Bitcoin Forum

There's been a nice Israeli group of Bitcoiners for some time, growing over the last ~ 1.5 years. So far our Meetup has reached about 100 people, with about 15-20 active members.

Then, on last Thursday, something happened.

Bitcoin was covered on the front page of a major "popular economics" paper, and then later that day a major TV channel (Channel 10) did a late-night 7 minute story about Bitcoin (featuring, among others, Meir Shitrit, a former minister of finance).

Suddenly, we've had a boom in Bitcoin interest. Our meetup (http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-il) now contains 145 people (40% increase in 3 days!). Our local forum bitcoin.org.il (http://bitcoin.org.il) has seen an influx of new users, as well as our Facebook page. People want to invest, learn, evangelize ... it's quite awesome!

I don't know where the trend is going ... perhaps it will die out a bit as some people abandon the idea ... and perhaps it will keep growing and hit more peaks (maybe prime-time TV, which will surely give us a huge boost).

We have our next meetup on Jan 21 ... it's going to be an interesting one.

P.S.

1. Our Facebook page now has 245 likes (~45+ from this weekend)
2. The Israeli Libertarian Party Accepts Bitcoin Contributions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135064.0)

Good to see this. Local growth is excellent, and Bitcoin needs to have local hubs before it can succeed globally. How's the merchant adoption there going?

Still slowly. There are a few businesses (you can count them on one hand), although we had one or two merchants who showed interest this weekend.

I'm still waiting for the first restaurant/pub/coffee shop to accept them ... I don't know any restaurant owners though, so I'm not pushing it.

Fixed the 2nd link, it was broken in the op.

Thanks for the update from Israel, exciting stuff!

I am suprised that with 100+ bitcoiners, that guitar shop is the only location accepting bitcoin on the map:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops)

WTF!


I guess I need a solution. Suggestions?

Glad to hear it's doing well there! :)

Use another browser. Did you try chrome?

I'm on chrome and got this error.

Click the shield sign on the address bar, and click 'load insecure content'.

Cool, it works! (Never saw that shield icon before).
Can someone document how to add new shops to this map?

I would not worry so much about merchants adoption rate as this time: for mainstreet merchants to start accepting bitcoin, we need a critical mass of users.
Mainstream adoption will come from communities because bitcoin is a community-run monetary system.
The so-called collaborative economy is where things will happen: think of a car pooling app where people pay the driver with bitcoins (in app payment).
I have in mind dozens of other use cases where there is no "merchant" in sight but each use case involves a community of thousands of users.

Someone has to modify the <display_points> to use https://maps.google instead of http://maps.google
I don't know how to do it.

Oh, I concur completely.
We're working on education at this point, user adoption will come after, followed by merchants.

Very encouraging, it's no surprise to hear that a small country with a fair concentration of science and technology industries (and hence alot of engineers and scientists) would build up a bit of popular interest.

It's not the first time Bitcoin was mentioned in newspapers and TV, and it's interesting Thursday's events had so much impact (Bitcoil: x10 the normal visits on Thursday, bitcoin.org.il: x100). I guess it's also a matter of timing and Bitcoin is now more ripe to be digested by the public.

That guitar shop isn't even in Israel anymore. The owners (Josh and Zach Harvey) moved to New Hampshire and have various activities there (Zach recently gave a talk in the Philadelphia Bitcoin summit).

Restaurants and cafes will come too, I know a few people but it takes time.

It's been said that Israelis are also more distrustful and skeptical, so it's harder to get across revolutionary ideas. All in due time, though.

New Hampshire also has the pao cafe in Newmarket that accepts bitcoin.

And just now Bitcoin was featured on "London et Kirschenbaum", also on channel 10. Their economic interpreter, Matan Hodorov, explained it reasonably. He has more to learn though, as he had to look at his notes to be able to tell the limit is 21M, and pronounced the creator "Satushi" (it's spelled the same in Hebrew).

Heh, I love that show. Link me to that episode?

I think it's not up yet, will do when available.

Are you Jewish/Israeli/know Hebrew ?

My last name not give it away?  :D

I'm of Syrian Jewish decent. (My family lived in Spain until the inquisition in late 1400's) and I speak Hebrew and Arabic fluently (my arabic needs touching up, but I can read and write pretty well)

- Charlie

For all I know it's a nickname ...
Cool.

Perhaps you can update as to the state of Bitcoin in Arabic countries?
I heard some stuff about Iran some time ago, but it was several months ago and not concrete.

Mwhahahahahahahahahahhahaaaaaaaaaa



I mean.... YEY! :D

Aw so my trip to Israel just barely missed this?! Too bad, would have loved to be at this upcoming meetup. Thanks so much for meeting up, Meni, it was a pleasure!

-Gabe

Iranians speak Farsi..not Arabic  ;D

Unfortunately, I dont have many friends and family in any Arabic speaking countries (except Morocco and Tunisia) because my family was kicked out and all of our property confiscated by the Assad regime.


OH NO GABE IS BACK IN NEW YORK!!!!!!

Dude, come by this week!

Guys, I can't help the feeling that Bitcoin is another Jewish scheme to take over the world... Is Satoshi Jewish?

(If you didn't get my sense of humor - this is a JOKE. I am Jewish myself!)

"Yankee" is a nickname. "Shrem" is his last name. I thought this was all common knowledge.

Sure, it's been great meeting you. You missed the boom but most of the buzz is online anyway, and the meetups are regular so you'll always be missing one.

The two smartest people in the world are Satoshi Nakamoto and Eliezer Yudkowsky, so it makes sense they are the same person. EY is Jewish so...

To add new shops to the map, make an account so you can edit the wiki, then click edit.  The listings look like this:

46.218035,6.142718|Café Moka|http://www.cafemoka.ch/|File:Green_marker.png

So you can just make a new one with the same form and add it in there on a new line next the others.  To get the coordinates of the location, put the address in google maps, and right click on the location and click "what's here" and copy the coordinates.  If the location is a restaurant, you use the green marker, if it is a hotel change it to Blue, if it is something else, change to Red.  Preview it to make sure it shows up before saving.

Or just post the location, website, and name, or PM it to me, and someone will add it for you.

Thanks!

Pity.

The people from Channel 10 had set up a skype-interview appointment with me for that night. We were celebrating the blockchain birthday at ROOM77 in Berlin then. It would probably have encouraged one or another barowner in Israel to accept BTC to see a bar full of Bitcoiners happily partying and spending bitcoins.

Unfortunately the guys from Channel 10 never rang any of the skype accounts I told them or rang me back on my phone and they didn't even answer their phone anymore that night :(.

But then, it won't be long ... :).

Joe

Here you go (https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BzzGWHwsW4ZHSnNsY2xCY3FDWnM)
(Sorry, no Youtube)

[quote  author=ripper234 link=topic=135088.msg1441582#msg1441582 date=1357656879]


Amazing to hear Bitcoin discussed by foreigners.  Way to go.  

The US is increasingly losing credibility round the world.

This is a good place to boast the most successful meetup to date by far, with over 100 people (I think about 130).
http://www.meetup.com/bitcoin-il/events/97068362/

Also, theymos was kind enough to create a subforum for Hebrew (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=95.0), and also configure it to use right-to-left by default.

Yeah, the meetup was quite an event - thanks a lot to Meni for organizing and Adi Avidor (if he frequents these forums) for getting us the wonderful meeting room courtesy of Google Israel (not to mention refreshments).

very very interesting thread :)

Isreal is kind of the finance capital of the world, Its no surprise its taking off there as much as it has.

NY, London and HK. Tel Aviv is far behind.

Yeah. Where did you get that Israel capital?
Israel is "the startup nation", but that's something else entirely.

70% of the land in Israel is owned by the Rothschild banking dynasty whom founded central banking as we know it by making loans to governments. IIRC, the Rothschild family was part of the founding of the current Israeli state.

Knowing that, it makes sense to associate Israel with banking.

"After the death of James Jacob de Rothschild in 1868, Alphonse Rothschild, his eldest son, who took over the management of the family bank, was the most active in support for Eretz Israel.[30] The Rothschild family archives show that during the 1870s the family contributed nearly 500,000 francs per year on behalf of Eastern Jewry to the Alliance Israélite Universelle.[31] Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, James Jacob de Rothschild's youngest son was a patron of the first settlement in Palestine at Rishon-LeZion, and bought from Ottoman landlords parts of the land which now makes up present-day Israel. In 1924, he established the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), which acquired more than 125,000 acres (22,36 km²) of land and set up business ventures.[32] In Tel Aviv, he has a road, Rothschild Boulevard, named after him as well as various localities throughout Israel which he assisted in founding including Metulla, Zikhron Ya'akov, Rishon Lezion, and Rosh Pina. A park in Boulogne-Billancourt, Paris, the Parc Edmond de Rothschild (Edmond de Rothschild Park) is also named after its founder.[33] The Rothschilds also played a significant part in the funding of Israel's governmental infrastructure. James A. de Rothschild financed the Knesset building as a gift to the State of Israel[34] and the Supreme Court of Israel building was donated to Israel by Dorothy de Rothschild.[35] Outside the President's Chamber is displayed the letter Mrs. Rothschild wrote to the then current Prime Minister Shimon Peres expressing her intention to donate a new building for the Supreme Court."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family#Jewish_identity_and_positions_on_Zionism

Yep, they weren't only part of it, they pretty much launched it out-of-pocket.

BTW, the boom is continuing full force ... more and more people and shops convert every week.

On March 21 we're having the largest Israeil meetup yet (http://meetup.bitcoin.org.il/), the lecture hall can hold up to 364 people ... I think we'll have at least 200 people show up, probably more (last meetup was 120, before that we were at 30 ppl).

There are currently about six different exchanges competing in Israel, where a month ago there was only one (https://bitcoil.co.il/).

Business people, bankers, startup founders, regulators and politicians ... all kinds of people are learning about Bitcoin for the first time.
Can't wait for the next meetup.

Good job man!

This is great news to hear!

According to optimistic libertarian predictions it is possible that Bitcoin will end zionist world domination and world population will be set free from jewish banksters. Are jews are adopting Bitcoin just in case it becomes the new gold of computer era or they are unknowingly helping to dig the graves of old system?

" Are jews are adopting Bitcoin just in case it becomes the new gold of computer era or they are unknowingly helping to dig the graves of old system?"


The more things want to evolve the more things want to devolve into the same old same old...

Very happy to have a lot of people into bitcoin from all over the world.

There is even a bar in south Tel-Aviv that started accepting Bitcoin a couple of weeks ago. If you can buy beer in Bitcoin, it's THE sign this currency's gonna work  ;)

Do these all trade just in local currency there?

This makes me want to move to Israel.  Could I get along there just speaking English for a few months?

Yes, we're talking about ILS-BTC exchange services.

You should be able to get along with English.

Great news, thanks for the update :)

Interesting to see it exploding in Israel. Thanks for the update!

I have a cousin up in Israel. I might just send her a coin and have her go spend it somewhere there that accepts it. Any recommendations? :)

http://barkayma.co.il/

A vegan bar/restaurant with great food - I will come back there.

Vegan restaurant in Israel. The most unlikely place to get pork steak with potatoes and german lager beer.

Could that be the next step for more countries? http://forexmagnates.com/israel-banks-limiting-bitcoin-buying-waiting-for-regulatory-decisions/

Which bar? I'm going to be in Tel_aviv soin and would like to stop by.

http://barkayma.co.il/english/

how are things booming in gaza?

Boom in Israel!

What are they doing, buying bombs with BTC, lol

How much is a self propelled rocket kit in BTC ?

Sniper kit + training, 10000 LTC

IED's: 4 for 20000 NMC