Any newbies here who heard of Bitcoins, but found it was underwhelming?

[calista]

and decided not to participate?

between all the problems with mt gox, hacking, speculation, hoarding, price crash, not a viable currency etc...

i understand where you are coming from really.

anyone in this boat?

[Sannyasi]

heh- i see all this craziness as an opportunity....

[ectoendomezo]

Forums make me nervous..I say this every time and too..sorry if I do this "Wrong"..

But..that being said..I'll be yer Huckleberry.

Okay..first of all;

"Product"

As a "Product Guy" who grew up in "Product"..has developed..sold..collected..obsessed..and been generally fascinated with "Stuff" of varying sorts from "Intellectual" to "Physical" to Nonsensical..I have to say that..at this time..a Glaring..Massive.."Sink Hole" exists in the "BTC Community".

And that can..In My PerSop be best Described as the Total..Lack of:

"Writing For An Ignorant Peer".

This "Axiom" of Marketing..specifically the 'Salad Days" of Marketing..is not intended to be "Angry" it just sounds that way.

What it means is:

"Please Do Not Assume That Your Peers (Customers, Citizens Etc..) Know Anything About The Product They're Holding/Buying/Assembling/Interested In/Fascinated By. You Must Respectfully Assume That They Need Instruction On Every Aspect and Facet."

This has not been done in this instance.

And It Shows.

Big Time!

Boo-Yah!

I do Hereby Propose:

"The Little Golden Book Of Bitcoin".

I'm actually..serious.

This could be..Could..Be..Done really..Really..Well.

As a Little Golden Book..all that great old "Aesop Art" has been stolen and Canned by Adobe so..its present and awaiting use.

"Jack Is basically A Bohemian Country-Boy. In Essence Jack Despise Centralized Top-Down Hierarchical Power Structures That Consolidate Power..Y'know..Like PayPal."

"Jill Is More Moderate..But Being Curious And A Free Spirit..Is Also Fascinated By The Potential Of An Autonomous Financial Network."

"Jack And Jill Discover Bitcoin."

"But What A Bummer. Its Confusing. Jack Asks Jill; 'Do We Leave The Client On All The Time Like Utorrent? Like We Were Downloading Star Trek TOS Remastered?"

"Jill Says She 'Doesn't Know' And IS Growing Ever More Frustrated. Jill Thinks She's Starting To 'Get' Why Everyone Just uses PayPal".

Okay..you get the gist.

Bottom line is a "Stylized" Guide Could Be Produced..if I had a Work ethic (X-er With A Waldorf School Education..Sorry) I'd Attempt it. But see..I'd Also need to know the "Answers".

And I Admit..Sadly..as yet I still Do Not.

Okay..I thusly Do Propose "Solution 2" to the "Underwhelmed Scenario/Bug":

A Real Community Effort (This One?) To Labor To Produce:

"The Users Guide To Bitcoin".

Short. Visually Interesting..and there must be NO.."Assumptions Of Computer Arrogance Or Understanding" (Perhaps a 'Gentle Disclaimer' to that effect: "You..Should..Be At Minimum 'Torrent Wise' Or Else At This Stage Of Its Evolution Bitcoin Will Be A Drag For You!" Etc..)

The Arrogance of Others is a Turn Off. The Confusion and almost total lack of "Unified Instructions" is Frustrating. Thats Okay in a Way..it's like a "Mohawk" or "Pircings" or Lots Of Tattoos..its "Crowd Control" and that's not only "Fine" in many respects its Awesome! truly. But..then the question immediately Becomes "Is Tis For everyone Or Just Those Truly Searching For Some Autonomy and Privacy?"

For Me?

Okay..Here's a Clue for any of you "Team Members" out there..Market Research:

For me? Autonomy and Privacy and "Rights" as a "bi-product" of this Idea/Creation/New Paradigm..ARE WORTH IT! No Joke. I'll deal wit the "Learning Curve" and my general disinterest in Forums et al for the Single Sole Pleasure of:

"Access To This Technology And System Because It Is Inherently Straight-Up 'Founding Fathers' Level Autonomy Based!"

Just That Simple.

But for Generation Eloi/Plug n'Play? And..AND..most importantly..for the Boomers out there? Like My Therapist In Her 60's? Instructions are simply "Absolutely Required" And the "Wiki" is like Radio Repair Instructions. Neither Sufficient..Nor..frankly.."Worthy" to the task of "Really"..Explaining the "Situation" and the "Process".

Not even close.

I hope that Answers the question for you somewhat. It was My Pleasure to assist.

[Ratman2050]

and decided not to participate?

between all the problems with mt gox, hacking, speculation, hoarding, price crash, not a viable currency etc...

i understand where you are coming from really.

anyone in this boat?

Besides the hacking, it's basically like the Stock market. This is a very volatile stock so to speak, consider Bitcoins like an IPO, but there is no CEO to tell you what is going on, the Bitcoin CEO is essentially anyone and everyone who uses bitcoins. Thus, individuals have to study what people are saying and doing right now. As well as look at trends.

The best way to understand and grasp this concept is to read as much as you can. This is a NEW thing and to get ahead of the game, YOU have to acquire knowledge before others and APPLY that knowledge to succeed.

Like anything else, it requires HARD work, and that's why most people are skeptical about bitcoin. Just because early adopters made bank right now, people think it's a get rich scheme and are saddened when they find out later that it's not.

[DaNmarner]

BitCoin is many things to different people, I suppose.

To some, it's an investment/stock option;
to some, it's an incentive to build monstrous GPU clusters for fun;
to some, it's a way to utilize their idle time of the gaming machines;
to some, it's a marketing channel for their business;
to some, it's a academic study;
to some, it's a tool to bypass the government and somewhat liberate themselves financially.

[Atom]

ectoendomezo, fantastic idea - Are you interested in doing it?  Atlas & I have been trying to figure out a way to make the admittedly somewhat foreign concept of Bitcoins (Unbacked, Non-Fiat, Person to Person Virtual Currency) more easily accessable, and the Golden Book concept is a very good one.  If you do plan on doing it, let us know any way we can help!

@OP - I was able to purchase my first BTC a few days ago and spent most of my time haggling, finally landed a few at $18/BTC, but most of the people I spoke with wern't even willing to talk about less than $25 - Those are prices off craigslist, and I saw some for as high as 40/btc as a firm price.

The demand for BTC is bottlenecked right now because it's so difficult to get any amount of money into the market, AND the exchanges are pretty amateur hour which makes it scary to put money with them.   But if you want an answer to your question, go look at how many people are selling stuff for BTC vs. how many people are buying stuff with BTC at any of the auction sites or forbitcoin.com, etc.     We discussed this in today's first episode of BitTalk with Atom & Atlas (shameless plug ^.^)

[hashmaker]

Being new to the bitcoin community I spend a lot of time reading and reading. I can say that I read just as many pro's as I do con's, but I think it is worth the time to check out, even if i don't have anything in my wallet.

[Atom]

Being new to the bitcoin community I spend a lot of time reading and reading. I can say that I read just as many pro's as I do con's, but I think it is worth the time to check out, even if i don't have anything in my wallet.

Welcome to the club, here's a dime for a fellow newbie.  If you want to return the favor you can listen to the first episode of BitTalk we just released (in my sig)

[hashmaker]

Thanks much, checking out your show as speak, good stuff, it has certainly piqued my interest.

[Atom]

Bitcoins are only as valuable as the currency they're tied to (USD). That only invalidates the necessity of using Bitcoins. Why not just use regular money, accepted by many countries around the world and backed by the largest economy on Earth?

This is incorrect.   Bitcoins are only as valuable as what people are willing to give you in exchange for them.   That could be currencies, but it could also be services - Look at the various funding options available on any of the exchanges, and you'll find that while most of the transactions happen in USD you can in fact use a variety of currencies to get in, and that's not even to speak of the rapidly expanding variety of goods and services you can find on the variety of auction/classified sites.   I sold someone $10 face value in 90% pre-1964 silver coins for 1.5btc/1$face, is that a USD transaction?

[GamblingPurveyor]

I have a [em]ahem[/em] restricted product to peddle (see my username). I can't afford to be picky about little things like price instability and hacked exchanges. As long as I can sell Bitcoins for real money, I can accept them like real money.

[Atom]

I wasn't saying there wouldn't be people like GP, I was just saying that the relationship wasn't exclusively people like GP.  The more services offered, the closer we get to a BTC standard offered alongside a USD standard, eventually the whole thing disconnects except at the fringes.  

The USD is special now in that it's the worlds reserve currency.   How much longer you think that lasts with $1,500,000,000,000 and rising in new money printing annually.

[GamblingPurveyor]

Based on rumors that I've heard about the Federal Reserve, I think USD might be in a similar position as Bitcoin vis-a-vis shareholders that are sitting on a large enough pile that they can crash the market if they want. We already know about China, but how many Fed-gifted USD is JP Morgan Chase sitting on?

(My apologies if you find the market I serve to be somewhat... unsavory.)

[Atom]

I'm not sure you'll find much problem with what you're offering GP, as long as you're not forcing anyone to play with you or lying to them about what they're getting into.

Regarding the situation with the hoarding, we actually talk about that at length during the first episode of BitTalk, including why BitCoin is NOT in the same situation as the USD (short version: because of the finite number of BTC, even MASSIVE influxes would only disrupt the market temporarily, wheras with the dollar since it is being printed at a rate of more than 1,500,000,000,000/yr just to keep up with US government debt, it's the equivilent of a massive disruption on a daily basis, except since it's done with very little transparency it takes months for it to work its way through the system in terms of inflation.   With BTC everything is in the open, and there really is no debt to speak of -  The comparison is apples and landmines)