Topic: Money over IP a threat to bitcoin - page 2. (Read 9067 times)

A lot of digital payment systems dont have what bitcoin does.  Its global footprint.  I think third world countries and non western ones find more accessible to bitcoin because these other payment systems are using USD. 

it is not a threat to bitcoin it is a threat to bitcoin adoption. If we assume that venmo will attempt to capitalize their network by becoming the cash over IP gurilla, well then you could send tips to people on youtube/this forum through venmo. its basically kills bitcoins added utility besides a safe heaven, but if all we need is a safe heaven then why not gold? I understand that logically one could still argue that bitcoin has many merits, so does pgp encryption, but for some reason it never caught on, all i am saying is that the way the "cards have been dealt" right now i am not as bullish of bitcoin receiving mass adoption

Okay so venmo is an interface to the banks to make payments?

Thus it is then regulated and centralized.

Remind me how it is a threat to bitcoin?

The weakness of many of the pro-bitcoin arguments in this thread, is Bitcoin's success depends on the failure of fiat.  Not a viable business model, IMO.  The masses aren't ideological.  They just want simple and cost effective means to move money.  Digital, fiat...who cares.  Their lives are not dominated by economic paranoia or some desire for decentralization and thus any simple and safe service will do.  Bitcoin is not yet on that level of simplicity and it's for this reason that other services are crushing Bitcoin in adoption rates.  As has been said over and over again...when people stop following the Bitcoin zeolots into the obscurity, maybe some real innovations will come about to put Bitcoin on a level that's actually appealing to the masses.  That said, a 20% Bitcoin success rate is probably very generous.

First time I hear about this V-thingy. Is it a US service, as people were also talking about Dwolla, which I associate with money processing failure in US with regard to Gox?

The fact that you have 10% of those bitcoin start ups is misleading. that is not "good news" as fiat + IP has been around for a while and therefore the startup "uproar" should not be at its peak. (e.g paypal) Bitcoin is new with an ATH of publicity in the last few months, and all we have is fucking coin base (not even close to venmo UI) and bit pay (i don't even get what they do that coin base doesn't  besides provide you with some automated QR)

Just to put that into perspective:

There are now 725 startups listed under Payments on AngelList
https://angel.co/payments
Venmo is just one of them

Top 25 (bitcoin companies in bold):

WePay
Stripe
Klarna
Balanced
Coinbase
Recurly
Venmo
Vend
Abine
Cover
Dwolla
BitPay
ClairMail
Square
Clover
SlidePay
Signifyd
peerTransfer
PayNearMe
Ribbon
SeatMe
Clinkle
card.io
PayDragon
ShopSavvy

+1 true, vc money is raining down on mobile payment start-ups, and a lot of them fail anyway. i had talks to a vc company earlier this year. they had no clue what bitcoin was. we tried to explain.

vc: "but if there are only 21 mio ever created, this can never fuel an economy"
us: "no, that does not matter, you can devide bitcoins into smaller fraction.... ...down to a satoshi..."
vc: "but deviding them does not make more bitcoins available"
us: "it does, it will be smaller fractions of a bitcoin.... (trying to explain like to kid)
vc: "nah, i don´t believe it"
us: "but it is a fact,..."
vc: "you say it is a fact, i don´t believe it"
us:

that was the head of a very succesful vc company. we could hardly explain our business idea, since we had to explain the bitcoin project. whenever you talk to vc in europe, be prepared...

as prob mentioned. this is fiat ONLY. it's 100% identifiable and trackable. it's US only and won't work well across borders. and frankly i think it's kind of pointless to a degree. it's also pegged to fiat. anyways - this is no competition this is just another paypal

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the message here. Adoption will require considerable utility, emphasis on top notch UI, and effective marketing of both. We're certainly not there.

Don't forget too that Bitcoin is a protocol - not an app  (like http vs a web browser).

All someone needs to do is write a wrapper so that you can send directly to someone's email or facebook account, and you're all set.  If the W3C standard on web payments integrates it, then Bitcoin will instantly become accessible to over a billion people.

We just need some better, slicker, more user-friendly tools.


Oh, and a cool promotional video with lots of trendy people. 

Thank you for the article.

Venmo is yet another bandaid.  Bitcoin is the ultimate cure.

Let's hope the planet figures out quickly that it's got more than just a flesh wound.

+1
A friend of mine just started working for a new start-up that just received a large investment to create a mobile payment product for use in a Latin American country.

ding ding ding, winner! or maybe just paranoia.

not a direct competitor in any way to Bitcoin; venmo is only a transmittance system, not both a transmittance and currency like BTC. in fact, venmo and btc could even work together someday.

I wouldn't assume they intend to stay domestic only... but transitioning into an international platform entails significant overhead. There are dozens of companies moving into this sector, and if you are going to dismiss them on this basis, just wait a couple years.


As far as mention of Ripple goes, it's a bad analogy. People are already very comfortable with services like Venmo. Ripple? They don't even understand crypto-currency. They don't want to bother with figuring out trust and debt systems with endless issuers of the same currency (which may or may not be liquid). Ripple is even much less appealing than bitcoin in this respect.


This. It's a bit early to be dismissive on the basis of adoption. Credit cards and overnight bank transfers with instant processing with a sleek, social networking-oriented interface -- this niche is going to be extremely important going forward. And Venmo is not the only company occupying it by any means.


This is my experience as well.

It's strange that I often see bitcoiners hyping its use as currency to make a case for mass adoption... but then they dismiss out of hand the implications of having well-developed products occupying the same niche. If we're just talking about "sound money" -- that's a hell of a lot less attractive to potential adopters.

People here are comparing bitcoin to Venmo. That's the wrong way to look at this. We should be comparing bitcoin to the mobile payment and mobile billing sector. Paypal, Wipit, Clover, Square, Zapp/WorldPay, M-Pesa, Dwolla, Google Wallet, TapFunder/WePay, BuyReply, Stripe, Boku, Zong, Fortumo, text2pay, impulsepay, junglepay, onebip, BilltoMobile, Dash, etc. ad nauseum. Shit, I mean..... WorldPay partnering with Zapp means you'll be able to instantly pay vendors like McDonald's with a QR code. Facebook confirmed a few weeks ago that they are testing a portable wallet that will process payments via third parties like Paypal and Braintree.

There's a hell of a lot more money being invested into mobile payment start-ups than any start-ups related to bitcoin. That's for sure.

did venmo pay for this adverthreadisment?

 
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+1

I like to add donations though.

I notice that I am much quicker donating to people thanks to btc. Donating with paypal is less fun and if I do it I pay less. Ie: I donate much more easily higher value with bitcoin.

When I donate in bitcoin I know people will remember how many btc I gave, and likely in a few years when btc is up, my donation to them will go up in value in their mind.

It's like donating a valuable stock, or precious metals, something you think will go up in value considerably, much cooler to do then donating fiat that will go down in value.

Also by donating btc I am actually building the value of my remaining btc because more people have btc and start valuing it.

I think donations make a chance to become the killer app of bitcoin.

[/quote]

that is correct. but...  an example is the german B.U.N.D. (top ranking environmental group) which had announced it would take bitcoins for donations beginning of this year. in an interview they expressed their dissapointment since so far the btc donations are summing up to not even 1 btc.

+1

I like to add donations though.

I notice that I am much quicker donating to people thanks to btc. Donating with paypal is less fun and if I do it I pay less. Ie: I donate much more easily higher value with bitcoin.

When I donate in bitcoin I know people will remember how many btc I gave, and likely in a few years when btc is up, my donation to them will go up in value in their mind.

It's like donating a valuable stock, or precious metals, something you think will go up in value considerably, much cooler to do then donating fiat that will go down in value.

Also by donating btc I am actually building the value of my remaining btc because more people have btc and start valuing it.

I think donations make a chance to become the killer app of bitcoin.

Is Venmo usable overseas, or does it only use USD? If it is not global then it is in no way a threat.

EDIT: Oh I see now. It only works in the U.S.

That sure as hell isn't going to cease insane inflation levels