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Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

news.bitcoin.com

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Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#101

Post by seangrogg »

pjc50 wrote: post #97
Mendenhall wrote: post #96

A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I was able to set up a wallet, set up a twitter account and get people to send me bitcoin in legal and ethical ways in a very short amount of time. People can actually tweet you "money" very easily with no hassle of setting up bank account or waiting etc. I was able to…

But how often do people tweet you money anyway?

It's pretty common to see people using Paypal, Venmo, or Facebook to move funds around between social circles. I'm personally exhausted of people recommending I install the "next money transfer app" but I don't carry cash, so... yeah.

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#102

Post by st3v3r »

Mendenhall wrote: post #96

A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I was able to set up a wallet, set up a twitter account and get people to send me bitcoin in legal and ethical ways in a very short amount of time. People can actually tweet you "money" very easily with no hassle of setting up bank account or waiting etc. I was able to…

"A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles."

It's not the tech itself that gets the hate; it's the community around it that gets the hate. The ones who have drunken the Kool-Aid are not only some of the least knowledgable about monetary and fiscal policy, but they are soooooo smug about it. And the persecution complex they make up rivals that of American Christians around Christmastime.

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#103

Post by microcolonel »

Frondo wrote: post #99
Mendenhall wrote: post #96

A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I was able to set up a wallet, set up a twitter account and get people to send me bitcoin in legal and ethical ways in a very short amount of time. People can actually tweet you "money" very easily with no hassle of setting up bank account or waiting etc. I was able to…

Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in those decisions. With dollars, I get to vote regula…

Isn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's actually fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair? Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#104

Post by Nursie »

Mendenhall wrote: post #96

A side note is I find it a little odd that bitcoin often gets "hate" from inside some tech circles. From a technology standpoint I was amazed because I was able to set up a wallet, set up a twitter account and get people to send me bitcoin in legal and ethical ways in a very short amount of time. People can actually tweet you "money" very easily with no hassle of setting up bank account or waiting etc. I was able to…

I'm not sure about hate, but I dislike it for a variety of reasons. It's basically been a huge goldrush, the community has involved some very shady characters and certainly still involves a lot of digital goldbugs.

It gets pushed as a universal method of payment, for which it is ill suited at present die to blocksize concerns, as an investment (you aren't really 'investing' in anything, IMHO), as a currency-replacement (with a fixed amount? Hullo gold standard) and all sorts of things.

It also burns through an absolute ton of electricity, as the tradeoff for decentralisation. Personally, I'm not actually terrified of centralised banks and managed currency...

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#105

Post by Nursie »

runeks wrote: post #79
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #30

I keep hearing about Bitcoin being used to pay for commodities, but will this actually ever scale? With a maximum transaction rate of ~3.5 transactions per second, won't any practical application of Bitcoin for the masses eventually have to be implemented by a bunch of trusted third parties operating off the blockchain and bundling transactions? At that point, we seem to be back to using credit card companies who jus…

The difference between VISA/Mastercard and an open, credit-issuing protocol on top of Bitcoin is huge, in my opinion. The reason VISA is wasteful and expensive is not that the idea of issuing credit is bad, but due to a lack of competition. No one's pressuring VISA to improve either on fees or technology, so they don't bother. In my view it's very simple: credit is extremely cheap to produce. If a retail merchant is…

Here in the EU (well for now at least) we have interchange fees capped by regulation, AFAICT. I think they cap at 0.3%. That's not the entire fee, but I think it is VISA's part.

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#106

Post by st3v3r »

ekianjo wrote: post #21
dvcrn wrote: post #5

What is the advantage of this? Here in Japan every creditcard is giving you some kind of bonus program and encourages you to use that card for your bills so you automatically aggregate amazon / rakuten (japanese amazon competitor) / ANA / etc points. I mean, I guess I could exchange every month my yen into bitcoins and then pay with it, but why?

What is the disadvantage of having another choice of payment ?

Maintaining it.

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#107

Post by Nursie »

microcolonel wrote: post #103
Frondo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in those decisions. With dollars, I get to vote regula…

Isn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's actually fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair? Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?

How is "the people who can buy the most hashing power have the most votes" fair?

That's the bitcoin majority...

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#108

Post by tdb7893 »

microcolonel wrote: post #103
Frondo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate? No, not from me. But I am wary of bitcoin advocates' desire for it to become widespread because it is an anti-democratic currency. Like all currencies, it's got assumptions baked into it (fixed supply leads to deflation, etc) that influence its spenders' lives, but unlike government-sponsored currencies, there's no way for its users to have a meaningful say in those decisions. With dollars, I get to vote regula…

Isn't the only difference from "here's your ballot, citizen" that it's actually fair this time, instead of cross-your-fingers hopefully fair? Shouldn't a majority vote reflect the will of the majority?

"majority vote" (i.e. the vote of a few large mining organizations)

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#109

Post by pjc50 »

Mendenhall wrote: post #100
pjc50 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how often do people tweet you money anyway?

Depends on how creative you are and how much effort you put into it. I have over $1000 in bitcoin just through using twitter and never sinking 1 penny in. I also consider what I did just playing and testing it out. I have some more serious ideas for later when I have time because I just love the concept.

.. such as posting what kind of things? Could you link said twitter account?

I'm very skeptical of this because I remember changetip.

Re: Japanese Can Soon Pay Their Utility Bills with Bitcoin

#110

Post by paavokoya »

repomies691 wrote: post #53
kang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are scaling solutions like lightning network being built and the blocks are not full. Also for a cup of coffee you don't need so much security so go use litecoin or something, why not.

Why wouldn't I just use some trustful centralized solution for a cup of coffee? In fact, I myself prefer to use credit card for these, where I don't actually have to trust the payment method provider, but the payment method provider trusts me to pay the bill one month later. I don't see how bitcoin can compete on this sector, except for privacy issues.

No one is saying you wouldn't. The major benefit of bitcoin is a global currency with predictable monetary policy. Bitcoin works anywhere the internet does without any need for third-party. Just because I have the freedom to drive my own car doesn't mean I don't take public transit or taxis every now and then.
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