I don't where conspiracy theory starts in what I am about to say.

AFAIK it seems to work a bit like this. I'd like to know a more accurate view of how it works.

The USA tends to lead the world in everything. It's still very dominant. AFAIK laws tend to be formed in the US usually under pressure from a cartel and very powerful interests and companies. This then gets exported off to the UK, pushed into the UK and then to the commonwealth and former commonwealth (like Australia), somewhere along the lines countries which have less obvious ties, less historical ties then may follow suit; countries like Chile.

Meanwhile you still have countries which don't follow suit. Argentina, Iran, China and so on. These countries could carry on using Bitcoin... but would they and would they be enough? - would they be enough to support and at what price?
Looking at where the trade is Bitcoin is still very much in the influence of the USA.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoin_Map
http://www.thegenesisblock.com/mapping-bitcoin-adoption-a-global-perspective/

The significant ones look like China & Russia. If it wasn't for this I would be more bearish. Seems amazing there's not more Bitcoin in South America.

Has anyone got a better view of how politics tend to fan out around the globe? I'm no expert, just the impression I get from the news and propaganda.

I guess countries not aligned with the USA could attack Bitcoin independently of course but my point is that the USA is a big question for Bitcoin - we are expecting the USA to attack it and when that happens we can expect many but not all countries to follow suit.

Problems with Ripple:

big 3:
- no source (still?)
- a massive amount "premined" as-it-were
- the idea is to ripple trust but really you are rippling debt; it's debt based and defaults can ripple exactly like European banks

Also:
- the high level of organisation just makes me suspicious politically even if it does seem bullish for price
- the devs explicitly say don't speculate on XRP
- no privacy (good thing?)...
- very centralised at the mo
- basic (good thing); no cold storage... yet?

I'd say the same as Bitcoin, check it out, get into a bit but not alot

Is there any cards available outside the USA that work with this? The list just shows the names of the cards... guess we'd have to click everyone and check manually to see if they outside the USA

paperwallet generator please someone :-)

I tried an alternative account number for Bitstamp... this worked once for a small payment but then a slightly larger payment failed.

I then tried Currencyfair. I tried a very small payment to Bitstamp as a test, that was 2 days ago. I then tried €100 a day ago and that too isn't there yet either.

I have been using Bitcoin to regularly reduce banking fees. It means that instead of saving up and sending in big blocks of cash to reduce fees I was able to send as little as £1 if I wanted to with no extra costs - otherwise this would have cost me £25 on send, ~$20 in the middle and $15 on receive.

I will try bitbargain. Might look into getting paid outside the UK... it can only get worse

I think my company uses VISA recharge to pay expenses to people in some situations.
I know cards have a facility to take funds for refunds but can that be used to fund any prepay card? If so, an exchange could charge a prepaid card with the proceeds of a Bitcoin sale.

I need access to a UK VPN or VPS as my server has fallen over. I've looked but from experience many seem to make the accounts manually and that's too slow. Is there anything that will auto setup the same day?

A better hedge would surely be buying gold. Of course the problem is that it's inconvienient.

2 favourite subjects in one thread!

Looking at Hollywood depictions of how satan does control it tends to involve way superior maths and taking advantage of faulty human psychology. We see a lot of that here.

Don't forget to have a look at other religions view of Satan; Jewish, the various Islam sects and so on. Can someone chime in?
There's also the alien conspiracy line to mix in if we want - breeding humanity, control by money... somewhat got us between a rock and a hard place but also not so almighty.

So Satan can crack AES and it's game over would be one thing.

It does look a lot like people are manipulated by numbers. Bitcoin could fit into it but I think whatever is available would be used anyway - not so different to stock markets.

If you have a view that Satan is also positive in that all negatives have an upside you can work it round to an education viewpoint. Bit harsh of a lesson in some cases but advocate would say life is harsh anyway. I'd like to know what life would be like left on it's own - does a wolf stay a wolf or turn into a dog eventually?

Someone on this thread earlier mentioned that they didn't feel forced use would be such a threat because people can always transact in other ways. Have you ever tried to do things like that in real life? Sometimes it's fine, sometimes people just don't trust you; try to pay for a house in cash maybe you're a drug dealer, gold - did you steal it. So it needs mind control too.

Bitcoin is a game changer for the world but I feel that yes, if it become very popular it would be used against us, be that from Satan, oligograph governments or one via the other, whatever. That's why you got to stay ahead of the curve. It might be easier motivation to imagine that the force pushing you beyond the curve is life rather than Satan or maybe it's better the other way round for you.

If you're thinking positive then projects and opportunities like Bitcoin will just come to you. That's what praying's about - not asking some bearded chuff for a favor but bringing in what you want to happen by thinking about it in the efficient way to elicit change. So, visualise what you would like Bitcoin to be and imagine the positive feeling that you might get as if it were now for the win.

If you're wise you could do all your trades over the counter on localbitcoins or whatever. Anyone who's used an exchange likely has a papertrail. That trail is strongest if you've sent them ID.

Would love to see a list of some sites confirmed they can be used with

My order was paid partly by Paypal balance and partly by debit card. The limit for debit card charge is 120 days and I ordered in August so that's past. Paypal haven't asked me anything as yet; I don't know how to contact them if it's beyond the 45 days.

So I have asked for a refund, given them 14 days and said if no response will use the UK small claims court (not sure if this is really possible but I'll look into it later).

Some strange wallet amounts not seeming to match up:



Since the Ripples sold for 0.01 I should have more in my wallet even with the fee (which makes this a bit silly but nevermind)

How do you do the autotrade on recieve with MtGox? Do you have to use the API? I can't see how to do it. If I try to place an order before any funds are there I get "not enough available funds"

The strongest psychological trick I know is to not check the price or read speculation threads. Hard to resist!
One trick I suppose could work would be to script something to trade at a point you have decided well in advance and not check prices. I say script rather than set orders because I think it's reckless to keep funds on the exchange and no exchange does auto trade on recieve (why??)

A lot of people sit on BTC waiting for it to rise. Some others don't buy it because they think it will fall.
I do neither.
I feel that I can't tell whether it will go up or down. I sit on the fence and any reserve I have is quite small on the basis that it's a useful emergency fund.

But I still use it to pay for things instead of hoarding because I sit on the fence. I feel if you are a bear you are wrong... and if you are a bull you are wrong. Both think they are right. Both think that they are more intelligent than 50% of the market. If you pause for a second and think... can you really out trade the market? Do you have time to monitor MtGox for lag? Do you have time to follow tech analysis and trade accordingly... or program something to trade for you that will work even when your exchange is down?
Probably the answer is no. It's a full time job and the crashes usually revolve around the weekend.
Bear/bull thinking seems to me as a binary thought trap.

Why not sit on the fence? If we do that then it's possible to use BTC for normal transactions. The problem with greed is that it takes all our focus. Instead of getting on with work we're thinking of the price. If we can sit on the fence and forget the price then we can get on with work. Those who are working with BTC are making the real profits. Sure there are fluctuations to mitigate for but in general having a skill is much more valuable than money in any form.

However... it's genuinely addictive. Kick that habit. Post back here the longest amount of time you've gone without checking the price!

another way to frame the scenario: pay now in Bitcoins or USD or take a Euro loan?

 Let's say you buy a property in Spain. You can have it denominated in £ or €. Let's say we go for Euros. Then Spain goes back to pesos.

 Most likely the mortgage gets converted to pesos and then the peso devalues so you're in profit... but that's not the only scenario.

The banks aren't going to be happy with switching to pesos? What if the mortgage could stay in Euros and then your asset is going to devalue massively. It seems less likely but is it possible? Looking at history you might think no but those examples are different in that this time we have the eurozone and a group of countries - is there an analog in history... US states or anything like that?

If one believes in a switch to peso then perhaps it's better to wait for that switch and devaluation first. Or perhaps not - perhaps in a situation like that trade with things like offshore accounts or Bitcoin would now be under massive attack by governments... and might not be an option because everything is such a mess.

 Is it possible to use a mortgage to make a bet on this?

The only valid line of reasoning for deflation as a problem is that it makes life easy and you get rusty.
Another argument that could be used... but isn't could be if it was referred to like a tax and the proceeds were used to defend the country making a bit less of an obvious theft.

Never believe this ridiculous crap that somehow taking money away from people makes us richer. All it can do is skew the stats short term as people panic to try to escape the threat by converting savings into houses, cars & debt, anything to shelter the abuse. Your common sense was right all along.

It doesn't stimulate an economy - it just creates an illusion of this in the short term as people scramble to escape the problem, moving into asset bubbles.

Some say that people hoard in deflation. Preparing and saving is a good thing to be encouraged! People still have to eat and live so they still have to spend those coins at some point.

The agreement we see everywhere is because we have had the idea of accepting inflation repeated to us for all our lives in the news and media. Eventually if we have no other viewpoint we come to believe it.

However, if we speak to locals when on holiday in high inflation countries we start to get a perspective - you've been lied to.

Watch out for the themes that are repeated again and again in the news. Notice how the volun on the TV goes up at news time. Look for the common themes (i.e common theme=family - for Paedos, gay rights, feminism) (common theme=violence, on tv,games,war,gun control). Now go the next step and tell me why. Then also you have to come to terms with it and know it's going to influence people... but you are too smart to go that way so let those young fools go to fight the good fight, let the women struggle balancing a career... and ignore all that and go your own way in success.

I suggested making a firefox addon (or greasemonkey?) that integrates Bitmit results at the end of ebay searches