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Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

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Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#111
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question doesn't make sense to me. > when can customers expect their money to be protected after they convert their savings into bitcoin, without trusting their coins to a third party service like Coinbase, and without spending a solid week learning how to safely store their coins themselves? As you point out in your own statement, there are companies meeting the need for a "turnkey solution": you list Coinbase…

there are companies meeting the need for a "turnkey solution": you list Coinbase and they are an excellent example of a company doing that well and being quite successful at it. And if Coinbase goes bankrupt, all their users lose all their money. I've written about this extensively several times before, so I won't rehash the old points. But the summary is, if you trust your money to an entity that doesn't have insura…

So can a bank and you will loose all your money just ask the people of Cyprus.

Bitcoin has been around for 4 years banks for several hundreds.

Your point is true but trivial and hardly says anything conclusive or useful other than you don't trust 3rd parties.

With time you wont have to.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#112
A lot of people are missing the point with these large sellars accepting bitcoin. It's not that they expect sales to explode but rather they want to experiment and get a feel for how it works.

There will be a time where crypto-currency will be as normal as paying with credit card or cash.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#113
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong, there is tremendous consumer growth happening. The two biggest US processors (BitPay and Coinbase) release numbers every once in a while. One example: "Since [...] October, along with the integration with Shopify in November, [...] the transaction volume has tripled." Source: http://blog.bitpay.com/2013/12/11/bitpay-exceeds-100-000-000...

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions I don't see any growth. Also, 70k transactions/day - one average shopping mall.

A crucial missing data point is that Coinbase does all their transactions off-chain. If you send Bitcoin via Coinbase to a friend, it doesn't get reported on this chart. They have their own accounting system.

Bitcoin at its current stage cannot handle many transactions, as you point out. However, this doesn't mean there isn't a plan to make it handle many more transactions. See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability for more.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#114
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, but the numbers are still incredibly low. The customer adoption is only at a few thousand transactions per day. Those numbers would have to go up at least hundredfold for Bitcoin to be taken seriously as a currency.

Apparently they don't have to go up at all for it be taken seriously by Newegg, Overstock, Dish, and Tiger Direct.

That's true, and every time a new company begins accepting it, there is a slurry of stories about it in tech publications.

I'm surprised more retailers, particularly those specializing in tech, haven't begun accepting bitcoin. They can accept it on terms they dictate and it's easy publicity.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#115
post #63

Great. So, when can customers expect their money to be protected after they convert their savings into bitcoin, without trusting their coins to a third party service like Coinbase, and without spending a solid week learning how to safely store their coins themselves? This is exactly a "schlep blindness" problem that a startup could be solving. Deliver a turnkey solution for consumers to store their own coins. Don't m…

Your question doesn't make sense to me. > when can customers expect their money to be protected after they convert their savings into bitcoin, without trusting their coins to a third party service like Coinbase, and without spending a solid week learning how to safely store their coins themselves? As you point out in your own statement, there are companies meeting the need for a "turnkey solution": you list Coinbase…

> Your question doesn't make sense to me.

It is because you don't understand the nature of bitcoin or it's colorful history with third party services like Coinbase. The question is a good one and not at all unreasonable if you understand bitcoin. The system is supposed to be trustless, and one aspect of this is that you don't need a trusted third party to conduct safe and fast transactions with another individual. Another aspect is that you don't have to trust someone else to hold your money, but then of course the security is up to you, which has so far been something of a problem.

As others have mentioned, multi-sig addresses are one part of the solution (doesn't BitGo support these now?), and another is potentially a hardware solution. But the current Coinbase offerings are inadequate, and those types of solutions will eventually be replaced or people will continue to lose their money when they trust someone else with their private keys.

There is no insurance for stolen, hacked, or otherwise lost keys. In the banking system, when money is "lost", the loss is spread out among everyone, which is nice if you were the affected party but is a pretty raw deal for everyone else (cf. banking crisis of the past 5+ years). When bitcoins are lost, there is no recourse.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#116
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, it's cheaper for me to buy things on Amazon with Bitcoin via Gyft (3% cashback) than using my credit card (1% cashback) or debit card (nada).

You're ignoring the cost of acquiring bitcoins in that 3%. Also cheaper still to buy gift cards via raise, cardpool, giftcardgranny, hundreds of other results for "discount gift cards" which are 3%-6% off AND get your 1% cash back.

Please link me to a site that has Amazon gift cards at a greater than 3% discount. I tried searching last time someone gave me that reply and couldn't find one.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#117
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be replaced by people that forgot their PIN and lost the paper backup.

If you refuse to take any responsibility in life, Bitcoin is not for you.

So.... it's not for most people then?

Because we've evolved a hell of a lot of ways for people to offload responsibility over the last hundred or so years, particularly where money is involved.

In general I think it's a pretty good thing.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#118
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true, it's cheaper for me to buy things on Amazon with Bitcoin via Gyft (3% cashback) than using my credit card (1% cashback) or debit card (nada).

You're ignoring the cost of acquiring bitcoins in that 3%. Also cheaper still to buy gift cards via raise, cardpool, giftcardgranny, hundreds of other results for "discount gift cards" which are 3%-6% off AND get your 1% cash back.

Buying Amazon cards on the secondary market isn't a good idea, though, due to the fraud. Otherwise agreed.

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#119
Coinbase and BitPay signing up new retailers doesn't provide me additional belief that bitcoin is viable. The retailer doesn't believe in bitcoin. They get cash out ASAP.

For a retailer, if they think they can move units by partnering with someone who will convert BC to cash, sure whatever. It's like adding PayPal.

You don't see the 10,000,000 new consumers bought bitcoins!!! Who knew cryptocurrency could burn holes in pockets!??!?! articles because that's not happening.

The real problem was never "people don't have a place to spend bitcoin." It was "people don't have time or risk tolerance to manage bitcoin."

Re: Newegg is now accepting Bitcoin

#120
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll be replaced by people that forgot their PIN and lost the paper backup.

If you refuse to take any responsibility in life, Bitcoin is not for you.

Why take responsibility when a credit card company will do it for you? That's a MAJOR selling point of credit cards.
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