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More generally, "long" means you believe something will go up in price. "Short" means you think it will go down in price.
Saying "I am long on gold" could mean "I own gold because I think it will rise in price" or it could just mean "I think gold is going up"
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The advantage of not having fees does not materialize for the client, so he's unlikely to care that the shop is saving money. The customer drives the demand for a payment method - the shops are forced to follow or loose market share. The shops would get rid of credit cards in a hart beat if they could get the customers to pay with cash.
So aside of the phony geek appeal, what does this system offer to the customer ? Credit cards offer interest free loans for up to 2 months, emergency funding past that period, and money back guarantee. Bitcoin offers final indisputable transactions - why do you think customers will prefer it ? Don't even get me started on the clunky desktop client that kills your harddrive.
I can tell you exactly why customers AND merchants will prefer it for online payments. I've spent the last 10 days trying to order two Android tablets from Alibaba express with my credit card that has a California billing address. I'm trying to have one tablet shipped to myself in Tokyo, and another to a developer in New York. Alibaba seems to think that my order is CC fraud in action. I've submitted copies of my Passport, my local government ID, photos of the Credit card itself, photocopies of the Credit card statement that was sent through the mail, and more. All of these have been submitted multiple times, yet they still keep canceling my order due to fraud concerns! I've wasted several hours of my life trying to convince them that I am not a scammer with a stolen credit card. If I had been allowed to pay with Bitcoins, none of these problems would have existed. I would already have my tablets, and Alibaba and myself would have saved hours of time! Instead, I am still waiting to see if they will accept the last batch of documents I submitted. On résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées. |
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I've used this site since it launched, withdrawn multiple times both with MtGox USD code and BTC. Haven't had any problems, but sometimes the system takes a couple hours to process the withdraw.
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The advantage of not having fees does not materialize for the client, so he's unlikely to care that the shop is saving money. The customer drives the demand for a payment method - the shops are forced to follow or loose market share. The shops would get rid of credit cards in a hart beat if they could get the customers to pay with cash.
If a merchant can save X% by accepting Bitcoin instead of Visa (due to combined CC fees plus chargeback fraud), then one might imagine merchants will lower their prices by X-Y% to anyone paying in Bitcoin. Thus, the savings for the merchant will start being split between the merchant and the customer. A customer may get to pay 1-2% less for products when using Bitcoin. So aside of the phony geek appeal, what does this system offer to the customer ? Credit cards offer interest free loans for up to 2 months, emergency funding past that period, and money back guarantee. Bitcoin offers final indisputable transactions - why do you think customers will prefer it ?
Status Quo: A world where every time you shop with a vendor, you expose your financial and identity information. You must trust their systems, staff, and intentions. Sony customers have been enjoying this risk. In 2009 there were over 10 million US adults who were victims of identity theft... Bitcoin Alternative: A world where every time you shop, exactly zero of your financial and identity information is exposed. Vendor doesn't even need to know your name, let alone address, CC number, etc. I prefer the Bitcoin Alternative to the Status Quo. Why don't you? Don't even get me started on the clunky desktop client that kills your harddrive.
Few people will use desktop clients for day-to-day Bitcoin use. Ewallet and online banks will serve that purpose on a PC and mobile apps serve the purpose on handheld devices. |
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Yeah that'd be a cool PR project... "Scan this bus to donate to Red Cross" or something like that with a big Bitcoin logo. Anyone have a bus?  |
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Suppose you kept your wallet on a memory stick, and there was a program that merchants could use, to type in a USD amount, that read the amount and converted it to Bitcoin at the current exchange rate, and then said "Insert memory stick". When the stick was inserted, the program would ask the user to type in a PIN code that was stored in a hashed file on the stick called "pin.dat". If it was accepted, the program would then load a key file that would decrypt the wallet.dat on the stick, transfer the correct amount, encrypt it again, and print a receipt for the transaction.
The downside to this is that it would require you to walk around with the most recent copy of your wallet in a relatively weak encryption format. Otherwise, it's very physical and could be streamlined to be really fast. What do you think?
How is that any easier than just having Bitcoins on your mobile phone and paying via: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ-pqo0cLcESeems even easier than using physical cash (no issues of denomination). |
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As much as I like the 2girls1coin video, this product does not have a place in the market. PayPal barely scratched the surface of retail with millions of invested dollars. Credit cards are the IPv4 of retail, the industry workhorse that's always "just about" to be replaced.
It has a place in the market to the extent that people are using Bitcoins. If Bitcoin doesn't have a place in the market, then your statement is correct. Your comparison with Paypal isn't quite valid. The Bitpay solution is more like a way for a bar to accept euros or yen, and will be in demand to the extent that euros or yen (or Bitcoins) are present in the economy. And credit cards, as a medium (a plastic rectangle piece in your wallet) will be gone soon. See Google Wallet. |
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It can be even simpler. The qrcode could link a btc-url with the amount already set, so the customer has only to accept the payment. That's what it did already. The customer chose to increase the amount for a tip, that's why she typed in a new number. |
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This has stopped working on my laptop. It was such a cool way to show the global spread of bitcoin. Is there a problem with the site?
Working great for me still. Maybe your browser updated and ruined the plugin or something? |
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Looking for a buyer for these two domains:
-CoinMixer.com
-CoinTumbler.com
No elaboration needed =) Asking 20 BTC. PM please.
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I liked the Iio track =)
My one comment would be that many of the screenshots/images used in the slideshow are kinda gimmicky/scammy (using photos of piles of cash, etc. is not a great way to portray the deserved elegance of Bitcoin).
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In a free market, Zhoutong is not the king of Bitcoin, but he IS the king of Bitcoinica.
He can ban, or allow, anyone to use the site for whatever reason he pleases.
Just as the rest of us can decide to use, or not use, Bitcoinica for whatever reason we please.
This is the only moral and fair system of property rights.
Indeed! I can't believe all those people who were crying about mybitcoin.com when Tom Williams, the Grand Nagus of mybitcoin.com, wasn't obligated to give anyone anything. He could have banned you all from his site for whatever reason he pleases. What, your BTC is still there but you can't log in? Not his problem, he got his! No one forced people to use mybitcoin.com anyway, and it turns out his site shut down anyway. The free market works! This is the only moral and fair system of property rights. Do you really fail to see the difference between A) setting rules on one's own site and B) stealing peoples' money? Theft is never permissible and is the opposite of a free market. |
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If it's beneficial to restrict trade to within the town, why don't they just create a unique currency for each household, so that each household buys locally from itself. Everyone will be rich!
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What effect would this have on the market if the buys and sells were almost back to back?
Almost none. 290 btc is about 1/500th of MtGox's weekly trade volume assuming very low average days of 20,000btc per day. Today alone there was over 100k of traded money. You can quite smoothly buy that amount of btc, transfer it to employee, and then he/she sells it back. The market will neither care nor notice that amount of funds. |
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You can say that a return in their value is highly probable.
That is very different than a "guarantee of value"... Gold doesn't have a guarantee of value either. Guarantees are actually only possible with an attached liability of a counter-party. The fact that Bitcoin has no guarantor is, like gold, one of its strengths. The claim of a guarantee is both factually incorrect and wholly unnecessary. |
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evorhees, that however doesn't answer the question... in 1998 France came down on Beenz... and now over a decade later.. first bitcoin lawsuits are in France again.. with our luck same judge.. lol
This illustrates the point perfectly. Let's assume France outlaws Bitcoin entirely. What office do they seize? Which servers do they shut down? Who's bank account do they raid? Certainly this would hurt Bitcoin, and in the specific case you're referencing it would hurt MtGox, but it can't kill Bitcoin. The Office of Bitcoin cannot be closed. This makes it fundamentally (and that word deserves extra emphasis) different than something like Beenz, Paypal, or egold. |
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Google is creating a wallet and payment service, not a currency. Thus their Wallet and Bitcoin are not mutually exclusive, and I'd expect the Google Wallet to support Bitcoin at some point.
Bitcoin and Facebook Credits are at odds.
Bitcoin and Google Wallet are not at odds.
(A keen observer may realize that this gives Google incentive to adopt/support Bitcoin in some manner, in order to undermine FB, for they are now in direct competition with each other since Google Plus launched).
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If the original source of the article requests that you cite the source (and not just the authors), then it would be polite to do so.
Isn't that the difference between CCO and any number of CC licenses that require attribution. It's not a matter of "requiring attribution." Kiba is asking for voluntary attribution. That's the difference. |
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