The main complaint with Satoshi Dice is that most of their transactions are not actually transferring any value (actually, they are transferring a tiny bit of v

The main complaint with Satoshi Dice is that most of their transactions are not actually transferring any value (actually, they are transferring a tiny bit of value if I understand correctly; I've never used SD). They're using the Bitcoin system as a secure message system to notify everyone who lost a bet (i.e., most betters). It seems to me that Satoshi Dice could very easily create their own block chain to do this and just use it as poker chips, which would take all the load of the Bitcoin system. Once you are "in" the virtual currency system, it's quite easy to exchange currencies. The hard part is getting your dollars in. But Bitcoin would have run up against the block size limit at some point anyway; the vast quantity of Satoshi Dice transactions have only accelerated the confrontation of this dilemma. I actually appreciate the fact that Satoshi Dice is effectively stress testing the system. Bitcoin block size is a serious impediment to scaling up. I wonder if Bitcoin core dev (and Google employee) Mike Hearn has consulted with Jeffrey Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat about this issue. I know that Bitcoin recently switched from Berkeley DB to leveldb for most of the client's bookkeeping, which would have been a good opportunity for Mike to approach them about this dilemma. However, I know that all the core Bitcoin devs are already very capable, so I'm not sure if a technological solution to this issue even exists. The answer may be more political (i.e., convincing all the miners to go along with an idea). <idlespeculation>On a related note, I wonder what the level of adoption of Bitcoin is among Google employees. As mentioned above, Mike Hearn is a Google employee and a long-term Bitcoin core dev. I would speculate that the level of adoption is relatively high, which makes me also speculate about when Google might start accepting Bitcoin. Anyone care to comment?</idlespeculation>