Meanwhile in Las Vegas.....

[giszmo]

Thanks!

I needed some good news after all the vapor ware

Seriously, with all this announcements stuff and people screaming "prepare for massive run on bitcoin", it feels like a huge pump and dump thingy. Some pictures of people actually bringing to live something is a refreshing contrast, although the people behind the one and the other might overlap …

[BitcoinINV]

From what  obamaloney says  he has Romnesia so it could be true lol

[Stephen Gornick]

2) some of the services are not using all the tools that are available for scam prevention such as identification or DRO contracts because there is this small gang of thugs that would like to hurt most of them if they could find them.

That cannot be emphasized enough.    There are services that I would like to praise from the rooftops, but because what they are doing is possibly regulated activity none of these service's operators have revealed their identity (or had that identity they provided verified).  And thus they are not getting the attention they deserve including attracting customers where they grow into a more widely used and successful service.   I'm about as confident as I can be that the operator isn't planning on running but with a service that is operated anonymously there is always that risk, and therefore I can't extend my full trust.  

If there were two identical services side-by-side, one whose operator's identity is known and can be verified and the other run anonymously, I wouldn't touch the latter.

I don't have that choice and because I do want to participate, I rationalize the risk by limiting the amount of funds involved to an amount low enough enough that if the operator does run or otherwise scam that I'm not negatively impacted to any significant degree.

But because the threat of action from a regulator keeps the operator from revealing identity, I am then putting myself at risk of getting scammed further than I normally would.  And that makes it easier for scammers to "fit in".  And having to swim in the same pool as the scammers makes it harder for the good operators protecting themselves with anonymity to compete.  

Thus the existence of needless regulations actually increases the risk of me being scammed.

[Tuxavant]

bah! bitcoin is absolutely regulated and the right way... in a globally distributed consensus.

[molecular]

The Bitcoin booth would be overflowing if only LadyBytes were there. And if the lady from Butterflylabs assembly line simply hung around the PayPal booth donning an I accept PayPal button. Something to think about come CES time which, by the way, is just around the corner.

Great work, guys.

I'm pretty sure LadyBytes would be open to that. Anyone going to CES should contact her.

[RATM69]

Was it just a coincidence that the MasterCard booth was right next door?

[cbeast]

I can imagine there are a lot of bankers thinking "how can I get out of this idiotic company?" Then they see Bitcoin and go "hmmm." I don't think any exec will convince a groupthink board to get with Bitcoin in it's present state, but you may get some rogue visionaries to jump ship. I would be looking for the ones that whisper their fandom and offer ideas they can run with.

[ChrisKoss]

Great work guys!

[Rassah]

If there were two identical services side-by-side, one whose operator's identity is known and can be verified and the other run anonymously, I wouldn't touch the latter.

What if a service was set up in such a way that the users had control of their Bitcoin, and the entire service's operation was easily verified via blockchain? (All money coming in, going out, and fees charged) Would you trust it then, even if whoever ran it remained anonymous?

[allthingsluxury]

haha very nice. Good work on the placement guys. Spread the good word.

[bg002h]

Hey All,

BitInstant is sponsoring the 3 day Money2020 conference in Las Vegas this week.

I'm also doing a panel on Virtual Currency and Payment Monday evening.

Erik made sure we got placed next to Paypal  



L to R: Roger Ver, Charlie Shrem, Erik Voorhees

Well played boys!

[casascius]

One day PayPal might adopt BTC as one of its currency choices, and see an enormous opportunity in doing so.

PayPal doesn't HAVE to be the enemy.

Remember, once upon a time, PayPal was the "cool" competition to eBay's old cumbersome homegrown payment method they called "Billpoint".  Instead of fighting it, eBay put their money aboard and jumped upon the train with it.

PayPal is in a unique position where they could offer the world the opportunity to transact in bitcoin units while maintaining, for a fee, the consumer protections that go along with the ability to do chargebacks, which aren't inherently evil, just costly (and there are times, like buying things from strangers over the internet, when that cost is worth paying).

What we really should be asking ourselves is: what are all the reasons PayPal would NOT want to offer BTC as a currency option (whether it's legal, technical, lack of experts, fear of reprisal, etc.), and work on attacking those, rather than attacking PayPal as the enemy.  Their forbidding of using PayPal to buy bitcoins makes business sense from their current perspective - that doesn't make them an enemoy.  PayPal and Bitcoin can co-exist in a win-win relationship one day, and it will be an awesome day if and when PayPal ever decides to make that sort of move.

[Serith]

One day PayPal might adopt BTC as one of its currency choices, and see an enormous opportunity in doing so.

PayPal doesn't HAVE to be the enemy.

Remember, once upon a time, PayPal was the "cool" competition to eBay's old cumbersome homegrown payment method they called "Billpoint".  Instead of fighting it, eBay put their money aboard and jumped upon the train with it.

PayPal is in a unique position where they could offer the world the opportunity to transact in bitcoin units while maintaining, for a fee, the consumer protections that go along with the ability to do chargebacks, which aren't inherently evil, just costly (and there are times, like buying things from strangers over the internet, when that cost is worth paying).

What we really should be asking ourselves is: what are all the reasons PayPal would NOT want to offer BTC as a currency option (whether it's legal, technical, lack of experts, fear of reprisal, etc.), and work on attacking those, rather than attacking PayPal as the enemy.  Their forbidding of using PayPal to buy bitcoins makes business sense from their current perspective - that doesn't make them an enemoy.  PayPal and Bitcoin can co-exist in a win-win relationship one day, and it will be an awesome day if and when PayPal ever decides to make that sort of move.

PayPal was "cool" when it was young, now it's a big corporation and it is extremely rare for a company of that size to support development of something that undermines their established business e.g. look at what happens in music industry. It is much more probable that PayPal would rather go bankrupt than try to adapt.

[bg002h]

I just noticed the "Bitcoin" text on the booth...it looks like the same design as from the new logo contest thread...

[bracek]

2) some of the services are not using all the tools that are available for scam prevention such as identification or DRO contracts because there is this small gang of thugs that would like to hurt most of them if they could find them.

That cannot be emphasized enough.    There are services that I would like to praise from the rooftops, but because what they are doing is possibly regulated activity none of these service's operators have revealed their identity (or had that identity they provided verified).  And thus they are not getting the attention they deserve including attracting customers where they grow into a more widely used and successful service.   I'm about as confident as I can be that the operator isn't planning on running but with a service that is operated anonymously there is always that risk, and therefore I can't extend my full trust.   

If there were two identical services side-by-side, one whose operator's identity is known and can be verified and the other run anonymously, I wouldn't touch the latter.

I don't have that choice and because I do want to participate, I rationalize the risk by limiting the amount of funds involved to an amount low enough enough that if the operator does run or otherwise scam that I'm not negatively impacted to any significant degree.

But because the threat of action from a regulator keeps the operator from revealing identity, I am then putting myself at risk of getting scammed further than I normally would.  And that makes it easier for scammers to "fit in".  And having to swim in the same pool as the scammers makes it harder for the good operators protecting themselves with anonymity to compete.   

Thus the existence of needless regulations actually increases the risk of me being scammed.

bitcoin can be used as voting machine
I wrote something in development part of the forum, but it did not get any attention,
maybe i did not explain it well
or the problem was because i proposed it be implemented as separate cryptofork

the idea was that entrepreneur would deposit money in an address whose private key is partially distributed to all users of his service
if he runs, the money is voted into some arbitration fund and distributed to users
the amount deposited should be decided  by users

[niko]

PayPal can in fact use Bitcoin to transfer value internationally at extremely low cost, assuming they offer exchange to and from local currencies. In that sense they would be a competitor of MtGox and other multi-currency exchanges, not the competitor of Bitcoin.

[Desolator]

sneak up to that big paypal logo and place "complaint department" under neat it See how long it takes em to notice.

[kwoody]

Hey All,

BitInstant is sponsoring the 3 day Money2020 conference in Las Vegas this week.

I'm also doing a panel on Virtual Currency and Payment Monday evening.

Erik made sure we got placed next to Paypal  



L to R: Roger Ver, Charlie Shrem, Erik Voorhees

PayPal has couch. Do you have couch? I will only use your payment service if you offer couches.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

PayPal has couch. Do you have couch? I will only use your payment service if you offer couches.

Bitcoin no need couch. Bitcoin got coffee table. Coffee table NSFW, so no pic. PayPal envy coffee table. Show over. Coffee table going back home to Rassah. Mongo sad.

Seriously, great work guys. Hopefully there's a video or two coming soon to curb our enthusiasm.

~Bruno K~

[AndrewBUD]

Sweet..... Great job   Anyone attend this conference I don't see many people walking about....