We're seeing Bitcoin gaining acceptance from restaurants^[1]. In near future, it's going to pay for groceries, service and expertise, may be even a house.

Bitcoin will need a visual brand identity. Bitcoin will have to compete with AMEX^[2]. And for that, it's going to need a visual in various forms. A brand sticker  to go next to credit card logos at cash registers. A small icon at Amazon's checkout page. Most important of all for this stage of prevalence, icons small business and individuals would put on their websites and cards.

We need it to be everywhere. We need those stickers to be available worldwide. ^[3]

Only then the value of a bitcoin will see a solid increase. Currency is no good unless it can buy stuff people actually want. All those bit coins you mined or bought with good rates will not evolve into multimillion dollar capital unless it actually grows.To promote bitcoin is to grow your bitcoin capital.


I say we collectively fund and hire a designer/marketing expertise to create solid visual identity to communicate with people.


[1] http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/17/the-clock-is-ticking-on-bitcoin/

[2] List of competitors is long and complicated. It'd include everything from all credit card to PayPal, but we wouldn't want to kill off future possibilities of those companies accepting BTC as payment/transaction currency.

[3] And low-resolution picture printed on low-quality paper put on a wall with bluetack is NOT how you deal with currency. That's why we can't just have PDFs for everyone to download and print.

[JPY => BTC]

So here's what I found after two full restless days of resilient research, assuming you do not have bank account in USA or other countries where BTC service coverage is good

JPY => BTC
  -international bankwire to MtGox, etc: bank will charge you 5500 JPY.
  -fund JPYs with NETELLER/Moneybooker domestic bank wire--> buy VirWox USD --> buy SSL with USD --> buy BTC with SSL. for each conversion you pay commission of 2%~4%.
  -buy BTC at amazingly high rate at Youtip: http://www.youtipit.org/faq currently 1BTC on sale for 27.5200 USD
  -buy liberty reserve from crappy Japanese vendors, takes severals days or up to several weeks

if you do have USD bank account in Japan,
  -go on forex market, buy USD with JPY, cash out, than international bank wire (which will cost you about 5500 JPY anyway ), fund Gowalla and than MtGox

if you have more than 10000000 JPY in Citibank Japan's bank account,  you'll be able to send funds to any bank account in the world for free.

BTC => JPY
   -cash out with liberty reserve, find someone to have it international bank wire to Japan, absurd handling fee as always
   -buy SSL with BTC --> buy USD/other real money with SSL on VirWox --> Paypal --> domestic bank wire



TL;DR: there are no viable option to buy or sell BTC from Japan,unless 5500 JPY is ignorable to you, or  you have 10000000 JPY sitting in Citibank Japan's account, or you don't mind losing 10-20% of your asset.


Has anyone had any luck?

It'd be great to have mining farm cooperate. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.