Quote from: SgtSpike on August 11, 2011, 04:44:41 PM

Quote from: BlockHash on August 11, 2011, 02:10:29 PM

Quote from: Littleshop on August 11, 2011, 01:59:53 PM

Quote from: BlockHash on August 11, 2011, 01:41:52 PM

Quote from: BitVapes on August 11, 2011, 08:01:34 AM

Quote from: Taxlow on August 11, 2011, 04:30:35 AM

Funny how the first ever bitcoin conference thats been hyped to shit doesnt even sell tickets by bitcoin amount. Instead equivalent to the amount in USD.

well, he did mention the fees were to cover the expenses of the conference, and the expenses are likely fixed in USD, therefore the need to price in USD to maintain a 1:1 costs:fee ratio.

That is a very bad sign, if the organizer of the supposed global BitCon won't deal in BitCoins. We've had people make it all the way across the country only on BitCoins and they made it just fine! Organizing a conference around it should at the very least speak to the strength of BitCoin, not the supposed obstacles the promoter is having to endure.

I won't accept any other explanation than Bruce is just a speculator and hypes the BitCoin masses while not having the passion to back it up when words meet action.

Respectfully, you have no idea what I do for BitCoin, so speculation that someone may have done more than I have is just that - speculation. I'm totally fine with you taking that stance though, as the free market will prove the truth in the end.

I know Bruce has his fans and that's fine too, I used to be one of them as well. He has indeed helped spread the word about BitCoin, but I differ in my interpretation of exactly how much this has helped. A lot of very misleading information has been put out there and endorsements for products/services were given without any due diligence. He's promised a lot but hasn't delivered in terms of the network and the show, which amounts to not much more than a man with a laptop giggling at himself on camera anymore. This conference is just being handled terribly and I think that his insistence that everything be handled in USD equivalents is just a sign of his true intentions in the BitCoin market - and that is speculation. That, on the surface, is acceptable but when you run a network around BitCoins and build up BitCoins as the best thing ever, shouldn't you practice what you preach? I just find that very unprofessional.

Plus, changing the venue without a word and without any input from the community was a pretty low class thing to do as well. Yes, venues do change, but the way it was done was very misleading and unprofessional.

How in the world do you expect a person to run a conference while just accepting fees at a set bitcoin price? They could potentially lose a lot of money doing that. Basing the fee on bitcoins valued in USD is not speculation - it's anti-speculation. Speculation would be setting a rigid, unchanging fee in bitcoins right at the start, in the hope that the price won't drop.

What would happen if a conference holder were to set a rigid ticket price in BTC that was just enough to cover the expenses, while Bitcoins were worth $30/each? Suddenly, they're only worth $10 each, people are still buying tickets, and the conference holder has no way to cover the expenses except from his own pocket. And you think this is the right way to go about things?

You could say that the conference holder should only be buying from people who sell products/services in bitcoins, so that he doesn't ever need to convert them to USD, but guess what? Those vendors usually convert straight to USD, which means their prices will change according to the current USD/BTC rate. Which means the conference holder would STILL be in the exact same position (of being screwed) if he set the prices according to an earlier valuation, and then the price drops.

The only way for him to hedge a potential loss if he was to set rigid prices is to set a ridiculously high price to start with, just in case the price drops. But I'm sure people would rather pay prices that are reasonable, and based on the USD valuation of a BTC at the time of the payment, than pay 10x as much as the conference is worth.

Sheesh man, use your head!

It's almost as if BitCoin's are still unreliable. Hmm.

All that I'm saying is as big of a BitCoin promoter that Bruce is, it's surprising he's still clinging onto the USD when it comes down to it. As much as he trashes the USD (and rightfully so) and hypes BitCoin (completely beyond it's utility at this point), one would think he would be eager to prove how great the currency is. You do know the media will latch onto the fact that 99% of the conference is paid for in USD, as the BTC is too volatile and not widely accepted for it to be used? Just putting it out there.

It's not that BitCoin is unreliable, it's that it is still a currency in its infancy. It cannot be used to value things on its own, yet. No matter how much Bruce would like to have a set price in BTC that stays from the start of ticket sales to the end, it won't change the fact that there is still a good deal of volatility in the value of bitcoins. Volatility = a huge amount of risk when you are talking about playing with money you are borrowing (which is essentially what is happening when you accept payments up front for expenses in the future).

You keep saying how Bruce has malicious intentions to mislead and speculate, when that simply isn't true. Now, you seem to have backed down to a statement regarding the volatility of Bitcoins, which I think everyone here can agree with. Just don't blame Bruce for Bitcoin's volatility.

And yes, I agree, the media probably will latch on to the fact that most things for the conference are being paid for in USD. So? Is there anything that could be done about that? Not really...