Bitcoin Forum

Hello,

I just wanted to discuss some things about Bitcoin and it's survival. It is clear that Bitcoin can not survive if the mass public can't get ahold of Bitcoins.

With centralized exchanges the whole purpose of Bitcoin is defeated. 95% (if not more) of the price of BTC is pure speculation hoping the prices go up, meaning 5% is for consumptions. This ofcourse cannot be sustained meaning the price will drop unless consumptions will increase alot.

Since exchanges aren't here to serve the public or the 'p2p' idea of Bitcoin, but only to serve themselves with profits from fees. They are the cancer of Bitcoin.

My thought is that only miners can solve this problem, ofcourse miners mostly don't care about Bitcoin either and only mine to sell them immedietally on exchanges for USD to fools.

So whats the solution?

In my opinion, the only solution is a built in p2p exchange into the Bitcoin client.

Users of Bitcoin can broadcast 'Buy Bitcoin for $ in US, via bank'. And others can accept this call and contact the seller in any way (like through a Personal Message). Then the selling and buying of the Bitcoin is given to the people, not exchanges.

Let's work out the p2p exchange idea here.

It's really the only solution..

Discuss.

IDIOT WARNING: THIS TOPIC IS NOT ABOUT SOLVING SPECULATION. THIS TOPIC IS ABOUT HOW TO MAKE BITCOIN CONVENIENT FOR THE AVERAGE PEOPLE. A CONVENIENT BUY BITCOIN SYSTEM

The only thing that accomplishes is screwing exchanges over by wrecking their business model.

Thank you for this very thoughtful reply.

Alright.

"With centralized exchanges the whole purpose of Bitcoin is defeated. 95% (if not more) of the price of BTC is pure speculation hoping the prices go up, meaning 5% is for consumptions. This ofcourse cannot be sustained meaning the price will drop unless consumptions will increase alot."

Your p2p plan does not change this. Thank you for your well thought out plan.

Your thoughts are probably correct, but how will your solution protect people against a rip off? It provides scammers with an easy way to contact people to defraud them.

Mauline

Doesn't this already exist in the form of the Bitcoin-OTC (#Bitcoin-OTC on IRC.Freenode.Net)?
Checkout http://bitcoin-otc.com/

Includes gpg authentication
Public Web of Trust (ratings based on community trust)
Etc.

Yes it does, because the methods of payments are not limited to what exchanges accept, but what people who sell Bitcoins accept.

There can be people locally selling them for cash (instant).
People selling them via local banks (instant).
All this is inside the Bitcoin network, so you can 'lookup' sellers if you want to buy and if they accept your payment options that you want.

It's much like bitmarket.eu, where people also put their 'payment methods' at the bid price. But it will be inside the p2p network of Bitcoin which makes its extremely useful.

The whole point is to have this inside the Bitcoin protocol/client

People trade 'in person' with each other. It's just like buying something with cash from another person in real-life. You can't really get ripped off at that point.

This really is the only solution, to make Bitcoins true 'digital cash'.

I'm telling you and I know you are feeling it too, current Bitcoin system will fail unless this gets implemented.

For those who are not aware, there is a service for locating in-person Bitcoin traders:

http://btcnearme.com/

Isn't that basically what the #bitcoin-otc achieves?

No because it's not embedded into the Bitcoin client/protocol.

We don't imbed the IRC client inside the bitcoin client because if each and every application did that it would a vast waste.

Do you imbed firefox or internet explorer into every application whose user might like to look at a web page?

I would hope not.

But maybe you are a Windows user and actually would prefer every application to be as big as the collection of all applications due to all having all the others inside itself?

On the other hand would you really notice the difference if we made the bitcoin package install depend on (and cause if its not been done yet) the install of an IRC client, and then fire up an IRC client for you any time you would like to do some trading with other users?

Ah heck, why even bother, we can fire up internet explorer for you, sending it to freenode's webchat interface targetting #bitcoin-otc

Would that truly be so horrible that you'd rather we put a whole extra copy of internet explorer inside the bitcoin client itself?

Should we also include a whole duplicate of each voicechat system you might find some other users of bitcoin on so you won't have to type but can simply talk to them? But wait, does Skype even give out its source code so that we could imbed it into bitcoin?

-MarkM-

Why not? How much gold is for consumption?

@markm

Missed the point.. I am not talking about embedding an existing system into Bitcoin. But something new. Possibly only something that Satoshi can build.

@istar

Gold is the only element in the world who has this property called 'Store of Value' true meaning. OGold is real money/store of value. Everything else is a commodity or currency. Bitcoin is not and will never be a store of value like Gold is, because it's not physical.

The reason of this thread was to point out to people that Bitcoin has no meaning if normal people cant get them. I understand most here are still in their denial phase to accept the existance of this issue but I'm seeing some people recognizing it already, like Atlas with his EasyCoin suggestion.

You have got to be trolling...

I pity you for not knowing what I'm talking about. Hell I'd even bet that you never touched pure gold in your life.

All I got to say is I got great answers from great people. You guys are very kind. You really think about other people and how to improve the community.

Not.

You guys suck dude, seriously. What a terrible community. Probably even proud to be such assholes too.

Good luck all. I believed in Bitcoins.. until I realized it won't work.

This still does nothing to prevent speculation. You've just described solving a completely different problem.

Help me understand  ???

Jesus christ. This topic isn't even about solving speculation. How old are you? So I know if I should take you serious.

LOL. That question is how old are you. I can't stop laughing.

I dont get how any exchange is a problem. People trade currencies all the time. Is there a large group of people wanting the change Bitcoins from currency into fairy tale dust? Seriously, Exchanges exist because people want then. No one forces you to go there at all. Also, if bitcoins are to become used more often people are going to need incentive. Like, I don't know, a 3 bitcoin item today will cost the same thing in a month. I run a shop and I can't charge x bitcoins for something all the time, people would call me a thief. What seems fair today is insane tomorrow or even 3 hours later/

this solution doesn't even make any sense.

How would you put your dollars (or other currency) into your bitcoin client to exchange to someone else for bitcoins?

bitcoins already includes p2p exchange, of bitcoins.  If you want bitcoins buy them from someone.  If you think they cost more then they are worth, then don't buy them and wait for them to go down in price  (they'll surely plummet if it is just a speculatory bubble)

Speculators that predict the price poorly lose money, which means they stop speculating, it is a self correcting problem.

+1

Shouts and calls people idiots at the beginning. Then proposes a sensles solution to to non exsistent problem.

I've been working on a pure p2p exchange for a while now: https://github.com/macourtney/Dark-Exchange

I'm very close to a release. All of the initial features are done. I'm currently working out some bugs.

I would say I'm planning to release this week, but I've said it so many times before, the words are meaningless. I'll release it.. eventually. :)