Losing Critical Mass and Call to Action

[mizerydearia]

OK, to help boost bitcoin, I'll sell my PS3 and all my PS3 games for bitcoin at a reasonable rate.  What is the best place for me to advertise a sale, other than just posting this forum?

Kiba, what was your luck with trying to sell gameboy games?

http://biddingpond.com ?

[em3rgentOrdr]

OK, to help boost bitcoin, I'll sell my PS3 and all my PS3 games for bitcoin at a reasonable rate.  What is the best place for me to advertise a sale, other than just posting this forum?

Kiba, what was your luck with trying to sell gameboy games?

http://biddingpond.com ?

Thanks!!!  I'll try that out!

[ByteCoin]

I have a couple bitcoin addresses that start with 1R, but they are very rare compared to the others. Same with 1S, 1T, etc.. Actually

Starting from 1R, all the way to 1Y, 1Z, 1a, 1b, 1c, .., 1x, 1y, 1z - these are all very rare but still they can exist.

Show me.

ByteCoin

[mizerydearia]

Show me.

ByteCoin

1RayJSScakAmpRtQRbqyN5xfchKnqQNb9 is mine.  Feel free to send 0.01btc and I'll send it back?

[kiba]

OK, to help boost bitcoin, I'll sell my PS3 and all my PS3 games for bitcoin at a reasonable rate.  What is the best place for me to advertise a sale, other than just posting this forum?

Kiba, what was your luck with trying to sell gameboy games?

http://biddingpond.com ?

I forgot about that. However, I have yet to figure out the shipping cost and how to do it as well, On Saturday, I think I will be able to put up an auction.

[ByteCoin]

1RayJSScakAmpRtQRbqyN5xfchKnqQNb9 is mine.  Feel free to send 0.01btc and I'll send it back?

Thanks - but no need. There are 33 characters in the above BitCoin address. This example does not contradict the statement I made.

ByteCoin

[hippich]

• Payment processor, well supported, with sandbox, and a shopping cart interface similar to this or this or this.  mtgox and gazoakley (bitcoinpay.com) both have some merchant tools, but they need to be "fleshed out."

This is very important for business to adopt bitcoins. I bet if there was a drupal module to do it automatically a lot of online places would accept them.

The most e-commerce module for Drupal is Ubercart (http://drupal.org/project/ubercart and http://www.ubercart.org/) so making a module for this would be a great asset. I am starting to look into Drupal and PHP because we just started an economic blog with some friends, but obviously I am no expert at all yet. If someone knows PHP and/or Drupal I would not mind collaborating with him/her to create the module. I honestly dont see myself capable of doing it on my own. My idea before I read this was to learn to create a module for Drupal creating a "Donate Bitcoin" module. So if anyone likes the idea of a bitcoin module for Ubercart (or something similar) pm me.

I have pretty good skills in Drupal module development. What;s about bounty for it? =) Do someone have real project to use this module?

[mizerydearia]

Also, 34 character BitCoin addresses can't start with "1R" "1S" "1T" etc...

Ah, I missed 34.  I understand now.

[The Madhatter]

Hmm. I logged into my mybitcoin account today to discover the beginnings of a shopping cart interface!!! On the settings page they are offering a SCI toolkit download, and a bitcoin address forwarder. I've emailed them about it with some questions. I'll post again once I have some more information about it.

Some things I think bitcoin needs for success:

• Payment processor, well supported, with sandbox, and a shopping cart interface similar to this or this or
  

[sirius]

They should still get a better SSL certificate. That CACert thing makes using MyBitcoin way too difficult for the average user and too bothersome for many advanced users.

Hmm. I logged into my mybitcoin account today to discover the beginnings of a shopping cart interface!!! On the settings page they are offering a SCI toolkit download, and a bitcoin address forwarder. I've emailed them about it with some questions. I'll post again once I have some more information about it.

[mizerydearia]

So as to not hijack this thread, discuss here

They should still get a better SSL certificate. That CACert thing makes using MyBitcoin way too difficult for the average user and too bothersome for many advanced users.

Hmm. I logged into my mybitcoin account today to discover the beginnings of a shopping cart interface!!! On the settings page they are offering a SCI toolkit download, and a bitcoin address forwarder. I've emailed them about it with some questions. I'll post again once I have some more information about it.

Better as in?

<a> self-signed is the most trustworthy imo
<b> uh? how's that?
<a> well, most CAs are just ... aargh
<a> verisign once gave two random guys a wildcard certificate for microsoft.com
<b> CA-signed is just as trustworthy as self-signed
<a> I trust you more than I do trust verisign
<a> and I will only trust your cert, not "any cert signed by CA", so swapping in a fake one is impossible
<b> that's fine, you can still trust me just as much if verisign signs my certificate apart from me
<a> no, then I will have to verify that it's the same cert
<a> and modern tools like webbrowsers don't care, so I won't notice if verisign injects me with a bad cert
<b> heh
<b> depends on the browser configuration ;-]
<a> easy, Kill All CAs
<a> I mean ... who the * is TurkTrust, and why should I trust them more than any random guy on IRC ?

So as to not hijack this thread, discuss here

[The Madhatter]

Just a quick FYI:

https://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=1054.msg13028

mybitcoin has full merchant tools / web-based payment processing.

[Aqualung]

I think many people loose interest when they see that it is very difficult to generate bitcoins. But buying bitcoins isn't so hard, so getting them is not the problem. I think more in the lines of being able to spend them. Sure, there are some nice ways to spend them, but many things are a bit of a niche currently (relative little people have real use for it). If I have a look in the first few topics in the Marketplace, I see financial related stuff and lotteries/poker related stuff. None of which I would be interested in.

why people should buy bitcoins to spend them? They just can spend dollars or webmoneys without transfering it into bitcoins. Other thing - is to make it for free (generate), but it's very hard to do now. That's why most users leaving this project.

[gridecon]

I think the current status of coin generation difficulty and the arms race of private-source GPU coin generation has discouraged some people's interest in the coin generation game/lottery which - rightly or wrongly - has been the motivation for a lot of people's involvement. It also seems to be a symptom of a meta-flaw in the project design, because open source projects want to ENCOURAGE the contribution and sharing of code, but the nature of the coin generation process seems to inherently reward and incentivize closed-source forks. Another set of concerns is the possibility of non-conforming clients exploiting the system (as seems to have occurred somewhat recently causing the 0.3.9 update) and the resiliency of the network to malicious behavior, and the potential fragility of your bitcoin bank account if you mess up handling your wallet file. Last but not least is the meta-issue of understanding how to deal with your local laws and regulations concerning taxes and money.

I love the idea of bitcoin, but I have donated all my bitcoins to the EFF donation thread now and am no longer actively participating in the bitcoin economy because of how the above issues apply to me. This is not intended as criticism of bitcoin, just as a user reporting why they are no longer using the software currently.

1. I'm not interested in running multiple computers at max cpu usage for weeks to try to generate a rather trivial value of coins, especially when I know GPU users have vastly higher efficiency
2. The mechanics of keeping my wallet files private and constantly backed up with a fresh copy gives me "data stress"
3. All software has bugs. Software that is related to money is an inevitable target of attacks, and there is no FDIC backing or legal system remedy available in the case of problems
4. I don't really know how to document and declare transactions in bitcoins for legal and tax purposes and I'm scared of getting it wrong

In other words, I see costs/risks to using bitcoin and trying to participate in the bitcoin economy without seeing practical benefits other than how much I like the idea of bitcoin and think its cool software. I want bitcoin to succeed, but my current evaluation of my economic self-interest is that I have no reason to run the client and no reason to purchase bitcoins. I also do not feel motivated to "promote" bitcoin because that makes me feel like I am basically working to advocate the economic interests of those who already hold large quantities of bitcoin wealth. The have/have-not dichotomy is another structural issue: "come join our economy! you can be a peasant!" is a hard marketing sell.

[BioMike]

why people should buy bitcoins to spend them? They just can spend dollars or webmoneys without transfering it into bitcoins. Other thing - is to make it for free (generate), but it's very hard to do now. That's why most users leaving this project.

1) Dollars, we can't spend them here in Europe . Joking aside, money transfer is fairly easy within Europe, outside it will be more difficult or very costly. Buying stuff from the US often requires a credit card, which is not so easy to get in Europe as in the USA.
2) Webmoneys, these companies are not banks, so they don't have to follow the rules that banks have to follow. A company could just "freeze" your account or let your account disappear and get away with it. If someone hacks your account, money lost. Nothing you could do against it.

Bitcoin on the other hand is easy to get (bought some via an exchange in Norway via a bank transfer (safe)) and nobody can make the bitcoins I have disappear (or have some other control on them).

[The Madhatter]

1. I'm not interested in running multiple computers at max cpu usage for weeks to try to generate a rather trivial value of coins, especially when I know GPU users have vastly higher efficiency

That's totally understandable, but I think you are missing the point. The point to Bitcoin is not to generate "free money" (as if there is such a thing). The point is to back the coins with something tangible -- electricity (aka "energy"). Also, this is about the only way you can carefully control the minting of the currency.

All of the world's currencies are backed by energy. Human or otherwise. Bitcoin is a little more direct. The generation (work/labour) creates hashes that are valuable (money) to other computers/people running the same program. Why is it worth something? For the same reasons that FRNs are worth something: people accept it for the trade of real goods and services.

It also sounds like you feel inadequate because you can't generate as fast as others. Why not sell something? Selling real goods and services is far more profitable than generating. Plus, there is the added benefit of adding value to the currency itself. Generating isn't the "be-all" and "end-all" of Bitcoin.

I don't see the point in generating for gains. Some people advocate generating to help secure the network from attack -- sure I can see that point. I also see that as a public service, or a donation to the cause. Where I live the electricity costs are very cheap, but I'd still pay more in electricity than value that I'd get from the coins. I'll leave the generation to other people, and buy the coins from them for my exchange business.

2. The mechanics of keeping my wallet files private and constantly backed up with a fresh copy gives me "data stress"

Do you keep your life savings in your wallet in the real world? The solution to this is simple: diversify.

3. All software has bugs. Software that is related to money is an inevitable target of attacks, and there is no FDIC backing or legal system remedy available in the case of problems

Sure. Hopefully with enough eyes on the source code the major bugs can be ironed out. The Bitcoin software will never be perfect, but considering the alternatives I'd say it is pretty good.

The FDIC is bankrupt. Google it. Also, what good is the FDIC if you lose your wallet in the real world?

Legal system remedy? Get real. Have you ever actually tried to sue someone? The lawyers largely benefit from any legal conflicts. The best way to operate is based on reputation. It is what humans do naturally anyway.

4. I don't really know how to document and declare transactions in bitcoins for legal and tax purposes and I'm scared of getting it wrong

That's easy. You don't claim the Bitcoins themselves. You declare the dollar-equivalent value of the goods that you received in trade with Bitcoins.

Cheers!
The Madhatter

[gridecon]

((lots of good stuff removed))
The Madhatter

Thanks for your well considered response. I agree with all of your points. I want to re-emphasize I am a bitcoin supporter and have had only good experiences using the bitcoin software, bitcoin community websites, and discussing on this forum! I take bitcoin very seriously as a fundamentally important project - the idea of a decentralized currency, a p2p economic system, is inherently exciting, and bitcoin's design and implementation seems brilliant once you understand how the pieces all fit together.

All of that, however, still isn't enough for bitcoin to actually succeed and live up to its potential. What can loosely be described as "social factors" (and of course luck!) are in my opinion much more determinative of success than the correctness of the concepts or the skill of implementation. Those things have to be right to create the possibility of success (defined as long-term preservation of value and ability to transact in bitcoins for a wide variety of goods and services), but are not sufficient. The high ambition of bitcoin creates a lot of hurdles to jump over that most projects don't face. Satoshi has guts! As do other people who invest substantial effort and resources in building the bitcoin community, I remain very impressed by what already exists and has been accomplished.

I definitely believe bitcoin has the potential to deliver a "better user experience" of money than traditional systems, but at this point in time I don't think the chicken-and-egg problem of creating adequate diversity of goods/services and ease of transaction in bitcoins without a large user community and vice versa has been accomplished. I will try to offer my best practical suggestion: someone should develop a very easy to deploy "pay with bitcoins!" web widget for people selling services over the web. The kind of small startups funded by ycombinator might be interested in innovative payment systems and they are often at a stage where revenues are so small that even minor paths to monetization would interest them. I don't know exactly how you architect an ultra easy to use (for both service providers and consumers) bitcoin payment button, but I see it as something that could really drive adoption.

[The Madhatter]

I want to re-emphasize I am a bitcoin supporter and have had only good experiences using the bitcoin software, bitcoin community websites, and discussing on this forum!

Oh, I believe you. I didn't mean to come across as a jerk or anything. Thank you for sharing your views of Bitcoin with everyone here.

The high ambition of bitcoin creates a lot of hurdles to jump over that most projects don't face. Satoshi has guts! As do other people who invest substantial effort and resources in building the bitcoin community, I remain very impressed by what already exists and has been accomplished.

I'm in awe of what has been accomplished as well. I wonder if having "guts" is enough.

someone should develop a very easy to deploy "pay with bitcoins!" web widget for people selling services over the web.

This has already been done! As of yesterday mybitcoin has a full fledged web-based processing platform not unlike paypal.

Check out my other post about it. I also include a cool payment URL that I generated with the merchant tools, if you are interested.

https://www.bitcoin.org/smf/index.php?topic=1054.msg13028

Cheers!
The Madhatter

[chaord]

This is great news with regard to mybitcoin's merchant services!  I think that will go a long way towards fueling adoption in the long run.

I still think, however, that the thing keeping bitcoin from taking off (virally) is that there is no specific use-value for bitcoin that only bitcoin can do best.  It got me thinking, there is something that bitcoin has been used for all a long that we haven't actually set up beyond the forum.  Payment for good information!  People have been putting bitcoin addresses in their forum signatures for a long time, and good, helpful posts seem to be rewarded at last to some extent.

Maybe we should just keep it simple and build a decentralized, secure forum, much like FMS on freenet? http://blog.locut.us/main/2008/5/11/fms-spam-proof-anonymous-message-boards-on-freenet.html  Rather than a "web of trust" we are replacing it with a "web of prices."  By "keep it simple," I mean build a system such that geeks (like us) would run nodes (normal toplevel domain gateways) and mine currency for our users while also providing them with security and safe passage into the "forums in the clouds."  Nodes would compete for users by distributing the currency they mine to their users.  Additionally certain nodes might offer better UI access to the "forum in the clouds" via mobile apps, sites, interfaces, etc.

Because posters would have to essentially pay to post on these forums, they would be the place to go for "spam free, important, good information."  Much like we reward one another on the current bitcoin forums for good posts and information, a level of reciprocation could be built in to social norms and potentially even automatically implemented by nodes operators.

By limiting post sizes (or maybe paying per character of text) this would result in concise, well formulated thoughts.  Additionally, by using a pay to post structure, I doubt people would reciprocate the postage fee back to the poster if they post porn or something.  You would choose your entry node according to the principles that it publishes to adhere to. Maybe you chose a node that automatically reciprocates postage fees for anything BUT porn/spam?

Anyway, I just wonder if something as seemingly simple as this could be the viral concept that bitcoin needs.  Many people are intrigued by the fact that there are these "uncensored parallel internets" out there, like freenet, i2p, etc.  By bringing introducing pricing while maintaining privacy and freedom we could be bringing the uncensored internet to them in a safe way.  It could be "the place for breaking news and uncensored info."  I think a good rule of thumb is, "you get what you pay for."  That rule still holds for information.  Maybe what the masses need is an easy way to pay for good information and filter through all the bullsh*t .

I would use this service.

[kiba]

This is great news with regard to mybitcoin's merchant services!  I think that will go a long way towards fueling adoption in the long run.

I still think, however, that the thing keeping bitcoin from taking off (virally) is that there is no specific use-value for bitcoin that only bitcoin can do best.  It got me thinking, there is something that bitcoin has been used for all a long that we haven't actually set up beyond the forum.  Payment for good information!  People have been putting bitcoin addresses in their forum signatures for a long time, and good, helpful posts seem to be rewarded at last to some extent.

My strategy is not to find specific niches that would work for bitcoin really well but to create lot of mini sites for bitcoins. It can't hurt to have lot of miniservices by which users can spend their money on. This of course, contribute attraction for developers who might develop the right application that will be the viral niches that allow bitcoins to take off. Think of my strategy as a metastrategy for allowing your strategy to be viable.