Wow, lots of emotional discussion going on here. I think Synaptic has a point though. Regardless of what you may think the true and technical issues with Bitcoin are, I think the list sums up the average consumer's qualms fairly well. After all, the list was titled: <<<PROS AND CONS OF BITCOIN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF AVERAGE CONSUMERS RELATIVE TO FIAT>>>
Because I find it a fairly good list, I've reproduced it here and added a couple parentheticals. Pros:
- Potentially stronger store of value than inflationary fiat
Cons:
- Difficult to understand concepts of crypto-currency (3+ hours minimum, tech savvy) (Given broad enough adoption, the consumer will not care about these details.)
- Difficult to buy (Broad sense of "buy" here: includes buying BTC with one's labor. More a problem for non-tech workers ATM.)
- Difficult to sell (Broad sense of "sell" here: includes going down to the corner store and selling BTC for food.)
- Major issues of trust in relation to transactions (Escrow services and web of trust services can help. Wallet services could also create "credit transfers," where the bitcoins can be recalled within a certain timeframe. Not my favorite solution, personally, but it could be done if the consumer absolutely, positively must have their chargebacks.)
- Major issues of security relating to local storage (+1. Wallet services will come in handy here.)
- Extreme difficulty in understanding proper security practices (1-2 hours, tech savvy) (See above.)
- Extreme investment of time involved in learning requisite knowledge relating to wallets/coins (1+ hours, tech savvy) (I don't think this is necessary. As long as a consumer can use something easily, and as long as most of their friends are using it too, they will not usually care how it works.)
- Extreme investment of time involved in learning requisite knowledge relating to using bitcoin exchanges (1+ hours for financial savvy) (Overstated, perhaps. All a consumer needs to see is a price. They understand buying. Hide the graphs, flatten the fluctuations with some sort of averaging so they can get all their coins for the same price per piece, and they should be fine.)
- Fear of losing coins to computer or network failures/virtual currency less tangible than paper or plastic (+1. Wallet services will help here, as will BitBills.)
- Fear of negative Governmental intervention (Only the passing of time without negative intervention can help this one.)
- Perception of facilitating illegal activity to a greater extent and ease than cash (A PR problem. Can be handled. Get enough of a person's friends using it and that perception will go away. Think MP3 sharing, which is technically illegal but not really thought of as criminal by the average consumer.)
- No consumer protections by law (Give it time. Governments will have to deal with Bitcoins somehow. If we get big enough, we can start sending out consumer rights advocates to our various governments.)
None of these negative points are insurmountable. I do personally believe in Bitcoin as a system of currency. I think it's stronger and more robust as a system than the US dollar. Regardless of what it does short-term, I think it will outperform the US dollar in the long term. (I am preoccupied with the US dollar as I currently reside in the US.) I did initially think of BTC as a way of speculating myself to more USD, but as I began dealing more with bitcoins a change in my thinking took place. I think the final straw was reading the article at http://bitcoinweekly.com/articles/one-apple-today-two-apples-tomorrow-or-how-i-stopped-being-afraid-and-learned-to-love-deflationTo be fair, right now I'm hedging my bets by selling the BTC I mine for USD until I make back my sunk cost. But once that's done, I'm holding onto my BTC and working to get it accepted by more vendors so I can spend it more places. Because it's not until we have a bottom-up Bitcoin chain of exchange that Bitcoin will be a true, sovereign currency. I'm working, for my part, to see that day come to pass. |
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Can't seem to get this to run on my iPhone. Keeps crashing during the loading screen. Any idea what might be up?
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Awesome. Nice to meet you!  |
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Realistically, it is not a money making endeavor to supply power with renewable energy. Bomba's calculations may be a bit off in cost and in payback for a system of this scale, but I like to think of it as more of a fun project than a money making one.
Okay, as long as there are no illusions. For a more economical solution, you could look at doing a grid-tie system without batteries. This affords you the electricity savings of whatever you generate, plus the convenience of having grid power when your renewables are not producing enough to keep up with the load. The grid effectively "is your battery".
+1 |
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Inferences can also be made based on how and where a person spends their money. Won't be enough nail a person, but it could narrow things down. Also, if there were a watchdog group with widespread exchange cooperation, that person would be stuck either selling their tainted coins on the black market or never converting to another currency. If they were stupid or unlucky enough to use a cooperative exchange, the jig would be up.
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This is an awesome idea and I would love to see it happen. However, I'm not sure it's cost-effective. Definitely would not be in the short term. May not be in the long-term, depending on what the market does, but I guess that's the risk we're all taking here. Assuming Bitcoin doesn't die, and assuming the cost of running this operation really is $0 (no property taxes or internet fees?) then I imagine this operation would eventually become somewhat profitable. May be worth doing it for its own sake. Would have to be if you did it, since you'd see much bigger returns sooner by simply buying bitcoins with the money or investing in a solid company.
On the positive side you'd definitely be able to weather the inevitable mining squeezes.
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Hey, how did this work out for you? I've been toying with the idea of getting local vendors to accept bitcoins. Did you end up using vouchers or a payment processor or what?
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Awesome! Thanks for making this. :-)
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Perhaps there should be a database that tracks addresses known to be involved with theft such that merchants would have the option to check addresses and help catch the criminals. Although, it would have to be designed so that it could not be abused such that the likelihood of it being used to harm someone innocent is minimalized.
You have my sword. |
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Oh no! When did you arrive? I totally came by about five minutes early. Wandered around for about half an hour trying to find the group before finally making that sign. Finally sat on the bench out back for a while, then did a circuit around the whole place holding the sign out in front of me before staking out a position by the door. Where out back were you?
We should definitely organize another one to give people who couldn't find us another chance and to perhaps draw in some new blood. We actually ended up gaining another member at our meetup. Someone who was curious about Bitcoin approached me while I was standing by the door. He'd apparently just gotten off a long flight during which he'd found out about bitcoins. Awesome timing for him, methinks.
I also found out today that my girlfriend's ex-boyfriend is now mining bitcoins, so he might be interested in attending the meetup as well. He's only pulling 49Mh/s, but if the bitcoin bug has bit him hard enough he may be interested in bitcoin activities beyond mining.
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Those people got rich because of hard work. Just like what everyone wants to accomplish and has the right to accomplish
Wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. The IMF chiefs got rich by dint of their connections and their ability to exploit poorer countries. I doesn't take much work to be usurious. All you really need is a dearth of conscience. |
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More seriously, why dont we share our long term projections for the year? I count on bitcoin following a geometric growth this year, roughly doubling its value each month.
What's your basis for believing this? Past performance is not an indicator of future growth... |
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The better way to think about it is not in terms of total supply of bitcoin currency, but as in total supply of P2P currency as they are all the same, ofcourse different ones would have more on issue and others would have larger market penetration which would influence their value.
Well yes. The same is true of fiat currency and precious metals, though. The fact is that there will always be competition no matter what you're talking about. It is unrealistic to expect to sustain a monopoly on anything, though near-monopolies will inevitably arise from time to time. But you don't see people dumping their Facebook shares just because Google's starting a social network of their own, thus diluting Facebook's value. And you certainly don't see people dumping gold because someone struck a fresh, rich (rhetorical) vein of silver that'll double the total amount of silver in the world. The fact is that P2P currency is an entire category of exchange unto itself. Bitcoin doesn't need to be the only player in order to retain its value. If new P2P currencies spring up, they will face the same uphill battles against Bitcoin that new statist currencies against the other more established statist currencies. To go from "oh no, there will be competition" to "we will fail" is a huge non-sequitur. Anyone who does anything worth doing should expect competition, but that does not mean they should expect to fail. On the contrary: knowing they will have competition, they should work all the harder so that when competition does arise they will be able to meet it and overcome it. |
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Apparently Tuesdays at The Green Dragon are Tropical Tuesdays, as I overheard a patron say. Wear a Hawaiian shirt and get a free beer. Also, finally found the meetup. Yay!
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Wow! This place is packed! We should've come up with some way of IDing each other. I'm the guy in the brown long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and brown boots, if anyone else is checking the forums about now... EditLook! I made a sign! http://www.flickr.com/photos/60160670@N03/5834225937I hope it is not too little too late... Edit 2Half a beer later and I'm wandering around flashing that sign to everyone like I'm some kind of idiot. "Are YOU into Bitcoins?" :-p |
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Great choice of venue. Never been there myself, but the literary reference is rather apropos.
I'll try to get some photos of my mining operation posted. I have some old photos on my phone, but I've added three cards and a couple PSUs since taking them. Still trying to get things stable, too. Those things draw so much power I'm going to have to get another circuit put in to power them all. I keep tripping the other three available to me. :-p
Has anyone contacted The Green Dragon to see if they'll take bitcoins? I thought about doing it myself, but figured it might be easier with more of a group present. That and it kept slipping my mind. :-/
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Oh the irony  Meh. While Bitcoin is technically perfect for such an application, being perfectly nation-neutral as it is, at present it's far too nascent. There are still around 15 million bitcoins to be issued. The market has been going through wild fluctuations. While I would love to see it adopted as an international monetary standard, the IMF's SDRs are more likely at this point. They have already been proposed and are backed by a rather powerful international organization. I would hate to see this happen, given the IMF's usurious track record, but they do have the advantage of being first to the party.  |
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For the hilarity of all of us, I highly suggest you do respond.
Agreed. You shouldn't let people make uncontested claims like that anyway. At least ask him to cite the statute. Post it back here if he replies. I'm really curious to see if there's actually something like that on Kentucky's books. |
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Whoah, looks like I got some more replies on this thing! Awesome.  Portlander reporting, I've seen you pop up a few times on Bitcoin maps Ryan. I'd love to buy some stuff with bitcoins, Not sure how you or I would handle it tho.
Well, we could meet in person and exchange, if either of us have things the other wants. I was also thinking of starting a Meetup group and then using the leverage to get a local coffee shop or microbrewery to let us buy their products with bitcoins. From there we can start expanding the local bitcoin economy. My only issue right now is one of time. I tend to take on too many projects. My girlfriend was just complaining to me this morning about never getting to see me or really talk to me because I'm always either off doing things or working on my laptop. But if I can pare away my biggest time sucker (getting my mining cluster to stay up for more than 12 hours at a time) as well as the most pressing of my backlogged client projects, I'll definitely have to get something going here. |
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Ultimately, whom the individual is serving, Satan or the Lamb of God, is going to decide toward what purpose it is used.
I vote lamb. Lamb tastes better. I've never had Satan, but I imagine the meat would be a bit overcooked... |
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