Bitcoin's Usefulness - So utterly apparent

[cypherdoc]

1.  TraderTimm's reference is from 2010.  assuming a linear adoption for the masses btwn 2000-2010 you can increase that population # by at least 20%.  but it's probably higher than that assuming exponential increases of internet usage.

2.  49% of the population, if true, sounds pretty high, not low, to me.  that's still alot of ppl so to my mind it's more a matter of awareness than access.

3.  this is where a Bitcoincard.org solution would flourish.  those who do have internet connections could plug in their gateway transmitters and let the masses walk by with their cards.

4.  lets not confuse ease of use of today's clients with difficulties in understanding the Bitcoin protocols.  i think modern day clients are pretty easy.

[Boussac]

At Paymium, we did our best by releasing a greek translation of Paytunia for android last week..

And that's why I love you guys and promote your app all the time

Thanks Erik.
If only we could get it in the appstore  
By the way, I have no idea how many android smartphones there are in Greece that could download the greek flavor..

[bitlizard]

bitcoin could be very well suited to Greece's geography. a bunch of small islands (economies) separated by the sea, but connected by the internet.

[TraderTimm]

By the way, I have no idea how many android smartphones there are in Greece that could download the greek flavor..

I was curious too, here's a link for some data:

https://www.getclicky.com/marketshare/gr/droid/

Back of the pizza-box calculation, (hey, I'll throw it out later..) says that based on my estimated population of 4.9 million, market share for Android would be approximately ~1,240,680 people. No idea what the average handset is, or the version they're running.

That's a nice userbase, even if you assume only %10 adoption.

[gilgil]

Apparently people in Greece are not even searching for bitcoin in google...

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=ytd (try choosing 'Greece' in the region combox)

[ridgemont4]

I don't think they want a solution to be honest. They're in a political war and quite content with that. and the rest of the world will follow suite until the government implements some sort of worldwide system. Bitcoin is about taking control of your own situation, just like America was. But sadly both are destined to die as the One World system gets setup, I feel Bitcoin and America will go away together, however the transformation will be advertised and put on people as an upgrade from both into an all inclusive "better than that" and the only people who don't want to change will be those with something called integrity.

[Stephen Gornick]

Bitcoin is about taking control of your own situation, just like America was. But sadly both are destined to die

That's why a sudden surge for a decentralized digital currency towards global ubiquity would be worse than it taking a generation.

William Godwin said, “Revolutions are the produce of passion, not of sober and tranquil reason.”  

Learning the why of Bitcoin takes much longer than learning the how.  But once that is learned, going back or towards anything else becomes much more repulsive.

[elux]

Greece has amazingly few Internet users. Only 45% of people there use the Internet at all.

That is nuts, if true.

[Serenata]

In my mind, Greek are lazy, maybe they will be boring to learn the brilliant new things in the bitcoin world. If Germany, this should sure be done.

Well, I'd like to see the facts you base this opinion on >.< There are lazy people....all around, in every nation! Generalization is not a good point of view. A worse point of view, is what mass media make us believe... (Apologies for the offtopic this far)

Indeed, internet use in Greece is less than 50% of the population And from those that use the internet, most of them restrain themselves in email, facebook etc.
I have told a lot of my friends about Bitcoin, some liked the idea some didn't. But the true problem IMO is that we (we=Greeks) don't trust others easily. And to start with Bitcoin you have to relay on trust.

Another thing to note, is that we can only make speculations about Bitcoin. 10 euros converted to bitcoins might be 100 euros in one year but it might as well be 1 euro. Converting most of the money to bitcoins, is not a good idea IMO.

Maybe we can raise enough to send an envoy to greece to setup an in person exchange

Count me in for in person exchanges, which I think might work better (we have this face to face thing instead of via the net) than exchanges were you need to deposit money first and then buy coins.

Greece has amazingly few Internet users. Only 45% of people there use the Internet at all, and probably a much smaller percentage are skilled enough to use Bitcoin. I don't think Bitcoin can make significant inroads there.

Beg your pardon, but I think 4.9 million internet users in Greece ( http://www.internetworldstats.com/eu/gr.htm ) would supply some percentage of bitcoin users, if any of the guides on using it were localized in the language, in addition to the client. ( Upon checking, apparently Multibit supports greek - http://multibit.org/ )

Even if bitcoin 'captures' %0.01 of that population, that would yield about ~490 people. If anyone has the ability to translate the basic usage docs to greek, I think that could go a long way. Hell, if I could do it - I would be right now.

I've already done some work localizing stuff but my time is limited (working both full time [5days a week] and part time [7 days a week]). I wish I could do more, because there are people who like new ideas, and might love Bitcoin, but unfortunately they're not that fluent in English (or don't speak at all). Currently I'm setting up a site in Greek only, just for this reason, but I bet I'll need at least one more month to bring it online with some basic information for starters.

Apparently people in Greece are not even searching for bitcoin in google...

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=ytd (try choosing 'Greece' in the region combox)

You can't search for something you don't know it exists.

I'm not trying to be negative about this, but how will bitcoin help Greece right now? It is a very unstable currency; at the moment the price is rising, but we've all seen the ups and downs of the past. There is no protection at all.

The only "protection" I see is against a huge devaluation of money if we're to leave the euro and go back to drachmas.

[bg002h]

Apparently people in Greece are not even searching for bitcoin in google...

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=ytd (try choosing 'Greece' in the region combox)

Don't ya think they'd use Greek letters to search?

[casascius]

Apparently people in Greece are not even searching for bitcoin in google...

http://www.google.com/trends/?q=bitcoin&ctab=0&geo=all&geor=all&date=ytd (try choosing 'Greece' in the region combox)

Don't ya think they'd use Greek letters to search?

I would think a typical Greek looking for "bitcoin" would search using Latin letters rather than searching for "μπίτκoϊν". Lived in Greece 2 years. To Greek ears the word "bitcoin" sounds very foreign and sounds like it should not be typed in Greek.

[bg002h]

Good to hear...I couldn't phonetically translate or even figure out how to say bit...found this for kilobyte:κιλoμπάιτ...I presume the word is split like this... κιλoμ/πάιτ...bit I'm not not certain where the μ goes

[casascius]

Greek doesn't have a letter for B, the letter β always makes a V sound. So μπ is how they write B... Which is "MP" squeezed together. so it goes with byte.

Same with D. The letter Δ says "th" as in mother. To get D they say/write "NT".

Hence the joke in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" about saying "bunt cake"(sp). The Greeks in the movie apparently can't say a hard "nt" because they always soften it out of habit to sound more like nd.

[gnar1ta$]

Just curious, what services/exchanges offer Greeks Euro to BTC? Maybe there is an access issue also, and a market opportunity?

[hardpick]

it hard to get bitcoins fast - bitcoins would be a bitmore usefull if you could buy them with credit cards / paypal

if you want to tranfer money to someone via bitcoins and it a weekend how do you do it?
bank tranfer take time
cash deposites take time(and banks are usably closed on saturday / sunday)

[ridgemont4]

it hard to get bitcoins fast - bitcoins would be a bitmore usefull if you could buy them with credit cards / paypal

if you want to tranfer money to someone via bitcoins and it a weekend how do you do
bank tranfer take time
cash deposites take time(and usably closed on saturday / sunday)

this.

in the end Bitcoins are not anymore useful than what's already available in society. that's why many people see it as simply the black market currency of the internet, where illegal things become possible. so in the end what's the benefit? a legal black market that is not really practical?

plus the community acts like a bee hive.. if you're not working with them to uplift them and their idea (Bitcoin), they will harshly ridicule you even if your opinion is based on reality and constructiveness.. not that I know how bee hives work, but I know that if you look foreign, it's considered a threat, and if you linger around not sharing the same purpose (you're not a bee), you're going to get stung eventually. so I really don't like that cult mentality I see here. it's the opposite of what leads to success in anything.

[Stephen Gornick]

it hard to get bitcoins fast - bitcoins would be a bitmore usefull if you could buy them with credit cards / paypal

There's just no way possible to make it so Bitcoins can be purchased with payment in PayPal -- it is a violation of their terms of service and they actively pursue any violations.  Credit card might happen again, some day, but you'll be paying well above market rate due to chargebacks.

Some options include:

 - http://bitmint.weebly.com/buy.html

With VirWoX you can buy SLL using credit card, then trade SLL for BTC:
 - http://www.VirWoX.com

Physical Bitcoin, paid for with credit card:
 - http://memorydealers.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=bitcoin

if you want to tranfer money to someone via bitcoins and it a weekend how do you do
bank tranfer take time
cash deposites take time(and usably closed on saturday / sunday)

Cash deposits through BitInstant at 7-11/WalMart/CVS/etc. in the U.S. are nearly instant.  Using BitcoinSpinner from inside a 7-11, you can have bitcoins five minutes later, before you've even left the store.

[Serenata]

Just curious, what services/exchanges offer Greeks Euro to BTC? Maybe there is an access issue also, and a market opportunity?

I use Intersango with no issues up to now. It usually takes 48h to process a payment to Intersango but I have no idea how much time it takes to withdraw. I'm not aware of any Greek service.

it hard to get bitcoins fast - bitcoins would be a bitmore usefull if you could buy them with credit cards / paypal

if you want to tranfer money to someone via bitcoins and it a weekend how do you do it?
bank tranfer take time
cash deposites take time(and banks are usably closed on saturday / sunday)

I always keep some spare bitcoins in my wallet for cases I might need them. If I wanted to send large amounts of money, I wouldn't send them all at once, so I would have the time to buy some more in the meantime. You can always get bitcoins during weekends with person-to-person trades. Though, I seem to be the only one in Greece offering bitcoins at localbitcoins.com >.<

CAREFUL WITH BITCOINS AND PAYPAL!

[hardpick]

it hard to get bitcoins fast - bitcoins would be a bitmore usefull if you could buy them with credit cards / paypal

There's just no way possible to make it so Bitcoins can be purchased with payment in PayPal -- it is a violation of their terms of service and they actively pursue any violations.  Credit card might happen again, some day, but you'll be paying well above market rate due to chargebacks.

Some options include:

 - http://bitmint.weebly.com/buy.html

With VirWoX you can buy SLL using credit card, then trade SLL for BTC:
 - http://www.VirWoX.com

Physical Bitcoin, paid for with credit card:
 - http://memorydealers.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=bitcoin

if you want to tranfer money to someone via bitcoins and it a weekend how do you do
bank tranfer take time
cash deposites take time(and usably closed on saturday / sunday)

Cash deposits through BitInstant at 7-11/WalMart/CVS/etc. in the U.S. are nearly instant.  Using BitcoinSpinner from inside a 7-11, you can have bitcoins five minutes later, before you've even left the store.

bitmint is $9.5 per bitcoin
I am not sure is 7-11 australia take cash and converts to bitcoins


my problem -I live in Australia and wanted to tranfer $3500 to someone in France urgently this weekend
and did no have enought bitcoins in my wallet. i could not find a method to topup my wallet that was quick
I have credit cards -- paypal - and can get cash out of a teller
and yes I can do a TT -- takes 3 days to clear and $25 cost or use westen union/ moneygram
is there a way of doing this with bitcoins ?

[Stephen Gornick]

my problem -I live in Australia and wanted to tranfer $3500 to someone in France urgently this weekend
and did no have enought bitcoins in my wallet. i could not find a method to topup my wallet that was quick
I have credit cards -- paypal - and can get cash out of a teller
and yes I can do a TT -- takes 3 days to clear and $25 cost or use westen union/ moneygram
is there a way of doing this with bitcoins ?

Funny that you should ask!

I see that CryptoXChange accepts cash deposit (at Westpack)
 - http://cryptoxchange.com/Funds/AustraliaBankDeposit

Though you can deposit up to $5K AUD, you wouldn't be able to buy that much in BTCs, at least not in one transaction.

The cash deposit fee is normally 0.6% but for amounts over $1K AUD, the fee is waived.

 - http://cryptoxchange.com/Funds/AustraliaBankDeposit

If you couldn't buy everything you needed at once (without overpaying) you can always send a CrytpoXChange coupon/redeemable code and let the recipient buy bitcoins with the funds.

There are other cash deposit methods in Australia as well.  SpendBitcoins.com and MrBitcoins.com though the fees are higher.