Aww, you science types are such a buzz-kill. With you logic and double blind studies. Your ruining the magic. 

They were. And that was sign that sent me buying gold bars during that silly rally. The amount it was rising was unsustainable and unjustified. Math likes rational people and one could see that desire was driving the price rather than broad adoption based on utility.

No, Not this ^.
It may not be user friendly yet, but it is the fastest, cheapest, and safest way to buy online. You may think that your credit card is faster and cheaper, but it is not. It takes 2-5 days to process that transaction and determine if the sale was legit. The seller does not receive money until this happens. Once it does the seller pays fees of about 3%, which is passed on to you. And that may be the tip of the fee iceburg. You may pay all manor of fees, hidden or not.
Thinking a card is free is like believing your getting a "free phone" with your cellular service. You will actually be buying that phone at full price over and over again.  
lastly, it has become unsafe to use credit cards. I am replacing my debit card for the second time this year due to data breaches. I have no idea who now has my banking information. With bitcoin I can post my overstock.com password and account name without worry. Since there is no card info and no route back to my bitcoins, the best an attacker could do is see my earlier purchases.

For me these reasons are compelling enough that I no longer use anything except bitcoin online.

It may have taken a few weeks. But I helped someone to buy $100K worth just after the closing of SR. They did not want to own any while the darknet stuff was in the news. I know a lot of people were glad to see it go.

It certainly did capture the public's imagination. I remember when it broke in the media a lot of new accounts streamed in. But someone here tried to study the scale of SR in the bitcoin economy and came up with about 1%. I don't know how good their methodology was, but that was their finding.

Then when the FBI took down Ross and the first SR site, the price exploded up.  
I know I have never used their services and I have spent a lot of bitcoins over the years.

But I don't think that has ever been on the table. No responsible government is going to risk their economy on bitcoin. Maybe in 20 years, but I can't see it happening anytime soon.

What you are seeing is an unregulated market. The stock market of the 19th. century was wild like this also. Since then laws and banks have stepped in to "stabilize" the market. And in the process game your money right into their pockets.

Man, compared to where we were in 2011 this is all win!!!11!!  
If you had said then that by 2014 there would be this much adoption, you would have been called a daydreamer. By ME! lol.

Since this one is only .22 cal., Maybe I can argue that it will not harm the violent criminal that much? Sure it will hurt, but I doubt he will die from that kneecap bull's eye.  

EDIT: Well, it looks like Circle.com is out of the running as well. This is from their TOS:

EDIT: Response from CoinBase:

For anyone concerned about buying guns online I can assure you that all the gun laws still apply. The payments may be pseudo-anomyous, but buying a gun is not.
Here is the process I have to go through to get this pistol...

1. Select gun and CALL the store. No sales unless you call and give name, phone, address, etc. Only then can I pay and start the process.

2. Next, go to the gun store that will receive the gun. Not the seller, the FFL transfer agent. There I fill out forms for my background check and show all sorts of ID. I can't get the gun yet however.

3. Now I wait while the gun is shipped and do my federally mandated "cooling off period".  

4. Now I can return to the receiving FFL and show my ID again. Assuming I pass the back ground check I can finally receive the gun.

The only difference is paying in BTC. This process is not how criminals get guns. It is a legitimate, gov supervised sale. By the same standard BitPay should not work with pharmacies, liquor stores, places that sell tobacco, etc. These are places that sell dangerous items that may kill people, why are they exempt?

 


 

That's true, however there are far more stores taking bitcoin than ever before. I can now buy cars, computers, almost anything. Bitcoin is going mainstream. What I think is confusing for people is the price. The price is not a good measure of adoption. In the recent past, speculative users drove the price ever higher by hording coins. This is a very weak and relatively unproductive aspect of the BTC economy.
When the price crashes down to a reasonable level that is consistent with the use of BTC as a payment system, everyone freaks out and sells. Well, it is just adjusting to the correct price.

If you want further adoption by the public then YOU will need to do something. Buying and "HOLLLLDING!!!" is not doing anything, nor is turning your bitcoin back into fiat. Since there is no bitcoin incorporated, it is up to a grass roots effort to spread the word. We as users must insist on retailers accepting BTC or we must vote with our wealth and spend our coins elsewhere. It was this dynamic that led to the adoption we see today. People used to post about their efforts to convince local businesses, now they just want to get rich "investing" in bitcoin. Good luck with that. 

Silk road was never more than a tiny fraction of the bitcoin economy. And it is still in operation, so I don't understand this argument.

Apparently bitcoin is a failure if it failed to make us rich? Bitcoin is actually a computer protocol that is now more widely accepted than ever. It also does not care about us and our desires for money.

The price is never high or low. It is always the space between what people will pay and what people will sell for.

I don't know what you mean? There is more adoption going on right now than in the history of bitcoin. Wait, are you looking at the price again?

Well, apparently BitPay rejects businesses that sell guns. I specifically checked their website about this and found that firearms were NOT on the list. Then after setting these guys up and doing a transaction they rejected it. WTF?

I'm going to look into coinbase and perhaps start recommending them as a payment processor. Anybody have any experience with them? Especially in a brick and mortar store.

Historically, Mohammed flew up to heaven for a visit on a mythical animal. That is what some say anyway. Any demonstration must be done under controlled conditions. That is what makes it a scientific experiment vs. a TV show. The million dollar challenge states that "Only an actual performance of the stated nature and
scope, within the agreed upon limits, will be accepted. Anecdotal accounts or records of previous events are not acceptable."

The benchmark will also be a lot higher than "highly significant results". Mr. Randi can produce those results by trickery alone. When I saw him debunking horoscopes, the audience (by show of hands) scored him at 90+% when they read their personalized star chart. That is until he asked them to look at the star chart of the person next to them. They were all identical charts of course.  

There are lots of TV shows that feature such stuff. Scientist do not watch TV to make discoveries. The person will have to state what they think they can do, then do it under controlled conditions. That means no audience, no one else in the room. They will not even be allowed in the room before the demonstration. These are important factors. James Randi knows all the tricks about having a mole in the audience, for example.
You can find an application on his website. It is straightforward. But again, no one has ever passed the test or any controlled test. Ever.

Application: http://web.randi.org/the-million-dollar-challenge.html

Oh, and here is a show about him and what he does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFAvH8m8aI

Yes they are in "limbo". Unable to be spent because the private keys have been lost.
Of course, this does not change the bitcoin protocol. It would work the same even if there were only one bitcoin.

Apple pay will make no inroads into my economy. I use only the best money, only bitcoin.
They are not even comparable ideas, IMO.

That is the most convincing argument for me. NEVER EVEN ONE TIME IN HISTORY did anyone ever demonstrate any kind of psychic ability. Not one damn time! What does that tell me? I'll even thrown in a bitcoin with James Randi's offer of a million dollars. For those not familiar with him, he is the worlds greatest psychic and the first to tell you that it is all bull shit. He has a hilarious act that shows how easy it is to convince people that he can read minds or predict the future. It is a skill and an art that involves understanding how people think rather than anything supernatural.
It's weird to me that people can believe something that has never even been done once. If you think he's wrong, simply show it and your a millionaire! Plus one BTC from me!

OMG, did that make me laugh!
And this!