Bitcoin funded debit cards, ASICS, bitcoinwireless, ... did I miss a scam?

[giszmo]

The title tells a story of my frustration about the lack of results to all the buzz I read this year.

BFL is in the business of selling hardware quite some time but somehow failed to provide a real look at the real ASICS deal or did I miss something? And there are reportedly 4 competitors that are not better in showing shiny products.

bitinstant is a "big" bitcoin business and announced bitcoinwireless ages ago but now even stopped announcing new release dates claiming it's hard to coordinate a global launch but the beta test went well. Damn where are the (fake?) videos from these beta tests? Why not simply launch this in the USA or Chile or whatever? It would help the community people outside to realize that bitcoin is not just pump and dump. (Also it would increase the trust in other bitinstant projects.)

So forbes and others reported about charging arbitrary debit cards via AurumXchange but now there is silence. Since a long time no "we update this within 24h"-post.

The Mycelium Bitcoin Card was announced with a really impressive video but where are the updates? There's not even rumors about this. WTH?

All part of a big fractal ponzi scheme with the root bitcoin?

[Rotsor]

What's the big deal about the Bitinstant's bitcoin-funded debit card "scam" anyway? Bitcurex's debit cards seem to be working fine, right?

[giszmo]

What's the big deal about the Bitinstant's bitcoin-funded debit card "scam" anyway? Bitcurex's debit cards seem to be working fine, right?

Uhm, you talk about this https://bitcurex.com/ ? If I have to buy in their market, the spread kills any fee – aka I miss some information of the real costs of charging my card. 14 positions in the order book and
to charge my card to the laughable daily ATM limit of 150€ I would have to buy the last € for 8.4€/Ƀ (8.27€/Ƀ@MtGox)?
To charge my card to the laughable(?) daily POS limit of 1000€ I would have to buy more than they have in market depth?
As far as I understood it, BitInstant would trade on MtGox.

(Please correct me if I got anything wrong. As far as I can see, we urgently need a serious offer.)

Edit: To get € into my CC, I would actually have to trade on the far weaker side of the market depth. On Bitcurex only 8.38€ can be bought – for 434Ƀ. Hooray.

[oOoOo]

What's the big deal about the Bitinstant's bitcoin-funded debit card "scam" anyway? Bitcurex's debit cards seem to be working fine, right?

Unfortunately, among other problems mentioned, a lot of sites wont accept that nameless prepaid card.
But at least they are DOING something, rather than just making empty announcements.

So hats off to Bitcurex!

[niko]

It's all a mix of achievements, genuine efforts, unforeseen show-stoppers, competence, incompetence, wishful thinking, vaporware, and pump'n'dump campaigns. Even the same person or company may be involved in several, or all, of the above.

I've noticed some generally respected people engage in unfounded "optimism campaigns" which will inevitably end up with disappointments. This can be understood, as many Bitcoin personas are now "all in" - they actually need to make a living off of their businesses. Short-term pressures can lead to less-then-ideal ethical judgements on their part.

I don't have anything to add to the OP, except to say I'm glad to see people keep tabs on various promises.

[giszmo]

It's all a mix of achievements, genuine efforts, unforeseen show-stoppers, competence, incompetence, wishful thinking, vaporware, and pump'n'dump campaigns. Even the same person or company may be involved in several, or all, of the above.

I've noticed some generally respected people engage in unfounded "optimism campaigns" which will inevitably end up with disappointments. This can be understood, as many Bitcoin personas are now "all in" - they actually need to make a living off of their businesses. Short-term pressures can lead to less-then-ideal ethical judgements on their part.

I don't have anything to add to the OP, except to say I'm glad to see people keep tabs on various promises.

I hope your dark picture is not all that accurate but if those people that are "all in", actually would be honest, others might jump in to provide the said services that are all great things and might provide a huge profit for those doing it. Bitcoinwireless for example is something I was thinking about doing one year ago small scale one country or even one carrier at a time. (Here in Chile it would most likely be possible to provide it within 2 weeks as a unified website to charge via credit card already exists for all the carriers.) Seeing that an established business like bitinstant is covering the global market without charging extra, starting "in two weeks" was definitely a show-stopper for my dreams (calling it plans would be exaggerated).

[justusranvier]

It's all a mix of achievements, genuine efforts, unforeseen show-stoppers, competence, incompetence, wishful thinking, vaporware, and pump'n'dump campaigns. Even the same person or company may be involved in several, or all, of the above.

QFT

[evoorhees]

Why is the word "scam" tossed so carelessly around these forums?  Let's not confuse "legitimate operational setbacks" with "scams."

BitInstant's debit card is real. It is in the works. You have no idea how much red tape is involved in the "real world" of money and payment systems. I know that "we're working on it" isn't an ideal answer, but we are, and we will deliver.

BitcoinWireless is also real and I know many are patiently awaiting it (as am I since I have a phone like everyone else =) There is not a good reason for its delay thus far, other than that there are bigger projects in the works (and lots of travelling) which just suck time out of the days and weeks. Nevertheless, it will be up very very soon.

Meanwhile, we are dealing with investor relations, customer service (over 5,000 support tickets from a week ago when the site went down), hiring of new staff (which takes research, interviews, discussion), press and PR, bug fixes, finance and money transfers, conventions and trade shows, lunches with Bitcoiners and finance people, workarounds for the glitches of other peoples' API's, and sometimes we even need to shower. We also have tertiary projects (Coinapult, Paysius, FeedZeBirds, SatoshiDice...). On almost everything we need approvals, the negotiation of careful contracts, review and consultations by lawyers, and multi-timezone collaboration. Plus we just had a hurricane. And there's like... five of us.

Delays always deserve an apology, and as such we apologize for the delays. Rest assured we're moving as fast as we can, trying to attack and build these things from all angles.

If you're getting impatient, I encourage you to start building things as well. Lord knows there are an infinite number of projects awaiting us in this new ecosystem. Please hang in there with us

[giszmo]

Why is the word "scam" tossed so carelessly around these forums?  Let's not confuse "legitimate operational setbacks" with "scams."

BitInstant's debit card is real. It is in the works. You have no idea how much red tape is involved in the "real world" of money and payment systems. I know that "we're working on it" isn't an ideal answer, but we are, and we will deliver.

BitcoinWireless is also real and I know many are patiently awaiting it (as am I since I have a phone like everyone else =) There is not a good reason for its delay thus far, other than that there are bigger projects in the works (and lots of travelling) which just suck time out of the days and weeks. Nevertheless, it will be up very very soon.

Meanwhile, we are dealing with investor relations, customer service (over 5,000 support tickets from a week ago when the site went down), hiring of new staff (which takes research, interviews, discussion), press and PR, bug fixes, finance and money transfers, conventions and trade shows, lunches with Bitcoiners and finance people, workarounds for the glitches of other peoples' API's, and sometimes we even need to shower. We also have tertiary projects (Coinapult, Paysius, FeedZeBirds, SatoshiDice...). On almost everything we need approvals, the negotiation of careful contracts, review and consultations by lawyers, and multi-timezone collaboration. Plus we just had a hurricane. And there's like... five of us.

Delays always deserve an apology, and as such we apologize for the delays. Rest assured we're moving as fast as we can, trying to attack and build these things from all angles.

If you're getting impatient, I encourage you to start building things as well. Lord knows there are an infinite number of projects awaiting us in this new ecosystem. Please hang in there with us

Erik I appreciate your posts here and on your blog and all that you do for the bitcoin economy. I'm sure you will not regret the hard work you put in this ever. Neither do I think you are the kind of person that gives up, just because some impatient trolls call him a maybe-scammer.
A weekly update of each project with some more details than you are giving even now would surely help a lot to get rid of the impression you totally forgot about these projects. Seeing 404 on bitcoinwireless very much gives such an impression.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

A weekly update of each project with some more details than you are giving even now would surely help a lot to get rid of the impression you totally forgot about these projects. Seeing 404 on bitcoinwireless very much gives such an impression.

Thats a good idea actually, I think we can do something like that.

Seeing 404 on bitcoinwireless very much gives such an impression.

It does not 404 for me, it does for you?

[giszmo]

Seeing 404 on bitcoinwireless very much gives such an impression.

It does not 404 for me, it does for you?

Not now.

[damnek]

I agree with the OP, this has also been irritating me for a while now. It's disappointing that each time something gets announced to wait till the deadline to find out it was only an empty promise. The impact of a cool new product will be just as great as when you announce it when it is actually ready to be launched. It's time the community becomes more professional when it comes to this. Fortunately there are also some positive examples such as Roger Ver's new bitcoinstore.com (although he also announced bitcoinchipin.com which disapppeared after its beta launch).

[MPOE-PR]

I honestly can see both ends of this story.

On one hand, what do you practically want from (for example) bitinstant? Should they not do anything? Should they try things in secret and only announce it after the fact? What's the sense and what's the point of that announcement then, and what exactly is the problem with them saying hey, we're working on X, which would be great? Oh, that X sometimes has the pesky habit of not panning out? Well... wtf.

Sure, people are optimistic about bitcoin. Guess what, if they were pessimistic they wouldn't be involved (barring a few, and I quote, "assholish, ruthless, opportunistic businessmen", the sort of nuts who will stick with something to the bitter end on general principle). Sure, people sometimes announce things which won't work in the end, but in fairness it's half the time or more because assholes such as banks welch out of deals after the fact just because they can.

On the other hand, I can see the frustration, sure. Not just part of a consumer culture or an entitlement culture, but in general, I can see it.

I guess everyone needs better PR. Everyone except MPEx, of course.

[Yankee (BitInstant)]

I guess everyone needs better PR. Everyone except MPEx, of course.

Nice plug 

[MPOE-PR]

I guess everyone needs better PR. Everyone except MPEx, of course.

Nice plug 

Girl's gotta eat.

[Elwar]

I believe that it is good to get the word out there on things you are working on. If you bring something up and someone else is already working on it or finished with it, then you need to decide if your solution is better/different or can compete.

It is also good to get a feel for enthusiasm behind projects and gauge what type of user base you may have once it is released. This could impact how much work you put into it. Of if there is no interest, perhaps put more effort into something that will get more use.

Keep up the good work.

[MemoryDealers]

(although he also announced bitcoinchipin.com which disapppeared after its beta launch).

Bitcoinchipin.com has not been forgoten and will be back and better than ever in the very near future.

It will support
1. User accounts with the ability to edit existing widgets.
2. Users can choose between flash based or java script based widgets.
3. Variable sizes and colors.
4. Much much more