Why would an average person actually choose to use Bitcoin? - page 2.

kjlimo

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Quote from: Yuhfhrh on December 17, 2012, 07:10:14 AM

Quote from: goodbc on December 17, 2012, 06:51:12 AM

Quote from: Rassah on December 16, 2012, 09:44:04 PM

...

6) It lets you send huge sums of money overseas quickly and cheaply. If you were in US and you needed to pay $1,000,000 for a shipment from China, using normal methods of wiring money would take two or more weeks, and will cost more than $25,000 for the transaction. With Bitcoin, it takes a few hours, and costs $12,000 or less.

...

Average person don't transfer 1 mil for a shipment from China, but even if - using bitcoin the fee is nowhere near $12.000!!!

For example:
http://blockchain.info/tx/ed2efa807c4d33a0ca6d15aab5e608ac624a30039965b508063c8baf9d9e8ecc

Let's not scare average person with such high fees allegations Wink

I think he was referring to the fee of buying and selling on an exchange.

Exactly, someday when we all recognize bitcoins for business transactions, the "fee" could be near zero.

However, for now we should focus on ways for businesses to use bitcoin but not need to hold it on their books... for now!

So for now, it looks like Rassah has a great business case for international transfers reducing fees even when buying bitcoin, transferring it and then converting back to local fiat.

The only logistical issue here is that this is more than the average daily exchange volume for now. So the company would need to contract with another third party to secure that many bitcoin for a set price, to ensure reduced transaction risk.

However, with banks getting into the mix, we may be only a few months away from this becoming reality.

Not sure how this can reduce the 25k fee currently referenced, b/c I don't know why it costs that much. Perhaos our French bankers can explain and help find a way to use bitcoin to increase their bottom line.

I'm gonna guess (or hope) they are one step ahead of us on this issue... time to buy some more bitcoins Cheesy

Mike Hearn

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The contracts features of Bitcoin give it a series of uses that existing financial systems can't handle. I've done a lot of research into these unused capabilities, because I believe building "killer apps" is the best way to increase Bitcoin usage. Otherwise, we do indeed face the obvious starting problem of "this doesn't solve any problem I actually have".

For example, in my conference talk I mentioned a P2P network for building assurance contracts that pay for web page translations. This is the kind of thing you really can't do with cards, but if it was sufficiently useful to people, they'd acquire Bitcoins just in order to use that network. Micropayments and other things offer a wide variety of possibilities for building killer apps.

Yuhfhrh

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Quote from: goodbc on December 17, 2012, 06:51:12 AM

Quote from: Rassah on December 16, 2012, 09:44:04 PM

...

6) It lets you send huge sums of money overseas quickly and cheaply. If you were in US and you needed to pay $1,000,000 for a shipment from China, using normal methods of wiring money would take two or more weeks, and will cost more than $25,000 for the transaction. With Bitcoin, it takes a few hours, and costs $12,000 or less.

...

Average person don't transfer 1 mil for a shipment from China, but even if - using bitcoin the fee is nowhere near $12.000!!!

For example:
http://blockchain.info/tx/ed2efa807c4d33a0ca6d15aab5e608ac624a30039965b508063c8baf9d9e8ecc

Let's not scare average person with such high fees allegations Wink

I think he was referring to the fee of buying and selling on an exchange.

goodbc

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Quote from: Rassah on December 16, 2012, 09:44:04 PM

...

6) It lets you send huge sums of money overseas quickly and cheaply. If you were in US and you needed to pay $1,000,000 for a shipment from China, using normal methods of wiring money would take two or more weeks, and will cost more than $25,000 for the transaction. With Bitcoin, it takes a few hours, and costs $12,000 or less.

...

Average person don't transfer 1 mil for a shipment from China, but even if - using bitcoin the fee is nowhere near $12.000!!!

For example:
http://blockchain.info/tx/ed2efa807c4d33a0ca6d15aab5e608ac624a30039965b508063c8baf9d9e8ecc

Let's not scare average person with such high fees allegations Wink

Lethn

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Quote from: Rudd-O on December 16, 2012, 11:42:56 PM

To me, the biggest reason is simply because it's a powerful hedge against inflation.

+1

I can see myself buying gold and silver with it eventually for my work because otherwise in the pound it will be too expensive, I need to find someone who can cut it into sheets for me though.

Polvos

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- Bitcoin allows you to prove address ownership even keeping your anonimity intact. That's impossible with banking accounts.

- Every goldbug knows that you have to pay about a 10% of your gold savings in security. Bitcoin downs this security expense to almost 0.

- Bitcoin usually don't go off a metal detector in an airport.

- When someone accepts payments with gold or fiat money, he needs to test counterfeiting in all bills, gold ingots or gold coins transfered. When someone accepts Bitcoin knows that every coin accepted has been counterfeit tested by all the miners in the network. The counterfeit test has been done, it's secure and cheap.

greyhawk

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Quote from: Daily Anarchist on December 17, 2012, 02:28:56 AM

I'm working on getting to the point where I will demand Bitcoin, and only Bitcoin, as payment for my goods and services.

You should contact vite. He runs a BTC restaurant.

Daily Anarchist

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I think a lot of Bitcoin's power will be(is already? Silk Road) offering goods and services that are only available with Bitcoins.

I'm working on getting to the point where I will demand Bitcoin, and only Bitcoin, as payment for my goods and services. Eventually, I will get to the point where if they want me as a customer, they better offer Bitcoin as a payment option.

Rudd-O

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Those stats are depressing, my man. Undecided

Rassah

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Quote from: Rudd-O on December 16, 2012, 11:42:56 PM

To me, the biggest reason is simply because it's a powerful hedge against inflation.

From my short-but-few years as a personal financial adviser, and the years I've deal with that on the sidelines since, I would say that the average Joe doesn't even know about inflation, let alone understand it or want to hedge against it. Most people out there just get a paycheck direct-deposited into their account, use their debit card until their bank balance runs out, and wait until the next paycheck comes in. That's about the extent of their financial knowledge, and not only do they not know anything more, they don't care to know. That's why we keep having statistics with depressing results, such as: the average 54 year old has $30,000 in savings, 60% or so of those reaching retirement age have less than $100k in savings, and of all retirees, only 5% retire with enough to maintain their standard of living, and a full 25% to 30% end up needing to work after retirement to make ends meet. People just don't care until it's too late, and warning them about it or offering to help only makes them more guarded and defensive. But that's a discussion for another topic.

Raize

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I think the biggest benefit of Bitcoin I've seen is replacing Western Union for International transfers for folks in your local community. It does take a while to get used to, but when people want to send money back home to family, if they can queue it up so that you do your transfer at the same time a trustworthy person in another country does it, you can pretty much provide them with instant money at a fraction of the cost. You don't make much, but when scores of families are doing these transactions, it adds up. Plus you get to feel good about saving them money.

kwukduck

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Quote from: foggyb on December 17, 2012, 01:07:34 AM

Quote from: kwukduck on December 17, 2012, 12:23:16 AM

And the next day your money has halved... or doubled...
But 'average' people will never risk that.

That is not going to happen. Bitcoin price will not double or halve in a single day barring some sort of horrible disaster. Like a crash in the USD.

A bitcoin rainy day fund is risk mitigation tool. But i do see your point. The average person isn't that prepared.

Maybe not, but if Pirate or some other guy with huge funds decides to become a (multi)millionaire (or just dump a shtload for the fun of it) you'll see it will have a huge impact on the value.

There's still a HUGE amount of bitcoins in the hands of a few people that completely control the market in essence.
Hopefully these coins are slowly being spread out while the economy is growing, but you never know...

foggyb

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Quote from: kwukduck on December 17, 2012, 12:23:16 AM

And the next day your money has halved... or doubled...
But 'average' people will never risk that.

That is not going to happen. Bitcoin price will not double or halve in a single day barring some sort of horrible disaster. Like a crash in the USD.

A bitcoin rainy day fund is risk mitigation tool. But i do see your point. The average person isn't that prepared.

payb.tc

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my guess is that even the 'average' person would be up for a bit of tax evasion.

kjlimo

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This may be a very simple idea, but I think it's cool to be involved with something global.

Perhaps an average joe can think of this as a great easy way to diversify some investment portfolio into a global investment -tied to not only local city or country business, but a global project.

kwukduck

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Quote from: foggyb on December 16, 2012, 09:50:03 PM

Bitcoin lets you store any amount of money offline where no one can ever access it but you, utilizing nothing but a pass-phrase stored in your memory. It is retrievable at any time, any place with internet access.

And the next day your money has halved... or doubled...
But 'average' people will never risk that.

Rudd-O

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To me, the biggest reason is simply because it's a powerful hedge against inflation.

foggyb

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Quote from: Rassah on December 16, 2012, 10:07:29 PM

Quote from: foggyb on December 16, 2012, 09:50:03 PM

Bitcoin lets you store any amount of money offline where no one can ever access it but you, utilizing nothing but a pass-phrase stored in your memory. It is retrievable at any time, any place with internet access.

^^ Not useful for "average person," because even though you can retrieve it, you can't really use it in a lot of places, and have to go through an exchange to convert it to local currency. VISA still beats Bitcoin in this.
For the answers here, think "What can someone do with Bitcoin that they can't already easily do with something else."

Storing money offline and retrieving it elsewhere with internet access IS useful for people traveling in and out of restrictive regimes that ban transporting currency across the border (Back when we left USSR, the max anyone was allowed to carry across the border was $300. Imagine, a family with two kids, moving to US, only allowed to bring $300 with them. There are still countries like that, sadly)

People don't necessarily want to convert their long-term savings into local currency, and if they do, bitcoin is a universal currency. It doesn't need to be localized in order to be useful. I wish people would stop treating bitcoin like its a sovereign nation that you need to be a citizen of.

Given some time, your comments in 1st paragraph will no longer be true. I'd say in 3-5 years.

Rassah

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Thanks repentance, I just remembered another two

*) Being able to shop for web services around the world instead of just your own country. Being in the US, I would be restricted to registering domain names and buying VPS services to USD-taking companies here in the states. But now that a lot of web service places are taking BTC, I was able to shop around and buy from a cheaper place that's not even in my country.

*) Usenet, an internet discussion and bulletin board system that has existed since the 80's, has recently had a lot of pressure put on it by VISA, PayPal, and other such financial services, being effectively banned from accepting payments, because it hosts copyrighted materials as well as general web discussions. Now the only way to buy NTTP access in a lot of places is to use Bitcoin. Now, granted, not a lot of "average joes" use NTTP, but I'm sure there are plenty of old neckbeards who still have fond memories of the service and rely on it for their discussions.

Then, of course, there's any other service that has had a run-in with financial restrictions because the politics of one country don't agree with them. Like Wikileaks for example.

nobbynobbynoob

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Annuit cœptis humanae libertas

Quote from: repentance on December 16, 2012, 10:17:55 PM

The big question is how Joe Average in a restrictive regime is going to acquire BTC in the first place.

Foreign tourists might not mind trading a few BTC for local currency. I've heard this is already happening a little bit in Argentina. Bitcoin will take off there at some point; they need it even more than most of us do.

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