Bitcoin Forum

At this stage in BTC there is a serious problem with consumer adoption of BTC.

If you look at the growth charts, the past was fueled by consumer adoption for silk road IMO.

If you wanted to buy on SR you had to convert fiat into btc.

Then silk road got busted, the news about it fueled some spec money and also gave enough press to make some merchants accept it.

Now here we are almost a year later on what should be a viral growth opportunity and BTC value is going the wrong way since high at end of 2013.

Look at btc with a blank mind, you have zero knowledge of the coin, you go to Overstock, you buy something, you see visa/mc/ax and paypal then you see bitcoin

Remember you have a blank mind, you maybe heard of it in the news and silk road or investors loosing their btc

Now name one reason for any 'average consumer' that gets a check weekly or twice a month, to say to themselves, hmmm, bitcoin, what is that, why do I need bitcoin to pay Overstock for my purchase?

Remember this is average joe blow consumer who is broke, he/shee lives off CREDIT CARDS, they have no real savings nor stocks, they get a minor wage from a faceless corp and every penny is accounted for by the gov they live in jurisdiction of.

That's the average nobody on the net, average broke a$$ nobody with a nothing job and no real money.

Now before SR got busted, what fueled the 'consumer' growth was here is where you can buy your drugs ON LINE, oh you need btc.

So that bought into btc a lot of people with money to acquire btc for one reason, joe consumer on SR had to acquire btc to play the game on SR.

Feds bust SR and news goes out and you have some spec money thrown into the mix, then you have some big companies say let's take this and turn it into fiat, more spec money comes in, but what item is now you must have btc to buy it? Nothing

 Just follow the stock reports from Overstock, they mention btc, and they mention how bad it is, less than 1% of sales, that is NOTHING, not even a reason for a retailer to retool and take it.

So step away from 'your knowledge' about btc, put yourself into the mind of joe blow nobody broke a$$ consumer, give that person one easily understood reason why they need to jump through all the hoops of BUYING btc.

No compelling reason for a consumer to buy btc to then buy stuff, no reason for btc price to keep rising, that's why December 2013 it was 1100 btc and now it's in the 300's.

The appeal of 'anonymous' transactions do not apply to joe blow average consumer, the reason, they have no secrets, they go to a job the gov knows they have, they get a wage deposited into their petty bank account the gov knows they have, that is their life, they are typical broke wage earners. Most of them can't afford a drug habit, the broke people with drug habits end up being forced to become criminals to afford their drug habits, the elite professionals who have drug habits aren't an elite professional for long, they burn out fast.

Silk Road IMO fueled btc acceptance by a very small segment of society and today when a big merchant puts up a shingle like Overstock and says we take btc, so what, less than 1% of their sales are btc, it's in their stock reports they must file.

All the bs btc propaganda that every bitbot spews about why you must have btc is bs to THE AVERAGE CONSUMER.

Oh, fiat is worthless, so is btc, everything is, unless enough people agree fiat, gold, silver or btc have a value and trade with it, otherwise everything has no value.

Oh, your gov is about to crash and burn, yeah we hear that all the time

Oh, you gov knows everything you do, don't you want anonymous money, why the person is a broke wage earner and the gov knows every penny they have

Oh, your trans is secure, really assuming they have a brain and don't have a million viruses on their computer or phone

Oh, it's a great investment, really 1100 bucks 9 months and now it's in the 300's what drug are YOU ON

How many big retailers have to put up bitcoin signs here and sell almost nothing via btc before you all understand, if bitcoin wallets are not filled with btc on mega-millions of users laptops, having merchants take bitcoin means nothing, you need a legion of consumers with bitcoin money ready to buy and these consumers are usually broke and need credit cards to buy stuff.

SR didn't offer drugs for credit card transactions they offered btc trades, so that fueled consumers buying btc

I would call the Overstock adoption of bitcoin now a proven FAILURE, they got in near the high of 1100 bucks and now its in the 300's.

So merchant adoption has moved the value of btc backwards if anything.

You need consumers to acquire btc and then you need consumers buying stuff with it for btc to become a 'currency'.

Right now btc is only a spec investment IMO, and that investment has lost 70% of its value since it peaked end of 2013.

Go ahead cry well the 'history of btc is long term growth', can you say BULL SH*T

There is no long term history of bitcoin, the history of bitcoin was it was fueled by silk road, when silk road crashed and burned, the media ran with bitcoin stories for a while and it fuled some minor spec money

Now that spec money lost 70% of what they put into bitcoin end of 2013

There is simply no great need for any consumer to acquire btc and then to use it

Some people buy today and think btc is an investment, that means they don't spend it, that means it's not a currency

Now to me, the 'idea' of btc has appeal, but I'm not a broke a$$ wage earner, I'm more of what they call the .1% the cream of the 1%.

So I own btc, I have companies I control that take it, it does NOTHING in the real world, people press pay with credit card or paypal, they have no bitcoin to use and if they did they look at it as a commodity like gold you save it, that means btc is not a currency.

Now before you all cast some stones, who am I?

Here's my phone log from this morning

Curator of Smithsonian called
Curator of British Museum called
Spoke to the CEO of one of the top 5 publishing houses in the world
Spoke to senior partner at a major lawfirm
Spoke to editor of a major news org

So I guess my opinion and my words don't mean that much.

Now sell the average consumer one real reason they need to go out and try to acquire bitcoin and then consume goods with it.

If you can't do that, YOU HAVE NO CURRENCY as to btc.

Give them time and they may, but it is very risky for consumers as the moment. If you buy btc it could lose value before you've had the chance to spend it making it not very good at all in this regard.

You don't get it, retail is fueled by consumers buying with currency they don't have, credit cards.

PEOPLE ARE BROKE 99% are.

So why should a consumer buy bitcoin and then spend it?

Read the original paper, btc was theorized to be a minor petty cash way for people to exchange digital currency anonymously.

There was not one mention of retail in the paper.

Bitcoin does not fit retail, the reason is you have to spend money to spend bitcoin, LOL.

Retail is built upon, you deserve this dumb worthless no real value consumer item to make you forget your pathetic life, so CONsume it baby, use that worthless credit card and spend what you do not own.

That's retail, appeal to the instant gratification need of the faceless mass CONsumers.

OP is a fud creator, oh well i thought he would have had some valid points that actually held proper statistics.. but no, pure opinion

maybe as he is a noob he needs to realise that bitcoin IS NOT DYING. but infact adoption is growing. the problem is simple.

THE PROBLEM:
sheeple are ignoring proper news/stats of growth and only basing their opinions on a price that comes from exchanges where orders are satoshi dust amounts, being held up or down buy order walls of 200btc (not 13million).. whereby out of 12k trades per day per exchange. only 1% of that actually relates to a FIAT deposit/withdrawal. the rest is pure day trading.

i and many others are doing healthy trades at $500+ by simply ignoring those crappy exchange valued and their price rigging. we trade privately, and we have seen volume rises and alot of adoption personally, and also in the news

WAKE UP SHEEPLE no single person is throwing over $10k into crappy exchanges to buy 20+btc in one bite.. AMLKYC red tape is too painful, even for legitimate people.

Confirmation time is still an issue. If i take a paper currency over at the counter of supermarket I'll just pay and walk off. Credit card will probably take another extra 1 minute. But for bitcoin??? It will build up long queue at the counter.

There's never been one legitimate reason for any 'consumer' to acquire btc, not one.

SilK Road was why consumers acquired it, that's not FUD that's the history of bitcoin.

Then SR news fueled some spec money and they lost big, bitcoin is not worth 1100 nor 500 nor the 300's it's trading at today, the reason is it has no value, it is not a commodity and that's the recent history of btc, hold it as an investment/commodity.

Just read the edgar filings of overstock a public company less than 1% sales from btc, that means it is dead as a currency no one uses it to buy, less than 1% means it has no market share.

btc is going no where but down, major down movements coming, 1100 to 300's today was major 300's to 30 is major too.

By the end of the year btc will be closer to 30 bucks than 400.

for things that can be purchased for $10 bank note (0.025btc) merchants dont bother with confirms. as soon as they see the tx they hand over goods.

but if a person handed over a $50-$100 bank note. i guarantee you the shop owner will stop and look at the bank notes and check for security seals and UV light the note before handing goods over.... same for bitcoin. its a risk vs efficiency game.

for small pocketmoney amounts there WILL be insured wallets (circle for instance) whereby people will only trust the service to hold daily spend amounts where the funds are pre confirmed to allow for instant spends. whilst still hoarding large funds privately for the bigger stuff.

so the mind set to have:
use your current bitcoin wallet for 'savings' (like  bank account) where transfering funds may take an hour as oppose to banks 3-5 days. and then use circle or other 'offchain' wallets for instant/daily spend/pocket money amounts. just like debit/credit cards.

i wouldnt call multiple millions dollars worth of bitcoin sells meaning death, come on put it into prospective,!!
as for your love of the 1% number which you cant even put into logical context

there are over 180 legal tenders of the world. yes i said it 180 currencies recognized and used by different countries... so by that fact alone many of these have less than 1% of world market share..

so are these currencies meaningless?
bitcoin far surpasses the market cap of MULTIPLE countries. so how about you nuke them countries and shout that the peoples lives you kill are meaningless

I'm not sure if you're a troll or not, but there are many legitimate ways to buy btc. Maybe you just believe in the technology or see it's potential to be used in the future and invest in it? You don't just have to buy it for drugs.

Silk road was never more than a tiny fraction of the bitcoin economy. And it is still in operation, so I don't understand this argument.

Let's talk pure simple facts.
One easy small transaction over the weekend took almost 5 minutes to get the first confirmation. I repeat again 1st confirmation. I have to convince the seller to look at the blockchain and the red button is still there.

And when i say simplicity i really mean it. Not going through circle service.

Also part of the world from where i come from we have something call 'instant' internet bank transaction. 3-4 day is overhyped.  ::)

I'm not so sure. I think it was a massive part in how bitcoin gained some traction and a genuine use. Bitcoin's use on the darknet is also massive. Whatever happens it will likely continue to be used there.

I doubt any of you have even read the Satoshi paper nor the paper issued a few days before it by Koblitz, I have read both, Koblitz curves is the crypto used in btc, days before Satoshi paper appeared, there was Koblitz praising ECC and the NSA.

Then Satoshi shows up with his paper literally days later with Koblitz curves in it as the crypto.

Does the paper say investment value or retail currency?

No

The paper described a simple small value digital currency for personal trades amongst people for minor amount transactions.

Now you have all this bs spec fueled garbage, invest in btc, bs, last 9 month history shows 1100 to 300's in value, that means one thing DUMP IT NOW

The net has made the world a fast virtual and VIRAL world, if btc was gonna be a major new currency you would have had viral adoption of it, and yes when a major retailer says we take a certain currency if that currency has less than a 1% share it's not a valid payment method, and paypal converts the fiat currencies that are relevant to the world today and of the 180 or so currencies in the world most are not taken by paypal and most of those countries have no mass use of credit cards by the big 3 card players.

Visa/MC/Amex don't allow most of the world to possess their cards, the elite 1% of every country pretty much can get a card, but credit cards are primarily for a small amount of western countries and a couple of Asian nations that do 90% of the WGP (world gross product).

The average consumer has zero need to be anonymous in any transaction, that need was why silk road fueled the value of btc.

Then spec money fueled it and now spec money is out of it

What you have now are a few 'manipulators' of the exchanges

Again, why should a consumer acquire bitcoin to CONSUME anything?

There is no logical reason, ZERO REASONS for any consumer to acquire a fake currency unit to then consume with.

WHY SHOULD A CONSUMER ACQUIRE BITCOIN TO CONSUME?

That was my question and still not one answer.

There is no legitimate reason.

When btc was new, ok, people had a reason to mine, you got coins for little effort in intial mining, then SR was invented, wow you could use btc to buy dope

Do you need bitcoin to consume anything on Overstock?

NO

SO there is no legitimate reason to acquire it, none.

So you think it's an investment?

haha

1100 value end of 2013 300's today

Great 'investment' sherlock

End of 2014 in 3 months only btc will be closer to 30 bucks than it will be to 400 bucks.

That means btc will be under 200 in 3 months

That's not FUD that's not anything but my opinion of looking at charts and knowing how investment money feels about btc

There is no major interest in btc by major money now, zero.

All the news of regulations, the claims that Satoshi is an intelligence creation, the real world collapse of the value of btc, the almost nothing percentage of sales from major retailers that decided to say they would take it.

All that put together means DUMP IT NOW while you can still get something for your btc

And still not one person has come up with a valid reason why anyone should ACQUIRE btc to CONSUME

That would make btc a currency contender

No reason to aquire it to consume, it will never be a mass market currency and will be back to 3 bucks before you know it

If you think btc is an investment, wow, keep pumping real money into a fake currency that was 1100 only 9 months ago that is now under 400 and has had lots of retailers try to take it.

The btc project is dead IMO, the demise of SR gives 'consumer's no real reason to aquire it

So what you can still buy dope with it, so what, dope dealers prefer cash

I'll just leave this here: :D

Look at btc with a blank mind...
Now turn your mind back 'ON' and look at BTC:
The fiat system is drowning in debt and worthless paper will do nothing to protect your hard-earned wealth. Bitcoin offers people hope and perhaps someday you will understand how important that is.

again your waiting for confirms. if the amount was small.. why wait.. if the amount was $50+ then yea wait 1 confirm. if it was $1000 then wait a couple confirms.

put simply if you handed over in a retail store
$10, the cashier wouldnt look twice at it
$50 the cashier would atleast check for water marks
$1000 the cashier would ask a colleague to help double count the amount and then get the manager to put the bank notes into a safe. thus customers wait around for a while.

same with bitcoin.

but as i said there are wallets around that allow "instant" spend. again think about it like your main hoard is in a safety deposit box for long term storage. and then you have a small wallet in your pocket for instant daily spend amounts.

volatility,not many shops with it,and not pretty easy to acquire

Yep will dump one of my 4 cars I haven't driven in years, it's a dust collector and I sure will take btc for it and then send to my fiat account via one of the services my companies use.

9K book value on it and if some miner in SFL has a bunch of btc I will take it

Can you buy my new 550 benz convertible with it? No, its not for sale.

Can you buy one of my exotic whips? NO

But the sled sitting in my garage taking up valuable space is up for sale 9K book and if you have btc buy it

I take btc across a large network of sites and like Overstock we see almost no volume of sales in btc

So we're about to take down our we take btc signs

Yet if some early miner has worthless btc, buy the jag, then watch how fast I turn it into fiat

I don't see why it just has to be small trades. Seems to be working just fine on the huge scale it's at now and I'm sure will continue to operate fine in the future.

1CZWnCjYgdLgUHCkqker3BC71dzHS6CESg

Look at btc with a blank mind...
Now turn your mind back 'ON' and look at BTC:
The fiat system is drowning in debt and worthless paper will do nothing to protect your hard-earned wealth. Bitcoin offers people hope and perhaps someday you will understand how important that is.

[/quote]


Let's speak about wealth, as I mentioned I have real wealth assets and that's why curators of major museums deal with me to acquire stuff I collect, rare objects that belong in museums.

Let's talk about non wealth items, like cars, I have a bunch of cars and one old exec driver I had for years is collecting dust, so it's in the for sale section as some pointed out.

Now let's talk about IP assets, I have lots, see the huge hoard of BTC related domains we have.

Let's talk about the commercial net, I bought into the net in 1995, bought 1000 keywords in 1995 money when netsol was the only way to acquire an IP asset that is where most of my 'wealth' is now stored, keyword .com's for major industries.

Let's talk about Gold, I have it.

Let's talk about Silver I have it.

Let's talk about rare collectibles, I have them.

Let's talk about stock, I own none, only stock in private companies I sit on the board of usually or stuff I funded as an angel investor.

Let's talk about tech, I formed my first tech company in the 1970's.

Let's talk about real estate, owned a ton of it over the years, now it's not an investment asset IMO.

Let's talk about OPinions, my OPinion is the average consumer has no legitimate reason to acquire btc to then spend it.

Let's talk about OPinions as to btc being a potential asset to 'invest' in, ok, did you buy in at 1100 or 900 or 700 or 500 or 400? How is that investment now.

Let's talk about the history of Bitcoin, SR was a major reason why some small amounts of 'consumer's bought it, then 'news' fueled spec, now 'investors' see no return only losses.

By end of 2014 btc is under 200, my OPinion.

In beginning of 2015 see where btc is and you will say wow he must be Warren Buffet.

haha

Fixed. You've got a lot of ramble I'll give you that though.

I don't understand why simplicity doesn't get into mainstream.
If making 1000 bucks tx then by all means use credit card. If u don't own 1, then use debit card.

The discussion here is why consumer is not using bitcoin. The consumers can be anybody and i take the over the supermarket counter as an example. Personally i won't use btc there. Obviously far better payment options and btc confirmation time, that would be the last option ReGardless of the payment size which you have been harping on till now  ::)

And wallets with 'instant' spend still needs at least 1 confirmation. Read back my earlier post on the 1st confirmation time. Basically 5 mins is unacceptable

1anonymous is just trolling.

such a shame he does not realise that i can buy a house with bitcoin, i can book and pay for a vacation in bitcoin, i can buy a mcLaren or lamborghini for bitcoin, groceries, rent, fast food, toiletries for bitcoin. Electric/gas/utilities, car fuel, electronics/gadgets, furniture, even women for bitcoin...

oh well lets leave him to sulk and stick with his beloved FIAT

infact lets name it now
tell me one product that can easily be measured as a marker for todays FIAT.

i personally would use bread/milk/can of baked beans.
in the US bread is $2-$2.50 a loaf

so lets say $2.50

10 loaves of bread=$25 today (0.066btc AMLKYC crappy exchanges / 0.05btc otc-localbitcoins)
1anonymous please bookmark 'watch' this post and come back to me in 12 months (last day of september 2015) and tell me how many loaves of bread you can buy with $25, and we can see how much bread you can get with 0.05-0.066btc at that same day

see you then!!! bye

This is how the net works, a consumer gets an email or a message from a 'friend', I'm now using whatever (twitter, ebay, FB, google, etc), consumer goes to site and usually 'adopts' the new whatever, the growth is 'viral' in that quickly the 'project' gains mass adoption and market share.

Now look at btc, when SR was a new 'viral' type of platform, the word spread, you need btc to participage, hence a 'reason' for a 'consumer' of SR products (drugs) to 'acquire' btc.

Now you have 'mass adoption' to some extent of btc by mass retailers (Overstock and Expedia etc), and what have consumers done? Yawn, why should they acquire btc when they can just use a CC?

So retail adoption was a failure so value dumped from 1100 end of 2013 to 300's today and my OPinion is it will be under 200 by the end of 2014.

That's 3 months.

Without a mass appeal reason for global CONsumers to acquire btc it will be under 200 by end of 2014, that's less than 100 days.

It's my OPinion and yes, if you have old btc, buy a 72K mile jag with it if you're in SFL, I'll gladly take btc and immediately turn it into fiat.

If you believe in btc as an investment, then buy one of the many brandable domains we have that are for sale too.

My OPinion is btc is going to 30 bucks soon and under 200 by end of 2014.

End of 2013 btc value 1100 range

End of 2014 btc value under 200 my OPinion

End of 2015 btc value 30 or 3 bucks

My OPinion is based on recent historical value of bitcoin and the FACT there is not one legitimate reason for any CONsumer to acquire it to SPEND

btc has no spec value, the 9 month slide of btc shows that

You can buy a house with anything, you can trade a work of art or a stash of rare coins for a house

Now why should a consumer acquire btc to buy anything?

So what you can buy a car or house or whatever with btc, give me a reason to acquire it, the same car or house can be bought with fiat or anything of value, now show me one valid reason to acquire btc to buy a house or car? There is none, since the person selling a such items would prefer cash or a bank check.

Consumer 'trust' in any currency is why a consumer has fiat or any item of value including any commodity or whatever has value to a consumer.

The is no legitimate reason for any CONsumer to ever 'acquire' btc to buy anything.

The spec bubble of btc is over and the slide in value shows that is now FACT.

All the new retailers adopting btc just puts more pressure on the downward slide of btc since the retailers all convert btc to what they trust which is fiat.

Btc is not fiat, fiat has governmental regulations which the average CONSumer equates into a trust fiat belief.

I trust assets and to me btc is not an asset due to the huge slide in value post Silk Road and adoption by retailers that show btc has no real value.

End of 2014 btc under 200, my OPinion and it will be easy to see who is right in 100 days.

Your opinion based on what exactly? Nothing. I'll bookmark this post and see if you're right at the end of 2015. Maybe you will, but only time will tell.

FACT:

september 29th 2012 - $12
september 29th 2013 - $125
september 29th 2014 - $380
sepember 29th 2015 - <future reminder to insert value>

oh by the way.. "1anonymous".. i know your the "sol adoni" fudster.. so cut the crap out already, every bit of your fud has been disproven no matter how many names you made

if you compare beginning of year instead of end of year i will listen to you... 2014 isnt over yet

It's obvious not one person has offered any legitimate reason why 1 of 8 Billion consumers should acquire btc to consume anything today.

End of 2013 1100 btc
End of 2014 btc under 200

That will be the future of btc in my OPinion

Bitcoin will never become a real currency, there is no real world reason for any consumer to acquire btc.

NONE

The 9 month slide of btc shows btc has no value as an 'investment'.

So what some retailers decided to take it and convert it immediately into fiat

What need does any CONsumer have to acquire it?

NONE

The slide is not stopping, all the good news of more retailers has done nothing to stop the value slide so investors won't for the most part won't touch it.

If you have any large position in btc, dump it, IMO, in 100 days when btc is under 200 bucks, you would be happy you took the advice.

Now unless someone can post a legitimate reason as to why any CONsumer must have btc to CONsume anything, state it.

There is no real legitimate reason for a CONsumer to acquire it.

If you want to 'invest' in btc, then invest in it.

When the slide continues to under 200 btc by end of 2014 you will see I was right.

Until then, offer this thread one legitimate reason for a CONsumer to ACQUIRE btc

There is none.

Only bad speculation advice is being offered.

No consumer need means no reason to acquire it.

I believe that the next widespread use of Bitcoin will be for sports betting on the internet.  That will produce a broader user base, more press coverage, and a higher price.

The sports betting is already taking place.  The speed, lower cost, and relative anonymity of using Bitcoins for it will be made obvious soon.  Like SR, only with even more appeal to the public.

sol adoni.. (aka 1anonymous)

as an american paying for things in $$$ is there any reason you can think of to today, go through the hassle of buying euro's and then go to overstock or any website to buy anything that is then used in your american lifestyle.. that you cant do with dollars...

so are you saying that euro's are obsolete??

or flipping it around

as an european paying for things in euros is there any reason you can think of to today, go through the hassle of buying dollars and then go to overstock or any website to buy anything that is then used in your european lifestyle.. that you cant do with euro's...

so are you saying that dollars are obsolete??

Franky what world do you live in? If I pay with $1,000 in cash in a retail store, I'm waiting no more than 15-20 seconds for the cashier to check the bills before I'm on my way. Nobodys going to want to sit and wait 30 minutes for their $1,000 transaction to hit multiple confirmations.

Sports betting can be a major Bitcoin tipping point, TippingPoint.
Thanks for the reminder, I don't usually bet on sports, but might try it with BTC.  :)

What do you mean you are doing $500+ trades? You pay $500 for a bitcoin while you can buy it for $360? Or you know idiots that are paying $500 for something that worths 360? What part of it is healthy?

The gambling industry will benefit greatly from btc, as will the remittance market and for anyone else sending money around the world.

The current exchanges are good for small to moderate amounts of money.
After the Gox crimes, some people will gladly pay a premium price to avoid sending money to possibly dangerous exchanges.

I think there are a lot of valid concerns here, but I'd like to point out a few things:

1) Overstock has seen not-insignificant sales numbers in BTC tallying in the millions of dollars.  For merchants, the price at when they "got in" to BTC or began accepting it is irrelevant since payment processors convert BTC to fiat in real-time.  To this extent, BTC has been successful.  A not-insignificant number of people *are* using BTC to purchase goods and services from large retailers, and Overstock is evidence of this.

2) Consumers have an incentive to use BTC if merchants provide such incentives.  Payment processors like BitPay, who only take a 1% processing fee, enable merchants to reduce their prices for consumers, therefore leading to more sales.  Given that the profit margin of the average company is generally between 5-10%, an extra 1-2% is an *enormous* difference.   As infrastructure continues to develop and streamline transactions, these incentives should become more apparent.

3) Your phone log has nothing to do with any of this.

However, I do agree the average person couldn't care less about anonymity, and for most people a 1-2% difference isn't enough of an incentive to prompt them into researching and acquiring BTC.  Intellectual and logistical barriers to entry are very real.  Although, on the other hand, there is certainly something to be said about the fact that large companies continue to incorporate BTC into their business models, and investors continue to funnel countless millions into infrastructure development.

Why don't you cite some charts, stats, information about all of your 'thoughts'.  Otherwise you are just rambling. 

Trolling or not the OP does raise some valid points about retail consumer adoption.

Currently they is no tangible benefit  for retail consumers to adopt bitcoin. Not cost benefit(bitcoin isn't really cheaper), time saving( transaction confirmation ) time nor is it hassle free( still not quite user friendly).

Correction, Americans are broke. The corporations have moved their factories overseas, and with it they've taken most of the jobs supporting our once thriving middle class.

In the next phase, they will take the services industry. This has already begun, and the problem will be exacerbated by mass-automation, meaning robotics - take a look at what Google has been buying (spoiler: over a dozen robotics firms).

What America is experiencing is a process referred academically as "economic inversion". It's America shifting from a first world country to... god knows what kind of hellhole America will be when every major metropolis goes the way of Detroit...

I might be interested in buying your car for BTC, if you are going to Inside Bitcoins LV, I could meet you there for the transaction. You must have used your BTC for SR purposes because you keep mentioning it over and over and over, yet you have never mentioned 70% of BTC movement thats happening over in China.

As Ive stated elsewhere, since we live in first world countries, maybe we dont see the true value of BTC yet as others might see in Africa, Romania, Ukraine or other emerging economies. * As an example I am sending relatives in Ukraine bitcoin so they can barter and get the goods they need. The Hryvna is losing value and bitcoin is a premium there since its easy to transfer from person to person, especially when banks there are many times closed, bombed out, etc.

Ive sat on several private calls with banks and large accounting firms and they have all said bitcoin will rise because it is so disruptive to the status quo. I can send $10 million within minutes, anonymously, paying what... 12 cents? You dont see any value in that??? Come on.

A friend of mine purchased a small place outside of Florence, IT earlier this year all with BTC. No government, etc saw that transaction. Theres no way he could have moved gold bars on a plane or used a credit card. Credit cards are total shit. BTC is already better. Whenever I go to Brooks Brothers to buy a new suit or pick up a Canali suit at Nordstrom my credit card gets put on hold and we have to spend the next 10 minutes talking to my card company making sure Im the guy making the purchase and I KNOW the people working in the stores. I have a high income, I have an almost perfect FICO credit score, I own a large home and there is two decades worth of my historical footprint of my credit card purchases at high end places like Rolex and Panerai stores in Beverly Hills, and yet I still have problems making purchases with my credit card.

Lets be honest, we all know you are trying to get BTC sub $300 so you can pour more money in. And so will I.

YEP. Investment firms are doing this all day long. Buy at $400, sell at $500. You cant get BTC on LocalBitcoins for spot price either.

It seems to me all this talk of "value" is just speculative investment talk.This drive for bubble and crash isn't really healthy for mainstream acceptance.

THIS. Ive made some decent BTC with roulette, blackjack and sports betting.

Not to mention the 'provably fair' aspect of BTC gaming. That alone will change the entire online gambling community and thus the adoption of bitcoins in the process.

My wages are paid directly into (for eg) Circle - Amazon, Tesco, Ebay and my local BP garage (petrol/derv) start accepting BTC.

These aren't huge leaps.

And when (not if) this occurs, then the writing is on the wall for fiat. The question would very quickly become - why transact in fiat ?



Its so close I could almost reach out and touch it  8)

It was actually a major fraction in terms of dollar equivalent used through the site back then.

The exact same reason why ordinary people aren't interested in adopting bitcoin, despite the merchant acceptance.

merchant acceptance is still quite low. It can grow ten fold easily.

Oh - and as well as mobile payments, Circle issues a debit card.

Why use £/$ ?

Cos you want to show loyalty to the Fed/Bank of England ? To show your appreciation of credit fuelled recessions ? I dunno  ???

I would argue consumer acceptance is more important and that is still very weak and will continue to be weak unless the current issues are resolved.

I'm still unclear on Circle.Do they solve the whole bitcoin being more expensive than fiat part?

If yes, then one issue solved.If not, well....

It certainly did capture the public's imagination. I remember when it broke in the media a lot of new accounts streamed in. But someone here tried to study the scale of SR in the bitcoin economy and came up with about 1%. I don't know how good their methodology was, but that was their finding.

Then when the FBI took down Ross and the first SR site, the price exploded up.  ???
I know I have never used their services and I have spent a lot of bitcoins over the years.

This ^.

For ordinary, every day transactions, there is obviously a benefit to the merchant, and no real downside (since they typically don't actually get exposed to bitcoin even if they accept it).  For a consumer though, there is no benefit, and a number of downsides, so why do it?

The price exploded down actually. And some weeks later went up to $1000.

because the price is not stable enough, look at the recent dump, bitcoin still need many years to become mainstream, probably after two-tree halving of the block reward

No, Not this ^.
It may not be user friendly yet, but it is the fastest, cheapest, and safest way to buy online. You may think that your credit card is faster and cheaper, but it is not. It takes 2-5 days to process that transaction and determine if the sale was legit. The seller does not receive money until this happens. Once it does the seller pays fees of about 3%, which is passed on to you. And that may be the tip of the fee iceburg. You may pay all manor of fees, hidden or not.
Thinking a card is free is like believing your getting a "free phone" with your cellular service. You will actually be buying that phone at full price over and over again.  
lastly, it has become unsafe to use credit cards. I am replacing my debit card for the second time this year due to data breaches. I have no idea who now has my banking information. With bitcoin I can post my overstock.com password and account name without worry. Since there is no card info and no route back to my bitcoins, the best an attacker could do is see my earlier purchases.

For me these reasons are compelling enough that I no longer use anything except bitcoin online.

It may have taken a few weeks. But I helped someone to buy $100K worth just after the closing of SR. They did not want to own any while the darknet stuff was in the news. I know a lot of people were glad to see it go.

Not enough confidence and still too volatile, people need to feel safe and secure with their hard earned Currency

The technology is far to complicated for some to adapt. Also the basic understand of why they should convert hard earned fiat to a generally unknown system.

Very true!

It is not mainly for spending, but saving. Merchant acceptance is making a fundamental improvement for its usage (actually it only needs a couple of bitpay-like companies to achieve it), so that people can be more confident to save for the long term

http://imgsrc.baidu.com/forum/pic/item/2d55fbc451da81cb3a0e98c75166d0160824318e.jpg

Is an unstable product.

While I can't comment on whether it is the fastest way to shop online, it's sure as hell ain't the cheapest.Pound for pound it cost more to use bitcoin for consumers.And safest?The lack of chargeback is  not attractive to buyers.




It doesn't matter if it takes that long, credit card is a very trusted the point that the transaction is as good as confirmed the moment you swipe your card despite  the fact the money would take several days to reach them.

 
And this is different from the several percent mark up from buying bictcoin how?That of course assuming the best case scenario that the merchant would offer discount for bitcoin purchases.
 

Did you try charge back on those transactions? That is one appeal of credit card that bitcoin lacks.While I sympathise with your experience there are ways to minimise risk of such thing happening on-line.Besides , if you have no idea how the criminal got your info , chances are you have a bigger security threat at hand.


For non-online retail,  bitcoin still offers no advantage to using fiat at all.

Consumers aren't changing there opinions about something as big as there method of payment on daily basis, The current system took many years to be as established in people's opinions as it's today so BTC might take sometime. also BTC is currently being used to buy/sell (look at overstock's records, amagimetals "precious metals company that used BTC and getting a % of it's sales from BTC).

Thats nonsense. What i do when i sell something for BTC in my brick and mortar store is the following:

I sell a $40 item. User pays me 10M satoshis. My profit is about 2.5 million sat. I instantly sells in my exchange of choice 9 Mill sats for fiat. The other Mil. its sent to one small account back in the warehouse. Maybe is my retirement plan and i dont know yet :-) But i can happily take a 10% apart from a sale than maybe without BTC would have never realized, who knows.
the stability of the coin vs. fiat can modify my transaction during lets say, 1 hour. After that, all is done and im a happy camper.... I still dont get why 99% of merchants dont accept BTC. its absurd.

Bitcoin is not a good vehicle to use for savings as you describe. The price is not stable enough and it is unknown where the price will be in 6 months, let alone years/decades.

I would say that once places like Dell and Overstock realize just how much less it costs for them to accept bitcoin then to accept credit cards, they will start to offer discounts for paying in bitcoin, which will eventually lead to B2B transactions in bitcoin

Its very simple.

Consumers dont adopt BTC because they dont get any.

Is your paltry salary or another earnings paid in BTC? No ways.
Do you sell your used car for BTC? No ways.

You can pay with bitcoin. Yep, but you

CANT BE PAID IN BITCOIN.

No bitcash, no payments, easy. Nothing comes into existence from nothing.

OP:

I appreciate your first post.   And this thread.  Its good to get everyone tackling the elephant in the room, head on.  It gets people talking.  And thinking.  And the entrepreneurs out there will come up with solutions.  My only response to your rant is this:  Incentive needs to be created.  Or Bitcoin needs to become part of the financial fabric.  From what I am seeing, major thinkers and players are doing just that.  Major companies, powerful people, and some of the very smartest are gathering and putting their minds together.   This is something entirely new.  And your expectations (everyones expectations) for consumer adoption, are premature.  We aren't there yet.  We will be.  Eventually.  And how do I know that?   Because I see the foundations being built right now.  

You can have any opinion you want of Bitcoin.  You can't deny the statistics and facts, that the infrastructure is growing at a rapid pace.  And that is all that's necessary for Bitcoin to become part of the financial fabric of society.  Nobody knows how it will pan out.  How it will develop.  Nobody knows just what catalysts will come that will be the true turning point.  But that's all being tried and tested.  Its just beginning.  What business model will be the killer app?  What social/government/economic environment will kickstart its adoption?  

Could we have predicted that every Barnes and Noble would go out of business, when the internet first appeared, and in fact had been around for 10 years by 1996?  For fuck sake, Amazon.com didn't even have a web site until 1999.   How long after internets inception was that?  Now look at Amazon.  Look at Barnes and Noble.  How many years was Amazon around before Barnes and Noble finally started struggling to stay afloat?  How long was the internet around before Blockbuster started closing its doors?  

Here we are at a pithy 5 years and we're screaming the doom of Bitcoin because worldwide consumer adoption hasn't begun?  In 1996 nobody had a fucking incentive to shop online either.  You easily could have stood there, 10 years after internet's inception and said "Fuck this.  We're 10 years in, and people are still shopping in stores".  I think you get my point.  You're right.   Consumers have NO incentive to use Bitcoin.   The reason why?  Because the infrastructure hasn't been built for Consumer use yet.  But its going to be.  And you can feel confident in that by simply paying attention to whats going on in the industry.   Listening to the Podcasts.  Reading the Google News Feed for keyword Bitcoin.  Subscribing to the Subreddit.  There is so much shit going down right now Its nearly impossible to keep track of it all.  Businesses are being started.  Great minds are thinking.  Effort and money and time is being poured into this.  And that's what results in success.

I hope you were able to read all of that and fully digest it.  Apologies for the length.

-B-

This....  This right here is what will keep bitcoin alive....   :-)

EDIT: added smiley face.  :-)

The casino angle is the only thing offered thus far in this thread that could bring about large scale consumer adoption.

Big retailers mean zero to having consumers adopt to bitcoin.

Silk Road had people want to acquire btc, and if some busy on-line casinos came to be that are 100% bitcoin, then consumers will adopt it for that casino.

Drugs and casinos

I think major porn sites should say btc only since they all have problems with CC merchant accounts and often have to give away 20 points to even take CC's, so adult business could drive some to btc.

Porn
Gambling
Drugs

You get enough of that element and then you may see some people start to use it on major retailer sites, right now there's not enough people with btc and not enough sales percentage for anyone to see btc as anything but a fringe net wanna be currency and the report to congress by the think tank of congress said the exact same thing, no major consumer adoption to worry about in foreseeable future so there go a legit think tank saying btc is NOTHING TO WORRY about to congress.

Congressional Research Service is the thinktank that trashed bitcoin not long ago and since then it has nose dived, and they're the top minds in DC.

Get some big porn and casino sites using btc exclusively and it may get some consumer adoption.

The OP asked for one legitimate reason for people using BTC...

Well i'm a landlord who rents rooms to students. I've started accepting BTC as for overseas students it is a lot of hassle getting a bank account up and running initially. They also can't send the deposit / first months rent from their own country as they'll get hammered in international transfer fees. Two have opted and successfully paid in BTC and by the time we'd finished our coffee the confirmation was there.

I want to add high difficulty level in mining.

consumers will eventually smarten up .. but mainstream adoption is going to take time. It won't happen overnight. Some people will never adopt it. Hell, my grandpa still doesn't know how to turn on a laptop much less a smartphone ...

I think this is a very good point!

This isn't true at all.  As a consumer, you purchase a product online from I dunno, Amazon.com.  It takes 2-5 business days to process.  So what do you care?  They ship it right away.  Benefits the merchant to get it done right away, but makes no difference to the consumer.   The merchant pays a 3 percent fee.  Notice that the price you paid as a consumer was exactly the same regardless of your method of payment?  They eat that cost (or more appropriately, they surcharge on everything regardless of how they pay since card agreements prohibit them from charging card users more).  So yea this benefits the merchant too.  But not the consumer who pays the same amount regardless.  You mentioned hacking.  Lost bitcoins to hacking?  Too bad, they're gone forever.  Lost credit card money to hacking?  No problem, that's the bank's problem.  You say it is unsafe to use credit cards.  And I guess it is, in the sense that the merchant could lose your personal information.  They will have the same personal information if you are paying by bitcoin though (they still have to know who you are and where you live to send it to you!).  And of course, the worst feature as far as the consumer is concerned.  What if you don't get it or there is a problem?  If the merchant isn't agreeable, you're screwed.  With a credit card, you're not. 
So as I said yes there are a lot of benefits to the merchant (which is exactly who Satoshi had in mind when he designed it, if you read his white paper).  For the consumer?  Not so much. 

I ask few people why they don't want to adopting BTC, and this is their reason :
1. The price not stable at all  :(
2. It's just virtual
3. Nah, fiat still better  :D
4. People can steal my bitcoin easily  :(

I bet some people still think like that, that's the reason people won't adpot BTC  :(


Deflation   :o
I never see any fiat got deflation in a year

I love how people are coming up with more visual ways to show you how much inflation affects everything.

I think it does happened to quite a few countries.Japan had one not long ago( do they still have it?),I'm not sure if it symptom of the weak economy(It was during the Asian financial crisis) or one of the contributed to that state, all that I know was it was considered bad for the economy and the Japanese was quite alarmed by it( they were quite desperate to stop it).

Japan is supposedly in a state of deflation right now and there have been many comments by mainstream economists and the Bank of Japan screaming about how horrible of a thing it is while of course failing to mention that it was their inflation that caused the problem of ridiculously high prices in the first place.

Deflation in an economy that is designed optimally for inflation can wreak havoc on said economy.I think they were troubled by how it was negatively affecting consumer spending, productivity, putting pressure on wages(question of lowering wages to cope is a tinderbox of its own)etc.They blame this as one of the reasons  for  the erosion of Japan's economic power ( and global competitiveness).

Why consumers are not adopting BTC? Why is the middle class gone? Same answer: ignorance and apathy. The West embraced willful ignorance and got fat.

Yeah yeah, heard all that back in 2012 lol :P Meanwhile in Bitcoin we're apparently in a 'slump' and it's priced at $384! lol! :P

Let me repost my thoughts:

Currently there is no tangible benefit  for retail consumers to adopt bitcoin. Not cost benefit(bitcoin isn't really cheaper), time saving( transaction confirmation ) nor is it hassle free( still not quite user friendly).What problem exactly  does bitcoin solves for the brick and mortar retail consumer?


Should some (if not all) of those issues be resolved,then consumers might start to warm up to bitcoin.

I can think about a few reasons.
Many people still don't know about Bitcoin.
Many people are skeptical and afraid to spend money online.
Bitcoin is not mainstream yet and his value is very unstable.
 

You are asking a loaded question. I'll answer none of the above. Bitcoin opens up entire new consumer markets that don't currently exist or at least haven't for a century.

Those are questions NEEDED answering if you want to convince general consumers to accept bitcoin.
If you can't/ won't answer  them, then suit yourself.If matters really are simple , then bitcoin would've gone mainstream by now.



Good to know , care to elaborate on those ? How much of this new market affects the general consumer?

People have been regulated out of businesses that built this civilization. Large corporations lobby legislators to bar competition in almost every industry.  Bitcoin was not created to be a competitor for existing systems, it was created to make them obsolete. So you see, your question bears little relevance for Bitcoin users. If existing institutions want to survive the extinction event that Bitcoin will cause, then they will adapt to using it before their customers abandon them. I don't know what timetable you are comfortable with, but Bitcoin is here to stay long after you or I will have such conversations. Any corporation that wants to exist for the great-grandchildren to inherit will want to be part of the Bitcoin economy. But that's the funny thing about revolutions, they often take people by surprise and happen quite suddenly.

There could be various factors. Like not yet aware of it, not all merchandises accepting it yet, cannot fully understand how it works or why it is a real currency, etc.  ;D

You know you really are not answering questions or offering explanation about your previous post, do you?Or at least you post don't seem to related to mine( the one you're quoting) or any of the points I raised, at all.


Corporations do and will( if bitcoin survives, this is an eventuality) accept bitcon.It doesn't really cost them anything to accept bitcoin(thanks to services like coinbase, bitpay etc)  while added lot of benefits to them. Bitcoin will not end corporations, it'll be just another tool for them.The fact that they are opening up to bitcoin despite the marginal pressure to do so should surprise no one.

As for what timetable I'm comfortable with? Don't really know or care for that matter.I have no stake in  bitcoin rise or demise,I'm just a curious observer.


It is still to early to do a forecast on the future of bitcoin (like all early technology).It could wildly succeed,moderately be successful, only useful for niche uses or be completely supplanted by something else entirely.

And no, revolutions never happen by surprise, there always tell tale sign of something brewing.




None of this is pertinent to the crux of this thread which is "why consumers aren't adopting BTC".

BTW

As off topic as it is ,this statement really do pique my interest.What are those businesses  you speak of?

Businesses that require expensive licenses, fees, and insurances in the name of public interest. Many industries have gone underground into black markets. Living in SEA, I see many industries that cannot exist in the USA anymore though they have consumer value. Hell, they are even shutting down children's lemonade stands in the land of the free and home of the brave.

Care to name those industries?

Let's start with chemical manufacturing. You can be making a product that has good science behind it and a good customer base. Suddenly a lobbyist convinces legislators that claim one of the crucial ingredients may be carcinogenic. It then requires you to ship it as hazmat. Then you find out that some Fortune 100 company is now selling a similar product at Walmart and they don't have to pay large hazmat fees because they use common carriers rather than parcel services. The change in the law was not based in any good science, it was graft. That's just one agency. Then the EPA wants to put their nose into your business and some nobody bureaucrat decides that you are creating toxic waste. You offer to show them your process, but they're not interested. Instead they snoop around your land until they find some evidence of some chemical that may or may not have had anything to do with your business. Now you have an expensive lawsuit on your hands because some prosecutor wants to get promoted as a champion of the environment for political gain.

tl;dr America is toxic for business because China.

What case/incident is this? You example need citation.

It's probably in some law library somewhere. I couldn't care less if you believe me or not. I've lived long enough to see many such issues. I've been to almost every state. Look around the small desolate towns where businesses used to thrive. Even NYC had its soul sucked out by franchises that can afford lobbyists. It used to be full of small shops and boutiques. Now you can't throw a stone without hitting a Starbucks.

You can defend corporate America if you wish. I've left until it returns to being the free state of my childhood.

Unfortunately without any example of your stated issue there is absolutely no way we can confirm what you said as either fact or hearsay.

Wait  ???,I'm defending corporate America? Can you point in which post does this  happen?Funny , considering I'm not even American in the first place  .

You know , we're really derailing this thread with our banter

Yes, Silk Road was the initial fuel, but don't you know there are like 5 Silk Roads around now?

Plus i would like to add exchange rate converting from fiat to btc involves spread of almost 6%. I'm using localbitcoin btw. So what makes advantageous when it comes to cross border transaction using our normal bank or even paypal.

And more are popping up all the time, though some come and go whether they're taken down or scam everyone. I think Silk Road and the darknet markets were a massive part of bitcoins growth and bitcoin probably wouldnt be where it is today without them.

It seems to me all this talk of "value" is just speculative investment talk.This drive for bubble and crash isn't really healthy for mainstream acceptance.

If you setup advertisement on localbitcoins you can gain a couple of procent per trade, just need some patience to wait for the seller/buyer

Huh ???

We see new consumers adotping BTC every day. The process has been slow so far, but it will fire up exponentially. Soon.

Yeah it's very risky and hasn't really entered the mainstream yet.

The only good reason given thus far for mass adoption of btc by a large percentage of consumers was GAMBLING.

Like Drugs, Gambling is a vice and vice products/services often have major problems with traditional banks, so btc is well suited to

Drugs
Gambling
Porn

Now all three of those areas have a huge number of consumers and outside of porn, most do not take credit cards or paypal for long.

Porn is tough now to have a legitimate merchant on, I KNOW having invested in tons of porn stuff in the 1990's and also having a previous connection to adult companies from years ago decades before the commercial net existed.

So if a large group of porn operators got together and said they were tired of paying cayman banks 20% or more per transaction, they could over night create a mass amount of new consumers for btc.

Gambling, now that's the most interesting thing mentioned, btc lends itself well to gambling and keeping the money in btc, it's a universal money for a btc only casino.

That could get mega-millions of people over night

Got to be in caymans though

Same place you need to set up a legit btc bank

So cayman bank takes wires, or cayman casino takes wires

Caymans the only country with no treaty with USA as to extradiction

So to keep btc outside of governmental crap, you need two cayman charters IMO

One for a btc bank and one for a bitcoin casino

Then you let the world know they can bank safely outside of any government control in caymans with btc and play in the casino

I have never bought drugs with bitcoin. Nor have I gambled or bought porn. Maybe that is what YOU see as "the only reason" to use bitcoin, but there are some grown ups here who use it to buy everyday items.

So you are suggesting Bitcoin has a secure and fruitful future in human society?

P.S.... Don't forget guns as well:

https://ghostgunner.net/preorder.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwRtll3jjU4

 ;D The future is looking great!

Good... we don't want governments embracing bitcoin. That is not its purpose. At most we want governments tolerating or dealing with bitcoin.

You are being proven wrong hundreds of thousands of times a day with every time someone buys drugs, gambles, buys porn, launders money, or just eliminates credit card processing fees.

These useful human functions are never going away. The Black market and grey market eclipse the white market worldwide and are open to everyone and not just the 1%.

(facepalm) Typical gloomy attitude when the exchange rate is depressed.

It's always the same, every single time.

Money always attracts greed. But unlike fiat money you can compete on a level field with bitcoin. There is no co-opting, you can play the game or not. If some "1%er" beats you then you were beaten fair and square. Fair does not mean someone helps you, it means the rules are the same and those who work hardest win biggest.

You guys can blast the OP all you want, but he does have some valid points.  In my opinion, the biggest weakness of bitcoin from the consumer standpoint is one simple thing: consumer protections.  Or rather, the lack thereof.  

A few people mentioned credit cards and being worried about their numbers being stolen online or at some merchant etc.  I personally don't worry about this happening ever.  Because I know that if my card information is stolen, I have $0 liability for transactions.  My bank can invalidate the old card and issue me a new one.  It is because of this that I feel confident shopping online with my credit card at merchants that I know nothing about, knowing that I can perform a charge back if they decide not to deliver the product they claim to be selling.

None of these protections exist with bitcoins.  With bitcoin, you really only want to use it on trustworthy sites like Overstock, because if you're using it on Joe's Music Store, where you've never transacted with Joe before and know nothing about him, you could get some great new CD / set of MP3s.  Or you could be throwing away $20.

But there are a few natural markets for bitcoin, of course.  Some people have already mentioned porn and drugs, these are both big ones.  The porn industry has a huge problem with chargebacks from people who bought porn and then later didn't want to admit it so it's really in their best interest to not only accept bitcoin, but possibly go bitcoin only eventually.  

The other less controversial market is of course remittances.  Remittances is a huge market, there were around $53.8 billion in remittances from the United States to Mexico and Latin American countries just in the last decade or so (http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/11/15/remittances-to-latin-america-recover-but-not-to-mexico/).  The problem here is, as always, the exchange rate.  With remittances, you're generally doing a person-to-person money transfer, so unless the person is waiting on the money and can get it one or two blocks later, there's a decent chance (especially these days) that the person on the receiving end would end up getting less money than was sent.

The big question there is this: is the potential loss greater than the amount of money Western Union charges to do currency conversions?  Their fees aren't cheap if you're sending a lot of money, so it could very well be a loss or even in bitcoin's favor.

1) Escrow  and 2) Circle are now insuring deposits (bank like) - they won't be the last.


I think this is the crux of the problem here. We all have our moments of doubt - especially when the exchange rate is shit. Over on the speculation section of the forum I think they refer to it as "shaking out the weak hands", or somesuch  ;)

they are probably afraid of the unstable condition of BTC market. MAybe the lack of security concerns them. Or simply they just dont get BTC at all.

"When we break our habits, we shall become as Gods"

Fiat is a habit - and is the problem here. Not Bitcoin.

How far away are we from me being able to transfer my (£) wages directly into a BTC "bank", a la Circle ? Next month I go to Italy for 2 weeks and have no need to worry about buying Euro (and being scammed in the exchange) ? I then wish to transfer some "value" to my brother in Japan cos he's a bit hard up at the minute - I send him some BTC.

On top of all this I am circumventing the very same system of financial usury that has put most of the nation in hoc for a generation and brought the economy to its knees.

Again the question, to me becomes, why use GBP ?



The chasm that needs scaling here is the idea that the individual has to take personal responsibilty.

I dunno - maybe try it once and you might find that you like it  ;).

Escrow does absolutely *nothing* to protect the consumer and is a false sense of security.

I never understood the emphasis on using escrow services in many cases.  For most transactions, using an escrow service actually adds risk rather than eliminating it -- instead of having to trust one person, now you need to trust at least two.  The only reason escrow is useful on these forums is because you can reasonably determine the authenticity of a reputable member acting as an escrow agent, and you can make reasonable assumptions about what the escrow agent would stand to gain/lose by running off with the money; you can't make the same assumptions about a newbie. 

Most considered my post FUD, it was not

I got what I wanted

A legitimate reason for the general public to acquire btc

To me it's GAMBLING

So today we got a bunch of brandable casino names

Cayman charter being drawn up

We will have a major bitcoin casino operating very soon

Users will be forced to ACQUIRE BTC

How they do it, we don't care

You want to play anonymously in a chartered Cayman's casino, it will be live soon

It is IMO real life reasons for general public to acquire btc, that makes btc a viable alternative currency.

Having mass retailers say they take it while also taking every other controlled currency did nothing to btc value, if anything mass retail acceptance hurt btc values.

So BITCOIN GAMBLING to me is a legitmate reason for the general public to try to figure out wtf btc is and then acquire it.

GAMBLING is the only major reason I see at the minute as a legitimate reason for mass adoption by the public.

So now the future of btc TO ME is setting up charters that are bullet proof as to countries trying to regulate btc

Bitcoin exists, and if someone wants to gamble anonymously in a chartered caymans casino

THAT IS REASON TO ACQUIRE IT

The whole point of my original post was name a reason the general public MUST ACQUIRE BTC and not use regulated currency or credit cards.

GAMBLING was the reason my post was posted, and now that someone mentioned gambling I AGREE

It is a legitimate vice that banks and gov's hate

Yet they tolerate it

So a Caymans chartered org that runs future btc casinos is why I am now again looking at btc as a legitmate alternative for consumers.

I created a special THANK YOU post to celebrate that person that threw open this major idea to me.

Again, I LIKE BTC, I like the idea, I don't like a few things about btc, but now with a legitimate reason for the public to AQUIRE IT, fine.

I don't mind creating projects in this grey area.

CASINOS ARE LEGAL

They are highly regulated, but to me the NET is ether baby, it should be unregulated and that has always been my position as to any government trying to regulate any aspect of the net.

So now let all the retailers join btc, and take it, great.

As long as I can generate btc from whatever use is LEGAL TO ME, I will create projects that are only btc related, GAMBLING is a nice vice niche for mass btc acceptance.

Again THANKS to the person that suggested it.

Uh... quite frequently, drugs, gambling, porn and money laundering ARE evil. Not all the time, but more frequently than other recreational/business activities.

So that's your claim to Bitcoin's fame? Bitcoin is great because it makes buying drugs and gambling easier? Again, toy of the 1%.

And as for porn, have you heard of YouPorn? There is no need to ever spend money on porn again if you have the slightest inkling of creativity.

Nope. I'd have the exact same attitude it BTC were $1000, because it is the correct attitude to have.

Are you suggesting Porn, gambling , drugs, and guns are only used by 1% of the human population? Are you a space alien investigating earth for the first time?  ;D

Bitcoin is great for everything, including the "white market" as well.

P.S.... You are a cheap "welfare recipient of porn" which is being subsidized by users like me who don't mind paying the actors/actresses. You are welcome for all your free spank sessions; We pay for them.

THE CURRENT MARKET STRATEGY OF BITCOIN IS STILL NOT ON THE MONEY, IN MY OPINION. IT STILL NEEDS TO PROVE IT'S WORTH IN TERMS OF BECOMING A GLOBAL CURRENCY.

S550 is a four door sedan.   Not even an idiot rapper would cut the roof of one and make a convertible out of it.    After you get off the phone with the pope, see if your mother is done washing your underwear and get outside.   See the real world, not the fantasy you have built in your parent's basement. 

I'm saying most bitcoiners fall into the top 1% of the world incomes, and most of those bitcoin transaction is used for drugs and gambling.


And you're an idiot for still paying money for porn well into the 21st century. There's a lifetime of porn already uploaded to the internet where nobody was compensated anything for its production. Better find something else to get all high and mighty about.

Ohh, believe me they are compensated. We pay for the hosting and bandwidth costs for the old stuff too.

Think of it as a public service so whackos like you can get some enjoyment in life and are merely annoying trolls rather than spazzing out with a murder-suicide.

You are welcome and now you are ignored.

Thats funny. I think YouPorn and all the other free porn sites do quite well via advertising.

Sorry I hit your nail right on the head so hard. From your crybaby tone I guess it must have really hurt.

The next big step for cryptocurrencies is to go private.
While Bitcoin offers pseudonymity, it doesn't default to a strong level of anonymity.
Using tumblers and other Bitcoin anonymizing services requires trust. There are also fees, processing delays, and security issues aka 'coinjoin soduku'.  
IMO there is real long term risk to Bitcoin from cryptos that natively offer a high level of privacy and faster transaction confirmation times.  
There is a need for private e-cash and a safe haven for 'money storage'.  
Cryptos can offer a trustless, modern day version of Swiss bank accounts. This is the most underestimated power of cryptos that is lost on the masses (probably because they have no money anyway).
As the current fiat banking regime continues to fail, smart investors will be required to use cryptocurrencies for wealth protection.
IMO the next big A-HA moment will come when further capital controls, currency devaluations, bank bail-ins, asset seizures by governments, and other serious stuff gets on the front page of the papers again.  
Gold and silver will also do well as the global currency/banking crisis continues to unfold. But cryptos will be better suited for modern times.

The OP opened my eyes to a problem that I did not see. Right now I see BTC being only good for international transfers if there is little volatility. I cant see any significant incentive for the consumer unless the cost and/or hassle of buying BTC is removed.

I don't understand. Escrow is an essential part of commerce and has been used for centuries.

Come to SFL

I drive a 550 benz convertible

It goes 0-60 under 5 seconds

S is sedan
SL is coupe

Yep had for a couple of years but almost no miles on it

My whips are

My lambo
My ferrari
My 550 convertible

Those are my whips biatch

But I have a dust collector old jag with no miles on it

Sold the huge old town car

I'm looking at a 4 door porsche to replace the jag in the garage

I have to keep at least 1 four door for airport trips, you know when out of towners want to come visit

So it's not an S550 maggot

damn they got dummies here

As long as the escrow service's reputation is worth more then the transaction in question then it would not make sense for them to run away with your bitcoin. Since a person with zero feedback has reputation that is worth zero there is a very good chance they will scam while a person with reputation has a much less of a chance of scamming

Sure, and I basically conceded that exact point in my post.  However, I'd like to point out that any well-known, reputable escrow agent didn't start out that way.  


Payment processors (e.g. PayPal) and banks, while primarily intended to suit other purposes, also fulfill the characteristics of an escrow agent.  Cypriots recently found out first hand that even large, reputable escrow agents can't guarantee safety (it's irrelevant whether the bank or the government is responsible).  Even waiters/waitresses fulfill the characteristics of escrow agents, and there have certainly been resulting instances of fraud and theft despite the fact that >99% of the time nobody ever thinks twice about letting the waitress run off with a credit card for a few minutes.  But really, my post was focused primarily on the use of escrow in the crypto-market, though I should have made that a bit clearer.

Your mom is calling you, time to take off the dreaming pajammies and eat your eggos and get ready for high school.   Maybe you should take the lambo today....

I should post a video of my latest super hot 18 year old gf inside my whip saying how much she loves my fat schlong.

You know how many teen p0rn stars I've dated?

More than most people have had regular gf's with.

You know in 1996 when I had 1 Million Plus people a day to my network, I believed the BS build it they will come and then sell ads.

So while CNN/AOL/TIME was conning the world that they were getting $40 M for banners I was one of the few people saying BULLSH*T

Turned out all their sales were paper trades between themselves and that's what crashed the original dot-com bubble.

Now in the later 1990's, you know the first real industry that built the damn net and got all the optic cable stuff installed to feed high speed internet?

P0RN

Had it not been for P0RN the net would still be 56K dial up

Same with Amazon, had it not been for erotica, there would be no kindle and no nook.

Sex drives humanity, it's why there's 7 Billion wastes of DNA energy populating this prison rock.

Now P0RN is free, it's all given away to get people to go to what, live cams and gambling.

So if bitcoin focuses on sex and gambling, it will become the net's underground currency and the underground economy is HUGE>

Drugs
Sex
Gambling

The big 3 vices.

Face it, overstock, expedia, paypal, none of it will move btc into a major alt currency.

SEX
DRUGS
GAMBLING

Will

Well now, this is about the most factual thing I've ever read.

How can it be a global currency, education about btc is nowhere to be found.

OP, you make me sad. You dont "get it." Bitcoin isnt just a financial tool, it has profound political and philosophical implications as well, which you fail to appreciate.

We dont care that you dont see the value - we do. So just leave: sell your coins, and dont come to this site again. I would personally appreciate it. Thanks

People need to realize that consumer adoption will be fueled & driven by the failure of major world fiat currencies.
As long as fiat remains deceivingly 'stable', noone will give a shit about how corrupt the monetary system is and how fucked in the ass they are getting by banks / cc's etc...

When banks start crumbling & fed starts hyperinflating our currency ... people will finally wake the fuck up and want out of the 'scam' and a decent amount of them will want btc & to use it.

Till then everything is just driven by speculation of traders.

So just, Waaaaaiiittt ffoorrrrr iiiiitt.............

I wont disagree with this but it just admits that btc doesn't have any of the incentives for the consumer until the crashes happen.

Actually, incentives are there, people just dont realize it. Everyone sees the 'news' about bitcoin which is mostly portrayed as bitcoin being evil .. by the press. I think as a community we get spoiled by how fucking easy it is to move 'value' around the internet using bitcoin, that alone is an incentive.

That is an incentive for US not for the average dudes.

I fell for the insurance thing once with a stupid bitcoin investment, but I learned and I'd like to think that I'm smarter than that now.  How is it even possible to insure something like bitcoin?  Frankly, I still pay all my bills using the US Dollar.  What happens if someone claims to be insured, gets hacked, and while the hack is going on, the value of a bitcoin doubles or triples?

Let's say they pay out their insurance.  What do I then get back?  The amount of bitcoins normalized to the dollar value of my original investment?  The complete amount of bitcoins I had on deposit, to make me whole in my book, which costs the bank double or triple to pay out than it would have at the original dollar amount?  The amount of bitcoins I had originally, plus interest for keeping it with the "bank" for x amount of time?

Really, you can manage risk by making things harder for hackers to steal, but can you really properly insure something as volatile as bitcoin?

Its an incentive for EVERYONE, the OTHERS dont realize this incentive at all.

People dont like change and sometimes it takes horrible circumstances before they realize the true value of what was sitting right in front of them the entire time.

btc has no politial or philosophical anything, it was created by the NSA to track drug dealers and fund NSA op's

It's a dark currency the NSA uses for it's OP's

The ONLY reason anyone has any need for btc is to vice related transactions other than that btc has no protection the average consumer expects from a credit card or a bank

So vice use like drugs, gambling, porn and ho's will be why people acquire it

It may also be good to move money to 3rd world nations by illegal aliens or poor immigrants

If say a doctor from some 3rd world country emigrates to a real country and makes money they will use legitimate banks to transfer money, they don't care about the minor fees

Now some illegal alien with a minor income will try to save a few bucks and use it

Drug users that want to buy dope may use it instead of cash

Gambling and adult stuff is a good use

Other than that, most people have zero need for a dark currency

Face it there's tons of reasons to believe btc was and is an intelligence project

If it is or isn't doesn't really matter much now

All that matters is adoption by the average person as a type of quasi currency

Everyone can see all the big news about major retailers taking btc did NOTHING to help btc value did it

So most here are delusional as to why the value of btc moves up or down

As long as retailers are churning any transactions into fiat the currency will have downward pressure

As it is, none of the retailers have seen any significant amount of sales, it's a niche currency that was created to track drugs and terrorists by the NSA most likely IMO

I'm not the only person saying it either

Just look at the crypto it uses you see Koblitz Curve ECC

Days before the Satoshi paper was released (who is he/her? an intelligence team most likely) you had Koblitz releasing his pro NSA and ECC crypto non-sense too.

Now everyone knows how back doored ECC is via Snowden docs

Is bitcoin back doored? Who cares unless you are doing illlegal stuff

Now drugs, they're illegal in most areas of the world yet many acquired btc to do just that and look what happened the king of btc drugs is in jail

Gambling, well it's highly regulated but some may acquire btc for betting

Sex and Adult stuff, some may want anonymity for those vices

BTC serves vice purchases, so that's the real selling point

As long as people have btc and as long as retailers are willing to take it, then it will exist to some degree

Personally if it weren't for the vice angle of btc, it would have no real value IMO

I still think the downward pressure by retailers will last for some time

BTC needs a big user base for a strong vice, and IMO gambling is the only long term vice that might propel btc long term

Banks will exist and I don't see any major global crash coming, the crash happened in 2008 and the govs rescued the system and the system is what it is

BTC's value will only increase if it can capture a significant portion of the GWP, right now it's a minor percentage of GWP so it has minor value

If it gets a large percentage of the GWP then due to having 20M max coins or so, it could become worth much more than the minor amount it trades for now

80 Trillion GWP is the reality and the 8 Bil market cap of btc is NOTHING

Now if btc eventually grows to 10% of gwp, then it could have major value

Right now it's a minor part of the GWP

800 Bil is 1% of the gwp

8 bil is .01% of the gwp

Do any of you understand how insignificant .01% of the GWP is?

Yet the people posting here think btc is a major part of the global economy, it's not

Even if btc controlled 100% of gambling it would be a minor percenage of the overall GWP

Now drugs it would be a bigger currency if it controlled a huge share of illegal drugs

major industries are

military spending and you will never see btc have a piece of it
housing it won't do much there
medical it won't do much there
food it won't do much there
education it won't do much there

Does btc have value? Yep for dark/grey vice buys

In the near future all these bs financial players trying to act like btc is a viable currency will be gone, it is not a currency

It's a niche net instrument best suited for hiding wealth which most people have no wealth to hide and it's good for vice buys

It's good for intelligence groups to track money too

The whole system revolves around a very slow public ledger

The whole system has major issues with theft of coins

The average person will be hacked if they try to use btc and so far look at all the btc hacks

Look at all the exchanges that went bust

So there's way more reason for the average consumer to never acquire btc than there are to acquire it

The averge person is not a sophisticated consumer of anything nor a geek that could practice good net use to protect from hackers

The average person is broke and has very little wealth

Now why should a high net worth person that paid taxes move anything into btc?

The top of the wealth pyramid didn't make their money illegally

Sure drug dealers and underground biz owners maybe can use it to 'hide' wealth

But most wealth is above board not hidden

Nothing has changed IMO as to where btc will be end of 2014, the downward pressure by retailers will continue to crash the value

Only major vice adoption may stabilize the value of btc short term

Long term it has potential since it's an established vice currency

marketing student trying to sell a car for Bitcoin

I agree that adoption by the consumers is all that matters; adoption by merchants alone means little by itself.

The price is NOT dropping because of traders cashing back into fiat. That is a myth. It is dropping because the mining monopoly has been (temporarily) broken and the cost of mining has risen - and so most miners are now selling as they mine (instead of hoarding as before). All that is happening now is that BTC is going down to its genuine market value, it should smoothly swoop down to this over the next 3 months.

They trashed it? Judge for yourself. Here it is for free:

Elwell, Craig Kent, M. Maureen Murphy, Michael V Seitzinger, Library of Congress, and Congressional Research Service. Bitcoin Questions, Answers, and Analysis of Legal Issues (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43339.pdf). Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2013. (updated: January 28, 2015)

It's pretty interesting, just to see how how they understand Bitcoin.

This was written by an economist and 2 lawyers employed by US Congress...
And explains Bitcoin within the American legal framework to be read by lawmakers at various levels.

The US Congress exists to create laws... and punish those that ignore the law.


This is a key point................. Bitcoin Not Legal Tender

"The dollar is legal tender and by law can be used to extinguish public or private debts. A creditor
is required to accept legal tender for the settlement of a debt. At a minimum, the payment of taxes
forces U.S. individuals to hold dollars. Arguably, for many, such a government endorsement is
comforting and creates a strong underlying demand for the dollar. By contrast, a currency like
Bitcoin that is linked to a complex computer program that many do not understand and that
operates without accountability to any controlling entity could be an unattractive vehicle for
holding wealth for many people."

300 million people have to pay US tax every year TO  STAY  OUT  OF  JAIL...
That's what gives the USD enormous demand and value outside of any economic activity.

Regarding §Legal and Regulatory Issues, §§Power of Congress under Article I of the U.S. Constitution:
Does the U.S. Constitution's saying Congress has the power "To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof" mean it has jurisdiction over Bitcoin? Congress doesn't coin bitcoins; thus, how can it have any jurisdiction over bitcoins?

BTC must be made far simpler to understand before people will start using it en masse. At least in the West, BTC entails many changes in how people think about money, which means it's not easy to grasp. It has to be friendly for non-tech people, which it really is not right now. Most people don't know what Github is, or their computer's terminal, etc. They don't necessarily have the stepping stones to understand what BTC has to offer.

i think confirmation time is our problem,if that could be solved i believe so many consumers will adopted bitcoin as payment

What car?  Year?  Price? Do you have a link?

Agree, technology also has a big role in BTC to be adopted by people. There is still so much poor country that haven't developed their technology and thus the people doesn't really understand about the basic things.

No, not really. Many in not the most casual users of bitcoin have no idea about something like confirmation times, they think that bitcoin transactions are instant.
There is a lot more other problems beside that long confirmation times behind lack of mass adoption. We don't have any killer apps, or any incentives which make bitcoin needed.

Looks like this guy was right. Now the price as stabilized and it's finding a balance vs miners dumping. Maybe we have to wait until the halving for major movements to start happening as it will cut the inflationary process in half and we'll need less BTC to maintain the same price.

The reason why consumers are not adopting bitcoin is all evident in this video of these 2 amateur wannabe traders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnm4xFC2xNo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnm4xFC2xNo)

Look at the idiots panicked faces after only 1 day of buying a bitcoin at the end of the video.

Bitcoin is already pretty simple and will get even easier and more user friendly as time goes on. People don't need to know what Github is to use it either. I'm sure most people who use Paypal don't know what Github is either but they work their accounts just fine.


Transactions are already instant, but how long would you suggest it takes before something is fully confirmed? The confirmations are there as a safe measure to protect people and drastically lowering them could cause problems.

Spoiler alert: Consumer adoption is continuing it's strong growth.  ::)

I bought Amazon store credit with bitcoin for the the first time a few weeks ago. Got 10% off. I'm going to start using it as much as possible. It's a huge lifehack for me to pay 10-20% less than everyone else for all my clothes and electronics and shit. Get into the giftcard game.

yep perfect for resellers

Yeah, you can buy a used phone or something for a 20% discount and then resell it immediately. That's a lot of work though. Packaging and shipping and tying up all that money in phones.
It would be nice if you could buy something like a Honda Accord on Amazon and then resell it. Make a $1000+ profit a pop. Too bad you can't buy a car on Amazon.

Still consumers do not have knowledge of Bitcoin, they would definitely prefer Bitcoin transactions once they would know the real value of the digital currency. Consumers are always looking for security, transparency and hassle free methods, unlike some business venture do not like to their financial transaction to be transparent because of tax savings.

Not good for re-sale, but there are car dealerships and even a manufacturer that takes bitcoin. Here is what you can buy through Overstock's car buying service. Really any kind of car you want.

http://cars.overstock.com/

That's great, but personally I wouldn't buy anything with bitcoin unless I were getting a 10%-20% discount. Bitcoin is not quick to acquire. No point in acquiring it for a 1% fee and then using it like cash with no advantages. But I'll buy stuff on Amazon for a discount with bitcoin all day long.  

It only need time.
Maybe some company already develop to accept bitcoins.
And when people like it and other company see it it will be like a chain reaction, then every other shop try to integrate bitcoin as fast as possible.
Because nobody will lose customers.
1 big shop need some balls and try it.

You mean like Dell? Microsoft?

yea like Dell or Microsoft, or any other big company like walmart, ebay, amazon or Shell.
When it will be a sucess then the next companys will follow and at the end everyone will have this option.
Its only a matter of time.

we are betting waiting on the usd currency to give up the ghost finally.

Because there is trading problem.
Not everyone are addicted to this.

this isn't the reason, they are not adopting it because bitcoin isn't a valide alternative for them, it does not bring any advantages over fiat, and they do not care about decentralization

and all this because they are ignorant and they do not want to learn about bitcoin, maybe they could find that they could save time and money if they use the blockchain instead of a standard fiat circuit

Corporations such as Ebay and Amazon have a number of deals with payment processors such as Visa / Master / Paypal, giving them an unfair advantage over the smaller players such as Overstock and Alibaba. If they adopt Bitcoin, then there will be no advantage for them, over the other players. So I can understand why they are reluctant on BTC.

BTC is still relatively new currency. People are just become aware of it.Consumer don't take risk of keping their money on bitcoin ,as it has a high risk of loss and they may be can't afford for their loss (if happened asit depend on private key) .

That's not entirely true. The merchant adoption is actually quite high for Bitcoin payment processing, just last year around 90,000 merchants adopted some form of Bitcoin payment processing.

The issue is, there are only 100,000 active Bitcoin users worldwide, and not only that, but most of them just use Bitcoin as a day trading commodity or investment vehicle. Bitcoin isn't used as a currency. Compared to the total 2,5 billions computer users worldwide unfortunately there are only a handful active users who use BTC to shop and buy stuff.

Why is that? Apart from the complexity from end user viewpoint (which is in my opinion the biggest issue) there is a trust issue as well. We, the foot soldiers of Bitcoin have been doing the ground work for years, for example I have been promoting Bitcoin everywhere I can including Bitcoin meetups, conferences, developer workgroup meetings, etc,, however this work mean nothing when an interested user gets the message and comes to this forum which place epitomizes the very sad state of crypto: 17 years old school boys are the lead developers (such as Vertcoin, and I heard not long time ago for example MoneroX was developed by a fucking 17 years old "developer" and no disrespect to the young men who are interested in software development but that is just ridiculous when such a workforce is behind a coin), there are +600 absolutely useless shitcoins exist and a wanker almost every day release a new BTC/LTC clone shitcoin, and then another few wankers try to scam out a few bucks from the less and less new users. This, the very sad state of the wankers driven altcoin market has a huge negative effect on Bitcoin as well.

according to me, these might be some of the reasons for this
trust- they might not trust bitcoin
knowledge - obviously they wont be having any knowledge without using it
they would be thinking it as risk full system too.

i agree especially about the risk part, history showed that bitcoin price is volatile while it can go up and make you rich, it can go down too as we can see in the past few months.
i also want to add that accepting bitcoin as a payment is going to be an extra work in some cases and it might not have enough customer to justify the work.

exactly they dont care about it, at least for now and even if this bring a lot of advantages to them they still dont care about it, but i think is just a question of time, the more ppl using BTC, the more ppl will care and bring about BTC


dont worry man, if im not wrong i stipulate 5-10 years no more, if im not wrong, to see how things change a lot in this planet ;)

things are going faster than expected even if we didnt notice it.

accepting bitcoin as merchant isn't extra work. everything gets done for you. if you don't have enough custommers then it doesn't cost you a penny. no extra work.

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WARNING!

This thread was started by none other than
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AKA John Ennis.

For more info on this man:

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Sollog
http://americanloons.blogspot.com/2013/08/650-john-ennis.html

He abuses the Bitcointalk forum by creating
dozens of sock puppet accounts and attempts
to either outright scam, promote his websites,
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He is not to be taken seriously.  Responding
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Since Bitcointalk allows limitless creation
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Some of the sockpuppet accounts created so
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