Will you be offering wagering on the Preakness horse race coming this Saturday? If so, when will betting start for that event?

Thanks!
H.

Ripple gained 30 percent, this morning undoubtedly off this "Coinese" pump and dump.

Wont be affected as much as typical alt coins because Ripple has a fairly closed trading system with its Gateways and is not traded on major exchanges, except for BTC38.

H.

Truthfully, I think they are doing all they can. There is an element of seamless trust that had to be adhered to, and if they ever overtly violated that, bitcoin would quickly crash and become irrelevant, like your typical alt coin.

I like this concise description of Bitcoin.

BTW, I think Luxembourg could soon be the financial hub of the European crypto scene. Ripple Labs and the PM of Luxembourg are having serious discussions.

This is the kind of worthy information that the general public needs on bitcoin.
Not the hyped Silk Soad headlines that gives bitcoin a bad name.
Kudos on a great doc, and urge all fellow bitcoiners to contribute a micro donation in btc.

I have 2 problems with your argument...

First, banks could never convince devs, miners, etc to devalue the worth of bitcoin. That would be financial suicide for the bitcoin infrastructure.

Secondly, why even choose that route when all banks have to do is keep forcing financial regulators to give more onerous and stifling regulations on bitcoin exchanges and merchants? That's already having major effect on bitcoins acceptance, and is co-opting it's original intent of decentralization and anonymity.

The idea is valid, to the extent that since alt coins are nearly self regulating on the blockchain, why couldn't we not do the same thing with an exchange?
There are some conceptual and experimental p2p exchanges out there, with no fees.
They are for exchanging crypto coins and not USD.

The ultimate would be a multi-crypto wallet-based p2p exchange.

But wait, your analysis is missing the "Arize Chickun!!!" graphic.

RippleLabs paid $1.5 million fine to be compliant with Fincen. A drop in the bucket for them.

If Fincen were to fine the other alt coins and their exchanges similarly, who would survive? Virtually none. They don't have the money.

Possible names:

TrollBox Coin
Coblee Coin
Chickun Coin
Wannabe Coin
Frenzied Chinese Trader Coin
This is Ground Control to Major Tom Coin
How Many Lives Have You Ruined Coin

So like Bitcoin... but controlled by a bank and with outrageous bank fees.

Sign me up!!!!

Awesome that you had an opportunity to present bitcoin to an audience.

I have always thought that the best way for someone to really learn what bitcoin is, is to give a simple demonstration. Transmit a few dollars worth of btc from your phone wallet to an audience member with a laptop. Then have them order something with a btc merchant.

When folks see how you can transmit bitcoins over the internet for themselves, it starts to click. I may start doing this in my local internet cafes, and try to get the coffee shops themselves to accept bitcoin, for ease of demonstration.

H.

Bitcoin goes beyond the traditional definition of currency.

Its a bit like PayPal, where you can transmit a set monetary value across the internet from one recipient to another. It is an encrypted blockchain system that transmits net worth, so technically not a currency, in the legal tender aspect sense of the word. But at the same time it does have value like a commodity, like gold with its value set by an exchange rate.

Maybe we need to redefine currency instead of debating whether bitcoin is a currency.

True story about Western Union:

Back in the late 1870s, Western Union essentially owned the communications network of the United States which was the telegraph. Along came Alexander Bell who offered his telephone patent rights to WU. The president of Western Union turned down the offer as he thought the telephone "Was just a toy."

To quote the wikipedia on Alexander Bell:
"Bell and his partners, Hubbard and Sanders, offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000. The president of Western Union balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy. Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million he would consider it a bargain. By then, the Bell company no longer wanted to sell the patent.[87] Bell's investors would become millionaires, while he fared well from residuals and at one point had assets of nearly one million dollars."

This is considered one of the greatest blunders in the history of business.

Here you go:

http://www.coindesk.com/western-union-pilot-program-ripple-labs/

Whether WU adopts the blockchain model remains to be seen.  Ripple Labs is now Fincen compliant. That would help bridge the gap for a traditional remittance company like Western Union looking for a legitimate player in the crypto world.

The point of this thread is rendered moot when you consider that Western Union is trial testing blockchain technology with various fintech companies including Ripple Labs. Remittance companies will have adopt some form of blockchain technology if they want to compete.

My take is, stick with the legacy alt coins...Litecoin, Peercoin, Primecoin, Namecoin, Digitalcoin...they have good devs, community support, and have fair distribution. Good for short term trading and long term investing

Avoid alt coins that have premine/instamine, unless you enjoy being a bagholder.

Just to entertain the OPs wild assertion, if for any reason Bitcoin were to falter, it would logically fall to the number 2 coin on the market cap to be the stand-in replacement... that would be Litecoin.

But who knows, if Monero continues to stick around and prove itself...

If you mean by "making it" as making money for traders and investors, I like the following:

-- Litecoin, always in bitcoin's shadow, can be a good play if you buy in low and hold for the next crazy unpredictable pump

-- The "legacy" alt coins, like Peercoin, Namecoin, Primecoin are always nice coins to trade and play with. Good devs and community and fairly distributed.

-- Digitalcoin, aka DGC,  is another legacy alt, a hidden gem that's fun to trade with low entry price point,  1 to 2 cent range

-- The other coins at the top of the coinmarket cap list, like Doge, Dash, Monero, BTS, Maidsafe haven't proven themselves to me to be trading worthy. Maybe as long term buys they might have potential?

-- I never trade/invest in any coin that has premine/instamine. Being a bagholder sucks. And by supporting a fairly distributed coin, it makes alt coins better in the long run.

H.

Bitcoin is still robust after its introduction 6 years ago, but has had some recent technical hiccups with Galvin fork and tx/spam issues.

Highly improbable that bitcoin would be replaced, but if it were, the standby, on-deck crypto is Litecoin. Coblee, the litecoin dev, has addressed some of bitcoin's shortcomings.

I think most folks underestimate the speculative value that this brings to LTC. It could literally jump to hundreds of dollars in value overnight. But it's a longshot to be sure.