This is a great idea. I expect places to be poppoing up a lot more in the coming years.

In response to sachithra: What he is talking about are physical places that accept Bitcoin not Bitcoin currency itself. If you go to a couple of local stores in your area, chances are some of them (most of them) won't accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. So when there is a place that does, it is worth mentioning.

There are a lot of computer wiz people that know things about code, block chain technology, decentralization. What do you think the best way to explain to others why they should have Bitcoin and why they should use it?

Honestly, I don't think the majority of people give a shit about decentralization. There is a small group of people that are like "ahhh the bankers, they print more and more money". This is a small group of people and many of them are loners and into conspiracy theories. Most people simply don't care about inflation. The only thing people care about is security of their money, the speed of transactions, and easiness of transactions . A lot of people already feel safe with money as it is. So only the latter two really apply.

I guess the most important thing for Bitcoin is to get its transactions quicker and more convenient.

Is there any way that you can get someone interested in Bitcoin without giving them a novel of information and overwhelming them with complicated stuff about mining, blockchains, nodes, and all that other stuff?


Try and do it in a couple of sentences. I'll give it a go myself:

"Bitcoin is a medium of exchange that enables people to make speedy transactions from their smartphones, computers, and more. It is faster than traditional money, more secure, and cannot be manipulated by any large corrupt entity." (Some of this isn't true yet, but it is the vision for it)


I'm building a list of cool fun things that will get people interested in Bitcoin.

1) "Just by memorizing some jumbled numbers and letters or a simple passphrase you can potentially carry large sums of money in your head! You can get on a plane and fly all the way across the world and you can buy whatever you want instantly."
2) "Bitcoin is basically electronic gold. Its amount is limited in supply, but also a lot lighter to carry than traditional gold."
3) "Bitcoin is the future."
4) "Long ago people said the internet was just a fad. People are saying the same thing about Bitcoin."
5) "A word document is like a webpage in the same way that money is to Bitcoin. It is universal. Someone can steal your computer and claim the word document as theirs. It is a lot harder for someone to steal a webpage when it is on the internet for everyone to see."

Things that turn people off from Bitcoin are:
"The Public key is generated from the private key and you can only get to the public key from the private key and not the other way around. There are 2^256 total combinations of possible bitcoin addresses and blah blah blah blah blah." (Though this stuff is important, it is not a good way to start out)
"Bitcoin miners solve math problems and generate blocks for transactions to go through. During this process they are rewarded a small amount of bitcoin. The next block becomes harder to mine since all the previous blocks must cryptographically match the next block" (The solving math problems is an oversimplification that can be misunderstood. Everything else is information overload and will scare people away)
"Satoshi Nakamoto was the founder of Bitcoin and nobody knows who he is." (This is a terrible way to try and get someone interested in Bitcoin. If someone asks "Who started it?" just say "A team of developers that wanted to enhance the way people use money.")

Most people aren't going to be concerned with how Bitcoin works as much as what it will/can do.


Thoughts?

No, I don't think it will. Gold is in its own category. While Bitcoin is similar to gold in a lot of regards it has distinct differences. It is important to remember that bitcoin carries the blockchain technology with it giving it some other value then just being a string of numbers including 1s and 0s. Bitcoin is just a better way to send transactions and is given value by what it can do in addition to the herd mentality that bitcoin will increase in value over time.

As others have said before me. Bitcoin is capital gains tax and not income tax. You can hold bitcoins for a long time and not pay any tax on them for many many years. But once you sell them, you have to pay a long term capital gains tax. If you sell them before a full year you have to pay short term capital gains tax.

So just keep them for a long time. Don't try and trade for a marginal profit because you'll get eaten alive by taxes.

The technology behind the blockchain is revolutionary. The real question is why wouldn't governments want bitcoin to grow? Bitcoin can solve a lot of the world problems that regular currency is currently facing.

We need more stories like this. A lot of posts on this forum are about holding bitcoins or trading to get more profit. This thread shows that Bitcoin being used in its intended purpose. Once people start to realize that Bitcoin will replace credit cards and other services, that is when Bitcoin will catch on and go mainstream.

I think the bitcoin gold fork will actually increase the price since people will be wanting bitcoin gold. The 2X MB hard fork will be another story. People will panic sell due to uncertainty.

Never put everything you have into one currency. One way to ensure going broke one day.

I would try coinbase.com. It is easier for newer members and isn't confusing. (I would post a referral link, but apparently that's spam.   ) There are also other exchanges where you can buy bitcoin. It is best, after purchasing these bitcoin, to place inside cold storage. I personally like my bitcoins in paper wallets for the most part. Keep your private keys in a safe place and don't share them with anybody.

To generate private keys, I would use bitcoinaddress.com. Basically it is a website that generates private keys for you. I checked the website on scamadvisor and it says the site is trusted and that was enough for me at least.

To find ways to earn more bitcoin that you can store away safely go to earnthosebitcoin.com

There are also countless of Youtube videos to watch, but be careful. Some people on YouTube don't know what they are talking about. Always be careful and do your research.

Bitcoin.org will tell you a lot of things that you don't know about Bitcoin and how it works. GL

Ranked to most safe to least safe way to store your Bitcoin is as follows:
Paper Wallet > Hardware Wallet > Online Wallet > Exchange

Of course there are caveats to each, but use your discretion and pick the one that suits closest to your needs.

Bitcoin Gold is going to be a new thing fairly soon. Are you a fan of this change or not? Explain your reasoning below. What are its pros and cons?

Bitcoin cash is an altcoin. When Bitcoin goes down, Bitcoin cash goes down. When Bitcoin goes up, Bitcoin cash goes up. This is true for the most part, but Bitcoin cash is going to underperform and one day collapse. I advise getting rid of your Bitcoin cash. It is a garbage coin that no one who seriously understands bitcoin is going for. I wrote a guide on the forum of how to sell Bitcoin cash from a paper wallet.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2182222.msg21891737#msg21891737

I think a lot of people would be getting rid of their BCH if they knew how to do it. It is a long and tedious process at the time being for doing it from a paper wallet. Some people read good things about BCH, but it is only a pump and dump. Get rid of that garbage. LTC is more likely to surpass Bitcoin than BCH. The BCH community can't even get their ticker symbol right. They mix it up with BCC and BCH because they are indecisive and will ultimately fail.

When January comes along and people will be able to recieve their bitcoin cash on Coinbase the price will drop very quickly.

No, I don't agree. Since it is the beginning of October, in 3 months Bitcoin would have to triple in price to reach that goal. Too good to be true imo. Bitcoin has already exploded. It will increase in price, but it will be gradual and take much more time. I guess only time will tell for sure.

I believe there is a strong possibility of Paypal ending up adopting bitcoin in its own business. If it doesn't do this then it will probably become obsolete. Slowly, but surely, bitcoin will become the head honcho of peer to peer transactions.

This is a terrible terrible terrible idea. Diversification is key. It is better to have something than to be totally broke. I don't think bitcoin will collapse, but the possibility is still there. There are plenty of other things to invest in as well. There is a saying that goes "Don't put all your eggs in one basket". This applies here.

Bitcoin is an asset. Eventually, one day, it will become a currency, but at this time it is mostly an asset. There aren't too many places where Bitcoin is accepted. I live in Michigan and never once have I seen Bitcoin as an option to buy something or act as a medium of exchange. In other words, Bitcoin really isn't even money.

Even the US government doesn't recognize Bitcoin as a currency. Instead it treats it like an asset. Bitcoin pretty much acts like a stock and in a lot of ways is one.

I was wondering if BitcoinTalk moderators read private messages sent from user to user. If I try an advertise in a private message is that against the rules? I know that spam is against the rules obviously, but if I add a referral link in a private message am I gonna get busted? I want to give my referral links for people that specifically ask for something. I put a referral link in a thread on here and it got deleted. It was completely relevant, but nevertheless it was deleted.

Does BitcoinTalk only allow advertising in signature and avatar pic? Or can I private message people as well.

I'm worried that if I put a link in my private messages that some bot is going to flag my message and the mods will hate me for it. Don't hate me mods I'm not a spammer or malicious user.

However, all this hype for bitcoin could just be like another dotcom bubble. Also, governments can stop bitcoin for majority of people.

The Fork will decrease the price. People will freak out, because Bitcoin could potentially lose all its value. I don't think it will so I will continue to hold. I don't really understand the purpose of raising the blocksize to 2MB.

When is this fork happening? I thought it was happening in November and not October. When is it?

Bitcoin Gold was founded by Nick Szabo, or so I thought. I don't think you need to worry about the hard fork. Whatever is best for bitcoin will happen due to the people that know a lot about it are working on it. Seems like a lot of these hard forks are just money making opportunities where big money creates pump and dumps. Overall, bitcoin will prevail.

I'm not sure which is more sad. The fact that people actually thought OP was serious or the fact that using Poe's law didn't have the affect that it was suppose to.

Though this picture made me chuckle, it is inaccurate. Governments can ban bitcoin if they want to and it would certainly have a big impact on the price and usage of bitcoin.

Also, your grammar is wrong. "Bitcoin is died!" should read "Bitcoin are deathing!"

Deathing is the gerund form of the participle propresition which must follow either the former or the ladder of the sentence. It is obvious that the ladder is better since you get to climb it and shout, thus the explanation point. In retrospect, this also switches the noun to the plural form in disguise, hence giving us "are" instead of "is". It isn't visible, but it is grammatically correct nevertheless.

1) Person from nation B tells person from country A about his public address in an email, by phone, or other form of communication. Person from country A then transfers his money by the means of a wallet of some kind.

2) What do you mean by bookkeeping? Do you mean a record? If so, bitcoin transactions are stored on a public ledger available for anyone to see.

3) I'm not sure what you are asking here. Do you mean blocks? Blocks are solved by speedy computation from bitcoin mines. These blocks allow for transactions to take place up to 1MB of data.