i know what the point is. i'm saying it's not a good one because it compares a bitcoin characteristic that is irrelevant to the argument to deem bitcoin superior. it's akin to saying, "well so what if applepay is a superior PoS payment system, bitcoin has the potential to cure cancer!" and that very well might be true, but it doesn't refute the points of the argument that applepay a better PoS payment system because it is more convenient.

what do you mean by "any effect," exactly? if applepay catches on like wildfire for whatever reason, it takes out the significant appeal out of using bitcoin for in-store purchases. and that is a big selling point of bitcoin because nothing else that it is capable of (smart contracts, etc.) is ready.

https://coinbase.com/sms_service

That Bitcoin is theoretically accessible to billions while Apple Pay is not, is a big deal.

In store purchases have never been a selling point of bitcoins, let alone a big selling point. International remittance and digital cash are a couple attractive use cases for Bitcoin.

I don't see how in-store purchases is a big selling point for bitcoin. In what way does bitcoin do that better than current solutions?

When are grandpa and the housewife going to feel comfortable exchanging their "steady-eddie dollars" into some "crazy internet contraption who's prices jumps up and down every day"? If they want a currency there are better ones out there, if what they want out of a currency is stability, which I'd image is what they are looking for.

I agree there could be a place in the world for the bitcoin, but how is it going to have near the impact some of you all say it will have if ~95+% of the world avoids it? It just seems that if someone wants a risky investment their are better options out there.

Maybe because 5% of the world economy is rather massive chunk of wealth, so even if 95% avoid it, then bitcoin could still have astronomical gains.

The last target market for bitcoin is a US grandpa looking for stability.

They aren't, and that's okay.

Bitcoin can work for international remittance in ways that eliminate the volatility of cryptocurrency. That said, some people won't want or need to use bitcoins for one reason or another and that's okay.

Important to note that most rational people cite the high end of what Bitcoin *may* do, not what it *will* do. It's just one possible scenario and I don't think anyone is saying it's a certainty.

If the right 5% of the world used it, say banks transferring value between each other, then Bitcoin could still see a much higher price per token than we have now.

I was saying 95% will totally avoid it and 5% may touch it, but they aren't putting more than (an average of) 5% of their net worth in it.

How is bitcoin being used more or in certain ways going to eliminate it's volitility? I could see the less volatility as the bigger it gets, but I don't see it coming anywhere close to the dollar.

Why would banks choose to use something as volatile as bitcoin to trade back and forth? I would think they are searching for the most stable thing out there. I believe it is fair to assume if the dollar fails, every other currency in the top 25 fails, they would then find 100+ other things to use to trade back and forth before they use bitcoin.

Again, I'm not saying bitcoin doesn't have any value long term. I am still trying to understand all of this, but I don't think it will be used as a wide-spread currency in the developed world.

I agree with your conclusion that bitcoins will not supplant fiat in the developed world.

I'm not sure if banks would use bitcoins. I just tossed it out as an example, perhaps it was not the best. I do think an institutional Bitpay type business would allow large financial institutions to use bitcoins while avoiding volatility. Currency fluctuation risk could be mitigated via derivatives, options, or some other financial tool.

You rely on centralization with it, but it can be done. The idea that every user of Bitcoin is going to be running a full node is laughable.

TC, while i don't disagree...


http://gizmodo.com/sandisks-ridiculo...800-1633455491

Hilarious.

Apple Pay is bullish for bitcoin. Bitcoin for small store microtransactions is horrible, you really should wait for 6 confirmations. I am sure someone is going to find a way to get your bitcoin on apple pay. Thus, you use bitcoin for inflation free storage and apple payments for your day to day <$10 purchases. Less transactions on the block chain is smaller in size. This is exactly what bitcoin needs.

Keeping an extra $10,000 in your checking account is costing you about $1000 per year, maybe more. That money is after tax. Also you have to pay for the bank bailouts when they ultimately fail loaning money to homeowners. This debt money causes the price of goods, homes, cars to rise.

The inflation on bitcoin is currently huge, and will remain so for a long time. Why do people constantly state otherwise? New units of the currency are created constantly...that is inflation.

How is keeping $10k in a checking account costing $1k annually? The USD isn't being devalued by 10% annually. If your statement is regarding the opportunity cost of both not investing and inflation combined then you could make some sort of argument there, but that's not what you stated.

There's a lot of freakout about mining centralization (or as I call it - specialization), node centralization (or as I call it - specialization) that the hardcore users just freak out about. The important part of Bitcoin is there are no barriers to entry as it is completely decentralized. If there are good actors, then specialization will drive efficiencies. If there are bad actors, then there are incentives for anyone to join the network and contribute and reap the rewards. The openness of the platform is what will give it strength. That doesn't mean everyone will be performing every possible duty in the ecosystem. Now there are some valid concerns about mining centralization where a big enough power can take over and crush anyone who comes in without any consequences, so it's not that it shouldn't be taken seriously, but some amount of specialization and consolidation will happen, and it's not the end of the world.

Right now, it would be trivial for me to run a full node. I don't, simply because it's not even worth it. But it's nice to know I could if I really wanted to.

How useful will bitcoin really be in places like Africa though? Random villages in Africa do not have reliable internet, and most Africans, if they do have internet might have a single phone, and don't have the means to appropriately backup their wallets like we do here. What if their phone is lost/stolen? They don't exactly have tons of computers/thumb drives at home that will have everything properly backed up. Only 13.5% of Africans have internet access, much less would be able to reliably use bitcoin, source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Africa

I see the most likely outcome being another company similar to western union (or even western union) uses bitcoin to increase their profit margin and most people in the 3rd world still pay the same fees they pay today, maybe slightly less if this causes competition to western union.

I'm not trying to be a hater here, please correct me where I'm wrong. I just don't see how a technology can take off in a place that can't really support technology. I agree with the principle how bitcoin can do things cheaper than western union, but don't think it is as easy as many make it seem.

You are correct, and to elaborate on that, it's worth noting that almost nobody there has personal high speed internet. The vast majority go to companies, institutions, governments, etc. Those that do have reasonable personal high speed internet -- Yeah they're not the ones begging their loved one in America for bitcoin instead of Western Union. The fundamental problems that prevent any reasonable option for remittance in areas such as these, need to first be able to overcome these issues for the masses, and it's just a waiting game to let people entering a brand new technology the work, time and effort it takes to learn how to use this efficiently and safely over time.

While that is true, these places are also going to be able to skip all of the old technologies and immediately go wireless, covering massive areas at once.

Do you know how many wireless towers that would take? Not happening anytime soon, maybe not even in our lifetimes, sorry. Also, current technology > wireless if you have access to it, so they won't even be skipping anything but trying to catch up while still being behind.

I was in a rural town (but not that remote) with a 3G connection the last few days, and it was miserable compared to what I am used to, and this is with reliable providers in a first world country. Just trying to check sports scores could take multiple refreshes, I can't imagine trying to make a transaction that matters with that type of connection.

Internet will continue to develop in Africa. Just because it is 13% coverage now doesn't mean that it won't be 50%+ in 5 years time.

It's possible to have a system that sends bitcoin via SMS. In Kenya and other African countries, there is already a huge payment network via SMS. (Read up about MPesa.)

A middleman company that used bitcoin to lower fees from Western Union would be great. It would be a stepping stone to full person to person bitcoin use.

I don't think it's easy to introduce bitcoin to Africa, but don't think it's impossible either. It's one of the places that bitcoin is more useful, and generally the more useful things are, the quicker they catch on. (Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.)

However, due to the difficulties, I think a country like Argentina is the most likely place for bitcoin to gain a foothold first. Argentina is first world in many ways, but their currency and banking is closer to third world.

1. In about 2 years the annual inflation will drop to 5% for 4 years, then drop again to 2% for the next 4 after that. But, the real question is adoption of a currency based on nothing. There are coin IXC, I0c, NXT, and infinite coin that have little or no inflation but if there are no users, there is no coin. My prediction is bitcoin will lose users. If bitcoin can gain 10% users annually over the next 10 years years the users/coins ratio will increase. If not bitcoin is in for some losses. I am mostly an observer of bitcoin, not a large owner.

2. M1 January 2010 = $1.675 trillion, August 2014 = $2.817 trillion. That puts M1 growth or the definition of inflation at over 10%. We are also ending the low price inflation part of the phillips curve so expect all this inflation to start to show up or keep wages down.

It can be done in years http://www.theguardian.com/technolog...mps-net-access

Why use towers when you can use balloons?

I can't see the image... :S

M1 growth for the USD does not = inflation. In fact the two aren't comparable at all. Yes they both generally "rise" but it is not due to the other necessarily, though it can be. In the current scenario, M1 growth has mostly just come from banks under the new reserve requirements, and this is widely known to anyone studying economics.

Here's one example of how M1 growth is irrelevant to inflation. Lets say you own $1B worth of stocks, and they've just increased to $2B in value. Time to take some money off the table and get some cash, so you put $1B into a money market account to put back into the market when you can. This increases M2, but the real money supply never actually changed. Now you need that $1B for cash because you're buying a yacht, and you want to rent out Phil Hellmuth for weeks at your pleasure. You transfer the $1B from your money market account to your checking account. Now you've increased M1 by $1B, M2 never changed since it includes M1, and the actual money supply never changed either, even though M1 did.

Bitcoins don't work this way, and so the only way to measure inflation on it is to calculate the percentage of new coins created by per year that didn't previously exist. The US looks at a range of inflation factors, including new money being created, as well as commodity prices, credit prices, and consumer prices for things like real estate and food.

$35 smartphone:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/...-want-to-know/