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WiseOldOwl (OP)
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October 10, 2011, 05:06:50 PM |
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Is silk road the safest commerce site we have?  ?? If so, maybe they should transition into more mainstream goods, or clone the site with a different purpose. From what I gather, They have -escrow -Reputations -You have to buy a seller title -hedging funds during escrow -If they can sell the most scammer friendly items ever, then they can most likely sell average goods with no problem. Anyways, It dawned on me that despite it being a blemish on the bitcoin surface, it could very well be a strength we haven't been using. What if we flooded it with legitimate stuff, like graphics cards and trillion dollar notes  Just a thought. |
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"This isn't the kind of software where we can leave so many unresolved bugs that we need a tracker for them." -- Satoshi
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Advertised sites are not endorsed by the Bitcoin Forum. They may be unsafe, untrustworthy, or illegal in your jurisdiction.
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sukiho
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October 10, 2011, 05:24:34 PM |
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I thought the same thing, altho there didnt seem to be much interest in anything but drugs, so I didnt want to spend the $100 to join, but if you have the spare cash why not try?
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netrin
Sr. Member
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Activity: 322
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FirstBits: 168Bc
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October 10, 2011, 05:37:17 PM |
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It's an interesting proposition, but I would be afraid to be associated with it. Silk may be a good service for selling commodities anonymously. It is marketed as such. But no merchant with a real world identity and address would touch it. However, if SR published the source code or created a functionally identical sister site for legal goods, I would certainly consider using it.
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MoonShadow
Legendary
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Activity: 1708
Merit: 1007
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October 10, 2011, 05:38:51 PM |
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Drugs are a high value item, wherein privacy is a requirement. It's Silk Road that needs Bitcoin, not the other way around. The reason it looks like it's the only successful model is because, for the time being, shopping online for legal items that are otherwise high value and easy to ship works just fine with credit cards. The only thing that's going to undermine that is if the currency they use loses their trust or the credit card companies lose their trust. A local model that you might pursue is the 'foodie movement' such as raw milk and local honey. With the FDA coming down on raw milk suppliers and contract arrangements, there is room for a revival of the "milk man" who delivers the milk to the foodies from an undisclosed farm.
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"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
- Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'
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WiseOldOwl (OP)
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October 10, 2011, 05:51:09 PM |
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Drugs are a high value item, wherein privacy is a requirement. It's Silk Road that needs Bitcoin, not the other way around. The reason it looks like it's the only successful model is because, for the time being, shopping online for legal items that are otherwise high value and easy to ship works just fine with credit cards. The only thing that's going to undermine that is if the currency they use loses their trust or the credit card companies lose their trust. A local model that you might pursue is the 'foodie movement' such as raw milk and local honey. With the FDA coming down on raw milk suppliers and contract arrangements, there is room for a revival of the "milk man" who delivers the milk to the foodies from an undisclosed farm.
Bottom line is they have the most experience by far in conducting commerce with bitcoin as a medium of exchange. Raw food stuff is not even close to being in a market that is in in the same country of the ballpark I am in lol. I would absolutely never waste my time building a business around that. Not trying to be negative that's just me. |
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MoonShadow
Legendary
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October 10, 2011, 06:04:57 PM |
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Drugs are a high value item, wherein privacy is a requirement. It's Silk Road that needs Bitcoin, not the other way around. The reason it looks like it's the only successful model is because, for the time being, shopping online for legal items that are otherwise high value and easy to ship works just fine with credit cards. The only thing that's going to undermine that is if the currency they use loses their trust or the credit card companies lose their trust. A local model that you might pursue is the 'foodie movement' such as raw milk and local honey. With the FDA coming down on raw milk suppliers and contract arrangements, there is room for a revival of the "milk man" who delivers the milk to the foodies from an undisclosed farm.
Bottom line is they have the most experience by far in conducting commerce with bitcoin as a medium of exchange. Raw food stuff is not even close to being in a market that is in in the same country of the ballpark I am in lol. I would absolutely never waste my time building a business around that. Not trying to be negative that's just me. That's okay. Someone else will. Anyone without a job, but with a minivan that can hold a couple of large coolers, get going. Make your own job. |
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
- Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'
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rainingbitcoins
Sr. Member
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Activity: 728
Merit: 252
SmartFi - EARN, LEND & TRADE
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October 10, 2011, 06:17:34 PM |
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Corner the renegade illegal milkman market now before it's too late.
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Anonymous
Guest
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October 10, 2011, 06:25:04 PM |
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Corner the renegade illegal milkman market now before it's too late.
They killed the milkman and fresh milk for a reason and it wasn't to help Americans. |
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ParrotyBit
Newbie
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October 10, 2011, 07:09:02 PM |
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They killed the milkman and fresh milk for a reason and it wasn't to help Americans.
You left to bring Bitcoin to Alex Jones, but instead you have brought the Alex Jones to Bitcoin! Damn you Costner!!!! |
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MaxSan
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October 10, 2011, 07:33:38 PM |
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There are valid points being made here. I think maybe we can build on them.
1. Drugs are in a league of their own and a regular business would not work under this model.
2. There may be a way to use a system like this for legitimate business to "off-load" goods. Maybe under a sort of copyable model and offer products tax free or such? im not sure exactly but it could have advantages in some situations, quesiton is would a business take this sort of risk.
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MoonShadow
Legendary
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October 10, 2011, 07:44:24 PM |
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quesiton is would a business take this sort of risk.
Not one that is not currently struggling under the "legitimte" system. After all, grocery stores that have to remove their out of date product can write that off their taxes as a corporate loss but then must throw the stuff out. Giving away to a local soup kitchen for near term use is out of the question. If they should do it before the date expires, it's only a donation deduction and not a full loss write off. The people who dive into the dumpster after audit day, however, are the kind of people willing to take the risks; but I don't think that things are quite so bad in America for that to be widespread. |
"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
- Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'
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defxor
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October 10, 2011, 08:29:27 PM |
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The reason it looks like it's the only successful model is because, for the time being, shopping online for legal items that are otherwise high value and easy to ship works just fine with credit cards.
Agreed. Bitcoin needs to focus on its strengths, and that isn't in replicating business models that are successful in non-Bitcoin systems. There are a few low hanging fruits that should get more enough attention: 1) Replace Western Union. Seriously. Their fees are enormous, yet it's usually the only option for resellers of grey area items (modchips for games consoles etc). That these companies haven't already switched to Bitcoin surprises me a lot, they transfer quite a lot of money. 2) Meds. While this exists on Silk Road, there are customers who have no problems buying medication that happens to be prescription only in their country but otc in other countries. It seems "more legal", but they wouldn't want to be mixed up with SR. I think I've seen someone on the forum doing this. 3) VPN services. I'm happy to see that some are now accepting Bitcoin payments, but there are many more that could (should). (Not that I'm advocating doing anything of the above, of course, if it's illegal in your chosen country of residence) |
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MaxSan
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October 10, 2011, 08:45:42 PM |
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quesiton is would a business take this sort of risk.
Not one that is not currently struggling under the "legitimte" system. After all, grocery stores that have to remove their out of date product can write that off their taxes as a corporate loss but then must throw the stuff out. Giving away to a local soup kitchen for near term use is out of the question. If they should do it before the date expires, it's only a donation deduction and not a full loss write off. The people who dive into the dumpster after audit day, however, are the kind of people willing to take the risks; but I don't think that things are quite so bad in America for that to be widespread. I mean a business who puts it down as a loss then "dumps" its by selling it for bitcoins online  Maybe not food but im on about some other products that may be viable |
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netrin
Sr. Member
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Activity: 322
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FirstBits: 168Bc
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October 10, 2011, 08:49:10 PM |
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I believe the exchanges were a necessary early stage in the evolution of the bitcoin ecology, but we need to now focus on transactions that are currency agnostic end-to-end. Bit-pay has the right model and the exchanges are well positioned to accept this role. I would love to use bitcoin as a store of value, but as a merchant, I am more interested in bitcoin as a medium of exchange. I could care less if customers have ever heard of bitcoin. But I value the elimination of counter-party risk. 1) Replace Western Union. Seriously. Their fees are enormous, yet it's usually the only option for resellers of grey area items (modchips for games consoles etc). That these companies haven't already switched to Bitcoin surprises me a lot, they transfer quite a lot of money. We on this forum (perhaps using the OTC web of trust) could implement this guerrilla style. At least major city to major city. A single party could contact various merchants and offer to accept all counter party risk. The merchants would only need to trust one party with whom they have a contract. That party then accepts bitcoin from various senders (customers or other bitcoin savvy middlemen). |
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BkkCoins
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October 11, 2011, 12:46:01 AM |
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1) Replace Western Union. Seriously. Their fees are enormous, yet it's usually the only option for resellers of grey area items (modchips for games consoles etc). That these companies haven't already switched to Bitcoin surprises me a lot, they transfer quite a lot of money.
I'd love to see that and it's something that could work very well but it needs some organization to figure out how, spearhead it, package it and make it widespread enough to be useful. The tough part is that no one is going to bother being an agent unless they get something for it. So you need to allow for that in the fees, and to some extent you end up back at WU rates. (I've used Moneygram several times internationally as a lower cost method) Heck, this recent mobile bitcoin POS service that everyone was excited about just ended up charging merchants the same rates as credit cards but for using Bitcoin. So unfortunately the only way to keep fees low for transactions is to have the parties at each end deal directly and gain from the low rates. Any middleman is going to want 2-3% to cover their efforts. |
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FreeTrade
Legendary
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Activity: 1428
Merit: 1030
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October 11, 2011, 02:30:58 AM |
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Anyways, It dawned on me that despite it being a blemish on the bitcoin surface, it could very well be a strength we haven't been using. What if we flooded it with legitimate stuff, like graphics cards and trillion dollar notes I agree with you - Silk Road does most things right. However it is set up so that it needs to be accessed through Tor, so that's a major usability hit. Someone mentioned a 'sister site' - that's exactly where the opportunity is. A site that runs on the regular old WWW with pretty much the same model as 'Silk Road'/'Ebay Stores', dealing only in uncontroversial goods. See the link in my sig for more info. |
Membercoin - Layer 1 Coin used for the member.cash decentralized social network. 10% Interest On All Balances. Browser and Solo Mining. 100% Distributed to Users and Developers.
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BkkCoins
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October 11, 2011, 02:40:27 AM |
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They should set SR up so you can access it thru the normal web and see legal products. But if you go thru Tor then additional products show up. That way it could handle all products and expand it's customer base dramatically (not sure of the ability to detect if Tor is used though but presuming it can select content based on origin).
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netrin
Sr. Member
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Activity: 322
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FirstBits: 168Bc
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October 11, 2011, 02:58:35 AM |
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Look guys, it's quite simple. A legal entity does not want to be associated with SR. Generally a legit merchant wants to look legit. He might be selling lines of coke to school children in the back, but his front window is clean as a whistle.
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cm68jd
Newbie
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October 11, 2011, 06:25:39 AM |
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1) Replace Western Union. Seriously. Their fees are enormous, yet it's usually the only option for resellers of grey area items (modchips for games consoles etc). That these companies haven't already switched to Bitcoin surprises me a lot, they transfer quite a lot of money.
I'd love to see that and it's something that could work very well but it needs some organization to figure out how, spearhead it, package it and make it widespread enough to be useful. The tough part is that no one is going to bother being an agent unless they get something for it. So you need to allow for that in the fees, and to some extent you end up back at WU rates. (I've used Moneygram several times internationally as a lower cost method) Get bitcoin ATMs that function as normal ATMs and can give fiat currency exchanged from your bitcoin wallet would effectively kill western union. Its user friendly, "intuitive" (because of people's previous experience with ATMs) and does not require a lot of trust (if an ATM was cheating people it would probably be smashed with a bat before it could cheat too many more). |
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