never heard of them before, they use bitpay and add 5% on top as a processing fee for using bitcoin... meh
meh +1. Lame attempt to exploit bitcoin for publicity (looks like it worked). |
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Economists Question Bitcoin Stability Despite Meteoric Rise In Value http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112831059/bitcoin-users-at-risk-042513/...
According to a new study from Southern Methodist University in Dallas and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the virtual cyber currency known as Bitcoin could have as much as a 45 percent chance of failing. This could occur if an exchange center that held the currency – much as a bank holds real money – closed, losing customers their Bitcoins and any hard money paid for them.
...
My bet's on the 55% chance of survival  |
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Full title: A wildly popular Chinese conspiracy theorist says Bitcoin can “eliminate human greed” http://qz.com/76444/a-wildly-popular-chinese-conspiracy-theorist-says-bitcoin-can-eliminate-human-greed/Chinese bitcoin awareness is currently minimal compared with the west. It's going to be very interesting when the bitcoin story eventually goes mainstream there. That day is certainly coming, it's just a matter of when. Rumors of tightening currency controls and general growing economic uncertainty could position bitcoin well. The once tiny volume at BTC China (largest Chinese exchange?) has been growing steadily these past few months, but nowhere near the volume growth of Mt.Gox etc. |
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Banks running scared in Canada: http://www.businessinsider.com/canadian-banks-closing-bitcoin-businesses-2013-4?pundits_only=0&comments_page=1#comment-51799dfaeab8ea9f0800000cBanks closing accounts of legitimate, registered Canadian bitcoin dealers. From comments: Just one more reason to boycott RBC (as if you needed one) ... that is if you haven't already closed any accounts there after the recent employees-forced-to-train-their-foreign-worker-replacement debacle.
TD now running scared too? Remember when they closed all of the accounts of honest law-abiding Iranian-canadians - just because they were Iranian? Well they just lost my remaining business too.
Bitcoin is obviously here to stay. The banks are just going to have to 'get over it'
Vote with your feet: Close any accounts/asset holdings with RBC and TD - and most importantly - tell them why! |
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...and they significantly reduce the incentive for online retailers to adopt bitcoin at all.
I strongly disagree with this. In what way can you justify this? I have a case for the opposite. Retailers will always weigh risk vs. benefit. If they'd rather just pay the 3-5% and not 'bother' with bitcoin, many will unfortunately. As bitcoin use and awareness grows, and the exchange rate stabilizes, the incentive (no fees, no chargebacks) will eventually tip the scales toward adoption. Paypal's strategy will just slow down the process IMHO. who says that their fees will be 3-5% for bitcoin transactions? They know better to keep an increased margin in the face of rapid numbers of competitors. They may be able to get away with that margin as a first mover for awhile, but in a year from now there is no chance they will succeed at those levels. People will simply move to the new beautiful baby silicon valley spawns to suck from the teet of the dinosaur. My assumption is that they'll allow bitcoin funding but not bitcoin balances. This would suit their fee structure optimally. No doubt they will adapt if they need to, but at this time they wouldn't really need to allow a BTC balance or accept reduced fees. It will be very interesting, whatever they do. That doesnt really make sense. Who would use them just to convert to cash? There are plenty of other places to do that already. The real value for the consumer here is the FDIC insured, household brand name wallet that makes them feel safe and cuddly when they hold their bitcoins there. Make no mistake about it, this is the smart and only play. Well, it would certainly be huge if they did carry btc balances and do btc transactions, it'd be easy enough for them to just add another currency (btc). They'd suddenly be in competition with Coinbase, BitPay, etc, and - since they'd be an exchange - every other exchange including Mt.Gox. Seems pretty unlikely, though. The only reason anyone would want/need to send bitcoin through paypal would be the perceived safety of the chargeback and dispute resolution 'features' of Paypal. |
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It's just a fake (photoshopped) someone posted the original pic in another thread.
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...and they significantly reduce the incentive for online retailers to adopt bitcoin at all.
I strongly disagree with this. In what way can you justify this? I have a case for the opposite. Retailers will always weigh risk vs. benefit. If they'd rather just pay the 3-5% and not 'bother' with bitcoin, many will unfortunately. As bitcoin use and awareness grows, and the exchange rate stabilizes, the incentive (no fees, no chargebacks) will eventually tip the scales toward adoption. Paypal's strategy will just slow down the process IMHO. who says that their fees will be 3-5% for bitcoin transactions? They know better to keep an increased margin in the face of rapid numbers of competitors. They may be able to get away with that margin as a first mover for awhile, but in a year from now there is no chance they will succeed at those levels. People will simply move to the new beautiful baby silicon valley spawns to suck from the teet of the dinosaur. My assumption is that they'll allow bitcoin funding but not bitcoin balances. This would suit their fee structure optimally. No doubt they will adapt if they need to, but at this time they wouldn't really need to allow a BTC balance or accept reduced fees. It will be very interesting, whatever they do. |
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...and they significantly reduce the incentive for online retailers to adopt bitcoin at all.
I strongly disagree with this. In what way can you justify this? I have a case for the opposite. Retailers will always weigh risk vs. benefit. If they'd rather just pay the 3-5% and not 'bother' with bitcoin, many will unfortunately. As bitcoin use and awareness grows, and the exchange rate stabilizes, the incentive (no fees, no chargebacks) will eventually tip the scales toward adoption. Paypal's strategy will just slow down the process IMHO. |
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If it actually happens it would be the largest btc adoption news yet, by orders of magnitude. Far greater than Western Union, etc. Paypal's market penetration and transaction volume are huge.
Basically it means btc would be spendable anywhere Paypal is - through Paypal of course. Actually it's a brilliant strategy, they still get their 3-5% cut when you spend, and they significantly reduce the incentive for online retailers to adopt bitcoin at all.
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I would've been deeply concerned if survey results had been reversed. These people have proven that they can't predict their way out of a wet paper bag.
As such, this almost unanimous negative opinion is excellent news.
+1 Perhaps it would be more interesting to ask economists who foresaw the current crisis, rather than those who were responsible for it. |
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This. If you've ever found yourself sitting at a bench, soldering iron in hand, staring off into the distance marveling at the thought that voltage levels on the boards in front of you represent ones and zeros that can be ordered, stored, processed using binary mathematics into numbers, words, phrases, equations, books, pictures .... (gaze off into distance now and wonder about that) ... then you'll have no problem understanding the tangibility of bitcoin.
If it is as voltages inside electronic components or magnetic charges on a spinning disk, at some level the bits are physically manifest, if they were not your computing device with which you are reading this would not work. As surely as the ordering of protons, neutrons and electrons in the atom define gold, silver and all the other elements, the human construct of computing ordering physical bits makes them identifiable as tangible objects ... and we choose to trade them. Simple.
I love the smell of rosin in the morning.... smells like..... victory. |
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Notwithstanding the "We're a victim of our own success!" press release from Mt. Gox, the recent shutdowns have generally been attributed to overloaded servers mainly due to DDOS attacks of unknown origin - although a massive increase in regular trading volume has certainly contributed as well.
Other bitcoin sites/exchanges/wallets (blockchain.info, etc) have also been targeted with DDOS attacks over the past weeks.
This has all been a good stress-test for the bitcoin ecosystem, resilience to random events is definitely improving. Yesterday's Gox shutdown had only a minor, relatively short-lived impact.
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Includes a brief mention of "Bit-coin" in reference to the market manipulation that lead to the recent crash of the gold market: http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2013/04/15/how-the-gold-market-was-crashed?ref=hp&t=precious-metals&page=3...Now comes the part that is pure genius or a total coincidental thing that just so happens to be a gift to those who are short the market and those who would be responsible to deliver gold should the inventory deplete.
ALL OF A SUDDEN THE LONDON PHYSICAL PLATFORM THAT BUYS AND SELLS PHYSICAL GOLD GETS LOCKED UP. THE SYSTEM FREEZES.
The screens all freeze.
What does that mean?
No one can get to the physical market to buy at these low prices but at the same time, they can’t sell or protect their positions either. The system is frozen. Yes, just like at Bit-coin. The system locks up. And of course the results are going to be the same, just on a lower percentage level.
What can the physical holders do?... Sound familiar? |
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Date should be 2013-04-21 not 2012-04-21.
Thanks for pointing it out - fixed |
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Good question. Up until now they would probably have to have used Mt. Gox or have to find large sellers on one of the many OTC bitcoin boards. There are now a few sites (Coinlab, Tradehill) offer 'dark pool' trading where large trades can take place without affecting the market price.
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Not likely. They would invest through a hedge fund holding either bitcoin alone or a basket of currencies/equities including bitcoin.
A pure bitcoin hedge fund already exists in Malta, holding a significant quantity of bitcoins.
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He says central banks have nothing to fear, giving the example of saving for retirement by forgoing unpredictable U.S. dollars for money based on kilowatt hours and cubic feet of water. “If the priority of a central bank is price stability, then I would have thought they would be in favor of a wide variety of currencies,” he says. A very clever and powerful economic argument. It strikes at the core of the western CB's mandate to provide price stability (something they have failed imho) and one of the reasons they are given 'independence'. Since it is probably provable with some good analysis that a basket of currencies will indeed lead to more price stability than a single monopolistic currency. Particularly if that basket includes currencies linked to prices of a wide range of commodities, water, electricity, oil, grains, etc. In fact, Hayek specifically mentioned having done analysis for such commodity basket currencies and how they would be ideal for providing price stability. Surely the CB's want price stability? What could they possibly have against alternative currencies or bitcoin?  Exactly. This should resonate strongly with the subscriber base. Most institutional investors have a mandate to first and foremost preserve wealth. When someone as influential as Mohamed El-Erian (Pimco) says (a few days ago) that "people no longer need to be concerned just with return on investment, but return of investment" investors pay attention. Or at least they should. |
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