Remember the pain and suffering we all experienced when China banned Bitcoin last year? Well, a new form of punishment is on the horizon for Bitcoin thanks to New York’s Superintendent of Financial Services, Benjamin Lawsky. This new artificially imposed homicide might as well be called – Death by Regulation. Imagine walking up to a New York street vendor in Times Square to purchase a foot-long hot dog and being asked to provide your name and home address. If you’re paying with cash, no need to fret. But if you’re paying in Bitcoin or some other digital currency, be prepared to answer a series of questions before enjoying your tasty treat. The State of New York is proposing BitLicense, a set of rules and regulations that would mandate licenses for merchants that accept Bitcoin and its digital cousins. The proposal creates expensive costs and barriers-of-entry for vendors, and infringes upon the rights of both businesses and casual users alike, according to a recent article published by the electronic frontier foundation. The fact is, the World looks to New York for guidance as it relates to financial and banking regulation and if this proposed legislation passes, it would mean an end to Bitcoin in New York, and likely set a wrench into motion that could “gum up” the entire cryptocurrency machine. In essence, the Bitlicense would become the Ebola Virus of digital currency with Benjamin Lawsky becoming “patient zero”. The open comment period on these regulations is expected to end soon, after which time, the Department of Financial Services will release an updated version of its proposed regulatory framework. That means that digital currency adopters worldwide have a limited amount of time to speak out against these new proposals or face regulation that is sure to strike a crippling blow to cryptocurrencies across the globe. Full Story: http://altcoinpress.com/2014/10/new-york-looks-to-slap-digital-currency-with-death-sentence/This should not in any way be considered unexpected (or even problematic for that matter)...New York is the fiat banking capital. Over-regulation and monopolistic tactics are to be anticipated, and such draconian reactive efforts and concern on the part of established power structures could even be regarded as useful, by lending significant credibility and weight to the Bitcoin ecosystem. At the end of the day, Bitcoin will succeed or fail based on its own merits, as determined by the global open-market. Legislation, regulation, competition et al will have influence to varying degrees...but if BTC proves to be better than $ (or any other fiat) as determined by adoption and utility, then no manner of obstructionism will prevent proliferation. Bitcoin is so much more than regulatable currency...it is the reimagination of economics...the reinvention of finance...the transition from centralized exploitation to individual empowerment. http://www.coindesk.com/block-chain-aid-fight-free-speech/and http://www.coindesk.com/imf-world-bank-bitcoin-block-chain-financial-inclusion/ |
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Early days...the ~$250 Million invested in BTC during 2014 is just the tip of the iceberg. Internet-specific companies raised $7.1 BILLION in 2013...the software industry saw an additional $11 Billion invested in 2013...and that was only 37% of all VC last year...
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Market will dictate value, of course...but it should probably be noted that the last forum sale of one of these 10BTC Casascius coins was for 19BTC in August. That coin was however graded MS67. It may also help to recall that Casascius originally sold these with a ~4BTC premium wholesale. Highest price paid on the forum according to Chainsaw's Casascius thread was 25BTC.
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I was just watching Jeff Garzik's presentation at the Bitconf (really? Bitcon? was someone asleep?), and he mentioned the need for a PR effort to bring a higher level of bitcoin education to the general public.
As I happen to agree, and have a background in communication and journalism, it resonates with me.
So I thought we might start a discussion as to what this Bitcoin PR would look and feel like. Here are some ideas:
- A clearing house for expertise on the different aspects of bitcoin (THIS IS BRANDING), that puts out regular press releases to media outlets, then guides the incoming queries through the appropriate channels.
- A repository of all previous coverage of bitcoin in the media. (THIS IS MEDIA RELATIONS)
- A proactive effort to contact levels of government, banking, trading, law enforcement, etc... towards showing that bitcoin, while truly revolutionary as a concept, isn't necessarily "dangerous" and can in fact be complementary to already existing policies, systems and paradigms. (THIS IS PUBLIC RELATIONS)
- Perhaps some inroads into academia, to see if some bright students want to make bitcoin the object of their dissertation, or to channel the knowledgable people to give talks at universities and colleges. (THIS IS MARKETING)
Any other ideas? A name would be great... too bad Bitcoin Consultancy is already taken.
Or, this PR effort could be rolled into an existing entity, like Bitcoin Consultancy.
The key is that it has to be done professionally. So far, most attempts at bringing bitcoin to the public at large have had a certain whiff of amateurishness to them. We need to raise the bar a tad.
Cheers,
First and foremost, it is imperative to delineate the difference between Public Relations and Branding...despite widespread misconceptions, the two are positively not one in the same. I think what you (and many others, including Garzik, Antonopoulos, Armstrong et al) are really talking about here is a concerted Brand Strategy. You bite off nearly every aspect of the communications spectrum with your initial ideas...see my comments in red next to each above. Bitcoin needs it all. Public Relations is at its core, outreach that builds symbiotic relationships between organizations and their stakeholders...but it has, as an industry, generally evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective) into damage control. Brand is who and what you are and Branding is the process by which you communicate who and what you are...this requires a certain element of focus and, dare I say, centralization. You use terms like "clearing house" and "repository"...and these are appropriate for effective Brand Strategy given the specific and controlled requirements needed for effective Branding. Prioritization is needed. Before moving to actionable one-off steps, a more over-arching stratagem and understanding regarding precisely which of these aspects is being addressed should be determined, then it would be wonderful to be able to compile a wide-reaching "peer-to-peer" effort in the truest spirit of Bitcoin to address this significant void. Companies however, spend seemingly countless amounts of time and money to create effective specific Brand Strategy...it is unarguably the most defining aspect of a business model, regardless of industry. Bitcoin, by its very nature, has no such concerted effort. The Brand, Media Strategy, Marketing and Public Relations initiatives have been and will continue to be largely splintered at best, and as we've often seen, detrimental at worst. My guess is that eventually one or perhaps a few Bitcoin focused companies will begin to dominate both the Bitcoin economy and public awareness...and these leaders will shape and shepherd the Bitcoin "Brand" as it were...much as Visa and American Express did for the credit card industry. This is a chilling special-interest prospect indeed. Anyone remember these early credit card industry efforts from the 1970's...?  |
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hallo bitcoiners  I want to ask, how do you multiply with 1BTC capital? what would you do? invest? play in mining? or else please share your opinion here Interesting...not a single mention of numismatics... You might find this to be a compelling read...take a look at the multiples some of these coins have gotten... https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=214589.0 |
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...Its not like its going to double/half within a few minutes.
Don't be so sure...its happened before... Care to underline your claims with some sort of reference? Absolutely...drastic BTC exchange price fluctuations over extremely abbreviated time periods have happened many times over the past 5 years on various exchanges for myriad reasons...including a 2014 flash crash of 80% in just a few seconds: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-10/bitcoin-flash-crashes-drops-80-secondsA couple of weeks ago, this happened again to a much lesser degree: https://www.coinprices.io/articles/news/bitcoin-price-update-aug-14-flash-crashThen there was the exchange specific Gox debacle...about which we are all familiar: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2100100/mt-gox-bitcoin-price-falls-below-100.htmlThere are many more examples on the price spike side from Bitcoin's early days with jumps from $19 to $32, moves from $160 to $230 in 2013 and consistent $100 jumps as recently as this past November...et al. Point being...there is a reason why so many merchants that are accepting BTC, especially the larger mainstream ones, are using Coinbase to trade out at market rate...it's still early days and price relative to fiat can move quickly. This should settle down congruently with increased adoption. |
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...Its not like its going to double/half within a few minutes.
Don't be so sure...its happened before... |
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Hello, everyone.
I've tried searching the forum as well as the internet in general, but I can't seem to find an answer to my question. (I must be using the wrong keywords, because I am 100% convinced that this same question has been asked a bazillion times!)
What is the accepted etiquette for BTC pricing as far as deadlines go? For instance, let's say that the current exchange rate for BTC is $500 USD/BTC. If I am selling something on a forum for $100 or .200 BTC, how long should I honor the price of .200 BTC? I mean, if I'm asking .200 BTC because I'm hoping to get around $100 USD for my item, but the buyer decides to wait several days hoping that the exchange rate drops to around $400 USD/BTC, then I lose a significant amount of money on the sale (percentage-wise).
I know that some companies (Overstock, I think) give a one minute (or so) deadline for the BTC price for just this reason, so what is the accepted forum etiquette on BTC price deadlines? Hours? Days? Forever?
Thank you in advance.
My Best,
Christopher
You can avoid the concept of having an exchange rate asking price "accepted by" timeframe altogether by simply using a real-time converter in your listings, like the one offered at youmeandbtc.com. If you want $100 for an item, then you ask the buyer to send BTC equivalent at time of payment...whenever that might be. No need to hold any price, just check the converter and pay that amount at the moment of payment. Here is the code for $100 at Coinbase rates: <a href=http://youmeandbtc.com/bitcoin-converter-adjust-prices-automatically/><img src=http://youmeandbtc.com/bitcoin-converter-php.php?dir=tobtc&val=100&cur=usd&btctype=btc&exchange=coinbase&dec=8></a> And here is what conversion image looks like in a listing:  |
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Fascinating...significant amount of tradesman effort goes into each piece...will be a work of art indeed...
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I'm in...put me down for one nubbins...like the international postering campaign concept.
Seems you are quite proud of this work. Might be nice to number each poster /50 from this original issue...
Thanks! PM sent! Each print will indeed be individually numbered Very cool...look forward to seeing what you've created... |
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I'm in...put me down for one nubbins...like the international postering campaign concept.
Seems you are quite proud of this work. Might be nice to number each poster /50 from this original issue...
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The current system works perfectly and well, no major changes are required...
What if 10 million people decide to use bitcoin. Im sure the network would begin to struggle with massive amounts of transactions being made and size limits. Based on the rate of adoption and wallet creation, we might be at this level by the end of the year... |
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What's the offer...? Chain of custody: Mike Caldwell→OgNasty→djjacket→ducatitalia This coin is currently held as part of a very rare complete silver Casascius collection, and not really interested in selling unless the price is right...that said, offers can always be entertained...   |
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Based on various recent polls...very scientific I know...it looks as though roughly 80% of users on this forum are either saving all or most of their BTC, while the other 20% are spending most of their BTC.
Take from this what you will...
I would reiterate a version of an initial question posed: Is Bitcoin ultimately destined to be treated as more of an investment, a currency or something else...?
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