Completed 1 transaction in a timely and painless way.

Want to do more, but they are always out of fundz. 

Jeebuz! If they did that the sudden flood of orders would probably melt their servers down!

What they really need is enough capital to meet demand. They certainly can't be making money off of FC4B with it just sitting there.

Yeah what's going on with them? I sent over 9 btc over a week ago and it never arrived, though it's in the block chain. I've emailed support twice, with the block explorer URL, and I've used the support popup once. No replies to any of it.

Now a days, 9 btc isn't chump change, but they seem to be treating it as though it were!

Glad to hear it! Ordered my bullion 5 days ago and the order is still "processing."

Still, you guys are offering a unique and badly needed service to the bitcoin community. Good to see the kinks are getting worked out.

=heh=

No, not everybody who buys bullion is going to sit on it for years. Here in the U.S. you can convert American bullion (Eagles) into cash without the restrictions that are on Krugerrands or other foreign bullion. So if you're of a mind, it's a good way to get some extra spending cash that you don't have to report to the IRS. Though of course you're supposed to, and no good little lemming -- err.. I mean citizen -- who "plays by the rules" would ever dream of not reporting all their income to the IR of S, now would they? 

Okay.. So to update my getbitcoin fiasco (and to be fair to getbitcoin):

Last night -- 48 hours from the transaction confirmation, almost to the minute -- I finally got notified that the WU transfer was completed. So the good news is, getbitcoin did do the wire transfer and I'm not out (most) of the money.

The interesting news is the cost (other than time): I sold getbitcoin 64 bitcoins. At the time, spot price was $5.15, so that's $329.6, though I only assumed $320 ($5/btc). The $20 was to cover the WU transaction fee. I wanted the $300, and so set the minimum price to $5/btc, thinking that, at a minimum I would get my $300; if the price stayed level for the next 24 hours I would get a few dollars more.

The email I received from getbitcoin said they sold my bitcoins at $5.24, which would have been $335.36.

They paid me $275!

So, factoring out the $20 Western Union fee, the spread between the market value of my bitcoins and what they paid me for my bitcoins ended up being $40.36. The raw cost for the transaction was $60.36 -- that's a 20% transaction cost, though in fairness to getbitcoin, they have no control over Western Union's fees (and WU is infamous for it's usurious fees). However, even subtracting their fees, getbitcoin charged 13.4% to handle the transaction. A transaction that was fraught with screw ups.

Thanks for that Stephen. I'll give them a try!

Well... I'm sad to say that I too am having trouble with getbitcoin.

Day before yesterday I sent them my bitcoins for a WU wire and got the order confirmation email with all the required information. 23-1/2 hours later I had heard nothing, so I emailed. Eventually I got an email back saying they had never received the bitcoins!!! 

Three hours later I received another email saying that my bitcoins had been sold and that I would be receiving my payment "shortly". Twelve hours after the time stamp on that email, I still had not received an email with a WU transaction number. So much for "shortly."

I emailed yet again!

We are now 36 hours from the time I received the 6th confirmation of the transaction in my client, and I have neither fiat, nor bitcoins, nor any word from getBitCoin as to when I might get my money, one way or another.

They have managed to totally fuck over my plans for my weekend, thank you very much! 

I hate to say it, but after this I'm going to have a very hard time recommending their service, or even using again. I'm headed into damage control at this point, and just hope I get my money back!

(I can't recommend the Russian run WM-Center either, though they are fast with their PayPal transactions. Their problem is skimming. There's a 30% spread between market price -- which they eagerly sell btc at -- and what they will pay you for your bitcoins. And then they're ballsy enough to want you to pay a transaction processing fee on top of that!)

Which gets us to the bigger point: We are not "a country of laws" as the politicians like to say. That's their propaganda to try to get society to follow the laws they create, whether they're just and right or not.

No, in reality we are cultures: Groups with common social norms, and "just laws" are those laws that are in agreement with the society's cultural norms. By this definition, most laws are "unjust" and serve only our political masters and their ends.

I don't think you've stepped back quite far enough, Ben. You seem to be holding that the "Central Bank" is the great evil. Certainly central banks and their maniuplation of the the currency to the benefits of the banks is a problem, but it's not the central banks that start wars (on their own people or other nations), setup massive internal spying apparatus (alla the KGB, and now the American Dept. of Homeland Security), or back their country's fiat currencies. Those are government operations. While it's true that central banks would have a lot to lose from a peer to peer currency like bitcoin from going main stream, governments around the world have even more to fear. They lose their tax base, they lose their strangle hold on their population when they lose their ability to "follow the money", they lose their ability to socially engineer everything from tooth paste to tighty-whities.

There has yet to be a government created in human history that has not sought to increase its power over its people. Historically force was used. Today it's social manipulation. Get everybody begging to plunder everybody else, with the government in the middle, and you've got a government capable of almost anything becuase it's legitimacy really does come from its constituencies. And that's exactly what we have today in the U.S. and in Europe. Socialized democracies who prey on their consitituencies fear to feed their endless thirst for power and control. Take from this group and give it to that group. Take from that other group and give it to those people.

And the inexorable end to that ponzi scheme is close at hand: The growing debt crisis in both Europe and the USA.

I wish that were true, but in our post 9/11 terror hysteria driven world, that's no longer true. Here's a link to an article describing just how upside down things have gotten: Guilty Until Proven Innocent. It's not about bitcoin or bitcoin related, but it probably could be given the right circumstances.

While I think that POS capability is essential to really see bitcoin take off in the brick and mortar retail setting, I'd like to point out that merchants don't really NEED all the stuff that was mentioned in the above abbreviated quoted post. Merchants already have their inventory control systems and cash systems and so on. Those systems are in place. What they really need is the bitcoin software that taps into that existing system.

For example: If you're going to pay with bitcoin, rather than getting a "slide your card" command on the card reader, maybe it pops up the QR code with the amount of sale. The buyer then reads that code from within whatever bitcoin app and whalla! Sale closed. If the merchant wants to expedite confirmation, they can add that fee into the price (or eat it, the way they already do with credit and debit card purchases). Again, this is already native to the existing bitcoin system. And from the merchant's perspective, it would be a "merchant services fee" or "bank transaction fee" on the accounting end. Again, their software already handles that. The bitcoin software would simply have to tap into their API.

Just my 0.02 BTC on mechant POS. 

I like your idea of having a unique symbol for bitcoin, and the double slashed B is as good an idea as any. The real trouble, of course, is in getting in incorporated into symbol sets so that it can be as easily used as the dollar or the euro.

There're are at least three app for android. None of them very good, mind, but they're available. I've got Bitcoin Wallet, Bitcoiner, and Bitcoin installed. Wallet crashes, Bitcoiner won't connect to my desktop bitcoind, and Bitcoin seems to work alright but is seriously early in development and comes with a warning against using it for large transactions.

Probably the best way will be with your smart phone -- when the apps are finished and fully functional, anyway. On the android platform there are at least three apps in development:

Bitcoin Wallet is one app, I gather develped by someone intimately involved with the bitcon project. Like all three apps listed, it sends and receives coins, keeping a wallet on your phone. Unfortuanately it currently only runs in test mode, and on my phone anyway, crashes horribly.

Bitcoiner is another idea. It connects to the bitcoin(d) running on your desktop. Like bitcoin wallet it can send and receive coins, but instead of creating a wallet on your phone, it uses the one on your desktop. I guess some folks have gotten it to work. I can't get it to connect to my bitcoind, even though I typically have over a dozen connections. Repeated emails to the developer about the problem have been ignored.

Bitcoin is the third app I've looked at and is almost identical to bitcoin wallet, except it is operational. Like wallet, it creates a wallet (that I can't find, even with Root Explorer) on your phone. The app is still in development, however, so the developer includes a wise warning against making large transactions at this time.

All the programs either have, or make use of, a barcode app to generate a QR code for receiving coins or to read a QR code for sending coins. So in that sense, if they worked, paying with bitcoins would be no more trouble than whipping out your wallet. In fact, you could say that's exactly what you'd be doing -- just electronically.

Unfortunately, the only app that has been updated in the month they've been on my phone is Bitcoin Wallet, which took the app from amusing to use for test purposes (since it dosn't do live transactions) to completely broken and unusable. The other two have not been updated at all, even though they, like bitcoin wallet, are still in the early stages of development. This seems to me to be mute testimony to how (un)important POS transactions presently are in the bitcoin community. And that's not helping bitcoin's popularity in community storefronts.

As for BitBills: I love the idea, but unless bitcoin drops in value, I don't see much purpose for them unless they also come up with BitChange. Currnetly, an accepting merchant would have to destroy every bill received and credit back the difference electronically anyway, which rather defeats the purpose of an a physical form of the currency.

I think we're getting closer. (Pardon for cutting your excellent post off, but it's too long to quote without it being rudely long.)

I wasn't suggesting a bank or some other kind of holding entity, however. The idea of OTC trading, after all, is that there is no bank. The counterparties "do the deal" themselves, as it were. The only thing the peer to peer network would do is escrow the transaction by not allowing one side of the deal to go through without the other also going through.

To give you an example: Let's say you agree to buy ฿10 from me for $150 USD, and you're going to pay me via PayPal. Our clients having the ability to escrow both sides using the bitcoin API on my client and the PayPal API on yours. I put up my ฿10 and the client places it in escrow, brodcasting a unique code, part of which is the transaction code for the trade, and part of which is unique to my half of the transaction. (Note that the bitcoins are still technically mine, but now I can't get at them.) You issue a pay order in your client via PayPal and your client broadcasts another code, part of which is the transaction code for the trade, and part of which is unique to your half of the transaction. Finally, once the PayPal API confirms a completed transaction, meaning the $150 has been moved to my PayPal account, my client releases the funds and moves them into your wallet. Both clients issue a completed code for the completed transaction, which can then be confirmed using "mining."

No bank necessary.

(Note that, I use "you and I", but in reality, the two counterparties would probably be matched by the clients based on bid and ask price, not "face to face" -- email to email, or whatever -- negotiation.)

Well, that's what I was suggesting. That the exchange have its own block chain made up of buy/sell combinations, perhaps with each ID secured by a GPG key if needed.

I totally agree with the major thrust of this: A peer-to-peer OTC style exchange. The OTC bitcoin exchange is limited by the IRC technology and is just not efficient. I'm no programmer, but if something like bitcoin can be put together, then it seems to me that a secure peer-to-peer OTC trading exchange should also be possible, and without all the hassle of a board of trustees etc. etc.

Perhaps something like this:

• Bid and ask would be broadcast to the entire network of peers to match the best buyer and seller.
• The bidding and asking peers would be the final arbiters of which offer gets accepted on each end, and trasmit the information to the peer network, thus removing that bid and ask from the list of open orders.
• Once the deal is closed, the counterparties would put up the money via the network, and the network would act as the escrow agent. In the case of bitcoins, probably X number confirmations that the money was transfered into the escrow account. On the other side, confirmation from whatever method is used to confirm reciept of funds (Dwalla, Liberty Reserve, physical cash, etc). Which means that the receiver of the established currency (USD, EUROS, etc.) may have to take the extra step of confirming receipt in order to get the bitcoin half of the transaction out of escrow and actually delivered to their wallet.
• Once escrow is cleared, perhaps a "mining" type of operation could confirm that each transaction has actually been completed. In the case of person to person transactions, say using something external like Western Union or physical cash transactions, the validity of the counterparties and their reports of completed transactions could be made using GPG.

This would also open up the possibility of using PayPal for payments, as PayPal has several external APIs that could be easily hooked into by such a client. Transactions could be made by each client, using each client's PalPal account individually. That would make the transactions almost instantaneous!

Just my 2 cents.

I guess. I joined the site to be able to participate in the new exchange thread that started yesterday, but unfortunately can't participate as I'm restricted to this little sand box, apparently until I spam post enough to become a Jr. Member or something.

I run three blog sites and an SMF forum myself, so I know the challenges of dealing with spam. Can't say I'm impressed with this answer, tho.

Personally I've been using LastPass over over year and am quite happy with it. They also have smart phone apps for all platforms I think. If you're an Android user, there's even a LastPass plugin for the Dolphin web browser.

Just my 2 DoBits. You can keep the change.