FTFY

Braintree processes payments for Uber and AirBnB.

Not eBay (yet!) but it's a big step in the right direction!

+1

This article is a poor excuse for journalism. Unverified "facts" and clear bias - topped off with poor investment advice.

SPY has returned 314% over 20 years and Bitcoin - even taking into account the recent price drop - has returned 10000%+ over 3 years, and his advice is that it would be better to invest in SPY??

Do they even teach math at the college he got his arts degree from???

With the recent price drop (~650 -> ~450) there is plenty of fear, some might say "blood in the streets".

Some predictors of doom are even calling the imminent end of Bitcoin - urging us to sell now - 'cut our looses' before it's too late.

Human nature is that if you buy and the price rises, you feel like a genius. If the price goes down you may feel like you've made a mistake (or worse been "fooled" or "scammed") and look to others for reassurance.

Unfortunately, this can make you vulnerable to "panic selling"...

Before you fold, and join the panic merchants of doom in the rush for the exits - consider that this may actually be a great opportunity - possibly your last, best opportunity - to get more bitcoins on the cheap.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to go against the crowd. But as Warren Buffett says, you "pay a high price for a cheery consensus" - in other words, buying what everyone else agrees is a good stock delivers mediocre returns. Far smarter to be a contrarian - go against the crowd - buy shares in an otherwise good company that has suffered an undeserved drop in price.

I think Bitcoin today is a great example of an otherwise valuable "stock" that is suffering a temporary, and I believe undeserved, drop in price.

I may be wrong, but I think this "flash crash" is mostly symptomatic of a thinly traded market being hit by a cascading series of margin calls. Whether it is deliberate manipulation or not doesn't really matter - some people are forced to sell to meet margin calls, others hit their stop loss triggers, and others are selling on emotion (fear) - all combining to accentuate the price drop.
Just remember - nothing has fundamentally changed about Bitcoin itself.

If you thought it was a good buy at $600, then it is an even more exceptionally good buy at $500.

Bitcoin represents an incredible disruptive force in the world of finance. Just look how far it has come in the past 12 months. It is accepted by an ever-increasing number of high-profile companies, and there is more VC money pouring in to Bitcoin companies every quarter - with more and more smart people building the infrastructure that will unlock ever-increasing opportunities that will drive even more people to want Bitcoin.

And we are just barely scratching the surface - there is still a LONG way to go.

The Winklevoss ETF and GABI fund haven't changed their plans. We will see one if not both of these trading before the end of this year, bringing serious investor funds in to play.

And just this week, eBay subsidiary Braintree is revealed to be in talks to accept Bitcoin. Braintree is the payment processor for companies like Uber and AirBnB - great to see disruptive companies powered by disruptive money!

The fundamentals are still solid and there are plenty of drivers for increased Bitcoin value over time. If you're measuring it against USD or other currency - it is far more likely that the 'price' of Bitcoin will go higher rather than lower.

If you aren't being hit with a margin call, and you have not invested "more than you can prepare to lose" - i.e. you don't need your Bitcoins to pay this week's rent or food - then why on earth would you sell now?

You only lose money once you sell. Until then, it's only an "on paper" loss - which would easily and quickly turn into a gain.

The current drop may last a couple of weeks - and may even go lower before rebounding - but don't let your emotions - or the doom-and-gloom merchants here - drive you to panic-sell.

If you've got some spare fiat, this may be your last chance to get in under $500. (I did!)
Bitcoin represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to participate a truly world-changing technology. Don't give in to despair and sell out now. If the price jumps back up suddenly - as it has in the past - your emotions may cost you the chance of a once-in-a-lifetime return.

Keep calm and HODL!
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #8rsBZbmh3jrL4e51

Sorry I missed your latest updates and message Arklan - had a rare internet-free weekend.

Looks like you are funded and on your way.

Best of luck with your new venture!

Spotted this on coindesk today
http://www.coindesk.com/mycelium-announces-entropy-offline-usb-paper-wallet-creator/

Has multi-sig feature - sounds like what you are after

So... if a miner had 51% of the network, couldn't a "bad" mining pool simply set the ID on half of their miners to be "no ID" - so then it would look like they only controlled 25% of the network... when in fact, they would control over 50%.

Which would be effectively the same as the current situation where GHash publicly controls 40% of hashrate - and I've read claims (not saying true or false, just that some people claim) they also control another 10-15% of "unknown" miners.

Sorry if I've misunderstood.

Was wondering if, could you achieve OPs "paper bitcoins" idea by simply printing a bitcoin paper wallet?

If I make a paper wallet and send 1BTC to it, the public address can be checked to ensure it still contains the 1BTC.

I can give it to Fred as kind of an "off-chain" transaction (say to pay for groceries)

Fred gives it to Sally - again "off-chain".

Sally decides to "deposit" it by breaking the wallet seal, and using the private key to send the 1BTC to her online eg coinbase account.

From blockchain perspective, I sent 1BTC to Sally.

Only flaw here is that, as the original issuer, I also know the private key. Nothing (technically, not morally) to stop me emptying the wallet immediately after I give it to Fred and he originally verifies it.

One advantage of the paper bitcoin is instant confirmation. But requiring trust in the original issuer to not empty the wallet probably makes this infeasible as a currency. Not going to propose a government-guaranteed, 'trusted' central printer of bitcoin currency in this forum! :-)

In other news, Exxon Mobil have suggested future Tesla vehicle design should include V8 combustion engines and the New York Times proposes the internet be 'updated' to allow delivery to households in a daily broadsheet format.

ok then - put me down for 0.165BTC (~$100 @ 620)

Repayment would be 0.18975BTC (15% simple interest on 0.165). And cap it at $150 valued in BTC so you don't get smashed if price spikes.

LMK once you hit your target and an address to send it to you.

Might also be worth considering a Kiva loan - a world-wide micro-finance site for entrepreneurs

Have you run the numbers on your Uber enterprise?

Does your loan take into account any setup costs - e.g. special insurance, DMV tests?

You mention you are rural - how many fares per week do you expect to get? Can your local Uber contact give you any estimates?
The benefit of being rural of course, is that any fares are likely to be longer trips, rather than a few blocks.

Have you considered the likely additional fuel / maintenance and cleaning costs on the vehicle?

Taking this into account, how much gross profit do you think you will make each week / month?

I would want to be sure your loan repayments won't exceed 20% of this amount - otherwise one unexpected expense (new tyres, broken headlight), a couple of quiet weeks, or something that stops you working for a little while would put you under more financial stress.

Finally - are you positive that the $1000 car meets Uber's requirements? (I don't know what $1000 buys where you live, but where I live it would be a complete P.o.S. - and I don't mean Proof-of-Stake!)

You've had a rough time - and I love that you are looking to find a way to support yourself that also takes care of your health.
I'd just hate for you to get the loan, buy the car and then be left in a worse position because Uber say "sorry - this car is not good enough".

HTH

First - hats off @cedivad - I love using the bitcointa.lk version of the forum.

I am wondering - is it just me - or is there some issue with it at the moment. I'm seeing all threads as "last updated Tuesday 10:30am-ish" - so several days ago now.

It's like it has stopped syncing. I've tried logging out / logging in and several different browsers. Can't think of anything else to try my side.

Hopefully it's an easy fix!

Thanks again

Should add... if you want to improve the user experience for anyone who has perhaps bookmarked the old page, once the page is out of Google's index, put a permanent (301) redirect in place sending visitors to the old (deleted) page to a more appropriate replacement page on your site. Your web tech should be able to do this using a .htaccess file or similar.
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #FIRA51oVIrdNnpke

Hi -

I can help you with this - I used to be a Search Engine Optimization geek before the Bitcoin bug bit me...

Here is the process:
[LIST=1]

• Register for Google Webmaster Tools (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/)
  
• Add your site and verify ownership (eg. upload a small file to prove it is your site) - Google guides you through this
• Make sure the page you want to remove is set to prevent Google from re-indexing it (e.g. add to robots.txt and/or set page meta tag to ROBOTS="NOINDEX, FOLLOW, NOCACHE, NOARCHIVE, NOSNIPPET") (yes, the FOLLOW is intentional here!)
• Use the Remove URLs feature (under Google Index) in the sidebar menu (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/url-removal)
  
• Give the full address of the page you want removed from Google, e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/fred/jane/bananas.html
  
• Leave the default setting for "Remove page from search results and cache"
• Wait about 24-48 hours and the URL should be gone from Google's index (it takes a little time to take effect, there are actually multiple copies of the index worldwide)

Hope this helps
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #wb4a9gxyy1OT0RRO

Hey - I know everyone here is smart enough to convert between bitcoins, satoshis, microbits, mBTC, uBTC in their heads without even needing a scientific calculator, however - for Joe Public to adopt this it's gonna have to feel "easier" and more like "real money"... it's more of a psychological and marketing question than anything to do with what is technically the "correct answer" according to us forum folk and bitcoin developers...

Assuming bitcoin does reach mainstream adoption, then common usage will win the day.

I think it will depend somewhat on where/how bitcoin ends up being used. If it is indeed used for small-value transactions like buying coffee, sandwiches and gas in future, then there will be a unit of measure which is somewhat equivalent to a "dollar" and probably another that is somewhat equivalent to "cents". This is just how the average person on the street is used to dealing with money - and I expect people will continue to want to denominate their purchases in this way.

Which of the following seems more likely for your Grandmother to say:
"I just bought a sandwich for zero point zero, zero, zero, zero, one, two, five bitcoin", OR
"I just bought a sandwich for 125 satoshis", OR
"I just bought a sandwich for a bit and a quarter"?

Having "bits" as the common unit, leaves a convenient two decimal places for the "satoshis" or "microbits" - so a relatively easy change to existing accounting, cash registers and POS systems to switch to a new currency without having to suddenly cope with 8 decimal places.

And much as we early adopters, white paper readers and forum lurkers may revere the name of Satoshi, I suspect "satoshi" will end up being replaced by "microbits" as the smallest unit of currency.

Again - not saying any of this is "right" - it's just how I foresee it evolving...

My 2 satoshis worth!
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #X5e7oCGnyRK8anmo

Amen to that brother!
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #cwbs5DrJTrdk4AXw

Sometimes these "enter your email" fields aren't even validated as legit email addresses. Sometimes, you can put nobody@noreply.com and still get access to the report.

Just sayin...
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #k3pNPbZnnwMo6l8M

OP appears to be mis-informed or at least did not take Thomas Jefferson's advice about not believing everything you read on the internet


Of course, I read these on the internet too, but they look legit to me so... 
1 - http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/30/usa-bitcoin-auction-idUSL2N0PB2JN20140630
2, 3 & 7 - https://twitter.com/barrysilbert/status/483692873855299584

So, we know not Pantera and not SecondMarket - hence OP info dis-proven.

Also know not Bill Lee (https://twitter.com/westcoastbill/status/483688433177485312) - he thought it was Mt. Gox auction
or Alex Waters / CoinApex (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/29hxs7/i_lost/) (Bid was under market - apparently $400-$500)

That's all I got for now
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #H7dwmZKDXQYoqjIe

^^ This right here!
Takes care of what might otherwise be a major pain for a small business owner - trying to account for / handle tax implications of individual bitcoin transactions.

Hooking up a shopping cart is easy with CoinBase / Bitpay if you sell goods online.

Intuit / Quickbooks have just made it possible for consultants, plumbers, and a raft of other small businesses to INVOICE and collect using Bitcoin.

And by doing this, Intuit/QuickBooks are effectively lending their weight as an "endorsement" of bitcoin as a legitimate payment method - up there with Visa / MC / etc.

Plenty of small businesses - and small business owners who will start looking into Bitcoin now. And we all know that once you look, you're hooked!

I am with the other posters on this - I think this is a BIG deal! YAY!
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #cnJavZ5gkwnxDJlW

I hate to say this out loud - but I had this scary thought...

This would actually be a cheap investment for the banking system if they collectively thought that doing this was enough to kill bitcoin forever as a competitor.

Given current market volatility and liquidity depth, I imagine a large tranche of coins like this is more likely to sell at below market price than the 30K SR coins being auctioned in next few hours. A 50% discount to market would not be out of the question for 140K coin block.

But let's assume for arguments sake (and to keep my maths easy), that they fetch $500 each. So 140K coins would be $70M. Even at market ($600) it's only $84M worth of coins. A lot to you and I maybe, but a drop in the ocean to banks... after all they can simply create the money!

I can imagine a cartel of 10 or 20 large banks chipping in say $10M each, buying the 140K coins and then dumping them onto the market over a short few days or weeks to hammer the Bitcoin price down to $xx level or lower. Protect their monopoly on the banking system and write off any loss to minimise taxes - it's a win-win for the banks, isn't it?

I'm bullish on bitcoin and usually stay away from tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories - but this scares me...

There must be a hole or two in this thought bubble - anyone??
Posted from Bitcointa.lk - #joL4QKTu8VqQATxq