Thanks for suggesting new business ideas. Addresses laundering, blacklist removal services, trust-building services to get white-listed...

I'm not sure it's good news satoshidice doesn't belong to the real economy. I'd rather wait for news from a dealer who would sell cars in BTC only. Still, it's an astonishing achievement. You could have bought several superb houses and many cars for that kind of money!

Interesting. I hadn't imagine that.
So maybe in the future, the difference won't be between cash and cashless, but between "cashless under government's supervision" and "cashless without government's supervision" with BTC.

I found this here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23340165

Unemployment is over 25% in Spain, so the U.K. doesn't look that bad. And their idea of expressing total pension liabilities as a percentage of GDP is highly misleading. Their 900% figure can only be an estimate since nobody knows pensioners will live, and it isn't a debt that is expected to be paid within a short period. That means their comparison with Weimar's Germany is flawed. Germany's debt in 1923 was much more short term than what Britain is facing now.

So I guess they are trying to scare some people, and then they offer a solution, which lies in a subscription to their magazine, payment by

I can only confirm this. My limited experience of hawala tells me that the people doing that business do not advertise on the web.


Very surprised to read this. Are they any shops which accept BTC there?

I'm very much aware that keeping a private life is very difficult nowadays, but I'm doing my best in that game, and I believe I'm pretty successful. I have a trick: I never plan things more than a few months in advance. I mean I don't know in what country I will be staying in November. I really don't know.

Slovakia is a country that has seen lots of change those past 20 years, so the people there may be more open to new things than in some other places where everything has been staying the same for decades.

There's one thing I don't like in Google glass: Google.

Doesn't anyone remember an old concept called privacy? It's one of bitcoin's best asset, and I wouldn't want to share any of my bitcoin's business with google. I know I'm a freak as I don't have a google account and I'm not on facebook, but I'm living fine without that, and I'm confident I'll live nicely without wearing google glass. They may probably not work where I am anyway.

Possible.

I think sometimes that I've been working on computers for more than 20 years, and I've been on the Internet daily since 1996. It would be much more difficult to explain bitcoin and the safety of the blockchain to someone who rarely uses computer, living in Somalia where electricity is a luxury.

I believe it's much to early in the development of bitcoin to think about such a system, but, well, I'm totally against it. Bitcoin has not been created for this. Better ask the social security (if it can survive, which I doubt) to pay benefits in bitcoins.

What do you mean?

If you want to do business in the UK, you need to register a company there, and open a bank account there, no matter where you are. Are you in the UK, or are you looking for someone to do that for you?

It has nothing to do with money laundering, it is about making the British people that you plan to do business with, feel safe.

It could work but you have to start at street-level. Western Union is well known and trusted brand name. If you want to compete, you need to open a shop in Mogadiscio, with a big Bitcoin logo, changing cash to bitcoin and vice-versa. I guess that calls for a significant investment. I've never been to Somalia, but I've been to neighboring Kenya and safety can be a serious problem if you're not in the good areas. Then, the unanswered question will be how much time it takes for bitcoin to convonce the man in the street. Imagine WU charges a 10% fee, and you charge only 3% for exchanging. Would that be enough for the average Somalian to make the switch?

Note that many African countries don't have a national currency, they use the CFA franc.

more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFA_franc

A good point also is that millions in several African countries are used to the idea of exchanging money with their mobile phones. That's the M'Pesa system, it's very big in Kenya, but I fail to see how bitcoin could help Africa in any way.

You can still have corruption with bitcoin, and there won't be any change in management costs or transaction fees. African banks have much lower fees than we're used to in rich countries.

I'm in the group of people who are not allowed to vote, so it's easy for me. I'm not even allowed to register. When you vote, besides making a choice between people you've never met, you also say that you belong to some territory. I guess I could vote where I was born but when I'm going back there, it just doesn't feel like home anymore. And when I talk with people, as I've become so different from all the experiences I've had in many different places of the world, the local people that should be my friends see me as a foreigner.

I don't think I will vote ever again, and yes, it's beneath me, because I don't think I have any connections with the people voting, or the people who want to be elected. Nor most of the time about the issues which are big with either group.

Great news!

It helps increasing bitcoin's usage, and from a law firm, it also boosts the currency's credibility.

Bitcoin is backed by the number of people who host the blockchain on their PCs at their home, or some other kind of bitcoin software. Ultimately, everyone who has a wallet is a bitcoin backer.

It's a bit like a religion. If many people believe in something, that thing just gets real.

Why should any religion care bitcoin? Bitcoin is only a new currency, and it won't change anything regarding people's beliefs about the afterlife or what's good and bad. Religions are used to currency changes. The catholic religion is more than 2,000 years, and the U.S. dollar didn't exist by then. Nor did any currency that we know today. My best bet is that religions will outlast bitcoin.

There are some nice ideas, but I think the developers should focus on speed. Getting a transaction confirmed fast would help a lot in business. With different technology, Twitter is an impressive example of how to spread short pieces of data over a huge network at an incredible pace.

It's panic which is hurting bitcoin. If everybody would keep quiet, bitcoin would be stable. My only hope is that all the people who just want to make a quick buck leave.