2012-08-24 American Banker - Lightning Fast, Dirt Cheap: Bitcoin Shows What Bank

[labestiol]

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/lightning-fast-dirt-cheap-bitcoin-shows-what-banking-could-be-1052108-1.html

It took 11 minutes, tops, after I pushed the button for the equivalent of $5 to travel across the Atlantic. For this service I paid less than a penny.

There were no banks involved. If there had been, it would have cost me at least twice the amount I was sending.

Whoa.  (...)

[1715695956]

1715695956

[Technomage]

The articles just keep on coming. This is a very good one.

[kiba]

It is up to the banks if bitcoin is a threat or an opportunity to crush other bankers.

[iCEBREAKER]

This is a great article.  Very well written and a good introduction for beginners.

The positive (almost glowing) tone is a pleasant surprise, considering it was published by American Bankster magazine!  

/sends author a generous tip for 'coining' the catchy phrase "Lightning Fast, Dirt Cheap: Bitcoin."

http://blockchain.info/tx-index/17059195/06c25868c83b63fa60d71694486ef01ce98c2331311bf22818f71e76666eec28

[Gyrsur]

very nice! 

[jim618]

He posted the bitcoin address he is using in the article.

If you are feeling generous send him a few millis just for fun and general goodwill.
I just sent him 100 millis.

:-)

[paraipan]

Great article indeed

[sunnankar]

Lol, his account's doing well out of this

Starve the bad and feed the good. Bankers are not much smarter than dogs; which is one reason they need the bailouts, regulations, etc. in order to stay in business. More tips hopefully means more positive articles.

[marcus_of_augustus]

"I tried once to install the software. It took forever and didn't do anything," says Robert Hughes, a senior vice president with the consulting firm Speer & Associates who's been studying Bitcoin.

I gotta say this cracked me up ... I wonder if he is representative of the intellect of your average Vice-President?

If I was his boss he would not be working for me much longer. Technology moves on and some people will not make the grade ... one of the good things about bitcoin is it raises the bar substantially on raw intellect and competence to remain competitive.

[sunnankar]

"I tried once to install the software. It took forever and didn't do anything," says Robert Hughes, a senior vice president with the consulting firm Speer & Associates who's been studying Bitcoin.

I gotta say this cracked me up ... I wonder if he is representative of the intellect of your average Vice-President?

If I was his boss he would not be working for me much longer. Technology moves on and some people will not make the grade ... one of the good things about bitcoin is it raises the bar substantially on raw intellect and competence to remain competitive.

Probably does not even realize how bad the PR is for his firm from a comment like that ....

[iCEBREAKER]

"I tried once to install the software. It took forever and didn't do anything," says Robert Hughes, a senior vice president with the consulting firm Speer & Associates who's been studying Bitcoin.

I gotta say this cracked me up ... I wonder if he is representative of the intellect of your average Vice-President?

If I was his boss he would not be working for me much longer. Technology moves on and some people will not make the grade ... one of the good things about bitcoin is it raises the bar substantially on raw intellect and competence to remain competitive.

Probably does not even realize how bad the PR is for his firm from a comment like that ....

Many (impatient) people have the same complaint.

[Timo Y]

There's a lot of copying and pasting involved in Bitcoin, unless you want to memorize phrases like "1PFgAJWLJZGSaVDg2rX3XDfTcyd6CpLdS6."

I don't see how 1PFgAJWLJZGSaVDg2rX3XDfTcyd6CpLdS6 more difficult to copy and paste than IBAN: DE46520400210277281204; BIC: COBADEFF520.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

There's a lot of copying and pasting involved in Bitcoin, unless you want to memorize phrases like "1PFgAJWLJZGSaVDg2rX3XDfTcyd6CpLdS6."

I don't see how 1PFgAJWLJZGSaVDg2rX3XDfTcyd6CpLdS6 more difficult to copy and paste than IBAN: DE46520400210277281204; BIC: COBADEFF520.

Great point.  Same could be said everytime you have to enter credit card info: 16 digits + 4 + 3.  Plus after all that, they decide to not put the transaction through for whatever reason, and you have to call them up and give them your mother's best friend name and your PIN and your social security number and who knows what else.

Contrast with the irreversibility and speed of using Bitcoin on a mobile via QR codes.  Vast improvement.

Also if you can't or don't want to use QR, firstbits and vanity addresses are available to mitigate the length issue.

[Gareth Nelson]

"I tried once to install the software. It took forever and didn't do anything," says Robert Hughes, a senior vice president with the consulting firm Speer & Associates who's been studying Bitcoin.

I gotta say this cracked me up ... I wonder if he is representative of the intellect of your average Vice-President?

If I was his boss he would not be working for me much longer. Technology moves on and some people will not make the grade ... one of the good things about bitcoin is it raises the bar substantially on raw intellect and competence to remain competitive.

Probably does not even realize how bad the PR is for his firm from a comment like that ....

Many (impatient) people have the same complaint.

I disagree myself - it's entirely possible that the reason it didn't work for him is because of the setup of the corporate network's firewall.

While he should have got in contact with his IT staff to figure it out, he probably dismissed it as being some weird buggy thing.

It's easy to dismiss people who "don't get it", but we should focus on making bitcoin easier to use and understand, light-weight clients such as electrum or bitcoinspinner are the way forward here - the latter is what I actually use myself to store most of my personal funds.

I wonder if it'd be possible in fact for the clients page on bitcoin.org to make electrum or another lightweight client more prominent.

[Domrada]

It's alarming that he paid 6% to deposit cash at a bank.  Bitfloor lets you deposit cash at any Chase or Wells Fargo for free.  The article makes it sound like your only choices are to wait a week for Dwolla, or pay 6%. 

[The-Real-Link]

  Printed and saved this article because it was so awesome.  Nice to hear some good news.  Might actually go tip this guy   Thanks for the link and a great report.

[bbit]

It is up to the banks if bitcoin is a threat or an opportunity to crush other bankers.

I couldn't agree more . I don't get why a bank doesn't just grab hold and run with bitcoins in some fashion they would kill it.  Good article!

[Piper67]

If I were the betting kind, I'd bet the first bank to offer BTC accounts will be a Swiss one 

[iCEBREAKER]

If I were the betting kind, I'd bet the first bank to offer BTC accounts will be a Swiss one  

The Swiss have caved to the Eurocrat money Nazis.  They grassed on their US customers.  Farking snitches should get stitches.

Their 900 year tradition of neutrality, privacy, and financial competence is dead.  It just hasn't stopped moving yet, due to inertia.

The first bank to offer BTC interoperability will be in the middle east (Dubai, Israel), Russia (God bless crazy Ivan), or SE Asia (Singapore).

[hazek]

If I were the betting kind, I'd bet the first bank to offer BTC accounts will be a Swiss one 

The Swiss have caved to the Eurocrat money Nazis.  They grassed on their US customers.  Farking snitches should get stitches.

Their 900 year tradition of neutrality, privacy, and financial competence is dead.  It just hasn't stopped moving yet, due to inertia.

The first bank to offer BTC interoperability will be in the middle east (Dubai, Israel), Russia (God bless crazy Ivan), or SE Asia (Singapore).

^ this.