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One thing that will help is if someone can post up a set of good secure design practices. This will help those developing new Bitcoin based websites to ensure that their sites won't get immediately cracked. I'm thinking of a minimum set of architecture requirements that can be used as a ticklist.
I'm not simply saying "TrueCrypt your wallet!" - that advice is fine for casual users. If you're developing a large scale system with lots of wallets what would you do to ensure the safety of your clients?
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I think that instead of coming up with names for 0.001 and 0.000001 bitcoins we should seriously consider changing the value of 1 bitcoin. I propose that what now is 0.000001 bitcoins becomes the new bitcoin. If we want bitcoin to be widely used we have start thinking about how to make things simple for Average Joe. So, a couple of reasons why this would be better: - Bitcoin sounds like a small amount.
- While milli- and micro- is very simple to understand for a scientific community, "a thousand" and "a million" is understood more intuitively by Average Joe. So instead of having "a microbitcoin", "a millibitcoin" and "a bitcoin" in everyday use it would be better to have "a bitcoin", "a thousand bitcoins" and "a million bitcoins".
- No currency that I have used have smaller amounts than 0.01 main units. Using the new definition of a bitcoin the smallest possible amount would be just that, 0.01 bitcoins.
I don't think that it's too late to make a change like this. D.H. nailed it here. This should be the new standard. +1 Perhaps the Wiki should be updated to reflect this approach? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#What_do_I_call_the_various_denominations_of_Bitcoins? |
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0.001 BTC = "mbit" [em-bit]
0.000 001 BTC = "ubit" [yu-bit]
0.000 000 001 BTC = "nbit" [en-bit]
There is no intrinsic value in having a 1e-2 denomination (i.e. bitcent), this will just add unnecessary confusion to an SI-style system which has the convenience of using SI prefixes milli-, micro-, nano-, etc.. If there is an 1e-3 denomination (i.e. mbit), it is easy to express the equivalent of a "bitcent" as 10 mbit, e.g. That is to say, there is no advantage of efficiency in adopting a bitcent. If you were to adopt a bitcent/centibit, why not a decibit (i.e. 0.1 BTC?) - things become very mushy.
PS. There should be no problem with representing subdivisions of BTC with "bit" (i.e. mbit) in terms of confusion with data bits, as data bits are atomic (i.e. non-divisible: there is no such thing as 0.001 bits (microbits) in computing). [That said, data-rates could be expressed which might invoke "microbit", such as 100 microbits per second, but such a slow data-rate would be uncommon; and this practice is not done "in the wild".]
I like this approach because: 1) it promotes open standards (SI units) 2) it is easy to say ("I'll buy that for an mbit") but there is a possible confusion between "em" and "en" phonemes though 3) the rapid deflation of a bitcoin is such that 0.01BTC is going to be arbitrary in the near term so call it 10mbits instead Is there a page on the Bitcoin Wiki to promote this as the proposed standard? |
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Yeah, a friend of mine attempted a transaction through HSBC but was blocked temporarily by their fraud detection service throwing up a warning (unusual traffic). After he verified that he really did want to deposit then they processed the details as normal. Interesting to see that the banks are monitoring this movement of GBPs.
Glad to see that the Britcoin exchange is growing. It's vital that Bitcoins are circulated so that more value is injected into the economy.
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"How can we protect Bitcoin from the threat of a government wanting to kill it off by various nefarious means?"
1) By pointing out that it is a more open currency than the one they already have so reduces the risk of terrorism, money laundering etc (definitely a good thing as far as I'm concerned). True anonymity on the Internet is damn near impossible.
2) By growing the Bitcoin economy so that it can stand alone. If everything you can get with alternative currencies is available by Bitcoin then you don't need to move outside the currency. Hey, you can live entirely through VISA/Mastercard payments in Western economies so why not Bitcoin?
3) Many Western governments want to phase out cash (the UK is starting this process by getting rid of cheques) and many businesses view it as a hassle due to the increased chance of armed robbery or egregious fees charged by banks who also view it as a hassle to move around. Welcome Bitcoin, thanks for solving our problem and speeding up the process!
OK, I'll take my rosy glasses off now. But let's try to be optimistic about the future of Bitcoin - it's more open than what we have at the moment.
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Go to Mt Gox or Britcoin and use their services.
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There is a very interesting article on legal tender in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender. Essentially, in the US, while the USD can be used to pay off debts, it is not required by businesses to accept USD in exchange for goods or services. That seems to open the door (by a tiny crack) to allow alternative payment methods to be acceptable without the government having a cause for concern. |
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As promised here is the final episode in my newbie Bitcoin visit to Britcoin. I've just finished transferring my shiny new BTCs into my wallet and it all went as smooth as silk. Once again, a triumph.
No problems whatsoever. Get them while they're hot, then spend 'em to kickstart the new economy!
:-D
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@darbsllim Sorry for the newb question, but what is the bitcoin contract system?
According to the Wiki ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts): "There are two general patterns for safely creating contracts: Transactions are passed around outside of the P2P network, in partially complete or invalid forms. Two transactions are used: one (the contract) is created and signed but not broadcast right away. Instead the other transaction (the payment) is broadcast after the contract is agreed to lock in the money, and then the contract is broadcast. This is to ensure people always know what they are agreeing to. Every transaction can have a lock time associated with it. This allows the transaction to be pending and replaceable until an agreed upon future time, specified either as a block index or as a timestamp." While this is not a complete alternative to escrow, it does open up interesting payment possibilities. Just thought you might want to look into it in case it's relevant to your business model. |
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I agree with darbsllim. Number 5 is the best of the bunch.
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As always it all depends on the nature of the work. Remember, Bitcoin is just a currency - a medium of exchange for goods and services. Don't base your business model around the currency (although it will help to drive traffic to your site). Instead, favour providing an excellent method of allowing people to conduct business together for very small jobs which would otherwise be cost prohibitive due to excessive money transfer fees. That is the reason (I hope) that you've chosen Bitcoin to handle the money side of things. You will need to set up some kind of escrow (ClearCoin being the obvious choice) but you may want to start exploring the possibilities of the Bitcoin contract system. In addition, and I'm sure you're aware of it, you may want to visit http://answers.onstartups.com/ which offers a lot of answers to questions that startups often ask. |
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Looks interesting - signed up and spread the word.
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I'd certainly agree that the facility for the buyer/seller to set their own rates is very useful. This will introduce a lot of extra flexibility into the process.
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Further thoughts from a Bitcoin noob working his way through Britcoin. Need to post it now, while I'm still in the mindset.
So last night I transferred a fair amount of cash into the Britcoin account. Here's my thinking as I progressed from there:
"Right, it's been 24 hours let's go check. OK, login with OpenId, oh 'Welcome back, commander' (very Elite - me like) and wahey - my funds have cleared! Nice work genjix."
"Now what? Um... Order book? Lots of listings there so I just click where to place the order.... um... er... help <click>"
So it's all done from the front page. I type in how much of what I want and it works out the order based on the best available rate. Righto...
"<Tappity tap> Tarnation! The rate's moved and I've just lost out on 6BTC in 24 hours. Mutter, mutter, pesky miners introducing scarcity, mutter. Buy, buy, buy, bye, bye. <Click>."
Let's see what happens next.
So from the above it would seem that having a "Place order" above the order book would be useful. I wasn't really expecting to have to do any work from the home page, that's normally associated with a bit of marketing fluff. Although it would probably involve a redesign of the layout, I'd expect to see a "Place order" box prominently displayed on every page (perhaps on the left in a column).
Thanks again for putting the site together and for handling my transaction smoothly - much appreciated. So far no problems at all. Great service.
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Here are some thoughts from a Bitcoin noob, based in the UK, upon arriving cold at the Britcoin site. Hopefully this may help with the future evolution of the site.
Arrive on home page...
"OK, nice looking site - some thought has gone into it. Looks a bit sparse on information. Hmm, login to start..."
Arrive on login page...
"OK, Open ID. That's reassuring, but I don't know that value off the top of my head. Oh, wait, there's Google and Yahoo listed (why isn't it a big graphic?) - and <click>..."
Arrive on account page...
"Now how do I buy me bitcoins then? Guess I have an account with some funds in it and then buy bitcoins once I'm set up. And now I need to make a deposit, so I pay some guy called Mr Taaki? ERROR! Better do some research here... and <click>"
Off to bitcoin.org where there are lots of reassuring messages about all this - thanks guys, much appreciated.
"Well, I'd better deposit some funds then. Here goes some hard earned cash... <clickety click>"
And now I wait and hope that it all works out. I'll update this thread later on to detail how I got on.
Overall a very good start to getting UK folks into buying and selling bitcoins. I'd suggest making the overall concept of Britcoin a bit more obvious so that people understand that they will be depositing GBP and then purchasing BTC on an open market. It's all explained in the help but having an infographic of some kind on the home page would be beneficial I think.
I'm a Java developer and I'd like to see Bitcoin become much more accessible to the masses so if there is anything I can do to help please get in touch.
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(First post)
Sounds like a sensible plan to me. I'd much prefer someone with an interest in making bitcoin grow have those domains and invest in their content than an opportunistic link farm of some kind.
To that end, I've taken out bitcoin2gbp.com, gbp2bitcoin.com and bitcoin.co.uk with the intention of providing a mechanism to exchange between bitcoins and GBP (British Pounds) in some form.
I've have strong Java skills and some Android experience (growing every day) and I'm willing to contribute to open source projects associated with Bitcoin (or closed source for a solid share of both the risk and the reward). Anyone wanting to get hold of me to discuss opportunities please feel free to get in touch.
You can visit gary-rowe.com for more information and further links.
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