Bitcoins in 2014?

[accelerator]

Have you purchased any bitcoins yourself?

No, not yet. At the moment I'm doing my homework on the sector and watching the price. I certainly intend to, probably in the near future.

Rgds

 

[websaway]

Like a pyramid scheme it relies on new money
to cover investors taking their profit.
The lower the price drops the more investors feel this is the time to buy,
after all, wasn't it once $1100 dollars.

Although the whole mining issue is hugely complicated
the ultimate goal purports to be a simple method of exchange.
But, could any reputable business take in bitcoins and
risk the fact that it could be worth 59% less the following
day.
Businesses and economies are built on confidence.

I hope I am wrong, but could this be the most elaborate con
the world has ever seen.

 

[accelerator]

A lot of legitimate businesses already take Bitcoin, Microsoft and Dell being amongst them.

They can easily address the volatility issue by immediately exchanging Bitcoin for a FIAT currency if they want to.

Rgds

 

[websaway]

I have to say I don't know how you buy say a Bentley with bitcoins. Would the car dealer have to exchange the bitcoins before the deal was done or would they exchange the car for bitcoins knowing that the price could tumble in minutes ?

 

[Murray]

I have to say I don't know how you buy say a Bentley with bitcoins. Would the car dealer have to exchange the bitcoins before the deal was done or would they exchange the car for bitcoins knowing that the price could tumble in minutes ?

I remember someone bought a house with bitcoin

http://www.wsj.com/articles/lake-tahoe-property-sells-for-1-6-million-in-bitcoins-1407534997

They used bitpay, so the home owner got the cash equivalent they wanted rather than bitcoin

To transfer property using bitcoins on BitPay, the seller creates an invoice for the price of the property, either in bitcoin or U.S. dollars, as BitPay can pay out in either currency. The bitcoin exchange rate is guaranteed for 15 minutes after the invoice is created, during which the purchaser must complete payment. If the payment isn't completed within the allotted time, the exchange rate is recalculated.

 

[Retired_Member38]

I have to say I don't know how you buy say a Bentley with bitcoins. Would the car dealer have to exchange the bitcoins before the deal was done or would they exchange the car for bitcoins knowing that the price could tumble in minutes ?

The dealer could use Bitpay or similar who'd accept the coins on their behalf, so no fluctuation risk to the merchant.

At this point it would be hard for merchants selling a 'real' product with relatively low margins to accept it. Otherwise they could end up losing £10,000 on the sale by the time they cashed the coins out.

If you were selling a worthless product and/or one with high margins, you could easily accept then cash out Bitcoins yourself. I would imagine most domain sellers would be viable as far as that went. Moreso as they're likely to have enough tech knowledge to be able to easily handle it all.

 

[websaway]

A lot of legitimate businesses already take Bitcoin, Microsoft and Dell being amongst them.

They can easily address the volatility issue by immediately exchanging Bitcoin for a FIAT currency if they want to.

Rgds

They don't really accept them though do they. This article is interesting, don't know if you've seen it.

http://time.com/money/3658361/dell-microsoft-expedia-bitcoin/

 

[websaway]

So all in all then the large companies, understandably, don't accept bitcoin as currency, though they naturally let you use the dollars that they are exchanged for to buy goods.

 

[accelerator]

So all in all then the large companies, understandably, don't accept bitcoin as currency, though they naturally let you use the dollars that they are exchanged for to buy goods.

It's going to be a gradual full adoption. The problem is that all their taxes have to be paid in normal currency, all their suppliers need to be paid in normal currency, etc etc. So it's difficult for them to deal with short term volatility.

What Bitcoin really needs is more and more people to start using it. I am a little skeptical about how quickly this is going to happen. However, Bitcoin does have some great things going for it, e.g. you can put it on cold storage hard drive(s) and have a very secure store of money with no security costs (compare physical gold), you can near instantly pay someone else anywhere in the world (frictionless commerce) etc. However, I can't see it being a fast adoption for non-tech people until established financial services groups can offer it to them securely.

Rgds

 

[websaway]

It's going to be a gradual full adoption. The problem is that all their taxes have to be paid in normal currency, all their suppliers need to be paid in normal currency, etc etc. So it's difficult for them to deal with short term volatility.

What Bitcoin really needs is more and more people to start using it. I am a little skeptical about how quickly this is going to happen. However, Bitcoin does have some great things going for it, e.g. you can put it on cold storage hard drive(s) and have a very secure store of money with no security costs (compare physical gold), you can near instantly pay someone else anywhere in the world (frictionless commerce) etc. However, I can't see it being a fast adoption for non-tech people until established financial services groups can offer it to them securely.

Rgds

On the first point,
I suspect they simply would not deal in the bitcoin if they could not do it in the fashion that they do.


Second point,
It will never be hugely used as a method of exchange, just as an investment. If it was really popular as a currency then it can and will be copied/replicated.

Thirdly,
security is probably it's weakest point.

Nothing I can see gives me the remotest confidence in the scheme.

People will still be investing at $10 if they could with a view to making huge profits if it goes to $40000, even though they have lost money all the way down.

But how low does it go before it's not feasible to mine them and so the whole thing folds in on itself.

 

[scooter]

They don't really accept them though do they. This article is interesting, don't know if you've seen it.

http://time.com/money/3658361/dell-microsoft-expedia-bitcoin/

I think that article is really just splitting hairs.
I see no difference from accepting bitcoins to stating we accept paypal, visa and cheque

None of these are hard cash either until they are "processed" by a 3rd party and turned in to cash for the vendor.


.

 

[accelerator]

Bitcoin will be quite attractive to those in countries where the currency is experiencing difficulties. That could drive user adoption and its eventual success. By saying you are prepared to accept Bitcoin, you are contributing to its eventual success.

Rgds

 

[websaway]

Bitcoin will be quite attractive to those in countries where the currency is experiencing difficulties. That could drive user adoption and its eventual success. By saying you are prepared to accept Bitcoin, you are contributing to its eventual success.

Rgds

So say you are right and it is a workable idea, and some time in the future the bank of 123 replicates it with all the hindsight that it will then have but without the baggage that bitcoin carries.

 

[scooter]

More bad news
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-exchange-egopay-freeze-client-funds/

 

[accelerator]

More bad news
http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-exchange-egopay-freeze-client-funds/

Again, I would say this does not reflect on the security of Bitcoin itself, more on who you are trusting. Be very careful about which Bitcoin exchanges you trust with your Bitcoin.

If I was going to make an early call, I would say that Bitcoin is going to make it big, but I am watching developments very carefully and I am not in Bitcoin at the moment, I don't see any need to rush yet with the extreme volatility.

The way I see it is that the technology is massively superior to what we have at the moment, but it does require some identifiably trustworthy companies who will provide Bitcoin banking services for it to go mainstream.

Rgds

 

[topcat]

Again, I would say this does not reflect on the security of Bitcoin itself, more on who you are trusting. Be very careful about which Bitcoin exchanges you trust with your Bitcoin.

If I was going to make an early call, I would say that Bitcoin is going to make it big, but I am watching developments very carefully and I am not in Bitcoin at the moment, I don't see any need to rush yet with the extreme volatility.

The way I see it is that the technology is massively superior to what we have at the moment, but it does require some identifiably trustworthy companies who will provide Bitcoin banking services for it to go mainstream.

Rgds

I think at the moment it is just prohibitively difficult for the layman to set up bitcoin with the same accessibility, security and ease of use as the services a high street bank offers. I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

[martin-s]

There's currently no benefit to anyone other than speculators and criminals so far as I can see

 

[Murray]

There's currently no benefit to anyone other than speculators and criminals so far as I can see

It's a massive benefit to everyone

You can send money with basically no fees

You could transfer millions across the world , doing that by traditional banking methods they a nice cut currently

Also on the smaller scale, how much to paypal take on every sale, 3% or something?

No one can freeze your account

You can use it on whatever you like (donating to wikileaks)

Crypto currencies have loads of benefits.

 

[martin-s]

You can send money with basically no fees

That's pointless if

a) No one you need to pay accepts it
b) The price you can convert back to cold hard cash is so unstable that using BC is too big a financial risk
and c) The funds are so small that you don't need to Escrow them (or big enough for Escrow when none is available and you're having to pay separate fees anyway)

The technology is potentially awesome, but it just doesn't work yet.

 

[websaway]

It's a massive benefit to everyone

You can send money with basically no fees

You could transfer millions across the world , doing that by traditional banking methods they a nice cut currently

Also on the smaller scale, how much to paypal take on every sale, 3% or something?

No one can freeze your account

You can use it on whatever you like (donating to wikileaks)

Crypto currencies have loads of benefits.

Only problem seems to be that you can lose 99% of your money overnight .