Bitreserve - opinions and experience?

[Kanati]

I have been looking into Bitreserve (bitreserve.org) as a way to hedge against bitcoin volatility, and even went so far as to attempt to create a user account on the site so I could try it out.

Unfortunately I am unable to get past "step 3 of 3 - account verification", since I never seem to get the SMS that they are supposed to send me. I suspect that it may be because my phone and I live in Europe  .

Another concern is privacy -Bitreserve is based in the U.S.A. where data protection laws are weaker that in the E.U., and Security - what happens to my assets in the event of company or government bankruptcy, or if bitcoin becomes obsolete  (apparently you can only use bitcoin to move payments in and out of Bitreserve).

I would appreciate your sharing insight and experience with Bitreserve 

[Kanati]

Not getting much action on this thread, but in case someone may interested I just found out that Bitreserve has changed its name to "Uphold" (strange choice - "Holdup" backwards does not inspire confidence!?!), and it also  looks like they are moving away from Bitcoin, according to this article:

http://fortune.com/2015/10/14/bitreserve-bitcoin-uphold/

I still hope to hear from someone who has actually used this service  

[HostFat]

They are not moving away from Bitcoin.

[Kanati]

They are not moving away from Bitcoin.

Could you elaborate on that please? They are quoted in the above article for not seeing much future in bitcoin.

[altsay]

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitreserve-rebrands-as-uphold-pivots-to-new-financial-services-and-de-emphasizes-bitcoin-1445016363

[Mickeyb]

After what has their owner and CEO said about Bitcoin and after the statements that he has made about Bitcoin in past, I would never use this service. I also urge the other users to do the same, to stay away from Bitreserve.

[Kanati]

After what has their owner and CEO said about Bitcoin and after the statements that he has made about Bitcoin in past, I would never use this service. I also urge the other users to do the same, to stay away from Bitreserve.

“I’ll be surprised if bitcoin is here in five years,” Watson told Fortune . “The value of bitcoin isn’t the currency, but the technology. I think once the world becomes more accustomed and attuned to the platform of bitcoin, the noise will go away, and the currency will go away, too.”

He totally ignored the Elephant in the room - namely who controls the technology? If bitcoin infrastructure continues to expand over the next 5 years then I think that the Bankster types will be hard pressed to create a competitive alternative they can control using blockchain technology.

[birr]

I have to report a glitch with uphold.  See my post in this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1236531.msg13164408#msg13164408

Uphold miscalculates miner fees by orders of magnitude.