It turns out it was VirWoX who delayed the transaction - I checked their support FAQs and.....

.... so apparently mine had been delay for security reasons.  I received a confirmation email an hour ago that the payment had been approved and it's in my BTC wallet.  It would have been nice of them to let me know it was being intentionally delayed for security checks in the first place.

Anyway that's the conclusion.... Bitcoin has been admonished of all responsibility

It's now over 30 hours and no sign.... currently at 131610 blocks.   

What's the next step in checking this.... the VirWoX account shows a transfer out at the time I transferred it.

The general public don't understand how fiat money in general is created or the technicalities of other online payment systems either. 

I don't think the pathetically low mobile data allowances will keep up with the popularity of Bitcoin - if it becomes popular, which it isn't at the moment.   I mean, let's face it, if PayPal is Visa's baby cousin, Bitcoin is an amoeba.

The question is, does Bitcoin scale to 1,000,000 times the transactions it has today?  Clearly not, as a retailer who has been waiting now 20 hours for his first purchase of Bitcoin currency to come through, the current system has to be improved let alone the future version. 

Whether or not the OP's suggestions require a "major change" to the protocol or not, the reality is that it improvements need to be made and that Moore's Law does not apply to bandwidth - especially on mobile devices.

Yep, I'm with you.  Out of the hieroglyph options the lowercase bslash is the best option IMO, but I have to admit that after all these years I write....... $1, £1, 1 EUR.  So perhaps the unique hieroglyph should be left alone.

Please, please, please forget about the implied-by-previous-logo wild west theme and do a free rebranding - you have the eye for the clean corpo look!

See this post I just made....

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=17757.msg234282#msg234282

.... with the crap graphics.

That's a free letter that implies BT and can be freely claimed without pissing anyone off.   Using that in a logo without the downmarket pawnbroker gold/yellow theme and we're onto a winner IMO.  Whatever the end result, a rebranding is necessary.

Great, clean graphics work within the obvious limitations btw!

Absolutely and especially for retailers.  When I first heard about Bitcoin (a couple of weeks ago through a forum thread somewhere or other) I had a look at the Wiki retailer list.  If it was easy to implement Bitcoin payments into popular payment systems with risk-reducing real time conversion rates then that list would be a lot bigger, a lot sooner.  I'd be in it, but I'm not.

That, plus a drive to get Bitcoin payments easily integrated into all open source (for the meantime) ecommerce solutions with multi-currency and ƀ real-time conversion support is a necessary step IMO to getting wide stream acceptance.

I think seeing that the lowercase ƀ has a natural T element to it, it would be a much better choice.

Once a swarm decision has been made about that, one thing (as a potential retailer) that concerns me is the unprofessional, computer-gamey/wild-westish Bitcoin logo.  A bit of a modern corporate makeover would go a long way.

First impressions in an image and brand conscious world etc etc.

I'm graphically inept, but the lowercase ƀ could be implemented in a logo so that the "itcoin" could get dropped once it gets around.  I've done a finger-painting to show what it shouldn't look like ...



.... I'm sure somebody with an artistic bone in their body could make that concept look good, but do you guys see what I am getting at?

It's probably safer than a potential PayPal chargeback after one anyway. 

Good info though.  Thanks.

Cool, six is the magic number, thanks.

Thanks for the heads up, but I am aware of that one.

It wouldn't work for me because it doesn't support other payment options in VirtueMart and even if it did, I'd have to have some form of automated exchange rate working like in this module, since the current volatility of Bitcoin would be a headache otherwise.

This module looks like it would be as perfect a solution as possible.

Thanks for the replies.

It still isn't through so I'm just being patient.  How long do the two or three necessary confirmations take to come through on average?

Wow, that is a well thought out system that looks like it has the practicality of using other currencies (automated currency conversion is the big one (for me)).   My 2nd post here was about this very thing.

My store uses VirtueMart unfortunately or I'd have this installed in a heartbeat.

Great work, I hope this gets ported to VirtueMart at some point.

Ciao!

Thanks for the fast replies, yes it's exactly 131411 blocks.  Is this a delay because of a first transaction or is the delay similar for all?

What is the maximum length of time you wait for a transaction to come through?

I transferred a Bitcoin from VirWoX approx 8 hours ago which is my first Bitcoin transaction.  The BitCoin client is showing 1 connection (has been as high as 6 and hovered at 3 for some time).

How long should I wait before getting worried and how many connections do you guys average at and does generating influence speed?

Thanks for any help.

I was considering allowing BitCoin payments on my site, where I sell my own software.  I use VirtueMart and although there has been BitCoin payment integrated, it can't be used with other currencies so far.  If it was able to do that, then it isn't really possible to peg a simple BitCoin price in the same way you can with other currencies because of the massive price fluctuations at the moment.

I therefore think an API to a BitCoin exchange for currency conversion, together with integration with open source e-commerce solutions would take a lot of the (projected) hassle factor out.  I haven't looked into the bid/offer system in BitCoin but the pricing given to retailers through such a system would have to take into account potential market manipulation.

Ideally, as near instant as possible automated conversion to traditional currency would seal the deal.  Then, for retailers, there wouldn't be any disadvantage.

Just throwing that out there, whilst simultaneously attempting to reach 50 posts without too much chaff.

Wow, only another 49 posts in n00bland till I graduate - is the definition of a troll someone who piffle paffles for piffle paffle's sake or who tittle tattles to cause a hurdy gurdy?