41–50 of 74 posts
Conceptually, I believe Bitcoins, or some derivative of them, will change the world. However, after writing a 25 page report on the legality of Bitcoins, I'm convinced the US government will view them as "domestic terrorism." Yes, you read that correctly. There are laws that state that anything that can be used to facilitate money laundering OR threaten the US economy is illegal. Don't get me wrong though, I'm one of…
I agree that credit cards are going to be displaced, but what is the rationale that the solution requires its own currency? Most transactions are very much within national (or European) boundaries. I think companies like Venmo, Dwolla and Square (or even PayPal) are well-positioned to becoming credit card alternatives. So: why Bitcoin/a separate currency?
a little unfair to tack this response on to this particular post, but it reminds me (again) how much time people spend on the outward appearance of apps around alternative currency without addressing the part that's actually hard.. how do you give an alternative currency real value?
>how do you give an alternative currency real value? That's not your job. People either will, or they won't.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Without commenting on your first 3 points, I'd argue that a 3rd world country could potentially be an excellent place to gain mass adoption. In the U.S. we have credit cards and fixed addresses to mail bills. There's probably a billion people who don't have this. There is absolutely an opportunity in 3rd world countries to leapfrog credit card systems, which for a variety of reasons don't work in these environments.…
That is (genuinely) a great point, but I would ask what this mobile currency is based on - the country's currency? Is it mined like bitcoin? Processing payments via mobile phone bills is a different beast than creating a new currency, IMHO...but then again, maybe I am not understanding these companies correctly. :)
For next batch, I applied as lone founder with no-idea, if you did not get in, seems like I might have similar fate.
Conceptually, I believe Bitcoins, or some derivative of them, will change the world. However, after writing a 25 page report on the legality of Bitcoins, I'm convinced the US government will view them as "domestic terrorism." Yes, you read that correctly. There are laws that state that anything that can be used to facilitate money laundering OR threaten the US economy is illegal. Don't get me wrong though, I'm one of…
Good thing there are 200+ other countries in the world.
That being said, there there's still monetary policy to consider. In South Africa, for instance, I suspect Bitcoin would face legal challenges given the strict monetary regulations imposed by the Reserve Bank. Somebody earlier in the thread mentioned MPESA - a mobile payments solution in Kenya, which is also available in South Africa. MPESA grew quickly but growth has a ceiling because it cannot be used for business-to-business transactions, or even for a very class number of business-to-consumer transactions, as the transaction volume limit imposed by the Reserve Bank in these sorts of schemes makes it feasible only for individuals to use.
The real solutions, in my opinion, have to use real currencies or they will face a severe risk of death by regulation.
* Use for illegal activities.
* Problems with controlling capital flow across national borders.
* Problems with estimating money supply in an economic system etc.