+1

having a video of a expert and a novice having a scripted conversation is much like those annoying adverts you see that promise you to make atleast $500 a day by following their fool proof method of market trading.

we don't need 'consumer' based videos to get people mining/buying bitcoin. we need people like bitinstant and other talented spokesman to go to merchants and get them onboard.

businesses do not base their decisions on cheesy videos. they base it on business meetings with representatives. so video's made by the armchair anarchist would not really add much merit to bitcoin.

if you build business relations, customer relations will follow.

i think MTGox missed the crucial selling point in their video which turned people off of it..

using an instant access media store as the bases of the demonstration is not a good selling point as it then emphasises bitcoins woes (the confirms)

either risk processing orders with no confirms or change the video to represent a clothing/gadgets delivery website, or something that would atleast hide away the requirement for customers to sit and wait for confirms just to get what they want. but allow them to get on with their lives and just receive an email that says the order has been confirmed later that day. knowing the product should now be on its 3 day journey through a warehouse, postal service and to their door.

another solution for the arm chair entrepreneurs is drop shipping..

with dropshipping the entrepreneurs amongst us dont have to worry about pre-purchasing stock, packaging it and paying delivery costs or waiting for delivery vans to come to them at all hours of the day,

all you need to do is search drop shipping on google, find a supplier/product that you want to sell. Make an script that converts the supplier price into a btc price (adding on of course a nice commission and conversion fees) and then start selling it on your own website.

then just pay the drop shipper and give the drop shipper the delivery address of the customer. and that is it. the drop shipper does all the hard work while you keep the extra commission you added to the bill, without having to do much more hard work then paying a supplier and pasting a delivery address.

hopefully a bitcoin debit card will make the whole process more stream lined. and relationships can be build up for the drop shipper to take BTC to not even require converting to fiat to purchase stock. but atleast the first baby steps is to get more products available for people to buy.

in short fast food

a few of us on the litecoin side are talking about just-eat.com

a international website that links many fast food places in different countries together by allowing you to order their food through the website and have it delivered. mostly europe, canada and mexico is covered, sorry america isnt really listed but this is a great website that if they would accept any crypto currency, it would be a great start.

the best way to begin is if you have used their service or you see your favourite fast food delivery place listed, email just eat with a simple "do you accept bitcoin?".

give them time to realise there is a growing interest/demand in accepting bitcoin(or litecoin) and then one of the nice respected guys among us, such as the talents of bitinstant can formally contact the HQ with a payment solution where they wont have to worry about understanding mining or block chains. but simply displaying a public address and the money gets sent via SEPA/debit card to them.

although just-eat is europe based, maybe a good PR guy from bitcoin central.. hopefully without hyping up things too much that he has to retract his first statements lol

im not against coders at all for instance gavin andersen would be a perfect fit to have gone to this conference, or someone from bitpay/bitinstant/mtgox.

but in this case this particular coder going to a financial conference is like a pimp going to a WI meeting to explain womens rights.
the second video shows the other panellists showing more positives for bitcoin and slightly defending it, but that dude really needs a lesson in PR

watching the first video i could tell straight away this guys background is in the 'anonymous' hacker area. and not a business/financial background.

i am a fan of these crypto currencies but even i could not see one positive thing that guy said that actually helped bitcoin have some credibility.

i really wonder where these financial conferences advertise that they require 'experts' to talk about bitcoin. As that guy seriously should not have been a public face of bitcoin.

making comments such as businesses are accepting bitcoin and making a loss purely because they see the potential. and when questioned about how can someone get bitcoin. he seemed to have no clue about mining or how to explain it simply.

i face-palmed atleast 30 times whilst watching the video. what a waste of a potentially good chance to show bitcoin as better then other payment methods.

nice and short but i can already see factual problems

the exact amount he stole is unknown. the 500k btc ($5mill) figure came from people doing block chain analysis and seeing him loop his transactions through Silkroad, but misinterpreting the 500k stash as pirates, where in fact it was Silk roads.

it might be best to leave it to the guys that are at the top of the investigations to fill in the page. or even not make it an issue to be worthy of mentioning and try to keep bitcoins history as clean as possible instead of just highlighting the bad at every opportunity. maybe make pages for positive bitcoin history.

thats a better idea, where each person had a hologram. it does not have to even be a PGP key for businesses selling the notes, for example:
http://donttreadonmeme.com/what-is-a-bitcoin-bank-note/
they could have the snake image as their hologram making it instantly recognisable as to its origin.

so anyone that is going to make notes for circulation purposes should have their own design hologram. and if your just an individual then a pgp key or your bitcointalk name on the hologram may suffice.

the hologram which only casasius produces.. never resells separately. insures its a casasius multiparty note and not a privately printed note where the producer has seen the private info

Red Emerald

the idea i said doesn't involve giving any one person trust as no one person sees all the info...allowing for circulation to happen between complete strangers without the worry of trust.

by you printing them off yourself the person you hand it to has to trust that you dont have the info stored elsewhere to then wipe the address clean once they walk 3 paces away from you. so encrypted or not/hologram or not you have still seen the private key or the bip38 to have had the opportunity to keep a copy to redeem whenever you like.

if you are seeking a one use only method between you and a friend for quick easy wallet transfer without having to have a smart phone on you then it would be more like a giftvoucher/cheque kind of thing although the paper and ink is a waste for a one time use. thats what smart phones are for, or at worse case just the private key QR code on a small piece of paper you just hand to your friend and they instantly scan and redeem the funds. which wont need any security because you have been the producer you have seen all the info. so encryption is worthless.

if you seek long term storage for youself in paper form but don't want thieves breaking into your safe, or nosy neighbours seeing the notes and redeeming it. then a bitcoin bond is for you. where it would only show the public key on the front bip38 on the back and you only write the passphrase in your Will not on the bond.

my theory was if casascius was the only bill printer using his trademarked holograms which authenticates they are his bills. for instance. then also knowing that casascius doesn't know the passphrase. and i dont know the private key because all i seen and copy and pasted to him was the bip38 version.

.. break for 50 seconds of thinking...

apart from the fact that i could possibly have kept the bip38 lists and used my passphrase to decrypt it.. now i come to think about it.. its still not a 100% trust system.

.. break for 50 seconds of thinking...

maybe the vanity program i proposed casascius making with the added bip38 security does not reveal to me the bip38 but sends it via API to casascius. so when ordering bitnotes from casascius. i just type in a passphrase into the vanity/brainwallet program and an amount of bills. and the only response i see is "transaction sent - please allow 10 days for delivery"

thus i only know the passphrase.  casascius's servers only sees the bip38, the people whos hands it changes between only see the load address and the passphrase (not private/bip38) and the end user who finally gives up circulating the notes and cashes out.. will get to see them both after ripping off the hologram to get to the bip38 and reading the hand written passphrase on the reverse side.

to casascius:
i love your designs. i also see how your avoiding double sided printing. but maybe the passphrase could be hand written on the back along with the redeem instructions, much like signing the backstrip of a credit card. if you catch my drift

they are not a bank..

banks require millions upon millions of money reserves aswell as alot more infrustructure.. they are a payment gateway ( a PSP)

the fiat control is licenced and losses of fiat are insured and regulated. but the bitcoin side is not licenced/regulated or insured. that being said.. atleast having a FIAT licence and the power of their PSP beside them will push any cyber crimes investigation to a much higher priority then a guy in his basement getting a virus that steals his online bank account details.

and yes the flip side of it is more bad press of another hack.. so i truly hope they get a crack team of experts in to super secure their site.

i to wish for the day my local ASDA (uk version of walmart) sells me eggs and bacon and i pay them in bitcoins


to be honest im not sure about france. but in the uk it doesnt require much recognition.. for instance i know someone who is in talks with a prepaid debit card provider and they really are not interested in bitcoin or what the funny money people trade between each other on websites. as long as the FIAT is accountable to someone and that its checked against known watchlists and as long as you are not 100% knowingly accepting money from a crime.

i can set up a website that trades bunny rabbit points, and they will still give you a corporate account and client debit cards to hand out. as long as you follow the AML/KYC guidelines theres no issues

i think bitcoincentral just showed their PSP that bitcoin is not only a SR currency.. but a whole community of gold sellers, alpaca sock sellers, graphics cards, asics sellers and other 'legally accepted' product sellers.

actually i do and my wages are in fiat. and even more surprisingly i dont mine bitcoins. i make profit using bitcoins though in my spare time on the exchanges.

i just feel that freedom means choices. and some of the freedom fighters sentiments are lost by saying kill banks only have bitcoins.. 1 option is still 0 choices.


well any hacks should be dealt with by the cyber crimes team of the countries authorities. but with a bank/PSP being part of the chain. they would put pressure on the authorities to ensure it gets top priority investigations happening. instead of a unknown guy named xyz in a basement having his desktop server being scrambled by a hacker, which wouldn't take priority.

freedom fighters first need to realise that currently there is probably only 0.002% of the world population using bitcoin (7bill/150k regular btc users) and to get more people over to bitcoin their needs to be an easy way to transfer FIAT to BTC and back again. so using financial institutions services is required for market expansion of BTC to atleast get the population usage up.(step 1)

even if 0.02% of the population only uses bitcoin that is 10x the market capital and demand we have today, ill leave you to do the maths for the multiples of population vs the value/demand of BTC because of population use rise.

atleast making it easier for people to buy bitcoins and for merchants/miners to sell bitcoins to buy food and pay utility bills. makes them less reliant on accepting FIAT upfront, slowly making it easier to get to (step 2&3) the point where utility company's and grocery stores accept bitcoin

to then direct pay employees in bitcoin without conversion(step 4) and then void the use of central banks completely (step5)

but you cannot take step 1 and jump to step 5 in a day. so bitinstant and bitcoincentral are atleast getting step 1 inplace.. while still keeping the control of bitcoins within the community.

maybe one day credit mutuel MAY buy out bitcoincentrals bitcoin server and do it all inhouse. lets hope that never happens. and if it does you can simply sell out of credit mutual, and find a new community led PSP.

once BTC gets to a point of not requiring FIAT(atleast 5 steps away) due to wages being paid in BTC from businesses that accept BTC for their goods and their suppliers also accepting BTC to pay their raw materials suppliers and employee's then the financial institutions will no longer be required.

i personally dont think step 4 or 5 will ever happen in my lifetime, not unless the laws change. but atleast steps 1,2,3 will expand bitcoins value/demand to a massive level. Allowing people the choice of staying with FIAT when they visit the 7-11 store or using bitcoin.

choice is the freedom. but ruling out FIAT and only having BTC is not a freedom. because PSP/exchanges such as MTGOX can start "price setting" and becoming the 21st century central bank.

if all you want is step 5 then you might aswell ask obama(US) cameron(UK) and other counturies to just start printing the bitcoin notes instead of green backs and red backs.. and change the HSBC logo to MTGOX and the bank of america logo to bitinstant.. leaving all the laws and processes the same. as thats what step 5 will end up being.. one choice just a rebranding of the names.

i dont want a world where only BTC exists i want a world where i can go to a shop and pay them in FIAT, Silver or BTC. everyone wants to make a 'buck'. bankers, you/me, everyone... but atleast not limiting choice to just bitcoin or just fiat allows people more freedom of how they make a 'buck'. so freedom fighters stop aiming for step 5 and concentrate on steps 1.2.3,4 expanding peoples choices and freedoms..

reading through it all and i have come to the conclusion that the scenario is much like anyone setting up a prepaid debit card system. where the company own a corporate card and have their own personalised design cards for their clients to have their very own numbers to use that is recognised at banks and ATM's etc

if someone wanted to buy bitcoins, the FIAT funds will come out of clients card to the corporate card which in this case is bitcoin central's. who then on receipt of "funds sent confirmation" by an API callback from the PSP server to bitcoin centrals server. bitcoincentral would pass bitcoins from bitcoin-centrals wallet to the clients wallet on the bitcoincentral server.

the fiat funds are on the bank server, the bitcoin funds are on the bitcoincentral server.. all talking to each other by API calls.

the french banks are not regulating bitcoin, do not control bitcoin and pretty much do not care about bitcoin. all they care about is the fiat side. ensuring amounts and volume of FIAT do not exceed AML/KYC regulations and if they do they have enough personal information about the people to investigate, oh and not forgetting the names on the accounts are not on government watchlists.

bitcoincentral will basically just ensure amounts never exceed the limits and ensure the same house address does not open several accounts to counter the limits.

if bitcoincentral ran off.. the fiat funds that people paid into the corporate account would be reversed.because they are held in credit mutuel accounts but the bitcoins would be lost. as they wont be on the PSP's server. bit bitcoincentrals servers

so dont be afraid folks. the government aint moving in. the only thing that counts is if bitcoin central (quoted as 2 months) will have actual bank account numbers and debit cards.. but will bitinstant have them sooner??

we do not know what stage of negotiations bitinstant is with their PSP to know exactly who came first. but just like the ASIC wars.. its going to be busy couple of months for the who's first to get an bitcoin->ATM card to market.

bitinstant for the US market and merchants and bitcoincentral for the european market. let the mass expansion into merchant shops begin....... in 2 months  

with the holograms themselves hiding the redeem part to allow for changing between mutliple hands. im now STARTING to consider this as a more secure way of transferring bitcoin without electronic devices needed between each party for daily exchange. as oppose to a one use item like a gift voucher or cheque.

i still see gaps in security where people can say "but im still typing my passphrase into some one elses website"

the only thing i can think to quash those thoughts is that people have their own offline program much like vanitygen or brain wallet which produces the addresses but adding to that it also encrypts the private key locally based on the passphrase they chose.
basically asking users to type in passphrase and how many addresses to produce and it produces a list of clear public addresses and bip38 codes. (no private key in sight) they copy and paste the list to you where you never know the passphrase to encrypt it and are not involved with the encryption process. all you do is just print the public address and bip38 QR Codes to the relevant load/redeem section.

and at redemption. the user then scans the redeem code into the local program(same program as last paragraph) it requests the passphrase and converts it into a usable private key to paste into blockchain.info/mtgox.

by making it slightly harder for people to redeem them in under 3 seconds will actually make people prefer to keep them in circulation for longer.. in theory anyway.. which adds more benefit to the whole reason of paper money, as oppose to cheques/gift voucher methods. meaning that people are not easily tempted to rip off the hologram as soon as they get their hands on a note.

not sure if this has already been posted but......

http://donttreadonmeme.com/what-is-a-bitcoin-bank-note/

websites already starting to sell them.. i guess this idea is catching on

moneygram can send US$2000 for a $40 fee.

so if the dude in brazil send 200BTC he would get atleast $2400 even at a $12.20 BTC price. the seller of course could change the prices to add his own commission of course. but seems cheaper then the western union option.

so if the brazil guy is happy for 200BTC for $2k then thats $400 commission

other method is the post office if you dont want to deal with bank accounts and 3 day delays.

they have a service called money gram. which is like western union.

bitinstant takes moneygram payments and exchanges them for bitcoins. check out instructions on bitinstant for method of doing it.
thats business method in. or theres the localbitcoins, where you find someone nearby to accept the payment.

soon there will be a bitcoin/litecoin exchange that deals in UK£ without and transfer to US$ which will make purchasing and selling bitcoins for us british folk

buying products online for delivery to your house to resell for cash or purchasing online a debit card which again is delivered to your house is not exactly anonymous.

if you want anonymity from government. then find someone local person in your county/area and trade for cash

that way there is no paper trail of bank accounts and delivery addresses to follow.