Hmmm I can think of nothing that would spread awareness of Bitcoin around the world faster than a massive Hollywood style crackdown on the top Bitcoin users around the world. Some day, European and US gov's will realize that their heavy fists will simply squeeze and promote the currency in Asia. At the point where such a silly thing went to trial, I can imagine the mother of all donations to a legal defense fund that would publicize the entire event around the earth. And as far as I know, buying placeholders in an open-source software network is no more illegal than buying copies of microsoft word documents from your friends  |
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on the subject of QR codes, you could just print a separate code above each item in the vending machine, then all a customer has to do is scan the code and push 'confirm' and the machine will vend whenever it receives a payment on the particular account.
Of course this means if you ever change prices you need to re-print codes with the correct payment value on it, but it does mean that no codes need to be entered into the machine at all.
Will
I think that's a regression in the technology  |
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Erik,
That is nice,
But why don’t make it the other way round?
I print a QR from my Bitcoin bank (say, me is a conservative plonker, do not want to rely on my phone functioning to get my money). Load it online with coins I intend to spend (shopaholic alert). Let merchant scan it and confirm the amount with a few random digits of my pin associated with this code. (I pay a fee for a bank/’wallet service’ anyway – why not make the provider to deal with complications/speed up the process?)
And if I’m in a mood to throw cash at naked girls i can just forgo the pin part and make my QR codes pure BTC cash (until a first scan that is).
Once we have a proper support, the service provider should supply nicely printed cash-like BTC QRs/scratchable QRs with their name/ads/etc. which I can load from my ‘BTC commodity’ account. Even ‘BTC commodity’ account debit/credit card (to please those Visa/MC cork-popping gentlemen and get their support) can be issued for merchants that do not yet deal in BTC. Fees would be astronomical at first though, and all those banks would happily survive (i have nothing against it, personally – money has to be made out of thin air to support population’s demands).
Yeah great ideas, both systems will likely exist in tandem for people to use. |
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I use cryptoxchange.com, mainly because I know their bank accounts won't ever be frozen. Also, past few days bitcoins have been 5% cheaper there than Gox. |
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Difficult to say how amazing it is... Since that hardware would be vandalized in a second
However I do actually work for a (different than this video) company creating a "thin client" type alternate payment hardware for vending machines.
Please voice your opinions on how you would like to see bitcoin transactions on a vending machine: (please indicate whether you are replying as a Machine operator/owner or as a customer)
Does the machine owner have to accept bitcoins himself? Or do you want it exchanged into whatever currency he usually gets?
How will the "real world" costs be payed for? Does the machine owner have to float a balance to pay for bitcoin transactions?
Is it acceptable to hold a bitcoin balance with a payment processor that is neither the machine owner, nor a typical exchange?
Thanks for the replies.
Regarding the vandalism, that whole screen component could easily sit behind strong plastic or glass... I think such a machine would be as vandalism-resistant as any other (except even more so because there wouldn't be a treasure of bills and coins to collect upon successful break-in). Now, if I were a machine operator, I'd simply want an option to specify what portion of the btc should be converted into normal currency (and there are already services that do this). I assume all costs would be paid with normal currency for the foreseeable future. Any currency balance would be settled via a bank transfer once a week, and btc balance need simply be stored in a safe ewallet. I think such things are not yet practical/profitable, but they are immeasurably important for proof-of-concept and their novelty value shouldn't be underestimated (like with the casascius coins). People often need to see to believe, and an American who sees he can buy his snacks with Bitcoin will have a far higher affinity for the new currency. |
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It is understandably confusing for someone to view a rock, predict it will fall, and then discover that it has stopped falling and in fact has started to rise. It requires some deep personal reflection to then realize one was wrong initially. Nagle's entire worldview may come untethered if he studies this, so perhaps it's best to let him go  |
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I could try and put transactions on the globe, could be cool.
I think that has now become mandatory You've been doing an awesome job with Blockchain.info, keep it up! I use the site almost every day. |
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a friend that lives on another continent could actually keep me alive with this
is it enough to use only first 6 or so characters of an address to describe it uniquely and complete the transaction ?
to read a few first letters into friends phone and he than does the rest.
Yeah I think that works. Try typing in the first six digits of one of your wallet addresses into Blockchain.info (case-sensitive), and it will show your balance. |
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why are people ignoring this? Because it is joke "Original Air Date: 15 January 2012" without downloadable .torrent as a proof It's not a joke, it's very real. And my goodness your standards are high if you expect a torrent before the air date! |
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When will this meme die? Bitcoin doesn't need to (and probably will not) become a "mainstream currency" that your grandma uses to do e-commerce.
Bitcoin is a "meta-currency", and all the "actual economic trade" using bitcoins is just as legitimate even if bitcoin is only traded for dollars/euros etc.
The nature of how money works suggests that if Bitcoin becomes successfully adopted for any purpose, its usage will continue to grow into areas where it provides increased efficiency. Given the nature of Bitcoin, it has the potential to provide vast increases in efficiency in almost every aspect of commerce and trade. So, while I don't expect my grandma to use Bitcoins to buy dinner in the next couple years, it's reasonable to foresee a situation where Bitcoin permeates outward into more and more areas of life. I don't think it's possible to remain a "niche currency." For if it works well as a niche currency, it will spill out into wider adoption. The snowball effect, when it comes to mediums of exchange, is very powerful. The largest obstacle for Bitcoin's widespread use will not be any character flaws, but will be the myriad laws governments attempt to impose upon it. Though I believe the saying is true - the largest army cannot stop an idea whose time has come. |
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LOL that's pretty clever |
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While I believe that the initial floor of $2 a couple of months ago, and the following slow rises to $3 or so are justifiable based upon fundemental metrics related to the bitcoin economy; the most recent spike to $6+ is unfounded and indicative of a rising mania. The growth of the bitcoin economy simply hasn't had the time to keep up with that kind of runnup.
Doesn't that assume that the "floor" of $2 wasn't an overcorrection to the downside? Whatever the "proper" price of BTC is, market prices almost always overshoot, both up and down. |
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But see, as long as banks are used, they can manipulate the money supply.
How? Anything a bank/ewallet can do with bitcoin, so can I. We are all, already, banks. As a bank, I could extend credit to my friends right now, this instant. It could be in the form of an IOU, redeemable in Bitcoin. IOU's for Bitcoin can always be made, copied, and passed around the economy. If there is trust among the market players, then this effectively increases the money supply - but it's not necessarily harmful. "Fractional reserve banking" is not the enemy. The enemy is fractional reserve banking that is subsidized by the government - for without the subsidization market forces are able to work and fractional banks that act imprudently will be destroyed. |
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We all hopefully realize that the block chain infrastructure is non-scalable to the level of mass retail adoption and that this discussion is academic at best. By the time retail adoption of bitcoin is commonplace, space on the blockchain will have a price, retail purchases will never hit the blockchain, and you will be dealing with a bank that is simply backed in bitcoins and who settles your purchase off the block chain, who will solve this problem the same way Visa debit works.
Watch Dan Kaminsky's presentation. He agrees.
+1 In the future, most transactions won't "hit the blockchain" at all. Already today, many don't. Anyone sending money to someone else of the same ewallet may not ever hit the blockchain. Same with transactions occurring within an exchange. Handing a persona Casascius coin doesn't hit the blockchain either. (Sidenote: this is also why Bitcoin can be untraceable - the blockchain doesn't record every transaction, contrary to popular belief) The blockchain will always be the ultimate arbiter. When one needs -absolute- confidence in a transaction, one would rely on the blockchain. However, 99% of real-world transactions don't require absolute confidence, they just require -reasonable- confidence, and within that realm we'll see lots of interesting market-based systems to quickly process payments. This phenomenon doesn't detract from the strengths of Bitcoin. Rather, it's simply the evolving scaffolding which surrounds it. |
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As long as pool operators aren't being fraudulent or misrepresenting anything, then they ought to do whatever they wish. They owe the "community" only what they promise.
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That is SUPER cool... I hadn't heard of that yet.
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BTC just hit $7 ... What's going to be the undoing of bitcoin is not goverments, not technical issues, not hackers, but simple lack of adoption because of exchange rate volatility caused by people who can't spot a zero-sum game when they see one. Sad. LOL Bitcoin can't get a break. When it rises in price "hording" will destroy it. When it falls, "it's dying". People think they can have a world-changing technology AND have it be calm and stable and predictable in its early years? Oil and water. Bitcoin is more resilient that people think. Volatility wont' hurt it. It's okay to realize that Bitcoin might actually work and change the world. |
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Not sure if you have table space for this... but a laptop or LCD sitting on the table with the bitcoin WebGL globe on it would be a great attention getter and conversation piece. You could also show the BitcoinMonitor.com page... these things should demonstrate visually how Bitcoin is something new and different, and the tech crowd should be quite receptive.
Even better - put one of these visuals on a large LCD tv behind your booth.
Good luck!
Even better - instead of those, we'll have the Blockchain.info set to ding every time a new transaction appears http://blockchain.info/new-transactionsHot damn I hadn't seen that! Awesome |
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