the bitspend system only truly works with websites that dont lock the delivery address to the bill payers details on the method of payment.

how they work is fundamentally you hand them bitcoin. they cash out they then use fiat on the website. they make it seemless by having a reserve in the institutional bank account which they use for purchases, which then gets refilled a few days later once the online exchange transfers arrive at the bank.

its the same as me buying stuff with FIAT debit card and the reimbursing my bank account by selling out my bitcoins.

the merchants never know it was a bitcoin purchase, so they never get any info about demands of their business from the bitcoin community, the merchants dont do anything special that is in anyway related to bitcoin. thus oppertunities to say

"hey amazon do you realise you process XX amount of bitcoin trade per day, it may be of benefit to adopt it internally as a payment method" become a missed opportunity.

anyone that does these services it might be worth keeping a tally of how much trade certain merchants receive, allowing PR guys within bitpay or bitcoin foundation, the community or yourselves to approach these merchants, showing them that there is a demand and customer base worthy of them offering bitcoin direct

i totally laughed at this one. i guess you missed the latest SEC news on pirate@40. he has been caught, charged and has a court date.

imagine bitcoin offering a escrow service that would release the funds to the merchant 28 days after the transaction. knowing that most deliveries are done before that time. allowing any discrepancies to be dealt with within that timescale. the escrow service would charge a couple percent for the privilege of managing the funds between the two parties.

now lets think of a name for this service.. hmmmmmmmmmm.. a credit card company......

and that's why you pay %fee's for credit cards.

if you want to risk not using a escrow service then just hand over bitcoins direct to retailers
if you want to risk not using a bankcard service then just hand over paper fiat direct to retailers

fiat(the victorian/wildwest days of just paper transactions) is no different then bitcoin. the only difference is that fiat banking system developed tooooooooo many rules which it calls security precautions, yet cause more problems then solutions.

as soon as you start laying down rules about what should and shouldn't be included. you go against freedoms.

it should be an unwritten rule, more of a moral guidelines.

EG as soon as you say people have the right to own bitcoins. this can be abused to say that stealing someone elses coins is ok, thus they now have coins they have a right to own.

much like having the right to healthcare, they feel they don't have to work for it or pay government taxes, they just feel like its a birthright to not contribute to government funded schemes, yet grab the benefits.

this is the mentality that thieves that are starving feel they have the right to steal food purely on the presumption that they have the right to live and the right to feed their children. not thinking about getting a job to earn funds.

although a bitcoin charter, wont truly become legal rights to then be abused, i just used the examples above to show how people treat their 'RIGHTS'

well here is something just for laughs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UFcHLWMd9s

well using easy numbers, lets say 12million. if you own 1.2mill coins you own 10% of the circulation
120,000=1%
12,000=0.1%
1,200=0.01%
120=0.001%

i was thinking about this in a scenario.. unless you have coded live price changes into the video segments to account for price fluctuations of bitcoin.

will you be doing what 'normal' home shopping networks do? meaning showing a fiat price.

the one thing i truly hate is that we all shout out that bitcoin is its own economy, yet they have it latched onto dollar pricing. which for asians, europeans, and the rest of the world is a bit racist.

so please don't be placing dollars on the adverts. bitcoin is international, we should see bitcoin prices set a daily figure so that people in the morning can order at lunch or afternoon without seeing bitcoin prices change. all because of the dollar/bitcoin variance.

many people trade altcoins to bitcoins or non dollar FIAT to bitcoin, so its time we moved away from pinning bitcoin to dollars. especially pinning the prices to the centralised MTGOX valuation of dollar->bitcoin

bitstamp has finally surpassed MTGOX trading. so i hope i don't see people shout out "but MTGOX is the value of bitcoin". bitcoin is its own value, merchants can set their own prices based on what they presume to be of value. not base it on centralised prices of the stockmarkets.

this is why car fuel stations vary in price for the exact same product, (car fuel).

i truly hope this home shopping network becomes the pivotal moment we stop acting like MTGOX sheep

and thats where the problem lays.. lies...

my UK bank manager knows fully about bitcoin and knows i trade bitcoin which to my surprise, over a year ago when first talking about, they are actually ok with it. as long as i stick to the limits etc. and thats still the same even now

BUT.....

those that LIE and say they are selling advertising or vouchers, and then when some scambag tries requesting your bank to refund them due to bitcoins(yes chargeback scum are not limiting their scumbaggery to paypal). your bank will start questioning why you lied about the purposes of your trades, and indeed believe the scambag's accusation that you defrauded them. causing you to then be investigated.

so please have a proper conversation with your bank manager and be honest about the purposes of trade.

a prime example is blockchain.info who from what i have read, told their bank they sold pre-paid advertising... now look, they no longer provide UK transfers direct

well untill people in space start producing things to sell to earth, and then want things on earth sent up.. then there would be no need for a medium of exchange.

at the moment these space flights are 'all inclusive' whether you work on the space station everything is taken care of for them. or that champaign glass on virgin galactic is included in the ticket price. so right now its not something people need to dwell on. use your brain power on expanding bitcoin on earth today. not the theoretical possibilities of decades away

just use the governments own statistics against them.

in the last 4 years, millions upon millions of dollars have been seized in relation to drug offences.. in the same time............. 11btc have been seized

simple sweet and to the point, just like how google v1.0 use to be when everyone loved it.

although im not american i have tossed around the idea in different threads that instead of one company paying millions of dollars for every state, they set up franchises under a group name.

for instance lets use bitinstant name as an example.

instead of the three main CEO's paying all the licences. they take on 50 franchisee's to own the territory of the state they are from. the franchisee's pay for the licence of that state and get to do business within that state and obviously when all 50 states are licenced can work together with their colleagues in other states to cover the whole country.

then things like bitinstant ATM's can easily be introduced as the licences already exist and each state franchise maintains, installs, and monitors the ATM's within their state.

then things like bitinstant debit cards can easily be introduced as the licences already exist, and each state franchise maintains and distrubutes cards to customers within that state.

then the bitinstant customer service can become local so business and customers can contact someone within their state.

this can expand on to other things like bitinstant courier services where each franchise is a bitinstant distribution centre for that state.

the list of possibilities can expand where each element(state) works together due to being under the same umbrella, while keeping costs for individual franchise business owners low.

why have 50 companies all needing 50 licences (2500 licences) when they can all work together.

lastly people may say 'but this is not decentralised.

well, bitpay, bips, campBX, bitstamp may start a franchise scheme to reduce costs and compete, . all opening franchises under their own umbrella brands. that way its not one company monopolising the market. but still having all the FIAT side of regulation covered. aswell as having 'staff' nearby the state involved with certain transactions to keep everything maintained.

when accepting visa/mastercard you have no choice but to use a card processing service to ensure transactions complete. you can set up a system where you accept bitcoins and then pay them as wages to employee's thus making it fee free.

you could take your bitcoins, find a localbitcoins trader and transfer to fiat that way, thus being fee free. bitpay is just a optional extra, not an essential tool to transact with bitcoins.

there are far more ways to accept bitcoin for free and still get your FIAT. atleast your not stuck with card processors and forced to pay upto 3%.

i would however agree that the transaction fee's added to bitcoinQT client transactions should not exist just yet. as the 25 bitcoins shared amongst hundreds of miners is more then enough. the combined quarter of a bitcoin for transaction fees shared between the same miners is not really a noticable 'bonus'... yet from the people using bitcoin the transaction fee's are noticeable.

EG 25BTC/100 miners = $22
0.25BTC/100 miners=22c

i dont think its over valued.

put it this way. even though theres 7 billion people in the world. lets bring those numbers down to something more along the lines of minimal users right now.

lets say there are 1 million users.

we know theres many people (winkle twins) that invested millions into it. but lets keep things simple. lets say that every one of those 1 million people on average just invest 1 months wage... yep thats right, not their whole life savings. just one month wage..

1million x £$1000 = £$1billion

so even with this small amount of userbase and the small amount of average investment.. i think the valuation is not over valued at all..

if you did not mean financial value but feature and usability value. i can name you many gimmicks/items that only have one function that people value more then their pets, children and relationships.

i guess you ignored the 20k+ LEGITIMATE businesses that have found bitcoins cheaper then accepting credit cards

i guess you ignored the many more legitimate bitmit independant traders selling t-shirts, GPU's finding bitcoins irreversibilty a benefit, compared to ebay chargeback scams when listing items

i guess you ignored the fact that i went on vacation and found getting foreign currency from a localbitcoin trader, easier and faster then transfering FIAT to a travel currency exchange shop.

what i do find strange is.. i find ants and bugs useless to my life.. yet i do not sign up to a insect forum posting hundreds of posts saying how useless they are........ but you are here???

if its so useless to your life, why make it part of your life to become emotional about it enough to write these messages?

if this is suppose to be a thread to cause people to think bitcoin is useless..

i personally think bitcoin does not have one sole purpose but many, many micro purposes, that can fit the needs of many people for many different reasons

for example

why do you need shares in companies like apple? - to make profits
why do people need google news when a physical newspaper already exists? - because there is a limit to how much you can hold onto in one go with paper
why do people need to send SMS instead of posting a stamped envelope? - because travelling distances takes time compared to instant communication

now
why invest in bitcoins - to make profit
why use digital currency over paper FIAT - because there is a limit to how much you can hold onto in one go with paper
why dont you just send paper FIAT by post - because travelling distances takes time compared to instant communication

now lets add onto this list of real life things that exist which compare to the benefits of bitcoin.

agreed, but bitcoin can be used as the stepping stone to release 100% control and dependancy on government. even if it is 10%, then using other projects such as new hampshire project where all the businesses in the town accept this one currency to allow people to live on non FIAT based lifestyles meaning wages are paid in bitcoin. as oppose to just using bitcoin for occassional transactions/investments. bringing government control down to 80%, then self funding of the towns resources through rent / local utility bills only(higher rent of course to cover the road maintenance of the roads the houses sit along). and not tax a separate tax, thus all the funds stay within the community.

slowly dividing the need of government control down, one % at a time

although finshaggy's idea of utopia was ... well .. i cant put into words how much fail it was.. but if those that truly want a utopia

instead of diluting all of these idea's into micro projects all over the world. how about combine them with existing idea's..

EG new hampshire project.

its better to have a great area like new hampshire with so many inspirational things happening, and legal stuff ALREADY in the pipeline instead of  having millions of coins 'wasted' on half baked idea's spread out and having to start new legal stuff in different area's which simply wastes the funds.

make new hampshire the prototype area for everything. and once its successful it can spread like wild fire. much more simply then 'wasting' smaller amounts on micro projects scattered around where they become useless.

the UK's faster payment system is exactly this, it works well and the recipient see's the money in seconds, which has been one less benefit of bitcoin over here. hense why its a struggle to promote bitcoin in the Uk to mainstream.

if america starts offering it, then you will see americans see bitcoin as less of a benefit. i believe the american banks may be trying to think of ways to keep people interested in institutional banking, so of course they wont mention bitcoin. they dont want to advertise the alternative which they are trying to prevent users from switching too.

it's definetly something american bitcoiners need to keep an eye on