Bitcoin Forum

All,

as you observe, despite press coverage, bitcoin is on a decline (yes, exchange rates are not everything, but trust me this is crucial. If there won't be a continuous fund inflow into the bitcoin economy, the entire Bitcoin project may crash big time)

This is a negative spiral.

1. BTC exchange rates drop
2. Investors shy away
3. BTC exchange rate drops more
4. Miners are not profitable any more. They start selling
5. BTC exchange rate drops more..
6. BTC/USD soon will be where it started
7. Press coverage announces the death of this "geek" idea..
8. Maybe bitcoin can get up on its feet again,. but it is very tough after a big crash

This is not meant negative, but positive:

WE NEED PEOPLE DRIVING the BITCOIN project forward properly. And not only look at their own profit or debate hours in the forum about minor things.

They should (re)invest part of their income into MARKETING of bitcoins, CREATING new businesses, etc. in a much more sincere way. I know some people are doing this in a great way already, but it seems it is only a handful.

For instance, a professional operated and marketed exchange is one element that is desperately needed. An exchange that can handle big volumes and can be trusted by investors.

I released the source code (http://gitorious.org/intersango/master/trees/master) for Britcoin (https://britcoin.co.uk/) for this reason. Currently we're talking with lawyers to gain the relevant licenses and expand to other currencies hopefully.

If anyone wants to setup their own exchange, then I can do this for a small fee of ~400 BTC.

genjix is the perfect example of what I mean.

Driving Bitcoin project does not equal driving bitcoin price. The last thing Bitcoin needs is a bubble.
We don't need "investors" who buy and hoard bitcoins. There is zero benefit from them for the Bitcoin project. And by driving the BTC bubble they can scare the merchants when the bubble bursts. And all bubbles burst.

By the way, what's wrong with MtGox? As soon as they started accepting wire/ACH/euro transfers, there is no real obstacle with buying BTCs. Buying small amounts of BTCs or buying fast is another story but buying gold is not easy either when credit cards are expensive and risky for the sellers.

I dislike repeating myself, but I proposed this solution in another topic (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3143.msg75681#msg75681) and got almost no responses, but I think it would be a pretty good way to atract bitcoin-based services:

BitcoinMarket v2 is professional, and too-often overlooked: https://www.bitcoinmarket.com/

I hope to start my bitcoin roadtrip [thread: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4752.0] this weekend or early next week; as I travel I'm planning on telling everyone I meet about bitcoin, including local media outlets.

Maybe we can convince the people behind Minecraft (http://www.minecraft.net) that there would be some synergy if they accepted this new digital "mining" based currency.

I expect the exchange rate to drop significantly over the following weeks. It is just way too high. The system currently costs about $4500 a day just to keep running (number of Bitcoins mined per day at current exchange rate), without actually providing all that many things you can do with it. Besides admiring its beauty. And recent Slashdotting has shown: Not too many people care about that beauty too much, they maybe think it's a cute idea, but move on when there isn't anything to do with it that they can't do already.

But it's probably not too bad if the hype wears off a little and the project can catch some breath. The reality of software development is, that it takes a lot of time and can not really be scaled up that well. And I think that's the most crucial part that needs improving right now. Yes, I agree, we need more "goods and services", but I think the precursor to that is better software. It's just too much work to integrate Bitcoin right now. We need software libraries and webservices to make that much easier, we need better and easier to use client software and we need mobile clients. These will take time to develop and the hype economy will probably crash in the meantime.

Wanna setup a Bitcoin-Zaypay (http://www.zaypay.com/) site anyone? SMS and phonecall payments. It would be a very easy way to buy small amounts of coins internationally.

MtGox's and Britcoin's establishment of legal status should make it easier for bigger business to accept coins. Spesmilo or other lightweight clients could be promoted for newbies. Bitcoin as a browser plugin would be golden, even if for MyBitcoin accounts only.

WARNING -- spesmilo and other clients are not ready for prime time.  IMO, they should not be recommended at this time.  Other than mainline, no client can yet handle bitcoin details such as a block chain reorganization.

(besides the fact that the wiki and some of these clients are filled with specious things like Tonal, which will only serve to confuse the average user)

People always felt that there is not enough goods and services in the economy. However, our entrepreneurs are not really that fast at iterating or at launching new products.

Yeah, I get the feeling that a good few people are working on their own projects that just aren't ready yet, at least this is the situation with me.

We're taking our time because there's not enough competition to motivate bitcoin entrepreneurs to improve their OODA loop.

I totally agree. Instead of arguing about politics and details for pages and pages, you could invest your time in promoting Bitcoin, contributing to bounties, doing whatever you can to help the economy.

My feeling is that few people understand that they have influence over Bitcoin’s value. You can help by joining this thread (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4667.0), for example.

Bitcoin is a sound concept. I wouldn't worry too much. It may reach rock bottom but it can easily gain momentum again. People will pick it up like crazy at less than 50 cents a pop. Personally, I'm ecstatic. This is a great time to buy.

Good stuff in this thread, going to watch it

I was thinking of open-source exchange software the other day. I am glad it wasn't an original idea.

Thank you.

Charging .5% on every transaction and 2% on withdrawals? No thanks. I can't even trade from bitcoin to "BMUSD", which I can't do anything with anyways, for free.

x2

I'll build a website to buy/sell bitcoins in my home country mainly because almost nobody there will want to get into the bitcoin world if they have no way to change BCs into theyr own currency.

It's true that the success of Bitcoin is contingent on many things: some of these things, like an economy, are slower to develop than others, like interest in mining.

But BTC is not about to swing into full-on crisis mode.  Nobody should be surprised that a large trade weakened the value of BTC--it's common knowledge that bitcoin is extremely volatile.

I feel that "NEEDED URGENTLY" is a bit overblown.  :-\

Furthermore, don't underestimate the rate at which organic growth is occurring.  The very nature of the first-adopter crowd (think hacker news) that's been flocking to the hype is the exact kind of individual that will build solid e-commerce services.

Agreed.  Also a huge number of coins were moved at the low price, and the huge block for sale is at a higher price then it was before.  The price will rebound.

Minecraft would be a great get. The current problem with bitcoin is 1. theres no merchants because its hard to integrate accepting bitcoins into ones website. I want to start a branch of my company that accepts bitcoins for my freshwater pearl jewelry but i cant think of a way to do it since mybitcoin.com doesnt take shipping info like paypal does. As soon as someone makes a bitcoin version of paypal that will change. and 2. bitcoin wallets aren't mobile enough. You can only spend bitcoins while sitting at your computer, not at the cash register at your local starbucks. a bitcoin mobile app for iphone and android could help that.

We have a bounty for that. Bitcoin entrepreneurs are slow to act or that nobody is volunteering to do it. It takes us a long time for a bitcoin animation video to appears.

The source code to Bitcoin Central exchange is also open:

     https://github.com/davout/bitcoin-central

I haven't looked at them extensively, but from what I understand reading the threads in this forum they only deal in USD and EUR. Doesn't do you much good if you don't live in Europe or the U.S.

Well, the answer to that is very plain: very few people outside those jurisdictions want Bitcoin.

You know, there is a whole world that exists outside the United States. You might want to have a look some time.

Dude...you guys are agreeing with each other.

Your definition of "agreeing" must be significantly different from mine. :-)

Atlas, if you were joking, you should've included a smiley.

That's a non-issue.

I've been helping a client of mine integrate mybitcoin's SCI for the sale of tangible goods. Your site just has to collect the shipping details before you send the customer to the payment page. You can do all of your fancy shipping calculation stuff, and give the customer a firm price before they proceed.

I'm working with yet another client to allow for the payment of 1-month (and trial) website memberships too. His site just asks the user to choose a user/pass before we send the customer to the SCI. He is able to check if the username has been taken already / force the user to select a strong password. It works like a champ.

I've actually had a lot of people pay me in BTC lately for mybitcoin integrations. I have the permission from some of my clients to release some of these shopping cart plugins into the public domain. Once they are finished they will appear on bitcoinsoftware.com. :)

Not only that, but we also need more forex (mtgox/bcm) markets that are outside of the USA's jurisdiction.

The recent Liberty Dollar court ruling should make anyone in the USA, who is participating in a Bitcoin exchange service, very nervous.

Also, any large exchanger will draw the attention of local law enforcement eventually. I can think of many conditions that would lead an investigator right to the doorstep of a large and successful Bitcoin market.

What we need are thousands of little participating exchangers all over the world. It doesn't make sense to have a P2P currency with a few large centralized markets.

Hawala

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

So would that mean sites like mtgox allowing instant transfer to sites such as btcex and vice versa?

Yes, yes.. I know what Hawala is. :)

Sure.

Also, the forex markets/exchange providers should be careful not to reveal their identity to each other.

Could you go into more detail as to how this would work? I also know what hawala is.

Well, both sites are already connected to the Bitcoin network. It's just a matter of moving the BTC and crediting an account on the other site. It's not really that complicated.

But what about non-bitcoin cash?

Is this the sort of thing ripple was designed for?

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5501.msg80589#msg80589 (http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5501.msg80589#msg80589)

We see some great progress when looking at the above post. This could be big for bitcoins.

Got a guy with 12+ years SAP Financial thinking about how Bitcoin could fit into SAP .... is there a good open source SAP clone out there?