Am getting "Website is currently unreachable" errors (from CloudFare) using both their https and http URLs.

Something gone wrong?


Regards,

Ian Knowles.

In considering the future value of Bitcoins I have been thinking about what would it take for the banks to ensure that the vast majority of people in the future simply wouldn't go near Bitcoin (not that I wish this to occur btw).

The following are three of some of the most touted benefits of Bitcoin and what banks might do in the future to keep the vast majority of people using them rather than Bitcoin:

1) Move money from anywhere to anywhere easily and cheaply.

Although anonymity is often included with regards to this point I think it is fairly easy for banks to simply argue the public need for identification (terrorism, money laundering, etc.). That being said current ways (such as TT) to transfer money from country to country are not cheap nor that quick but if the banks were to introduce cheaper and quicker ways to do this, perhaps based upon using their new Bankcoin^TM system, then I think this point would be a much more difficult one to tout for Bitcoin.

If say the banks were to offer a 1% transfer (including currency exchange) fee (with perhaps a cap) then would any average person or business person really want to use Bitcoin to do this?

2) Provide a payment system that gives sellers non-reversible transactions (with the benefit for buyers being cheaper prices from sellers you trust).

Once again there is no reason why Bankcoin^TM couldn't also be used to provide such a service (with a fee in much the same way as is being done now by organizations like bit-pay). Perhaps the banks themselves might not be interested in payment systems per se, however, I guess that tying Bankcoin^TM to such systems would be probably be pretty much no different to Bitcoin.

If you were able to get a payment system that was approximately the same price but lauded and actively promoted by your bank would you instead choose to use Bitcoin?

3) Provide an investment that is not subject to fractional reserve dilution (also sometimes touted as the non-inflationary benefit).

This one is perhaps a little harder (in that it requires trusting your bank) but nonetheless a bank could offer Bankcoin^TM investments (perhaps packaged a little like term investments) with some sort of guarantee that only at most X million will be printed and that each investors "horde" is government guaranteed.

If you were able to get a government guaranteed digital commodity easily from your bank that was designed to have a limited supply would you still prefer to invest in Bitcoin?

I guess the overall question I am wondering about is if Bankcoin^TM were to appear would Bitcoin just end up being marginalised?

Also if Bankcoin^TM was to appear any time soon we would without a doubt be made very aware of (considering the millions of dollars of advertising that would be thrown at it).


Regards,

Ian Knowles.

In recent dealings with some newer Bitcoin exchanges I have found email correspondence to be IMHO rather unprofessional.

Although I am not going to name names I am specifically talking about receiving emails that (a) didn't include any company information or any person's name, (b) did not have hi/hello or any sort of greeting (I am referring to the an initial email/reply rather than any follow ups) and (c) contained one or more facetious remarks (as seemingly these companies doesn't like having any criticism being made about their services).

Having worked as a software engineer for over 20 years I know how professional support should work (and have even done my share when the company I worked for didn't have enough personal for specific support staff). Anyone who sent emails like the ones I have recently received would have been quickly "let go" from every company that I have worked for.

Have I missed something in the past few years - is this "attitude" towards customers is the new norm or is this just a Bitcoin thing?


Regards,

Ian Knowles.

I have an Australian bank account (Westpac) and am interested to see if any Aussie miners (assuming there are some) might be interested to sell me BTC regularly (say once per week or month).

The agreement would be that the BTC would be sent in exchange for AUD at a specific regular time and the price would be the half way between the current highest Bid and lowest Ask at Gox at that time (give or take a few minutes). The advantage to you is simply that you would not have any fees associated with redeeming your AUD (or have to incur any currency conversion costs or go through an exchange).

Provided any interested party has developed a decent reputation on this forum then I am willing to provide the AUD in advance of the BTC delivery each week/month.


Regards,

Ian Knowles.

Just a few things I've mentioned when having to "defend" the deflationary aspect of Bitcoin to people who are new to the idea.

1) We live in a world that is rapidly running out of resources (such as oil now and later coal) due to consumption.

The idea of the necessity to have "ever expanding" economies must surely have a lot to do with this issue. A deflationary economy might well be of great benefit in helping the world to reduce the problems of over consumption.

2) We live in a world that is badly polluted by the very consumption our "growing economies" have so heavily promoted.

Slowing demand down (and especially the demand for "throw away" goods) surely is a good way to help the environment (and therefore all life living on planet Earth).

3) Goods these days are never made to last (I think most people even only just over 30yo would agree that many modern tools and devices are inferior compared to products that were being made by previous generations).

If your money was becoming more valuable by you not spending it then you are going to buy a replacement widget when you absolutely need it (and you would want that widget to last as long as possible so you are not losing even more by constant replacement).

Tie in the above with a bit about the greed of modern banks (which as a store for your savings in order to earn interest would be unnecessary with deflation) and you start to put forward a more convincing argument in favour of deflation for those that although perhaps schooled in Keynesian economics do understand the problems of the modern world (assuming they are not bankers).

Cheers,

Ian.

Supposedly the Testnet launch has started yet every time I attempt to log in I get "The credentials provided is incorrect." (their bad English).

Have tried the change password a few times but still doesn't work. Anyone managed to log in?

BTW was impressed with their online support at midnight last night but can't get anyone to chat to me today.

Ian.

Not entirely a new idea but from other threads I've read about this I think this could be built by using something like Tiny Core Linux packaged with a minimal bitcoin client that is designed to work entirely offline.

I had read in another thread that someone was working out how to be able to import and export transactions - if the client supported this feature then money could be moved out of the safe when desired via an export and the blockchain for the safe could be updated via a copy of blk0001.dat followed by a rescan for additions into the safe.

Anyone working on such a solution yet?

Ian.

Although I have no affiliation with (and have not yet used) this exchange I was quite impressed by their online support as I managed to get someone (am pretty sure it wasn't a robot - and if it was then even more kudos) to answer a few questions for me about half an hour ago (which would be around midnight Sunday in Australia).

Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come.

Ian.