What's new ?
 It's a paypal-like payment means, i.e a bank card wallet: it's still using a credit card transaction processing network with the expensive fees and chargebacks borne by the merchant.

there are a number of companies already providing similar services.

great idea Phinnaeus !
Please count me in: I just sent my BTC to the vanity address.

Again, my question is about independent, unlicensed LD exchanges (completely independent from Linden Labs and completely unlicensed), accepting deposits of hard currencies by way of Paypal: why is it different from a BTC exchange ?
LDs are used outside of Second life, in contradiction with LL TOS..

I am puzzled by the current situation where we see a  French bank closing Mt Gox account on the ground that bitcoins consitute a currency (Mt Gox not being licensed as a currency exchange in France).

Furthermore, we are told that it's not a good idea to accept Paypal payments for the sale of bitcoins because of the possibility of a subsequent chargeback claim by the buyer (after he/she has received the bitcoins).

Well, it's just that none of these limitations seem to apply to Linden Dollars (the money of Second Life).
I can go to an exchange and trade Linden Dollars with a credit card or Paypal.
 The LD exchanges all have bank accounts that are not shutdown on a short notice. Some independent LD exchanges trade up to 500k euros per month. Yet I can use LDs much in the same way I use bitcoins (to buy stuff on internet)

Why is it that the centralized nature of LDs (they are created and controlled by the same company publishing the game) seems to exonerate LD exchanges from obligations bearing on bitcoin exchanges ?

Does the fact that the game is open source has any signification in the legal framework ?

Can any one of the legal experts on this forum shed some light on these puzzling questions ?

Great achievement by Rick Falkvinge, who, incidentally, gave an inspiring speech at the prague Bitcoin Conference (his presentation).
However, FP's Top 100 "Thinkers" list is also smeared with names like Bernanke or Trichet...

About legal tender: the notion entails a legal obligation to accept it as a merchant to extinguish a debt.
If bitcoins are not legal tender, they can still be accepted, optionnally, by the merchant, right ?

It was very refreshing to hear both Rick Falkvinge and Max Keiser on stage in Prague, given the amount of crap we have to endure most of the time from the so called experts (try a press conference with Mario Draghi).
We are all aligned on the objective to help people take back control of their own money and not use a bank when it is not needed (like we use e-mail all the time and the post office ONLY when its absolutely needed).

Fractional reserve banking becomes a scam when its incentivized by a cetral bank acting as a lender of last resort.
 
The scam is further condoned by the system when its imposed on you because you have no choice but to deal with a bank that is allowed to do fractional reserve banking.


With bitcoin, fractional reserve banking is not made impossible but it becomes a "do it at your own risk" endeavour.

Je serai à Prague (Davout y sera aussi) pour cette conférence: n'hésitez pas à poser vos questions d'ici vendredi si vous en avez pour les intervenants. Leur liste est ici.

Je ferai une synthèse de l’évènement sur mon blog (www.e-ducat.fr).

Le marchand n'a pas le choix me semble t il: il est obligé d'accepter des euros et seulement des euros. Il n'y a pas de liberté monétaire mais un monopole monétaire imposé par l'état.
Il est impossible de se défaire de ce monopole autrement que par une démarche politique même si , je suis d'accord, tu peux avoir mieux à faire pour occuper ton temps.
Les candidats aux élections ne s'attaquent pas au problème car la propagande pour le monopole est telle qu'il se heurterait à un mur d'incompréhension si ils allaient sur ce terrain.
Il faut donc commencer par "éveiller" le peuple à la conscience de ce monopole et de ses méfaits.

I don't buy everything that Lietaer says but I like his presentation of monetary diversity vs monoculture (so much so that I wrote a post on my blog about that: www.e-ducat.fr).
What he misses is the transforming power of bitcoin compared to LETS or other technologies or other virtual currencies.

People should be free to do their own banking and that's what bitcoin enables them to do.

Exactly in the same way as the web enables people to publish their opinion without going through the social and financial censorship of the mainstream media.
The web has not killed mainstream media but it has given us more freedom.

Bitcoin will not kill the banks but it will help people keep them under check.
Bitcoin will give people more monetary freedom.

Tu parles des "indignés" ? Moi je les trouve plutôt courageux d'aller planter leur tente à la Défense: c'est dur d'enfoncer les piquets. Ils arrivent à faire parler d'eux à la télé de manière sympathique et ça peut éveiller" des gens à la cause de la diversité monétaire indispensable à mettre en place.
cf mon blog: www.e-ducat.fr

Today when people think about the benefits of diversity they have in mind ethnic groups or gender, not monetary diversity.

Bitcoin allows us to introduce monetary diversity on a much greater scale than ever before.
That is why the transforming power of bitcoin over the global economy is so significant.

Until recently, advocates of complementary currencies like Bernard Lietaer could only point at local systems like the WIR or other LETS (although, oddly enough, some site specialized in complementary currencies has started to list freicoin as one of them).
Philippe van Parijs also has some interesting things to say about diversity: generally speaking, enlightened economist recognize that business cycles are not inevitable but rather the result of a monopolistic monetary system incapable of supporting multiple, possibly conflicting objectives (economic growth, purchasing power, health care,etc).

Thanks for posting this video (I missed it so far): it's very inspiring.

I agree with you that the bitcoin community so far is lacking the collective response to the "why" question although the feeling of being overpowered by a non-democratic banking system seems to be shared by most of us here.

Perhaps it can be best summed up by a quote from Bernard Lietaer (economist pionneer of the complementary currencies): you don't have political democracy until you have monetary democracy.
To me, democracy starts with diversity and choice: let's end the monopoly of the banking system over money supply.

Lietaer's speech is very convincing, too bad he does not mention Bitcoin to support his examples of possible monetary diversity.
The swiss Wir looks old in comparison..

Well the directive was published more than 10 years ago so there are now a number of such "electronic money institutions" but that does not say much about the status of bitcoin. The capital requirement is still substantial (1 million euro) and they operate exclusively in euro. What is more intriguing to me is the status of facebook credits..

Since I am currently using Andreas Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet on my android smartphone (Galaxy S2), I am curious about new android apps: can you share with us what features are you are  planning on adding ?

I feel sorry for you: your wealth (if you have any) is your prison.
Bitcoin is not a speculation vehicle.
Bitcoin is about regaining a degree of freedom that has been taken away from the people legally but illegitimately.

Il faudra penser à "open sourcer" l'ASICS en question alors car s'il n'y a qu'une source il y a danger d'une prise de contrôle. Ya t il plus d'info sur ce projet hardware ?

you TROOOOOL !!

Watch out when you get out of the office at night: Wall Street may be occupied.