[2013-12-11] CNN: Can Bitcoin replace PayPal?

[nate008]

I don't understand why everyone thinks it's so hard to use bitcoins? And this thing: "At the moment, the Bitcoin experiment doesn't offer simplicity. It complicates matters by people having to understand another way of doing things.". When the telephone came people had to learn it to! And the same applies to the computer and the internet. It might take a while before people uses bitcoin on daily basis, but it will happen.

Ask this the guy who just spent 18k$ as transaction fees for 0.5BTC

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[bryant.coleman]

Ask this the guy who just spent 18k$ as transaction fees for 0.5BTC

It was his own mistake. He was using a brain wallet, and by default the remaining portion of the 0.05 BTC was converted to transaction fee. This fee was divided by 400+ pool members, although a few were honest enough to give them back.

https://blockchain.info/tx/a2d1e19331f4ea274079c94382560bbb4f32165ed647a33adad651a604e7caa2

[nate008]

Ask this the guy who just spent 18k$ as transaction fees for 0.5BTC

It was his own mistake. He was using a brain wallet, and by default the remaining portion of the 0.05 BTC was converted to transaction fee. This fee was divided by 400+ pool members, although a few were honest enough to give them back.

https://blockchain.info/tx/a2d1e19331f4ea274079c94382560bbb4f32165ed647a33adad651a604e7caa2

But you have to agree that it is a turn off for a person that has just got into bitcoins and isn't quite the geek type.
Personal opinion , but if my mother would read about this episode I bet she will not be touching bitcoins too soon , no matter how much I try to explain.

[PenAndPaper]

The press just loves to make titles like "Can bitcoin replace -insert random word-" 

[callem]

I think you're assuming on-blockchain transactions with bitcoin fees - which they definitely wouldn't be doing (except for transfers in/out of the Paypal system)

Then who will use them? If they are going to charge people 4% for BTC transactions, hardly anyone would chose Paypal.

Probably the same 100-or-so million users that use them today!
(For all the same reasons)

[bryant.coleman]

But you have to agree that it is a turn off for a person that has just got into bitcoins and isn't quite the geek type.
Personal opinion , but if my mother would read about this episode I bet she will not be touching bitcoins too soon , no matter how much I try to explain.

That is correct. I hope that the development team does something so that situations like these can be avoided.

What made me sad was the fact that only 4 people were honest enough (out of 400+) to transfer the coins (i.e transaction fee) back to him.

https://blockchain.info/address/1Jt35Ww1GjM9iGyTM8mAyBmCPPdPz7Z35A

[nate008]

But you have to agree that it is a turn off for a person that has just got into bitcoins and isn't quite the geek type.
Personal opinion , but if my mother would read about this episode I bet she will not be touching bitcoins too soon , no matter how much I try to explain.

That is correct. I hope that the development team does something so that situations like these can be avoided.

What made me sad was the fact that only 4 people were honest enough (out of 400+) to transfer the coins (i.e transaction fee) back to him.

https://blockchain.info/address/1Jt35Ww1GjM9iGyTM8mAyBmCPPdPz7Z35A

1% , this is good.
I would have bet on two. The pool operator and a freak of nature.
The crypto community is not as generous as it is vocal.

[Rygon]

But you have to agree that it is a turn off for a person that has just got into bitcoins and isn't quite the geek type.
Personal opinion , but if my mother would read about this episode I bet she will not be touching bitcoins too soon , no matter how much I try to explain.

That is correct. I hope that the development team does something so that situations like these can be avoided.

What made me sad was the fact that only 4 people were honest enough (out of 400+) to transfer the coins (i.e transaction fee) back to him.

https://blockchain.info/address/1Jt35Ww1GjM9iGyTM8mAyBmCPPdPz7Z35A

We need better clients that even a 5 year old can use without screwing up too badly. It'll have to come at some expense (fees, instantaneous transactions, etc), but there is clearly a market for it. The developers should concentrate on the underlying architecture and third parties should be developing more user friendly clients.

[TheButterZone]

Ask this the guy who just spent 18k$ as transaction fees for 0.5BTC

It was his own mistake. He was using a brain wallet, and by default the remaining portion of the 0.05 BTC was converted to transaction fee. This fee was divided by 400+ pool members, although a few were honest enough to give them back.

https://blockchain.info/tx/a2d1e19331f4ea274079c94382560bbb4f32165ed647a33adad651a604e7caa2

In all the time I used brainwallet.org's source, it always set the change to be sent back to my sending address, not to fee. What implementations are people using that they are fucking up their TXes so badly? It seems like I'd have to go light years out of my way to find and use them. Or are people trying to construct raw TXes without knowing WTF they're doing?

[EnderHf]

There is no way that bitcoins will replace paypal even though it sucks its easier to get and recieve and if there are any problems you can get your money back

[mochicoin]

I sure hope so. Fraud doesn't exist for a Bitcoin merchant.

[stompix]

I sure hope so. Fraud doesn't exist for a Bitcoin merchant.

So we go from a few people scamming a few vendors , to a few vendors scamming a lot of people .
Each system has its advantages and its disadvantages , that's why we have lots of payment processors.

[bryant.coleman]

So we go from a few people scamming a few vendors , to a few vendors scamming a lot of people .
Each system has its advantages and its disadvantages , that's why we have lots of payment processors.

The second case is much worse than the first. If we can't prevent this particular problem, then Bitcoin will never become popular with people who sue them to purchase various products online.

[ajax3592]

Precious metals were valuable because they are pretty and easy to form. Now they are valuable because we all think they are. The same could be true of anything else that can't be produced by just anyone.

[bryant.coleman]

Precious metals were valuable because they are pretty and easy to form. Now they are valuable because we all think they are. The same could be true of anything else that can't be produced by just anyone.

Precious metals are valuable because their supply is limited, just like the case of Bitcoin. We just have to improve the security issue. Once we do that, we can take Bitcoin beyond gold.