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Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

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Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#41

Post by omegaham »

kolev wrote: post #36
YoukaiCountry wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please elaborate on the safety mechanisms/services, I'm not aware of them. But if I was poor, there would be nothing to stop me from going to a gas station and spending my last $20 bill on lottery tickets, instead of food.

You can't easily put thousands of dollars in lottery tickets.

But you can do so with impulse purchases. There's a hilarious radio ad that I hear every now and then; it's an advertisement for a tire rim store. They certainly know their audience; it's loud, boorish, and ghetto, and they are looking for people without any common sense to put down $1500 on new rims for their pimpmobile. They do a roaring trade.

Same thing with bars. I know guys who drink their paychecks; every weekend, they're at the bar / strip club, spending every last cent in their bank accounts.

Same thing with electronics stores, jewelry stores, etc.

Should we legislate financial responsibility to prevent idiocy? I'm a responsible person, and I will gamble a hundred bucks every six months or so. I have a lot of fun; it's a glamorous evening where you're paying for an experience. I shouldn't have to stop doing that because some moron is gambling his grocery money away. I shouldn't have to stop drinking because someone else is giving himself cirrhosis.

I understand the counterargument - "You're having a frivolous evening. You don't need that. What's it to you? Your idea of a good time is also destroying famiies and ruining lives." But where does it end? I know plenty of people who put themselves horribly into debt with credit cards. I know people who spend their student loans on weed. I know people who speed and wreck their cars. Should we ban everything that can possibly be abused by clueless people?

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#43

Post by icebraining »

kolev wrote: post #12
ChuckMcM wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. This is the really interesting thing about BitCoin for me, making cryptocurrency work without regulation. I appreciate that folks are trying. It touches on the fundamental difference between so called 'legal tender' and markers for barter.

We're not comparing apples to apples to say Bitcoin transactions are free or cheap. Credit cards are a mature piece of technology that has optimized the costs over the years. The credit cards processing fee is something that has so much behind it (consumer protection, interest-free crediting, etc.) - you cannot compare Bitcoin to this at all. There's no consumer protection with Bitcoin - you're on your own, so, compa…

The reason you need pervasive consumer protection using CCs is because the system is fundamentally flawed, relying on every single merchant not to be a scammer or aciddentally leak the info.

With BTC (and similar systems), you can pay for protection when you need it, while having a cheaper service when you don't.

And this isn't something discovered with BTC, some of us live in countries with sane payment systems that are cheaper than CCs. They just don't work abroad, which nowadays is a major limitation.

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#44

Post by paulhauggis »

icebraining wrote: post #43
kolev wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not comparing apples to apples to say Bitcoin transactions are free or cheap. Credit cards are a mature piece of technology that has optimized the costs over the years. The credit cards processing fee is something that has so much behind it (consumer protection, interest-free crediting, etc.) - you cannot compare Bitcoin to this at all. There's no consumer protection with Bitcoin - you're on your own, so, compa…

The reason you need pervasive consumer protection using CCs is because the system is fundamentally flawed, relying on every single merchant not to be a scammer or aciddentally leak the info. With BTC (and similar systems), you can pay for protection when you need it, while having a cheaper service when you don't. And this isn't something discovered with BTC, some of us live in countries with sane payment systems that…

where is this protection for bitcoin? every exchange has been hacked or ripped off by the owners.

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#45

Post by xyzzy123 »

kolev wrote: post #19
oscilloscope wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the "battleground" is the exchange value of Bitcoin, then calling it a market is not an exaggeration.

Ideally, the market price is driven purely by demand and supply, not by bots and speculators.

I know right? Someone should tell the guys at the SEC that the stock exchange is broken.

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#46

Post by kolev »

icebraining wrote: post #43
kolev wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not comparing apples to apples to say Bitcoin transactions are free or cheap. Credit cards are a mature piece of technology that has optimized the costs over the years. The credit cards processing fee is something that has so much behind it (consumer protection, interest-free crediting, etc.) - you cannot compare Bitcoin to this at all. There's no consumer protection with Bitcoin - you're on your own, so, compa…

The reason you need pervasive consumer protection using CCs is because the system is fundamentally flawed, relying on every single merchant not to be a scammer or aciddentally leak the info. With BTC (and similar systems), you can pay for protection when you need it, while having a cheaper service when you don't. And this isn't something discovered with BTC, some of us live in countries with sane payment systems that…

The system is not flawed, merchants are flawed. Same with hosted wallets and exchanges. There's no PCI Compliance equivalents for them, so, you can expect much worse. And how can you trust them? They don't get audited and are not certified. How can you know for sure that they are not gonna manipulate the market or run away with your funds? Most of those don't even have a physical address (Bitstamp and BTC-e), no phone number, and info is very limited in general. My point is that everything comes at a price. Bitcoin is cheap as it lacks all that, which is not necessarily a good thing!

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#47

Post by kolev »

Crito wrote: post #38
kolev wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking about the people who already have bitcoins.

By that logic, racing Italian sports cars at track days is a low barrier to entry hobby. I mean, it obviously isn't, but if you are willing to ignore the "acquire an Italian sports car and know how to drive it" part...

You can do it from the convenience of your laptop - get bitcoins from Coinbase and send them to the dice site. With Instant Buy, you can get $1,000 instantly.

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#48

Post by icebraining »

paulhauggis wrote: post #44
icebraining wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you need pervasive consumer protection using CCs is because the system is fundamentally flawed, relying on every single merchant not to be a scammer or aciddentally leak the info. With BTC (and similar systems), you can pay for protection when you need it, while having a cheaper service when you don't. And this isn't something discovered with BTC, some of us live in countries with sane payment systems that…

where is this protection for bitcoin? every exchange has been hacked or ripped off by the owners.

Exchanges are only needed to buy and sell Bitcoins¹; after that, you can move them out permanently, whereas with CCs, you can never be sure that the merchant didn't record (maliciously or not) your CC info. You also only need to trust one exchange, not N merchants, so it's much easier to do proper evaluation.

¹ Technically, you never actually need an exchange at all, there are other ways of getting Bitcoins.

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#49

Post by icebraining »

kolev wrote: post #46
icebraining wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason you need pervasive consumer protection using CCs is because the system is fundamentally flawed, relying on every single merchant not to be a scammer or aciddentally leak the info. With BTC (and similar systems), you can pay for protection when you need it, while having a cheaper service when you don't. And this isn't something discovered with BTC, some of us live in countries with sane payment systems that…

The system is not flawed, merchants are flawed. Same with hosted wallets and exchanges. There's no PCI Compliance equivalents for them, so, you can expect much worse. And how can you trust them? They don't get audited and are not certified. How can you know for sure that they are not gonna manipulate the market or run away with your funds? Most of those don't even have a physical address (Bitstamp and BTC-e), no phon…

The system is not flawed, merchants are flawed.

A system that forces you to trust (without being able to verify) every single merchant you do business with is flawed.

Same with hosted wallets and exchanges.

Not the same. For one, you only need to trust one exchange to use Bitcoin with N merchants, so the attack surface is much lower. Secondly, you only need to trust them for enough time to move the Bitcoins out - a few hours, whereas with CCs, the merchant can save the info forever, for all you know.

Not to mention that, if Bitcoin becomes successful, and I doubt it will, people will receive Bitcoins from other sources (e.g. some people are already paid in BTC).

There's no PCI Compliance equivalents for them, so, you can expect much worse. And how can you trust them? They don't get audited and are not certified. How can you know for sure that they are not gonna manipulate the market or run away with your funds?

You should read on that PCI compliance. Most merchants do not get audited, they can audit themselves[1]. Many, if not most, are not compliant[2]. Tens of millions of CCs have been leaked since just 2006.

Besides, nothing in Bitcoin prevents the creation of independent certification authorities. Unlike with the CC system, it's not a built-in flaw, it's just a temporary situation.

Most of those don't even have a physical address (Bitstamp and BTC-e), no phone number, and info is very limited in general.

Just like with many CC merchants.

My point is that everything comes at a price. Bitcoin is cheap as it lacks all that, which is not necessarily a good thing!

And my point is that what Bitcoin lacks can be added, without increasing the costs of every single transaction by allowing massive amounts of fraud, like the CC system does.

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pay-with-plastic-risk-your-perso...

[2] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/24/pci_dss_compliance/

Re: Mt. Gox Impact Diminishes as Market Price Dissociates

#50

Post by samolang »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
samolang wrote: post #7

For anyone that is interested there is now a market for trading "real" bitcoins for "gox" bitcoins. https://bitcoinbuilder.com/

Why require verification? I don't want to give them all my info.

On reddit the site creator said that is what his lawyers advised.

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/1xmfby/i_jus...

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