bitcoincard.org the killer app we have been waiting for?

[P4man]

Yeah but it would create a user base to fuel wider adoption of both the device plus btc too.

Not really, because you wouldnt be able to use it 99% of the time. Which also means, almost no one would buy one. Classical chicken and egg problem.

The only approach that I see that makes some sense, is Wallmart and the like giving you one for free, and use it as datamining tool. I dont think its coincidence in the video they stress the cards ability to detect how long you stand before a shelve, customized promotions etc. Thats not a feature that will make bitcoin users gladly pay for it, I for one, would find it a reason not to use it even if it was free. It is something Wallmart might want to buy it for tho.

[MoonShadow]

Yeah but it would create a user base to fuel wider adoption of both the device plus btc too.

Not really, because you wouldnt be able to use it 99% of the time.

Alright, how do you come to this conclusion?  Support your position.

[matthewh3]

Maybe other company's will buy-in to the device to offer them subsidised but if the parent company makes sure all the cards can communicate with each other then bingo.  Then the data-mining capability's can be turned on/off for btc/loyalty points.  

[matthewh3]

Also I won't buy the device unless it can be turned off as I don't want big-brother tracking me every where I go.

[matthewh3]

How many people carry a store or supermarket loyalty card?  This is going to be big.

[P4man]

Even if every bitcoin user in the world bought one, chances of being able to connect to the adhoc network would still be.. ~zero.

Thank you for your unsupported layman's opinion.  As for those of us who actually know a thing or two about radio telemetry & propagation, we've been providing actual facts on this kind of device for longer than most of you in this thread have even known what a bitcoin was.

EDIT: I've literally bounced a 2 watt signal off the F level of the ionosphere and was heard over 200 miles away from my position; and actual line-of-sight distance of at least 350 miles up and down.  Granted, that was with some high quality gear that wouldn't fit in my wallet to save my life; but for someone who's only experiences with low-power digital telemetry involves the wifi scanner app on his smartphone to tell me it-just can't-be-done is offensive.

Have you watched the video? They claim 100 to 300m range. Meters, not miles.

For some perspective, I live in one of the worlds most densely populated countries. We have ~10.000 GSM masts for 10 million people, which still isnt enough to provide complete coverage. GSM has ~20x the range of those cards, which probably means you would need ~400x as many users to get comparable coverage (someone bored enough to do the actual math, be my guest).  

How many active bitcoin users were there again worldwide? Something like 30.000?  Even if ALL of them bought one, and ALL of them gathered in my tiny country, it wouldnt work 99% of the time.

[P4man]

Another way of looking at it. Assume the maximum stated range of 300m. Assume perfect spreading.
30000 bitcoin users would be able to cover 51x51 Km. Out of a total of 510 million square Km of land mass. Funny that.

Edit. Not sure where I got the 30K from. It seems to be closer to 5K:
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/serversStart.png

SO all bitcoin users combined could theoretically cover 21x21Km. More realistically, only a fraction of that, barely enough to cover the small town I live in.

[matthewh3]

Another way of looking at it. Assume the maximum stated range of 300m. Assume perfect spreading.
30000 bitcoin users would be able to cover 51x51 Km. Out of a total of 510 million square Km of land mass. Funny that.

Edit. Not sure where I got the 30K from. It seems to be closer to 5K:
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/serversStart.png

SO all bitcoin users combined could theoretically cover 21x21Km. More realistically, only a fraction of that, barely enough to cover the small town I live in.

Yes but there will also be lots of stationary nodes and it won't just be BTC users using this device.

[P4man]

Yes but there will also be lots of stationary nodes and it won't just be BTC users using this device.

The key point of the device was that it needed no support infrastructure. But hey, go ahead and add an "access point" for each and every bitcoin user in the world, and still assume theoretical perfect geographic spreading,   and the above numbers.. well,  guess what, they only double.

Dont get me wrong, Im not entirely dismissing the concept. It has some merit assuming they can produce them dirt cheap, and ship them by the hundreds of thousands or at least get them in to the hands of people in targeted geographic locations so you get a meaningful chance of being able to connect. And that essentially means giving them away. I can see business models for that, but bitcoin users buying them isnt one of them.

[evoorhees]

I've spoken with the creator via phone this morning. I do not believe the device is vaporware. Pricing is in the range of "extremely low."

They've been working on this thing for about 5 years, long before Bitcoin. When Bitcoin came around, it made some of the card's former features obsolete so they've retooled it to be heavily Bitcoin-focused. They said they found Bitcoin to be "far superior" to any of the community currencies the device was intended to be used with.

I'll be talking with the creators more and I can say perhaps in a month or so there may be some more solid information/news/review of this thing. In the mean time, just stay tuned and remain appropriately skeptical

[teflone]

Even if every bitcoin user in the world bought one, chances of being able to connect to the adhoc network would still be.. ~zero.

Thank you for your unsupported layman's opinion.  As for those of us who actually know a thing or two about radio telemetry & propagation, we've been providing actual facts on this kind of device for longer than most of you in this thread have even known what a bitcoin was.

EDIT: I've literally bounced a 2 watt signal off the F level of the ionosphere and was heard over 200 miles away from my position; and actual line-of-sight distance of at least 350 miles up and down.  Granted, that was with some high quality gear that wouldn't fit in my wallet to save my life; but for someone who's only experiences with low-power digital telemetry involves the wifi scanner app on his smartphone to tell me it-just can't-be-done is offensive.

QRP For the win!

You work skip a lot ?

Are you working in the 11 metre band ?  

The sun is near maximum, a lot happening on skywave proprogation

If your using 2 watts though, Im guessing your lower mhz than the 11 metre band ?

[SpontaneousDisorder]

Another way of looking at it. Assume the maximum stated range of 300m. Assume perfect spreading.
30000 bitcoin users would be able to cover 51x51 Km. Out of a total of 510 million square Km of land mass. Funny that.

Edit. Not sure where I got the 30K from. It seems to be closer to 5K:
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/serversStart.png

SO all bitcoin users combined could theoretically cover 21x21Km. More realistically, only a fraction of that, barely enough to cover the small town I live in.

Surely this would be the relevant chart? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png

Yours is listening hosts, ie those with open ports I think.

Anyway, surely we have more users than last September (60,000), most probably can't be bothered to keep th chain up to date anymore.

[notme]

Another way of looking at it. Assume the maximum stated range of 300m. Assume perfect spreading.
30000 bitcoin users would be able to cover 51x51 Km. Out of a total of 510 million square Km of land mass. Funny that.

Edit. Not sure where I got the 30K from. It seems to be closer to 5K:
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/serversStart.png

SO all bitcoin users combined could theoretically cover 21x21Km. More realistically, only a fraction of that, barely enough to cover the small town I live in.

Surely this would be the relevant chart? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png

Yours is listening hosts, ie those with open ports I think.

Anyway, surely we have more users than last September (60,000), most probably can't be bothered to keep th chain up to date anymore.

That graph is better, but is still only a lower bound on bitcoin users.  It only shows those who run a full client 24-7.  I know I don't fit that requirement, but yet I spend 3+ hours a day doing bitcoin related activity.

[MoonShadow]

Even if every bitcoin user in the world bought one, chances of being able to connect to the adhoc network would still be.. ~zero.

Thank you for your unsupported layman's opinion.  As for those of us who actually know a thing or two about radio telemetry & propagation, we've been providing actual facts on this kind of device for longer than most of you in this thread have even known what a bitcoin was.

EDIT: I've literally bounced a 2 watt signal off the F level of the ionosphere and was heard over 200 miles away from my position; and actual line-of-sight distance of at least 350 miles up and down.  Granted, that was with some high quality gear that wouldn't fit in my wallet to save my life; but for someone who's only experiences with low-power digital telemetry involves the wifi scanner app on his smartphone to tell me it-just can't-be-done is offensive.

Have you watched the video? They claim 100 to 300m range. Meters, not miles.

For some perspective, I live in one of the worlds most densely populated countries. We have ~10.000 GSM masts for 10 million people, which still isnt enough to provide complete coverage. GSM has ~20x the range of those cards, which probably means you would need ~400x as many users to get comparable coverage (someone bored enough to do the actual math, be my guest).  

How many active bitcoin users were there again worldwide? Something like 30.000?  Even if ALL of them bought one, and ALL of them gathered in my tiny country, it wouldnt work 99% of the time.

You're displaying your ignorance on the topic.  GSM is a wideband commercial product not intended to mesh.  GSM cell phones have a practical range of about two kilometers, but that is to a very senitive celltower tranceiver.  If you tried to mesh two handsets, your range is unlikely to be any better that wifi.  Basicly, if you can see the whoites of their eyes or be heard yelling, then it would work.  There are many variables that effect range; including effective radiated power, receiver senitivity & bandwidth, mode of transmission, error correction algos, etc.  Comparing a mesh tech to that of GSM isn't even comparing apples to oranges, it's comparing apples to pencils.  And the goal of such a mesh isn't to connect two cell phones together with a high enough quality to support a voice codec, it's to transmit a data file of half a kilobyte within a few seconds so that device cound forward it again until the transaction finds an internet router.

[MoonShadow]

Even if every bitcoin user in the world bought one, chances of being able to connect to the adhoc network would still be.. ~zero.

Thank you for your unsupported layman's opinion.  As for those of us who actually know a thing or two about radio telemetry & propagation, we've been providing actual facts on this kind of device for longer than most of you in this thread have even known what a bitcoin was.

EDIT: I've literally bounced a 2 watt signal off the F level of the ionosphere and was heard over 200 miles away from my position; and actual line-of-sight distance of at least 350 miles up and down.  Granted, that was with some high quality gear that wouldn't fit in my wallet to save my life; but for someone who's only experiences with low-power digital telemetry involves the wifi scanner app on his smartphone to tell me it-just can't-be-done is offensive.

QRT For the win!

You work skip a lot ?

Are you working in the 11 metre band ?  

The sun is near maximum, a lot happening on skywave proprogation

If your using 2 watts though, Im guessing your lower mhz than the 11 metre band ?

40 meters, just after dark.  No I don't do it often, and intentionally skipping in the CB band is illegal.  I have a ham radio license.

[MoonShadow]

Another way of looking at it. Assume the maximum stated range of 300m. Assume perfect spreading.
30000 bitcoin users would be able to cover 51x51 Km. Out of a total of 510 million square Km of land mass. Funny that.

Edit. Not sure where I got the 30K from. It seems to be closer to 5K:
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/serversStart.png

SO all bitcoin users combined could theoretically cover 21x21Km. More realistically, only a fraction of that, barely enough to cover the small town I live in.

Surely this would be the relevant chart? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png

Yours is listening hosts, ie those with open ports I think.

Anyway, surely we have more users than last September (60,000), most probably can't be bothered to keep th chain up to date anymore.

We could have a lot more running clients than that, since some of us have 'quite' clients, myself included, that won't show up in those scans.  Those are usually based upon the ip addresses that show up in the bitcoin IRC bootstrapping channels, and there are many clients now that don't use those channels anymore.

[matthewh3]

Another way of looking at it. Assume the maximum stated range of 300m. Assume perfect spreading.
30000 bitcoin users would be able to cover 51x51 Km. Out of a total of 510 million square Km of land mass. Funny that.

Edit. Not sure where I got the 30K from. It seems to be closer to 5K:
http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/serversStart.png

SO all bitcoin users combined could theoretically cover 21x21Km. More realistically, only a fraction of that, barely enough to cover the small town I live in.

Surely this would be the relevant chart? http://bitcoinstatus.rowit.co.uk/hostsStart.png

Yours is listening hosts, ie those with open ports I think.

Anyway, surely we have more users than last September (60,000), most probably can't be bothered to keep th chain up to date anymore.

We could have a lot more running clients than that, since some of us have 'quite' clients, myself included, that won't show up in those scans.  Those are usually based upon the ip addresses that show up in the bitcoin IRC bootstrapping channels, and there are many clients now that don't use those channels anymore.

Nowadays the only reason real reason I can see in running the full client is to use P2Pool.  Also 11m Freebanding rocks  I've Tx'd to Italy a few times from northern England but have now sold my widebanded HF rig. 

[teflone]

Even if every bitcoin user in the world bought one, chances of being able to connect to the adhoc network would still be.. ~zero.

Thank you for your unsupported layman's opinion.  As for those of us who actually know a thing or two about radio telemetry & propagation, we've been providing actual facts on this kind of device for longer than most of you in this thread have even known what a bitcoin was.

EDIT: I've literally bounced a 2 watt signal off the F level of the ionosphere and was heard over 200 miles away from my position; and actual line-of-sight distance of at least 350 miles up and down.  Granted, that was with some high quality gear that wouldn't fit in my wallet to save my life; but for someone who's only experiences with low-power digital telemetry involves the wifi scanner app on his smartphone to tell me it-just can't-be-done is offensive.

QRP For the win!

You work skip a lot ?

Are you working in the 11 metre band ?  

The sun is near maximum, a lot happening on skywave proprogation

If your using 2 watts though, Im guessing your lower mhz than the 11 metre band ?

40 meters, just after dark.  No I don't do it often, and intentionally skipping in the CB band is illegal.  I have a ham radio license.

Of course its illegal, but everyone does it, Hell, its hard not to accidently and its never enforced up here in Canada..  I use to fool around with the 2 metre band, and the local repeaters when I was much younger..





Whats your call sign ?

[minimalB]

This card looks insanely great in theory... hope to see it work in practice...

[benjamindees]

They said they found Bitcoin to be "far superior" to any of the community currencies the device was intended to be used with.

That is interesting if the device was specifically designed to work with community currencies.  The P2P comm does seem like a good model for a farmers market.