This week’s events exposed a major problem. BTC works great for BTC to BTC transactions. But buying and selling BTC with a fiat currency is a major source of problems.
Putting aside nascent local markets that have sprung up, if one wants to obtain a BTC they have two options – sell either a good or service in exchange for BTC, or exchange fiat for BTC. There are not many options for the first (though they are growing), and the latter needs serious work. MtGox’s problems are evident, but Bitfloor performed poorly, and getting a BTC from Coinbase takes (as of now) 5 days. That is a major area of weakness, and one that, and this is pure speculation, was maliciously taken advantage of this week.
I'm new to posting here but have been reading for almost 2 years now. This has been suggested before, I am sure, but I think it is more urgent now. I'm trying to understand Ripple, which I understand is an attempt to create a decentralized currency exchange. I’m still not clear – and these are important questions – (1) how fiat gets into the exchange to begin with, and (2) how fiat gets out.
I see this is being discussed
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175490.0,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175443.0, and
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=175490.0 on the implementation side of things. I have more reading to do. I hope there are answers to the final two questions - how fiat gets in and how fiat gets out.