Big Shots in favor of Bitcoin

[Steve]

I think their questions about end user adoption are reasonable, actually.

Yes, they are reasonable questions, it's just that from their perspective they can't distinguish Bitcoin from any of the dozen other virtual currency schemes.  (all the points you make about ease of use are valid, but I don't see any of them as any great challenge...just work)

[kangasbros]

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/11/what-has-changed.html#comment-718987084

Teemu Kurppa --> takingpitches • 2 days ago

I've been following a few Bitcoin companies here in Finland, and as an earlier Bitcoin sceptic,
I was surprised how much activity and money there is already in Bitcoin economy.
I think a lot of investors are underestimating what's going on in Bitcoin world, because it's still so far away from the mainstream.

But many truly disruptive things were viewed as toys or pure idiocy in the early days. I'm speaking from the experience here.

When we started Jaiku, a microblogging service similar to Twitter, in 2006, before Twitter and before Facebook's activity stream.
At that time, a lot of people said that broadcasting and reading short mundane thoughts was the stupidest idea they had ever heard of.
Fast-forward a few years and hundred of millions of people are doing it everyday.

Based on what I've seen, I'm starting to think that Bitcoin might be a similar phenomenon.

fredwilson Mod  --> Teemu Kurppa • 2 days ago

Yessssssssss

Fred Wilson (born August 20, 1961) is a New York-based venture capitalist and blogger.

Wilson is the co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a New York City-based venture capital firm with investments in Web 2.0 companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga and 10gen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wilson_(financier)

Wow, what a surprise. Teemu is actually working in the same coworking-space as me, and I have been promoting bitcoin for some time here to Finnish startups. And I guess one bitcoin startup he has been following is ours

[Gabi]

Does gold needs big shots in its favor to be valuable? No. Everyone can insult gold as he want, say that it's a scam and whatelse. Guess what? It doesn't matter, gold will still be gold and will still be valuable.

Same for bitcoin.

[thoughtfan]

The same things that bother you are what get me excited.  I love the fact that the big money is going to be late to this party.  I would much rather see it come to pass that many people of modest means build their own economy without their participation.  When we talk to potential investors in BitPay, many of them ask what were doing about consumer adoption.  They've heard pitches for all kinds of digital currency "schemes" (to quote the ECB) over the last ~15 years.  They always cite the problems getting end users to adopt Bitcoin (they don't grasp what makes Bitcoin fundamentally different than the many prior attempts at virtual currencies).  We usually say that we're doing little to nothing about end user adoption.  In reality, as much as people deride speculation and day trading, the candlestick chart of the Bitcoin exchange price will do more to drive end user adoption than any brow beating of this or that company (that will only make them more resentful).  Jeff Bezos was asked the very same questions about end user adoption of the Internet in the early days of Amazon.com.  Jeff Bezos never worried about signing people up for the Internet.  I once heard Bitcoin described as the most asymmetrical trade of a lifetime, and I agree.  

I agree.  I also think it's in bitcoin's best interest (overall) to develop into something robust just under the radar.  Eventually it will become something that regulators, governments, intellectuals and central bankers can't dismiss as folly.  I pray it's mature enough to withstand whatever happens when they come to the realization this is for real.  I'm not sure we're there yet.

I'm also liking this.  It reminds me of another fledgling project I've been involved with coming up five years now where those involved are asked not to involve the media, not to show its benefits to celebrities or do anything else that might draw too much attention too soon.  For both Bitcoin and this other project the longer we can give ourselves to keeping steady and manageable growth via word-of-mouth, to fine-tune the technology and to prepare for a rapid escalation, the higher the chances if and when the tsunami of interest happens that they will, rather than getting crushed by the wave, be able to ride it to a brighter future

It's tempting, more for Bitcoin in my case than the other, to think if it doesn't happen fairly quickly it won't happen at all and therefore I'm itching to promote it but maybe accepting it might/it might not and playing the long game is the way?

[Serith]

     There is no incentive for users to educate themselves about Bitcoin =>
=> If there is no customers then there is no incentive for merchants to start accepting Bitcoin =>
=> There is no attractive deals to make by using Bitcoin =>
=> There is no incentive for users to educate themselves about Bitcoin

This is the famous chicken and egg problem of Bitcoin, if any of those three statements is not true then the problem solved.

• OP talks about the first part, educating users through a very well known public figure.
• Steve from BitPay is working on the second part, approaching merchants to convince them to start accepting bitcoins.
• Mike Hearn is working on third part, e.g. micropayments because it might create attractive deals for users. For example, I think that paying for wireless or additional TOR bandwidth with bitcoins is the killer application. Btw, does anyone know why there is no Digital Silk Road that lists goods such as music and movies?

My point is that everyone is actually trying to solve the same problem, just from a different angle.

BitInstant is also working on educating users because then users become their customers.

Maybe BitPay and BitInstant can join forces, find a target group of users who would benefit from making transactions with bitcoins and also convince merchants who sells what this specific customers need to accept bitcoins. There has to be an intersection between people who acquire bitcoins through BitInstant to buy certain goods and merchants who sells those goods and could be convinced by BitPay to start accepting bitcoins.

[Stephen Gornick]

Wow, what a surprise. Teemu is actually working in the same coworking-space as me, and I have been promoting bitcoin for some time here to Finnish startups. And I guess one bitcoin startup he has been following is ours

Back in 1994 Bezos was just some entrepreneur who spotted an opportunity involving using a revolutionary technology (web) to compete against an existing business (selling books).  Eighteen years later he's a "big shot".  (well, technically he ended up an Internet big shot in less than just eighteen months, but that's beside the point).

So in 2012 we have entrepreneur Jeremias Kangas who spotted an opportunity involving using a revolutionary technology (Bitcoin) to compete against an existing business (local money exchange).  His LocalBitcoins.com is now the most widely used platform for discovering someone local who will buy bitcoin from you or sell bitcoins to you, and serves as a transactional system with a novel approach that facilitates that exchange well (release coins via a SMS/text message).

The next "big shots" are possibly in our midst.

[johnyj]

I know the underlying concepts are complex, and that money plays a special role in our collective psyche, but why hasn't a Bill Gates, or a Larry Page, or a Warren Buffett, or a Jeff Bezos, or an executive at Goldman Sachs, or some other Nobel Prize-winning economist come out and said that Bitcoin is a brilliant and well-implemented idea that will change our world for the better?  These are all smart, successful, and open-minded people, could it really be that none have yet seen the light?

Because they are all lived under the umbrella of USD for whole their life

IMO, BTC has the potential to replace those swiss banks, where people store their wealth anonymously, this need is always there

[Trader Steve]

I think that most "big shots" will not comment on bitcoin because it is something they cannot control, did not create, or simply just fear.

[Carlton Banks]

Call it stating the obvious if it pleases you, but the whole thread presumes that people in the Bitcoin community from now or later will not become "big shots" themselves. For something to become "big", "big shot" endorsement is not a requirement. No one says it doesn't help, but intrinsic qualities shine through no matter what.

[conspirosphere.tk]

My biggest doubt about bitcoins is due to their savagely hard deflationist nature: going on, spending and especially investing will be reduced at a minimum if at all, while their fiat price will swing between speculative booms and reality-based crashes, but ultimately is going to crash and stay crashed, since if everybody hoards them (because is definitely the most profitable thing to do with them), there will be no much real economy around them apart from the drug market.

[bitcoinbear]

My biggest doubt about bitcoins is due to their savagely hard deflationist nature: going on, spending and especially investing will be reduced at a minimum if at all, while their fiat price will swing between speculative booms and reality-based crashes, but ultimately is going to crash and stay crashed, since if everybody hoards them (because is definitely the most profitable thing to do with them), there will be no much real economy around them apart from the drug market.

Over time the price will stay relatively constant, or rise only slowly. Even when the price was doubling every week last year there were plenty of people willing to spend their bitcoins.

I'm also liking this.  It reminds me of another fledgling project I've been involved with coming up five years now where those involved are asked not to involve the media, not to show its benefits to celebrities or do anything else that might draw too much attention too soon.  For both Bitcoin and this other project the longer we can give ourselves to keeping steady and manageable growth via word-of-mouth, to fine-tune the technology and to prepare for a rapid escalation, the higher the chances if and when the tsunami of interest happens that they will, rather than getting crushed by the wave, be able to ride it to a brighter future

Could you tell us what this other project you are involved in is?

Btw, does anyone know why there is no Digital Silk Road that lists goods such as music and movies?

You could use bitcointorrentz.com to get music and movies. Sometimes books, music and movies can be found on bitmit.net. There is also CoinDL.com for that sort of thing as well.

[meanig]

Many big shots only became big shots because they were able to borrow vast sums of money from the banking system at better rates than their competition.

Dogs don't bite the hand that feeds them. Don't expect any big business to endorse Bitcoin any time soon.

[420]

Many big shots only became big shots because they were able to borrow vast sums of money from the banking system at better rates than their competition.

Dogs don't bite the hand that feeds them. Don't expect any big business to endorse Bitcoin any time soon.

can give me an example?

[Phinnaeus Gage]

That Nobel Prize in Economics you talk about... it doesn't exist.

In 1994, John Forbes Nash, Jr. received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (along with John Harsanyi and Reinhard Selten).

Macacos me mordam...!

[cypherdoc]

Many big shots only became big shots because they were able to borrow vast sums of money from the banking system at better rates than their competition.

Dogs don't bite the hand that feeds them. Don't expect any big business to endorse Bitcoin any time soon.

can give me an example?

every bank that goes to the Feds discount window to borrow at 0%.  can you?

[bg002h]

That Nobel Prize in Economics you talk about... it doesn't exist.

I guess I don't understand...
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1974/

[meowmeowbrowncow]

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/11/what-has-changed.html#comment-718987084

Teemu Kurppa --> takingpitches • 2 days ago

I've been following a few Bitcoin companies here in Finland, and as an earlier Bitcoin sceptic,
I was surprised how much activity and money there is already in Bitcoin economy.
I think a lot of investors are underestimating what's going on in Bitcoin world, because it's still so far away from the mainstream.

But many truly disruptive things were viewed as toys or pure idiocy in the early days. I'm speaking from the experience here.

When we started Jaiku, a microblogging service similar to Twitter, in 2006, before Twitter and before Facebook's activity stream.
At that time, a lot of people said that broadcasting and reading short mundane thoughts was the stupidest idea they had ever heard of.
Fast-forward a few years and hundred of millions of people are doing it everyday.

Based on what I've seen, I'm starting to think that Bitcoin might be a similar phenomenon.

To a large degree it is stupid.

People are becoming more comfortable being digital narcissists.

If this becomes a world where all remaining time outside of obligatory commitments, e.g. work, is spent on a smart phone (especially, since smart phones are less productive) and computers I am instagibbing myself.

[BkkCoins]

"Instagibbing" - what is that?

[Raoul Duke]

That Nobel Prize in Economics you talk about... it doesn't exist.

I guess I don't understand...
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/1974/

Google is your friend. Hell, even wikipedia.
The economics Nobel prize never existed until the Swedish central bank created it and "attached" it to the Noble prizes.
Not really wanting to write myself what you can find easily with a google search. Yes, I'm that lazy...

[meanig]

Many big shots only became big shots because they were able to borrow vast sums of money from the banking system at better rates than their competition.

Dogs don't bite the hand that feeds them. Don't expect any big business to endorse Bitcoin any time soon.

can give me an example?

Donald Trump. From his Wikipedia page

Trump claimed that upon his arrival to Manhattan in 1971 he was practically broke, this gave birth to his plan to acquire and develop the old Penn Central for $60 million with no money down.

If bankers hadn't fallen for his bullshit Trump would have been just another builder with dreams and big ideas.