State of the Real Bitcoin Economy

[ErisDiscordia]

Women are the answer.  

Hey what a refreshing perspective! I agree with you on many levels. I don't think Bitcoin is that difficult to use, with a fancy interface it could be possible!

[matt4054]

We should expect "[ANN][WMC] WomanCoin" in the Alt-coins subforum pretty soon

[YOKU]

Only issue we face as a merchant selling internet services like vps servers for BTC is no auto recurring payments or subscriptions..  This means the client gets an invoice each month and has to make a btc payment to the account or pre-pay.

[jaywaka2713]

Honestly, my opinion is keen to yours. The economy is horrible.

I run my own business MyOwnAddress and I try to generate cheaper custom addresses for people I want to introduce into Bitcoin, but there currently is no easy way for them to acquire the Bitcoin to pay for it in the first place. The average person doesnt get paid, but to acquire their money, they don't need to go to MoneyGram and deal with a service who is horrible to work with, initiate a market trade, then export their money to a Bitcoin wallet (which in itself is an hour long transaction). Acquiring Bitcoin needs to be as easy as putting money into an ATM and getting Bitcoin out. It needs to be as easy as downloading a wallet app compatible with an ATM and then having the ATM directly send money to that wallet.

I also think confirmation time needs to be reduced.

[RationalSpeculator]

Current bitcoin investors hope to get as much coin as possible before the majority join the game, regardless of price. They are currently heavily invested in mining equipment instead of buying, because the historical return is higher, but when more mining equipment were made and the per equipment return dropped below the cost, some of them will start to buy coins

Is that really true that historical returns of mining have been higher than outright buying of btc?

I have the impression it has been the inverse. Do you have more info on this?

[QuestionAuthority]

Current bitcoin investors hope to get as much coin as possible before the majority join the game, regardless of price. They are currently heavily invested in mining equipment instead of buying, because the historical return is higher, but when more mining equipment were made and the per equipment return dropped below the cost, some of them will start to buy coins

Is that really true that historical returns of mining have been higher than outright buying of btc?

I have the impression it has been the inverse. Do you have more info on this?

Not really. I think the returns for a savy trader far outstrip that of a miner. I guess it would depend on many factors and your personal philosophy/skill level. The only absolute difference that I can see is when you mine at a pool you don't have to jump through the hoops of approval to deposit cash for a buy.

[Itcher]

Women are the answer

Great! I am thinking about so much, but I forgot the women ... women were it who made the web become web2.0, so - you are so right! how many women are on bitcointalk? One of hundred?

[alyssa85]

even after 3 years he only knows of 3 main places that sell legitimate products for bitcoins. although i know that there are over 10,000. no one truly knows them all..

The point is that a "real economy" is larger than just "selling legitimate products".  We can build businesses all day long that sell legitimate products, but if none of them ever expand beyond the point of immediately cashing out into some other currency in order to pay suppliers and employees, they will eventually fail and the Bitcoin economy will simply be worse off for the experience.

If there really are 10,000 legitimate Bitcoin businesses (which I doubt), then why are you the only one who knows about them?  Why aren't there more than a few of them in only two areas trading Bitcoins with each other?

If you Google, you'll find various lists of bitcoin businnesses, some more helpful than others. Here's a useful one aimed at new adopters.

I personally think food is the  key. When people can buy groceries with bitcoins it will go mainstream - it's not just women who buy food :-).

[jaywaka2713]

If you Google, you'll find various lists of bitcoin businnesses, some more helpful than others. Here's a useful one aimed at new adopters.

I personally think food is the  key. When people can buy groceries with bitcoins it will go mainstream - it's not just women who buy food :-).

Your link is broken...

[bitster]

First off iam a big BTC supporter but the economy is BEYOND PATHETIC and here's why in no particular order.  
1. A BTC atm/vending machine even tho they exist their isn't a single location anywhere in the world. i don't care about regulatory problems make it happen.
2. A service provider that makes it easy for the customer and merchant to do a transaction the provider should except the payment and then give the payment to the merchant at a later time.
3. Wells Fargo, paypal, google "thinking about" using BTC but not a single big company using it. If you had any doubt that big corps are run by establishment a holes here's your proof.
4. Volatility bitcoiners need to use BTC to buy that new car without going to fiat first. Car salesmen doesn't except BTC let him know that he lost a sale but whatever you do don't play their fiat game.
5. People selling to low it brings the price down and makes people that are not in BTC think of it as a joke and this means less adoption. What we need most in this area is stability of at least $100.
Bitcoin has more problems but i need to get back to work

[ajk]

I havent really been following the discussion but have a bit to add

Just saw Bitcoin ETF being mentioned on CNBC

Bright future ive been a bull since day one and that will never change

not to mention all the ATMs that are going to be in place,

New Money INCOMING!!!, Hold your bitcoins so that you can benefit from it

[Gabi]

If women want to use bitcoin they they should do something about that, bitcoin is free and open source! 

[IIOII]

If women want to use bitcoin they they should do something about that, bitcoin is free and open source! 

Most women are more conservative and are not early adopters esp. not in technical fields. Bitcoin first has to be more mainstream for women to pour in.

To achieve that usability and accessibility has to improve.

[jaywaka2713]

If women want to use bitcoin they they should do something about that, bitcoin is free and open source! 

Most women are more conservative and are not early adopters esp. not in technical fields. Bitcoin first has to be more mainstream for women to pour in.

To achieve that usability and accessibility has to improve.

And what suggestions do you have about such improvement?

[IIOII]

If women want to use bitcoin they they should do something about that, bitcoin is free and open source! 

Most women are more conservative and are not early adopters esp. not in technical fields. Bitcoin first has to be more mainstream for women to pour in.

To achieve that usability and accessibility has to improve.

And what suggestions do you have about such improvement?

I think there are some initiatives already underway.

If Bitcoincard gets finished it will be huge leap for adoption. The same for ATMs.

Maybe non-technical people will prefer bitcoin-banking services over holding the bitcoins themselves. (Not what I prefer though.)

[jaywaka2713]

If women want to use bitcoin they they should do something about that, bitcoin is free and open source! 

Most women are more conservative and are not early adopters esp. not in technical fields. Bitcoin first has to be more mainstream for women to pour in.

To achieve that usability and accessibility has to improve.

And what suggestions do you have about such improvement?

I think there are some initiatives already underway.

If Bitcoincard gets finished it will be huge leap for adoption. The same for ATMs.

Maybe non-technical people will prefer bitcoin-banking services over holding the bitcoins themselves. (Not what I prefer though.)

I thought bitcoincard was already finished?

http://thebitcoincard.co.uk/

[halfawake]

If women want to use bitcoin they they should do something about that, bitcoin is free and open source! 

Most women are more conservative and are not early adopters esp. not in technical fields. Bitcoin first has to be more mainstream for women to pour in.

To achieve that usability and accessibility has to improve.

And what suggestions do you have about such improvement?

I really think a big improvement that could be made to Bitcoin would be either compressing the blockchain or removing old transactions from it.  If anyone wants to download a full client, it takes forever to download the blockchain initially.  The initial download took me three days, that was when it was 7 GB, it's since grown to 9 GB.  If I weren't such a geek, I'd have probably given up right there.  It's a big hit to usability to have such a long download time before you're even able to use a full client. 

[benjamindees]

If you Google, you'll find various lists of bitcoin businnesses, some more helpful than others. Here's a useful one aimed at new adopters.

I count around 40 businesses on that page.

[jaywaka2713]

And what suggestions do you have about such improvement?

I really think a big improvement that could be made to Bitcoin would be either compressing the blockchain or removing old transactions from it.  If anyone wants to download a full client, it takes forever to download the blockchain initially.  The initial download took me three days, that was when it was 7 GB, it's since grown to 9 GB.  If I weren't such a geek, I'd have probably given up right there.  It's a big hit to usability to have such a long download time before you're even able to use a full client. 

That is a very good idea. However, how would one compress or remove old transactions at a constant rate while verifying that the Bitcoins in each wallet got there through valid means? Say we filter all transactions more than 21 days back? Couldnt someone just generate a wallet, fake a transaction with a timestamp of more than 21 days, and be able to spend those coins?

[halfawake]

That is a very good idea. However, how would one compress or remove old transactions at a constant rate while verifying that the Bitcoins in each wallet got there through valid means? Say we filter all transactions more than 21 days back? Couldnt someone just generate a wallet, fake a transaction with a timestamp of more than 21 days, and be able to spend those coins?

You've got a good point here, removing old transactions definitely reduces the transaction security.  You may not need to do both, after all, compression may very well be enough, at least for now.  After all, the blockchain is likely just text, so one should be able to achieve a pretty high rate of compression, say 90%, perhaps?  I haven't tried such a project before, so I don't know if that's possible, but if so, it would greatly reduce the amount of time needed to download the blockchain.  If such a compression ratio could be achieved, the blockchain size, or at least while downloading, could be reduced from about 9 GB to 0.72 GB, a significant savings.  Most people have hard drives big enough to hold the full blockchain, so it could always be uncompressed for verification, I think the bigger issue is the download time itself, although I could be mistaken.