Topic: [VIDEO] Expanding the Bitcoin Business Community (Read 5810 times)

Something like The Bitcoin Foundation?

BITCOINS is the fucken future.

However I see a dark cloud that will make people believe that bitcoins is the wild west and we need a central authority to control bitcoin type of innovation.

Why?

PPL are stupid....

No argument.  But again, that is purely the merchant's view.

Consumers, at least here in the US, have been trained by well known consumer advocates such as Consumer Reports, Clark Howard, NACA members and the local news "consumer beat" that credit card purchases, in particular, have a level of consumer insurance built into them.  Every 5-10 years, a new layer of consumer protection regulations are added or updated as well.

The hurdles at the consumer level are twofold, assuming a future world where bitcoins see 1000x consumer and merchant acceptance (hey, 1000x is easily realistic in a few short years, given how small we are right now):

1) Education.  "Use an escrow transaction" is a foreign language, an alien concept to Aunt Tillie.  It is not realistic for average consumer use, unless the software tools and legal system both evolve significantly from where they are today.

2) Rational economic actor choices.  The current credit card system provides significant economic and legal protections to the consumer, while hiding the costs by making the merchants bury merchant fees inside the item price.  Buying an item sans merchant fees is not likely sufficient economic incentive to abandon the legal protections currently available, for average consumers.

Now, please, don't misunderstand.  What BitPay is doing is great -- I retweeted and promoted the video.  And it is a necessary step in bitcoin's evolution.

In an optimistic forecast, one could see bitcoin taking over the majority of hard-cash-like transfers.  I imagine merchants would prefer bitcoin over having to deduce whether or not a $20 bill is counterfeit, even using the latest ink tests and scanners one sees deployed at Wal-Mart, Target, payday loan and pawn shop locations.

But the huge amount of built-in consumer protections -- and associated consumer advocacy at all levels -- is an unquestionable hurdle.

It seems more realistic that bitcoin credit cards will arise, as an optional, supplemental layer on top of the base currency:  credit cards, with standard protections consumers expect, denominated purely in bitcoins.  Much like credit cards are an optional, supplemental layer atop the US Dollar right now.

That would at least be a familiar system to current consumers.

Anyways, I'm among those who think you should consider publishing a directory - with the consent of your clients, of course, do not publicly list someone who doesn't want to be listed.

Because we have competitors who like to email all of our merchants, soliciting to "save them 0.1%".

+1

Why is this list kept secret?

So many merchants. If only BitPay would put up a directory and help the community with discovery...

May i create a hard copy on dvd?

Great presentation ! I would just suggest only two points are a bit far fetched:

1. Mag stripe vs EMV i.e the cross border capacity of credit cards: it is not a real weakness of debit cards for Europeans going to the US because EMV cards bear a mag stripe too. Conversely, using a mag stripe only card in Europe is possible at most of the POS. Fees are the real weakness because the bank cards become very expensive as soon as you travel.

2. Do it yourself: it is possible without using a hot wallet. See: www.microbitcoin.fr, a site I developped (ruby on rails) as a proof of concept using only a notification service (Bitping). No private keys are stored on the server. I am not a professional programmer myself: that shows how easy it can be to implement secure bitcoin acceptance.

Again, otherwise, an excellent job promoting bitcoin for merchants.

Thanks guys!

wow over 1000 views already on YouTube.  people are starting to be educated!