271–280 of 293 posts
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So you think bitcoin is harder than: 1. Learning how to open a bank account (requires tons of personal information) 2. Learning how and why to use a debit/credit card (insecure) 3. Signing up for (requires e-mail) facebook and tying your credit card to it to send money ?
The hard part of bitcoin is keeping all the devices you use it on perfectly uncompromised and backed up.
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Don't forget about Bitcoin.
Almost no one outside of my techie friends know about Bitcoin. Even fewer understand how it works, so that's a no go.
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You just need a bitcoin balance and the recipient needs a bitcoin address. Which practically seems like way more friction than the three items you listed.
Not to mention the fact that the recipient needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web. Worse, the recipient also needs a bitcoin exchange account to even make the conversion possible, then they have to wait two days for the exchange to ACH the money into their bank. This all assumes the exchange will even do business with them…
The new feature is obvious and helps to better target advertising. But of course, it solves a real world problem.
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You don't see the problem here do you? 13.1 million people were defrauded because they used a credit card. $18 Billion were lost as a result. Losses due to bitcoin are peanuts in comparison.
Excellent. Yes, let's go there. Over the course of a year, $18 billion were lost to CC fraud. Meanwhile, CC transactions totaled about $6 trillion [0] (that was 2010, the most recent I could come up with, but it's been increasing every year for a long time so I'll be generous and use it). That's .3% - clearly affordable on the 2-3% merchants typically pay. Meanwhile, Mt. Gox defrauded users out of about 650,000 bitco…
Yes, I noticed you failed to address the 13.1 million people a year who have their lives ruined because they had their identity stolen.
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Excellent. Yes, let's go there. Over the course of a year, $18 billion were lost to CC fraud. Meanwhile, CC transactions totaled about $6 trillion [0] (that was 2010, the most recent I could come up with, but it's been increasing every year for a long time so I'll be generous and use it). That's .3% - clearly affordable on the 2-3% merchants typically pay. Meanwhile, Mt. Gox defrauded users out of about 650,000 bitco…
Multisignature transactions solve the "annnd it's gone" due to hacked merchants/exchanges. The rate may be 3 times higher but bitcoin is almost 1/8th as old as the credit card system. Losing $18 billion a year is not a good sign for a system of such age. At least bitcoin can and has improved and will continue to improve. Yes, I noticed you failed to address the 13.1 million people a year who have their lives ruined b…
Theories are great for people who can afford to lose tens of thousands of dollars. Until the actual rate goes down, recommending bitcoin to average consumers on the basis of "this is supposed to work" is stupid.
> Yes, I noticed you failed to address the 13.1 million people a year who have their lives ruined because they had their identity stolen.
No, I didn't. Here, I'll quote myself:
> CC companies essentially insure you against loss by paying out the fraud themselves and then forcing merchants to raise prices a bit to make up for it.
Almost no one is having their lives ruined. You call your credit card company's fraud department (actually, these days they often catch it first and call you). You spend 20 minutes getting your card canceled and showing them which purchases were fraudulent. You wait three days for a new credit card to show up.
Hardly life-ruining.
Honestly, I'd feel very uncomfortable making giving money this easy. Even with a physical wallet, it's still a two-step process.
Depending on the arbitrary counting methodology you want to use you could easily say this is the same amount of steps. For your physical wallet you take wallet out, you get money, you swipe, you sign. For Facebook the first time you open a chat with your friend, you click button, get wallet out, you enter information, you enter amount, you send. The subsequent times it's you opening a chat with your friend, clicking…
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All systems that require adoption are, initially, impractical. Bitcoin is becoming more and more practical as more and more merchants adopt it. Again: 100,000 merchants accept Bitcoin today, and this number is (so far) increasing rapidly.
Do you know where that 100k number comes from? I see it said a lot but the only source listed is an ibtimes story saying "an industry source says 100k". Has anyone figured out how it was calculated?
Coinbase has 38k: https://www.coinbase.com/about
Gocoin has 5.5k: https://ihb.io/2015-01-29/news/gocoin-announces-5500-merchan...
That's already 93.5k from merely 3 american bitcoin gateways. Add the rest of the world (China, etc) and it is clear there are 100k or more.
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Do you know where that 100k number comes from? I see it said a lot but the only source listed is an ibtimes story saying "an industry source says 100k". Has anyone figured out how it was calculated?
BitPay alone has 50k merchants: http://blog.bitpay.com/2015/03/10/heartland-payment-systems-... Coinbase has 38k: https://www.coinbase.com/about Gocoin has 5.5k: https://ihb.io/2015-01-29/news/gocoin-announces-5500-merchan... That's already 93.5k from merely 3 american bitcoin gateways. Add the rest of the world (China, etc) and it is clear there are 100k or more.
I'd be curious to see what the active merchants per month actually are for Bitpay and Coinbase. Until then I have a hard time believing they actually have those numbers live given the number of stories I've seen of people visiting stores/restaurants that accept bitcoin only to be told they don't do that anymore.
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Even lower-level, anything consumable by, well, anyone, quickly transforms from add-to-cart, checkout, and ship (whether digitally or physically), to add-to-cart, checkout, make sure they're actually the cardholder and legitimately authorizing the purchase, ship. I have seen far too many places -- whether they're side projects, smb, or even enterprises -- completely miss the antifraud step. There are companies like M…
Sorry for my ignorance but what are possible anti-fraud rules for, say, a flower merchant?
I could setup a site with a front-facing flower shop, accept orders, take in the peoples $$ legitimately, and then transact and fulfill their orders (via fraud) on 1800flowers.com for example.
I realize that anyone could do this for anything, but the weaker your weak points are, the easier it is to capitalize on them.