[EM] A secure distributed election scheme based on Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work protocol

[Andy Jennings]

I bet inTrade could be persuaded to sell BitCoin futures.

A future that pays out if BTC falls below a certain dollar amount could
serve the same purpose as shorting BitCoins.

- Andy


On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 4:02 PM, Mike Frank <michael.patrick.frank at gmail.com
> wrote:

> Shorting essentially just means borrowing the item to short, and then
> selling the borrowed item below market price.
>
> You could certainly borrow bitcoins from someone (if they were willing to
> loan them to you), and then sell the borrowed coins on an exchange.
>
> However, the existing exchanges don't support "naked short selling," which
> would means posting an "ask" to sell bitcoins that you don't actually have
> on deposit in your exchange account.
>
> But, there is nothing to prevent someone from making such an exchange, or
> just posting a Craigslist ad that says, "I have 1 million Bitcoins which I
> am willing to sell to anyone for $0.001 cents each," when you don't have the
> actual coins yet, just some friends who have agreed to loan you their coins.
>
> That would essentially be a retro-tech equivalent of a naked short sell.
>
> -Mike
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 18, 2011 at 6:16 PM, Warren Smith <warren.wds at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> By the way, re Jameson Quinn saying he'd short-sell bitcoins...
>> is it actually possible to short them?
>>
>> --
>> Warren D. Smith
>> http://RangeVoting.org  <-- add your endorsement (by clicking
>> "endorse" as 1st step)
>> and
>> math.temple.edu/~wds/homepage/works.html
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Full name:       Michael Patrick Frank
> Email addr.:     michael.patrick.frank at gmail.com (pers. email)
> Snail mail:      820 Hillcrest Ave., Quincy, FL,  32351-1618
> Phone/voicemail: (413) 842-6670 (main number, uses Google Voice)
> Webpage URL:     http://www.facebook.com/M.P.Frank (pers. profile)
>
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20110618/868d0136/attachment-0004.htm>