|
from Vladimir:
@cypherdoc, you just wrote bitcoin PR manual.
Quote
1. don't talk about mining. its confusing.
2. don't talk about the blockchain. its even more confusing.
3. say that bitcoin is "digital gold". that'll definitely make them sit up.
4. say that only a fixed number will be issued and then NO MORE.
5. say that since its digital it can be instantaneously transported across borders w/o detection. they'll immediately realize the implications of this.
6. don't say anything about "cryptocurrency" or "cryptography". this makes it sound like bitcoin is trying to hide something along the likes of Silk Road and other illegal activities.
7. say that bitcoins are secured by "advanced mathematical algorithms" that prevent counterfeiting. sounds impressive.
8. try to avoid saying anything about Satoshi since an unknown character brings to mind a shady type character or hidden agenda.
9. do explain that the decentralized or "spread out" nature of bitcoin makes it indestructable to gov't or Fed intervention. they'll like that.
10. when they ask what its denominated in say that bitcoin is a currency unto itself and "floats" in value against other fiat currencies like the USD but bitcoin is in fact NOT a fiat currency. you might mention that you think that bitcoin will become the gold std against which all other currencies will be measured.
11. i wouldn't recommend newbies go to forum.bitcoin.org especially with all the trolls we've been getting there recently. the best place for them to go to learn about bitcoin is bitcoin.org which explains all the facts and has references.
I'll restate your points and will add some
Don't mention:
- mining
- blockchain
- crypto (unless it goes into technical details and you are asked how it is implemented)
- satoshi
- forum
- specific exchanges and businesses (unless you've been paid for that, maybe)
Do say:
- "digital gold"
- there never will be more than 21 million of bitcoin in existance
- bitcoin is secured by "advanced mathematical algorithms"
- "no government can repeal laws of mathematics"
- decentralized with no single entity to be shut-down or pressured, just like bittorrent
- quick and low cost payments over internet,
- can be easily and covertly transported over national borders
- negligible transaction fees
- "Disruptive disintermediation" (if audience seems to have above average IQ)
- pseudonymous and potentially anonymous transactions
- accounts cannot be "frozen"
- can make donations to wikileaks etc
- easier to store and transport than gold
- it is just like gold which you can teleport to anyone on the planet
- bitcon.org
- valued below 1$ in Spring 2011, valued at <whatever> dollars now.
- traded on a number of independent exchanges, which set up valuation against fiat currencies.
- potential low cost replacement of interbank settlement networks such as SWIFT
feel free to add to these lists
@all, do not freaking even think to speak to media before reading this. Wink
|
|
|
|
for example if Bit-Pay pays the merchant in USD it will have to exchange the received BTC. Any business accepting BTC has to exchange to fiat currency in order to pay suppiers, rent, taxes, etc.
well we have to start somewhere. i see it as a very positive development that ppl will be able to spend their btc's for real economic services and goods. its called liquidity and will lead to much better things for bitcoin in general. |
|
|
|
However many of these positive developments require trading bitcoin for fiat currencies. I am sure Meze Grill and Bit-Pay use MtGox or Tradehill for example.
i'm not sure that you've been following the bitcoin news lately but there have been SO MANY positive developments just in the past few weeks that its astounding:
1. Textcoin.uk.co- enables SMS text buying of btc w/o ANY BANKS! and they plan to go international very soon.
2. Bit-Pay-will enable btc holders to buy using btc from any merchant who decides to use their service. and merchants can decide to be paid EITHER in USD or btc.
3. several Android apps that provide POS pmts to merchants that accept btc. there are now 3 restaurants, not one, in NY city that accept btc.
4. Meze Grill will now act as a USD/BTC exchanger w/o ANY BANKS!
5. the proliferation of btc accepting merchants has gone parabolic if you look at the btc wiki page.
6. in case you hadn't noticed, financial stocks have been in a downtrend for 5 months now. B of A is now under $10 a share. if Wall St decides game over for tradtional stocks and bonds you could see an explosion in the BTC price. i actually predict this will happen at some point in the blink of an eye and everyone will be left behind.
not sure what you mean. many of these merchants probably accept btc and then hold them for investment w/o necessarily exchanging them for fiat. |
|
|
|
|
ok, you convinced me. i'll pm you.
|
|
|
|
Maybe "miner" is bad name for the promotion of the bitcoin
People are questioning that what are you mining for? a string of numbers? And you get money from the thin air?
The "miners" are bookkeeping and verifying the bitcoin transactions. and the coins generated is the reward for their work. "Auditing" is kind of contribution that will make people believe that the miners are doing useful job. By metaphor in "mining", people will get confused.
I guess Satoshi use "mining" is to promote the bitcoin conception among the early adopters to get involved, but now we need get people trust that the coins spread to the miners are really worth it.
finally you post a reasonable suggestion. |
|
|
|
Is this genuine? I started a SEPA transfer yesterday and I'd hate to lose that money.. haven't received any communication from tradehill related to problems.
Hi Tony, You won't lose your money - there will just be a delay. All monies in the account will be returned after due process. We sent out an email this morning to this regard. If you have additional questions send an email to info@tradehill.com. We are almost finished speaking with a new bank who has full knowledge of our business, the types of transactions we will be receiving, and more. Thanks, Adam they don't have a problem with bitcoin? They know who we are, what we do, and more. So far, it's been fine. The contracts are have been drafted, reviewed, redrafted, and should be signed soon. thats good news. |
|
|
|
I bought a few homes earlier this year. I am pretty sure that I could get a better deal near the end of 2012, but I didn't want to sit on USD until then. I was quite uncomfortable earlier this year when gold and silver were on a tear so I jumped (and missed out on the BTC spike due in part to being busy with that stuff. I would almost certainly be sitting on whatever I had accumulated at that time but I would have gotten in cheaper and probably would have gone mining.)
good luck with those homes. hopefully for you we don't go into the 2nd wave of deflation. everyone assumes the Bernank will inflate away their debt. i'm betting against that. |
|
|
|
I believe the QE(s) had a profound effect. Bad money (M2,3,MZM) contracted massively. The stock and housing markets should have collapsed worse than 1929. But the Fed "learned from that mistake" and instead printed money 360%. So instead of collapse, deflation, and ten year recovery, we'll have a long painful collapse, inflation, and no recovery.
QE was just an extension of Keynesian failed economic policies that got us into this mess. it was meant to bailout the speculating elite at the taxpayer expense. now its just gonna be harder during the next crash. |
|
|
|
how do the unemployed adapt? larger unemployment checks? oh wait...
As the efficiency of corporations increases, they will need less workers. This reduces total purchase power, so customers will have less money to buy the produced goods and services. More people will reduce their cost of living. If people's needs are not taken care of, they will just steal to survive and some will behave violently. Either resources are distributed voluntary or taken by force. now that sounds more realistic and not necessarily better for us all. |
|
|
|
|
is it my eyes or is the "BTC" a bit crooked?
|
|
|
|
In a deflation economy like bitcoin world, people waste lots of energies to produce the currency (thinking about how much electricity/computation power are wasted in the meaningless hash calculation to generate those coins)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the the hash calculation is not meaningless. Generating a block secures the transactions and continually hardens the network. Right now, there's a BTC bounty awarded for that, but that's not the ultimate model. Eventually, the hashing will just be create blocks to secure transactions, which is hardly wasteful. The bounty is just a reasonable means for initial currency distribution, and is, imo, pretty irrelevant overall. If you compare with how a bank secure the transactions, much less calculation power is required, they just need to make sure the balance of both account is correct based on the transaction history as well as pay out the multi million dollar bonuses and the hundreds of thousands for the janitors. |
|
|
|
todays GDP with its past revisions were appallingly bad. it's amazing our gov't and banking institutions get away with these manipulations.
neither of the QE's worked for the real economy except to line the pockets of the financial elite via bailouts who widened their wealth disparity from the common American by a significant amount.
when will it end?
It's not all due to banksters. Machines pushed workers from agriculture and production to service industries. Now self-service terminals and (increasingly artificial intelligent) robots will push workers out of the service industries at an exponential rate. Many workers have nowhere to go. We just adapt like we have done in the past. I'm sure it will eventually be better for us all. how do the unemployed adapt? larger unemployment checks? oh wait... |
|
|
|
|
at least you aren't buying a pizza!
|
|
|
|
|
very subtle but meaningful clues today; the threads Subject held true throughout the day.
|
|
|
|
todays GDP with its past revisions were appallingly bad. it's amazing our gov't and banking institutions get away with these manipulations.
neither of the QE's worked for the real economy except to line the pockets of the financial elite via bailouts who widened their wealth disparity from the common American by a significant amount.
when will it end?
It'll end when you come up with a program to stop it and have the political will to do so. The Depression that we're in can be stopped practically overnight, but you must know what is causing the problem and what to do about it. I started a "Economic Recovery Program" thread if you care to join the conversation. Just keep in mind that the elite of this country want to turn the USA into a mirror image of China (just the bad parts, none of the good). We've got a LOOOOOONG way to go down. The outer cities will soon look like the 3rd world slums if we continue on the path that we are on - problem is, there is no political opposition to this outcome in our political establishment. i'm a little more optimistic than that. i think this next downturn/market crash is gonna take out some large actors which needed pruning from the very start. Leh, Mer, BS, CFC, DSL, IMB, WM, WB wasn't nearly enough. BAC is next and i'm hoping for more like MS. the others will probably make it unfortunately. BTC is a revolution but it will take time to play out. |
|
|
|
who here remembers Bush bragging about the high home ownership rate of Americans? they've impoverished us.  |
|
|
|
There's no doubt in my mind that quantitative easing resulted in nothing more than an increase in speculation (equities up) and also fueled a rise in commodities. For the average Joe, this equated to very little benefit and more likely increased impoverishment via higher gas prices, heating, etc.
We could easily fall back into a recession (as it is defined in economics we are not in a recession or depression right now). Unemployment is 9%+ not counting underemployment and those who have just given up on seeking work. The debt crisis, which has been discussed ad nauseum here. The economy is very fragile.
As we saw in 2008, the financial markets can most definitely bully Congress into action. I'm of the opinion that we take our medicine now before we have to pay the piper even more down the road. The US is NOT insolvent. All this debt talk is political posturing. A debt default would be a self-inflicted wound unlike several European countries, which are truly insolvent and in crisis mode.
Tl;dr - America is in a bad state but it's not time to store up on food and guns just yet. The dummies in power just need to start owning up to their responsibilities rather than pointing fingers.
+1 but i have stored up on food and guns just in case. i'm also short. |
|
|
|
Is this genuine? I started a SEPA transfer yesterday and I'd hate to lose that money.. haven't received any communication from tradehill related to problems.
Hi Tony, You won't lose your money - there will just be a delay. All monies in the account will be returned after due process. We sent out an email this morning to this regard. If you have additional questions send an email to info@tradehill.com. We are almost finished speaking with a new bank who has full knowledge of our business, the types of transactions we will be receiving, and more. Thanks, Adam they don't have a problem with bitcoin? |
|
|
|
|
debt/GDP is now 100%.
read Reinhart and Rogoff as to what this means.
|
|
|
|
|
debt/GDP is now 100%.
read Reinhart and Rogoff as to what this means.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
