I'm not hearing screams of joy nor hatred - are we genuinely happy with the incumbents, or is the future 100% in distributed exchanges?

dacoinminster, can you explain in a bit more detail how a decentralized exchange running through MC can realistically operate, in particular with regards to speed (ie, orderbook matching, allowing for HFT, etc). Or are we talking about smart property / security and other financial instrument trading?

Thank you!

Hi, do you guys know if it's possible to keep the bitcoins (ie, have them transferred to your own wallet) from either bitpay or coinbase?
I'm getting this feeling both want you to exchange the btc to your local currency in order to 'protect you from volatility' - but I'm looking to keep the raw coins.

Thank you for any insight.

Cryptsy has had a bad rep recently... and funny enough seems to go down at the height of P&D schemes.
Starting to look like a bucketshop but of course this is just speculation.

Hi, loving electrum so far, and planning to recommend it to many others.
One question though: assuming i have my seed safe, what events could lead me losing my BTC if using electrum?
I'm curious in particular about change addresses, or just the software itself crashing.

Thank you.

Hi everyone,

Disclaimer: the below is NOT my post - it's from a user called "Philip Rooke" who posted what I consider to be a very constructive (but negative) comment regarding bitcoin's potentials for adoption.

Second disclaimer: Thing is, I love bitcoin but I can't find counter arguments to the guy. And the reason I'm interested in understand why he might be wrong is because I'm considering promoting bitcoin as part of my consultancy business. If a client comes to me with the list below, I'd be honest: I'd struggle.

Comments?



----- THIS IS NOT MY POST _ SEE http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/63620-will-bitcoin-have-a-positive-impact-on-ecommerce for the actual thread ----
The second is personal conjecture. I fail still fail to see why it is beneficial to consumers and therefore ecommerce. Credit cards, direct payment or other methods work well and cost the consumer nothing. Therefore I do not see why the average consumer will want to use it. If they do not see a compelling reason to adopt it then no retailer will. Therefore I do not think I will ever have to work with Bitcoin for my customers.

As a mass market retailer I tried to find 10 reasons as to why the average consumer might want to use Bitcoin:

1) Better security - but most customers are not unhappy with transaction security via existing methods, they live with risk. And those that are worried tend to shop with trusted brands to reduce the risk rather than move payment methods.

2) Zero % fraud - This is a retailer problem not a consumer one. Most credit cards offer fraud protection to consumers. The cost covered by the transactor and retailer, so the consumer does not care. Retailers cannot force consumers to use payment to suit their needs. I promise you that if I could reduce the 1% fraud on my business I would.

3) Lower costs - not to the consumer, very few retailers offer lower costs to non-credit card payers. Many are not allowed under their payment contracts. Other than tickets for events and travel it is rare to extra charges for credit cards and most consumers have debit cards.

4) Less complexity - hmmm so a consumer has to get another currency from their every day one and then try and work out the pricing. Well that will be easier.

5) Ideology or "sticking it to the man" - the mass market is "the man", works for the man or does not care. Therefore this will always make it a minority issue.

6) Taking out the middle man - only has an advantage if the consumer gets a lower cost or cares about "sticking it to the middle-man"

7) Speed of transaction - the average consumer does not care. "I make a payment I get my product. I guess the money gets there in the end". If you are transferring large enough amounts that interest over a 24 hour transaction becomes a problem them yes this may be of interest. But this has only happened 2 times in my life when buying or selling a company, and simple methods exist to deal with it, this is not mass market.

No regulating tax authority - but most consumers pay income tax from salary and buy goods from VAT tax paying retailers. Perhaps some self employed people might like the idea but then the companies who pay them still have to declare payments. So only tax avoiding rich or criminals will care.

9) e-wallet - this ideas I like but I have seen plenty of evidence that people are using paypal as a wallet. And in the last decade their have been 1000s of attempts to get to critical mass on e-wallets. The people who win here will be mobile phone billers who can use the phone as a wallet and have the consumer already. I bet on Vodafone or O2 over Bitcoin.

10) Accepted globally. I have to over 40 countries in my life and never had a problem with Visa or Mastercard. For personal reasons I have had to send money to Tanzania, Ethopia and Cambodia but standard cheap banking systems have never been a problem. So only useful if you are trying to do business in very strange places. Again not mass market.

So in the end Bitcoin seems to be a system that will work for tax avoiding rich who are anti-establishment and need to send money to really difficult places. Being ironic it sounds like rich public school boys on their year off before university. But it is not mass market.

I receive 100s of requests a month from consumers and our ecommerce platform sellers wanting Amazon checkout and payment. We have yet to have one for Bitcoin.

If Bitcoin is not mass market then it will be of little use to ecommerce retailers and platforms. And that was the title of my thought opinion.

Again I am more than happy to be proved wrong. But I want to see and argument for mass market usage. If you are hunting for ideas also look up Beenz, Flooz and Speedbucks.

Phil
----------------------- The above is not my intellectual property - post is at http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/63620-will-bitcoin-have-a-positive-impact-on-ecommerce --------

I'm not there yet but planning Bangkok. So clearing 500-800/usd every month from private dealers is perfectly doable?

Hi, I'm aware of the legal considerations of BTC in Thailand. That said, I'm not clear as to exactly where and how I could sell BTC there. In short, I'm planning to live there long term while holding funds in BTC, selling what I need for my living expenses as I go, monthly.

I'm expecting to clear around 500-800 $ USD/worth per month - is that realistic? Or will I land there and find no one to buy?

Thank you

Happy to receive offers via PM. Payments in BTC or wire transfer.
And yes, I own bitwhores.com. I guess I was in a good mood when i purchased it

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It is Tuesday, the event above was a pre-conference meetup

Shame this is not getting more traction - I'm still up for tomorrow Monday if anyone is interested!

I'm in! I suspect OP is on his flight now, can I suggest either Sunday the 29th (tomorrow) or Monday 6pm?
We could go to Brown's near the Marriot canary wharf (westferry location) or cat & canary (where the bitcoin meetup will meet post conference on Tuesday).

Cheers!

Hi,

I'm in dire need of an accountant that genuinely understands the current HMRC position on bitcoin.
I talked to a few and none of them understand it and therefore will not comment on it (understandable).

The questions I'd like to cover are relating to a situation where 100% of your income is in BTC - in which case you're bringing large amounts of FIAT to your bank account via an exchange yet hold no official work activity.  I'm looking for someone who can offer authoritative advice on the matter.

Does anyone know a firm that I could contact?

Thanks, I think that's a bug, too. When it's disappeared, 'show all windows' doesn't bring it back.

Hi, running the latest bitcoinQT on osx 10.8.3.
When pressing the 'red dot' closing button (the standard close window button on osx, top left corner of the window), I don't see a way to reopen the client without first right clicking it in the taskbar, shutting it down completely then reopening it.

Is this is by design?

Thank you

Thank you very much etotheipi!

Does this backup include 'change' addresses?

Thank you!

So, based on the official wiki:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

and this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQoykhNoBbY

For the network to process VISA's transactional capabilities, full nodes would need to have 3TB in storage created every 21 days.

So of course we have SPV, which is likely going to be released as part of the official client in the next release.
But doesn't that leave us with an ecosystem made of 'supernodes' while everyone else chugs along with their SPV client, centralising the control of the block chain into the hands of a few?

Thank you for any insight.

Updated:   http://imgur.com/v333MLl

I think everyone is too tired to panic at this point.
The guys who held during the nose dive probably have either balls of steel or don't give a flying banana about the money they got in that 'game' (either they got their coins early on, or it was small fry money).