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Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

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Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#21

Post by dublinclontarf »

spenvo wrote: post #20
taken11 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name some of those services that spring up? So far i have not been able to find anything that would make use of Bitcoins in an interesting way.

Given the ease of BTC as an electronic currency, there are not too many unique services. BTCSportsbet is cool and CoinPal allows you to buy giftcards, etc. but nothing ground breaking. Witcoin is interesting/unique because it operates in this kind of "micro-economy" space that is disallowed in other currencies because of transaction fees and the hassle of setting up paypal, etc.. Bitcoin is perfect/preferable for ver…

There is a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline coming out in the next couple of months. But yes, there are missing services in the bitcoin economy, it's a young economy, which is all the more reason to jump in.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#22

Post by ppod »

motters wrote: post #19
dublinclontarf wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if that's what people are willing to pay for then let them have it. I don't see how it doesn't work. There is a cost if the articles isn't popular(which rules submitting any old crap) There is a cost of voting up articles, which rules out people with too much time(and not enough money) on their hands scewing the numbers. Perhaps it hasn't worked before, but then no one has tried doing this with bitcoin, that sin…

That's the same argument that the tabloid newspapers use, and it doesn't work for them either. What readers end up with is low quality information, popular conspiracy theories, sensationalism, voyeurism, etc. What's really needed is some kind of system which sets up a virtuous cycle rather than a downward spiral.

"What readers end up with is low quality information, popular conspiracy theories, sensationalism, voyeurism, etc."

Readers end up with this because this is what readers want. We know this is what they want because it's what they pay for, which works just fine for tabloid newspapers.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#24

Post by noagendamarket »

eli wrote: post #23

Is this a legitimate attempt at a currency or a political statement? Also, what's the exchange rate between bitcoins and Flooz?

Start a bitcoin to flooz exchange and find out ?

The difference is bitcoin is decentralized while every other internet currency has been reliant on a single entity to issue it.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#25

Post by ashconnor »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #9

Allow me to extol the virtues of bitcoin over the current credit-card/banking based payment system. 1)Hard money, once you receive payment in bitcoin it stays with you, meaning no chargebacks(Paypal, credit cards, looking at you). 2)Fast payment, you can recieve payment within minutes of it being made(sometimes faster, but more on this in a moment). 3) Low barriers of entry, to start accepting bitcoin you don't need…

Some of the negatives:

1)Phishing, if your private keys and password are compromised your money is gone.

2)Regulations, although governments would find it difficult, if not impossible, to regulate BitCoin. They can regulate the exchange of BitCoin into everyday fiat currencies. We seen this with the likes of e-gold when exchangers were cracked down on due to the ease of laundering money in the system.

3)Value, if people have no faith in the value of BitCoins then the system will not work. Right not there's a lot of commerce with BitCoin but it seems that it's only digital products or services that are accepting it. Once sellers of physical products start accepting BitCoin then it might become are more common currency.

4)Drugs, CP and money laundering. Although I don't believe in the scaremongering tactics used by politicians in order to regulate the likes of the internet, this system is going to be vulnerable to the similar attacks. We've already seen narcotics marketplaces open up that are now accepting BitCoin by operating through the TOR network. Soon enough this will receive a lot of unwanted attention.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#26

Post by PostOnce »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #9

Allow me to extol the virtues of bitcoin over the current credit-card/banking based payment system. 1)Hard money, once you receive payment in bitcoin it stays with you, meaning no chargebacks(Paypal, credit cards, looking at you). 2)Fast payment, you can recieve payment within minutes of it being made(sometimes faster, but more on this in a moment). 3) Low barriers of entry, to start accepting bitcoin you don't need…

You know what else is great about it? The money is stored as a file on your computer. I can steal it from my laptop from the park across the street from your house and be gone before you know its missing, and you will never, ever be able to find me. All I have to do is steal your wallet file and transfer the bitcoins to my account, and the money is irreversibly mine.

Computer security being what it is, and with bitcoin growing at the rate you claim it is, I may soon be a millionaire without having done any real work.

Welcome to the future.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#27

Post by noagendamarket »

ashconnor wrote: post #25
dublinclontarf wrote: post #9

Allow me to extol the virtues of bitcoin over the current credit-card/banking based payment system. 1)Hard money, once you receive payment in bitcoin it stays with you, meaning no chargebacks(Paypal, credit cards, looking at you). 2)Fast payment, you can recieve payment within minutes of it being made(sometimes faster, but more on this in a moment). 3) Low barriers of entry, to start accepting bitcoin you don't need…

Some of the negatives: 1)Phishing, if your private keys and password are compromised your money is gone. 2)Regulations, although governments would find it difficult, if not impossible, to regulate BitCoin. They can regulate the exchange of BitCoin into everyday fiat currencies. We seen this with the likes of e-gold when exchangers were cracked down on due to the ease of laundering money in the system. 3)Value, if peo…

If you leave your wallet on the beach your cash is gone or someone could pickpocket you. Egold was located on a central server that was liable to confiscation. You can buy alpaca socks with bitcoin. You can do money laundering ,cp and drugs with US dollars.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#28

Post by trotsky »

People who grow interested in participating in the bitcoin market because of this or other articles about the currency should be aware that at its heart it is a very speculative market. The price of a bitcoin in USD has risen dramatically through most of its life while lacking economic fundamentals for why it should.

Indeed, the money supply in the bitcoin market increases steadily over time, this should be inflationary, causing the value of BTC to fall. The fact that it doesn't speaks to how thinly traded the BTC markets are, and that there are simply more buyers than sellers interested in BTC - primarily due to articles about bitcoin that drum up interest, and due to speculators participating in the market.

Bitcoin values are very loosely coupled to fundamentals - you can't buy food, energy or commodities with it. In general you need to transfer it back to a fiat currency to do anything classically useful with it. Currencies that either rapidly appreciate or rapidly depreciate are both ill suited for any kind of real commerce - people need relatively stable pricing to conduct any kind of direct business in fiat money. While there are certainly examples where fiat currency runs away in either inflationary or deflationary ways, central banks, charged with protecting their currencies often take dramatic steps at times to prevent moves either way.

In these ways bitcoin currently resembles either a pump and dump scheme the tulip bubble. Which it is depends on whether you believe the people driving the rises in pricing are intentionally exploiting the press and thin nature of the market, or if most of the participants are simply along for the speculative ride.

Of course, it is in the rational best interests of anyone who holds bitcoin to disagree with this assessment. That said, I do genuinely welcome any kind of informed debate on the issue.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#29

Post by dublinclontarf »

PostOnce wrote: post #26
dublinclontarf wrote: post #9

Allow me to extol the virtues of bitcoin over the current credit-card/banking based payment system. 1)Hard money, once you receive payment in bitcoin it stays with you, meaning no chargebacks(Paypal, credit cards, looking at you). 2)Fast payment, you can recieve payment within minutes of it being made(sometimes faster, but more on this in a moment). 3) Low barriers of entry, to start accepting bitcoin you don't need…

You know what else is great about it? The money is stored as a file on your computer. I can steal it from my laptop from the park across the street from your house and be gone before you know its missing, and you will never, ever be able to find me. All I have to do is steal your wallet file and transfer the bitcoins to my account, and the money is irreversibly mine. Computer security being what it is, and with bitco…

How will you do that? I don't even have wireless.

Jokes aside, the current financial system has the exact same problems, and infact can be worse, especially with username:password based authentication. If someone skims your ATM card and gets your pin number too bad, you've lost the money.

Or you could have your wallet pickpocketed, and the thief would be gone without you even knowing the money was missing.

What about credit cards? Protect consumers with chargebacks? yes. However these same consumer protections also hurt merchants, who are the ones that pay for chargebacks and frauds. Because there are no chargebacks bitcoin is very attractive to online merchants.

If users are not comfortable being responsible for taking care of their btcoins they can always use the bitcoin banking services like mybitcoin.com

Fact is bitcoin is money, clever thieves will be able to find clever ways of stealing money, it's been happening since money has been happening.

If you're looking for a perfectly secure currency don't hold your breath, cause one hasn't been invented yet and isn't likely any time soon.

Re: Bitcoin, a service and the micro-micro-economy

#30

Post by rmc »

dublinclontarf wrote: post #9

Allow me to extol the virtues of bitcoin over the current credit-card/banking based payment system. 1)Hard money, once you receive payment in bitcoin it stays with you, meaning no chargebacks(Paypal, credit cards, looking at you). 2)Fast payment, you can recieve payment within minutes of it being made(sometimes faster, but more on this in a moment). 3) Low barriers of entry, to start accepting bitcoin you don't need…

1)Hard money, once you receive payment in bitcoin it stays with you, meaning no chargebacks(Paypal, credit cards, looking at you).

I read this as: "If you give bitcoins to someone in exchange for goods/services and they don't deliver, you're screwed, your money is gone, there is no-one you can talk to". That sounds like it's good for sellers and bad for buyers.

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