Bitcoin Forum

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2014/10/29/jeffrey-robinson-bitcoin.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=V_Taboola (http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2014/10/29/jeffrey-robinson-bitcoin.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=V_Taboola)

Have you all seen this video (from Oct. 2014) where Jeffrey Robinson denounces the long term viability of Bitcoin?

He calls those that thing Bitcoin is going to take over the world or soar to high prices "lunatics", cult like behavior.

He says that the Cuban peso is a stronger currency than Bitcoin. And with only 250k active Bitcoin users there are more piano tuners in Canada (than BTC users).

What do you all think?

It has long term viability.

I agree with the "cult" thing however. Its pretty nuts, especially here and on reddit. "Praise Satoshi"  ::)

this video has been posted , I remember seeing it
I can agree with him in some points  , but how they made those calculations "250k active bitcoin users" ? how do they calculated that ? thousands of wallets (some are from the same user) or they checked only wallet with money in ?

I think both Jeffrey Robinson and Richard Quest can both eat a bag of dicks.

If we're the lunatic fringe, the cultists, I'd love for Jeffrey Robinson to go toe to toe in a debate with Andreas Antonopolous:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNGFZDO8mM

He's obviously trolling to get more mentions and further his rep as a fraud buster.  He claims that Bitcoin the Blockchain technology is innovative, but the currency/commodity itself is pure pump and dump scheme.  That in itself doesn't make sense, because the Blockchain and Bitcoin protocol cannot be separated.  They were invented to work in conjunction with eachother.  The Blockchain can be forked, built on top of, but both are here to stay.  Together.

Obviously Dell, Overstock, Expedia, Newegg, Paypal, and Microsoft didn't get Jeffrey Robinson's memo catering to us lunatics.

Jeffrey Robinson is trying to sell his book. The book must really suck if he has resort to lies, half-truths, and innuendo.

btc has been around for awhile now. i dont see it disappearing anytime soon

We are the crazy ones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjYbDnTshHw

I consider it a compliment these days to be called crazy or a criminal by the likes of these assholes.

I've been saying the same thing over and over again and every time believers answer "stop fudding"  :)

People like the Wright Brothers were called crackpots and lunatics, I'm with the lunatics.

250,000 piano tuners in Canada? LOL. I doubt that there is 250,000 pianos. What a fucking idiot.

This... I highly doubt there are even 250,000 pianos in my country..  I know more people that have BTC then have a piano..

The truth has never been funnier to watch.

1995 bill gates on letterman.

As we were about the internet as well, Why the hell do I need a computer to record the audio on a baseball game I have a tape recorder noob.

Now who do you know that owns a tape recorder vs a cell phone?  In fact do you know anyone that owns a tape recorder?

Yeah, we he has to stretch that far to get a point out that's just beyond over the top in trying to use a metaphor. It's one thing to point out certain flaws that one sees in something but to try and be cheeky like that just discredits him altogether.

I know a guy in a major metro area of a million people, he's one of 3 piano tuners... possibly in areas with a lively theatre and showbiz scene the concentration is somewhat higher, but that leads to reasonable estimates in the low thousands for the whole US.

He was comparing the number of piano tuners to the number of people who accept Bitcoin directly for their own goods or services. For instance the alpaca socks guy, not like you guys.

Not a cult, totally not a cult!

I'm not in Canada, but the neighbor across the street is a piano tuner. He's a little crazy so we get along great.
Next time he tunes our piano, I will offer to pay him in bitcoin instead of honey.

He has a bumper sticker that says "End the Fed"... maybe he already takes bitcoin... ;D

I'm sure he would've said the same thing about the Internet being 'cult-like'. Some people just know a good idea when they see one and want to promote it, but unlike fanatical cults we actually believe in something that actually exists  ;D.

We study sane people here, they are funny! Bring them on ;D

If there are more piano tuners than bitcoin users, that means BUY BUY BUY!! ;D
Let them fight over a few satoshis while we are still able to buy full bitcoins

agreed

sadly people actually give away lower to middle pianos in UK too, as pain in arse to tune and costs

people buy electric keyboards that sounds same

I like idea there is this little people STILL in bitcoin

the upside is enromous

I thought I was late to the game 2 years ago. did same as everyone who heard of in 2010 and discounted as scam etc

pound for pound bitcoin is actually cheaper than it's ever been, and a selection of alts are just being given away at these prices.
I'm buying both when cash allows

I see it as a compliment. Visionaries are usually considered lunatics and eventually end up guiding future progress.

True, but sometimes lunatics are just, you know, lunatics. Not every "weird" invention is going to be the next internet. BTC can become big, but the chances are far from 100%.

And jealous he did not get in on the action during the early days.

+1

Jeffrey Robinson was basically my first introduction to Bitcoin. He spoke at a small conference in NYC, or rather ranted about Bitcoin being a hoax perpetuated by "libertarian anarchists". He told the audience that if we wanted to learn more, to buy his book Bitcon which I promptly bought. I come from the electronic payments and non-bank lending industry and Bitcoin was something I had been hearing about for a while. Basically, he's the one that convinced me to finally learn about it.

So I read the book and learned a lot but ultimately I felt some of his arguments missed the mark. The traditional payments industry is already a disaster. This is how many people get paid when you buy a cup of coffee with a credit card:

*The small business owner
*The small business owner’s merchant account representative
*The merchant account representative’s company (the ISO)
*The payment processor (the processor settling the transaction)
*The acquiring bank (the payment processor’s bank that is authorized to use the payment networks)
*The payment networks (Visa, mastercard, etc.)
*The customer’s card issuing bank (The bank that issued the card to the customer gets a percentage of every sale made with that card)
*The state (where there is sales tax)

This is at a minimum. There can be additional layers depending on the card type. Also I suppose the small business owner can't even get that deposit unless they have a bank account so there are other ways bankers make money. For a $1 cup of coffee, this sure is a lot of people getting paid.

I sold credit card processing accounts (merchant accounts) for several years. You can win a sale just by saving the business owner 10 basis points on their card processing. Bitcoin can save entire percentage points. That made me say wow because it's really disruptive. Many of the mainstream disruptive payment processors of today aren't actually disruptive. They might cut one party out of the layer like the ISO and market directly to the merchant. Big whoop you might say, but it's had the payments industry on edge for years. Payments professionals and their trade groups have been freaking out because just 1 banker in a chain of 6 that are used to getting paid might be phased out by something "disruptive." Imagine phasing out all 6 bankers? Now that's disruptive!

There's an upside and downside to Bitcoin, and that's no chargebacks. If I send you bitcoins and you don't send me what I want in return, I can't call my bank and have them confiscate bitcoins right out of your bank account. Good for you, bad for me.

In traditional payment processing, if I dispute a charge on my card because you wouldn't give me a refund, your card processor will just debit the money out of your account unless you can prove without a doubt that I got what I paid for. That's a best case scenario because banks can and often do just freeze all the business owner's processing revenues when there's a chargeback dispute even if what they're freezing is way above and beyond what is being disputed. A $100 dispute can freeze up thousands of dollars in funds so that card processor can proactively "protect" itself in case other disputes should occur. I've watched clients get crippled by processors freezing their funds. And I'm not talking about illegal offshore drug businesses, I'm talking about mom and pop retail such as family restaurants.

In one of my experiences, a restaurant with an average transaction size of $80 catered a huge party around the holidays for which they charged $5,000. The processor thought it was too high compared to their average and froze the $5,000 in addition to all of their revenues going forward. They had to spend weeks trying to convince the processor that it was for a catering event. That meant humiliating themselves and getting their high paying customer involved in it. The customer had to submit affidavits to the business's card processor that confirmed they paid for a party and accepted the costs. Even then the processor didn't want to okay it. They told the business they wanted to cancel the charge altogether and the business was just going to have to deal with the customer paying them in cash. It was a nightmare.

And you want to know what? I dealt with these issues all the time. This is standard operating procedure. You blink for one second and the processor blows you up. First transaction I ever did with Square was sell a magazine advertisement and Square told me they were keeping the money (more than 2 grand) for at least six months and that I was banned from using their services in perpetuity because my business model might be high risk. Of course when they discovered the magazine covers the payments and lending industry, of which they're a part of, they reversed everything and paid me immediately. Had I not been in that position, they would've stolen the money as "protection" and left me with no recourse to get it back.

Banks do have real chargeback risk and they do need to be cautious and alert. I've seen them get burned on fraudulent transactions they didn't freeze. But when I can't do business with the guy standing next to me without six bankers deciding it's okay, it has to make you wonder. Everybody on Wall Street has to get a cut out of me buying a cup of coffee at 7-11.

Now I've been one of those bankers in a layer of six getting paid a cut of every card transaction a business does. Had I still depended on these accounts for a living, I'd be terrified of Bitcoin.
--

This is all part of my point. There are those that claim Bitcoin doesn't solve any problems and then there are those like Jeffrey Robinson that say Bitcoin is a scam with no need or use. He swung and missed. You will notice this is my first post and I know I'm late to the game here. I run the official forum and print trade magazine for a growing non-bank lending industry (dailyfunder.com), have attended the bitcoin center in NYC, have heard the Winklevii twins speak at a conference and just recently began dabbling in mining using some rather weak equipment. I'm doing it for the learning experience and as a hobby I suppose. How can one criticize something they've never tried? They can't. That's why I like getting my hands on everything.

I have bought Bitcoins from Coinbase and used some of them to buy a new monitor on Overstock. It's my impression they didn't pay the 3% in fees that their card processor would've charged them. I'm still waiting to see what the scam is...

Sure, there's a good portion of the Bitcoin crowd that are cultish lunatics. Anarchists? sure. Libertarians? Yup. Speculators and those hoping to get rich? Yes, they're all here in some capacity and so what? Revolutions bring out revolutionaries.

I think mainstream adoption of Bitcoin the currency has challenges for those who can't imagine a situation where:

• There is no FDIC if your bank blows up
  You can't dispute a charge and forcefully confiscate the funds back

Those are hurdles, not road blocks. Besides, Bitcoin doesn't have to be for EVERYONE, nor does it have to replace the dollar. Bitcoin the currency has a place alongside fiat. Don't listen to Jeffrey Robinson.

Usually those people seeing a lot of problem in bitcoin because they already get used to being robbed by fiat money, they think that is the nature of the world. These people's value has been twisted since long ago, typically they are old people or some one greatly benefiting from existing financial system

Bitcoin is an alternative global financial system at a very high level, but for normal people who are living in the lower part of the current social ladder, they don't even understand what's all that means, similar to Chinese people watching US elections. The learning curve is deep and long

TIL that I am a lunatic for not trusting central banks and looking out for alternatives.

OK.

I know several dudes that own the following and aren't afraid to use it, especially on some guy tryin' to sell a book.  8)

http://sensibleproducts.com/ducttapedispenser.jpg

Amazing post needs to be quoted.

Everyone's trying to sell a book...

What about fiat cults? The news anchors on the propaganda media, those areent cult leaders when they say that the global economy is out of the crisis (but we only have 4-5 quadrilion $ debt which the citizense of the world wil have to pay)

Probably his main objective of doing this is for him to grab bitcoin at much lower price. If he is offered 50btc at discounted price, would he have bought it in the first place? Those that say bitcoin is not useful is just trying to hide the truth. Let's say moving forward in 2015, what would be the future for btc price. 

Excellent post. Anyone who has had to deal with money men (particularly anyone who runs their own business) will have similar experiences to the above at some point. It seems to me that much of the consumer-side 'innovation' in traditional payment and banking systems involves disguising the enormous gorilla we all have on our backs from supporting this vast, inefficient and clumsy system. The benefits of Bitcoin are really very compelling if you ignore the meagre perks banks give us (and the BTC volatility..)

I think it is good that there is so much room for growth

So if BTC is $300 with so few users, where will it be when only 10% of internet users also use Bitcoin?

He's forgetting what kind of users we are. May as well have slammed linux in '96 for only being handful of users, now it's 40% of internet, 90% of top 500 etc.

We am the alpha geeks, we define the course of the future, what we adopt the world will adopt. We boosted linux in the 90s, we had Androids 5 or more years ago, you hear that Mr Robinson, that is the sound of inevitability.

I`ll definitely need to buy some before new year eve, i`ve already missed the 1 in a life time opportunity in 2013 to buy it when it was 2 cents, if i only had bought for 1000$ backthen , now i`d be a billionaire.

Next time when it will be adopted by lets say 30% of the wolrd popupation, then bitcoin will get to the moon, aka 1 million dollar = 1 bitcoin :D

Next one i wont miss.

The day will arrive where we will be able to buy 10 pianos for 1 bitcoin  :P !

I don't believe it would ever take over :P

Dont be pessimistic, just wait till the global keynesian debt bubble ponzi scheme collapses and then we shall see  ;)

I think that in the statements of Jeffrey Robinson a lot of speculations and errors. Most of his arguments are not supported by concrete facts and evidences. I think that in this way he is promoting himself.

Well  that day is now if you want wooden frame ones that have been too dried out in central heating with all the veneer cracked up etc.

Better create more debt by leveraging loans into arbitrary tokens which were defined by an anonymous entity to require an increasing number of otherwise useless computations.  

No, what you're presenting as a solution doesn't make sense.

No. What you are saying does not make any sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0)

They are just idiot.

Are we arguing with links now? Cute.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking#The_Conspiracy_Theories

I won't watch your half hour video, but I'll assume that's right on topic on what you are trying to communicate to me.
Also I have already been down that road you are going, and thankfully for my mental health went back.

No sense in confusing you with facts since your mind is made up.

I already know those so called facts but discarded them after further considerations. I spent over a year among you conspiracy nuts.

As it says in the link, fractional reserve banking is bad, in some regards yes. But that other shit is antisemitism stirred with other paranoid crap spun by right wing(nuttery) media.

1176 and Legendary but still a fucking useless troll. Go back to your dungeon Igor.

:D :D :D :D :D :D

And them they are not lunatics and fools??  :P ;D

https://i.imgur.com/BjjkhWT.png?1

To think you could dot that^ with a usb stick and 1000x more money loaded on it.

 'You can fool some of the people some of the time and the rest you can jerk off' - Robin Williams