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Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#71

Post by jamoes »

cookiecaper wrote: post #65
toomim wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you have a feeling that bitcoin isn't good enough, but don't have any actual reasons for it.

"The network has too many fundamental inaccessibilities" Just because I didn't rattle all of these off doesn't mean "I don't have any actual reasons for it". I suggest you ask more politely for exposition next time. The blockchain is huge, and splitting it is ad-hoc patchwork. The network was obviously not designed for such a thing and I'm not really optimistic about it. At this point it takes 6+ days to bootstrap a…

> The blockchain is huge

This is only an issue if you're running a full-node. If you want to place limited trust in others, you can use a light client (like Electrum or blockchain.info), which are very easy to set up.

> There is still no easy integration method with extant payment systems

Coinbase and Bitpay are making huge strides in this area, so I don't agree with you that "no one has done it".

> The system of block verification makes it impossible to do truly instantaneous transfers. This is a big one. Double-spend attacks are real, and people want their transactions to go through immediately.

The legacy financial system takes upwards of 30 days for a transaction to truly be settled. The fact that bitcoin transactions can be provably non-reversible after just 1 hour is an enormous technological leap.

> The system is vulnerable to 51%+ attacks

51% attacks will only get more expensive as time goes on. Also, in the event of an attack, there are strategies [1] that can be employed to minimize their impact.

> Mining is prohibitively difficult for the layman.

I don't think this matters for wide-spread acceptance. Most people don't mine for gold, but they still happily use it as a medium of exchange.

  [1]: http://gavintech.blogspot.com/2012/05/neutralizing-51-attack.html

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#72

Post by laut »

robotmay wrote: post #13

Any word on when they'll support purchasing from a UK bank account? Most of the other options are a bit more convoluted than the straight-forward system Coinbase seems to use.

You can buy bitcoins with bank transfer from the UK (or other countries) here: https://bitcoinnordic.com/

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#73

Post by nym »

If you have used coinbase, please write a review of it for us!

http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/coinbase/

If you want to deposit cash at a Chase ATM, you can do so with BitMe:

http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme/

..and if you don't live in the united states, we have guides for you too: http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/in/

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#74

Post by nym »

robotmay wrote: post #13

Any word on when they'll support purchasing from a UK bank account? Most of the other options are a bit more convoluted than the straight-forward system Coinbase seems to use.

Check out our guide here:

http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/in/united-kingdom/

Edit: Why the downvote?

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#76

Post by zby »

DanBC wrote: post #19
robotmay wrote: post #13

Any word on when they'll support purchasing from a UK bank account? Most of the other options are a bit more convoluted than the straight-forward system Coinbase seems to use.

I hate to "me too", but "me too". I'd love to be able to use coinbase but I'm UK only. I'm unlikely to get involved with Bitcoin until something like Coinbase allows UK bank accounts. (having said all that I'm going to be buying very small quantities of Bicoin.)

Why Coinabase and not for example intersango? It used to be britcoin and has been around for quite some time.

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#77

Post by uwe_dushan »

centro wrote: post #55

Notice how their success is measured in USD.

That's because it's the unit of value that the article's reader is most likely familiar with. When you go on vacation you're most likely constantly converting prices in the local currency to the currency you're familiar with - that doesn't mean the local currency is worthless (if that's what you were implying).

After I moved from UK to US, it was months before I stopped doing the mental arithmetic from USD to GBP.

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#78

Post by [deleted] »

eitland wrote: post #49
unix-dude wrote: post #18

I think bitcoin is an extremely interesting concept, and the economics around it are equally interesting. I bought a tiny amount when the prices were around the $11 mark, and its insane to think of the price-shift. I made a couple bucks off the price shift, but now I'm honestly thinking that the price will fall back down. Despite serving the needs of many SR/SatoshiDice people, I dont think they're quite at the point…

The fact that there are fewer possible bitcoins than inhabitants on this planet should tell us that bitcoin should be a good investment at the current excange rate... ...given that bitcoin is still around when all blocks are exhausted, legal to most of the worlds population by then and not outcompeted by something better (better marketed?) by then. Warning: I am no economist, I still don't know what a fiat currency i…

[deleted]

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#79

Post by nym »

eitland wrote: post #58

For everyone out there who wants to pay bitcoins using PayPal I found a hack that worked (be aware: this might take sevwral hours the first time.) Buy Linden Dollars - Take them out in bitcoins. Simple but takes hours of waiting the first time to get verified etc the first time.

Paypal is always super expensive... I really recommend using cash at an ATM with Bitme:

http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/from/bitme/

Re: Coinbase Is Now Selling Over $1M USD Of Bitcoin Per Month

#80

Post by teebs »

pixie_ wrote: post #69
nullc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've misunderstood that defintion. Economically speaking fiat is a currency that exists by rulemaking instead of having an inherent value— it's constructed. The definition doesn't say who does the constructing or how. Bitcoin is a fiat currency— the fiat is embedded in the software that runs on and is enforced by all the Bitcoin nodes, it's the rules that make the currency exist and work. It's largely immutable, pa…

Fiat does not imply constructed. The notion that gold (or tulips) are valuable are equally constructed ideas by humans. Nothing has 'inherent' value apart from the value humans perceive these things to have. No, the only thing fiat implies is manipulation - the ability for a government or person to mess with the value of a currency by 'willing it to be.' Bitcoin is not fiat.

Just based on the Wikipedia article, I don't think you're right that fiat implies manipulation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_currency

So, based on that definition, it is true that Bitcoin is not a fiat currency because it is not given value by law or government. However, although it technically does not have a centralized issuing authority that can arbitrarily create Bitcoins, Satoshi Nakamoto did hard code a creation rate for Bitcoin. In a sense, he is the original issuing authority. The only difference between Bitcoin and fiat currencies, when it comes to currency manipulation, is that Nakamoto committed early on to a specific plan for issuing currency. The government (or the Fed) not only does not make that commitment, but it is unable to make such a strong, unbreakable commitment, although it verbally makes similar commitments all the time.

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