Watch out, those BFL lovers are not gonna appreciate those comments.

How about allowing people to tip or donate money to anyone in the world for no fees?

You mean M.T. Gox will should be EMPTY Gox? Oh boy!

Beginning of the end for Gox perhaps, but not Bitcoin. In fact, this will be a good wakeup call for future exchanges: be absolutely clear that you are operating within legal boundaries, or don't set up an exchange at all.

There's nothing wrong with making "cool" things on top of Bitcoins. Yes, there are impoverished people who don't necessarily need cool stuff but cool stuff is what brings people attention to tech in many situations, no matter how poor they might be. If you're able to make Bitcoins cool for the masses (yes even poor masses need cool things to experiment with), they'll dig into it a bit deeper into the non-cool stuff and learn about it in that manner.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the really poor people won't benefit all that much from Bitcoins. But if you can make Bitcoins a cool or interesting hobby they can spend their time on, they might try it out.

Well I think for a 5750 it's not a big issue which brand you get. Even with the best custom board design and cooling it will make minimal difference in hashing speed.

They're all using the same chip from ATI/AMD... ASUS just sticks on their label.

It's all the same.

Why can it not be cool?

So you're telling me that something cool should not be built on this infrastructure to gain people's attention?

It CAN be a cool thing for consumer to play with if it's done right; and there's no reason why it shouldn't be that way.

EDIT: You know, the more I think about it, the more it seems that this type of antisocial-elitist attitude on this forum is what might hinder its growth. Why should only tech-savvy people (uncool people?) deserve to use Bitcoin? Why shouldn't those who are incapable of thoroughly understanding Bitcoin (i.e. perhaps someone in your family) not deserve to get something out of Bitcoin?

I've explained Bitcoins to 2 university undergrads yesterday and it took them quite some time to get it. I don't think the mining aspect is all that important but it's the implication of Bitcoins that is hard to get right away... It can take some time for it all to click in.

Of course, there are people who just don't care or want to understand anything outside of their comfort-zone. Bitcoin is funny like that, it's a great barometer of one's aptitude to adapting and accepting new concepts... some people just aren't capable of generating self-interest even when the result would obviously be rewarding to them.

Yes I agree with what you've said. I'm just saying that services revolving around Bitcoins, like a smartphone client, should be easy enough for nearly anyone to use.

The point is that stupid people exist, and they are a substantial part of any economy. You need them as much as they need you. Make Bitcoins easier and more attractive for them, and everyone is happy.

Let's get Gordon Ramsey into Bitcoins... he'd pay a visit to BFL and smack Josh in the back of his head so fast...

I was just thinking of the various ways that a firm could advertise Bitcoins advantages over cash and even credit card for someone who does a lot of in person shopping (i.e. for food, for clothes, etc.).

Perhaps we should highlight how instead of carrying a wallet full of card and cash, they could make do with just their cell phones as long as they have a Bitcoin wallet app on it.

Less fiddling and carrying of coins and change and no need to secure your credit card, sign anything or punch in any pin codes. Everything you need is already on your cell phone.

If Bitcoins can be marketed as a tool of saving time then there should be enough appeal for masses to try it out.

Excellent post.

Noobs shouldn't feel bad about being noobs. If you really think about it, 99.99% of people on this planet are "BTC-noobs", so it's not so bad.

I find that I have a lot of trouble explaining Bitcoins to the average person well enough so that they are intrigued enough to research it on their own.

There definitely needs to be a bit more "fun" in the Bitcoin ecosystem; some sort of PR campaign that not only get investors interested but your everyday layman interested.

We have to make Bitcoin cool for mass consumption.

In May 2011 I tried to sell a 5870 videocard on Craigslist so I could get a better card from Nvidia. Originally I had arranged to sell the card to someone in my age bracket, someone quite young, for my initial asking price. Then the next day, just hours before I was going to meet this fellow, a much older gentleman offered me quite a bit more for the card.

After I met up with this older guy at a cafe, I asked him what he's going to use it for. He did not fit the profile for your average "PC" gamer. Turns out he's a premier miner in my area and has been at this thing for some time.

For the next hour we discussed Bitcoins over some coffee, and the way I understood it back then was that it was similar to folding@home but it could be used to make yourself some money. What was especially focused on was not the political ideology of this system but just how it can work as a currency. And the fact that anyone in the Bitcoin world back then were still "early adopters". I did not understand the political or even the financial ramification of Bitcoins at that moment.

Once I got home, I felt bad about selling the card. A part of me felt awful for abandoning the original buyer. And another part of me felt awful for selling the card at all. But if there was money to be made on something as cool as that guy made it sound, then perhaps it was not all in vain and I should really learn this thing.

I became persistent to learn about Bitcoins; over the next few weeks I studied its history, its technology, its current state, and what the future of Bitcoins might be. As soon as the "big picture" clicked, I went out and bought 3x 5830s from CL and an AMD board for a mining rig.

Interestingly enough, two of those 5830s came from young dude who has a master degree researcher in distributed computing and he said he has been mining for some time now. So I guess he felt he had accumulated enough coins/profits and those 5830s were useless to him.

Fast forward to today, I could not have foreseen Bitcoins to be where it is now. Had I sold my 5870 to the younger fellow I would probably not have learned of Bitcoins until a much later point. And I probably wouldn't have taken it seriously for some time because I wouldn't have met a "IRL mentor" who is able to present Bitcoins to me in a neutral manner.

I hope those nerds and geeks will do what they can light up the rest of the world that aren't exposed to the Internet on a daily basis. I'm very curious of how Bitcoin can help those less fortunate people.

Hint: Satoshi Nakamoto... or shall I say, Nakamoto Satoshi, is NSA. 

You know, people wouldn't bother trolling BFL if they made some actual progress and delivered. You shouldn't blame people for "trolling" at this point.

Maybe Bill Gates is Satoshi or is behind the group known as Satoshi?