So basically, the state of affairs of buying/selling BTC in US is...

[Tonko]

... that you have a higher chance of getting your goods if you order from some Canadian online pharmacy, or give your credit card number to 800 number from a TV ad at 2 AM.

[1715309301]

1715309301

[MPOE-PR]

Or in other words fucked. Yes, it is.

[Tonko]

Or in other words fucked. Yes, it is.

However, I don't agree with you that US Gov is the major cause. Oh, I don't doubt that they will, once they decide to do so, cause a major damage to BTC economy in the US, maybe also elsewhere, but I don't think that most of the current issues can be attributed to them directly.

Unless you think all US exchanges are covertly operated by CIA or NSA.

Rather, this is IMHO more similar to a sub-prime crisis. Lots of greedy, lazy, technically and otherwise incompetent fucks, apart from stealing, that is.

Needles to say, some elementary aspects of BTC economy appear ridiculous as well. Like buying Samsung Galaxy Nexus priced at 10 BTC, while Amazon has it for half that price in fiat currency; not to mention even deeper discounts that you may get elsewhere, also for fiat.

[SBC]

It's pretty much analogous of the North American Gold Rush. People see potential $$$ and throw up a Twitter Bootstrap or WordPress site to try and cash in. Problem is - then they get the users but the solution can't handle it. Either there are fundamental structural flaws in the business model (E.g. offering fixed price quotes and then having to cancel an order because the price has risen above the spread threshold but still receiving your customers money) or scalability flaws (E.g. not being able to meet or manage demand). The former can be solved by thinking about the problem that you want to address at the outset - the latter is more complicated; even Google admitted that their distributed system that back-ends their search system 'surprised them in unexpected ways' when it came to scaling out. Whether Coinbase falls into the former, the latter or both categories is not clear at this point.

[Tonko]

It's pretty much analogous of the North American Gold Rush.

Not even close, IMO.
During Gold Rush you could always exchange you gold for a fiat. Or at least booze and whoes. You may had some issues getting the fiat but Clint Eastwood was there to protect us and the Amerikan dream was safe.

With BTC you get no fiat, no booze and no whoes. You get some fags in SF to pretend they know how to do anything, but one way or another they fuck you in your butt and get to steal what they wanted in the first place - the damn Bernanke's fiat.

[MPOE-PR]

Not even close, IMO.
During Gold Rush you could always exchange you gold for a fiat. Or at least booze and whoes. You may had some issues getting the fiat but Clint Eastwood was there to protect us and the Amerikan dream was safe.

With BTC you get no fiat, no booze and no whoes. You get some fags in SF to pretend they know how to do anything, but one way or another they fuck you in your butt and get to steal what they wanted in the first place - the damn Bernanke's fiat.

As long as you stay away from children an' their delusions you'll be fine.

[kakobrekla]

Lots of greedy, lazy, technically and otherwise incompetent fucks, apart from stealing, that is.

Nicely put, almost brought a tear in my eye.

[SBC]

With BTC you get no fiat, no booze and no whoes. You get some fags in SF to pretend they know how to do anything, but one way or another they fuck you in your butt and get to steal what they wanted in the first place - the damn Bernanke's fiat.

Very good