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Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

bitcoinity.org

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Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#261

Post by tribaal »

pliny wrote: post #238
moe wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is the electronic version of "let's buy a lot of gold and stash it somewhere". It's also the electronic version of: Be able to move that gold around the globe near instantly, without a middleman, at almost zero cost. And some other quite neat things. While these features may seem "anecdotical" for many people in the western world, there's also a large number of people in poorer countries for whom e.g. the fee…

Near instant is a bit (a lot?) misleading, it takes on average about 10 minutes to have a transaction confirmed, sometimes much more.

Well, 10 minutes is still much better than the several days needed to clear an international transfer :)

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#262

Post by jtbigwoo »

Normati wrote: post #199
ballpoint wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, most UK wire transfers are essentially immediate (at most a couple of minutes), even between different banks.

That won't be wire transfers, that'll be some kind of local interbank transfer. A wire transfer is still complicated (paper forms), slow and expensive to send to other countries. You also have to give your name and address to the recipient bank to somehow prove you're not laundering money or funding terrorism.

If you're a business with the right initial approvals, you can initiate wire transfers online. There are all sorts of monitoring and checks that the run in the background, but an innocuous wire can go end-to-end without little or no human intervention. It's just folks like you and me who rarely send wires and have to go through all the paperwork.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#263

Post by sanswork »

moe wrote: post #259
sanswork wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate you skipping the whole rest of my comment to focus on the completely not relevant point of questioning why I included a specific example. If you want to ignore that is fine with me. But there is still a lot of my comment left up there.

I'm not sure how to make it much clearer, so I'll just quote your own words again: I'm not confusing it [Bitcoin vs CC] at all. I was giving an example that closely maps to the security concern with a credit card. First you say you agree that Bitcoin and Credit Cards are not the same - and then you proceed to complain about problems that only occur if you treat Bitcoin like a Credit Card.

I didn't say the problems only occur if you treat bitcoin like a credit card. I said the problem occurs.

You said that you can not worry about charge backs because you can just ask for the money back. Problem solved.

I gave you a list of occasions where no you couldn't just ask for the money back. You have ignored this and focused on this irrelevant argument to avoid having to face the main discussion.

Just because you're avoiding looking at the problem doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#264

Post by sanswork »

tribaal wrote: post #261
pliny wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Near instant is a bit (a lot?) misleading, it takes on average about 10 minutes to have a transaction confirmed, sometimes much more.

Well, 10 minutes is still much better than the several days needed to clear an international transfer :)

If it takes your bank several days to clear an international transfer you need to switch banks not systems.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#265

Post by internDC »

rprospero wrote: post #109
throwawaymsft wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you transferred money to someone (esp. out of country), how much did it cost, and how long did it take? Now, imagine you're poor, your family lives abroad, and a $20 fee on a $500 transfer is indeed a big issue. There are usability concerns (a bitcoin ATM to deposit money and have it sent to an address would be nice) but the use case of near-zero, same-day money transfers is enormous. In the af…

I am living abroad and while I'm not truly poor, a couple of months ago I had less that £20 to my name, so I'm quite cost conscious. I needed to send some money overseas and I looked at bitcoin for exactly the same reasons that you described. However, I found that sending the money via bit coin would take longer and wind up costing me more in transaction fees than just using transferwise. While the actual bitcoin tra…

This is due to the fact that bitcoin is not widely accepted yet. An in order for it to be widely accepted, more people have to want it. In order for people to want it, it has to be widely accepted.

This is why bitcoin is doomed to fail.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#266

Post by moe »

tribaal wrote: post #257
moe wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin is the electronic version of "let's buy a lot of gold and stash it somewhere". It's also the electronic version of: Be able to move that gold around the globe near instantly, without a middleman, at almost zero cost. And some other quite neat things. While these features may seem "anecdotical" for many people in the western world, there's also a large number of people in poorer countries for whom e.g. the fee…

I live in Tanzania :) I think you're overestimating the impact of bitcoin on poor countries by several orders of magnitude. People who don't have access to a bank account now don't have a smartphone, and certainly not a computer either. And internet access is rare and expensive (most people have dumb phones, internet at home is a rarity, and most coffee places charge you for wifi). On top of that the only way to buy…

but the reality is

And wouldn't it be nice if Bitcoin changed that reality for the better, a little bit?

So I come back to my original point, adoption is margnial, at best. Especially in poor countries.

Which I never argued.

I merely pointed out that Bitcoin has some additional useful properties on top of being a very volatile electronic gold equivalent.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#267

Post by tribaal »

dingaling wrote: post #253
tribaal wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your card is irrelevant. My card is very relevant. If someone steals it, they can use it but it doesn't impact me in any way except having to wait for the new card to come. If someone steals my bitcoins, it means they have a copy of my private key, and there is nothing I can do about it. Zich. Nada. Transaction fees pay for this insurance (among other things, but still).

> If someone steals it, they can use it but it doesn't impact me in any way except having to wait for the new card to come. Unfortunately this is no longer the case in Europe with cards activated under 'Verified by Visa' ( and presumably the Mastercard equivalent ). If an VbV card is used and passes authentication then it is assumed that the cardholder authorised the transaction and they are liable.

Ah, sure, if they use my card with the chip and PIN then I'm liable. Same if an online purchase is validated by 3dsecure, since that would mean that they somehow got my password on top of the physical card and personal details.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#268

Post by TeMPOraL »

jasonisalive wrote: post #248
TeMPOraL wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the libertarian dream. Maybe the "entrepreneurs" will in fact "smell the opportunity" and move in and save the day, but for what? What's the gain? Why design critical infrastructure so that its survival is based on a hypothetical market scenario, when it can be done right in the first place?

Ah, the smugness of the know-it-all anti-capitalist. Anyway, start here, read diligently. It's not too hard, mostly just straightforward application of basic logic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Smith

I don't have a problem with understanding why capitalism works, or even why it worked so well for us in the last century. But "straightforward application of basic logic", as well as simple observation of the world around us, clearly shows that the "invisible hand" is pushing us toward a very unpleasant future. We would do well to reconsider how much we want to follow that hand, because we don't share the goals of its owner.

But hell, we're dealing with incentive structures here, and people change those only when they're incentivized to do so. So maybe we really need to wait for Bitcoin or something similar to throw us back into XVII century (only dirtier) for people to realize that maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't have been treating feedback loops as benevolent deities.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#269

Post by FatalLogic »

sanswork wrote: post #260
FatalLogic wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I appreciate the apology! Almost 10% of the comments in this thread are by you, and they're filled with numerous bold claims of fact. Are all those statements "observations of sentiment", too, or was it only this one?

>Are all those statements "observations of sentiment", too, or was it only this one? If I use exact numbers they tend to be facts I can source you. If I use vague terms it is because I don't have the numbers or it is a sentiment claim. I've had a look through my comments here and don't really see too many bold claims at all. Do you have any specific ones you want an answer for?

"Most" is hardly a vague term, as it definitely means "more than 50%". Some would say it means more than 75%.

So you're boldly claiming that the company has lost over 50% of its community support. That's an incredibly damaging statement. And you're basing it on shamefully weak evidence.

If you really wanted to be vague, then the appropriate word might have been "some". So you could have said "Some people in the community have lost faith in Blockchain.info". But that wouldn't have sounded as impressive, would it? It would sound like you don't know what you're talking about and you don't have any real proof. So you went with the bold and confident "most".

> Do you have any specific ones you want an answer for?

Frankly, after this discussion, absolutely all of them, because you seem to be prone to exaggeration, to put it mildly.

Re: Bitcoin crashes over 25% in 24 hours, under $180

#270

Post by moe »

sanswork wrote: post #263
moe wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how to make it much clearer, so I'll just quote your own words again: I'm not confusing it [Bitcoin vs CC] at all. I was giving an example that closely maps to the security concern with a credit card. First you say you agree that Bitcoin and Credit Cards are not the same - and then you proceed to complain about problems that only occur if you treat Bitcoin like a Credit Card.

I didn't say the problems only occur if you treat bitcoin like a credit card. I said the problem occurs. You said that you can not worry about charge backs because you can just ask for the money back. Problem solved. I gave you a list of occasions where no you couldn't just ask for the money back. You have ignored this and focused on this irrelevant argument to avoid having to face the main discussion. Just because y…

Hm... ok, guess I'll quote myself again then too...:

Since you know there is no Chargeback mechanism wouldn't it be wise to demand product/service first or use an escrow service?

What part of "Bitcoin is not a credit card, do not treat it like a credit card" is so hard to understand?

Yes, if you send coins to some address which might belong to a scammer then those coins might be lost. Duh.

You can now complain all day about Bitcoin not having a chargeback mechanism. Or you can just accept it as fact and refrain from sending your coins to random bitcoin addresses...

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