[H-GEN] Payment for dinner

[Russell Stuart]

On Sat, 2014-03-08 at 21:54 +1000, Clinton Roy wrote:

> 12dyHKbBW3Lg1e9LuFawjfeLARfvMReJxZ I *think*?

It had better be, as I have sent do bitcoins to that address!

For those of you following, these are the steps I went through.
Remember I did this starting with nothing - no client, and no bitcoins.

1.  I decided to do this from my phone, so I installed an open source
    bitcoin app called Mycelium.  I don't recommend the top rated app on
    google play, Bitcoin-Wallet.  There is no simple way to export it's
    wallets (making rescue very difficult), it doesn't work through
    transparent proxies, and it gives no indication it isn't connected
    to the bitcoin p2p network (ie no indication it's effectively dead),
    and no way to prevent someone from transferring your bitcoins if
    they get control of your phone (ie, no pin or password).  Apart from
    those minor deficiencies, it's wonderful.

2.  I then had to get some bitcoins, which I did by googling "australian
    bitcoin exchange".  I chose Bit Traders Australia from the results
    as they had the best exchange rate.  All these Australia Exchanges
    worked the same way:

      a.  You enter the amount you want to purchase on their web site,
          along with the bitcoin address that is to receive it (the one
          Mycelium on my phone generated in my case).

      b.  They give you a quote number and their bank account details
          (you get to nominate the bank, I chose Westpac).

      c.  You do a in branch cash deposit to their bank account,
          quoting the number they gave you.

    Why this rigmarole? Because like a bitcoin payment, it isn't
    reversible.  If you paid with a credit card or direct transfer and
    then disputed it they could be out of pocket.  You could also pay
    them over the counter in cash, but that's a bit difficult since
    we live in different cities.  Alternatively, I could have found a
    Brisbane bitcoin trader using:

      https://localbitcoins.com/country/AU

3.  The bitcoins will be in your wallet before you get back from the
    bank.

4.  Then I entered the amount in AUD I wanted to send to Clinton.  The
    client automatically converts it to Bitcoin at the current exchange
    rate.

5.  Next I have to enter Clinton's bitcoin address.  But that was on my
    PC, and Bitcoin addresses are a long and difficult to enter on a
    phone.  Fortunately every Bitcoin client under the sun can generate
    QR codes for bitcoin addresses and payment requests.  (Payment
    requests also include an amount.)  So I just copied and pasted
    Clinton's Bitcoin address into my Linux client (MultiBit) and then
    scanned the resulting QR Code displayed on my laptop screen with my
    phone.  (This takes longer to explain than it does to do it).

6.  Then I click send, and I'm done.

Remember: the audit trail is public, so all this is visible.  You can
see my transfer to Clinton here:

  http://blockchain.info/tx-index/21a4a7d469f173a7a243dbdeab0766da5bd953a4f2d73318dc102e8273376fc2

>From there you can back trace to the transfer from Bit Trade Australia.
In that transaction you can see a "Public Note", which is part of the
transaction.  That is the number I quoted when I did the bank transfer.

You can also see Bit Trade Australia generated a new bitcoin address
just for this transfer.  That got it's bitcoins from the address
13XcNUdc8X5LEvcnT5zH9UZ2XQS8rJQWh5, which presumably is also owned by
Bit Trade Australia.  It has done total trades of 1,375 bitcoin, which
means they have earned $40,000 in trading fees from that wallet.  The
wallet has been operating for 40 days, so that's around $1000 per day in
earnings.

Other notes:

a.  The open source clients insist on a including 0.0001 mining fee with
    every transaction, with translated to $0.06.  A bit much IMHO.  (You
    could recompile them to get rid of that limitation, of course.)

b.  Apart from that, the only expense is converting to and from AUD,
    which currently costs 4.9%.

Clinton, if you install Mycelium on your phone, and transfer your
bitcoins to it, we can repay each other this way from now on. 


> The only odd bit so far has been the installation instructions
> requesting i add execute permission to the jar file.

They ask you to it executable so you can execute it(!)  Ie, this works:

  ./multibit-exe.jar