Topic: Real life bitcoin scenario for non-bitcoiners - page 2. (Read 4792 times)

Probably with taxes.

IF bitcoin "took over" how do you think the govt would fund road repairs and every govt expenditure etc etc? I mean be realistic. You honestly think a deregulated currecny woudl be good in the long run??? I dont think the federal reserve is any good but you need regulation and law enforcement.

I always get a chuckle when I hear people talk about making bitcoin illegal.  What part could they outlaw?  ECDSA?

Perhaps, but it won't be shut down. If first world govts make it illegal some second or third world govts may just adopt it as their official currency.
If first world govts get too draconian in their controls they could end up driving more and more people to use alternative underground systems...


There are many more networks, and methods of information exchange, than what is known as "the internet".

First world govt's. You dont "turn it off" you make it illegal. It wont stop completely obviously but no real business will touch it ever if its illegal. Most people will also stop using bitcoin if it becomes illegal. Bitcoin does require the internet. How do you think coins originate?

Which govt... ( there are more than one and they tend not to get along too well most times. )

And how do you turn off something that doesn't have an "off" switch?  Bitcoin doesn't even require "the internet". 

Bitcoin is nothing but a fun currency or a way to purchase things illegally. Face it, even if it were to "take off" the govt would shut it down. The ones who disagree with me are just being naive.

I wanted to add my number one reason for preferring BTC:  identity theft.

When you use a CC, you are giving the merchant your credit card number.  Technically, they can charge it as many times as they want.  They store it on their system and hackers get millions of credit card numbers when they breach the merchants' systems.  How many times have I been notified that my CC number might have been compromised and I have to get a new card?  I even had fraudulent purchases on my CC before and spent hours on the phone with the CC company explaining that I'm single with no kids -- why would I be buying $1,500 worth of baby supplies?  Even PayPal has automatic payments that I have found myself struggling to "cancel" in the past.

With BTC, you authorize each payment.  There is no way to do automatic payments.  In the absence of someone compromising your personal computer, there is no risk of someone hacking a merchants' system and getting your BTC private key -- you never gave it to them.

This isn't exactly a real-life scenario, but it's a real-life consideration in a world with accelerating levels of identity theft.  If the economy grew such that Bitcoins were frequently accepted online next to fiat, this is a clear advantage for Bitcoin that many consumers can tangibly understand.

Adam enters the store, buys some candy, and pays with cash. He walks out, runs into a buddy, they go for coffee in the local cofffee shop. At the register his buddy pulls out the phone, fires up Bitcoin Spinner 1.8, scans the qr code, and pays the bill (BTC0.05). Few hours later, Adam gets in the taxi, and - being happy with ride - pays bitcoins. Just tap his NFC phone against the driver's phone, and he is done. Both Adam and his friend received receipts for their purchases denominated in the local currency.

 He gets home, and refills his phone wallet from the dedicated savings wallet (based on Cranberry Pi). He also sends to his daughter - who studies abroad - coins for the next few months, which she will mostly exchange into local currency, and small part of it she will spend directly online. Where she is, Bitcoin hasn't really caught up yet.

Why is everyone ignoring the obvious BitInstant card?

BTC to local currency in the form of a debit card transparent to the merchant.

That is because using bitcoin for shopping candy is the wrong solution for the wrong problem.  There is literally no advantage to bitcoin here - but not much of a disadvantage either, since the risk of a double-spend is probably below the risk of accepting counterfeit cash or stolen visa cards.

The good use-case is Adam buying something on the net (preferably something legal!).  That is where bitcoin - even probably with escrow - will be competitive.

Adam is eight years old! He goes into the sweet shop, and pays with his bitcoin card, on which he receives a monthly allowance of BTC from his parents. The shop owner appreciates the ease of use, not being required to deal with physical cash or find the correct change, yet without the charges of a bank card.

Later, Adam pays for a new monthly subscription to his favourite online game, by swiping his card into the built in reader on his games console (or even typing in the amount and receiving a unique payment code using a keypad and display built into the card itself).

Of course, all this would be impossible for Adam using a regular bank card, since he's probably not old enough to own one, or maybe his parents simply didn't want the hassle of setting up a bank account for him. It doesn't matter if he loses it either, since it only contains pocket change and his parents can just pick up a new one for almost nothing (or the price of a small preloaded amount) at the nearest shop.

Bank`s - isnt that what we trying to avoid?
Ok, well, lets call it excrow. But still, you would have an instititution that handles the bitcoin transactions, most probably for a fee as nobody works for free.
Then the same thing as with mtgox would probably popup, people would need to verify their identity.

Awesome, I had a feeling this thread would be fun. Thanks for some really interesting suggestions. So it seems the main issue (apart from people's ignorance) is that the clerk is forced to make a choice to either risk double-spend or make Adam wait fo X minutes for at least 1 confirmation. That kindof sucks. I heard proposals that, in theory, this could be solved by using a bitcoin bank where Adam would deposit some of his bitcoins and this institution would be responsible for preventing double-spends of Adam's deposits. Clerk would recieve btc form bank, not directly from Adam. Or do you have other ideas?

aswell as keeping a data backup also write the private keys into a word document and print it out..

It's June 2013, Adam enters a store, picks up some snacks and takes it to the counter.

The pretty young cashier knows Adam but he doesn't know her.  She smiles shyly as she rings up the snacks.  "Hi, Five dollars and Sixty Seven cents."  She is embarrassed that Adam doesn't know who she is.  Adam was in her brothers class back in High School.  She was a year behind.  It's not that she liked him or anything its just that most boys in town find her pretty and Adam never seems to notice.  She is convinced that there is something wrong with her.  Adam does remember her though, he remembers her really well.  He has had a crush on her ever since she first started going to his high school way back in 2007.  Adam is ridiculously shy, way more so than the cashier.  He pulls out a Visa card and says, "here".  She says thank you and swipes the card for him.  Adam never noticed the card swiping machine right in front of him despite shopping in this store every Friday afternoon for the last year.  Friday afternoon is her normal shift.

Two young souls lost in their own insecurity and hopelessly separated by their shyness and a Visa card.

Adam leaves the store, opens the soda and slowly drinks it as he drives away.   The chips and chocolate bar join the growing snack collection in the back seat of his car.  He will eventually use them to bribe his nephews when he sees them Sunday.

You see, Adam like most non-bitcoiners has never heard of bitcoin.  His brother uses them to buy drugs but he has never told Adam about them.  Adam loves his brother but can't take too much of him at a time.  Adam just wishes his brother was around more for his kids.

first step is finding a company that accepts loyalty points or foreign currency's instead of just native currency, then ur 99% able to sell them into BTC.

for the rest of the world that only likes native currency. here is wat id try. no mention of cryptography or government power instead its using the loyalty points scenario to make them understand

"so shop owner ur still accepting credit cards i see.. that must be bummer waiting to get reimbursed by the card issuer. i bet your employee's hate the 3-5 day delay in receiving their wages along with all them fees u have to pay for just to use that feeble system.

have u ever considered bitinstant payment system?

wats that

well so far there's 100,000 known regular users of it. and probably millions that arnt so regular. but lets just stick to wat you need to know first.
well they give u a prepayment card to get reimbursed within the hour, and u offer customers ur products for a loyalty point system thingy called bitcoins. the funds show up instantly as a payment is taken. the system is so robust it would take a supercomputer to fake them so don't worry about that from customers walking into ur shop with only a hand full of points in their wallets. but if u do care, the system also has a validation confirmation which takes under an hour. so by the time they have used their super computer to fake them, walked to ur store its already rejected them inside the customers wallet to not allow payment.

the important thing is that you get paid instantly by the customer and still have access to normal money to buy new stock, pay wages or whatever else all in one. and if you are part of a chain of stores you can send them funds instantly too across the world even, in seconds.

its simply electronic cash without the headaches of your credit card issuers. and without the headache of cashing up each evening and needing a security company to walk it over to the bank to deposit

quote from starship troopers: would you like to know more?

Due to a random unpredictable glitch, Adam's hard drive is corrupted.  He loses everything, there is no way to ever get it back.  Bitcoiners tell him this is entirely his fault, then insist that the rest of the world convert to Bitcoin and wonder why everyone is ignoring them.

 It's June 2013, Adam enters a store, picks up some snacks and takes it to the counter.

Oh hi Adam," the cashier greets him. "Snacking away some of the gains your tab has made this week?"

"Oh gosh no!" Adam replies. "My bitcoin tab is only for emergencies. I still get paid in fiat at work so of course I am dumping fiat before touching my tab. How much is it up, by the way?"

Cashier consults screen. "Only another few bucks a coin this week. Ok, let me ring that in in fiat for you... You know, you really should keep your bitcoins on your own machine at home, not leave them all in your tab here..."

"Yeah yeah," Adam replies as he leaves. "But I trust you. And besides they aren't all here, I have tabs all over town. See ya."

-MarkM-

Wait, I have another one.

A guy tries to buy a Snickers bar and waits 30 minutes for the transaction to verify.  It doesn't because the transaction fees have gone up, so he has to raise his bid and wait another 30 minutes and just hope.  Also, the btc price of the snickers bar is inflated by 150%.

Alternately, he uses fiat cash because who sells candy bars for bitcoins?  He goes home and buys drugs and child porn off of silk road, because besides scamming, that's about all you can do with bitcoins.  He never receives either.  He then smugly posts about how only retards don't use bitcoin before losing everything to LiterallyAPonziSceme run by venerated forums member PonziMan.  He is legitimately surprised.