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Bitcoin Gets Its First TV Ads
MRothenberg writes Bitcoin's not just for libertarians and drug dealers any more! Electronic payment service BitPay this week launched a campaign aimed at making Bitcoin transactions more appealing to mainstream business owners — the first time Bitcoin has been featured in a TV spot. Conceived by Felton Interactive Group, the two new ads promote Bitcoin and BitPay as a secure alternative to traditional credit-card transactions.
... lost any bitcoins and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Bitcoin's still terrible for an economy because in the end it punishes people for spending it. Each person's share of the pool goes down as population grows, since the pool is practically a fixed size. So get ready for yearly or monthly pay cuts if BitCoin takes over.
Just because you have a technical solution doesn't mean you have an economic solution.
when do we get TV ads written by Bennett Haselton?
By far the most important part of the art of money laundering, mass tax evasion and the whole financing of organised crime is the ability to hide criminal financial transaction amongst legitimate transactions.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Yes, BTC is exactly that for a business, but exactly what incentive does a consumer have to use it?
Right now, if I want to buy something with U.S. dollars, I pull out my credit card or my cell phone, and I buy it. The transaction is completed in a matter of seconds (no waiting for verification via a blockchain), and if I use Apple Pay or Google Wallet, it is extremely secure.
On top of that, if I am cheated by the merchant, I can contact the credit card company and dispute the charges. Furthermore, even if my credit card is somehow compromised, I am only liable for $50 maximum by law, without having to go to court or sue anyone.
What does BTC do for me? First, I have to buy BTC, and then spend it quickly before the value changes. Second, if the merchant cheats me, too bad. BTC gives him all the power - transactions are irreversible. Third, if my BTC wallet is compromised, I can kiss my BTC goodbye. All of the consumer protections that I enjoy with credit cards are gone. So exactly what do I get out of the deal?
For the average consumer, Bitcoin is a solution in search of a problem. BTC may be a great way to buy contraband, or to send money to someone in a 3rd world country, but that is hardly something the average person bothers with on a regular basis.
Bitcoin is a niche product, and will remain so, despite every effort by BTC evangelists to persuade consumers to give them real money in exchange for their cryptocoins. Someone give me a reason to use BTC on a regular basis that doesn't involve some idealistic "screw the establishment, fiat currency is evil" rationalization. As a consumer, I don't see the point.
This bubble still has life in it if we can keep finding fresh meat to keep it going.
Tell even more people about your sh*t currency that only the early adopters got rich out of.
Using a PS3, about two weeks ago, I didn't press any after finishing a movie, yet I still saw a commerical for the new Netflix Original Series on Marco Polo. It was essentially an ad for their own TV program.
First ad I've seen on Netflix.
Bitcoin is secure?
Bill Clinton said it best: "That depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is..."
Did you miss the Bitcoin Bowl game, NCST vs UCF, on the 26th of December from St. Petersburg, FL? They had a few commercials on tv that day.
clancey
Are they going to get Kevin Trudeau to hawk it?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Wallet problems are not just related to compromises. Day to day file management and backup can be a problem. Don't backup your wallet often enough, restore a wallet that is too old, transactions will be lost. "Too old" has to do with frequency of use, higher usage requires more frequent backups. The problem with bitcoin and widespread adoption is that it is essentially a system built by techies for techies. Non-technical users will occasionally have catastrophic failures, these rare events will probably dominate bitcoin's reputation among the general public and deter use.
There are also problems in jurisdictions, like the U.S., where bitcoins are an asset.
A recent U.S. IRS advisory said virtual currency is to be treated as an assent not a currency. So lets say you receive some bitcoins. At some future date you spend these bitcoins. Since these bitcoins are an asset you have to account for their gain or loss in value for the days that you held them and declare a loss or gain on your taxes. In short spending bitcoins has the paperwork overhead of selling stocks, its not like spending dollars at all.
Ex. You buy one coin at $500 and another at $600. Coins are priced at $800 at the time of a future purchase. You buy something for $1,200, 1.5 coins. Using LIFO (last in first out) your basis for the outgoing 1.5 coins is $600 + $250 = $850, and the basis for the returning 0.5 coins is still $250. You experienced a gain of $350 on the 1.5 coins at the time of the sale and that $350 would seem to be taxable income. Apologies if I botched the math, hopefully the point gets across.
Perhaps you are the wrong type of consumer at this point the development curve of Bitcoin?
If you wanted to send money back home to the Philippines, or engage in any type of remittances you may find value in being able to do it at a substantially lower rate than existing commercial offerings. I'm obviously biased, but to discount everything about Bitcoin because you don't see a use case for YOU right now is incredibly short sighted. Remember the early internet? The exact same kinds of arguments, why would you ever want to watch video online, whats the point of taking a class remotely, etc, etc etc. The reality is that Bitcoin redefined how we do trusted transfer of information on the Internet, and the first use case for this technology is in almost friction-less payments. From experience I can say paying engineers abroad in 5 seconds for 4 cents beats the hell out of an international wire transfer.
Before people start screaming volatility, there are ways to combat that, like not holding bitcoin when you don't want it to fluctuate. I know its novel, but since its digital currency you can acquire it, transfer it, and sell it very quickly, and that entire process is being automated such that Bitcoin becomes the conduit rather than the value store. Programmable money.
Slashdot surprises me because in general the people here have a very uninformed opinion when it comes to digital currency, despite the fact that it is the most exciting technical innovation in the last ten years by far. The value is in the network.
Bitcoin itself is secure ...
Only when given certain assumptions, such as a diverse community verifying and updating the blockchain. A problem exists in that "ordinary" users are becoming increasingly priced out of engaging in "mining", which is where blockchain verification and updates occur. Increasingly mining is being dominated by commercial entities that can develop, or get early access too, the latest generation of ASIC hardware. This trend makes 51% attacks more plausible than many assume.
The users simply have to state that their uses of the work meets the definition of fair use according to the copyright office.
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. 106 and 17 U.S.C. 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
the nature of the copyrighted work;
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.[4]
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
What is most disconcerting is the enormous amount of waste that Bitcoin produces. Just the amount of computing power wasted in 'mining' is such that the electricity used to run the machine no longer pays itself. When a currency costs more to produce than its worth, there is already an economic crisis and the currency is no viable. For instance, when a dime costs more than $.10 to produce, it will be more worthwhile to actually melt the coin down than actually use it. Bitcoin crossed this barrier quite awhile ago, making it actually more expensive to use than normal currency. When bitcoin cannot guarantee neither anonymity, nor any more security than cash, there is no real reason to use it.
Surely there must be some better way to make a cryptocurrency without the 'proof of work' concept. The original idea of 'proof of work' on which bitcoin is based was actually to prevent spam by making each email cost a few cpu cycles. Now the whole world is just burning cpu/gpu cycles for no other reason than trying to get money for free. Certainly there must be a better way to make financial transactions secure.
Reminds me a bit of the Tulip Mania, but in this case completely separated from any physical good. People are investing in cryptographic hashes of all things, which only have value inasmuch as some people think they do. There is no army paying its soldiers in bitcoin.
Drug dealers only accept cash, moron.
What does communism have to do with monetary system? Even if you don't have property, you still need something to denominate value of objects, tasks and so on.
its a fun to feed you.
Bitcoin is a form of payment that really has no real infrastructure or regulation and creates a sense of euphoria for being a world wide currency. But lacks any real credibility. Unfortunately nobody seems able to get a handle on its rapid foot print in the currency world and most Countries drag their feet and regulating it.
My question is weather its any better or worse then a PayPal or other electronic form of payment? I highly doubt Bitcoin will become the form of currency all others compare too like the Dollar has been for a very long time. But its possible, given the power of the internet.
you still need something to denominate value of objects, tasks and so on.
Priority queuing is sufficient. Assign people to the most urgent task they are able (and willing, if you're not being dictatorial(*)) to perform.
A command economy is a sophisticated technical exercise which is by definition more efficient than a market economy, because the latter makes ridiculous simplifying assumptions about the behaviour of everyone, whereas the former is about optimising an algorithm over which there is full control.
(*) There is a popular belief among capitalists that everyone is capitalist. They're not. Most people just do as they're told, and are whatever they're instructed to be. A lot of people tolerate the current system but have no particular affinity for it. There would be a minority who refuse to work except if they're allowed to profit excessively from the little they do - a simple approach (if they do not emigrate) is to give them a meagre place to live, sufficient to eat, adequate healthcare, and tell them that they're welcome to join in when they're ready.
And how do you determine priority/urgency? That's not a trivial problem. After all there'll always be an urgent problem, which means the less urgent tasks will simply never get done. And how do you prioritise two tasks of equal urgency, if you haven't assigned value to either of them?
Bot sure if trolling
-_-
or just idiot
All you need is a philosopher - king.
You yourself are making some pretty ridiculous assumptions. You seem to be assuming that leadership can be perfectly competent, and that a single, unified piece of clockwork can run everything. The problem is that humans are often incompetent and always have a limited perspective. We also get tired and make mistakes. If our economy is overly structured, the flaws of humanity are compounded throughout the structure. KISS is an engineering principle for a reason.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
These scumbags will never let bitcoin threaten the banking industry. They must continue to accumulate and horde wealth at all costs. Bitpay will be dissolved in the near future and the harshest criminal charges will be doled out to those in charge.
The executive officer will decide.
The post will be held by individuals, in rotation, for a term of one week.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Well I'm not busy on weekends.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Re: The only way out ... is workers revolution for communism!
Um. Unless you're planning to outlaw the continued improvement of automation technology and artificial intelligence, I think you'll find that a workers revolution is an obsolete concept. The value of human labour in general is declining fairly rapidly, relative to economic production/activity/throughput/value.
Socialism may be required in the near future, to deal with the predicament that probably a majority of us will be permanently out of work while the economy hums along producing goods and services in a highly automated fashion.
But it will most assuredly not be labour-based socialism.
It will have to be a "Hey, I was born into this society, so it would be inhumane not to provide me a roof and some food, when you (the owners of automated production) could easily do it" type of socialism.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
If people quit using something as money because its value increases too much, they quit using it. ("The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.")
They quit buying stuff with it. They quit making loans in it. Instead they use something else. (Remember Zimbabwe?) It decreases in usefulness to Holland tulip bulb level.
Unless its use is mandated by a government, that is. But only terrible governments do that sort of thing. East Germany did. It's been common in Latin America for decades, here and there.
And of course, the US government.
This alleged "problem" of a general decrease in the price level, for prices stated in a currency, is a self-correcting problem, to the extent that it even *is* a problem for that currency.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.