Billionaires hate Bitcoin.

[Spendulus]

Small transactions: cash is faster and 100% secure (money goes from person X to person Y and is verified by counting in 10 seconds or less, vs. bitcoin's 20 minute block confirmation wait).

"Cash is faster"?  WTF?  

Maybe if I'm stood next to you.  But have you heard of this crazy new thing called "the Internet"?

Let's race.  You send $4 cash to Hong Kong; I'll send $4 worth of bitcoins.  Why would I want to do that you ask?  Ever bought a small gadget from ebay?  Ever bought an MP3 for less than a dollar from a server that's halfway around the world.

(you're also forgetting that the bitcoin transactions can be seen within, typically, two seconds; it takes 10 minutes to clear, compared to days for bank wire transfers to clear).

Bitcoin isn't perfect for everything, and buying your morning newspaper might well not be one of its "optimum" uses; but you're seriously ignoring huge areas were bitcoin is, essentially, unbeatable.

Speaking from the perspective of a very wealthy individual, why care about such an inferior currency system at all?  This is a proof of concept, not designed for mainstream use, and needs a lot of work.  Respect bitcoin for what it is and what it proves.  Graham Bell's first telephone is NOT an iphone.  Got it?

I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise.  The lead developer regularly calls bitcoin an "experiment" in interviews.

Ok, let's race. Because your leaving out some steps, and using an unrealistic amount. What if I give you 10k USD to send so anyone in Hong Kong can recieve/and use? Now you have to convert that to Bitcoin first(fast right?), have the other person setup a bitcoin wallet(piece of cake), then they have to convert the Bitcoin back out to cash to actually use it for anything except buying a stack of ASIC miners(that will never arrive). That's easy too right? I'm sure we just missed the news about all the banks where you can just walk in and get dollars for your Bitcoins in Hong Kong.
While your doing all that, I'll walk into a bank with the cash, wire the money to there account, and they have actual cash they can use tomorrow.
Hell, I could just go into the bank, get a certified check, walk over to the FedEx office and send it "FedEx International Next Flight" and they'll have the certified check in hand in less than 24hrs, walk it into there bank, and have usable funds.

Actually, no, sending the certified check via FED EX internationally would not be so fast or easy.  But for your earlier point, I would think a comment is in order.

Your argument presumes that the receiver must THEN go and set up his method of transfering back to cash.  Why?  Why just then?  Why not presume that the sender and receiver are already set up?  If it was a credit card transaction, one would already have a credit card, and the other would already have a way to process payments.

So to be fair, you have to make the comparison not for the moment of conversion back to the local currency, but for the moment when the two parties both consider the transaction complete, whatever that means to them.  If the receiver religiously moves the bitcoin back to a currency, then that's his moment.  If the receiver keeps and hoards the bitcoin, that is his moment of completion.

So this is not any different than the receipt, say of US dollars in a country with a failing currency - one guy must and does go to exchange them for the local currency, another holds them.

[sniffinpoprocks]

Small transactions: cash is faster and 100% secure (money goes from person X to person Y and is verified by counting in 10 seconds or less, vs. bitcoin's 20 minute block confirmation wait).

"Cash is faster"?  WTF?  

Maybe if I'm stood next to you.  But have you heard of this crazy new thing called "the Internet"?

Let's race.  You send $4 cash to Hong Kong; I'll send $4 worth of bitcoins.  Why would I want to do that you ask?  Ever bought a small gadget from ebay?  Ever bought an MP3 for less than a dollar from a server that's halfway around the world.

(you're also forgetting that the bitcoin transactions can be seen within, typically, two seconds; it takes 10 minutes to clear, compared to days for bank wire transfers to clear).

Bitcoin isn't perfect ...

Speaking from the perspective of a very wealthy individual, why care about such an inferior currency system at all?  This is a proof of concept, not designed for mainstream use, and needs a lot of work.  Respect bitcoin for what it is and what it proves.  Graham Bell's first telephone is NOT an iphone.  Got it?

I don't think anyone is claiming otherwise.  The lead developer regularly calls bitcoin an "experiment" in interviews.

Ok, let's race. ...

Actually, no, sending the certified check via FED EX internationally would not be so fast or easy.  But for your earlier point, I would think a comment is in order.

Your argument presumes that the receiver must THEN go and set up his method of transfering back to cash.  Why?  Why just then?  Why not presume that the sender and receiver are already set up?  If it was a credit card transaction, one would already have a credit card, and the other would already have a way to process payments.

So to be fair, you have to make the comparison not for the moment of conversion back to the local currency, but for the moment when the two parties both consider the transaction complete, whatever that means to them.  If the receiver religiously moves the bitcoin back to a currency, then that's his moment.  If the receiver keeps and hoards the bitcoin, that is his moment of completion.

So this is not any different than the receipt, say of US dollars in a country with a failing currency - one guy must and does go to exchange them for the local currency, another holds them.

If your going to add these ridiculous presumptions then I presume to just have a bank account with the same bank as the receiver and  transfer the funds immediately for free. I could also use PayPal and fund it immediately with my bank account that's been previously set up without having to dedicate funds in the account. But...that wasn't the original question. The original question itself was flawed, comparing the time to send cash vs Bitcoin to Hong Kong but then assuming both could be equally used to purchase "a small gadget from ebay" or "an MP3 ... from a server that's halfway around the world". Neither of which can be done with BTC directly anyway. So, as per my original point, it must be converted to fiat to meet the conditions of the original need. Until Apple, Amazon, eBay/PayPal, or 'name your online vendor' starts accepting Bitcoins, you cant skip the tedious 'conversion back to fiat' step. Last I checked, mtgox's withdrawal fees for fiat weren't trivial and were not speedy either.
I challenge you to go to Craig's list or any mainstream auction site, find something you want from a random person, bid on it, and then convince the seller to accept Bitcoin. I'd have a much better chance of them accepting PayPal than BTC and PayPal took years(and eBay buying them out) before it saw any kind of market penetration and acceptance.
Unless your comparing the speed of sending $4 value from tech nerd #1 to tech nerd #2, fiat is faster.
And yes, I consider myself most of 'us here' to be #1's with no #2's out there to accept BTC yet. I hope that changes.

[Zaih]

Yeh too true. Bloody greedy Billionaires -.-

[arsenische]

I think Billionaires would love Bitcoin.

Firstly, their capital will belong to them, they won't need to feed bureaucracy and to take "social responsibility" for its failures.

Secondly, they can buy a significant part of future world economy just for few millions of dollars right now (even if they loose it - not a big deal, they'll still be in power anyway).

I think bureaucracy and state employees with high salaries and social benefits are the ones that would really hate Bitcoin.

[desired_username]

I have some very wealthy friends, most of them are completely disconnected from reality though.

The few of them who still have some common sense liked the idea very much, and bought some just for fun.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Firstly, their capital will belong to them, they won't need to feed bureaucracy and to take "social responsibility" for its failures.

Money is a social construct and will always be influenced socially. You can argue that putting your money into bitcoin will protect you from theft through evil government inflation and crooked banks, but it also exposes you to potential absolute loss of value from devaluation of the currency, market volatility, and social opinion of the currency. Any alt-coin or new technology that solves bitcoin's problems and gains enough support will drive bitcoin's "value" down significantly, and although it's true that a handful of people will most likely continue to use bitcoin until the day they die (sunk costs fallacy), that doesn't mean it will ever be as valuable as you'd need it to be to recover your losses when you moved your billions into it.

In short, I agree that billionaires probably look poorly on Bitcoin, but most likely for a fear of losing every penny of their investment.

Bitcoin is still, overall, an experimental beta project and should be treated as such.

[wamatt]

Bill Gates thinks it's awesome. Pretty sure he's a billionaire.

Munger OTOH, thinks it's "rat poison"

[ex-trader]

Some billionaires know about Bitcoin, but they certainly do not either worry or hate Bitcoin.

Billionaires generally own large companies selling real goods, or have holdings in properties or in other peoples companies that also make and sell real goods and services. All of these things will be worth a lot of money, irrespective of whether we denominate them in USD, Euros, Gold or Bitcoins.

Do you think Coke or any of the biggest global 1000 companies will disappear as a result of Bitcoin - no, people will still want to drink Coke, drive cars, wash their clothes, take medicine, live in a home etc and these companies and assets will be worth the same in comparative terms as they are now. Bitcoin has much going for it, but there is so much crazy delusion about what it might achieve in here that it's unreal.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Some billionaires know about Bitcoin, but they certainly do not either worry or hate Bitcoin.

Billionaires generally own large companies selling real goods, or have holdings in properties or in other peoples companies that also make and sell real goods and services. All of these things will be worth a lot of money, irrespective of whether we denominate them in USD, Euros, Gold or Bitcoins.

Do you think Coke or any of the biggest global 1000 companies will disappear as a result of Bitcoin - no, people will still want to drink Coke, drive cars, wash their clothes, take medicine, live in a home etc and these companies and assets will be worth the same in comparative terms as they are now. Bitcoin has much going for it, but there is so much crazy delusion about what it might achieve in here that it's unreal.

Thank you.

[fisheater]

those people if participating the premining, then they will support it. but they are too busy to earn their money in their way, so they felt being left out

[Stephen Gornick]

Billionaires generally own large companies selling real goods

Microsoft sells a metric crap ton load of licenses to the national, state, county and local governments.  Anything that makes taxation harder means a potential impact to tax revenues which, in-turn, causes software sales revenue to those agencies to decline.

Buffet needs Krugman and [edit: economists who think like] Keynes for his portfolio to not blow up.

More importantly, if capital formation can come using bitcoins and cyber-equities platforms (e.g., BitFunder) then why go to work for Gates, Buffet, Dimon, or other companies like Cisco, BN, even.   Why not just pitch, get funded, and rule your own destiny.   Without a steady stream of talent these companies will have to switch to more performance-based compensation which really would introduce culteral and financial changes within these organizations.

They prefer things just the way they are.

[seannnyx]

I do not think that will ever be able to eliminate the bt, and now it's party does not stop him any more: D

[Bitcoiner_cph]

Billionaires generally own large companies selling real goods

Microsoft sells a metric crap ton load of licenses to the national, state, county and local governments.  Anything that makes taxation harder means a potential impact to tax revenues which, in-turn, causes software sales revenue to those agencies to decline.

Buffet needs Krugman and Keynes for his portfolio to not blow up.

More importantly, if capital formation can come using bitcoins and cyber-equities platforms (e.g., BitFunder) then why go to work for Gates, Buffet, Dimon, or other companies like Cisco, BN, even.   Why not just pitch, get funded, and rule your own destiny.   Without a steady stream of talent these companies will have to switch to more performance-based compensation which really would introduce culteral and financial changes within these organizations.

They prefer things just the way they are.

I agree very much on your opinion. I believe that bitcoin will accelerate changes in our world, that most people don't see or understand. Think about how the state is depended on the national bank and printing/borrowing money, the day bitcoin (or other cryptocurrency) is the norm, fiat is worth 0 and states will disappear. When states disappear away goes police and courts, as examples, how will companies claim their property rights?? There are many questions... and the answer is blowing in the wind, but one thing is for sure, things will change and new ways to do things will come, and I believe that bitcoin will speed up this process, as money is VERY important to people. you don't want to be the last person to adapt to bitcoin... Folks it will happen faster then you think... enjoy the joyride

[elux]

Peter Thiel invested in Bitcoin. Billionaire. (Sorry, Vladimir.) 

[cryptoanarchist]

I think billionaires hate the idea of private p2p currencies for the same reasons stated by Gornick...

but, I also think that the elite are now seeing it as an opportunity to slide in their NWO currency - thus, the new interest from the mainstream media and various rich assholes (like Peter Thiel).

[Stampbit]

Billionaires love bitcoin, they only need to invest .000001% of their wealth to completely destroy it.

[Stephen Gornick]

I also think that the elite are now seeing it as an opportunity to slide in their NWO currency

NWO would not like gold to return as a currency (as it lessens control, having no "issuer") so I'm confused as to why you think they would like to see Bitcoin become more widely used as a currency.

[Matthew N. Wright]

"Billionaires hate bitcoin"

• What kind of billionaire? One that become rich from his cup ramen noodle factory? I doubt he gives a shit about the emergence of new internet currencies. More likely, he'd be thrilled to hear of another currency being available to nerds that eat his ramen. More money for him.
• If the assertion was that "Billionaires would hate bitcoin", if they thoroughly understood it, then I guess I could somewhat agree in select cases. As it stands though, I don't think most billionaires have ever heard of bitcoin. They don't seem the type to worry much about things which market caps are less than their holdings.

[TippingPoint]

Billionaires are just like everyone else.  They just have more Bitcoins.

[John Self]

Bitcoin isn't a viable replacement for fiat currency, not even close- not even any time soon.
Not only that but the value is pretty unstable, and people don't get to be billionaires without knowing much better places to invest their money.