Topic: Why Is Getting Bitcoin "Accepted" As A Form Of Payment So Important??? - page 3. (Read 6122 times)

You're only looking at it from the buyers side. What about the seller?

You can add escrow on top of BitCoin but it's hard to add irreversibility on top of credit cards.

There are several ways to do escrow. Look at ClearCoin for one example where you place your money in the trust of a third party until both sides agree the sale has gone OK.

But you can also set up BitCoin to support a form of escrow without needing a third party to hold your coins in the meantime. They only get involved if there's a dispute.

Chargebacks provide something a bit like escrow or mediation, except the CC companies always side with the buyer and not the seller - so it's not a very high quality mediation.

The reason people are told to never send via Western Union is because that form of payment is overwhelmingly used by scammers, partly because it's irreversible but partly because it's one of the few forms of payment that work in the parts of the world where the scammers live.

I expect if I walked into a car dealership able to pay for a car in gold they would gladly accept it if it meant a sale.

In general, I share some parts of your view but...
Competitiveness? I don't know about your country, but in mine, I have to pay more than 20% to government if I sell something. I think we can do better.

Gold has a long history of use as a store of value. Sheer cognitive dissonance will help it keep its value. Bitcoin doesn't have such a history and must therefore earn its place if it's to be seen as a long-term investment. Being able to actually use it for something is a big help.

hahaha, well played, sir, well played

Why try to change the steam engine from what it already is? A water pump. Taking the pumping market first is a much saner goal than trying to tackle the incredibly competitive motive power market. I mean, those horse breeders and stables work on margins of fractions of a percent. They have ties with big canal operators, stagecoach companies and government, most of whom most likely won't want to deal with us - at first at least.

(1) Gold is store of value without being a currency because the commodity exchanges are very liquid. Currently BTC exchanges are fairly liquid (given its small size), yet that may not hold if it doesn't find a large transactional base. Its true that BTC *could* become just a speculative investment mechanism, but stocks have that market fairly saturated.

(2) Irreversibility. This is the same topic that comes up every 3 weeks on this board as new members join. The short version response is: "So what?". BTC is electronic cash, and as such its exactly like cash....if you meet someone off craigslist and give him $20 USD, its gone. Same here.

Having said that, if the market desires such features the equivalent bitcoin-visa, bitcoin-paypal services will eventually spring up....just as these meta-currency services appeared as a way to add new features to plain old cash.

Another major hurdle I foresee as plaguing bitcoin is it's irreversibility of transactions.

I was just imagining an ebay-like auction site for example... that promoted/accepted bitcoins as a form of payment.

Anyone buying from an ebay seller (or craigslist/etc) is told to never send payment via western union. Mainly because it is irreversible.

What can bitcoin do to avoid this payment pitfall?

Nevermind unscrupulous ebay sellers... I can picture many a "businessman" in the brick and mortar setting that when confronted about a refund might respond "what payment?"...

That seems to be the general consensus around here at least, is it not? That we need to focus on making bitcoin an accepted form of payment at as many institutions as possible. And ASAP.

Gold is the world standard in terms of holding a value.

But nobody can take their bar of gold to a store and buy a pack of gum.

Most everybody's gold is held in a vault. You rarely get to touch it. But you don't have to. You know you can't take a bar and go buy a car. But you don't care.

These qualities of gold are quite similar to bitcoin and it's intangibility.

I think we need to start thinking about catering to a more... swiss-bank-account-holder-type so to speak.

Let the world know that you can securely store your net worth and access it at anytime, for the cost of an average banking transaction fee and I would assume that investment into the bitcoin platform would skyrocket.

Why try to change bitcoin from what it already is? A store of value.

I think it would be a much easier and saner a goal to achieve first (making bitcoin an accepted store of value), before we strain the community too much in trying to tackle an incredibly competitive payments market. I mean... those companies work on margins of fractions of a percent. They have ties with big banks and government, most of whom most likely won't want to deal with us - at first at least.

Besides, we need people to have money invested in bitcoin in order to spend it first, right?!