My first experience with bitcoin was NOT positive :(

[Raoul Duke]

BUT the thing is Bitcoin isn't some 'no brainer' credit card; it requires thinking and responsibility ultimately always falls on the user.

So, maybe people need the 2 days of blockchain download to think if they really want the responsibility to be holding their own money without someone to bail them out when they do impulse buying or something else as stupid.

[Red Emerald]

That fact that we have debated this topic for more than 2 posts highlights exactly the problem the reddit guy in OP had.

If we, users of bitcointalk.org and people who have a good grasp of what's going on, are debating it then new users are that much more disadvantaged.  Please, continue to make whatever argument but my previous sentence is the answer to whatever humph-grumph you come up with.

It seems to me like people who have a good grasp will always debate things more than people with no grasp...

Mike Hearn saying blockchain.info could be "the next MyBitcoin" and saying you aren't serious about bitcoin if you have an iPhone is what I've been debating against. It's FUD. There are fundamental differences in how blockchain.info is built that make most of those issues of MyBitcoin non-existent. The iPhone doesn't even have many of these issues, so I really don't understand the attack on the jailbroken app. Additionally, these are different problems than the reddit post's problem with waiting for synchronization.

Bitcoin isn't even 1.0 yet and the synchronization problem is being worked on. 0.8 has major improvements in the time it takes to synchronize which make the reddit post moot.  No web-provider needs to be trusted or chrome extension checked because the satoshi client will not take very long.  However, I'd still say that a web wallet is much easier for the vast majority of users to use.

Installing a program that handles the blockchain and manually managing backups is always going to be more effort than creating an account that can be easily accessed from any web browser and automatically handles secure wallet backups.  This is why I think that promoting secure web wallets is a good idea.

Also, having a large number of users with a ton of coins on a secure web wallet like blockchain.info is not a security risk when they can VERY EASILY move the private keys anywhere else.  Especially considering that even if the site is compromised, it can only reveal the private keys for users that log in without checking the chrome extension.

If the chrome extension were promoted more and had a very large flashing red warning that completely disabled the page when a change is detected, I think that is enough to completely negate Mike Hearn's worries.  If the extension is not detected, every page should have an alert at the top with instructions for installing it.

[Mike Hearn]

OK, it's good that MultiBit can import blockchain wallet backups, that definitely helps a lot. It'd be nice if the earliest key time was included so there's no need to scan from the genesis block.

Also, it's been a while since I saw the iPhone app, but my impression was you needed to log in to blockchain.info for it to work. That is, if the site goes away, then it won't start up anymore. If that's not the case then I take it back.

Re: the extension. I think rather than making the extension give even scarier warnings, it'd be better to just turn it into a Chrome app that has a gitian-style bootstrap script. Stefan prototyped something like that which fits in a bookmarklet so it's not Chrome specific - very cool if rather unorthodox. I'm not sure if you can train users to always navigate to the app by clicking a bookmarklet given that no other software works that way.

Of course, if you go this route, is it really any different to just having a regular downloadable app? It's not a normal web app anymore.

The problem with having an extension that says "Something changed, watch out!" is that it's not going to work. This isn't debatable, if you think this will work you need to spend an evening reading usability studies of SSL in web browsers. For something like 90% of its history HTTPS simply had no effect despite all the fancy maths because all (seriously, all) users clicked through the warnings when something went wrong. Even since browsers have moved to big red screens that say "Don't proceed!" as plainly as possible, the clickthru rate on Chromes self-signed SSL cert interstitial is 60% - despite that accepting a self signed cert completely defeats the point of SSL.

It's better to just silently accept an upgrade if it's been signed by multiple independent parties and hard reject if not.  The hard reject should never happen in normal operation. Matt has something like this in a pull request for Bitcoin-QT and I hope it's the way every client goes.

The point about privacy seems to have been missed. It doesn't matter if you mix coins. The site still knows all your addresses and your transactions. The mixing is intended to make it harder for other people who are NOT the hosted wallet site to figure things out. Yes, if the privacy loss doesn't concern you, then I agree it's no big deal.

All the points I raised can be fixed with code. But once all that is done, what you'll have is a standard SPV client that talks directly to the P2P network - basically a MultiBit that's implemented in HTML/JS. Electrum is going through this process now.

[jimbobway]

This is a wireframe of what the front page of bitcoin.org should look like:



Edit: I still think Multibit needs encryption still.

[acoindr]

Nah it should look like this:



The further Bitcoin moves to the mainstream the less tech-savvy users will be. Even downloading and installing correctly can be a challenge.

[jimbobway]

Nah it should look like this:
The further Bitcoin moves to the mainstream the less tech-savvy users will be. Even downloading and installing correctly can be a challenge.

Can't see graphic.

EDIT:  I see it with this url:  img831.imageshack.us/img831/1186/bitcoinwireframe2.png

[Red Emerald]

Nah it should look like this:



The further Bitcoin moves to the mainstream the less tech-savvy users will be. Even downloading and installing correctly can be a challenge.

+1

[Sukrim]

Sorry, but bitcoin is a 0 trust system. You need to make people aware of whom they are trusting and what is important to keep private/to themselves in each case.

With blockchain.info, you trust that their website is malware free and that they don't snoop on you themselves.
I haven't looked into Multibit, but it seems like a "lite" client, so you trust someone else who has the full blockchain to not lie to you I guess.
With Bitcoin-QT all you have to care about is that only you have access to the wallet.dat file (which is hidden in a place that is VERY inconvenient for new users btw. - I recently read about someone who installed Bitcoin to the desktop, then backed up this folder and reinstalled Windows, thus loosing his whole BTC, even though he backed up the Bitcoin folder that he explicitly put in a prominent location to remind him to keep it!). The downside is that you have to download quite a few blocks (currently all, in the future probably all since the last hardcoded checkpoint) before the software even lets you get going.

I'd rather have a link to an even more recent "bootstrap.dat" file on various P2P networks + HTTP locations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metalink) and a button inside Bitcoin-QT to verify from genesis for the paranoid instead of advertising solutions that require far more trust in some operators of webservices.

Also a hard spec for wallet files (how to store private keys for Bitcoin) should be discussed and maybe written as a BIP so different clients have a standard format to export/import wallets.

[jimbobway]

I think coinbase is easier than blockchain for beginners. 

[Orbit45244]

I've been trying to put off writing on this subject because it is a source of massive debate and flamewars in the Bitcoin community, however this user's thorough writeup of his experience has spurred me to record my thoughts on this subject.

The Bitcoin community seems to be at a theological crossroads, and the direction we take at this crossroad will have a huge impact on Bitcoin's future. On one side of the crossroads we have the more technical, more distributed approach. On the other side of the crossroads we have the more user friendly, less technical approach. Each camp hates each other, and refuses to acknowledge the benefits of each approach and work together.

The more technical approach argues that the only client that can be trusted is the main, bitcoin.org Bitcoin client. They argue that this client is superior because it has been reviewed by many, many people, and it ensures that Bitcoin is decentralized because each client acts independently of each other and has their own copy of the block chain. The more technical approach argues that each client having to download and maintain a copy of the block chain is a good thing, as it ensures the distributed nature of Bitcoin, and makes the network less susceptible to a man-in-the-middle attack by shared wallets.

The less technical approach argues that the difficulty of entry into Bitcoin with the bitcoin.org client is simply too much, and that it scares people away from Bitcoin. They argue that people on the internet have a short attention span, and many newcomers to Bitcoin will simply not wait for the block chain to download. They promote the use of alternative clients and web wallets as the solution to a new user's woes, as many alternative clients and web wallets work instantly and do not require people to wait hours to download the block chain. The less technical approach acknowledges that these alternative clients and web wallets harm the distributed nature of the Bitcoin network, but they maintain that for new users this risk is offset by the fact that adoption of Bitcoin is easier using the less technical approach.

I see no reason why these two approaches can't exist simultaneously. I tend to agree with the less technical approach's solution to new users, and I think that bitcoin.org needs to promote a "New User" approach that advocates the use of a single alternative client, one that has been approved by the Bitcoin community at large, and that advocates the use of a single web wallet, one that has been approved by the Bitcoin community at large. I also agree with the more technical approach that Bitcoin needs to maintain an option for "Advanced Users" that advocates the use of the bitcoin.org client, as this is essential to maintaing the Bitcoin network's distributed nature. This dual-user approach has been discussed previously in this thread.

Bitcoin is at a crossroads. Many new users are downloading the bitcoin.org client every day, only to be put off by the client's user unfriendliness. This is causing Bitcoin to be labeled more and more as a geek subculture, and a niche. The fact is that Bitcoin is useful for everyone, we just need to empower new users by giving them the tools they need to get tied into the Bitcoin ecosystem. We need to do this quickly, or else we will depart down the crossroads, and the public perception of Bitcoin will already be that it is a niche. We need to stop this stupid infighting, and ideological warfare, and advocate an approach that takes the best parts from both approaches, and leaves the bad parts behind.

[justusranvier]

I would never maintain a large balance on a hosted wallet, no matter how nice, but for small purchases or for a first time user I think blockchain.info is perfect. It's very easy to use and has a lot of polish.

However people who move on to managing larger sums should learn how to use cold storage and offline transactions for security, which means a standalone client.

[sunnankar]

The further Bitcoin moves to the mainstream the less tech-savvy users will be. Even downloading and installing correctly can be a challenge.

I created the Free Bitcoin Guide and directly influenced tens of thousands of people regarding Bitcoin, thousands have download the free guide and many have started using Bitcoin as a result for transactions.

The guide is targeted at new users with medium technical competence. I would greatly appreciate input and suggestions about how to improve the guide in order to increase the conversion rate (measured by people who engage in an actual Bitcoin transaction divided by those that download the guide).

[marcus_of_augustus]

Nah it should look like this:



The further Bitcoin moves to the mainstream the less tech-savvy users will be. Even downloading and installing correctly can be a challenge.

This is good start but maybe have more options for the Easy, Medium, i.e. other web wallets, etc, Electrum, Amory (which would actually be my pick for "Advanced")

More importantly needs to spell out level of trust required since the "Advanced" is also the zero-trust "be your own bank" option whilst the Quick-Start is the possible "shut-up and take my money web-scammer" option  ....

[bg002h]

The answer is FU.CK YOU. Everybody is able to wait one or two days downloading the last brand new videogame in their bittorrent client, or the last blockbuster movie but is too lazy to wait a day for the blockchain to download.

Only a day downloading and a new economy will be available for the user. And they still complain.  

Congrats. You just made my iggy list.

[MemoryDealers]

I think it is also important to note that the Blockchain.info code is open source:

https://github.com/blockchain


I think Blockchain is superior to Coinbase because if Blockchain.info were to be hacked,  only a small number of users who actively logged in while the server was compromised would lose their coins.


If Coinbase is hacked,  all their online funds could be stolen.  (I learned this the hard way with Bitcoinica)
There is also nothing stopping a court order from seizing their cold storage backups from the safety deposit box at the bank.


With Blockchain, those are not issues.

[Red Emerald]

I think it is also important to note that the Blockchain.info code is open source:

https://github.com/blockchain


I think Blockchain is superior to Coinbase because if Blockchain.info were to be hacked,  only a small number of users who actively logged in while the server was compromised would lose their coins.


If Coinbase is hacked,  all their online funds could be stolen.  (I learned this the hard way with Bitcoinica)
There is also nothing stopping a court order from seizing their cold storage backups from the safety deposit box at the bank.


With Blockchain, those are not issues.

+1

Coinbase does keep around 90% of their funds encrypted in a bank safe, so that limits the damage a hacker, but not a malicious employee can do.  Blockchain.info cannot run off with your funds, and I think this is a very important point.

[andrew12]

Yeah, the block chain size is quite ridiculous, with clients like MultiBit and Electrum, you don't have to download the entire chain.

[jimbobway]

Some more first time painful bitcoin experiences I have been asked:

what is the intention of Bitcoin? Is it supposed to be - eventually - for dummies like myself or is it just for those individuals who are code and algorithm writers? I downloaded a wallet but how do I know if I need more software or a massive computer system to solve "the problem" for the next block? With all the talk of mathematical problem solving on a world wide network of computers I can't see a small laptop figuring out anything thus not gaining any bitcoins. Why should I be interested in this if it appears it's just for computer scientists?

hi, instaled bitcoin qt, but after it dowladed all the stuff, now i get DEP protecction from windows, and it tells me bitcoinQT need to run with DEP on, dont let me make an exception for it, nor work it i turn DEP only for sys, so hwat i should do?

hi, i'm new to bitcoin, i got a bunch of free bitcoins from a bunch of the free sites. how come when i tried to send my bitcoins to myself, it says the fee exceeds the balance? I thought there was no fees?

Is there a way to speed up the process of synchronisation with the network? It has been taken ages on my MAC.

Any help would be nice

Houston, we have a problem...

[Sukrim]

Most of these are because of bad marketing.

Nearly every source also mentions mining as one of the main sources of Bitcoins and often goes far more into detail with that instead of focussing on the actual use cases of Bitcoin itself.

Also very often the "NO FEES, FREE MICROTRANSACTIONS, F*CK PAYPAL" attitude comes along additionally - this is not true now in some cases and will never be true in the future (when block rewards go down further and further).

Synchronisation will be sped up by the use of bootstrap.dat soon(tm) and I don't know if 0.8 does some additional magic with that. I also further looked into Metalinks and it seems one can even PGP-sign them - so if you trust the main bitcoin devs to compile the client for you, you could also trust them to give you a fairly recent copy of the blockchain along with it.

[jimbobway]

Most of these are because of bad marketing.

There is a learning curve to bitcoin. Is it possible to reduce this learning curve? For example, when I bought my iPhone everything 'just worked' because Steve Jobs focused on the user experience when he developed his products.  How can we make bitcoin secure while at the same time usable by anyone?