at the moment ,there is so little places accepting BTC ,what else can you do with them ?
almost every place i spend money everyday still only accepts money ........
going to take a while before btc is usable for daily stuff
What you can do with them pretty soon is use them to process internet transactions. My point is bitcoin development will unfold in three phases: 1/ store of value (hoarding today) 2/ meta-currency (using the bitcoin network to process transactions denominated in fiat currency) 3/ full fledged currency (using the bitcoin network to process transactions denominated in bitcoin). Step 2 is made more difficult by volatility but this is not a show-stopper. I don't believe we can go from 1 to 3 without going through step 2. |
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This questions has been debated in other threads but as it comes up frequently with people recently introduced to bitcoin, I find it useful to gather answers here.
The value of bitcoin stems from scarcity and usefulness. Scarcity is set form the word go (21 million) and hoarding just increases the perceived scarcity.
Now does hoarding hurt the usefulness of bitcoin ?
Bitcoins are useful to transfer value from A to B over the internet.
To transfer value requires a certain amount of bitcoins, corresponding to a price denominated in central money.
Let's say a buyer wants to purchase a 10-dollar item using the bitcoin network. He/she buys 10 dollar worth of bitcoin, say 1 bitcoin for simplicity, from a bitcoin payment processor that will send it to the seller. The seller in turn may want to cash out the bitcoin for 10 dollars after x number of confirmations i.e x times 10 minutes.
The processing of the transaction has created a demand for 1 bitcoin for x times ten minutes.
The more transactions are processed using bitcoins, the higher the demand for bitcoins.
Therefore hoarding has no effect on the ability of the bitcoin network to process transactions: volatility does. If the exchange rate varies wildly in a 10-minute interval, then the payment processor cost of hedging the exchange rate risk goes up. The payment processor passes the cost of hedging in fees applied to the sellers: the cost of accepting payments through the bitcoin network goes up.
In the end, if the hedging fees become higher than the bank card fees, then the seller may end up refusing payments through the bitcoin network. However the likelihood of the bitcoin volatility becoming so high is rather thin: even with the small volume and active speculation that we experience today, the volatility is perfectly manageable over a period of 1-hour (6 confirmations) with fees far more attractive than the bank card fees.
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Je ne vois pas l'intérêt de passer par Neteller au lieu de faire un virement simplement vers bitcoin-central ou une autre place de marché pour acheter des bitcoins ?
Neteller ne vend pas de bitcoins.
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One thing I don't understand is the statement that it's too much hassle for the amount of customers that it was brinigng. If it's bringing in very few customers, surely it's very little hassle.
There are fixed cost for any business to accept a new payment means. Like setting up the cash register and accounting hooks. That's even more significant if there is currency conversion involved. So the first customer walking in with bitcoins IS a significant hassle for the shop owner today. However Paymium (bitcoin payment processor) is working on it to make it simpler. Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Paymium. |
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NFC costs more than ink on paper.
But they are REUSE ABEL. You mean to go back to wherever the NFC sticker is posted , reconfigure it, check it, repeat ? That cost something. If you use QR code you are piggy backing on existing logistics (magazines, billboards). Conversely, the marginal cost of adding a QR code is virtually zero. Plus if you want a crypto processor in the NFC tag, you are up to $5 a pop (ex works, no logistics included). Oh, and one last thing: wait 3-4 years before NFC phones make serious inroads in terms of market share. |
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Les bitcoins ont effectivement un potentiel inimaginable, mais il y a beaucoup d'obstacles sur le chemin. Et ces derniers sont difficiles à imaginer (interdiction par les états sous couvert de lutte contre la criminalité, etc.)
Interdire bitcoin: le rêve du lobby bancaire et monétaire. Peut on interdire une invention comme ça pendant longtemps ? Avec le "great firewall" de Chine ? Le coût pour l'Etat serait bien supérieur au gain supposé. Combien de temps faudrait il pour qu'un contournement aux mesures gouvernementales soit trouvé ? La "cellule de crise" des banques centrales contre tous les hackers de la planète ..  |
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Every entrepreneur knows it's a lot more profitable to build value over time than to take the money and run which is a one-time gain.
If it is more profitable to build a company with long term strategy in mind and provide good service, then this is how the company would conduct its business. For example, the company may provide free training that is not directly related to work tasks, strangely enough, but it may result in better profit in the long term. In my original post I described that in Bitcoin environment a business owner that holds customers bitcoins have strong incentive to steal it, even if it means destroying his company, because it would earn more profit then any long term strategy. Again, when I write "profitable" I am not referring only to monetary value.. Money is a good servant but a terrible master. |
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@OP
There is no such thing as a "trustless" transaction.
When I use bitcoin I trust that 51% of the network hashing power is held by "honest" miners.
Every entrepreneur knows it's a lot more profitable to build value over time than to take the money and run which is a one-time gain.
And guess what ? Most entrepreneurs are not in it for the money. Money is a result, not an objective.
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Translation: "I believe that bitcoin needs more drug users to buy into bitcoin in order for the market price to go up. Let's promote illegal activity in bitcoin guys!"
Before using the word "illegal", ask yourself first who makes the law.  |
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Oh dear... some of you thought I was being serious
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Comparing countries like this is dumb. Why don't you compare with Brazil, then? Stricter gun laws than most European countries. I've already met French legal gun owners after a couple years living here, whose guns were not part of their jobs. The only Brazilian legal gun owner I've ever met after more than 20 years living there was a professional body-guard. Having a legal gun in Brazil is extremely difficult. Now go take a look in the crime rates there.
What's your point, Mr Smart ? Once you take into account social problems like staggering inequalities there is absolutely zero evidence that the crime rate would be any lower with more permissive gun laws. |
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As for the market activity and comments that are attributed to him, this is to me indicative of a bear under a lot of pressure and possibly hurting in a bull market.
The one thing to keep in mind here is that a wounded bear is the most dangerous kind of bear.
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There are also eWallets such as blockchain.info's MyWallet which do not require trust.
There is no such thing as an ewallet that does not require trust. Even if they propose client-side encryption of the keys, the user is not immune to code poisoning by the server: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=86278.20Supernodes and their ewallets are part of the solution for the growing size of the blockchain. I recommend paytunia to new users. |
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En effet, la page wikipedia est vraiment succincte et devrait être réécrite: merci d'avoir rajouté le lien vers mon article. Je n'ai jamais contribué à wikipedia en fait et je trouve que leur page sur bitcoin est tendancieuse (sans doute écrite par un économiste keynésien ) |
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Sorry for necroposting but I realize the best answer is not in the thread yet.
Didn't I basically say the same thing? IMHO talking about properties as in your post isn't clear. Something may have very special properties and yet be worthless because the properties are not valuable in any usage. Also you are not mentioning transaction processing while I believe this is where there is a huge value proposition for using the bitcoin network. That's what gives "backing" to the price of bitcoins. |
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+1
I think that's exactly what drives the price of bitcoin up.
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Sorry for necroposting but I realize the best answer is not in the thread yet. How about this one.
Just like gold, bitcoin is backed by scarcity and usage value.
Gold is scarce and valuable for making jewelry.
Bitcoin is scarce and valuable for processing internet payments.
Any other question ?
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J'ai rédigé une page d'explication sur l'algorithme ECDSA qui sert à la fabrication des adresses et des signatures dans la chaîne de blocs bitcoin. C'est un peu matheux mais ça doit rester accessible: vos commentaires sont les bienvenus |
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We should make them all in florescent colors or something.
Yes one can make them look ok  |
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