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Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

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Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#181

Post by sanswork »

blhack wrote: post #170
sanswork wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) What are the best practises for having a bunch of bitcoin? You say you shouldn't keep it stored on your local machine but where? Keeping it stored on exchanges is kind of prone to failure in the bitcoin world. If you want to use a cold wallet you need a second computer that you don't plan to use for anything else and you need to learn linux or its pointless 2) Just because its new doesn't mean its better or makes…

1) Store it on coinbase. And don't invest your life savings into bitcoin in the same way that you might not want to "invest" your life savings into Western Union Travelers Checks. 2) What is a way that I can transfer value to somebody in a far away place that is easier (if both parties already accept coins) than bitcoin?

1) Given the history of exchanges is it really smart to store your bitcoin in one?

2) Is only easier if you ignore the process of getting bitcoins and the process of converting them to something else. If you do that then me sending you an email saying "IOU value" is easier.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#182

Post by sanswork »

recycleme wrote: post #177
sanswork wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) What are the best practises for having a bunch of bitcoin? You say you shouldn't keep it stored on your local machine but where? Keeping it stored on exchanges is kind of prone to failure in the bitcoin world. If you want to use a cold wallet you need a second computer that you don't plan to use for anything else and you need to learn linux or its pointless 2) Just because its new doesn't mean its better or makes…

1) look up paper wallets. bitcoin is at a stage where it's not trivial to secure if you are not a technical person. There are companies that are working at making this easier by providing the security and even insuring the bitcoins if something happens. When services like this are out we will see a huge turning point IMO.

That would be the cold storage option I mentioned would it not?

AFAIK there is only one company that has claimed the insurance angle(Xapo) and if you read the policy you basically need to have the person that stole them be arrested before they will pay out.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#183

Post by bdamm »

recycleme wrote: post #177
sanswork wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) What are the best practises for having a bunch of bitcoin? You say you shouldn't keep it stored on your local machine but where? Keeping it stored on exchanges is kind of prone to failure in the bitcoin world. If you want to use a cold wallet you need a second computer that you don't plan to use for anything else and you need to learn linux or its pointless 2) Just because its new doesn't mean its better or makes…

1) look up paper wallets. bitcoin is at a stage where it's not trivial to secure if you are not a technical person. There are companies that are working at making this easier by providing the security and even insuring the bitcoins if something happens. When services like this are out we will see a huge turning point IMO.

I've been looking for a liveCD based offline paper-wallet solution, but so far no luck. Perhaps someone can point me to one? The point is to generate a paper wallet on a machine with no capability of retaining the keys after the paper wallet has been generated - and the only way I know how to do that is through the removal of hardware (no hard drive, no USB stick, no networking. Maybe no speaker either.)

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#184

Post by HackerClues »

sanswork wrote: post #157
blhack wrote: post #144

Reading these comments is depressing. Bitcoin isn't a few geeks trading bits over IRC anymore, guys. To some of the common bitcoin concerns: 1) They're easy to steal! Look at this person who did $something_stupid and had all their coins stolen! Yeah, sure...and if you had left $10,000 in cash just sitting on your table, the same thief could have stolen that as well. There are stories every single day of people having…

1) What are the best practises for having a bunch of bitcoin? You say you shouldn't keep it stored on your local machine but where? Keeping it stored on exchanges is kind of prone to failure in the bitcoin world. If you want to use a cold wallet you need a second computer that you don't plan to use for anything else and you need to learn linux or its pointless 2) Just because its new doesn't mean its better or makes…

You can just store it on a usb...

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#185

Post by sanswork »

aeturnum wrote: post #179
renata wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that many Coinbase/Bitpay/whatever transactions will be off-chain - much like PayPal, you can have an account balance that is just transferred in Coinbase's ledger but doesn't actually appear to be transferred on the block chain.

I thought transactions like that weren't supported by the bitcoin protocol. Are there any resources that explain how this works with the general blockchain?

It doesn't work with the general blockchain. If I have 1btc in my coinbase account and I send it to your coinbase account then it never shows up on the block chain.

I think people hugely overestimate how much volume is happening with this though.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#186

Post by blhack »

sanswork wrote: post #181
blhack wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Store it on coinbase. And don't invest your life savings into bitcoin in the same way that you might not want to "invest" your life savings into Western Union Travelers Checks. 2) What is a way that I can transfer value to somebody in a far away place that is easier (if both parties already accept coins) than bitcoin?

1) Given the history of exchanges is it really smart to store your bitcoin in one? 2) Is only easier if you ignore the process of getting bitcoins and the process of converting them to something else. If you do that then me sending you an email saying "IOU value" is easier.

1) If you don't feel comfortable storing things in coinbase, and don't feel comfortable storing coins on your local machine, then you might not want to use bitcoins. This is fine, but there are plenty of people (like me) who are completely fine with coinbase.

2) If you had an easy way of converting that IOU into USD, or converting it into real goods (by, for instance buying something on newegg), then I would say that yeah, that would be just as good. In fact, that's a great analogy! Bitcoin is a very widely accepted system of IOUs (kindof like a banking system...or cash).

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#187

Post by sillysaurus3 »

blhack wrote: post #186
sanswork wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Given the history of exchanges is it really smart to store your bitcoin in one? 2) Is only easier if you ignore the process of getting bitcoins and the process of converting them to something else. If you do that then me sending you an email saying "IOU value" is easier.

1) If you don't feel comfortable storing things in coinbase, and don't feel comfortable storing coins on your local machine, then you might not want to use bitcoins. This is fine, but there are plenty of people (like me) who are completely fine with coinbase. 2) If you had an easy way of converting that IOU into USD, or converting it into real goods (by, for instance buying something on newegg), then I would say that…

there are plenty of people (like me) who are completely fine with coinbase.

As far as I know, Coinbase has no insurance for their users' coins. If they go bankrupt, you'll lose all your money.

Coinbase is a startup. Failure is the norm, not the exception. Until they get insurance, you shouldn't store more than you're comfortable losing.

Since most consumers can't afford to lose very much, and since most consumers aren't comfortable using an offline storage solution like Armory, they'll need to stick with cash or credit to stay safe. This harms bitcoin adoption among consumers, because they don't have bitcoin on hand with which to buy things on a whim.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#188

Post by ghshephard »

Pretty amazing - I went and made a purchase on NewEgg using CoinPocket on my iphone - total time for transaction was under 10 seconds, including the time to scan the QR code, click send, and have Newegg recognize I'd sent payment.

CoinPocket / NewEgg were within $0.15 of their exchange amounts on a $31.89 purchase. So, CoinPocket thought it was $31.89 that I was sending, and NewEgg thought I was sending $31.74.

All in All - Bitcoin made purchasing a lot more easy than having to type in a Credit Card number or login to Paypal.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#189

Post by dombah »

sanswork wrote: post #157
blhack wrote: post #144

Reading these comments is depressing. Bitcoin isn't a few geeks trading bits over IRC anymore, guys. To some of the common bitcoin concerns: 1) They're easy to steal! Look at this person who did $something_stupid and had all their coins stolen! Yeah, sure...and if you had left $10,000 in cash just sitting on your table, the same thief could have stolen that as well. There are stories every single day of people having…

1) What are the best practises for having a bunch of bitcoin? You say you shouldn't keep it stored on your local machine but where? Keeping it stored on exchanges is kind of prone to failure in the bitcoin world. If you want to use a cold wallet you need a second computer that you don't plan to use for anything else and you need to learn linux or its pointless 2) Just because its new doesn't mean its better or makes…

1) Best practice is typically separating it into "savings account"/ personal wallet. So cold storage and a hot/low security wallet.

2) Agreed. There are no guarantees, however strong indicators it will improve. Remember e-commerce didn't make sense either back in the day (no salesperson, can't touch goods, security - all “rational” reasons) -- but all solved.

On that point I don't even view BTC as currency actually (my personal view).

It is first of it's kind with no precedent (is it currency, asset, ledger, protocol…?). Is it all of above? Or something else? Reminds me of when first iPad came out and people just viewed it as a “large iPhone” (true, in some ways - but it’s definitely not defined that way anymore. It’s own unique category now. Public aware of nuances). No precedent. Still defining by analogy to old paradigms.

BTC is similarly nuanced. I actually view it as more buying a stock in protocol. Yup sounds crazy/doesn't make sense using old paradigms. But I’ll leave that for another post (the gist of the idea is here: http://btcgeek.com/dawn-of-autonomous-corporations/).

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#190

Post by h1karu »

sanswork wrote: post #157
blhack wrote: post #144

Reading these comments is depressing. Bitcoin isn't a few geeks trading bits over IRC anymore, guys. To some of the common bitcoin concerns: 1) They're easy to steal! Look at this person who did $something_stupid and had all their coins stolen! Yeah, sure...and if you had left $10,000 in cash just sitting on your table, the same thief could have stolen that as well. There are stories every single day of people having…

1) What are the best practises for having a bunch of bitcoin? You say you shouldn't keep it stored on your local machine but where? Keeping it stored on exchanges is kind of prone to failure in the bitcoin world. If you want to use a cold wallet you need a second computer that you don't plan to use for anything else and you need to learn linux or its pointless 2) Just because its new doesn't mean its better or makes…

1.) best practice is to store it in a paper wallet.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Paper_wallet

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