This is a problem that needs a solution, and I think we can both provide one AND introduce the public to the concepts and a "brand".

http://www.9news.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/01/marijuana-banking-option/8569903/

I'll be the first to profess a PROFOUND ignorance on this subject....

My general approach with such things is to poke at it from all sides till I find the foundation and structure like like all truths, becomes self evident once discovered.

The talk with Daniel & Dr. Charles Evans was precisely the kind of systematic and pragmatic breakdown of the moving pieces that I had been seeking to bootstrap my understanding.

My earlier comment regarding a "stable" lottery was in reference to the two most precarious transitions for such a thing - the start and the end. In the beginning, there tends to be an infusion of "funds" that must be diligently managed and conserved while being leveraged to expand the audience for the lottery.  I look at social security as a very deterministic "lottery", won by those who survive to age 72, Had its infusion of cash been properly managed, it would not be facing the crisis involved in winding it down today.  Social security would have remained completely solvent had its income not be re-appropriated into the government's general fund (in violation of its original "business" logic).

I look forward to this evenings Mumble session - thanks again to delulo for the complete "how to" participate links!

- John "S"

The lottery model is the very thing I'm having a hard time with in this crypto currency/shares landscape.  In a stable lottery, the users serve the needs of business and on average the user "loses".  If the currency IS the product then trade is an artifact of the product, not its purpose.   That's the part that I'm having a hard time embracing.

I'm pretty sure Visa would not have survived if its business model was a lottery where there was a 1% chance of a "free" purchase, but a 50% chance of being overcharged.

There has to be a way to subdivide anonymous ownership of physical assets into some form of crypto share.  Some kind of entity that can transact the profit and losses of one's share of ownership into a digital currency that can then be either reinvested or divested.

Thanks Agent86. 

I completely get the notion of a currency that is controlled by a majority of its users as opposed to a minority in power, but it seems that any entity that has authoritative or physical control of the network, implicitly has the power to shut such a thing down.  So as a tyranny "resistant" form of trade, I don't quite get it.  One need only to look at Argentina's currency manipulation and China's manipulation of the internet to see that they are pretty much two sides of the same "coin".

As a complementary form of trade that parallels and piggybacks existing currency, I can imagine a subset of trade that would benefit the anonymity and security of crypto.   But I'm still at a loss for a compelling use case for a Susie Q Homemaker.  Even more so when you consider that every crypto currency like Bitcoin is a fixed sized asset that will continue to get smaller and smaller over time, causing its own form of deflation against any assets pegged to it.

The only time I had an "ah-ha" moment, was when I started thinking about a Bitshares like concept, as applied to physical assets, "owned" by an anonymous crowd.

I live in Colorado.  We've had legal Marijuana sales for a number of years, but not till this year did the feds promise not to prosecute banks that worked with them.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26248396

Perhaps a huge opportunity was lost for the crypto community.  I can imagine someone setting up a (legal) pot shop and issuing digital shares in exchange for resources to start the business (cash, utility bills, store front, etc).  I can imagine how shareholders could be paid profits in some form of digital currency that could then be exchanged for more conventional currencies.  It also offers some interesting options for consumers to pay with digital currencies - how would the mandatory taxes be calculated?

Another use case is gun sales in Wyoming and Texas.   After Colorado's recent high capacity magazine ban, many of my friends are (legally) buying their toys in Wyoming for cash and bypassing what the Boulder and Denver tried to impose on the rest of Colorado.

I'm still trying hard to imagine a sustainable business model where the act of mining is NOT a primary aspect of the business.  Something that offers value by what it _does_  rather than speculation of what it might be.

I discovered bitshares shortly after starting my voyage into Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations".  Both coincided with a new found frustration with my current employer, Intel".   I was co-founder of 4matt and Rebit.com.  I was the lead product engineer behind OnStream and Iomega's Ditto line of products and later, a lead engineer on the Zip drive.

More than monetary reward, I like "fixing" things and I think our systems of commerce to be the next killer application to focus upon.  I got really excited with the notion of an anonymous and decentralized control of corporate entities  However, I read and studied to my feed limit and gave myself the weekend off to think about it, and am still at a loss on the sustainable business model for when all the crypto chains have been calculated.   In fact, I am at a loss to any business model that is not based on the speculative cancer that plagues current unsustainable business models.

I see a vehicle that is perfectly adapt for distributed autonomous ownership of TANGIBLE assets, being flaunted as a hedge against frivolous and arbitrary assumptions on limitations of a Van Neumann style machine.

What I would like to see, before I check in the rest of my code, is a business model where every single hash for a crypto currency, has been calculated and accepted and yet it still "functions" as real trade - and the system that still works.

Everybody playing this game is so focused on their place in the blockchain, that they seem to have forgotten that Susie Q Homemaker at the checkout line at her grocer, by federal law NEVER pays a transaction fee. 

The game of commerce is up to the processors.  All 12 to 17 of them involved with a single swipe of a Visa card.  A game that they are willing to play to lose if they can collect enough data from the consumer (AMEX).

Where is the business model that is detached from the academic exercise of finding the hash that satisfies a target?  Where is the distributed company that can coalesce against a tangible asset? 

Crypto chains are easy, and are going to get easier according to Moore's law.  Every argument against memory in ASICS's is short term.  Where is the business model for an alternative distribution in the ownership of real world assets?

I want to see a case where a Chinese consortium can "buy" up a controlling interest in a city block of Manhattan, unnoticed.    I can't get there from where we are now, nor can I see a compelling reason for Susie Q Homemaker to save 2% on her grocery bill by using a crypto currency that, at best, takes 1 hour to acknowledge.

I'm not being derogatory, just pragmatic.  I don't believe in speculative ponzi schemes, but I do believe the time is right for the right group of coders to offer an alternative.  I am an American who believes we've been coasting on our self minted laurels far longer than what is sustainable. 

Somebody, please demonstrate the business model to me for either a Ho Chi Minh or a Susie Q. Homemaker - after the last crypto-token has been mined that offers a compelling system of trade that eclipses a state sponsored and sanctioned tool for the same.

We can build a better world - I'm just trying to shed my doubts.

I have no idea what's up with the link, but I think you'll be more successful in all regards by compiling from source (you'll have the options to build with  debug symbols, optimization,  etc).  Generally you can follow the directions for BOOST which are just below the BerkelyDB instructions in the .MD file.

In the for what its worth department, if you are familiar with POSIX environments, you can save yourself a lot of headaches by first exploring on Linux or Mac(BSD) and then worry about the emulated environments like windows.

- John "S"