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BitCoin Card To Launch In 2 Months, Says BitInstant
hypnosec writes "Charlie Shrem, co-founder of BitInstant LLC, has confirmed that a BitCoin-funded international debit/credit card should be available very soon. Giving a time frame of 6-8 weeks, Shrem said over an IRC chat session that the card will function like any other credit or debit card, and that it can be used at places where MasterCard is being accepted. Shrem has also said that the initial 1000-odd cards will be given for free and subsequent cards will carry a charge of around $10. Any transaction that is carried out through the card [will incur a] 1% BitCoin transfer fee on top of the $1.50 ATM withdrawal fee."
I'd take this with a grain of salt. This might be nothing but an idea and a photoshopped image.
if it happened no one would think of it that way, at least not any more than we currently think about driving cars around at some fraction of light years per second.
-Lod
1% + $1.50 fee... so why would I want to use this? My current debit transaction fees are... zero. AND I don't have to worry about the value of the money in my account fluctuating wildly.
You have failed the understand the problem here.
The fraud problem is not with Bitcoin. Bitcoins security model is very simple and easy to understand - you have private keys, protect them. If they're stolen, so is your money. There are no chargebacks. How secure you make those keys is entirely up to you. I have most of my money stored in an offline wallet encrypted under a very long passphrase, which is very secure but somewhat inconvenient. Then I have a smaller amount of money stored on my phone which doesn't require any passwords to use and I just accept that if my phone is stolen or lost somehow then I lose that money, but it's very convenient.
The fraud problem comes from the world of credit cards and traditional banking which are hopelessly insecure. Rather than give people the tools they need to secure their money, the managers of these systems simply shift the pain onto merchants who can do nothing about it beyond try and protect themselves with strict transaction limits, complicated risk analyses and just accepting that they'll lose some of the time.
There are also other reasons which you conveniently elided, such as government regulations that forbid / complicate large transactions.
So a virus used your computer to generate bitcoins, and now you don't trust the currency? Thank god it didn't steal your bank account info, you you'd have to stop using the US dollar as well!
There is a nice counterargument on the Bitcoin forum. To summarize, the card is a great promotional tool, especially for merchants who might consider alternatives to credit card charges.
In a way, the purpose of this card is to make itself obsolete. This is not so strange if you consider many important social movements.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
There's already BitCard, from "Global Standard Bank" They're not a real bank. They used to have pictures of their supposed building and offices in Montreal, which turned out to be a Photoshopped picture of a building on the US west cost, with a fake sign added, and a picture of a bank interior in Florida. They're not registered with Canadian banking authorities.
Here's the discussion on Bitcoin forums about them.
As for the new operation, I have a hard time taking seriously a financial institution that announces its products on IRC.
They need to find a new bank.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
Please don't bundle the hookers with the rest of those, for they are service workers who involve nobody but themselves and their willing customers in their transactions. Also, please don't bundle the drug dealers, who are mere black market resellers, with extortionists and assassins.
Hookers are completely legit service providers, whether they happen to offend your personal morality or not. Drug dealers may or may not be legit, depending on their business practices. The Mafia, Russian or otherwise, is just a bunch of parasites which often preys on the first two groups. There's no other connection here.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I could be sorely mistaken but I do believe that each and every business you're using your card at has to pay for the privilege of being able to accept your card. Which, in turn, means that business is passing that overhead to you, the customer, cash, debit and credit. So, all y'all have zero points. Or are businesses magical realms that separates a mystical "them" from "us"? They all have fees so whether you see them in the first person or in the third makes not one bit of difference as to whether you're paying for it or not. You are. We all are. Your cash back is a pittance in comparison to what the card providers are making. Otherwise you'd be getting nothing back, ever.
\r
You may want to look into the costs of handling cash and cheques. There's a reason the card people can charge what they do.