Topic: Knock Knock? (Read 3131 times)

I know you have anti-establishmentism, but brick and mortar banks mean jobs. Banks also mean convenience and security. Convenience costs money. That's why convenient stores are money making enterprises. Anything people are willing to spend on, is worth something. It costs 44 cents to send a check to someone through mail. It costs 3% (to the receiver) to receive funds instantly on paypal via credit card. It's free if you pay from paypal to paypal.  There are lots of options and options are good! No need to limit everything to bitcoins.
Bitcoin still exists even with every other option out there. Bitcoin's biggest strength is ONE WORLD CURRENCY. You can transfer to anyone in the world without having to go through banks (if you wanted to). Otherwise, if you don't trust sending your bitcoins to nigeria, you send through a trusted bank so you can file a claim if you get scammed!



You're right, because banks will have the ability to stockpile bitcoins, we'd have to have safety measures to safeguard against 1 bank from having more than 5% to 10% of all bitcoins.  An Anti-monopoly Act if you will.

We will also have to have safety measures in place in case the bank is overrun/shutdown/blown up/stolen/robbed/heisted by the government or civil movement or aliens. A simple plan: don't keep all your eggs in one place.

Instead of fighting the system, try to incorporate it into the system so that banks will WANT to be a part of bitcoin instead of banks FIGHTING against bitcoin. Remember, bankers livelihoods are on the line and if you don't care about them, then why would they care about you?

Overall, I think that the overhead of bitcoin will be less than banks. Bitcoins should be able to charge less for transaction fees than banks on that fact alone. Even though banks have far more volume of transaction, the fact that bitcoin is extremely scalable and versatile, it could very quickly make brick and mortar banking obsolete. Hell, insurance, chargebacks, escrows, etc can all become decentralized. Whatever Jack and Jill decide to agree upon will always be a matter of trust between people and the bitcoin auditing network will one day provide all those services. I think this is what you mean by networked banks. They would be escrow services used by subscribers that trust their connections to the bitcoin network. The problem is, a bank can one day abscond with every bitcoin in it's virtual vaults. There is a tradeoff between convenience and security. These banks can be useful, but should never be given the position to control the bitcoin network itself.

You have to pay a fee for transferring btcs, dontcha? It's voluntary right? The more you spend on the fee, the faster your transaction goes through?

How do you know how much to spend? And regardless of how much you spend, confirmation time is never guaranteed even if you know that amount.

So I ask you, would you rather pay the fee at the counter for your btc to go through faster to possibly stand at the counter for 30 minutes waiting for your confirmations

OR

would you rather a merchant pay a fee which the merchant would agree to for the merchant's peace of mind that you're not scamming. It will also save the merchant time and transfer funds as quick as any other form of money.

There will be competition between banks to keep rates competitive and we'd have to have a committee that decides what the limit is. The banks income much exceed the money lost by fraud, chargebacks, thefts,and btc insurance, employee paychecks, taxes, bills.

... and the merchants will pass along the bank fees to the consumer. Either way, the banks win and will continue to increase those fees. Probably the safest way to keep money is in gold bullets, that way if someone wants to take them from you they will get them very quickly.  =p

Yeh, I'm pretty sure banks for bitcoins are much safer and easier.



You can just carry a credit card and the amount in your account will go up and down and the other person's account will go up and down without btcs ever moving.

You can still withdraw your btc and transfer them the hard and time consuming way if you wish.


Banks will make money by the merchants who'll pay a percentage of the transaction for the service.

What happens if the entire Federal Reserve system goes insolvent? Good thing the FDIC is going to give you Federal Reserve Notes to settle your claim.....

Maybe you can figure out how to make Frylock and Meatwad to go with Mr. Lincoln out of all that origami paper you'll have.

However, an attacker only has to install a small program on your computer that waits for you to unencrypt your wallet (since you eventually have to use it for it to mean anything) to steal your private key then.

My bitcoins are completely secure. They are encrypted with an unbreakable password. They are backed up in many places globally. The only way to take my bitcoins would be under duress and even then you would only get my small stash. Nothing comes even close to the security of bitcoins.

There is only one important advantage that keeps all my money in banks.

FDIC insurance.

If someone at the bank fucks up, it gets robbed, burns down, etc, I keep all my money.

Networked banks (chains) even more so, since no single bank actually has my specific stack of money.  Unless all the banks in the chain burn down my money is relatively safe.*

* this probably isn't entirely true - a failure of the bank's database + backups could potentially wipe out my stack of money.  Your home is probably considerably less immune to fires, etc.

I don't get it.

So you are saying that i should put my money in a brick and mortar Bank , because it can keep them safe and then you tell because i can't defend against navy seals? Are you serious? You telling me that a physical place were people store large amounts of bitcoins is safer in face of the state than anybodies house? Not even Iraq was able to hold it's wealth in face of the seals .

And bro , not even now you ain't forced to keep your BTC in your house . You can keep them off site , on an usb , a bitbill , cd , just encrypt your wallets and bury them somewhere, and even if you keep huge amounts in house don't tell. Now if you keep a million USD worth of bitcoins in your house and you let people know , the incentive to be robbed is quite higher than the risk unless you hire some thugs. You don't want to do that ? Take your usb to a safe deposit box at a brick and mortar bank , you don't need a dedicated one. The dedicated one has one big value on it's head, It is a threat to the established system so it ain't safe in any way.

My wonder world works like this: If the incentive to do something is big enough then nothing can stop it from happening. Not even the seals or the pope or the queen or any law system. The law system ain't actually protecting you , the law system works by RAISING THE RISK through fines and punishment ,applied AFTER something has been COMMITTED . That is exactly what you are doing by buying a gun . But the best way to protect your BTC is not to brag about how much you have.

You're not living in the real world. This sounds good in theory, actually, no, it's stupid!

1) You're not going to spend your entire life protecting your treasure. You've got to leave the house some time.
2) You may be able to defend against a known attack, but the enemy has the element of surprise.
3) Knowing all people have guns, robbers will have guns too. In a case where everyone has guns, it's the man with the element of surprise that wins a gun fight.

4. You may be able to kill the bitch that enters your house, but chances are you're not going to be able to kill a US Seal that breaks into your house. US Seals asside, you wouldn't be able to kill 3 or 4 attackers that enter your house from 4 different entry points with 4 guns.

Buy a gun. Build a crossbow . Kill the bitch that enters your house . Done. I won't keep my money in a bank only if it gives me a big enough piece of the profit. Otherwise i won't lend it. The bank shouldn't be more secure than someone's home. If the guards at the bank are allowed to carry weapons i should also . And really after all the shit that banks did with the money they had you still think that banks are safe?

I believe banks were created for many purposes. But the most important purpose was to keep your money safe. Without banks, robbers know that you store your money at home (because there is nowhere else to keep it safe) which gives them a ton of incentive to rob you.

Same with bitcoins, except your house is the computer. Robbers know that most people store their money in their wallets. Gives them great incentive to go in and wipe everything out.

This is why we need a bank. So that we can browse the internet and download strange things without worrying about losing our money. The bank could be virtual.... but who wants a repeat of MyBitcoin where you can't find the owner of the bank!! This is why I proposed that a brick and mortar bank has more credibility and at least we can take his assets if he tries anything funny.

Can gold exist without brick and mortar banks? Yes . So can USD , bitcoin , salt , grain, etc.

USD has value because many people trust the banks , government , corporations , etc. even if the banks would colapse do you think people would start to barter. No they will use currency , whatever currency they will have more faith in . The basics of gold and any free traded currency aren't different . Both get value from your FAITH. The problem with gold is that huge volumes are in the property of states  , the problem with bitcoin is that a huge volumes are is in the hands of early adopters and the problem with fiats is that huge volumes can be printed . All this huge volumes in a few peoples hands gives market rigging capabilities.

The only question is who do you trust more? Early bitcoin adopters , states , banks , No one?

ok, I thought so. Sometimes these nested convos get convoluted and easily misconstrued.

Uhm...


anyway the point is...

My definition of centralized currency is a currency run by one government.

decentralized currency is a currency run by everyone. No borders.

Brick and mortar banks are part of the fiat currency life cycle. Banks replace worn-out bills and release freshly printed bills. They store bills that require insurance, etc.

Can USD exist without brick and mortal banks?

I don't follow, GeniuSxBoY. First you say we need brick and mortar banks with an "owner." Then you say "we are trying to get rid of centralized currency." I am not sure you understand the meaning of the word "centralized." It has nothing to do with multiple currencies. In fact, ideally we will have multiple decentralized currencies.

Fixed.