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December 07, 2013, 11:47:56 PM |
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Although I’m a noob on this board ( and yes, this is my first post here, thanks ) I came into the Bitcoin market in early 2010 and mined a few coins on my desktop but lost interest after losing my wallet in a hard drive crash. This was no big deal back then as there was no market for BTC or any need to be concerned about a 50 cent loss (silly me).
I still am amused at the 10,000 BTC-for-pizza story though because it really sums up what it was like to be in Bitcoin in those early days. The whole thing was just a neat little computer novelty that made most of your friends and family laugh at you for even spending time on. Fun yes, but certainly nothing that would ever become a serious money maker, right? (lol)
Even back then, I was more interested in wanting to just buy some coins and go on about my day without having to think about hash rates, processor speeds or CPU cooling systems, but there was really no other way to get them. Here’s the point I’m aiming at. After all the advancements in the past 3+ years, it still seems in many respects as if nothing has changed with the actual market itself since then.
Considering the recent exploding value of BTC and invasion of all the alts, (which woke me back up) it amazes me that there are still NO easy ways to exchange Cash for Coin and that’s one of the main problems with this whole new crypto market.
For most people, there is a serious barrier to entry if you don’t already have Bitcoin and the learning-curve is far too high for many people to even comprehend installation of a wallet, let alone trade in BTC markets.
There is (understandably) a lot of negative talk about us accepting PayPal for our cryptos. However, that has been my main go-to payment method for crypto purchases and has worked out OK because I never would consider rescinding on a deal once I receive my coins. I know there may be others who might, due to the inherent ease of payment reversal as allowed by PayPal, hence the problem I am trying to address with this post.
Crypto sellers on EBay are wising up to making non-refundability a condition of sale, but the prices they are charging (5X to 25X market values) are akin to highway robbery and pose another barrier to this market.
Now, start ups like Ripple are making some headway into the payments market, but they have a long way to go just to build (and have accepted) a global payment system that merchants will actually use. If they intend to create an exchange that will include all of the existing and future alt currencies, that is going to be a fairly large project in itself and one that could take years to develop.
So, what are some of the real alternatives we have available now to exchange cash (USD, Euro, Yen, Pound etc) to buy our alts?
Or is the solution that we all need to get together and create our OWN open-source (banking) system that maintains anonymity along with the promise of fast market trades and low transaction fees that were originally envisioned for this new financial paradigm?
Can’t you just imagine a day when you could have a single, open-source, 500+ alt currency wallet sitting on your desktop (with that many block-chains) and the ability to (anonymously) buy, sell or exchange to any currency in real time? USD or CNY to BTC, LTC (or JNK) anytime you want and then be able to fund a separate account pay your bills without having to divulge the deposit source?
I know that I would like to see an easy and secure way to buy alts (and yes, I’m still buying value alts with PayPal, so hit me up if you want to sell any of the smaller players). My bet is on the future in that just having a solid exchange would make this whole crypto market a substantially better playground for all of us.
Any thoughts?
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