You cannot "panic" a market that is experiencing huge fluctuations in prices already. There is no panic here, as most people already expect huge fluctuations. I'm sure there will be many bubble n burst cycles in the BitCoin market. This is not a market for the timid.

So, in short a 5% drop is NOTHING to people in BitCoin Market, and when the price recovers. The real problem is the larger Bubble that is occurring at the moment, at some point, people buying at $2000 will find the coins back down at $250 when someone liquidates 50 million to fund their new yacht.

The average American high-school graduate knows approximately 45,000 words (1) nearly ten times the number you cited.

And, as I have stated elsewhere (above) the point of a long password is to get past dictionary attacks, and onto brute force. And right now, password length is a deciding factor to even attempt dictionary attack.

$ # 1 # $ Padding example (slashdot filters ugghh)

To be honest, even the password "D0g" is sufficient, if you add enough "Pseudo Random" padding values.

D>0>g>

Has 67 bits of entropy, without even really trying. Adding in additional padding adds entropy without really changing the password. adding in a Padding pattern that is easy to remember (>) makes it easier to use simple passwords. The complexity doesn't matter once you get the algorithm to stop dictionary attack and move to brute force. The goal is to get beyond the dictionary attack, because most people will simply stop searching after that. And it might be as simple as password length.

You don't want your password to be the low hanging fruit.

English is a very big dictionary. AND I didn't say to use three nouns, but rather three words, I just happened to use nouns for this example. It could have been Mongoose Tokyo Nicolette.

http://rumkin.com/tools/password/passchk.php

For my original example, it shows it has 110 bits of entropy using only 26 set (non-capitalized) and 134 bits using three Capital Letters. My suggestion is that you go back and look at what entropy means regarding password strength. Granted, if you could guess three random words and run brute force against that password hash, it doesn't seem likely that you'd catch the password in any meaningful length of time. Then again, password hacking MY personal password would be much easier with the Hammer Technique http://xkcd.com/538/

Ultimately, no password is secure if you can't remember it without writing it down. And re-using the same password for all the systems you access is the worst possible choice one can make. The question then becomes, how important is the information being secured by passwords? Do you want to secure your pet's health records with 156 bit entropy random/pseudo random passwords, or will 1234abcd work just fine?

So, how many 100 bit entropy passwords can you remember without resorting to something like LastPass or writing them down?

The worst blown transmission repairs are significantly different too. When a 8 year old Manual transmission goes, you can have it repaired for less than the value of the car, on a Automatic, you're getting real close to "its not worth fixing it" price point. I tend to drive older cars that and I always have a nice car, that when the time comes, goes to the junk yard rather than get repaired. The money saved by not having the newest bestest car means I can replace my car two or three times during the time of a new car loan (60-72 months) while spending less over all.

That being said, the last brand new car I bought, I drove 20 years into the graveyard. 20 years is a long time to drive a car. And now, six years seems like a long time. I love driving a different car every couple years.

http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?us-europe

Different map, same results. Seattle to Miami is about the same distance as London(UK) to Jerusalem (Israel). I love it when people compare small European/Scandinavian Country with the US, it really shows ignorance.

It is actually higher density along the coasts. Middle America is pretty sparse population. Comparing Finland to the US is mostly irrelevant nonsense. For giggles, you should overlay a map of Europe over the US, like this

http://goeurope.about.com/od/europeanmaps/l/bl-country-size-comparison-map.htm

Most Europeans have no clue how big the US actually is. Actually, most Americans don't either. And Canada is even bigger than the US, so make your comparisons with them, mkay?

I'll pay your way to North Korea. Seems legit way to support your false equivalences.

I used to do this, until I couldn't remember if that was a 1 or l or L, or @ or A or a or 4. Or was that $, S or s .... And it is really hard to tell if that was a 0 or O or o.

But I never forgot the three words I used. I have a mental picture of a Mongoose fixing a car with a screwdriver (not my real password)

This is only a current problem with BitCoin. The moment Bitcoin becomes "stable" is the moment when enough people use it for enough things that it is "common" rather than uncommon. Right now, if enough people want to "sell" (exchange) bitcoins for Cash, the price drops. If more people want to "buy" bitcoins with cash, the price goes up. This all changes when bitcoin becomes the go-to currency, rather than the cash (Dollars, Euros etc). And that, is when the fun begins.

It isn't unregulated economic systems that do this, it is lawless societies that do this. One of the biggest reasons I oppose more regulation is that it actually is promoting more lawlessness. The Haves have all the tools available to them, and the have nots don't have any. Start a business today, with all the regulations and controls in place, a normal person simply can't. You need licenses, and more licenses, permits and more permits. You need to comply with all sorts of unneeded over tortuous regulations, and often have to visit a myriad of different governmental regulatory agencies and have them "grant" permission for you to operate.

AND the moment you make some small innocent error, it can all be stripped from you in a heartbeat. WHY? Because we "must do something, this is something, therefore we must do it" kneejerk reaction to someone doing something bad.

This creates a system that only seems lawful, but is really evil and lawless. Those that can afford to navigate the "legal system" can not only thrive, but can also prevent any meaningful competition. Control of currency is one of the greatest tools used by Totalitarians. This is why, both the Tea Party and OWS people hate the FED.

Money laundering is much much easier than people actually think. It just takes time. There are plenty of "cash" businesses out there that are used for laundering money. If you're into high dollar illegal activities, it is just part of the cost of doing business. In fact, that is partially how Las Vegas came into being, money laundering for the mob.

THIS is why Crypto Currency is important. What business is it of the Feds to decide what is legitimate and what isn't with MY money? Yeah, people do bad stuff with cash. The whole "OMG we must do something, this is something, we must do it" is what gets us here. Having to justify how we spend money, and if you happen to spend too much that gets reported.

And the sad thing is, people have figure out a million ways around the limit, and it doesn't actually stop anything, other than legitimate use.

Anonymous currency makes CERTAIN forms of corruption easier. It makes OTHER forms harder.

IF you want to help make BTC more anonymous(not completely), you can have it strip transactions older than a certain period of time (e.g. one month) While leaving the last X transactions intact (X being sufficiently long chain). Of course, it would still be possible to wash BTC enough that you can get around these limits, and the history will be enough to identify some users/uses of BTC.

You cannot stop bad people from doing bad things with tools, what you can do is make it harder for them, while leaving the rest of the normal (good) users alone.