Too many mics not enough MCs - the drop in BTC value

[eMansipater]

The average user is going to want to have something as easy to use as paypal.

The average user will want to use a brand name they're familiar with; if we can continue to convince early adopters that bitcoin is a good idea, eventually PayPal or one of its competitors will start supporting it.  I hope.

Well, it's good to have hope but i seriously doubt that the "old" financial institutions such as classical Banks and institutions connected to them such as Paypal.
As soon as they will realize that Bitcoin is a serious threat to all fiat currencies, they will start fighting. Not soon, i hope.

Some of us don't believe that bitcoin is a massive threat to all other currencies, just an alternative that will exist in parallel to them based on its comparative benefits.  Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, AmEx all exist alongside each other; so does gold and USD; so do hundreds of world currencies and USD.  For the one reason alone that no central authority is likely to issue BTC-redeemable bank notes it is unlikely to me and others that BTC will completely replace/disrupt fiat currency.

Personally I think the best way to understand bitcoin's future role is through market segmentation.  The reason paypal accepts mastercard and visa is that while they are in some sense competitors they are also focussed on a different market--the credit and borrowing market.  Similarly USD, CAD, EURO, etc are accepted because those currencies are focussed on cash and banking rather than digital transfer.  Bitcoin is quite different from other currencies and payment methods, and for that specific reason it is likely to segment rather than destroy the payment market.  People won't likely want personal credit in bitcoin, business loans in bitcoin, etc.  Some people will probably always want government-backed cash.  Some people will want systems that allow and include chargebacks.  But what bitcoin does do, it does better than any previous system or technology.  Thus if it reaches critical mass, payment systems in parallel segments would do themselves significant harm both financially and in lost customers by not accepting it.

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[BitterTea]

Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal all deal in U.S. dollars, which are controlled by the Treasury and Federal Reserve bank. Based on our government's debt, and the method by which they choose to "help" the economy (inflation), the dollar is heading for a crash. I don't have any doubt that the current course is unsustainable. When the inevitable happens, who's going to accept fancy pieces of paper for real goods? Not me, but I'll take Bitcoin instead.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

The average user is going to want to have something as easy to use as paypal.

The average user will want to use a brand name they're familiar with; if we can continue to convince early adopters that bitcoin is a good idea, eventually PayPal or one of its competitors will start supporting it.  I hope.

Well, it's good to have hope but i seriously doubt that the "old" financial institutions such as classical Banks and institutions connected to them such as Paypal.
As soon as they will realize that Bitcoin is a serious threat to all fiat currencies, they will start fighting. Not soon, i hope.

Some of us don't believe that bitcoin is a massive threat to all other currencies, just an alternative that will exist in parallel to them based on its comparative benefits.  Paypal, MasterCard, Visa, AmEx all exist alongside each other; so does gold and USD; so do hundreds of world currencies and USD.  For the one reason alone that no central authority is likely to issue BTC-redeemable bank notes it is unlikely to me and others that BTC will completely replace/disrupt fiat currency.

Personally I think the best way to understand bitcoin's future role is through market segmentation.  The reason paypal accepts mastercard and visa is that while they are in some sense competitors they are also focussed on a different market--the credit and borrowing market.  Similarly USD, CAD, EURO, etc are accepted because those currencies are focussed on cash and banking rather than digital transfer.  Bitcoin is quite different from other currencies and payment methods, and for that specific reason it is likely to segment rather than destroy the payment market.  People won't likely want personal credit in bitcoin, business loans in bitcoin, etc.  Some people will probably always want government-backed cash.  Some people will want systems that allow and include chargebacks.  But what bitcoin does do, it does better than any previous system or technology.  Thus if it reaches critical mass, payment systems in parallel segments would do themselves significant harm both financially and in lost customers by not accepting it.

I agree with you to an extent but you can't compare paypal / visa / mastercard / Amex etc to bitcoin from a currency perspective. They all use USD except BTC. Of course they're not going to have a problem with each other or the government. Where BTC is against all of them.     If you want to compare based on ease of use / flexibility / safety  / acceptance and other things that's fine.

[eMansipater]

I agree with you to an extent but you can't compare paypal / visa / mastercard / Amex etc to bitcoin from a currency perspective. They all use USD except BTC. Of course they're not going to have a problem with each other or the government. Where BTC is against all of them.     If you want to compare based on ease of use / flexibility / safety  / acceptance and other things that's fine.

These are just examples of market segmentation within a relatively similar category.  As payment methods others were already comparing these earlier in the thread, which is why I used them.

Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal all deal in U.S. dollars, which are controlled by the Treasury and Federal Reserve bank. Based on our government's debt, and the method by which they choose to "help" the economy (inflation), the dollar is heading for a crash. I don't have any doubt that the current course is unsustainable. When the inevitable happens, who's going to accept fancy pieces of paper for real goods? Not me, but I'll take Bitcoin instead.

If the American dollar crashes, it won't be because of bitcoin.  So that could definitely expand the demand for bitcoin, but that's just a natural consequence of segmented markets.  When one category goes down, others pick up the slack.  If Visa, Mastercard, etc. all survive such an event, they'll probably just switch their US operations to one of the many other currencies they do business in--and bam! market segmentation scenario for payment methodologies again.  Predictions as to the failure of USD are an entirely independent question to bitcoin-directed antagonism, imho.

[Luke-Jr]

Theory: part of the problem is that MtGox market is assumed to be the value of BTC. As more people are trading outside of MtGox (plus the difficulty in getting MTGUSD), that market has grown less stable, bringing it down. So Bitcoins might be retaining their parity value (or slightly below) in practice, but the effective canonicalization of MtGox market value makes everyone feel it is less. This results in buyers not wanting to pay the asking price, leading to less movement overall, and it all spins downhill...

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

I agree with everything you said in that above post and btc won't kill the USD. I still wouldn't call btc and visa different segments, I think they're more different than that. Especially at this point. But I'm with you on your way of thinking and we don't need to nit pick that one. Still going to be interesting to see the industry / government response when btc grows. I don't see it being too far off. If you remember paypal went from small potatoes to household name in no time. I'm comparing them as methods of money transfer not as currency so I'm not contradicting my previous statement  

[Distribution]

Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal all deal in U.S. dollars, which are controlled by the Treasury and Federal Reserve bank. Based on our government's debt, and the method by which they choose to "help" the economy (inflation), the dollar is heading for a crash. I don't have any doubt that the current course is unsustainable. When the inevitable happens, who's going to accept fancy pieces of paper for real goods? Not me, but I'll take Bitcoin instead.

Yeah, unfortunately with legal tender laws, we're suffering from the effects of Gresham's Law

[kiba]

Why is this in the technical forum?

[eMansipater]

Why is this in the technical forum?

lol, good question.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

Why is this in the technical forum?

Gonna have to Ask Mahkul on that one. Guessing he was browsing this forum and posted here on accident. Oh well.

[ffe]

The average user is going to want to have something as easy to use as paypal.

The average user will want to use a brand name they're familiar with; if we can continue to convince early adopters that bitcoin is a good idea, eventually PayPal or one of its competitors will start supporting it.  I hope.

In fact, there is nothing preventing PayPal from writing their own version of the client that adds a lot of user friendliness and integrates into their system. Bitcoin is just a standard for issuing and validating transactions. It's not about the user interface or where the wallet is stored.

If PayPal can charge for the use of its client, then bitcoin is not even a competitor.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

The average user is going to want to have something as easy to use as paypal.

The average user will want to use a brand name they're familiar with; if we can continue to convince early adopters that bitcoin is a good idea, eventually PayPal or one of its competitors will start supporting it.  I hope.

In fact, there is nothing preventing PayPal from writing their own version of the client that adds a lot of user friendliness and integrates into their system. Bitcoin is just a standard for issuing and validating transactions. It's not about the user interface or where the wallet is stored.

If PayPal can charge for the use of its client, then bitcoin is not even a competitor.

It's a scary thought that a company that sucks as much as paypal could take the bitcoin concept and with their resources tweak it to suit them better and make it known.
Of course it would lose a lot of benefits like anonymity that we want.

[ShadowOfHarbringer]

It's a scary thought that a company that sucks as much as paypal could take the bitcoin concept and with their resources tweak it to suit them better and make it known.
Of course it would lose a lot of benefits like anonymity that we want.

Not so scary as you think.

Paypal probably would never make such thing Open Source. In that case people wouldn't trust it as they trust BTC.
If they did make it open source though, all possible innovations could be implemented in Bitcoin.

Again: Problem solved.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

It's a scary thought that a company that sucks as much as paypal could take the bitcoin concept and with their resources tweak it to suit them better and make it known.
Of course it would lose a lot of benefits like anonymity that we want.

Not so scary as you think.

Paypal probably would never make such thing Open Source. In that case people wouldn't trust it as they trust BTC.
If they did make it open source though, all possible innovations could be implemented in Bitcoin.

Again: Problem solved.

I think you are overestimating the % of the world that cares if something is closed source. Look at the iphone.
Closed source projects are huge and most people don't care. For us yeah, it's a big deal though.

Still I'm not that worried.

[FreeMoney]

What does it even mean for a company to use something like Bitcoin of their own? If the company has a secret backdoor then it isn't like bitcoin at all. If they don't then why not just use Bitcoin itself?

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

What does it even mean for a company to use something like Bitcoin of their own? If the company has a secret backdoor then it isn't like bitcoin at all. If they don't then why not just use Bitcoin itself?

So they can get a bigger cut would be my guess.

For example we send btc for free or a very very small % fee. Paypal on the other hand charges a substantial fee especially when it's not paypal to paypal.

[Zulu]

But seriously its a lack of goods or services.

Yes, this is spot on. Bitcoin could come a long way just catering to just people concerned with personal integrity (especially on the Internet). There's a rapidly growing amount of those these days, especially over here in Sweden. But there has to be real goods and services for them to buy.

[Jered Kenna (TradeHill)]

But seriously its a lack of goods or services.

Yes, this is spot on. Bitcoin could come a long way just catering to just people concerned with personal integrity (especially on the Internet). There's a rapidly growing amount of those these days, especially over here in Sweden. But there has to be real goods and services for them to buy.

It's growing though, it takes time. Since it started there's been quite an increase in real goods sold for btc.

[nofuture]

But seriously its a lack of goods or services.

Yes, this is spot on. Bitcoin could come a long way just catering to just people concerned with personal integrity (especially on the Internet). There's a rapidly growing amount of those these days, especially over here in Sweden. But there has to be real goods and services for them to buy.

It's growing though, it takes time. Since it started there's been quite an increase in real goods sold for btc.

Bitcoin is growing at a phenomenal rate.  The drop from parity over the past 2 months is a healthy correction.   We need more goods and services in direct exchange for BTC.   That is coming that a healthy organic pace and Android apps for person-to-person transfer are under development).    But it will be quite some time before Amazon.com takes bitcoin directly

For more explosive growth what we need is more convertability.  it is too hard to get fiat money in and out of bitcoin.  That is the bottle neck that is preventing the rise to $5/BTC  and higher.  More exchanges much like Mt. Gox will help. Mt. Gox helped get us to  where we are today but something that is easier to use needs to come out.   Just saw an announcement today that britcoin was released to the public for sterling conversion.        That will help. 

the key to explosvie growth is more fluid exhcange between fiat and BTC.  Fiat will continue to co-exist with bitcoin for a long time to come.     What we need is someone to develop a financial service or mechanism to convert BTC and fiat "on the fly" so that a merchant like Amazon.com doesn't even know what you are really paying with.   


Ideally you would have a BTC account that fueles a virtual (or physical) VISA/MASTER card that you could use anywhere.   Think of it has adding backward compability (fiat convenience) to BITCOIN the future of currency.   

[nofuture]

Just think.  If you started out with a 100k BTC and BTC maintained a 50% average growth rate relative to USD you could spend more than 25K USD a month and never deplete your stock of BTC.  Weird but true.