At what point should we take Bitcoin seriously?

[NobleSavage]

The average trading volume is $12 million. That's pathetic. The market cap is $4 billion. Also pathetic.

I'll take it serious when it's cheaper and more convenient than other options. It's already cheaper. Yesterday, I sent a wire transfer and it cost me $22. Total ripoff. I have virtually no fees with my bank other than ATM fees. I don't use the ATM. However, I read a constant litany of complaints of unreasonable bank fees. Convenience will grow exponentially as new people use it. PayPal, pulled off the network effect. There are very few people I can't send PayPal to. I also have a PayPal credit card. PayPall is integrating Bitcoin. So, I think they have a reasonable chance of pulling it off. When I can use my cell phone with NFC and make quick purchase with Bitcoin, I'm there.

The problem is that it is volatile. This will dampen with increased volume and market cap. Individuals will start hedging (if they aren't already) and this will bring more stability. The other problem is that it is deflationary. However, as long as it can be traded for fiat money I don't see this as a real problem.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

We shouldn't take it seriously.

 

[barbos]

We shouldn't take it seriously.

I second that.

And I don't think we should make life of drug dealers and other criminals easier with anonymous currency.

 

[laughing dog]

I'll take Bitcoin seriously when there is true and lasting peace in the Middle East.

 

[NobleSavage]

We shouldn't take it seriously.

I second that.

And I don't think we should make life of drug dealers and other criminals easier with anonymous currency.

I don't think we should make it easier for a burgeoning police state to track every transaction of law abiding citizens. Not to mention all the marketing data collected by the private sector.

And it's pseudonymous not anonymous. Every transaction is recorded in the bit chain.

 

[NobleSavage]

Companies, taking Bitcoin:

Dell
Overstock
NewEgg
TigerDirect
1-800-Flowers.com
Expedia
CheapAir

And many more...

You can buy Bitcoin gift cards that work at Walmart, Amazon, and Target.

 

[barbos]

I second that.

And I don't think we should make life of drug dealers and other criminals easier with anonymous currency.

I don't think we should make it easier for a burgeoning police state to track every transaction of law abiding citizens. Not to mention all the marketing data collected by the private sector.

That's a great argument for gun lowers too.

 

[NobleSavage]

I don't think we should make it easier for a burgeoning police state to track every transaction of law abiding citizens. Not to mention all the marketing data collected by the private sector.

That's a great argument for gun lowers too.

Yes it is. Freedom vs. Safety.

Think of the Underground Railroad that allowed 100,000 slaves to escape. You couldn't do that today.

 

[dystopian]

I wish I took it seriously when I first heard about it...

back when it traded for like a fucking dollar.


It's still weird to me that I can order food online using bitcoin. I wonder how many people actually do that.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Companies, taking Bitcoin:

Dell
Overstock
NewEgg
TigerDirect
1-800-Flowers.com
Expedia
CheapAir

And many more...

You can buy Bitcoin gift cards that work at Walmart, Amazon, and Target.

Actually it looks like a lot of these don't take Bitcoin. You need to convert Bitcoins to gift cards first. Nice try.

 

[NobleSavage]

Well, I got the list off of another site. I'll go through them.

Dell, yes: http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/campaigns/bitcoin-marketing

Overstock, yes: http://www.overstock.com/bitcoin

NewEgg, yes: http://promotions.newegg.com/nepro/...8dHxzGYZcnrwZaqTbU3TZQ5RPJTjDRMs8AaAkG48P8HAQ

Tigerdirect, yes: http://www.tigerdirect.com/bitcoin/

1-800-Flowers.com, yes: http://www.coindesk.com/1-800-flowers-com-latest-retailer-add-bitcoin-payments/

Expedia, yes: http://www.expedia.com/Checkout/BitcoinTermsAndConditions

CheapAir, yes: http://www.cheapair.com/blog/travel...ts-on-cheapair-with-bitcoin-virtual-currency/

And like i said, Walmart, Amazon, and Target take gift cards.

If you are still not happy

Dish Network, yes: http://about.dish.com/press-release/products-and-services/dish-accept-bitcoin

Intuit (QuickBooks), yes: https://paybycoin.intuit.com/

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Okay so here is the thing, the gift cards are not the same as taking Bitcoin. The gift cards are converted by a company into US dollars -- you buy gift cards from them for specified amounts and US dollars are used to make the purchase. Those companies taking the cards are not taking Bitcoins. Same with most of those companies listed, they are using essentially a Bitcoin service that converts Bitcoins into USDs through a service called  Coinbase which collects a1 % fee on every purchase like a credit card company does at 3%. This includes Dish Network and Intuit.

It appears that Coinbase is a Bitcoin Exchange, so their's is the business is buying and selling Bitcoins.

 

[NobleSavage]

Okay so here is the thing, the gift cards are not the same as taking Bitcoin. The gift cards are converted by a company into US dollars -- you buy gift cards from them for specified amounts and US dollars are used to make the purchase. Those companies taking the cards are not taking Bitcoins. Same with most of those companies listed, they are using essentially a Bitcoin service that converts Bitcoins into USDs through a service called  Coinbase which collects a1 % fee on every purchase like a credit card company does at 3%. This includes Dish Network and Intuit.

It appears that Coinbase is a Bitcoin Exchange, so their's is the business is buying and selling Bitcoins.

Yeah, so what? That's kinda been the plan all along. Set up a decentralized cryptocurrency and let others build the necessary infrastructure. The fact is that I can buy just about anything I need with Bitcoin. With PayPal integration it's a done deal.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Paypal does not take Bitcoin directly, it allows services like Coinbase to convert them to USDs. You are still using USDs to make the purchase.

I will continue to use USDs since they are accepted everywhere, and I don't have to worry about currency volatility.

 

[lpetrich]

I think that it's a desire for a currency that is not controlled by any politicians. A big fear of certain people is that the politicians may decide to cover expenses by printing money like crazy, thus causing galloping inflation. I think that that's what's behind the gold standard, since it can be expensive to mine gold, and since making gold by nuclear reactions costs much more in energy than the resulting gold. It's been hard for me to find good numbers on the energy efficiency of particle accelerators, but one can get a lower limit from the energy involved in the reactions themselves.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think that it's a desire for a currency that is not controlled by any politicians. A big fear of certain people is that the politicians may decide to cover expenses by printing money like crazy, thus causing galloping inflation. I think that that's what's behind the gold standard, since it can be expensive to mine gold, and since making gold by nuclear reactions costs much more in energy than the resulting gold. It's been hard for me to find good numbers on the energy efficiency of particle accelerators, but one can get a lower limit from the energy involved in the reactions themselves.

Particle accelerators are horrible as bulk synthesizers.

 

[Will Wiley]

When you can pay taxes with it Or if and when there is some kind of currency crisis. Or maybe if there is a bank "bail in" as we saw in Cyprus. I think this was when Bitcoin shot up wasn't it? Banks in Cyprus confiscated a certain amount of deposits and people began tp push up the price of Bitcoin.

The private key/public key cryptographic technology is quite impressive, though whether Bitcoin ends up being the main user of this science, we will have to wait and see, but it's hard to imagine this technology which makes a "trusted third party" redundant won't find many uses.

 

[lpetrich]

(me on making gold with particle accelerators...)

Particle accelerators are horrible as bulk synthesizers.

True, but I've found it hard to get good numbers for that. But one doesn't need to go up to LHC energies, only to a few MeV, what medical accelerators typically do.

More broadly, gold owners won't have much to fear from particle accelerators and their latter-day alchemy. Interestingly, during the heyday of alchemy, King Henry IV of England outlawed in 1404 the "multiplication of gold and silver" ( Multiplication (alchemy)), likely out of concern about an abundance of gold reducing its value. Interestingly, something like that happened after Spain conquered parts of the New World. Spaniards imported lots of gold and silver from their colonies, hoping that it would make them rich. But it caused inflation instead; a French traveler remarked around 1600 that "everything is dear in Spain except silver".

Bitcoin is regulated by a central Bitcoin authority which controls the overall rate of production or "mining" of new Bitcoin certificates. They are computed using an elaborate, time-consuming algorithm that has been made more and more so as more Bitcoins have been produced, to slow down their production.

 

[Jayjay]

Bitcoin is regulated by a central Bitcoin authority which controls the overall rate of production or "mining" of new Bitcoin certificates. They are computed using an elaborate, time-consuming algorithm that has been made more and more so as more Bitcoins have been produced, to slow down their production.

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no central authority for Bitcoin. The protocol that controls its production is simply an agreement between the miners. If a majority of them decided to change it, they could. As long as no single miner owns more than 50% of the mining capacity, there is no central authority.

I'm not quite sure what would happen if someone did own more than half and tried to change the protocol... would it split the bitcoin economy, or break it, or what?

 

[Will Wiley]

Bitcoin is regulated by a central Bitcoin authority which controls the overall rate of production or "mining" of new Bitcoin certificates. They are computed using an elaborate, time-consuming algorithm that has been made more and more so as more Bitcoins have been produced, to slow down their production.

Do correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no central authority for Bitcoin. The protocol that controls its production is simply an agreement between the miners. If a majority of them decided to change it, they could. As long as no single miner owns more than 50% of the mining capacity, there is no central authority.

I'm not quite sure what would happen if someone did own more than half and tried to change the protocol... would it split the bitcoin economy, or break it, or what?

They would not have to own half but control more than half of the hashing power. The longest ledger of transactions would be the ledger. I think the Byzantine Generals problem can only be solved if the longest ledger is authoritative (by defintion).
We have seen this sort of thing already happen in one of the many bitcoin clones, Cryptcoin.
A sizeable amount of Cryptcoins were stolen from an exchange. The exchange and the large mining pools got together and "rolled back" the blockchain so that the thief's coins were no longer on the longest list of transactions.