SpN_HI !   VNOT !    VBTC !       VSEK !      SpN !  SpU !    UpB ! OBS 
    -----------+-----+--------+--------+--------+---------+------------+----------+------+--------+-----
    2015-05-18 | 120 |   9.66 |   9.73 | 189783 | 948.915 | 1837195.92 |  9.68051 | 8.24 | 234.96 |     
    2015-05-19 |  77 |   9.61 |   9.72 | 109376 | 546.880 | 1057572.27 |  9.66914 | 8.35 | 231.60 |     
    2015-05-20 |  31 |   9.68 |   9.79 |  90988 | 454.940 |  886232.68 |  9.74011 | 8.35 | 233.30 |     
    2015-05-21 |  18 |   9.74 |   9.79 | 135233 | 676.165 | 1319500.95 |  9.75724 | 8.32 | 234.55 |     
    2015-05-21 |  23 |   9.72 |   9.89 | 128618 | 643.090 | 1259617.61 |  9.79348 | 8.32 | 235.42 |     

    2015-05-25 |  29 |   9.91 |  10.10 |  90759 | 453.795 |  902925.40 |  9.94860 | 8.41 | 236.59 |     
    2015-05-26 |  30 |   9.96 |  10.03 | 151238 | 756.190 | 1512820.76 | 10.00291 | 8.43 | 237.32 |     
    2015-05-27 |  14 |  10.04 |  10.12 |  86275 | 431.375 |  868373.30 | 10.06518 | 8.51 | 236.55 |     
    2015-05-28 |  25 |  10.01 |  10.09 |  72006 | 360.030 |  723643.90 | 10.04977 | 8.48 | 237.02 |     
    2015-05-29 |  28 |   9.98 |  10.04 | 106617 | 533.085 | 1066415.00 | 10.00230 | 8.52 | 234.80 |     
    -----------+-----+--------+--------+--------+---------+------------+----------+------+--------+-----

Data from the BITCOIN-XBT page at NetFonds.se.

NTr = Number of trades listed in day.

SpN_LO = Lowest price (SEK/note) in specified day.

SpN_HI = Highest price (SEK/note) in the specified day.

VNOT = Number of notes (shares) traded in day.

VBTC = Trade volume in BTC, ignoring fees = VNOT/200.

VSEK = Trade volume in SEK (sum over all trades of num of notes times price per note).

SpN = Average note price in SEK for that day = VSEK/VNOT.

SpU = Assumed SEK/USD currency exchange rate (typically from www.xe.com, some time during day).

UpB = Average implied USD/BTC price ignoring fees = SpN*200/SpU

For whatever it is worth:

Greyscale BIT shares (GBTC) daily trading summary:

               !    OTX !    OTX ! FRT !    FRT !    FRT !    FRT !    FRT !        FRT !       FRT !      FRT !          
    Date       ! UpS_LO ! UpS_HI ! NTr ! UpS_LO ! UpS_HI !   VSHR !   VBTC !       VUSD !       UpS !      UpB ! OBS      
    -----------+--------+--------+-----+--------+--------+--------+--------+------------+-----------+----------+----------
    2015-05-04 |  37.98 |  42.00 |     |    .   | 200.00 |    765 |   76.5 |        .   |    .      |    .     | (+0)(+1) 
    2015-05-05 |  55.00 |  94.86 |  18 |  50.00 | 175.00 |    435 |   43.5 |   32198.00 |  74.01839 | 740.1839 | (+0)     
    2015-05-06 |    .   |    .   |   4 |  65.00 |  68.00 |    125 |   12.5 |    8268.50 |  66.14800 | 661.4800 | (+0)     
    2015-05-07 |  40.00 |  66.00 |  45 |  40.00 |  86.00 |   2844 |  284.4 |  163651.00 |  57.54255 | 575.4255 |          
    2015-05-08 |  49.00 |  59.00 |  68 |  49.00 |  59.00 |  14807 | 1480.7 |  750019.70 |  50.65305 | 506.5305 |          

    2015-05-11 |  50.00 |  57.95 |  53 |  49.50 |  57.95 |   2756 |  275.6 |  143247.34 |  51.97654 | 519.7654 |          
    2015-05-12 |  49.00 |  50.01 |  31 |  49.00 |  52.25 |   2286 |  228.6 |  113299.25 |  49.56223 | 495.6223 |          
    2015-05-13 |  49.00 |  49.00 |  10 |  49.00 |  50.00 |    327 |   32.7 |   16113.10 |  49.27554 | 492.7554 |          
    2015-05-14 |  44.00 |  49.00 |  54 |  44.00 |  49.95 |  20894 | 2089.4 | 1004923.74 |  48.09628 | 480.9628 | (+2)     
    2015-05-15 |  38.00 |  45.00 |  29 |  38.00 |  45.00 |   2320 |  232.0 |   97444.35 |  42.00188 | 420.0188 |          

    2015-05-18 |  27.15 |  38.00 |  58 |  27.15 |  38.00 |   4950 |  495.0 |  158115.83 |  31.94259 | 319.4259 |          
    2015-05-19 |  27.90 |  29.50 |  39 |  27.89 |  29.90 |   4308 |  430.8 |  122327.92 |  28.39552 | 283.9552 |          
    2015-05-20 |  29.25 |  32.25 |  28 |  29.25 |  32.25 |   4859 |  485.9 |  148652.00 |  30.59313 | 305.9313 |          
    2015-05-21 |  30.50 |  32.00 |  19 |  30.50 |  32.00 |   2882 |  288.2 |   90663.50 |  31.45854 | 314.5854 |          
    2015-05-22 |  31.90 |  33.10 |  28 |  31.90 |  33.10 |   4971 |  497.1 |  160009.60 |  32.18861 | 321.8861 |          

    2015-05-26 |  31.92 |  32.00 |  18 |  31.00 |  32.00 |   1148 |  114.8 |   36623.50 |  31.90200 | 319.0200 | (+3)     
    2015-05-27 |  30.55 |  31.51 |   4 |  30.55 |  32.00 |    404 |   40.4 |   12444.00 |  30.80198 | 308.0198 |          
    2015-05-28 |  30.50 |  33.00 |  13 |  30.30 |  33.00 |   1140 |  114.0 |   35701.40 |  31.31702 | 313.1702 |          
    2015-05-29 |  31.95 |  33.00 |  10 |  31.95 |  33.00 |    463 |   46.3 |   15174.00 |  32.77322 | 327.7322 |          

"OTX" data from the GBTC quote page at OTCQX.
"FRT" data from the Freerealtime site, except those flagged (+0) and (+1) (see below).

UpS_LO = Lowest price (USD/share) in the specified day.

UpS_HI = Highest price (USD/share) in that day.

NTr = Number of listed trades in day.

VSHR = Number of shares traded in that day.

VBTC = Number of BTC equivalent to those shares (ignoring fees) = VSHR*10.

VUSD = Trade volume in USD (sum over all trades of num of shares times price per share).

UpS = Average price in day (USD/share) = VUSD/VSHR.

UpB = Implied bitcoin price (USD/BTC) = VUSD*10/VSHR.

OBSERVATIONS:

(+0) The "FRT" price range for this entry was obtained from this post.

(+1) For 2015-05-04, the values of NTr, UpS_LO, VSHR, VUSD, and UpS could not
be determined; the value of VSHR was taken from the OTCQX page.

(+2) The summary pages at OTCQX and FreeRealTime.com say VSHR = 19894, but
adding the FreeRealTime list of trades we get 20894 (1000 more). The
VSHR value given above is the latter. There were 2 trades near the end of the
day; perhaps one was undoing the other?

(+3) No data on 2015-05-25; a holiday?

Basically, under some circumstances the random bits used to generate the key would be fetched from a public website with HTTP.  They did not check for HTTP errors or redirects; so, when the site returned a HTML message "please use HTTPS instead of HTTP" they used the first 32 bytes of that message.

And to think that I thought that Dilbert's famous random number generator was just a funny joke.

And to think that, not long ago, they had another incident where hundreds of private keys were revealed, and even some of them collided, because of another RNG bug.

The funniest thing is that the victim and other clients now praise them for the prompt response...

If 80% of the balances go unclaimed, or their claims are disqualified for some reason, then the victims who remain in the game could get 100% back.

The claim period just closed, correct?  If so, then perhaps Kobayashi will issue a note with the statistics.

What data and documents were required to submit a claim?

Those buyers listed in the netfonds page are probably just brokers acting for other clients, correct?

Does anyone remember who had the idea of a special license for bitcoin companies in NY?  I thought that it had been a request of the companies, who felt that the existing regulations would be too restrictive.  But I have been told that the BitLicense was Lawsky's idea.  Can anyone confirm that?

I don't know whether Ver flatly lied when he accused Star Xu of forging the v8 contract, or whether he simply did not know who the forger was and assumed that it was Xu.   On the other hand, Xu claimed that the CTO who signed v7 and maybe forged v8 was a friend of Ver and his ex-employee from Blockchain.info.  Hm.

I have no particular sympathy for OKCoin and their bosses, but I do hope that they win any legal battles that may come out of this incident.

Damn! I thought that I could continue freely bullshitting about bitcoin and Merkle chains through this sockpuppet while wrestling with Merkel under my Ministerially respectable true identity.  Oh well...

Sure, a government cannot easily prevent its citizens from issuing transactions.  But why should it?

Typically the goals of a government will be to prevent its citizens from bringing certain items into the country (like drugs or weapons), take other items out (like national heritage artifacts, gold, diamonds), being bribed or financed by foreign corporations or governments, and giving the national currency to foreigners. 

The first two are physical border and mail policing problems that do not depend on how the item was paid.  (Importers of illegal items are generally nabbed when they receive or try to colelct them.) 

The other two uses are partially caught when the citizen tries to spend the bitcoins locally, or convert them to cash. So they can be curbed by closing local bitcoin exchanges or imposing strict AML/KYC measures on them, control of bank accounts, banning bitcoin from e-commerce and large property sales (vehicles, real estate, etc.)  Which is pretty much what China did.

The only remaining use of bitcoins that a government may be unhappy about is corrupt officials and subversives being paid in bitcoin but saving them until a later time, when they leave the country.  But, in that case, a bitcoin bribe is no different than a dollar bribe deposited in a foreign bank, in the guy's name.

Bitcoin is often claimed to be a way to take one's wealth out of a county, bypassing the government's currency controls.  But while it works for the individual, its effect on the country's economy is quite different from the usual ways of "taking one's wealth out".

The usual ways are taking valuable propery (gold, antiquities,etc.) out, and/or selling local property (cars, real estate) for foreign currency to buyers abroad, and/or exchanging the national currency for some foreign currency, either before or after moving out.  The the currency exchange route ends placing some of the national currency in the hands of foreigners.  Either way the country gets poorer, which is why governments often try to limit such transactions.

The situation is different when the citizen uses bitcoin to "take his wealth out".  If he already had bitcoins, it is like him having euros or dollars in a bank account in Switzerland; the money was already out of the country to begin with.  If he exchanges his local currency and/or concrete wealth for bitcoins in the local market, these items will pass to other citizens: the country will not get poorer, and the average citizen will get slightly richer.  (It is the Americans who will become slightly poorer when he moves to the US and starts spending his bitcoins.)

Since pigs will become scarcer and scarcer as they get eaten, stolen, or run away, you should hodl your pig and never eat it or exchange it for anything.


You could barter it for a packet of wet swipes and half a pig.  Since pigs are going to increase in value exponentially, that would only delay your entry to the Buffett Club by a few days.

A more interesting question is: if Joe Plumber has to choose between an ordinary lamp and a BitFury mining lamp, which one should he pick, and why?

No it is not the same thing.  IBM made a marketing gaffe using that name, but few people knew of the former Bitcoin Rain. (By chance I was in that Campus Party event, for a panel on copyright stuff, and saw the preparations for that stunt.  But I had to leave before it actually happened.  It was there that I saw the first and so far only bitcoiner in person: a young fellow with a "bitcoin" T-shirt.  I carefully stayed out of his way.  )

The Bitcoin Rain I was refering to was a bitcoin "investment fund" run by the same person who created the MercadoBitcoin exchange, back in 2011 or 2012.  It promised 10% profit *per month*, and collected several thousand BTC from Brazilian investors.  Of course it was a ponzi.  When one client requested to withdraw his ~1000 BTC, MercadoBitcoin (where the coins were kept) was promptly hacked and "sorry for your loss folks".

As in most other bitcoin scams, the victims could not do anything concrete.  The creator then sold MercadoBitcoin, and the new owners obviously claimed that they were not responsible for Bitcoin Rain.  I only learned of that after I started following bitcoin, in late 2013 or early 2014.

EDIT:

original announcement of the Bitcoin Rain ponzi on this forum:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=46750.0

A victim's tale (in Portuguese)
http://defendaseudinheiro.com.br/a-verdadeira-historia-do-mercadobitcoin

Nespaper article (in Portuguese):
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/tec/2013/05/1276947-bitcoin-da-prejuizo-e-lucro-reais-a-usuarios.shtml

In the 2 months from 2014-06-13 to 2014-08-13 the price was almost as stable as in the last 6 weeks (since 2015-04-10 or so). 

In the former, the price was ~600 $/Ƀ most of the time, with maximum ~660 (+10%) and minimum ~555 (−7.5%).

In the latter, the price has been mostly ~227 $/Ƀ, with maximum 246 (+8.4%) and minimum ~210 (−7.5%).