Topic: The future of Bitcoin is illegal - page 4. (Read 20070 times)

I tend to look at this differently.

Paying with credit card is essentially no more than saying that company X will pay you on my behalf. Subsequently, company X will come to me for the amount paid increased with fees/interest.

The same type of construction is possible with Bitcoin. Company X will pay you on my behalf, but not in USD but BTC instead. Subsequently, company X will come to me for the amount of BTC paid (or USD if agreed upon) increased with fees/interest.

From that perspective, speaking about credit card payments on the one hand and BTC payments on the other hand is comparing apples with oranges.

The more I think about it, the more it dawns on me that BTC's essential property is really ease of payment. Not the software, not your HDD rumbling for hours, correction, days without end to update the blockchain but the pure and simple fact that I can send 'something' to anyone, even the moon (figurally speaking) if an astronaut has some sort of Internet connection. In fact, an internet connection is not even required for the receiver for the payment itself. He can generate his own unique key throuhg brainwallet.org or similar algorithm available offline to send BTC to.

The purse simple fact of a payment requires nothing other than me, my internet connection, the Bitcoin protocol and a receiving address. No blockades, no interference, nobody skimming fees in between and holding up one of the most simple and valuable things on earth: exchange between humans.

In a very abstract way of thinking about Bitcoin, everything that was not possible due to payment frictions, is now possible due to Bitcoin. Just to round off this little brainstorming event, a lot of things are alread possible:
*electronic money
*mobile money
*international payments

Not considering its flaws, Paypal is already immensely usefull due to its property of easy online payments outside of the banking system.

Very rough, Bitcoin enables the following additional properties:
*virtually no fees
*receive electronic payments without a bank account/Paypal account
*no central control

I do not see myself paying with BTC at the grocery store due to BTC's unique properties. But the same properties make it immensely usefull to make payments all over the world/universe to anyone, literally anyone, without limitations (if waiting for confirmation is not a problem; exactly the reason why I do not see it happening for BTC at the grocery store).

It is already possible to purchase the most outlandisch tablet from the most remote tablet factory/seller from China. Within time, you can also pay the chap without limitations.

Trust is not the problem (its a topic of trade as long as people have existed). Ability to pay/receive is, at least for a large part of the world (not our 1st world). Let's wait for smartphones and mobile internet to break through in developing countries. From where I am now in my line of thinking, that will be the most important source of BTC's upcoming success. Secondary properties (such as the fixed amount of 21 million BTC) are helpful (e.g., for the 1st world users).

It's gonna be great 

TAre you saying that it's easier to do credit card fraud than Bitcoin fraud?

I actually can't argue with that, since I have no idea how credit card fraud works. I do know one thing though, people go to prison for credit card fraud but Bitcoin fraud seems to be done openly and with impunity.

If you take Satoshi Dice out of the equation, I wonder how many bitcoin transactions have been people sending money to a place where they expected to get their coins back somehow and didn't in the end. I'd imagine a not inconsequential percentage.

*sigh*

You're the autistic guy aren't you?

Is it too much to hope that you concentrate on the actual argument rather than the completely inconsequential numbers that I used illustrate it? Or am I in the wrong forum for that?

Let me ask you a question. If someone says "Can you wait a second?" do you look at your watch and wait for one second to elapse?

False.  I hold bitcoins, and I am more than 0.00000001% of the world population.

Edit: I just realized I have sold or given away bitcoins to 0.005% of the population of my own country, and that is probably just a small part of the coin holding population of my country.

While paying with a credit card is easy, even if you don't own money or the credit card.  And that sums up the main problems with credit cards.  Paying with Bitcoin is impossible if you don't own any bitcoins, or can buy them from someone willing to take the risk off the merchant, and that is exactly how it should be.  It is a feature.  If you don't understand that, you have missed something very important.

I have elderly grandparents living in a poor country that is on the terrorist watchlist. I used to wire (from the US) about $8K a month to pay for their medical and hospice care bills. I make a faily decent salary working in an investment bank and I live well below my means, so sending them this money should not be a problem one would think. It turned out that each wire transfer I made tripped some kind of AML/anti-terrorist trigger and subsequently got delayed for weeks while I had to keep contacting the bank and explaining to them why I needed to send this money ... over and over and over again. We are talking about $8k/month here, not millions of dollars. I wonder how businesses can freely wire millions of dollars while an individual can't send a few thousand?

When I head of Bitcoin about a year ago I devised a scheme where I can send money using coins through my sister. She lives in an intermediate country where she can still easily cash out the coins through Mt.Gox, and then wire the money to my grandparents without the unreasonable restrictions placed by the US authorities. Problem solved!

So yeah, I use Bitcoin to bypass AML and anti-terror restrictions.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2053520&page=1#.UHVVAGMk5_M

well maybe not a quarterback...

FTFY.

I would use Tor all the time if it wasn't so frustratingly slow.

The Google CEO said:


If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.


If having gold is considered criminal, bitcoin isnt?


For those who are worried about Google, please see your defense. (http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/)  

I've definitely acknowledged things that have changed my point of view in this thread. One of them is the idea that Bitcoin can be used to empower disenfranchised residents of the third world who have been excluded from banking by giving them access to a payment system. I think in practice though that would create a two tier system and I wouldn't like to speculate on the implications of that. If anyone does move a project like that forward I think it would be very interesting, and I'll definitely be watching out for it in the future.

I think your kindergartener vs. pro athlete analogy is a little flawed. It severely understates how primitive Bitcoin is compared to the global financial system. I think it would be closer to compare it to some type of microorganism vs. a pro athlete. A bacteria is never going to beat a star quarterback, but it could evolve and change, over a very long time, into something that is good at playing a totally different game.

If we are making parting comments, I'll say this: I am very disappointed that so many people have interpreted my views as criticism of Bitcoin, and even more disappointed at the people who have accused me of trolling.

One guy said "Get over it Charlie, Bitcoins have a bright future."

It's sad that he probably will never understand that we agree wholeheartedly on that point, it's just a different type of bright future than he envisages.

Yes, but we aren't starting both scenarios from scratch, are we? I am talking about the real world, as it is now. Not a thought experiment with a level playing field.

This is just an accident of history, not a consequence of the design of either system.  If that was a requirement, credit cards wouldn't have taken off, nor would paper money, nor gold.  These are all things that no one had, once.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone who doesn't already hold coins (99.99999999% of the population.) Do you still think making a Bitcoin payment is easier?

I have to say, bitcoin is much easier than credit cards for online payments.  You can skip the "billing address" part entirely, since that is just used to reduce credit card fraud.  And if your purchase doesn't involve a physical delivery, you can skip the shipping address too.  For ephemeral things, it really is as easy as sending the coins and getting the download link.

Safer, however, is a whole different story.  Bitcoin is irreversible, so if the seller doesn't deliver, you can get screwed.  Credit cards payments can pretty much always be reversed, which is great for buyers.  Also, the worst that can happen if the credentials get stolen is that you have the annoyance of cancelling the old card and getting a new one.

So, neither one of them is both "safer" and "easier", they are split.

In what way? I can understand that it is equally easy to make a credit card payment as it is to make a Bitcoin payment if you already own coins, but if you don't hold any coins then it is a much more convoluted procedure.

I would have to disagree about that. Bitcoin is way easier than a credit card.

Count me as unaware of your argument, since you have decided not to make any point at all other than to put your fingers in your ears and say "You are wrong, you are wrong, you are wrong" over and over again.

Also, that is not an ad hominem attack. An ad hominem attack would be "You are as dumb as a sack of rocks, so you must be wrong."

You seem very convinced of your ability to determine whether an argument is logically sound or not. I can only assume that means you are also confident of your ability to construct one. I would be delighted to hear it. I'd be very surprised too, because you haven't contributed in a remotely substantial way as of yet.

My entire point is that Bitcoin can't compete with credit cards and shouldn't try. You are preaching to the choir here, you should raise this point to the oddball "end the fed" Libertarians and assorted "global economic collapse is coming" tin foil hatted whackos participating in this thread who preach the bizarre and unhelpful dogma that Bitcoin is the future of all payment and currency.



And puts 100% of the risk on to the consumer. You think consumers are going to stand for that? Especially when dealing with small businesses who don't have a strong brand? Not a chance.

Ad hominem also. At least you're batting .1000.

Count me as unswayed by your argument.