a new thought experiment: bitcoin's industry identifier

[jimbobway]

You guys might think I am crazy but I think Pizza4Bitcoins.com could be an industry identifier for tangible items if done correctly.  Why?  Well for several reasons.

1.) People aren't willing to spend a lot of their Bitcoins they have saved or generated.  Pizza requires more than a micropayment, but it's not too bad of a price range of around $15.

2.) Right now it is hard to buy small tangible items with Bitcoins online.  If you buy a candy bar online it's $1.00 plus shipping of $5 so it is not worth it as a business model.  With Pizza4Bitcoins, shipping is almost free.  It's almost free because Pizza Hut automatically includes the delivery charge with the order already. 

3.)  People like to eat pizza.

I guess the core of my argument is free shipping for food that comes within 1 hour of ordering online using Bitcoins.  Yummy!

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[jimbobway]

I have thought about microtransactions in relations to Bitcoins, and while the threshold of what minimum payment can be made effectively with Bitcoins is something that is trivial compared to other electronic payment methods, I don't see payments less than $1 USD being effectively transferred without substantial cost in the near future.  Much of that depends on how the transaction fee system evolves as a matter of practice.  If transaction fees remain low, microtransactions will continue to flourish and be exchanged in the network... but don't count on it as a long-term business plan for the future.  Perhaps other systems like Ripple will develop for those transactions that are effectively less than $1 in equivalent wealth transferred.

What ever happened to all the talk of using microtransactions for games, using bitcoins as a virtual currency?  All we need is one social hit game "Bitcoinville" (like Farmville) and Bitcoin will fly like a G6.  Farmville made millions of dollars with people buying it's virtual currency.

[Hal]

I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions.

[kiba]

What ever happened to all the talk of using microtransactions for games, using bitcoins as a virtual currency?  All we need is one social hit game "Bitcoinville" (like Farmville) and Bitcoin will fly like a G6.  Farmville made millions of dollars with people buying it's virtual currency.

We have a group effort at...ummm...Rabbit Doubt but it never come to fruits.

Anyway, I have too many projects...Bitpredict, JStet(a game in cavnas!), and Soulplaying...

Until one of those project is completed, I won't work on any new game.

[MoonShadow]

What ever happened to all the talk of using microtransactions for games, using bitcoins as a virtual currency? 

Bitcoin still works as a micropayment system, for games or otherwise, but as a standardized internal debit system.  Imagine if Farmville switched to Bitcoin, using Mybitcoin.com's internal multi-user online wallet format.

Game sites could do this all day, sending and receiving at will to/from the Bitcoin network, but internally functioning as a 'virtual currency'.  When you're done playing, you could just ask for your balance back and get it in ten minutes or less.  What we need to see happen is for these various online wallet sites to standardize their transactions between themselves, removing another layer of burden from the Bitcoin network.  For example, A.com, B.net and C.org are all versions of online wallets.  A.com is just an online wallet site, B.net is a gaming site and C.org is a market site (I.E. Etsy).  At first, none of these sites trust one another, as none of them have much of a history; so interactions occur entirely over the Bitcoin network.  Eventually, traffic on the Bitcoin network starts to push up the cost of transactions to a level that, from the collective perspectives of websites, justifies the work of interaction.  So each of these sites (and many more) open accounts on each other's sites, funding them largely evenly, and develop a means of automated communication that allows the others to identify addresses that belong to members.  So when a member of A.com wishes to send 50 bitcoin to B.net to fund a game for some time, A.com can tell (without the bitcoin network) that the address used to fund said account is tied to B.net, and can 'credit' the account by reducing the member's A.com account by 50, increasing B.net's account (at A.com) by 50, and then notifying B.net that said 'credit' has occurred.  Given large enough sites, most of the transactions will tend to balance out, and only rarely will the sites have to 'normalize' their agreements using the Bitcoin network.  This saves the sites, and by proxy their members, the associated costs of transactions on the Bitcoin network; and therefore reducing the costs of transactions for all Bitcoin users.

And this is how microtransactions can still occur using Bitcoin even when the cost of transactions are no longer free.

[jimbobway]

Right now I am programming web based virtual worlds for a living, but I signed an NDA so I don't think I can program a web game without losing my job if they found out.

[MoonShadow]

Right now I am programming web based virtual worlds for a living, but I signed an NDA so I don't think I can program a web game without losing my job if they found out.

A non-disclosure agreement?  Really?  Or do you mean a non-compete contract? 

You could present the idea of writing an online game for bitcoin to the company, and if they reject it, get that in writing.  You won't be in competition with an employer that doesn't desire to compete in that market.

[jimbobway]

Right now I am programming web based virtual worlds for a living, but I signed an NDA so I don't think I can program a web game without losing my job if they found out.

A non-disclosure agreement?  Really?  Or do you mean a non-compete contract? 

You could present the idea of writing an online game for bitcoin to the company, and if they reject it, get that in writing.  You won't be in competition with an employer that doesn't desire to compete in that market.

A can't remember what it's called but when I read the contract it sounded threatening.  The thought of doing it for free has crossed my mind.  Shrug.  Kinda busy though.

[Anonymous]

I thought of the possibility of attaching an open id to certain coins. Say you wanted to use super rewards people would do the offers and receive coins. Imagine for example they wanted to use those coins at the bitcoin mmo. If they used the same open id they could withdraw their super rewards to their same open id account at the mmo. That amount of coins could then be only spent in the game to prevent super rewards claiming bitcoin is a cash equivalent. This would then be within the terms of service of virtual currency companies.

Problem solved. There is no need to setup a new id system when open id already exists.