Apparently other people's grandparents are smarter than mine...
Yes, while this image is really great. My grandparents didn't even know how to use a cellphone (not to mention a smartphone). Who cares. One does not need a smartphone or mobile device to use Bitcoin. In fact I used Bitcoin for over 18 months before placing a single satoshi on a smartphone or mobile device. Do not assume that somebody rejecting the technology of their children’s generation means they will not embrace the technology of their grand-children’s generation. They may surprise you. In fact one of the major selling points to a grand-parent of Bitcoin is the shortcomings of the payment technologies of their children’s generation such as for example debit cards or PayPal. Edit: When introducing Bitcoin to a senior I would start first with desktop clients and using Bitcoin for online purchases. |
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First thank you to the OP for your insights and perspective. If Bitcoin remains small, it will be allowed to live What I see here is that this would work if Bitcoin was limited to China and "The West" has little of no say in the matter. Up to now "The West" has actually played along responding to the PBOC signals by depressing the price, so everything for the time being is harmonious. My take is that sooner or later "The West" will stop playing along and drive the BTC/USD rate and by implication the BTC/CNY and BTC/CNH rates to meteoric new highs. The question then becomes what will the master do when presented with a situation where the master and also the servant has no control? |
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Most grandparents probably aren't going to get it... but they - along with Warren Buffet - won't be here long anyway. Target parents and below instead.  If I had to try and explain it, I'd oversimplify: bitcoins are tokens, a bit like money, but they're stored on computers and phones, and people can send them electronically, over the internet, to anyone, anywhere in the world, almost instantly. Because people send bitcoins directly to one another, they don't need banks or bank accounts. For a millennial, when it comes to Bitcoin, your grandparents are a much easier sell than your parents. Keep it simple, like cash you can use on the Internet. |
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First I will make an assumption: The OP is a millennial let us say age 20. The grandparents are 56 years older (allowing 28 years per generation). That will make them say age 76, born on say 1938. They are not baby boomers; however what I will say will also apply to the older baby boomers, let us say to those 55 and older. The older the person is the more relevant this is.
The first thing to understand here is that there has been a profound change in payments over the last 40 years from cash and bearer instruments (This was the norm say in 1965 and for millennia earlier and very much the case even into the 1970's) to accounts held by a "trusted" third parties (debit cards, credit cards bank accounts etc.). Many if not most seniors are not comfortable with current mainstream payment methods. Their comfort level is cash, and bearer instruments. If explained correctly Bitcoin will place them back into the comfort level of their youth.
The proper way to introduce Bitcoin to a senior is simply as cash that one can use on the Internet. Emphasize the similarities to cash both good and bad. Privacy, no risk of identity theft, no risk of bank failure, very low risk of asset seizures, non reversibility, no need for a third party etc. Caution them about the risks by using cash analogies.
By the way I am 56 and I will say that I am far more comfortable with Bitcoin than with debit cards, and most mainstream electronic payments for many of the reasons above; however I am at the younger range of the age group where this applies.
Edit: I believe it is far easier to introduce Bticoin to a 70 year old than to a 45 year old for these reasons.
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The quoted price is from Mt.Gox .AvaTrade has released the price difference contract ,but it can not run temporarily .
Gee, I wonder why.  Because this is ancient news. AvaTrade has been offering Bitcoin CFD's for close to a year now. They currently use BTC-E as their data source, after switching during the dying days of MTGox. |
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Here in Vancouver, several brick-and-mortar businesses accept zero-confirm transactions using BitPay. If you are buying a coffee, no one is going to wait 10 minutes (or longer) for confirmation; it is critical that zero-confirm transactions are reasonably secure in order for this business model to work.
So let me see if I understand the transaction malleability problem in relation to brick-and-mortar stores:
I pay for my coffee at Waves for 4mBTC. Assume that to avoid "address reuse," my phone uses the full balance in 1AddressA, sends 4mBTC to Waves, and the rest to a new change address 1AddressB. BitPay accepts this transaction and I get my coffee. As soon as I finish paying, I realize that I also wanted a donut. So I pay for this using what are now unconfirmed coins sitting in 1AddressB. BitPay still approves the transaction and I get my donut too.
But my first transaction was mutated, and the mutated version was accepted into the blockchain. This means that the transaction I used to pay for my donut is now invalid, and Waves/BitPay won't get the money (and I've already left the store).
This seems like a messy problem to deal with. If we disallow spending unconfirmed change outputs, then there will be certain cases when I can't actually purchase my donut [without a long wait], correct? Ideally, my wallet would try to break up my coins so that there are always plenty of fully-confirmed outputs ready for spending. But how do most wallets actually work? The Blockchain.info mobile wallet [that I use] sends the change back to the same address, so I'd expect that it would be very rare to have exhausted all of the confirmed outputs. But for mobile wallets that avoid address reuse [do these even exist?], would it be less likely that you'd have confirmed coins available?
And should BitPay do anything to protect itself?
Very good example to think about, but: did I miss something? I think it won't happen, or at least doesn't have to. When you try to pay for the donut, assuming your wallet makes use of the change utxo which has been malled and is not yet confirmed, will bitpay accept it? I don't know whether they would today, but isn't it trivial to just check each utxo used as input and look at the blockchain to see if that transaction has any confirms? That way, they can accept unconfirmed spends, but not accept unconfirmed spends of unconfirmed spends, which is practically absolutely fine. Except you don't get your donut  Unless your wallet is coded to not use unconfirmed change... Today BitPay would accept it. Unconfirmed change is used rather routinely although probably will be changing soon. In your scenario though the bad news is not BitPay needs to figure out a way to return your coins. You can't undo it and eventually it will confirm (unless a duplicate of the prior output is what confirms). So you are now out the donut and coins. Of course the shop will have no clue how to get your coins back, and "you" (or a less educated user) might be kinda upset seeing the donut funds deducted from your wallet but not getting the donut and the clueless clerk having no idea how to get your coins back or even where they went. If this happened enough the store might just not accept Bitcoin in the future. Now I am not going all doom and gloom and none of this is unsolvable but you can see how all this starts to get really ugly real quick. Transaction Ids need to be immutable. Period. There is no other viable long term option. However that is going to take some time so things might get a little clunky for service providers before they get better. It's must likely BitPay, of which I'm sure will be resolved ASAP as soon as it's brought to their attention, for they're a fine org. I am not so sure it is BitPay, given that this is just not like them. These quotes are from over two and a half months ago. |
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To anyone who has been following the Bitcoin scene Waves Coffee House in Vancouver is well known as a centre for Bitcoin not only in BC and Canada but also around the world.
Let us keep in mind this was the first worldwide location for a Robocoin ATM and received worldwide media attention as the first Bitcoin ATM
It has been the location of many Bitcoin events.
It is also the location of Bitcoiniacs that has a major retail presence for the trading of Bitcoin.
etc. etc.
So I am visiting Vancouver for a few days and decide to check them out. I come up to the counter and order a coffee and a sandwich. When it comes time to pay I say that will be Bitcoin. I am then informed by the person at the counter that their Bitcoin system is down. Furthermore that it has been down for over a week and they have been trying to reach the company that is handling their Bitcoin payments / exchange, and that they have not got back to them. I asked who the company was and she did not know.
Given the prominence of this location it is important for whoever this company is to own up, fix this issue and apologize to the Bitcoin community. If they are not up to the task I am sure there are other competent companies who can provide Bitcoin merchant services with much better customer support.
The only positive aspect of this was that I was by myself, and avoided the embarrassment of this happening when I was introducing someone else to Bitcoin.
If you wish to have some of us early adopters spend rather than hoard our coins this kind of nonsense has to stop.
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I voted for satoshi. mBTC is an ok interim measure, but realistically will also have the same problem. Micro BTC (µB) is not a bad choice; however given that we already have satoshi a factor of 100 away with a memorable name, it is not worth the trouble to focus on µB.
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Very interesting article. It does raise an important question. What if the high up official believes that the "small" problem will soon in the future become large enough to be worthy of his intervention and wishes to act in a proactive manner? This may be the dilemma the PBOC faces.
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- Copyright was invented as a censorship tool in response to the invention of the printing press. We should consider abolishing it.
This sort of attitude to copyright annoys me greatly, I can only assume you don't work in the creative arts and don't understand what censorship means. An author is free to distribute their work as they see fit, with protection applied if they wish so that someone else doesn't rip it off as their own effort - how is this censorship? The moral rights of the author for attribution and control over publication are independent of Copyright Law. Censorship happens at the publication stage. Also, every time somebody refrains from building on what came before: over copyright concerns (in the case of Disney they appear to be trying to make mickey mouse a trademark as well). For example, Apple's online store demands that authors produce exclusive content in order to reach their locked-in users (this is typical of DRM platforms). As a consequence, (Free and) Open Source Software is prohibited in the app store. ... This is not censorship, this is a company's commercial perogative to conduct their business as they wish. It does not prevent that open source from being published. Do you call it censorship if a store chooses not to stock a particular brand? The morals of author ownership are worthless without strong law, and while it is certainly abused and overextended, it is a good law in my book that means the individual author is protected as much from a corporation as a corporation is protected from those individuals that want a free ride. I don't see how. You can prove an document existed at a certain date by: scanning it if necessary, hashing, and putting the result in the block-chain. However, that does not prove ownership. I can hash the works of Shakespeare and claim ownership if I really wanted to. Good, discussion. The hash would be on a copy of the works, not "the works". You produce a piece of digital work and can digitally sign that it has been paid foe thr. Someone can confirm they are purchasing/aquiring a copy that legitimately reimbursed the author for their efforts. This could work alongside open source possibly, not requiring expensive (3rd party) or difficult to administrate digital signatures? The censorship arises because in order to enforce copyright protection via DRM, publishers collude with computing device manufacturers to take away control over those devices from citizens. They then lobby governments to pass laws to prevent citizens from taking back control over the devices they already own, under the guise of "anti circumvention". In the Apple example the censorship arises not because Apple may choose not to carry a title in their store, which of course is their right, but rather because Apple uses DRM to prevent their customers from obtaining content from another non Apple source. The crucial item is that it is not content creators who are at risk here. In traditional publishing they get a very small fraction of the retail price for their work. In many cases well below 1%. So if a creator sells directly to the end user they can tolerate a large amount of "piracy" and still come out way ahead financially. The "piracy" in effect replaces the function of the publisher by promoting the work. It is publishers whose business models have been made obsolete by technology and try to turn back the clock to the late 19th century, (Distribution of music on an Edison cylinder or printed books via sailing ship for example.), by the use of DRM that are the problem here. Bitcoin in this respect does help solve "the problem" by facilitating the sale of content by creators directly to end users, bypassing all the intervening rent seekers including of course Apple. |
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Not all Bitcoin supporters are millennials some of us are baby boomers. I started investing in Bitcoin in late 2011 and see a very bright future for Bitcoin. Bitcoin currently is a very significant part of my retirement planning. Contrary to common belief many of us older people are not adverse to new technologies at all; however we can be very selective and in many cases simply choose to skip a technology entirely. Sort of like the developing country that moves from no / minimal phone service to mobile phones bypassing copper land lines entirely.
In my case I use cash, cheques, credit cards, the odd wire transfer and Bitcoin. I have zero use for debit cards, and fee laden propriety payment systems. Bitcoin and related crypto currencies makes a lot more sense to someone from my generation than propriety digital payment systems because:
1) It is a bearer instrument and payments are irreversible. This is how most payments were made until the 1970s. This is the comfort level for many older people.
2) There is no risk of identity theft. I have spoken with many seniors who are paranoid about identity theft and using a credit card online. They actually get Bitcoin, when it is explained as "It works as cash you can use on the Internet". "You mean I do not have to give up my personal information to make a payment" is the response. "Yes absolutely".
3) I can pay anyone without having to get the permission of some rent seeking third party and it is not possible for a third party to interfere with a transaction. Seriously commerce have been conducted this way for millennia. Why the change in last 40 years?
In many respects Bitcoin is a return back to a saner time when it comes to payments.
Speaking of identity theft, their game needs to change. I have been using TigerDirect/Overstock lately, well mostly. Then the Heartbleed came out. I changed some vital passwords for other places, then got to those two retailers and realized that I USE BITCOIN for them, and changing anything was entirely unnecessary. All they got is my shipping address, and if a thief wants to send me stuff then they can have at it. That said, they could change the shipping address for items I buy, and that will work ONCE, maybe. What a warm blanket BTC is turning out to be! Congrats on being an open-minded, savvy older person! They are not easy to come by. All the older folks I try to get into BTC, even smart ones, think it is a scam and are just fine with how things are. When you say an "older person" how old is crucial here. There is a huge difference in how I would present Bitcoin to a 65 year old than to a 40 year old. Furthermore I would expect the chance of success to be much higher with the 65 year old. For reference I am 56. Most of what I mentioned applies mostly to those my age or older. Someone who is say 40 years old is likely to be very comfortable with the current system, unless they have experienced poverty as an adult. Why are they comfortable? Because it is their generation who created it, and has the most invested in it. To the 65 year old the current system is the technology of their children's generation, technologies that they mistrusted and in many cases rejected. Bitcoin on the other hand is the technology of their grandchildren’s generation. It is no secret that most teenagers rebel against their parents in one form or another. To a grandparent on the other hand teenage rebellion is more often than not payback time. Your comment on identity theft hits the nail on the head; however from my perspective the game should not have been changed in the first place. Identity theft was virtually unheard of as a "crime" 40 years ago, since knowing someone's address or knowing the names of their pets did not provide the keys to a bank account. Nor for that matter did knowing the bank account number itself mean one could withdraw funds from said bank account. |
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Wow, they already sold that. It's funny, I wonder how they sold the BTC for dollars and received the dollars. It's so hard for US citizens to do that , I wonder what service they used.
My guess is Second Market who seems to have an insatiable appetite for Bitcoin, is based in the US and regulated. |
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Not all Bitcoin supporters are millennials some of us are baby boomers. I started investing in Bitcoin in late 2011 and see a very bright future for Bitcoin. Bitcoin currently is a very significant part of my retirement planning. Contrary to common belief many of us older people are not adverse to new technologies at all; however we can be very selective and in many cases simply choose to skip a technology entirely. Sort of like the developing country that moves from no / minimal phone service to mobile phones bypassing copper land lines entirely.
In my case I use cash, cheques, credit cards, the odd wire transfer and Bitcoin. I have zero use for debit cards, and fee laden propriety payment systems. Bitcoin and related crypto currencies makes a lot more sense to someone from my generation than propriety digital payment systems because:
1) It is a bearer instrument and payments are irreversible. This is how most payments were made until the 1970s. This is the comfort level for many older people.
2) There is no risk of identity theft. I have spoken with many seniors who are paranoid about identity theft and using a credit card online. They actually get Bitcoin, when it is explained as "It works as cash you can use on the Internet". "You mean I do not have to give up my personal information to make a payment" is the response. "Yes absolutely".
3) I can pay anyone without having to get the permission of some rent seeking third party and it is not possible for a third party to interfere with a transaction. Seriously commerce have been conducted this way for millennia. Why the change in last 40 years?
In many respects Bitcoin is a return back to a saner time when it comes to payments.
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No poll option for someone who is very bullish on bitcoin and very bearish on precious metals?
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Let me guess the OP is running Microsoft Windows, installed some Microsoft Windows specific malware and that led to the bitcoin loss.
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If the market value is the same, I would take the bitcoins. Here's why:
1. I can immediately verify that the bitcoins are real (Tsquared said this above).
2. The bitcoins can be directly sent to an address to which I have the private-key stored safely away, eliminating the risk of pickpockets or thieves.
3. I can complete the transfer without touching the other person or his belongings (I would question anyone giving away free money, so I would assume it was some kind of a trick).
4. I would retain plausible deniability that I actually received the coins; perhaps this was some sort of a weird sting operation in a foreign land where possession of gold had been outlawed.
5. If I was in a foreign country, I would not have to worry about declaring the gold on my way home or having it seized by a corrupt airport official.
6. It is actually illegal to take gold out of certain countries (Nepal for instance), so if this happened on the streets of Kathmandu, bitcoin would be far superior as I wouldn't risk being locked in jail for breaking some strange law that I may not know about.
Or in other words it is far easier, cheaper and safer to take delivery of bitcoin than of gold. This is the reason why I would take the bitcoins. It is also the reason why I believe that bitcoin will take most of the market value currently assigned to gold away from gold. |
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@OP: How would you try to defend him if you were a "brilliant lawyer"?
1st - I am a brilliant lawyer. 2nd - I don't defend trash. I love the defense raised here: 'Silk Road could be used to sell books... ...therefore Ulbricht is not guilty' lol comedy. If someone sells dope on Craigslist - craigslist can escape culpability. Silk Road is a complete different matter. Ulbricth is toast. All the fancy dancing about 'internet freedom' isn't going to bring him one tiny bit of relief. forgetaboutit. Here is another example: Have you ever downloaded *non copyright infringing content* using a torrent from ThePirateBay? I have. |
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