Bitcoins hit Africa's money transfer traditions

[Bit_Happy]

Cnn seems to be bitcoin friendly. The documentary done by Morgan Spurlock about living only on bitcoin was great and now we have this.

Was great? Past-tense? Have you seen it early?

Morgan Spurlock did one show on BTC that people were talking about, is there another on coming up?
Also, glad to see CNN is reporting about Bitcoin in Africa. 

[Nick Markus]

Cnn seems to be bitcoin friendly. The documentary done by Morgan Spurlock about living only on bitcoin was great and now we have this.

Was great? Past-tense? Have you seen it early?

Morgan Spurlock did one show on BTC that people were talking about, is there another on coming up?
Also, glad to see CNN is reporting about Bitcoin in Africa. 

You know what they say. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

[yayayo]

Finally the killer app is here: http://www.bitsim.co/

This "smart SIM extension" has great potential, because it uses simple SMS technology on non-feature phones. Contrary to the beliefs of some people in the Bitcoin community, 3G infrastructure is not widely available in most African countries (or is extremely costly to connect with) and even the cheapest feature phones are still too expensive compared to the average income in most of Africa.

Hopefully this will be available soon.

ya.ya.yo!

Sending bitcoins through sms has been possible for sometime now, right?
How is this different?

If you're referring to Coinapult SMS service: It's a centralized service. Their service numbers are from UK/Canada - so SMS from other countries will be expensive. (Hidden) fees (conversion rates).

BitSim is a hardware solution. It is decentralized and works worldwide with local SMS pricing. There`s no intermediary central authority involved. No fees besides hardware costs (which will be very low).

ya.ya.yo!

[Nick Markus]

Finally the killer app is here: http://www.bitsim.co/

This "smart SIM extension" has great potential, because it uses simple SMS technology on non-feature phones. Contrary to the beliefs of some people in the Bitcoin community, 3G infrastructure is not widely available in most African countries (or is extremely costly to connect with) and even the cheapest feature phones are still too expensive compared to the average income in most of Africa.

Hopefully this will be available soon.

ya.ya.yo!

Sending bitcoins through sms has been possible for sometime now, right?
How is this different?

If you're referring to Coinapult SMS service: It's a centralized service. Their service numbers are from UK/Canada - so SMS from other countries will be expensive. (Hidden) fees (conversion rates).

BitSim is a hardware solution. It is decentralized and works worldwide with local SMS pricing. There`s no intermediary central authority involved. No fees besides hardware costs (which will be very low).

ya.ya.yo!

Never heard of BitSim. Sounds amazing to have normal pricing for worldwide communication.

[Snorek]

Finally the killer app is here: http://www.bitsim.co/

This "smart SIM extension" has great potential, because it uses simple SMS technology on non-feature phones. Contrary to the beliefs of some people in the Bitcoin community, 3G infrastructure is not widely available in most African countries (or is extremely costly to connect with) and even the cheapest feature phones are still too expensive compared to the average income in most of Africa.

Hopefully this will be available soon.

ya.ya.yo!

Sending bitcoins through sms has been possible for sometime now, right?
How is this different?

If you're referring to Coinapult SMS service: It's a centralized service. Their service numbers are from UK/Canada - so SMS from other countries will be expensive. (Hidden) fees (conversion rates).

BitSim is a hardware solution. It is decentralized and works worldwide with local SMS pricing. There`s no intermediary central authority involved. No fees besides hardware costs (which will be very low).

ya.ya.yo!

Never heard of BitSim. Sounds amazing to have normal pricing for worldwide communication.

Bitsim is innovation for sure, but services like that are not decentralized. And you probably will let them control your private key as part of their system and let store your information/credentials in Cloud based Services.
Which is not always good idea imo.

[yayayo]

Bitsim is innovation for sure, but services like that are not decentralized. And you probably will let them control your private key as part of their system and let store your information/credentials in Cloud based Services.
Which is not always good idea imo.

From what I understood you are not forced to use their services and will be in control of your keys. So you could control your own wallet with it. But maybe I misunderstood.

Remember that this is about micropayments. It's pretty clear that it's not a good idea to store all your funds on the BitSim system.

ya.ya.yo!

[Nick Markus]

Finally the killer app is here: http://www.bitsim.co/

This "smart SIM extension" has great potential, because it uses simple SMS technology on non-feature phones. Contrary to the beliefs of some people in the Bitcoin community, 3G infrastructure is not widely available in most African countries (or is extremely costly to connect with) and even the cheapest feature phones are still too expensive compared to the average income in most of Africa.

Hopefully this will be available soon.

ya.ya.yo!

Sending bitcoins through sms has been possible for sometime now, right?
How is this different?

If you're referring to Coinapult SMS service: It's a centralized service. Their service numbers are from UK/Canada - so SMS from other countries will be expensive. (Hidden) fees (conversion rates).

BitSim is a hardware solution. It is decentralized and works worldwide with local SMS pricing. There`s no intermediary central authority involved. No fees besides hardware costs (which will be very low).

ya.ya.yo!

Never heard of BitSim. Sounds amazing to have normal pricing for worldwide communication.

Bitsim is innovation for sure, but services like that are not decentralized. And you probably will let them control your private key as part of their system and let store your information/credentials in Cloud based Services.
Which is not always good idea imo.

The private key being in their control does not sound very secure.