Bitcoin Forum

I've just spent the past 2 hours reading back articles on bitcoin and new articles going forward and the comments on them. I don't get why people are so anti-bitcoin? :(  

edit: I should add that the same comments back a few months show up even today ? haven't we gotten past this?

Some quotes on it:

=================================

"If you can't spend it, it's not worth anything. I can have a car "worth" $50,000, but if no one wants it, it might as well be worth zero. You can give up and down percentages all you want, but it's not being used for hard goods and services.Today, I bought a tank of gas, lunch, and a $400 plane ticket. None accepted, or will ever accept, bitcoin"

"its like an eve online scam without the subscription fee."

"Bitcoin is *not* anonymous. At least not in the way that that implies. Specifically *all* transactions in the world are totally public and traceable by anyone. Pretty much the only anonymous thing is that you don't have to give use your real name as your bitcoin ID. But if someone finds out your bitcoin ID (e.g. if you use an exchange) they can then see your entire transaction history! It is far from the anonymity of cash."

"I'm shocked, shocked that a bizarre nerd currency doesn't work in the real world!"

"I don't consider myself to be overly stupid, but Bitcoins confuse the crap out of me."

==================================

I mean isn't the Myths deterring this kind of talk?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths

I think its time to get our house in order with some good PR work. Maybe even hire a firm ?  This is getting ridiculous . I mean grant it Bitcoin isn't perfect but some of this stuff is just flat out wrong.

What are we doing wrong as a community? and I think we really need to have a honest  discussion about all this ???

Oh, please let me be the first to comment on your thread!!! Since you love reading, I offer up a nice little 7 page thread for your enjoyment to answer your question in quotes. I suggest Jergins--a big bottle.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50306.0

I know  Phinnaeus I was getting scared if I would at least get 1 comment on this lol   I'll take another hour to read that 7 page jergin bottle required thread!

Anyone rejecting bitcoins isn't going to bother with the myths page; their mind is already made up on it. And no need to hire a PR firm when letting friends and others know about it is free.  :)

I hear what you are saying. We can't be the first technology to have to "convince people of what we aren't" but if it's just starting with your friends then I suppose this is a good start and yes it is free. :)

Could also print out simple folded up cards with info about bitcoin, and throw it in with the Halloween candy. Parents and older siblings, at least from my experience, always get a good look at a kids candy plunder, who would be a good target audience. Working on a simple design right now myself for just that.

So brillant  ;D   Do post here when you are done I will do the same tonight when I hand out "bitcoin candy"  ;D

I think even some of the haters believe but just try to drive down the price while they secretly invest.

For the other haters, they are just ignorant/sociopathic trolls disrupting innovation.

And then there the anti-shills/false flag types sent here to disrupt the evolution and propagation of the Bitcoin movement.

For the believers, it's easy to see Bitcoin will prevail in the long run. It's logical to see how its benefits will eventually win the hearts and minds of the people. Just keep your head up, do everything you can to understand Bitcoin, and promote it with every chance you get.

And you don't have to promote any investment into Bitcoin either... It's a dirty topic that gives most people a negative feeling. For people who produce useful services, it's easy to simply accept Bitcoin as payment and then there's a little less risk for them to get involved - yet still enticing with all the benefits that can be had. This should be encouraged because it will build the user base until their trust and education can be built. Eventually the "Packers" will be exposed to more people that accept Bitcoin and feel more comfortable about using it.

Bitcoin will succeed on grass roots promotion and infrastructure development.

BTW, Bitcoin can absolutely be anonymous (http://bitcoinintro.com/anonymous-bitcoin/).

Bitcoin is radical.  Anytime you have something that is radical people will mock it, attack it, and misunderstand it.  You aren't going to reach everyone so those who are in "attack mode" are likely best left to stew in their own venom.  You aren't going to convince them.  There were a half dozen logical fallacies in those quotes but it wouldn't matter if you pointed them out to the authors.

That being said I think the way Bitcoin has been (and mostly still is) introduced is counter productive.  How I learned about bitcoin is "Hey you can use your computer to mine digital coins and some people will pay real cash for it".  I mean it comes off as inplausible, a pyramid scheme, and some kind of get rich quick scam.

A better way to explain Bitcoin is.

That sounds more plausible, more believable.  I also hate a love/hate relationship with the term "mining".  We arne't mining anything.  This isn't a video game where you get prizes just for playing.  We are hashing the network, providing security, and being compensated for that activity.

The good news is things like OccupyWallstreet accepting Bitcoins add support to the longer useful narrative.  Hopefully we see less "Dude you can like minting thousands of dollars by just turning your computer on" and more real world uses for Bitcoin.  

What will change people's minds is seeing Bitcoin accepted.  If someone trusts the Electronic Freedom Foundation and they accept Bitcoin then that is vote of confidence.  If someone like Wikileaks and they prefer donations in Bitcoins then that person may decide to learn more with an open mind.

There's something else at work here, which is the natural boom/bust of the long-term news cycle. It's a hackneyed cultural trope, but if there's one thing the media likes better than a "rags-to-riches" story, it's a "rise-and-fall". That doesn't mean we'll be out of the news. It just means our trajectory's going to look a little more like Robert Downey Jr.'s than, say, Dwight D. Eisenhower's.

To take it down to an individual, psychiatric level, you have to realize there were a great many people in the blogs & media who were hyping Bitcoin six months ago -- without ever actually having possessed a Bitcoin or having any idea how to set up the client. They were hyping it because other people were hyping it. These are the same people who are busy attacking it now. They want to be the first on the bandwagon to declare its death, so they don't look foolish for incorrectly calling its success.

Now either way it goes, there's a knock-on effect on the currency; but just as media hype couldn't put Bitcoin into an artificial increase in value permanently, neither will talking it down cause its demise. What you have to realize is that all of these people will deny their current statements and change their tune the moment the wind blows the other way; they aren't creating anything of value, they're parrots. They were nice, useful parrots when the price was going up, and now they're bad, bad parrots. But don't take it too seriously; these are people who are perpetually in a state of trying to cover their own asses.

Brilliant!

what i dont understand is that people mock agains us HERE in bitcointalk.org

no problem, you dont have to be a fan. go somewhere else, dont troll us.

it is like some mentally unbalanced men, standing somewhere in the middle of the traffic with a plate 'the end is near'.

they just disturb. absolutely nothing more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave

We're just trying to prevent more victims.  I know no one wants to admit it now, but some of you have spent tens of thousands of dollars on hardware to "mine" bitcoins.  There are people who bought into the idea of bitcoins @ $28 each, then bought more at every step downward.  Those people are victims who were led astray by this community.  Because there aren't enough people here who are willing to call out the bullshit.

But more to the OP, what can I buy with bitcoins that I cannot buy with paypal?  Ok, drugs from Silk Road.  What else?

I hear what your saying in regards to people investing hard earned money only to be left with nothing but the trolls were doing more then that in my opinion. As for your question regarding buying with Bitcoins vs Paypal I don't think anyone is making the case one is better then the other just the fact we can have a decentralized system for making payments. I mean look at wikileaks and how they have come to a complete halt due to Visa/MasterCard/ Paypal and everyone else cutting off their access to funds.

Klaus - I agree. I think the trolls were here for "other reasons" and it really was uncalled for. Just look at my history of posts and you'll see the battles I've had with them :(

Not much... yet... but we want an alternative to fiat money. We want anonymity. We want to backup our money (without FDIC). We dont want inflation. We want control.

Tell us how Paypal will help us with that?

Tuxavant - I think you could be on to something. Disinformation to better their own needs or cause or out of pure entertainment.  I think the infrastructure is still being built and we haven't seen the full fruit of everyones labor just yet. I think the only thing that is shocking is that fact.

ridiculous

im grown-up. i dont need someone telling me what to do. if im in the middle of a scam, i accept it. someday i go.

bitcoin is a experiment. if someone loads a lot of money in it at the wrong moment im sorry. but thats life. bitcoin is not the paradise. if your greedy you have to accept to lose. thats it.

It is impossible to tell at this point what innovation will be discovered in the not-so-distant future. Hell, I've been following Bitcoin almost since the beginning and just recently discovered scripts and how the will eventually provide for peer-to-peer executed contracts. I've never been more excited for what Bitcoin will become.

im near saying this is the last thread talking with them / about them. im done with them. the ignore button is a possibility...

sorry for quoting myself.

i wish someone of the mods / or someone else reliable  make a list of users a real bitcoin fan can 'ignore' without any research on his history. a list of just the hardest, 50 or 100 trolls would this board really make clean !

What's just a *little* bit funny about this is, there are a few trolls on my ignore list that I'll temporarily unignore just to see what the idiots are saying. I always laugh at myself when I do too because my original plan was spot on.

Umm, this forum is full of threads declaring the superiority of bitcoin over every other transaction method.  In truth, it's only theoretically superior and only in a few ways.


But if that's the scope of distribution for bitcoin, the price will surely be back under a penny before too long.  Very very few people here care about it's viability as a currency: they just want to get rich quick.  Hence all the desperate calls to spread the idea of bitcoin without providing valuable bitcoin services or goods.  And no, a person who buys you a prepaid VISA card for 20% markup is not a valuable bitcoin service.

3 simple reasons:
1. new.
2. different.
3. demonized in the media.

I think you are improperly using the word psychiatric.

I want to get rich slowly. That means that I will always hold onto some minimum amount of Bitcoins for speculative purposes. Speculative value only last's as long as the speculation time frame. I think for a lot of optimimsts that time frame is fairly long, so expect the speculative value to stick around. I have no immediate or near future use for bitcoins. I don't need them in any way shape or form. But I bet other people could, so I value them. I am a speculator.

At the very least a "sticky" so people can just go through the list and hit ignore :)

Paypal is the wrong example. Tell me what I can buy with Bitcoins that I can't buy with Verifone?

nothing(except illegal stuff, but you could also buy that with cash).
but thats not the point.
The Point is:

Anything from China, India, Russia, or other distant country without a $20 to $40 international transaction fee. So, um, you can buy a lack on an exorbitant fee.

Considering BTC is priced in fiat money and fiat money begins and ends every BTC transaction, I don't really understand how it's an alternative.

Let me put it this way: has a vendor ever received bitcoins and then spent those bitcoins on a good or service that wasn't basically fiat money?  If there's no second step in the currency chain, it's pointless except as an experiment in giving exchanges money.


Ok.  


This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  How are your bitcoins backed up?  If you lose them, they're gone.  There will never be an insurance on bitcoins because it would just be a siren call to be defrauded.


Again, this doesn't make sense.  Inflation only matters in terms of spending power, and bitcoin spending power has been incredibly inflationary since it peaked at $30.  You used to be able to buy six Dominoes medium pizzas for a single bitcoin.  Now you need 2-3 for each pizza.  


And by control you mean trusting a mysterious third party who developed this whole thing, then trusting money changers to convert your fiat money into some kind of electronic form, then trusting the exchanges to not just disappear with your money or bitcoins, then trusting that the difficulty never gets so low that a real blockchain attack could through the whole thing into disrepair, then finally trust that a vendor who accepts your bitcoins won't just vanish with them because you cannot prove that your bitcoins went to someone else (yay anonymity).


You have some very strange requirements for your currency that are not shared by many people.  Libertarians, the free market has spoken.

All valid points, especially the first one. BTC is just a proxy currency ATM. Even if you get businesses accepting BTC it will be quite a while before suppliers take BTC. For an example : imagine Nestle accepts BTC but I am 99% sure that the cocoa farmers accept USD only in Colombia or whatever. More adoption will not raise price like some people seem to think.

go read the source! no mysterious third party, the whole thing is clearly readable.
and exchanges are not to be trusted, and so are banks too.
real blockchain attacks DO NOT HAPPEN, in reality. (yet, and hopefully never will)

all your trust issues, can be solved by reputation. i would never buy from someone that i did not know, or do not have a reputation.

Bitcoin hasn't even been around 3 years.  It really hasn't had any significant follow for more than a year.  I'll give the free market a little more time to decide.

By your logic free market rejected:
the internet
the personal computer
paypal
ebay
credit cards

What I don't get is why you are here.  We got it you think Bitcoin will fail.  Fine.  Lots of people think that.  99% of mainstream media articles are negative.  The comments of every non-bitcoin blog that runs a bitcoin story are full of 10,000 of you.  We get it you are 100% convinced that bitcoin will fail.  

Which is more sad ... people struggling on a project that ultimately fails or they sad little man who wastes years of his life to be there when it happens.

"See I told you.  I spent 5 years on this forum to be able to say I told you bitcoin would fail".  Meh.

These are the exact same people.


I think you're being a little hyperbolic when you say every BTC transaction. I too suspect that it's mostly currency speculation right now, but we can never tell for sure what it's all being used for.

Mysterious development: You don't need to trust Satoshi, you can check the code and compile it yourself. Or if you lack those skills, you can find a trusted party to do it for you.
You can exchange with anyone. If for some reason you trust me, I will sell you Bitcoins.
Bitcoins are not anonymous. If you're worried a vendor will deny payment, get them to sign their receiving address so you can post a block explorer (http://blockexplorer.com/) link proving you paid.

Sorry, as long as I keep hearing this, I will repeat... "Yes they can be (http://bitcoinintro.com/anonymous-bitcoin/)". Otherwise, great speech! 8D

It's the best of both worlds - you CAN make them anonymous, but you can also prove that an address has been paid.

The problem is people are so narrow minded.

Here is a technology making it possible to do everything the banks does by yourself!
I mean talk about empowering people.  How so many people fail to see this is beyond me.
Think about never having to deal with a bank ever again, aaaah the thought makes me feel all warm and fuzzy ^^

You wanna change the system? well here is your chance. Why do you think there is so much inequality in the world.
It's all rigged to favor the people on top. Sure you can speak your mind but you're still a slave to the debt based money monopoly of the banks. Bitcoin is the greatest weapon ever invented to change all this. With asia, middle east and africa coming online more and more it's only a matter of time before this explodes.

OK I agree you can't really know right now if Bitcoin is a ponzi scheme or not. Only time will tell.
I applaud all the people here who spend their time and money trying to change the world for the better.
 
Bitcoin may die, but the idea will never die. So we get bitcoin 2.0, 3.0, brix 5.0 whatever.
The Genie is out of the bottle, and it will never go back in.

Bitcoins failure is the least interesting thing about this now.  Here is the delicious food that keeps the outsiders visiting:

1.  Libertarians with poorly thought out ideas.  Atlas reigns supreme at this.  But other gems like logansryche and Matthew N. Wright help add to the Greatest Hits of Bitcoin.

2.  Scammers.  Hopefully Bruce will get bored of laying low and trying to get OWS folks to shower in his apartment.

3.  Desperation.  You can smell it a mile away.  Each time the price of BTC dips, you see the threads pop up with terrible ideas about how to spread knowledge of the existence of bitcoin without improving the services or products.


If I can just keep one person from losing their shirt on this stupid shit, it will all have been worth it. :)

LOL so instead of the most obvious reason that people have a problem with other people being suckered into a pyramid scheme, it must be one of these conspiracy-theory options. Screw occam's razor.

And, of course, there is absolutely no chance that the large majority of the people making posts like this have nothing to gain in doing so. It's all so innocent, just buy and tell your friends.

This part I've always found most confusing. By saying Bitcoin doesn't have services and products, I guess you are implying that USD has services and products? So, what is a product of US dollars?

Of course you can know. Bitcoin only requires "new blood" in the context of adoption. Nobody needs to "buy in". You could very easily provide a good or service and simply receive your Bitcoin. Once everyone sees and agrees that a value can be transferred with it (easily and feeless), then the ability to spend those earned Bitcoins will be ubiquitous throughout the world.

Edit: Bitcoin will not fail as long as *any two people* agree that a value can be transferred between them.

Saying bitcoin is "free" (as in "free beer") is not a good idea.  It is only "free" now due to block subsidies.  When block subisides are reduced or eliminated there will still be a need to fund the network.  That will come from transaction fees.  Personally I think low cost is more plausible and less likely to be considered some kind of "magical money from nowhere" system than free.  Nothing in life if free and that include Bitcoin.

Agreed. Free inevitably leads to thinking "Too good to be true." Even scammers know that if you want to scam someone, you have to make them feel like they worked for it (by scammers I mean salesmen, though there's often little difference).

I understand what you're saying, but the difference between free and 1/1000th of a penny is close enough at this point in time (for me). The minor details can be explained after the people I'm proselytizing to understand the "bigger picture". If I'm talking with somone who's interested, I'll take the few extra seconds to explain transaction fees, but in a bullet list for some passer-by, I have no moral issues saying they are "fee-less transactions".

If you think it will be 1/1000th of a penny you haven't considered how expensive the network is to run and maintain or how much the subsidies are currently.  Currently it is 2.6 million BTC per year in subsidies.  Eventually that will be 0. 

Lets say someday Bitcoin could bring in Paypal level transaction volume ~100 tps.  At 1/1000th penny per transaction that would be 0.1 penny per second or ~ $0.60 per block in transaction fees.  Even at 4000 tps (VISA scale transaction volume) that would be 4 cents per second or ~$24 per block.   Today block rewards are $160 per block.

I'm not a number cruncher, but just off the top of my head (I admit I could be way off on this), it seems that this might promote individual/distributed mining even more - as opposed to a few super mega asic power house mining camps.

BTW guys, this is what I'm handing out (with candy) tonight


https://i.imgur.com/qGMjU.png

That's a little tl;dr for some kids these days.  You might want to just put:
"BITCOIN
Get free money here: <link>"

Any responsible adult would see this long before any kid does.

I could see it now! A parent finds the note and decides to Google "Bitcoin". She first sees Rassah's coffee table, members wanting to commit suicide, and a convention in Pattaya. Then she asks Jr. if he remembers which house the note came from. Jr. remembers because it's the only house that he got paper with his candy. "It's the house with the old pickup in the driveway and the orange B in the window."

LOL Thanks for the insight into your google targeted search results... Mine search reveals no such content!

Are you sure you didn't accidently search for CrazyCoin?

http://www.google.com/search?q=bitcoin

Top 10 results:
1) Wikipedia - Bitcoin
2) Bitcoin.org
3) Bitcoincharts
4) Mt. Gox
5) We Use Coins (What is Bitcoin?)
6) Bitcoin Wiki
7) "Bitcoin Economy is Collapsing" (The Atlantic)
8) "I didn't invent Bitcoin" (The Irish Times)
9) Bitcoin Miner  <- ??? Really.  Some one has been doing some SEO
10) BitcoinMe <- ??? Another shocker

Interestingly bitcointalk isn't in top 10, or top 50.  It is #68.  Ouch.  Still top 10 (all 99% of searchers see) is pretty good.  Would be nice it the Atlantic Article fell off the from page along with the pump & dump garbage (BitcoinMe).  Maybe adding in bitcoin.stackexchange.com and bitcointalk.org.  Still pretty good Google first impression.

Satire!

Of course what I mentioned wouldn't come up on page one on mine, yours, or their Google search. But if a person wanted to dig further, they may probably find what I mentioned. I wasn't even implying that it was a good or bad idea. In fact, I leaned towards it being a smart idea.

As far as my Google target search results goes, every time I Google "Bitcoin" I get Rassah's coffee table.

Speaking of Google target search results, I have a gmail account I only use for my reclaimed barn wood enterprise. On the right side, I used to only see ads for lumber, flooring, wood furniture, etc. Now about 20% of the ads are about memory sticks and other computer related stuff, none of which is mentioned in my incoming and outgoing mail which is how those ads are supposed to be generated from. The only way they got there is because I stay longed into that account on Google and all my activity is archived under that name. No way should it be in my gmail account as outlined in their TOS.

You know, you're the only douche who keeps bringing up my totally awesome table. Maybe if you didn't mention it in every post, it wouldn't show up on google search results as much  ::)

I essentially stopped reading here:

DRM can never and has never worked (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Microsoft_Research_DRM_talk). You have to defeat "cause and effect" to force DRM to work. This oversight tells me you have not thought enough about the steps required to foster annonymity.

Using TOR to separate your identities is not enough. You have to ensure that each of your (virtual) machines have a different (or at least generic) software configuration (http://panopticlick.eff.org/) as well. Advertisers (like facebook and Google) are storing an increasing amount of data. I would caution you not to underestimate potential advances in data de-annonymization in the comming years.

Fixed that for you!

All the wild conspiracy theories are the correct answer.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that you are limited in cashing out deposits, or that investing/spending bitcoins has literally a 50/50 chance of someone taking your coins and running.

Nearly every bitcoin business venture has turned out to be a total out-and-out scam and you have had two ponzi schemes that were brazenly labeled as such.

Exchanges shut down regularly and often without any warning or explanation.  They are also hacked multiple times.

Mybitcoin shut down and offered you guys 49% of your coins back and you treated it as a victory.

Your list of bitcoin accepting vendors is 90% broken links and 10% stuff that could be bought cheaper with USD.

Anything you can buy with bitcoins still ends up converted into fiat money.  Bitcoin serves as a pointless middleman, not a currency in and of itself.

Your own bitcoin conventions don't accept payments in bitcoin.  Big confidence builder there.

Rampant scamming.

Bitcoins can be and often are permanently lost.

Using an exchange, bitcoins are not anonymous, they are linked to your bank account and can easily be traced back to it.

MtGox is just a repurposed Magic: The Gathering trading card website.  Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange.  This is entirely ignored.

Bitcoin adherents generally won't accept any criticism, no matter how valid. It's like watching a cat trying to bury his shit in a bathtub, funny, yet sad.  Any differing opinion is regarded as trolling.  This is so bad, even after solid legal evidence of Bruce's scamming, he was still widely defended here.

I will say, though, that as a piece of software, Bitcoin is pretty solid.  The community just sucks, though.  You guys need to stop labeling everyone who disagrees with you as trolls.  You make a lot of noise about the free exchange of ideas, but you sure as hell don't really believe it.

They lost money lol

You are speaking about the real economy.

Banks and accounts get regularly hacked, estimates are about billions of $ each year hacked and stolen
Greek bond will be paid only 50% or so

See? Bitcoin is not different

Damn, you! Damn, you! Damn, you! You had to make it so difficult for me to find fault(s) in this post.

I think that people are anti bitcoin for a very simple reason. It's a new concept to most people.

Many people who are anti bitcoin also are likely to have very little idea of how our current fiat system works.
Like politics, economics is easy to put on our back burner in our daily lives. Especially so if you've been desensitized to seeing the warning signs by the mass media.  

Progress from being unaware of using a broken central banking system that holds monopoly on money production to understanding bitcoin enough to appreciate it's p2p decentralized advantages isn't going to happen overnight. It's going to take time for a new mindset about money to take hold in people. Once the collective majority of the innovators' and early adapters' mindset has shifted away from the old system, we will finally see the true explosive growth in bitcoin. Of course this is me having faith in humanity to recognize the faults of our existing system.

Also the argument about exchanges being shutdown and what not may be as bad as it seems when you think about the banks being propped up by the tax money bailout. The real bankers already did the same thing with fiat money. It's just our gov is propping them up with more of our money. At least with bitcoin you only lose what you risk and noone is forced to pay to keep the exchanges open.

Unfounded statistics, Fraud/Trust argument (happens in any currency)

"Nearly every" is hyperbole. Use provable stats next time. A properly labeled scam isn't really a scam (you've been warned).

Has nothing to do with Bitcoin and everything to do with infrastructure. Problems are actively being solved.

Fraud, misplaced trust, can (and does) happen with any currency.

What is the # of broken links on the internet? Probably a lot. Other issue is ubiquitous adoption. This will eventually be solved as more people learn and trust the underlaying principles of Bitcoin to transfer a unit of value to another person. (This is the primary function of a currency):

Problem is ubiquitous adoption

Bitcoin is a new technology and people have to learn how to protect against fraud it the same way they had to learn how to deal with scammers shaving off the sides of gold coins or plating worthless metal in gold:

Not if cared for properly. Cash can be and often is permanently destroyed by both acts of god and neglegence so we should stop using it?: Bitcoins is the first currency that can be encrypted and backed up. I'll take that over cash any day.

True statement. But this is only necessary until bitcoin acceptance is ubiquitous

Who the F cares. Besides, it's a little "insider" geek humor

It's accepted as long as it's constructive and pertinent. Real problems are discussed and solutions developed

This is what will eventually make Bitcoin ubiquitous and fulfill its primary role as a world currency - People's trust in it's ability to transfer a value of wealth in exchange for goods or services.



Totally agree with you. Anonymity on the web is certainly not easy. Sure your browser (and other applications) will leak identity information, but not so much with the Bitcoin client as long as your isolating transactions to specific identities. Strictly concerning Bitcoin, it is pretty easy for it to be completely anonymous if you follow the rules to prevent cross contamination.

Wrong question. What you should've been asking is "for what products and services is US dollars the most convenient way of buying and selling them?" The answer to that is obvious - nearly everything in the US, because everyone's costs and wage payments are in US dollars too! In fact, the US dollar is so useful that even I buy stuff using them fairly regularly, and I live in the UK.

this is just classic ^^ lol

So is this the old, "The problem with bitcoin is that it isn't widely adopted, and because of that it won't be widely adopted until it is widely adopted" argument?

That's the best argument naysayers able to produce  8)

It is a solid argument.  It is the reason why the BankofAmerica's experimental method of paying with digital funds launched way back in 1958 failed.  I mean why use it is it isn't widely adopted and because of that it will never be widely adopted.  Er wait VISA didn't fail and is used for billions of dollars in transactions now.

No it isn't. By that thinking, no one would have started using gold as a medium of exchange because, at the time, no one accepted it. Gold was useful, therefore it was used. Reserve notes were more useful than Gold so those were used more. Bitcoin offers a lot more function and usefulness than fiat money, so it will, in time, be used.

And I have no idea what this failed BoA thing was in the 50's, but I think it's hugely funny that you're using that as an example. Was *anything* was digital in the 50's?? Im not sure they even had numbers back then.

Sorry for being obscure.  I am being sarcastic.

In 1958 BankOfAmerica launched BankAmericard which later became VISA.

Hey, the question was why is there so much anti-bitcoin sentiment, I'm just telling you why.

Don't take for granted bitcoin will succeed simply because the software is decent.  It takes a lot more than good code and rainbow wishes for a full blown currency to take off.

Another strawman.  Nobody claimed bitcoin will succeed.  Nobody is hoping on rainbow wishes.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_cvdgPlEKW9k/TRq7nI9HNjI/AAAAAAAABlA/ETl9RrJu0kU/s1600/Straw_Man.jpg

Bitcoin's biggest problem is that it's not consumer-friendly.  No one would buy anything with Bitcoin when they could use Visa, with its built-in liability protection.  Until that issue is resolved, Bitcoin will never be used for anything but money transfers and buying illegal goods.

Actually (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20721.msg259322#msg259322) people (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=44830.msg536698#msg536698) have (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=45759.msg549302#msg549302) claimed (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34320.msg534913#msg534913) that (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8725.msg126324#msg126324) Bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1991.msg25424#msg25424) will (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=41317.msg511456#msg511456) succeed. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18450.msg233081#msg233081) A (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36729.msg452332#msg452332) good (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=16980.msg222972#msg222972) handful (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8493.msg124882#msg124882) of (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=29102.msg367473#msg367473) people (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=32477.msg407640#msg407640) have (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12435.msg177393#msg177393) made (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=8430.msg123535#msg123535) the (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3742.msg53026#msg53026) claim (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2915.msg40275#msg40275) of (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=15672.msg302135#msg302135) bitcoins (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57.msg164988#msg164988) succeeding. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=12456.msg174901#msg174901)

And the continued use and interest in it would only exist if people felt that it would. Otherwise it would have been completely abandoned by now.

I agree, and I think the idea be summed up with:

Bitcoin is Linux to VISA's Windows.

Two amusing answers I've heard on this topic since I started proselytizing btc:


1)  Bitcoin eh?  Scary.  Yeah that is the coming of the Apocolypse.  The book of revelation says we are going to have one world currency as the hosrsemen bring down the heavens.

2)  Bitcoin eh?  Don't touch that stuff.  Its from the paypal people who want to build an island nation. 
 

That's an interesting comparison! Especially, because when you look at Linux'es strenghts today, it's on the servers! So, you can think of Bitcoin as some kind of "backbone" that exposes a service and "user-friendly"

• clients interact with those backbone services. Especially because of scaling and usability this is the most likely outlook for Bitcoin's future.
• for me and probably many others windows isn't user friendly, but i think you get the idea.

HAHAHA...yes, on a forum of bitcoin enthusiasts, no one here actually thinks it's going to succeed.  No one sold all their possessions and maxed out their credit cards to buy bitcoins.  No one built ten thousand dollars worth of mining rigs.

And if they did, it's because they know bitcoin will fail and they are just doing it for fun.  You know...the fun you get by running a program on a computer that does nothing.

I hope you're right. Eventually Bitcoin will support really secure built-in escrow (multisigned transactions). You'll be able to secure your purchase with any mutually trusted third party. No more trusting a handful of credit card companies.

I think the answer is fairly straightforward and obvious.

Most people are afraid of change. Nothing effects people lives than money, so they are likely to be over sensitive about it. People have made a lot of assumptions that they believe to be concrete facts about how the money system works and they are challenged by the existence of and ideas behind bitcoin. It's also quite anarchistic in some ways which most people are not ready for either. People are used to

I like the analogy to Linux. Many software industrialists were afraid of Linux when it started to gain recognition. It was as if they felt their career was being undermined by the idea of free software; what could be worse for their income source! After 20 years some of the biggest software enterprises run on Linux and other free software based on the same fundamental open source ideas. I had faith in Linux as soon as I heard about it and that I was right, although a bit late. I have a similar faith in the bitcoin system and I hope it has as much flexibility to be able to mature nicely as it gains acceptance.

Wow, that's awesome... Denying Bitcoin is like denying God's will.

I was really flabbergasted when i noticed the biggest part (like... ehh 99%? xD) was totally not interested in bitcoin and a lot of them were also actually anti-bitcoin. (with ofcourse all the arguments mentioned above)
I had hoped occupy would spread the word about bitcoin but no, on the contrary. :(

Digital wallets - consumers hate them.

I don't think they hate them.

I think it's a combination of "Why you tryin to scam me?" and "Oh NOss! Computer has viruses to steal mah money!" and "WTF is a digital currency?"

Some is just ignorance, some are valid concerns. Persistence and education are the keys to success!

If that's true, then Google has just made a MASSIVE business blunder.

LOLZ.

Normal money is all digital now, but ironically USD is more virtual than Bitcoin, because it can be created at whim.

An online Bank of America checking account is little different than an online MtGox account, accept that the former will give you a debit card and a credit card.  How long do you think it'll be before Gox is offering the same?

Almost all critcisms of Bitcoin boil down to condemnations of current inconvenience. Anti-Bitcoin people see the inconveniences and condemn the system to failure. Pro-Bitcoin people see the inconveniences and build systems to solve them.

Tout homme qui dirige, qui fait quelque chose, a contre lui ceux qui voudraient faire la même chose, ceux qui font précisément le contraire, et surtout la grande armée des gens d'autant plus sévères qu'ils ne font rien du tout.
-Jules Clarétie

If I translate that quote, it would be something like:

Every man who lead, who do something, has against him: everybody who wants to do the same thing, everybody who is doing the exact opposite, and, the harshest of them, the great army of people who do nothing at all.

The Bitcoin community is currently leading a big project. That's why you have a lot of people against it. Criticism is the proof that you're doing something.

I found the original analogy apt, and your potential misunderstanding about what Linux is may have important implications for the future of bitcoin.

Linux (http://www.kernel.org/) is not an Operating system, it is a kernel (can be lossely defined as a hardware abstraction layer). When people refer to "Linux", they are often referring to a GNU (http://www.gnu.org/)/Linux distribution bundled with things like the X11 Window system (http://www.x.org/wiki/); often with the KDE (http://kde.org/) or GNOME (http://www.gnome.org/) desktop environments (I prefer simpler Window managers myself).

Android uses the Linux kernel, but not the GNU user-land. Some distributions such as Debian (http://www.debian.org/ports/) allow you to replace the kernel with FreeBSD or Hurd.

The point here is that many users don't understand/know about the reason the GNU system was developed. While describing an OS as GNU+Linux may be annoying at times, it hints niether part is complete without the other. With Bitcoin the danger (that some people have voiced on the forums) is that bitcoin will become the new "gold standard": with the average person using electronic wallets backed by bitcoin, but not using bitcoin directly. Over time, some e-wallet providers may be temped to do fractional reserve lending, making history repeat itselft.

even if bitcoin becomes large and fractional reserve banking based on it comes into existence, it will still solve the more important issue of the control of the supply and the central banking debt and interest

The difference being if I lose my password to my BoA account I do not lose all of my money. I lose my BoA issues debit card I do not lose all of my money.

I delete my Bitcoin wallet file I lose all of my money. There is no recourse.

It would take Gox millions to become certified to become PCI compliant and handle PII data.

Just read this article on Dwolla for mor einfo: http://www.businessinsider.com/this-28-year-old-is-making-sure-credit-cards-wont-exist-in-the-next-few-years-2011-11

Backup your wallets. Problem solved.

Yes and if you delete your important work documents you lose them also.

Average people will not keep bitcoins on their computer, anyway. They'll use ewallets and online banks, just like they do now with dollars. And again, you're pointing to a lack of current convenience which is quite easy for a moderately talented entrepreneur to solve.

Why are so many people Anti-Bitcoin? Because people have hard time coming up with a reason embrace bitcoin unless they have a clear understanding of it's inferior counterpart -fiat currencies.

Right now turning people pro-bitcoin is a two step process.

1. Knowing why fiat currency is failing our economy.
2. Why bitcoin is better.

The problem is that many people think they know how money works, but don't. It's also tough trying to explain bitcoin when central banks and authorities have obfuscated how fiat works for decades while antagonizing any opposition. Ever notice how new credit cards aren't gold or platinum anymore? There is probably a good reason why they've stopped using them to promote elite credit status for example. People are thinking "Why reinvent the wheel?" while comparing bitcoin to failures of the past like flooz. People must understand why we need to embrace p2p decentralized cryptocurrency like bitcoin first otherwise they simply won't care to dig any deeper. They are fine with taking what the mass media gives them at face value.

The truth is that until people start to see why we need an alternative solution to cash and fiat currencies, adoption rate for bitcoin isn't going to skyrocket. The good news is that protests like #ows is slowly helping people realize the root of our economic problems - inflationary fiat currencies under monopoly of central banking system world wide.

I haven't seen or met anyone who thinks OWS is about the currency itself.  It's about greed, high unemployment, corporate influence, manipulation, lobbying, lots of things, but not the currency itself.   

Most of the things I hear is about banks (from both ows and tea party), and Bitcoin can definitely be about that. Though I still believe Bitcoin's biggest need is in third world and developing nations with restrictive financial systems, where people with skill and intellect would be able to use it to source their skills to the rest of the world (such as a poor engineer in India or Russia being able to easily do work long distance online for someone in US or Europe)

I've seen several "End the Fed" signs all over Occupy LA. Even had this huge mural depicting the Fed as an enormous tentacle monster.
http://imgur.com/LuaTW.jpg

Even the currency is weighted against the working man - inflation taxes are regressive, siphoning money from the poor to the rich. The Fed gives interest rates to banks that the rest of us would drool over... and that same money is then lent to us at a far higher rate. Oh THANK you kind sir, for graciously lending me money out of thin air, created at the expense of my own savings, for your own profit, which you still can't do right and demand a bailout.

They're robbing all of us every day we hold USD. Does Occupy have a unified solution? No. But they're not happy about a monetary system stacked against us.

Bitcoin induces severe cognitive dissonance.

For example, this is what might be going on in the head of a typical left-liberal:


BELIEF 1

"Privacy is a human right"
"Spying on private data is wrong"

BELIEF 2

"Free speech is a human right"
"Censoring private data exchange is wrong"

BELIEF 3

"too much personal wealth is wrong"
"taxing wealth in order to achieve equality is right"

     THEREFORE  
  
     "spying on private wealth is right"  
     "censoring private wealth exchange is right"

NEW FACT

"wealth is just data"

THEREFORE

"Right is Wrong"



Bitcoin, by introducing a new observation, "wealth is just data", exposes to some people that some of their most strongly held convictions are contradictory.  

They were contradictory all along of course,  but their practical day-to-day experience hadn't yet provided them with sufficient observations for falsification.  


Cognitive dissonance takes hard work to resolve. Sometimes denial is easier.

Also, giving up those beliefs means a significant personal loss for some people because it results in exclusion from their social group.

I think you are giving them WAAAAY to much credit. From my time spent as a personal financial advisor, and based on stats of how many people retire ok vs those who have to keep working till they die, I'm very convinced that vast majority of people just don't understand money or wealth, period.
So it's really closer to:

BELIEF 1

"Things should be fair"


BELIEF 2

"Some people have more than others, which is unfair"


BELIEF 3

"Someone should do something to make things more fair."


The question of why things are "unfair" or what can effectively be done about it never even enters peoples' minds.

As for why Bitcoin is hated? If I were to guess, it's a combination of the technology's grandiose claims and possibilities butting up against the group who uses "The Internet is serious business" sarcastically. They don't understand it, it's different, and it threatens to change what they are already used to, and it's also on the internet, and since "everyone knows you can't make money on the internet," they can only mock it and its supporters. This whole thing is almost exactly like what happened with SecondLife, where the technology promised to reinvent the web and expand how we do business (grandiose claims), but since it's on the internet, it can't be serious, so was mocked incessantly, even despite people earning hundreds of thousands on it from fairly successfull businesses (personally, I only earned hundreds of $10s). Once they get bored with mocking and hating, they will move on and eventually accept it.

Yes of course the banks as well Rassah, and I agree with the rest of your post as well.  Most people don't know enough about finances/economics to care about why they would use Bitcoin.  It may be too far ahead of its time. 

And yes I have seen the End the Fed signs, but a few are hardly representative of the majority.  Besides, I would suspect quite a few of them don't even know what the fed is or what it does.

Fair enough, they might vary by city too. At least in LA, the signs are everywhere and the mural is in the center of camp. I should ask them about it and post the results to a new thread...

Some really,really great insight you all left me to think about I'll try to reply to some of your comments!  ;D

That would be interesting, you know the media only shows what they think their viewers want to hear.