Topic: Why BTC hasn't and wont hit the mainstream: - page 2. (Read 7786 times)

Do not underestimate the power of the banks, their political influence and the tenacity with which they will pursue their financial interests.
A few examples:
1. Gold is the enemy of central banks and what happened less than 100 years ago?
American government confiscated all the gold of the American citizens.
2. The Romanov Tsar didn't want a Rothschild central bank and what happened?
The 'Baron' orchestrated a Bolsjewik revolution and massacred the whole Romanov family.

If needed they will explode a nuclear bomb in the middle of Manhattan, with a sticker on it saying "Funded with money laundered through the bitcoin network and detonated by terrorists using the bitcoin network."
"Oh, and by the way, bitcoin is also used for illegal drugs transactions and child porn."
Watch how quickly the whole protocol will be killed by all ISPs around the world.
Except of course Venezuela, Libya, Iran, Syria and North-Korea.

I doubt you would have to hire someone to adjust some already-working free open source exchange code to change its name and the magnitude of the fees or exchange rates it charges etc, pretty minor stiuff, really it is basically an install not coding, just maybe an old-style install where install might mean changing some constants in the code and/or config-file instead of using a GUI configuration-interface.

As a programmer myself, who has run many many many web-based applications and sites and so on, I know that it is not really the trivial (to a programmer) amount of "coding" that is a pain but rather all the stupid crap that ought not be needed, like emails from idiots who couldn't read a help system even if one was provided.

The defence fund is a great idea, but if needed it will probably be far too small come the day you actually see how much legal defence is actually going to cost.

In fact legal problems are a big part of why I prefer the idea of working with "game currencies" instead of with bitcoin directly. I can then argue that players neither put money in nor take money out, they merely put bitcoin in and take bitcoin out and as everyone knows bitcoin isn't money so certainly these tokens only exchanged for bitcoin not for fiat cannot possibly be construed as money...

In developing my Adult Knotwork site I came to the conclusion there are basically seven topics that are considered "adult", not for the dinner table or kids: Drugs, Gambling, Money, Politics, Religion, Sex and Violence. Of those. money seems to be a euphemism for any or all of the others. As such, it turns out to be pretty much as fraught with problems as any or all of the others. It might even be easier to deal in any or all of the others than to too-directly deal with money.

That is part of what is so great about Bitcoin. Once people are into Bitcoin we can maybe go ahead and play games and have fun without all the crap about "if you create a billion magic swords and someone sells one such sword somehow, then you are liable for taxes on a billion times what they sold one for since obviously the other billion must be worth just as much each". (Or hey you just killed a dragon, now you owe taxes on its treasure because in theory you could sell it.)

-MarkM-

I'd be willing to put up a couple thousand to help cover initial losses, provided my initial investment would entitle me to at least having that investment returned once things get rolling. My financial reserves aren't that great, however, as I'm currently in the middle of trying to set up a mining cluster.


I would want to get some stats on what percentage of payments get reversed across a range of services, such as PayPal and a good sample of credit card processors, in order to calculate out what kind of premium would need to be charged initially in order to keep the service from going immediately under. Once the service has been running for a while, the premiums could be adjusted to account for actual chargeback rates. An additional fee should be charged on top of the bare "chargeback compensation" fee to help keep the service running as well, part of which should go to a legal defense fund. I imagine such a fund would be necessary at some point in the service's history. Better to be prepared than caught flat-footed at any rate.


Yeah. This is the part I have the most trouble with just because I'm a programmer and thus feel weird hiring someone to do something I feel like I could do myself. I guess it comes down to time constraints though and the whole time/money trade-off.

I should figure out how much this thing would cost to get off the ground.

Somebody could perhaps buy Facebook Credits for bitcoins, though that's only a one-way exchange.

Yeah, at first I was thinking PP then changed it to card because PP shut coinpal etc, but what about using FB to clear people to join a site like bitcoinmarket was where people PP each other.

I wish you lots of luck finding a credit card payment processor who will accept you. That has been the stumbling block for this in the past.

Maybe you could also videochat with them, have them show you via live video not only their possibly doctored picture-ID but also the view out of their windows showing the street-signs or other recognisable proof they are at the address on the credit card.

Snail-mailing a code to the address on the card might defeat the apparent purpose of trying to satisfy an impulse-buyer's demand for instant gratification unfortunately.

Maybe the various departments of motor vehicles and/or liquor license departments around the world should offer their users optional "show your license on the web" service so we can go look at their picture on such an "authoritative" site if they wish.

-MarkM-

I really don't like Facebook, but I was wondering if that might be a good fraud reduction check. If they have a sufficiently old and active FB account with details that match the card it is very unlikely to be a stolen card. Plus you could combine that with FB Bitcoin activism.

It probably does not really require much of your time at all, just your money.

You need to put up enough money as a "float" for the service to operate with and to cover any losses due to either

(1) The statistical losses due to reversed incoming fiat transactions happening before the padded fees/exchange-rate has accumulated enough to cover them; or

(2) Your estimation of the amount of padding and/or fees falling short of what turns out to actually be necessary.

Bear in mind this is not like selling some hard to resell service or widget that the vast vast majority of people who steal paypal accounts and credit cards have absolutely no interest in using as a way to "cash out" their "ill-gotten gains".

On the contrary, this is pretty much the equivalent of putting up a shingle saying "launder your ill-gotten gains here".

On the one hand, cashing out people's ill-gotten gains can pay some very nicely high fees and exchange rates.

On the other hand the people whose paypal accounts and credit cards were stolen quite often do reverse the transactions.

That all said, please specify the fees and/or exchange rates you are prepared to put up the float money for such a service to operate with. Coding is pretty much irrelevant, no need to consume your precious coding time, all that is needed is your float money and the fee and exchange rates at which to utilise it, and likely someone can be found to do the day to day operations including running whatever already existing or easily modifiable code will work, maybe even for less than minimum wage just because like you they just want to make such a thing available for the good of the community.

-MarkM-

All anyone needs really is the site http://www.weusecoins.com/ to use it and get started. You don't have to be a nerd to use it. Pretty simple.

Slow payment is a problem with the current system and a reason to get in Bitcoin and stay in.

Anyone who can make it cheaper and faster to convert can profit so the incentives are all set right.

Wrong. I am complaining about the gateways to bitcoin that are available. Because the majority of the world still uses fiat currency this is an issue that merits some discussion.


But most of the world does not have Pecunix or Liberty Reserve, and most of the world doesn't want to have to go through another currency to get bitcoins. I don't care if I can get bitcoins with Pecunix or Liberty Reserve. I want to buy it directly. It's a major PITA to have to do this. It's a barrier to entry that is entirely unnecessary and you are only holding back the adoption rate by refusing to do anything about it.


You're right. Not your fault. But it is the fault of the community that we don't have convenient gateways in place for average consumer types who just want an easy way to make transactions online. Don't try passing the buck here. The problem remains, regardless of whose fault it is. I don't care whose fault it is. All I care about is seeing the issue solved.


Sure, that's one way of doing things. You can go complain to someone else until they fix things for you. Honestly though? I doubt they care. I'd much rather see someone take this into their own hands and provide something now than see people sit on their hands until someone solves their problems for them.


Calling the world most people live in "stupid" does not make that world go away. The practical barriers still remain. The problems still want to be solved.

You know what? Screw it. I should just make this service. Anyone else interested? I'm working for a startup as their sole programmer, I'm trying to get a little bitcoin service called Bitcoin Pouch off the ground, I'm trying to learn Scala and implement yet another service in it, and I have to leave enough time for my girlfriend so she doesn't start to feel ignored. I'm a little swamped. Help would be greatly appreciated if I'm going to manage anything in this direction.

You are actually complaining about fiat currency, but you are mis-directing your complaint by trying to make it sound as if the problem is with the non-fiat currency.

If you had an actual money to begin with, people would accept it for bitcoin readily and easily.

For example you can buy bitcoin with pecunix or with liberty reserve, and if the feds had not shut down e-gold you'd be able to buy it with e-gold too.

It is not our fault that the fed shut down e-gold, thus limiting your options slightly.

If you find that buying bitcoin, liberty reserve, pecunix etc using fiat is made hard for you, go complain to your congresspeople or ombudspeople or what not telling them you don't want them reversing your transactions and so on. Or complain to your credit card provider about their giving you a hard time buying electronic currencies or something.

Once you have something reasonable in hand you are fine, a lot of blockchain based currencies become accessible easily once you have some bitcoin for example, since a lot of them don't care to bother at all with fiat, letting bitcoin serve as gateway to that stupid world so they do not have to.

-MarkM-

The obnoxious thing about bitcoins, in my opinion, is acquiring them. Paypal was probably the simplest way until that option was taken away from us. Dwolla is easily the next best thing for the average consumer now, but transferring funds into Dwolla is a looong process. It takes about two days, in my experience. I haven't tested using Dwolla to transfer funds directly from my bank account to, say Mt. Gox, but I don't imagine it's much faster. (Correct me if it is.) Most people don't have Dwolla anyway, and once you have a Dwolla account why not just use that to make a purchase? If you don't care about anonymity and if you're not looking to escape the fiat system, then for most purchases Dwolla makes more sense.

I think the killer application for bitcoins is fast and secure currency transferral. Right now it really isn't all that fast for most people as most people are trying to go from fiat to bitcoins to purchase. That process can take a few days at present. Two if you have a Dwolla account and need to transfer funds in. Four if you don't have a Dwolla account or don't have your bank account associated with your Dwolla account.

Best case scenario? I enter my credit/debit card info, the information gets verified, the card gets charged, I get bitcoins. I wager most people would be willing to pay a small premium to offset the cost of scammers if it meant getting bitcoins in their wallet within ten or fifteen minutes. It would be a boon for the bitcoin economy, too, as it would lower the barrier to entry for most people and would allow people to "strike while the iron is hot," so to speak. If someone catches the "bitcoin bug" and wants to buy bitcoins, they shouldn't have to wait more than an hour before they have bitcoins in their wallet.

Just my 0.02 BTC.

Also, the address system is a bit intimidating for most normals, I wager. I think web-based services which allow users to send currency by e-mail address or by name would be the best option for them. It would make the whole system a lot friendlier and a lot more pleasant to use.

http://www.erights.org/elang/index.html

-MarkM-

Bitcoin is showing us how to do this, a little.  The solution is to make the "your computer" disappear and do the computation as a distributed process between untrusted participants.  

Currently your private keys are stored on your node/wallet so you have to trust that your own node isn't corrupted. But eventually the entire wallet could be stored "in the network" where only a majority of the nodes could access it without your cooperation.  Even corrupting your own node wouldn't work.
  
Not quite there yet, but Bitcoin is a nice step in that direction.

Bitcoin wallets have recently been implemented in Javascript.  That could be used for a Chrome OS plugin which is charged up, and then distributes BTC based on a "mailto:" style markup.

If the user doesn't control the machine, any encryption can not be fully trusted. IMO Crypto-currency is a very long term project that will take generations. A prerequisite for a crypto-currency is trusted (proven correct) computers completely controlled by the users. I don't think this will happen in my lifetime. Since 1996, the trend has been to take control away from the users.

That said, this is an important experiment, even if we know it will ultimately fail. The lessons we learn will help craft a "real" crypto-currency once the computer industry matures.

Still harder than most online shopping.  There needs to be some way of paying right from a web site rather than needing do to copy/paste on a Bitcoin address and switching to another application.  Probably a browser plug-in.

I don't think you fully comprehend how stupid the typical consumer really is.