Retracted previous statements :)

[bitdragon]

America is not the world - take a wider look

Quote where I said "America".

And isn't it great I can quote myself?

If poor people only use BTC back and forth between each other it would be wonderful, but that isn't going to happen for a long long long time, 10s of years later maybe, MAYBE people will all be tech savvy. MAYBE. But BTC doesn't solve any problems for the majority of people and you know it.

Your whole damn post smells of an American point of view.
Some first job, talking about the merits of a credit card and the wonders of Obama being elected and how it means a whole lot.

[iluvpie60]

Face reality.
At this point, can anyone really say there is something that will catapult Bitcoin straight up like happened months ago?

Bank runs in China, Europe and the US ?
It has already started.

If you use the US dollar as reference for the value of Bitcoin and then claim it has peaked ! The burden is on you to prove it as all odds are against you. And this includes adressing more aspects than who voted for whom in some theater. Money as debt being one of them and how this will continue for ever long ! The trend in Europe of seizing money in peoples account for example. The dwindling value of the US dollar for the past 80 years versus all kinds of benchmarks.

That you mention stock trading as some kind of an alternative and put forth your low % fee with credit cards is ridiculous.
Bitcoin will stay with or without you, so don't worry too much.

From a larger perspective, your reaction has been around for years in bitcoin world, "it has peaked !!!"
It peaked at 1$, definetly peaked at 32$ for a while.. peaked at 100 and then the almighty 1'200, that has to be the peak.

Good luck in your 'first' job !

Thanks. "First Real" job, I am 24 and have worked since I was 14(you get the city to sign a waiver). I worked at amusement parks and ran the games n stuffzzzz(free food is yums).


I didn't say it peaked, you said that I said that. I said it won't have a "to the moon" sharp rise anymore. It might would go up over time assuming demand will continue to grow.

[atp1916]

Once the larger US retail market players get in the game, you could very well see large 'to the moon' spikes.

For example: Let's just say Walmart in a year or 2 from now elects to accept bitcoins because it has integrated the protocol into their POS systems, fixed all tax compliance issues.  Let's also suppose that the core Bitcoin devs have implemented a clever way to increase transaction thoroughput capabilities of the network.


Do you think that the price won't rise even a little?

[iluvpie60]

America is not the world - take a wider look

Quote where I said "America".

And isn't it great I can quote myself?

If poor people only use BTC back and forth between each other it would be wonderful, but that isn't going to happen for a long long long time, 10s of years later maybe, MAYBE people will all be tech savvy. MAYBE. But BTC doesn't solve any problems for the majority of people and you know it.

Your whole damn post smells of an American point of view.
Some first job, talking about the merits of a credit card and the wonders of Obama being elected and how it means a whole lot.

Poor people can be from anywhere.

Sorry America continually donates the most to the poor people in the world. Sorry we continually have to bail out the world when it comes to wars. Sorry we spend the most on our military and you all have to ally with us because if you were our enemy and at war with us your country would be turned into a giant desert after the nukes go off. Sorry we have to continually protect the world from itself. Sorry we broke off from Britain and made the wealthiest country in the world.

It's my first job using my degree, hence the "Real". A colloquial term nonetheless I suppose.

I don't have any fees on anything ever, banks lose money on me and your saying that's a bad thing that I am making banks lose money? Now I have heard of dumb before, but....

[bitdragon]

The poor are already leaving the banks
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/09/why-poor-choose-go-without-bank-accounts/6783/

That they will use Bitcoin is open to debate but the traditional banks are not serving their interests sufficiently.

In the end no one really knows whats going on, but betting on some kind of continuation of the current fiat model seems risky.

[iluvpie60]

Once the larger US retail market players get in the game, you could very well see large 'to the moon' spikes.

For example: Let's just say Walmart in a year or 2 from now elects to accept bitcoins because it has integrated the protocol into their POS systems, fixed all tax compliance issues.  Let's also suppose that the core Bitcoin devs have implemented a clever way to increase transaction thoroughput capabilities of the network.

Do you think that the price won't spike even a little?

Short term I don't really see it happening. By now you can already buy everything you ever wanted using the Gyft system, so I am not really bullish on something increasing sharply when you can already get almost anything at this point. I suppose Walmart would make it easier by not going through Gyft, but I believe Gyft gives you a 3% bonus, so then Gyft would be more beneficial than Walmart accepting it no?

[iluvpie60]

The poor are already leaving the banks
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/09/why-poor-choose-go-without-bank-accounts/6783/

That they will use Bitcoin is open to debate but the traditional banks are not serving their interests sufficiently.

In the end on one really knows whats going on, but betting on some kind of continuation of the current fiat model seems risky.

I don't doubt poor are leaving banks. But a lot of what is going on these days is that there is no interest financing 24/7 on everything it seems with no payments for years. I know so many people who do this, and pay it off before they owe interest.

[atp1916]

Once the larger US retail market players get in the game, you could very well see large 'to the moon' spikes.

For example: Let's just say Walmart in a year or 2 from now elects to accept bitcoins because it has integrated the protocol into their POS systems, fixed all tax compliance issues.  Let's also suppose that the core Bitcoin devs have implemented a clever way to increase transaction thoroughput capabilities of the network.

Do you think that the price won't spike even a little?

Short term I don't really see it happening. By now you can already buy everything you ever wanted using the Gyft system, so I am not really bullish on something increasing sharply when you can already get almost anything at this point. I suppose Walmart would make it easier by not going through Gyft, but I believe Gyft gives you a 3% bonus, so then Gyft would be more beneficial than Walmart accepting it no?

There are too many obscure entities and annoying steps your average consumer has to take in order to go that route.  Your typical US citizen will not go to all of that pain when they can simply use a CC/debit card issued by their bank to pay.

People have been institutionally ingrained toward the whole idea of painless purchasing through POS (real world or virtual) using a debit / credit card that is directly linked to their money supply.  

If someone can use a (for example: Coinbase issued) bitcoin debit card (linked to their bitcoin account) then you will have that starting point of mass adoption.

[glen hodl]

Face reality. Or don't, idk your choice. This is kinda long. Why not. Fun is spelled F U N.

Look at all of the news in the past few months. The IRS classified Bitcoin as property(the judgement everyone was waiting for to see if it was legal or not officially) Check, its there now.

You can buy almost anything you want with BTC now(might have to convert to Gyft for some things).

Some countries have banned it some haven't.

China is basically going to ban it and cause a new price crash on April 15th(Or so I have heard and it really looks to be the case from my own research).

At this point, can anyone really say there is something that will catapult Bitcoin straight up like happened months ago?(no you can't and the comments below prove you can't even form sentences to this question). I will change my mind if someone really gives a good argument for a huge sharp rise in a short period. But I don't see one(comments below show no arguments yet).

Long term, another coin will beat it out, or something better will be invented. It's no secret mining is a completely stupid way of verifying a transaction because all that happens is that tons of computers/gpus/servers/rigs are guessing random numbers until they line up with what is needed. This eventually will cause a tremendous amount of energy waste(right now I am pretty sure all miners are losing money if they are converting into USD right away).

Just because there is a limited supply doesn't mean anything, the demand also comes in somewhere no? Look at the demand right now, price dropped from a high of I dunno 1,135 USD something(not MTGOX  inflated prices) now it is at 445 USD. A lot of people got invested into this when it was going up in price, ever wonder why you only see 3,000 people signed on BTC-E anymore and not 15,000 like they were getting? Demand is dropping, supply doesn't matter if no one wants it.

That being said, if you are one of these people who "put all of their life savings in BTC/Alt coins" I think it is time for a reality check(at least in the short term).

Oh but the Network effect you all scream like babies, tell that to MySpace rofl. Or AIM, or Yahoo, or any other person who held the network majority, its called competition(google it).

Personally, I lost all of my BTC, originally had 5 BTC, turned it into 7 BTC, lost some on a bad trade, lost 45% of my BTC on Cex.io adding "futures options", which I had no idea they were doing(my fault I know). Then I accidentally did a max bet on Just dice and lost most of it, got like .2 BTC left right, then coinex gets hacked rofl... so im down to abotu .05 BTC total.

For reference, my friend put 3,000 bucks into stock at his company and bought in at 43 bucks per, had to hold for a lil while, then sold it at 60 bucks. Kinda wishing I never did this whole BTC thing, it helps people, but it's definitely a super minority of people this helps(for now). I agree it might help poorer countries, but "Ain't nobody got time for that" over there, they are like you know, farming and stealing to eat and survive. So #ya.


Edit 1: Let me also add, BTC it is not very user friendly for the majority of any population. You have to verify a bank account where your Fiat comes from and get a fee charged on you (but Bitcoin itself can have no fees I understand that) So you still have fees for now, so that doesn't exactly help. Fees need to be eliminated or driven down really really low, then you got a fee to withdraw into Fiat also. I understand you can just keep it in BTC, but heres the problem you run into. Say you have 1 BTC, you spend all of it, guess what? Time to pony up and pay more fees to get BTC, now you have to keep track of the flucuations of BTC according to the IRS ruling. Every time you buy or sell any coins for any reason ever, you have to keep track of it, no thanks rofl.

 If Obama can win a majority of a country of 300 million +  and get a second term based on ideas and no substance, how do you expect Bitcoin which is based on substance and some Ideology to win over morons? It won't. Also, the repubbies'cans say the same thing for the past 8 years, they presented their ideas and didn't win anything but the House. Might get Senate this time because Obama lies a lot and ppl get madzzz.


Edit 2: Personally, I incur 0% fees per year on my credit cards. All of them have no annual fee, no fees for bank transfers ever on my cards, no late payment fees ever for an unlimited amount of times, 1 and 2% cash back on everything(one of my cards is 1% but it is MasterCard I have to sometimes use), I get 5% cash back on purchases in the rotating 3 month categories(I  have 4 credit cards all linked to one b ank account, and whichever card has the 5% off of whatever I am buying I use that). So it becomes extremely wrong to advocate Bitcoin be used for rich/middle/lower middle class people. I only make 47,000 a year Salary, I am 24 years old, 2 years out of college and I am at my first "REAL" job, to tell me to use Bitcoin and get some fees converting from Fiat to BTC, then I spend the BTC, then guess what??? I need more BTC, lets incur more fees converting from Fiat to BTC. Don't you see BTC is really for poor people? If poor people only use BTC back and forth between each other it would be wonderful, but that isn't going to happen for a long long long time, 10s of years later maybe, MAYBE people will all be tech savvy. MAYBE. But BTC doesn't solve any problems for the majority of people and you know it.

You would have been better off putting your 7 btc into cold wallet and the HODL  m8

[aminorex]

Once the larger US retail market players get in the game, you could very well see large 'to the moon' spikes.

For example: Let's just say Walmart in a year or 2 from now elects to accept bitcoins because it has integrated the protocol into their POS systems, fixed all tax compliance issues.  Let's also suppose that the core Bitcoin devs have implemented a clever way to increase transaction thoroughput capabilities of the network.

Do you think that the price won't spike even a little?

Short term I don't really see it happening. By now you can already buy everything you ever wanted using the Gyft system, so I am not really bullish on something increasing sharply when you can already get almost anything at this point. I suppose Walmart would make it easier by not going through Gyft, but I believe Gyft gives you a 3% bonus, so then Gyft would be more beneficial than Walmart accepting it no?

The transactional economy will be dominated by boutique high value applications until software improves dramatically.  The next moonshot I foresee will be driven by opening new channels for fiat inflows driven by speculation and reserve applications.

[2017orso]

Wal-Mart has discussed bitcoin internally (friend), and the view was positive albeit patient, awaiting maturity of the obvious obstacles creating concerns for entities of its size.  Give it a couple years.

[serenitys]

Bitcoin cards are being developed, that was already a given...just when they'd start on it. Now that places like overstock, starbucks, and other retail outlets are accepting it, and the IRS classified it, and more people are looking into it, move investment is coming.

I posted elsewhere a few times about Google Glass being bundled with an app called EAZE payment processor (for the double nod transaction) in bitcoin. That millions will be buying Glass, millions are about to be introduced and reintroduced to bitcoin and will make consumer (as opposed to investor/trader) purchases of btc. Not once but increasingly as EAZE makes it convenient at POS - nod twice, it don't get much easier...if ya can't do that, you got bigger problems). EAZE is a bitcoin utility. And it's set up to work ONLY with bitcoin...so out of all the people who buy Glass, a hell of a chunk of them will be pushed to bitcoin. That's millions of initial purchases on to repeated purchases. Google appears to be a mega believer in cryptocurrency and bitcoin as the founding coin of this new market...and if Google's own products can support it, others will follow.

Look at the strategy behind it - Google agreed on this particular app for Glass that ONLY works with bitcoin - and not all the other options. Why JUST bitcoin? It's helping channel consumers one direction - away from fiat transactions and TO cryptocurrency. Sure, a lot of people will bitch because it's alien and novel, and complain they can't use real money or whatever...but eventually they will look into it (a delayed wave of new money, basically) when everyone else they know is talking about or using bitcoin. That's a huge push for btc. THIS year.

Since they're releasing the consumer version later this year, the value of bitcoin is set to rocket up. It looks like this china thing is keeping things on hold til the 15th or whenever, then it'll move down temporarily and right back up.

And again, a lot of the games being developed for Oculus Rift are tying in bitcoin...and since facebook acquired it, after the backlash settles down, even facebook will inevitably find a way to make bitcoin "social media friendly" and when that happens...well, you know... 

[kneedrag]

I happen to agree with most, if not all of your opinions.  

I would ask one simple question to all of the bulls:

Why would a consumer choose to acquire BTC for the purpose of using it as a payment mechanism / currency, when there are so many other viable options that already exist today with no cost to the consumer, and without the tax burden in the USA?    Yes, it is clear that Bitcoin has the potential to lower transaction costs -- FOR MERCHANTS.   But for consumers, there is no additional cost at most places to pay with a credit card, debit card, Paypal, etc.   Businesses are in business to profit, and will keep those profits for themselves and/or their shareholders.   Do TigerDirect or Overstock offer a discount for using BTC?  (I sincerely do not know the answer).

In addition, as the original poster mentioned, many credits cards already offer rewards in the form of cash  back so paying with BTC does not offer any value or convenience to a consumer who does not already have BTC and has to acquire it.  Therefore, in my opinion, this means weak consumer adoption for the foreseeable future.   Sure, businesses will want to accept it to reduce costs, but consumers will not embrace it.  Lastly, things like Google Wallet and Apple Passbook already offer the convenience of instant electronic payments as well.

Then there is the issue of price volatility that makes purchasing BTC for use as a currency riskier to the average person than current payment systems and currencies.

So again I ask, why would mainstream Joe Public consumers choose to acquire BTC for purposes of spending, or what will drive consumer adoption?  

[cosmofly]

Iluvpie is onto something listen to him

[Alley]

What drives me to buy btc and then spend it is the hopes of a steadily increasing market value.  I buy 1 btc today at $450 then hypothetically next month its worth $475 and I spend it essentially getting 25 bucks off my purchase.  Minus the 1% coinbase fee of course when I buy my coins.

[steeev]

not sure why you're posting this - upset, or troll, or whatever...you're not going to make up my mind for me, and i don't care to change yours - it's a choice, not an obligation, to be involved, and on what terms - you make your choice, i'll make mine...

whatever happens... as jeff garzik says, it's an experiment... and that's part of the fun for me, seeing where it goes.

Isn't it great that I can quote myself?

Face reality. Or don't, idk your choice. This is kinda long. Why not. Fun is spelled F U N.

uh, i meant that my view is kind of inverse, or opposite to yours... i have no losses to report, so maybe that's why i'm more optimistic about the experiment generally...

[iluvpie60]

Face reality. Or don't, idk your choice. This is kinda long. Why not. Fun is spelled F U N.

Look at all of the news in the past few months. The IRS classified Bitcoin as property(the judgement everyone was waiting for to see if it was legal or not officially) Check, its there now.

You can buy almost anything you want with BTC now(might have to convert to Gyft for some things).

Some countries have banned it some haven't.

China is basically going to ban it and cause a new price crash on April 15th(Or so I have heard and it really looks to be the case from my own research).

At this point, can anyone really say there is something that will catapult Bitcoin straight up like happened months ago?(no you can't and the comments below prove you can't even form sentences to this question). I will change my mind if someone really gives a good argument for a huge sharp rise in a short period. But I don't see one(comments below show no arguments yet).

Long term, another coin will beat it out, or something better will be invented. It's no secret mining is a completely stupid way of verifying a transaction because all that happens is that tons of computers/gpus/servers/rigs are guessing random numbers until they line up with what is needed. This eventually will cause a tremendous amount of energy waste(right now I am pretty sure all miners are losing money if they are converting into USD right away).

Just because there is a limited supply doesn't mean anything, the demand also comes in somewhere no? Look at the demand right now, price dropped from a high of I dunno 1,135 USD something(not MTGOX  inflated prices) now it is at 445 USD. A lot of people got invested into this when it was going up in price, ever wonder why you only see 3,000 people signed on BTC-E anymore and not 15,000 like they were getting? Demand is dropping, supply doesn't matter if no one wants it.

That being said, if you are one of these people who "put all of their life savings in BTC/Alt coins" I think it is time for a reality check(at least in the short term).

Oh but the Network effect you all scream like babies, tell that to MySpace rofl. Or AIM, or Yahoo, or any other person who held the network majority, its called competition(google it).

Personally, I lost all of my BTC, originally had 5 BTC, turned it into 7 BTC, lost some on a bad trade, lost 45% of my BTC on Cex.io adding "futures options", which I had no idea they were doing(my fault I know). Then I accidentally did a max bet on Just dice and lost most of it, got like .2 BTC left right, then coinex gets hacked rofl... so im down to abotu .05 BTC total.

For reference, my friend put 3,000 bucks into stock at his company and bought in at 43 bucks per, had to hold for a lil while, then sold it at 60 bucks. Kinda wishing I never did this whole BTC thing, it helps people, but it's definitely a super minority of people this helps(for now). I agree it might help poorer countries, but "Ain't nobody got time for that" over there, they are like you know, farming and stealing to eat and survive. So #ya.


Edit 1: Let me also add, BTC it is not very user friendly for the majority of any population. You have to verify a bank account where your Fiat comes from and get a fee charged on you (but Bitcoin itself can have no fees I understand that) So you still have fees for now, so that doesn't exactly help. Fees need to be eliminated or driven down really really low, then you got a fee to withdraw into Fiat also. I understand you can just keep it in BTC, but heres the problem you run into. Say you have 1 BTC, you spend all of it, guess what? Time to pony up and pay more fees to get BTC, now you have to keep track of the flucuations of BTC according to the IRS ruling. Every time you buy or sell any coins for any reason ever, you have to keep track of it, no thanks rofl.

 If Obama can win a majority of a country of 300 million +  and get a second term based on ideas and no substance, how do you expect Bitcoin which is based on substance and some Ideology to win over morons? It won't. Also, the repubbies'cans say the same thing for the past 8 years, they presented their ideas and didn't win anything but the House. Might get Senate this time because Obama lies a lot and ppl get madzzz.


Edit 2: Personally, I incur 0% fees per year on my credit cards. All of them have no annual fee, no fees for bank transfers ever on my cards, no late payment fees ever for an unlimited amount of times, 1 and 2% cash back on everything(one of my cards is 1% but it is MasterCard I have to sometimes use), I get 5% cash back on purchases in the rotating 3 month categories(I  have 4 credit cards all linked to one b ank account, and whichever card has the 5% off of whatever I am buying I use that). So it becomes extremely wrong to advocate Bitcoin be used for rich/middle/lower middle class people. I only make 47,000 a year Salary, I am 24 years old, 2 years out of college and I am at my first "REAL" job, to tell me to use Bitcoin and get some fees converting from Fiat to BTC, then I spend the BTC, then guess what??? I need more BTC, lets incur more fees converting from Fiat to BTC. Don't you see BTC is really for poor people? If poor people only use BTC back and forth between each other it would be wonderful, but that isn't going to happen for a long long long time, 10s of years later maybe, MAYBE people will all be tech savvy. MAYBE. But BTC doesn't solve any problems for the majority of people and you know it.

You would have been better off putting your 7 btc into cold wallet and the HODL  m8

Gee really?

[iluvpie60]

Once the larger US retail market players get in the game, you could very well see large 'to the moon' spikes.

For example: Let's just say Walmart in a year or 2 from now elects to accept bitcoins because it has integrated the protocol into their POS systems, fixed all tax compliance issues.  Let's also suppose that the core Bitcoin devs have implemented a clever way to increase transaction thoroughput capabilities of the network.

Do you think that the price won't spike even a little?

Short term I don't really see it happening. By now you can already buy everything you ever wanted using the Gyft system, so I am not really bullish on something increasing sharply when you can already get almost anything at this point. I suppose Walmart would make it easier by not going through Gyft, but I believe Gyft gives you a 3% bonus, so then Gyft would be more beneficial than Walmart accepting it no?

The transactional economy will be dominated by boutique high value applications until software improves dramatically.  The next moonshot I foresee will be driven by opening new channels for fiat inflows driven by speculation and reserve applications.

It would be possible for banks to directly work to convert BTC or something like that with a much lower fee or no fee. I say this because of the IRS ruling, so maybe more banks and creditors will look at that. If that happens I still don't see a reason for it to have a moonshot though, because at this point why would you convert to buy something in BTC when you can get 5% off by buying it with a credit card that has no annual fee, no late payments. Credit cards also allow someone to take on more debt than they currently have, a model not support by BTC.

[iluvpie60]

Bitcoin cards are being developed, that was already a given...just when they'd start on it. Now that places like overstock, starbucks, and other retail outlets are accepting it, and the IRS classified it, and more people are looking into it, move investment is coming.

I posted elsewhere a few times about Google Glass being bundled with an app called EAZE payment processor (for the double nod transaction) in bitcoin. That millions will be buying Glass, millions are about to be introduced and reintroduced to bitcoin and will make consumer (as opposed to investor/trader) purchases of btc. Not once but increasingly as EAZE makes it convenient at POS - nod twice, it don't get much easier...if ya can't do that, you got bigger problems). EAZE is a bitcoin utility. And it's set up to work ONLY with bitcoin...so out of all the people who buy Glass, a hell of a chunk of them will be pushed to bitcoin. That's millions of initial purchases on to repeated purchases. Google appears to be a mega believer in cryptocurrency and bitcoin as the founding coin of this new market...and if Google's own products can support it, others will follow.

Look at the strategy behind it - Google agreed on this particular app for Glass that ONLY works with bitcoin - and not all the other options. Why JUST bitcoin? It's helping channel consumers one direction - away from fiat transactions and TO cryptocurrency. Sure, a lot of people will bitch because it's alien and novel, and complain they can't use real money or whatever...but eventually they will look into it (a delayed wave of new money, basically) when everyone else they know is talking about or using bitcoin. That's a huge push for btc. THIS year.

Since they're releasing the consumer version later this year, the value of bitcoin is set to rocket up. It looks like this china thing is keeping things on hold til the 15th or whenever, then it'll move down temporarily and right back up.

And again, a lot of the games being developed for Oculus Rift are tying in bitcoin...and since facebook acquired it, after the backlash settles down, even facebook will inevitably find a way to make bitcoin "social media friendly" and when that happens...well, you know... 

While I agree certainly more people will be using it, a lot of people have stopped using it when the price goes down. That is something the average person DOES NOT want to ever worry about. According to the normal avg joe, they want their money to be worth the same it was yesterday. And for the most part currencies operate like that and occasionally have drastic ups and downs, but level off after corrective action is taken. No one really is reimbursing your stolen BTC, some companies do insurance on BTC, but if they ever get hit with an MTGOX hacking, they aren't reimbursing anything because they don't have that much money. So on a small scale hacking case, you can get reimbursed I suppose, but being reimbursed by the US GOVT up to 100,000 bucks in a regular bank account is a really big deal. If BTC develops a way to do that it would certainly give it more credibility.

[iluvpie60]

Iluvpie is onto something listen to him

If you are actually promoting someone, than that's a big red flag for a lot of people here. It means that it's either 1) bullshit or 2) an alternative account of yours.

Go back and look at how they talk and how I talk. It is not an alternative account of mine. I don't need an alt account to give myself a random prop lol...

I like how you only give two choices like those are the only choices, 3) Someone agrees with what I am saying and is giving me props.