Ciao, peeps.
The Internet has been abuzz with the recent debate regarding Bitcoin's potential, some dare say inevitable, hard fork to revise the block size. At its current size of 1 MB, the concern is that the size will eventually become insufficient to meet Bitcoin's ever-increasing demand and popularity. Since we are talking about a hard fork '" meaning miners will eventually have to decide on which blockchain to continue mining; the blockchain we currently have, or the new blockchain with the revised block size '" the debate is not taken lightly.
Stephanie, Andreas and Adam recently interviewed the Bitcoin Foundation's Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen regarding the subject. While Mr. Andresen is for a larger block size, Peter Todd presents an opposing view. All of this tantalizing discussion is captured on Episode 217, which in the first 24 hours after being published gained over 3,700 downloads on Soundcloud, and over 5,600 views on LTB. That has to be some sort of a record for an LTB podcast.
Perhaps it is the flatlining Bitcoin price that lets our mind wander on to something new(er), and to more exciting platforms and projects. Enter appcoins and altcoins.
Shawn mentions Siacoin, "an alternative to Storj" on the forums. From Sia's project page:
Sia is a new decentralized cloud storage platform aimed at giving users control of their data. Storage is pulled from a large network of hosts, each using Sia's blockchain to form storage contracts with clients. [...]
Anybody with spare storage space can join the network as a host and get income from that storage.
Shawn also started a thread called "Abra: send money without even knowing you're using bitcoin." The core idea of Abra '" a Western-Union-meets-Local-Bitcoins app of sorts '" is to use Bitcoin for fiat currency transmissions, while individuals using the Abra app, iOS and Android, will serve as tellers for cash deposits and withdrawals.
LTB member "maestro" discusses a coin that was launched some two years ago: Diamond (DMD). While the project's home page promises 50% interest per year, superior proof-of-work and proof-of-stake security and "ultra fast" transactions, Adam raised a valid question that we should all keep in mind every time we discuss a new token, app, or project. He asked:
What problem does the project or token aim to resolve?
If an altcoin is launched just because there's a system to do it, be it proof of work or proof of stake, it probably will not serve for any other purpose than speculative trading on whatever trading platform the asset happens to make it. This is not to say speculative trading or pump-and-dump schemes on exchanges are something inherently bad. They can offer a fun and exciting way to dabble into day trading (hopefully) without risking more than your lunch money. But investors should be extra cautious when throwing money into an altcoin or appcoin project, when there's no clear purpose for the coin or the project to exist, other than a notion of "because they can."
LTB member Clay is experimenting with Bitcoin Trivia, gamifying texting as a means to get friends and family interested in Bitcoin. He wrote:
Yesterday marked the first day of Bitcoin Trivia. The rules are simple: I text a bitcoin-related question worth x amount of bits and the first person to answer correctly within an hour wins. After the winner is declared I post a screenshot of the transfer from my wallet to the winner's address. This process has been made super easy with the address book in Mycelium. The reason for the time limit is to associate the group text and bitcoin trivia with a sense of urgency and hopefully making it a higher priority than it would be without the time limit. If the question is not answered within the hour I am happy to simply keep my bitcoin.
[...]The key to the daily trivia questions is that they must be easily searchable.
Well done Clay! A simple, fun and effective way to pique your friends' interest in the magic of Bitcoin.
Bitcointalk.org was hacked, again. BCT is the most popular forum for cryptocurrency discussions, project announcements and the lot, so the forum gets more than its fair share of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. This time around, though, passwords were compromised, so be sure to log onto your Bitcointalk account, if you have one, and change your password. Even better, use a password manager such as KeePass or LastPass to perform password management for you.
While you're on Bitcointalk, use the referral link on your Let's Talk Bitcoin! profile page and have people sign up on LTB using you as a referral '" cha-ching! goes your LTB Companion Wallet.
Be excellent to each other.
Tuomas
Community Manager
via Lets Talk Bitcoin! http://ift.tt/1Kx4BiY
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