Not about Bitcoin, per se, but I believe this article demonstrates why Bitcoin isn't used more often as a currency: those who aren't as tech oriented as we are just don't get it.
Don't worry, they will. Due to Bitcoin's unprecedented nature, this is really the market with SLOOOOOW information dissipation. Which creates very real opportunities for technology-literate to move much higher up the wealth ladder than it would be possible otherwise. Enjoy it while it lasts - by the time everyone finally "gets it", Bitcoin's value transfer potential will be gone, even if other aspects of this amazing technology will still be there. |
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http://seekingalpha.com/article/1777312-bitcoin-remains-not-viable-and-borderline-illegalYour usual anti-Bitcoin piece from all-too-familiar position of gold-worshipping technophobe. It is very clear that the author prefers to regurgitate obsolete cliches as opposed to his own thinking. Also, he doesn't understand how Bitcoin works and fills his gaps of understanding with ignorance and fearmongering to build his argument. Standing on such shaky ground, the whole construction unravels after a couple of intelligent comments.
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With BTC rate high enough, I envision a field of "Bitcoin treasure hunters" developing. People will just hunt down and buy pre-2012 PCs and hard/CD/flash drives on an off-chance that they were used in early Bitcoin mining and contain unredeemed/abandoned coins. Even the slightest chance to recover a couple of BTC every once in a while will be enough to finance such endeavors.
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As a user the Ripple client is still horrible to use, and the servers are often down. Is there any way to use it without using the ripple.com client?
I've used to develop a command line client for Ripple: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150447. It is not supported any longer, but should be still functional for most simple use cases. |
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I expect more interest to return to Ripple following open-source ... kind of a disappointment!  I think OpenCoin/RippleLabs decision to keep source code closed for so long did themselves a great disservice. By the time they eventually open sourced it to great fanfare, they've already acquired hard-to-fix negative rep among both FOSS and Bitcoin communities. Most developers who would be interested in working with this code lost interest and moved on to other projects. If OC did not lose their FOSS cred from the very beginning, developer interest may lead to further adoption and powerful momentum. None of it seems likely at the moment, with ripple.com more or less a ghost town by now. With number of active users, volume of transactions and trade amount not only stagnant, but even falling compared to earlier periods. |
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http://www.news.com.au/money/money-matters/norwegian-student-kristoffer-koch-buys-27-in-bitcoin-in-2009-now-he-owns-an-apartment/story-e6frfmd9-1226748159679It was 2009 and he was working on his thesis about encryption when he came across the mysterious currency. He bought some for fun, then forgot about it.
Fast-forward to April 2013, when the value of bitcoins started to soar. The internet currency received widespread media coverage, and Mr Koch remembered he had bought a few bitcoins years ago, NRK reports. "I thought to myself, didn't I have something like that?" Mr Koch said.
He started searching frantically for his password, which he had encrypted. When he finally worked out the correct combination to unlock it, he found a very pleasant surprise. "It said 5000 bitcoins there. Measuring that in today's rates it's about 5 million kroner ($885,520)," he said.
He cashed in about one fifth of his bitcoins, and it was enough for him to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of the richer parts of Norway's capital Oslo.
His partner was initially sceptical about him spending "real money" on "fake money". She has since changed her tune.
"She thinks I spend money on a bunch of crap. I buy a lot of technical little things that I never have time to use, and this was the worst of all, the fact that I was buying fake money," Mr Koch said. And now? "She says that I should be allowed to buy the things I want."
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By the way - Bitcoin is trademarked too and owned by MtGox.
Once they start marketing any product under this trademark and enforcing their trademark against others, like RippleLabs does, I'll call their product/service proprietary as well. Since this did not happen yet, and unlikely to happen in future, I really fail to see any parallels here. |
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OpenCoin, the company behind Ripple, which operates a payment system using Bitcoin Is this true? No, this is false - but unfortunately this is a direct result of RippleLabs (nee OpenCoin) deceptive marketing of their centralized proprietary Ripple system. Their sales pitch is "Just like Bitcoin, but better!" which is wrong on so many levels I'm at loss where to to start debunking it... |
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Well, I thought of extending Ripple to be used as back-end to a site like inputs.io or similar, working title "Cripple" (centralized Ripple). No, this is not sarcasm, there could be some benefits actually to this.
This may actually be a valid application for this technology - centrally controlled, but possibly distributed payment backend. Leaving no doubt among its users that there is a central administrator and a single point of failure. However, to market this technology as a kind of "decentralized payment network", like RL used to - this is just a great misstatement of facts, bordering on dishonesty, IMHO. If I was a developer of such system, though, I'd be very worried about Ripple Labs aggressive legal stance towards "imitators" - see TOS. |
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This is actually the first known article on EC that a mortal person has a fighting chance to comprehend, without looking up every second word in Wikipedia. Most "popular" articles on the subject are so badly written it's not even funny...
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Ephebus: What a childish tantrum. Run along, kid, go play with other kids - seems like civilized discussion is too much for you to handle.
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