Basically you have a choice: a) just pay instantly using your debit/credit card, or b) pay using BitCoins after wasting some of your time.
U said it all here, just think about it for a second. If u need something u need to use some kind of paymant for that. For payment u need money/bitcoins. So dont u see its almost the same thing. Everyone like something, here people like bitcoins. Pretty simple, wasting time here, or wasting time on some 12 hours per day job on wind, rain, sun... well we all need some income.
For many of us this is a side thing, so why not to use my free time to try to earn something on nice and comfortable way (sittin in may chair, drinking something, smokin a cigar..al that in nice and hot room).
In my case its nice way to earn something for gambling. I dont spent my money, just what I earn here and on internet and its pretty fun acctualy.
I'm talking about paying using BitCoins, not buying a bunch of hardware and mining it. I do see your point if you don't spend anything to get BitCoins and use it for say gambling. But that's still offtopic.
Alright, I see the point of view you're coming from here, so I'll try to work with this a little better.
For the silk road case, if I remember it correctly, the reason why the Bitcoins were seized was not because of them being traced, it was because they were being stored on accounts that were accessible by any party when they are in the right location, similar to having a typical wallet on your desktop. You can just get past the user password and you're in.
The thing is that it isn't, from what I know, the tracing of the transaction that gives away the identity of a user; it's other mistakes that pile on top of each other, which allow for government agencies to tie transactions to them via internet traffic or through similar means. This just serves as more evidence, and is typically not where government organizations can determine who an owner of an address is. Once they seize the hardware of a suspect, they can go through and trace transactions, compare them to the blockchain, and then figure out who other people are through interpolating/extrapolating the information of other communications. This would be like I tell Person A "I'll buy weed for $50" and then they see a transaction for $50 going to Address X, they can have high confidence that Person A owns Address X. This might be what you are referring to. The same thing would go for credit cards or any other forms of payment, not just Bitcoin.
I understand that Bitcoin is -technically- worse than other form of payment, when it comes to saving time, however it is better for merchants because it is harder to reverse a transaction, in turn making it more difficult for scammers to succeed. You did cover this in the other statement however, so I'll just leave that.
This is just what I remember/know, and I could be wrong.
Also I find this somewhat entertaining, it's always fun going back an evaluating why I think is something is correct. I apologize if I come off as rude.
The thing is, blockchains are visible to everyone, I do recall this sentence in one of the articles explaining why it's traceable and not private/anonymous.
I would assume (and I could be wrong), that if you do not use your BitCoins it's harder to trace them back to you, but you have to use them, otherwise it's pointless to sell something for BitCoins. So say if you sell them and get usable currency like USD or send it to say Amazon (I think it accepts bitcoins now?) and buy a book, it's tied to you. In other words, in the end it always becomes tied to you somehow. I may be wrong here again, and if it doesn't - I would sure as hell like to know how. I like something like Monero and ByteCoin and a couple of other currencies due to their untraceability, hence being anonymous/private.
We're also talking about legal purchases here mostly, as that's what I'd be using it for, like Amazon and whatever other useful sites allow for BitCoins. Even then though, it'd be tied to my name. So I still fail to see the usefulness of it.
Not at all, I was being afraid I'm coming off as rude, you seem more of a diplomat that I am.
If you're strictly comparing using btc vs debit cards for shopping on the Internet, I agree it's not a huge breakthrough or game changer. I think it is a way more secure but we have a system where you're not responsible for unauthorized charges on your accounts... Imagine if you were responsible for unauthorized charges on your credit cards, nobody in their right mind would ever use a debit or credit card because the storage of those #'s is not in your control.
Also your assumption that you have to give up privacy for shipping is not correct though
https://www.privatebox.co.nzSo are you concluding it's a useless idea because it doesn't make shopping easier for you?
You need to provide your real identity information for a mailbox in new zealand. a) it's in new zealand. b) and more importantly - you have to provide your real information. Which means it is tied to you.
No, I'm concluding that it's a useless idea because I don't see how you can use it anonymously and privately, which in my understanding is the idea of cryptocurrency.
To buy goods and luxury car
And this is the kind of spam posts due to "signature advertising" I had in mind in another thread.