Bitcoins

I've come to think that bitcoin probably is some of the things that its supporters claim, and is not others. E.g. it makes sense to me that it's a very useful way to transfer money or make payments globally without friction/fees. However, I don't think it's going to be a successful tax avoidance strategy, or money laundering device, or drug-purchasing tool forever, and I certainly don't think it's going to become some kind of universal currency that will upend currency and the banking system as we know it.

i have yet to see anyone make a good argument why any person would want to use these over a debit/credit card, buying drugs excepted

the friction/fees are all incurred by the business

If you're paranoid about ID theft would be one. Or if you don't have a credit card.

The better argument I've heard is that people could use it for international remittances instead of services that charge high fees.

not to mention that the security overhead is ridiculous to ask non technical people to handle, someone gets yr wallet infos and all yr bitcoins are gone

if the US government fails I would think Bitcoin would be pretty useful

xp right -- I mean the fees incurred by the business drive up your cost in the end too, but you're not going to make a decision based on that. However, it's possible there could be smaller merchants who would rather just not take credit cards at all -- etsy-type sellers, who could accept bitcoin.

The bigger problems to me are security and stability in the price. If you're just going to transfer quickly in/out of bitcoin for payment purposes only, the stability is less of a problem, as an article here or in the other thread pointed out.

Or if you don't have a credit card.

The better argument I've heard is that people could use it for international remittances instead of services that charge high fees.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:33 AM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how are you getting the bitcoins w/o the credit card what are the fees associated with that, what abou the fee when you have to transfer bitcoin back into local currency after remittance, and this is all ignoring the obvious market realities that existing systems like money wiring or w/e can just lower their fees to compete w bitcoin

not to mention that the security overhead is ridiculous to ask non technical people to handle, someone gets yr wallet infos and all yr bitcoins are gone

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:34 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah this is a big barrier, although there might be a tech solution to it. Fingerprint sensor activated wallet or such.

If you're just going to transfer quickly in/out of bitcoin for payment purposes only, the stability is less of a problem, as an article here or in the other thread pointed out.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:37 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there would be fees for this, bitcoin only becomes feeless if its the default currency which is never gonna happen this is all so stupid

yeah this is a big barrier, although there might be a tech solution to it. Fingerprint sensor activated wallet or such.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:38 AM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

everything is breakable, if there were thousands of dollars just lying around on peoples phones it would start to disappear very fast

smh at dealbook what a piece of shit thats some techcrunch level letting people sell their own book in yr pages

I don't think Western Union would be able to lower fees enough to compete with something that is literally zero cost. Factor in the in and out exchange fees and I still don't think so.

I agree that there are like a million possible ways for bitcoin to not turn into what its boosters think it can turn into, and that the odds are against it, but I still think it has some interesting possibilities.

its not zero cost my god how many times do you have to have this pointed out to you

Well, to be fair to Dealbook, they also recently published a post-mortem on Bitcoin, arguing that Bitcoin was as good as toast and analyzing the misconceptions of its backers.

xxp

they couldve gotten the pro bitcoin line maybe from someone who wasnt the most heavily invested in it of anyone in the world

its not zero cost my god how many times do you have to have this pointed out to you

This is a fair point. If you don't want to be exposed to Bitcoin currency fluctuations, you can't keep your money in Bitcoins, so the cost of any one transaction is the sum of (1) fees to convert your currency to Bitcoin plus bid-ask spread, (2) transaction fee associated with the Bitcoin transaction itself, and (3) fees + spread to convert back to currency on the other end. This is probably not negligible, but still could end up being less than an international wire (I have no idea how much those cost) and possibly more convenient too. I do think this will probably just motivate international wire services to improve their service and cut fees, but if so that's a win-win for everyone (except I guess people who have their life savings in Bitcoin).

yeah thatd be cool but it does nothing for the viability of bitcoin

im quite sure theres a shitload of other costly infrastructure that would have to be worked into that equation too, real life will intrude upon the beautiful logarithm

bitcoin, massively open online education... what other deeply stupid shit have genius technologists attempting to disrupt industries they no nothing about come up with recently

its not zero cost my god how many times do you have to have this pointed out to you

This is a fair point. If you don't want to be exposed to Bitcoin currency fluctuations, you can't keep your money in Bitcoins, so the cost of any one transaction is the sum of (1) fees to convert your currency to Bitcoin plus bid-ask spread, (2) transaction fee associated with the Bitcoin transaction itself, and (3) fees + spread to convert back to currency on the other end. This is probably not negligible, but still could end up being less than an international wire (I have no idea how much those cost) and possibly more convenient too. I do think this will probably just motivate international wire services to improve their service and cut fees, but if so that's a win-win for everyone (except I guess people who have their life savings in Bitcoin).

― o. nate, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 11:48 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is right, except I disagree that international wire services necessarily could just cut fees to compete. Maybe, maybe not. At some point it's not profitable for them to do so anymore. They have high overhead.

and bitcoiin related businesses would have to have high overhead to compete with them on service, the part of bitcoin thats "zero cost" transferring the funds is also effectively zero cost for for the wire services

I'm still struggling to see any legit use for Bitcoin that doesn't involve doing something illegal or on shaky legal ground. I really wish it was around for the 2004-2006 poker boom.

Isn't the most attractive thing for most people in the short term that it relatively keeps climbing in value per coin? And it's only doing so because it's a fad. Beyond that I don't get why it exists.

it exists cause theyre gonna end the tyranny of taxation lol

No, dogecoin will.

if anything though this whole experiment seems to be exposing the libertarian viewpoint as less "fuck the upper class because nobody should have that much power" and more "fuck the upper class because I'm not one of them"

this is news to me that libertarians hate the upper class

anyone here interested in making a joke currency? (or has dogecoin already claimed all the jokes)

im interested in making a joke illegal marketplace where i steal all the bitcoins

Trader Jokes

Editor’s note: Marc Andreessen’s gigantic pointed skull is full of bitcoins

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 4:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my coworker just glanced over at my screen to see why i was http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/1002961/muttley-laugh-o.gif'ing so hard

srsly that photo doesnt even tell the whole story my god

http://i.forbesimg.com/media/lists/people/marc-andreessen_416x416.jpg

thats his real head

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5179166eeab8ead044000002-480/marc-andreessen-google-glass.jpg

http://31.media.tumblr.com/6fc637cb157ae0d005971bb062c32e94/tumblr_mive8mkWss1rj7luco1_400.jpg

bitcoin is prob an alien currency

reddit alien

if his whole argument = bitcoin is low fees, its super disingenny for him to be like, well, everyone will use services that convert BTC into regular currency anyway

dont those things charge fees? if not how do they exist

also isnt this:

Finally, I’d like to address the claim made by some critics that Bitcoin is a haven for bad behavior, for criminals and terrorists to transfer money anonymously with impunity. This is a myth, fostered mostly by sensationalistic press coverage and an incomplete understanding of the technology. Much like email, which is quite traceable, Bitcoin is pseudonymous, not anonymous. Further, every transaction in the Bitcoin network is tracked and logged forever in the Bitcoin blockchain, or permanent record, available for all to see. As a result, Bitcoin is considerably easier for law enforcement to trace than cash, gold or diamonds.

completely going against the mythology of bitcoin? kind of stunning that he would say that tbh

its all logged with perfectly anonymous numbered accounts and there are services specifically for confounding attempts to trace bitcoins back to particular transactions

xpost from the other thread great article about the silk road dude

Hence Bitcoin’s wry new nickname in legal circles: “Prosecution Futures.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/business/eagle-scout-idealist-drug-trafficker.html

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 2:34 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Feel like Marc Andresseeeen would do really well in a cycling competition. His wind resistance must be close to 0

https://bitcoin.app.net

My bank charges me $15 for international wire transfers (flat fee) and obviously I'm paying the spread as well, it's not a very competitive rate

I think xe.com offers really competitive rates but I've never really researched it

I don't really see how remittance through bitcoin would be cheaper than an online-only exchange service that didn't have to worry about the cost of B&M overhead like banks do

ya like what INTRINSICALLY is cheaper about providing a bitcoin service

it saves money by not providing fraud protection/dispute resolution why dont u see

Spent five weeks in HK this year and since I had a bank account there I decided to transfer a couple thousand in cash to 'save money'

Ended up finding a place that operated out of the 17th floor of a room that beat my bank's exchange rate by at least 5 points

Also used a credit card w/ no foreign exchange rate, its rate ended up being the same as my bank's rate, without a $15 charge

Felt pretty silly, should have just brought straight cash and exchanged it at the 17th floor place

Point being that if a tiny little place operating out of an apartment in HK can beat bank rates with ease then I'm sure xe.com or w/e can too

Also best part about the place is 1.) they are called the Berlin Currency Exchange and 2.) their website is a blogspot http://bcel1985.blogspot.hk/