ok, so is it only me, or this is NO difference for having your own money-printing machine??

I respect the idea and execution and OK it is secure and everything, but if you can use your hands/brain to create work and get paid for that work in currency X, and then use that currency X to sustain yourself (pay bills, food, gas, etc), then the entire government become obsolete!! I am not arguing here whether a mature society needs government or not, I rather say here that there is a government in place (at least US) and this will be taken as a treason and a pure act of terrorism! (terrorism is any attempt to derail a government entity).

I am sure feds/FBI is in it by now! There was a lesson learnt for music industry when P2P blown out and basically the law lost and it is so easy even today to obtain copyrighted music/audio materials. I am SURE federal government will not let entire country economy to be at stake by some P2P currency.

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Many countries do not have their own currency and still manage their own economies.

Still, I take your point that it's not something they would let go of without a fight.

isnt this: "You can't even get to the bathroom without a keycard" contradicts this: "I don't think they have a reason to be paranoid"

Hah. You got me there.

there is ONLY one money-printing machine in USA, it is a privately owned entity called "Federal Reserve", dont get fooled by "Federal" in the name (Federal Express is private company).

everyone else coming up with more or less sophisticated machine to print money, or exchange money, or any form of transaction that Federal Government is unable to track/monitor/accept or deny WILL get hurt very badly. It is just a matter how popular your machine is and how much traction it is getting. But rest assured, once you turn it on, you have your own chart in the FBI system.

It is not useful to argue that the Fed is private, nor is it useful to argue that it is public. It is both and neither depending on which stance will serve its interests at the time.

Maidoff was rising money as well. Here he spent life in prision; in China they kill. I wish they penalties in US would be harsher. Death is too extreme, but this is China, overpopulated, I never lived there havent been raised so have no idea how their brains work. But the truth is, if penalties in US would be harsher, you wouldnt have 30yrs old pot smoker going to jail for 5 years for 2 joints, while Vacovia washing $700mil of worth cocaine on plane to US and got "penalized" $300mil and nobody goes to jail. Same with real estate bubble. People committed suicides after loosing houses, while Goldman was giving $100mil in bonuses. Wild Wild West in 2011!

ok, can you help me understand what kind of appropriate audience is for "swombat" ?

Swombat's his handle and the site is essentially a blog. It doesn't strike me as odd that his domain is the same as his username.

One might argue that the appropriate audience is HN, given that swombat is active around here and a lot of people recognize his handle.

it is tech company. core of their functionality is an algorithm (no matter how simple) that lets its company to function.

yeah, thats kind of interesting. I think we will need to define "live improvement".

I can't find much in social networks. I cannot imagine calling a person pouring through the wall of friends feeds' live is much improved.

nika, good input! one insight though. I have a friend working high in hierarchy in one of the biggest precious metals trader in the world. He told me what you saying about gold (and other P.M.), but he said that White House is drafting an Executive Order for president (Obama if still?) to actually ban sell and export of P.M. you see, they know when dollar loose its green face, it will be nothing more than paper, and then P.M. will soar. In order to stop or slow it down, the government will be entitle to take ownership over your precious metals (it happened in the past!) and cruel penalties will apply if you do not submit. further to cool of the US market it will be forbidden to import/export not to create a shell in US for cheap/expensive p.m. tradeoff. The biggest trade houses are advising clients to stash pm. or certificates in foreign countries. he also told me they lobby hard to allow IRS to tax other-than-bullion P.M. Right now, as you know, you dont need to report gold and silver coins to the IRS (bullion only). I think you are right about the bubble, but this one will be "revert-bubble": it will grow naturally through market need, but will be artificially killed by US government and its sanctions. I have 80% of wealth in us silver great eagle/canadian coin since $21. I think we will see $100 on it, but I may be wrong.