Another thread clearly demonstrating the lack of understanding of how to achieve wide adoption. The attitude of many bitcoin users is another reason to bet against it long term.
You're stating that since someone is calling out names, it will hinder wide adoption? I find that very hard to believe, and also, after reaching out to enough users, what is said in these forums won't matter to the regular user, as they won't be active on the forums anyway. My point was that people are going to use easy passwords....always, no matter what. |
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The problem is how do you get bitcoins back if they are stolen? With money, you can go to the authorities and have some chance. Bitcoin is just going to attract criminals and they'll just swap in for cash.
I don't think criminal will swap it for cash in near future, since more and more merchant now offer services and others good with bitcoins, criminal will only do money laundering to cash it out. I tought about a protection mechanism to prevent this, such as reversal but without reversal, and I didn't find anything working. If we ask exchangers to track orders and don,t process bitcoins stolen, how do you prove that this is a real steal? So for getting criminal out of our wallet, we need to have something such banks have. A "strong" protection at the start. I work as a computer security consultant and I can really say this: people don't know how to secure their things and even if they know they just don't want or are too lazy (for the majority) to do it. So I think that the current software (bitcoin client / bitcoind) must include protection for wallet.dat in order to prevent malicious people to just steal it and get your money. just my 0.02 BTC. I was wondering if there was a way to require wallet be stored on an external drive? Would get people to treat it more like a credit card and keep it off networks when it wasn't in use... |
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Another thread clearly demonstrating the lack of understanding of how to achieve wide adoption. The attitude of many bitcoin users is another reason to bet against it long term.
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a currency that can be stolen just by breaking into a safe or making a copy of it seems far more
risky than one with good encryption and people seem to still use cash?
I see this argument a lot, but it's wrong. If I'm holding cash, it's usually a few hundred at most. I'm willing to risk losing that knowing that I probably won't be able to get it back. Anything more than that I put in the bank because I know the bank and government give me safeguards. There's little to no chance I lose that money. Unless bitcoin's intent is to just represent petty amounts, it will need to more secure and provide consumers with safeguards. If it doesn't, it will only be used in libertarian fantasy world. |
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"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 1790), Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
I'll Take the Responsibility of Liberty, No thanks on the Faustian Bargain of Trading it on an Illusion of Safety.
Then have fun with your toy currency in economic obscurity. |
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I checked the wiki, but not much detail on how one goes about reversing a transaction after its made.
News reports that mt.gox reversed all its transactions, how is this accomplished?
I thought bitcoins was send and receive only, not sure how you "cancel" a transaction after its sent out.
Couldnt this be used for fraud?
As already replied by xane, bitcoin transaction can't be reversed. That's "for my part" the major problem of bitcoin system. You need to entirely trust someone when you send him funds. That's why escrow services exist such as ClearCoin, Eptiv and my new opened one BTCrow. Of course you need to trust the Escrow service itself, but once you have good experience with one of them you don't have to trust other people for your transactions. The limitation of the current Escrow Services are the lack of support for merchant carts etc. I'm working on it for mine to integrate merchant api for safe trading. I applaud you for starting an escrow service. You could become filthy rich as I think every bitcoin transaction needs to go through escrow going forward if it is to be a success. |
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I keep seeing all this criticism of bitcoin that is basically "hackers can steal your money". It's amazing how no one seems to remember all of the hacks of major financial institutions during the last 12 months that were much worse for the individual customers.
Citibank had 200,000 customer names, account numbers, and email addresses stolen. Google, Apple, Lockheed Martin, etc. all had break-ins that resulted in more sensitive information being stolen than hashed passwords and email addresses.
The fall-out is what is VERY different when you compare btc-related break-ins and the major $ businesses. Citibank says "too bad" and since you can't avoid doing business with them and they know it, they can do what they want. A btc exchange operator knows there are no barriers to entry in his industry so he has to win you back or go out of business. That is one of the primary reasons bitcoin was created.
The problem is how do you get bitcoins back if they are stolen? With money, you can go to the authorities and have some chance. Bitcoin is just going to attract criminals and they'll just swap in for cash. If it's not anonymous as a lot of people here are claiming, then why hasn't somebody tracked down the thief and got the money back. It isn't going to happen. In the long run, this will be btc's downfall. People won't trust it. |
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It's an idea but how would you implement such a thing ?
escrow services ?
The exchanges would just shut down automatically given a sharp change in price. No funds or bitcoins would be able to be moved during the shutdown. |
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After any unusual drop or rise in value, a circuit breaker must be implemented. Some may say this is not free market. I disagree. It is only a pause in the action to allow the exchange to overview security and verify the legitimacy of what is going on.
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If its not Mt Gox it will be someone else. A currency that just requires hacking into a computer to steal is never going to last. Bitcoin must be traceable if it wishes to survive. This is not on Mt Gox. They are just the first victim.
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Neither Mt Gox or TradeHill was very inspiring in their interview. Tradehill's security seems weak. Mt. Gox is telling a fishy story.
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This thread is spot on. If a secure exchange is not created soon before bitcoin goes big, then big companies will move in. I would not be surprised to see Google running an exchange if this thing catches on. Then, Google will control the financial world as well....just great. Imagine that monopoly.
And, if it's not Google, maybe its a bank...whoever....fees, fees, fees.
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It'd be a better idea to move all your money away from Mt. GOX ASAP. Mt. GOX is done. Whatever price Mt. GOX tells you for bitcoin is not even worth looking at.
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I'm not so sure.
NYSE
"After that location was destroyed in the Great Fire of New York in 1835, the Exchange moved to a temporary headquarters."
"was closed for ten days starting September 20, 1873, because of the Panic of 1873."
"On September 16, 1920, a bomb exploded on Wall Street outside the NYSE building, killing 33 people and injuring more than 400. The perpetrators were never found. "
"The Black Thursday crash of the Exchange on October 24, 1929, and the sell-off panic which started on Black Tuesday, October 29, are often blamed for precipitating the Great Depression of 1929. In an effort to try to restore investor confidence, the Exchange unveiled a fifteen-point program aimed to upgrade protection for the investing public on October 31, 1938."
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The fundamental value is not 0 as you are able to buy real tangible products and services with bitcoins.
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the way i see it:
main disadvantage: infinite inflation - which isnt necessarily always good.
main advantage - decentralizing the currency can do a lot of good to a lot of people, mainly outside the usa and Europe
naorai
You're the second person ITT to make the hyperinflation conclusion but neither of you have mentioned how to arrive there. Can you explain how you got there because I'm not seeing it? How is the currency going to be devalued to that point? I think we can just assume he's mixing up his words and meant deflation. |
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The 2 biggest problems with bitcoin right now, affecting its growth, are security (which is being addressed) and difficulty of use. Most people do not want to download a client. It is a hassle. Bitcoin.org should let people get an address, send/receive payments. Get them to register with an e-mail address. Build a list and start marketing bitcoin like you would a business. For bitcoin to be successful, it needs to be easy. Not everyone will participate in the p2p, but they need to be involved in the bitcoin economy. I will let IT people chime in with the technical requirements for this.
There are already several webwallet providers that provide exactly this service. I believe they are also mentioned in various places in the wiki. I don't think that, for the sake of decentralization, it would be a good idea for bitcoin.org to run a web wallet service. I know there's a psychological barrier involved in downloading the client, but from an ease of use perspective Bitcoin is not any more difficult to get started with than any other software package. It's literally install and go. I agree, but the psychological barrier is an insurmountable barrier for many people and will restrict the adoption of bitcoin. I would like to see more marketing from the existing web wallet services you mention. There will always be a psychological barrier in systems that are so wildly different from the "conventional" systems. I believe it's better to educate people about Bitcoin and how it works, and help them get over that psychological barrier, rather than taking the "easy way out" and changing the system to meet what people are used to. I understand where you're coming from, but consider this...say you are traveling and need to access your money at an internet cafe. How do you do it? I think the client has limitations. For growth, I think the key thing is bitcoin is as easy to use as possible. |
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The 2 biggest problems with bitcoin right now, affecting its growth, are security (which is being addressed) and difficulty of use. Most people do not want to download a client. It is a hassle. Bitcoin.org should let people get an address, send/receive payments. Get them to register with an e-mail address. Build a list and start marketing bitcoin like you would a business. For bitcoin to be successful, it needs to be easy. Not everyone will participate in the p2p, but they need to be involved in the bitcoin economy. I will let IT people chime in with the technical requirements for this.
There are already several webwallet providers that provide exactly this service. I believe they are also mentioned in various places in the wiki. I don't think that, for the sake of decentralization, it would be a good idea for bitcoin.org to run a web wallet service. I know there's a psychological barrier involved in downloading the client, but from an ease of use perspective Bitcoin is not any more difficult to get started with than any other software package. It's literally install and go. I agree, but the psychological barrier is an insurmountable barrier for many people and will restrict the adoption of bitcoin. I would like to see more marketing from the existing web wallet services you mention. |
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If bitcoin really succeeds, I guess it will be regulated in a way that it becomes at least very difficult to use it anonymously.
I agree. Bitcoin will not survive if it remains anonymous as drug/gun trade would tarnish its reputation and adoption. Governments would ultimately aggressively pursue bitcoin users. |
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