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.

bitcoin->FIAT debit cards will be a great way for individuals to utilise drop shipper services. Thus reducing the costs and workload for bitcoin merchants.

excuse the explanation, this is more aimed at getting the young entrepreneur's wishing to start a business to realise they do not have to pre-buy stock and then resend to customers at extra costs/workload and to highlight to bitpay/bitinstant the importance for merchants to know/request the exact FIAT amount they will receive and let the bitcoin be the variable amount.

what would be required by bitcoin debit card providers:
an API system to allow individuals to send a fiat value they NEED to receive on the card, and the API reply gives a bitcoin value after all the card issuer fee's are added. ensuring the debit card receives the requested FIAT value if they advertise the received inflated bitcoin price, so that the fee's are deducted on the bitcoin side.

the individual sets up a website with product lists that their drop shipping supplier has, with prices in bitcoin which are adjusted at webpage loading(via api) to show a bitcoin value that is the suppliers FIAT price converted to a bitcoin value and a commission fee added(for the individuals profit)

the individual would inform the bitcoin debit card provider (bitpay/bitinstant) that they want to keep the 'commission' as bitcoin. and have the FIAT amount requested at the API put onto card as FIAT to ensure they can pay for the goods. this can be done by the individual adding a set % ontop of the API received bitcoin value and informing the card issuer that the same % should be kept as bitcoin. it gets more complicated to manage if different products have differing commissions.

the bitcoin transaction is done on individuals website. and they get the customers delivery address and product order list.

the individual goes to the suppliers site and simply inputs their customers delivery address and ordered products and pays with the fiat now received to card. and thats it..
the individual has just made some bitcoins (the commission) without having to worry about delivery or packaging or having storage to hold stock.

stage 2 would be to get their drop shippers to then accept bitcoins to help with the mass expansion 'movement' the bitcoin community needs and making transactions more automated not requiring the bitinstant/bitpay card. Simply passed onto the the drop shipper by the web server automatically and bitcoin transferred using a hot wallet that only holds funds for the 1 confirm needed. which would then decrease the bitcoin 'cost' as theirs less middle man fee's inbetween from card issuers

merchants will still need fiat to pay staff wages due to laws which concern contracted staff required to be paid in fiat at minimum wage or better.

even if merchants only transfer out of bitcoin to pay sales tax and employee income tax, and the employees then convert back into bitcoin again to ensure the taxes and laws are not broken... banks wont lose out. because they still see extra flow from account to account and they get use of it while it sits in bank accounts owned by exchanges.

that being said. the time if ever, that bitcoins get to such a mass appeal and usage for such a thing to occur, is not anywhere nearby.. it will take years/decades for such a thing to happen. you probably are never going to see a 90% or 50% of all transactions being bitcoin. probably only 1% use at best. which is still more then acceptable. currently out of 125k population known to be using bitcoins that is 0.0017857% of the 7 billion people.

so unless governments are taken over and the laws are abolished just treat bitcoin as something that is a voluntary and complimentary currency to work along side fiat. thinking you can over rule FIAT from an armchair will never happen, so just be happy that bitcoin is here and that it can work alongside fiat as a choice.

dont give up thinking bitcoin will never succeed.. even if only 0.018% (10x current level) world population used bitcoin that would make the market value of bitcoin multiply upto 10x the amount, due to more demand for coins.

but we dont need to think about that today. and if we did the first thing we would need to do is get gavin andersen to implement a new client that does not charge 0.0005 for fast moving coins with less confirmations.

bitcoin would be a victim of its own success before governments...
imagine 1.8% of population used bitcoin (1000x current value), wwhich is stil small enough to not be deemed a government threat. Todays $12 btc would be $12,000each, making someone that wants to purchase a small item for $1 use satoshi's (0.00008333 btc for $1). The 0.0005 client wallet fee would cost alot more then $1 so i hope gavin andersen is still around or other people to remove / reduce the transaction fees for fast transactions (not many confirms) or bitcoin will lose popularity for small daily use.

the OP's thesis is wrote by a mindset that bitcoin will replace peoples wages/salary's from their employers. this will never happen. unless laws of government change. take the main one minimum wage.

contracted employee's of most western world countries will continue to receive FIAT to their bank and the bank will continue doing what its always done with that FIAT. that wont change whilst laws such as minimum wage laws restricting employee's income to a minimal FIAT payment as oppose to payments of any tender that represent the minimal FIAT amount.

so as long as banks still receive peoples wages(FIAT). not much will change.

bitcoin will only change the economy at the retail level. where merchants accept bitcoin, much like they accept gift vouchers, loyalty points and discount coupons. whilst still taking fiat along side it.
where they could sell bitcoin gift vouchers at their store to people wanting to buy bitcoin and redeem bitcoin later. much like they sell microsoft points and facebook credits instore's of US best buy and UK Dixons.

in the e-commerce world bitcoin 'could' replace facebook credits. amazon balances, paypal balances, steam/valve/microsoft credits to make one universal online currency, transferable to all the different and non affiliated websites. to bring together e-commerce much like creating another country. which accepts any form of FIAT in exchange for bitcoin to trade between different online merchants.

even bitinstant, bitpay an other online exchanges still have a bank account holding the funds if you dig deep enough. its not like people post their fiat to bitinstant owners house, who store it under their bedroom mattress and then posts it to people withdrawing. So banks are not losing out.

FIAT will still be in circulation. the mindset should be that bitcoin wont destroy any governments FIAT but instead create new a virtual country for online trading where bitcoin is that virtual countries own FIAT.

people of any country can buy and sell bitcoin much like travel agencies buy and sell foreign currencies and retailers accept some foreign currency.

people depositing in to get bitcoins and people withdrawing to get FIAT will create extra flow of FIAT cash for which banks will enjoy.

USD is not backed by taxation laws..

its backed by minimum wage laws. employee's with employee contracts need to be paid in native FIAT .. so the dollar is backed by labour time.

secondly there are many cases where the IRS has accepted gold and silver as forms of payment. google has the answer.

original poster only has 26 posts at last count  

nice of them to post this comment so that the noobs will then go download the OP's book to find out 'what is a bitcoin' on the link in their other thread. now thats what i call subtle advertising.

 

your hulu link is for US viewers only. any other sources of accurate info on what ripple will actually consist of for us foreigners?

edit. too much speculation of what ripple is/isnt on this thread.

FUD - hearsay - old news (spring 2011)

the links refer to liberty dollars which used the symbol $. the guy got found guilty for the simplified terms of counterfeiting the US dollar.

it has nothing to do with bitcoin nor does bitcoin come anywhere close to american counterfeit laws. i would highlight that the use of the thailand Baht symbol for bitcoin does put bitcoin into a sticky situation with thai authorities though.

although bitcoin never calls its coin a baht. so its less of a problem then the liberty Dollars had.

i can already see what will happen. i see alot of people creating 5 usernames on ripple, then trade small amounts to themselves to get some rep rating. and then ask for large amounts from strangers.

then delete that username keeping the winnings.

i seen it happen alot on OTC people buying rep or just trading with themselves with small amounts just to then beg for large amounts.

hopefully ripple will atleast ask for real life information and ACTUALLY check it out through government databases and other verifiable means to ensure its all valid. eg sending a letter to someone's house with a verification code as a minimum.

but wait that wont happen, even BTCJAM has scam artists even with its so called verification process.

+1


+1

when BTC was $10 then the LTC/USD tracked at a 10x value against LTC/BTC.. but now BTC is $12 theres a 12x difference.

(rought current prices) 0.005LTC x 12 = $0.06 per ltc

you will see that the price is never a 10x value constantly.. ull find that if LTC/USD changed.. the BTC/LTC changes to even out the the balance. the only reason its believed there is a 10-12 multiple is because the BTC/USD has hung around those prices for so long. but if BTC dropped to $6 or rose to $20 the 10-12 multiplier will not remain constant

so if BTC goes under $10 but LTC stays at $0.06 then the BTC/LTC will go above 0.006

its why the LTC/BTC is more volatile with prices. as small changes on the dollar side can vastly alter the profitability of BTC/LTC direct trades. its why the LTC/USD is slow and more stable with less trades happening per hour / day..

so use the dollar sides of crypto to plan the direction the LTC/BTC direct prices will change to. but be quick as someone else will calculate it to and beat you to a arbitrage profit

im not talking about government ethics. im asking what are the national minimum wage LAWS concerning the ability to accept bitcoin as wage. ill reword the topic to clarify this

just been reading the american minimum wage stuff
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2:

alot of waffle to read but i found the term "certified professional employer organisation" which basically means a proper employer who uses employment contracts. is legally suppose to pay national minimum wage and tax revenues.

so USA is similar to UK. if you have employment contract your suppose to be paid in FIAT.

goodbye any hope of walmart, bestbuy and 7-11 paying their staff in bitcoins as their salary instead of FIAT.

cunning government..

there is a bartering system that is accepted in britain too for non formal employment. but when an employment contract is used. then the minimum wage is critical.

although you would at first think that the national minimum wage LAWS prevents employers from paying their employee's pennies per hour.

have you ever thought that the use of national minimum wage LAW was to prevent people being paid in non government fiat.

what i mean to say is governments are requiring a business to pay atleast £6.19 $7.25 etc BY LAW instead of allowing businesses to pay in groceries, gold bars, or other forms such as bitcoin.

can someone clear up the matter of the ability for businesses to ever pay workers in other forms LEGALLY. as this page on the UK government site clearly states that only accommodation provided by the employer can be use to subtract a very small part of the FIAT wage and no other benefits such as cars, vouchers or other forms of payment can be subtracted.
https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-accommodation

so look into amercan and other countries laws on minimum wage. as from what i can tell on the UK point of view. paying someone in bitcoin is not paying national minimum wage, even if the value of the bitcoin exceeds NMW value.

So businesses in england can be sent to court for breaching employment laws if they only paid their employee's with cars or bitcoins

just for laughs i though hmm what other songs can we change into bitcoin songs.

then i though of this. a song about us talking a merchant into accepting bitcoin.

the lyrics are not complete but they start from the first words in the song so have the song playing in the background and read the words as the song plays..

by the way he refers to the merchant.

song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCm6gRHINqA

Lyrics:

He's taking the time, thinking up the reasons.
to justify all the debt he holds
cos he knows,
from the smiles, and the look in our eyes,
everyone got a theory about the FIAT con!
We're saying,
we never loved it much, even though it a thing that we touch,
its why we're shying away from government protection.
somewhere in a private place, we trade our cash in cyberspace.
and we're now waiting for the right kind of merchant to come.
and we say to him
we're saying
now we are trading to the moon and back, government free, government freee , baby
we can trade it round the world for free.. on our own, so will you bill by bitpay

mmmmmmm oooooooo
end of lyrics

it was wrote in under 5 minutes, and im not a professional song writer so don't judge. its just for laughs. lets see other lyrics and song combinations to get bitcoin its own music album.

i only watched half of the first video and started to think.

hmm if we were heading towards another 1920's event then could we soon see this in shop windows


featured at 27:56 in the first video.

where people would also trade bitcoins, vodka, guitars, and favours to each other instead of paper money.

i think original post meant
1. create a better blockchain protocol, blah blah
2. allow people to send their bitcoins to this new blockchain but once sent have no ability to send back.
3. once people use the new block and see its advantages they would no longer bother using old bitcoin.
4. bitcoin dies.

the answer to the question on first post is this (mainly aimed at the noobs to grasp how prices change)

although you do not see litecoins used in grocery stores or domino's pizza in your town. they do have a value and this value is the cost of production. EG electricity and hardware.

miners want to ensure if they are going to mine something they can sell it to atleast break even or to profit. so the current cost of production puts LTC at 6cents due to current difficulty and hardware costs and a few other considerations.

the next thing to take into account is the direct BTC -> LTC price which after people have arbitraged the price swings due to costs changing, the direct crypto to crypto prices level out to a middle ground of the dollar values of each crypto's.

ill make it easier to understand with the image below.


take table 1
if i had 1000LTC and sold them for $0.0612, id get $61.20. if i then bought BTC id be given 4.955BTC and if i sold the BTC back to LTC direct id get roughly 1000 again (yep i ignored commission and volatility to make things simple)

now take table 2
lets say BTCUSD went to $14.35 due to halving causing abit of a price bump*. LTC miners would sell their LTC for dollar buy in BTC using dollar for only 4.268BTC and be left with only 861 LTC when buying back LTC.. so they wont do that.. instead they would sell LTC direct to BTC causing the BTCLTC price to drop whilst they sell at the top buy prices or add more lower prices to the sell wall to try grabbing their quick bargains.

and now you see the result in table 3. LTC still worth $.0.612 due to cost of production but not worth as much BTC due to the evening out of the arbitrary cycle until it becomes unprofitable again.

*don't reply like sheep with the scripted quote "BTC price has already factored in the halving"