http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/what-heck-bitcoin

Marketplace (it's a radio show that plays commonly on NPR) is doing a weeklong segment on bitcoins.

Today, the first day of it, they answer what bitcoins actually are.

The explanations are so-so.  And their response to the question "how do i make a million dollars on bitcoin" is answered poorly in my opinion.  They say there are two ways to do it:  Buy low and sell high, or sell high and buy low. (har har har).

Here's perhaps a fair quote: "Bitcoin is itself a collective hallucination -- as it turns out, most currencies are -- "

That's a pretty good point!  Didn't think of that somehow

Wow the comments on the page bottom are scathing. 

Wall street has the smartest people on earth working at those companies.  I know it's hard to believe given how stupid they have behaved at times.. but they hire the absolute top from places like MIT and Harvard.

It's hard to think that we could even imagine the schemes they might cook up (good or bad schemes I guess).

But overall speaking I'm betting it's a good thing ($/BTC -wise) the more wall street gets involved.
And like another said above, it's necessary for BTC to advance for it to get widespread and common-place investment options.
Let's face it - not that many average Joes are going to be interested in holding a chunk of their investment in some online thing called a wallet or some 'paper money' thing that they have to encrypt and store offline for max security..
They'll prefer someone else to worry about all that and just offer them an insured investment option (i.e. if you buy the Bitcoin fund from the Winkelvosses and they get hacked for a few BTC, their investors can feel secure... they can sue them if they want even, etc. etc. etc.  May not totally safe but they'll feel safer doing it that way).

Unless they manipulate it to $100.. or $10... or $1

For those local to Ann Arbor or nearby in the Southeast Michigan area, a friend of mine is entering the foray of buying / selling bitcoins locally.  This guy really believes in the idea of bitcoin and the opportunity it presents to get out of the less-safe USD..


Anyway I must disclose he's a friend of mine although I do not have any further affiliation with his dealings.

http://annarbor.craigslist.org/ele/4140072301.html
is the ad.  He's working on his site so for now it's a cL ad but he's legit and is a stand up guy.  I have exchanged BTC with him in the past for stuff.

If this is the wrong place to post this - sorry!  Please feel free to take it down..

I see. We'll that was then this is now --  with all the media buzz maybe they'll be easier to convince.

True - but this would be strictly to get people who aren't in bitcoin yet to get over that hump.
Preferably it would be for people who are already your friends (presuming you have some friends who don't do BTC yet).

It would NOT at all be for the sake of getting likes.

Thanks for responding.

Any other ideas?

On the Spanish board here on Bitcointalk.org there was a guy who said he'd give away .01 BTC to the first 100 people to reply to the thread with a simple phrase touting him to be a genie, and providing their address.

He had his own reasons for doing it but it gave me an idea:

If each of us gave away a very small amount of BTC on facebook to the first N responders, we could probably really build up interest in bitcoin.

Better yet - if we could set it up so that it really encourages present non-BTC people to set up a wallet, (and we could help show them how easy it is, etc.) then it'd be great for the at-large BTC community since we'd get a bunch of attention. 

what do you thinkg?

FYI: The giveaway thread I mentioned is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=357120.0;topicseen   FWIW I did manage to catch it in time to get my .01 BTC from him, and it arrived this morning.  Who knows his ultimate intentions.

I sold on Tuesday night last week and they claimed I'd get them in 2 business days (which due to Thanksgiving would be Wednesday and Friday of that week).  They even claimed a date of Dec. 2nd and a time.

I ended up seeing the money appear in the bank on Dec 3rd in the morning.  They claimed the slow down was partially due to my bank's own processing of the transfer (can't confirm or deny this) which may have been made worse by the holiday week.

Sure enough the money appeared in my bank account between 9/10 am this morning (EST).  A half day later than they claimed but all in all not too bad.  I'll give them the benefit of the doubt since there was a holiday since I ordered.

Overall I'm happy enough with coinbase that I'll do business with them again.

I decided to send an e-mail to Coinbase support this morning and within 3 minutes I had an e-mail response from them! (I was pleased.)

The support guy claims they have done all on their end and it's a case of waiting for my bank to clear the transfer. 


I appreciate his quick response..  Do I believe him that it's all on my bank... well I don't know.. but I'll see what shows up by the end of the day.

What's so bad about deflation due to lost BTC?
It should be less of a problem as time goes on and people get more and more careful with their BTCs.
I guess over the long run at some point as time approaches infinity it would have to by defn kill he system..

Yes it will. I've done 4 purchases (I'm a level 1 verified) and still the wait time on purchases coins.

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it.  
I swear I have done such an import through the Bitcoin-QT command prompt and it brought in the address into my wallet without creating a new one... But it was a few weeks ago and I was learning a lot back then. Maybe I missed something?  I also did this on a blockchain.info import. It even asks if you want to sweep to a new address (recommended) or not.   
anyway I didn't mean to mislead anyone.

We'll 11:54pm came and went. Bank shows no deposits.
Coinbase no longer says the part about "should arrive before 11:54 pm on Dec. 2". Instead there's no such estimate and otherwise the details page shows the same as before (deposit portion claimed to still be 'pending').

Not impressed. Perhaps tomorrow it'll come...

Does the person who made the image know that he or she failed to start counting at zero. Nice ball graphic. FAIL

Still waiting on the bank deposit.... Coin base says by 11:xx PM it should be there...  Sure hope so.


Edit for typo

Hmm I believe you're right given your num of posts... But could you explain your reasoning (rather than just 'get mad')?

Coinbase purchases always lock in the present rate (once I saw this want the case but they made that very clear prior to my purchase).  This is true even if it takes 7 days to receive the coins (ie won't be able to sell till them). I've had good experiences overall with them.