If the original source of the article requests that you cite the source (and not just the authors), then it would be polite to do so.

The primary Unique Selling Proposition of Bitcoin (as opposed to Beenz, or Paypal, or anything else) is the decentralized control structure. With Bitcoin, there is no "counterparty risk." No corp or organization or individual could be shut down in order to shut down Bitcoin. This advantage cannot be overstated. Consider egold... it had all the safety of gold, but it's weakness was that it was the liability of a company. The company shuts down, the system is gone.

Bitcoin being a decentralized peer-to-peer protocol makes it vastly more powerful, flexible, and perhaps unstoppable. That's why I own it.

I'd be more supportive of them if they weren't so confused about who the enemy is.  Banks are no problem when they only risk their own money... it's the socialization of loss which is the problem, and thus the protesters would be much more wise to be standing out in front of the Fed. Greed is not the enemy. Theft is the enemy.

Yep Bit-pay's system is fantastic. They give merchant the option of taking the Bitcoin payment as Bitcoins (charging .99% fee) or as USD (charging 2.99%).  If taken as USD, the exchange is made almost immediately at the time of the transaction, minimizing exchange rate risk almost to the point of being irrelevant. Merchant gets paid in USD deposit to their bank account within 24 hours.

This means that vendors don't have to care/know about Bitcoin at all! They don't even have to know what it is... they just receive dollars with a 2.99% fee, lower than most credit card merchant accounts (and without chargeback risk).

If only more people understood this principle, the world would be a happier place =)

Freedom.

First I wanted to post: "let's not."

But then I figured I should write a more reasoned response =)  The reasoned response is, that your idea wouldn't work. It wouldn't work because if we removed the "bitcoin" denomination, and just referred to one's balance in USD, for example, then owners of this stuff would find the value of their wallet constantly changing. Open your wallet today and you have $1,130. Open it tomorrow and you have $990. Open it next week and now you're at $1,242. That doesn't make any sense... because it's essentially inferring that the amount of property one has is variable. Wealth fluctuates, sure, but units of property does not.

To make any sense of a balance which fluctuates in USD value, one needs a standard unit of account to measure it against. And voila, we call that Bitcoins. One's wallet reveals the same number of bitcoins today as tomorrow, and should the owner choose to do so he can easily find out how valuable those units are in terms of other commodities, be they USD, euros, or ounces of gold.

Your suggestion would be tremendously confusing and awkward... and wholly unnecessary. Bitcoins are a commodity. They deserve a name for their units and thus they can be tracked and traded accordingly.

Just remembered this and donated... if you care about liberty, please support it here:

http://www.ronpaul2012.com/

Need some inspiration? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=LkuSo7Nys78#t=35s

You're spouting silliness. The difficulty of producing a thing does not dictate it's "value."  We could easily calculate the man-hours required for creating an baseball-size ball of chewed gum, say it's 450 man-hours? Call this X. We could also easily calculate the cost of the raw input gum material. Call this Y. If we combine X and Y with some fancy math formula, will it yield any results upon which we can base the "fair" market price of the chewed ball of gum?

Pricing is determined by supply and demand, period. Cost of production influences the supply side, but is fully irrelevant for the demand side. For this reason, it is a very poor determinant of price and basing Bitcoin pricing on such a fallacy would be pointless.

The market price of all things float in relation to each other, this is not a unique phenomenon to Bitcoin. But, everyone notices this with Bitcoins because they are highly volatile. Volatility will fall long term, until it starts becoming reasonable to price goods at set BTC prices, irrespective of the dollar. That point is years away, regardless of how successful Bitcoin is.

What is perhaps more interesting, is that at some point Bitcoins will in fact become more stable and predictable than USD (for a number of reasons). Then, people may start pricing in dollars based on the BTC price. This is pretty far in the future, of course =)

Wow I didn't even consider that... that would be killer.

Putting a QR code on the paper receipt at the customer's table is a great idea. Waitress drops it at the table, customer scans it, sends the coins needed plus tip, and then the waitress should be able to verify the transaction back on that fancy little touchscreen they use in the back to manage bills.

Good questions.

I think the world market wants a few currencies, because they provide different characteristics. IE - both gold and silver are good monies concurrently. The world needs a solid digital money, that would act to compliment hard assets. Bitcoin may be that currency.

It would be unlikely, however, for there to be multiple digital currencies unless they have profoundly different characteristics. I cannot imagine a world with five somewhat similar crypto-currencies... it won't happen. We would not see SolidCoin and Bitcoin exist simultaneously long term. One would did win.

OP - most successful entrepreneurs fail many times before "getting it right." Every business you start, you should expect it to fail, and so will everyone else. Do it any way. Learn, try again. People put millions of dollars and decades into businesses that fail and leave them in bankruptcy and eternal poverty. That's the risk an entrepreneur takes.

And with the world of Bitcoin, difficulty is amplified... not only does a Bitcoin entrepreneur need Bitcoin to succeed as a protocol, but his business must win out as well. Thus, starting a Bitcoin business is doubly risky.

Your business did not fail because "everyone hoards coins." It did not fail because "the community didn't give you a chance." It failed because your product was not well-received by the marketplace. A million factors go into it, but if you have this idea in your head that you created something wonderful and nobody was smart or wise enough to notice, then it'll leave you in a foul mood and you'll be unlikely the learn the important lessons of business.

I've been involved with this community for months now, and I've never even heard of your site until now. And selling $5 cards for $7? Not going to work. And nowhere on your homepage is Bitcoin mentioned. No Bitcoin logo. No pricing in Bitcoin.  And for god's sake, your website had "Sales Message Goes Here"... I mean, come on.

I would like to praise you very highly, however, for assuring your creditors that they'll be paid back. That is very honorable, and a good sign that you'll have a good future ahead of you in business. Drop what you need to, regroup, and try again. Capitalism is hard.

Use Bit-pay.com  and there is no exchange rate risk/volitility risk. Problem solved!

You're right, it was trendy two years ago. Bounty has to be higher for more sophisticated work, son!

And yes, the poster accepts Bitcoins. That's how cool they are

That's so last century. Bit-pay already solves this completely. Surely competitors will too.

From the message chain, apparently they want Bruce to help point them toward some POS systems. They will then try one out at 2 or 3 locations in a pilot program. I don't think anyone is planning to launch 500 locations at once =)

Still, I'm skeptical of the news until it's confirmed. If true, it's a big deal.

You should post this in the main forum.

Okay thanks everyone for the comments.

Deslok - as this is for you, if you're printing it on any inkjet/business/home printer I do not think it will print to the edge of the paper (called "bleed"). I had assumed these would be printed professionally, with bleed available.

If they're just being printed on a home/office printer, then I'll need to remove anything touching the edges, and probably make the background pure white.

Deslok: do you prefer we do the QR code/URL for bitcoin.org or for weusecoins.com (I kinda prefer weusecoins actually)