French Tobacco Shops Will Sell Bitcoin and Ethereum Starting January 2019 (venturebeat.com)
Tobacco shops are a staple of daily life across France, selling cigarettes, newspapers, magazines, and lottery tickets. Come January, these most traditional of merchants will take a plunge into the future by adding cryptocurrencies to their wares. From a report: The French Federation of Tobacco Vendors (French Confederation Nationale des Buralistes), which represents the 27,000 tobacco shops in France, announced that it has approved plans for its members to sell Bitcoin and Ethereum to customers. The program is expected to start in 3,000 locations in January, eventually rolling out to all tobacco shops across the country. Of course, the timing is somewhat less than ideal, as prices of cryptocurrencies have been in free fall most of this year. Just this week, Bitcoin hit a new low for 2018. While the effort is seen as a new potential revenue source for these merchants, it remains far from clear how interested the general public is in owning cryptocurrencies.
A woman bought the number 1 for $10.
A man bought the number 2 for $20.
They happen to be related, but that just shows how valuable these numbers are, even family thinks they're valuable! Totally not a scam or anything.
My crypt algo generates magic numbers, I call "prime" numbers, and 11 is coming up for sale. Invest now, because these 'prime' numbers get very difficult to calculate fast, and that is why they are so valuable!
I'm calling it "Primecoin", and it includes a mechanism to track ownership of prime numbers (email me, and I write down your email address in my notebook with proper blue permanent marker).
They're trying to reclaim the lost market for illegal drugs by cornering the means of purchase.
The average person doesn't give a shit about government control and monitoring. They do however give a huge shit if the money they have today is worth 50% less tomorrow. Crypto currencies I think have had their rep irreparably damaged at this point, people are fine while it skyrockets but the Zimbabwean type slumps are sending people away and they won't be back.
Stores that sell useless products that are bad for you are going to sell more useless products that are bad for you ...
More news at 11.
They do however give a huge shit if the money they have today is worth 50% less tomorrow.
That is more of an investment concern than what I am talking about.
I don't think people will replace nation-currency with Bitcoin or anything like that. Bitcoin will simply eventually become the engine of commerce as I said, for grey and black market transactions... small amounts for most people, to get things the government does not want them to have (like drugs in most of the world, or sugary drinks in New York).
As such it doesn't matter if it undergoes even fairly large fluctuations, when most people wouldn't have more than a hundred or two at any one time.
Think about how much Bitcoin would rise again if even 10% of the people in most modern cities around the world bought and started using a few hundred $ worth.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"French Tobacco shops... selling cigarettes, newspapers, magazines, and lottery tickets."
Well, that's the stamp of financial legitimacy right there. Classy!
Dumbest thing I heard in days. Made me laugh though... but that is only natural, as a human being human.
I have no idea what the most tightly controlled government on earth is. Since you assume that I know it... So it's Finland, right?
Natural pushback??? Is that why the physical use of money is DECLINING in almost every western country?
Express in a useful way? That a load of wishful thinking.
Is this "good news" is the best Bitcoin shills can find, for trying to stop public panic? :-)
Because here some other recent news:
(The biggest?) US Bitcoin mining company (Giga Watt) declared bankruptcy!
Chinese miners started dumping mining equipment, because they became worthless!
Some people who sold bitcoin in some exchanges waiting for weeks to get money w/o success!
Not to mention Bitcoin price keep having massive drops!!!
=>
BITCOIN IS DYING!!!
Sell & save whatever you can before it drops to ZERO!!!
(Or keep listening to Bitcoin shills, who (naturally) keep trying hard to convince the public everything is still OK!!!)
Again wishful thinking.
And for your non-white markets. Hard physical cash is king.
i would rather buy a kitty litter box
Wasn't the original point of crypto to act as a replacement for cash in order to purchase goods and services? Not the other way around? Shouldn't the tobacco shops be accepting crypto as a form of payment for goods and services?
If a government decide to ban cash, well then we're back to gold pieces (or diamonds/silver/bags of rice/ow heck fraking beads/anything physical that holds value) for the non-white markets... not digital coins whose value fluctuate widely and are unpredictable. It's only natural for humans being human and do what they know for eons, after eons ... like ...
how to trade anonymous without the invention of physical money.
history, it's a blast!
Actually, bitcoin is more retarded than the last place finisher in the special Olympics.
Bitcoin is not truly anonymous; only pseudononymous. It's very difficult to make significant use of it without exposing one's true identity to intelligence agencies and the like. As such, it helps little against government monitoring.
And, while it's true that the Bitcoin network can't be directly controlled by the government, it's still just as vulnerable to government's traditional indirect methods of control: the threat of violence via law enforcement agencies, courts, and prison. That which can be monitored, can be controlled.
Only a truly anonymous cryptocurrency - like Monero claims to be - has any real chance of enabling people to evade government control, long term. Even then, users are still vulnerable to hacking and especially back doors, given that computer manufacturers and operating system vendors are subject to government control.
gweihir KNOWS u IMPERSONATE me https://it.slashdot.org/commen... c6gunner proves it https://linux.slashdot.org/com... he forgot to SUBMIT as AC & using his registered 'lusrname' instead (because he tried to mock me both BEFORE & after I FAIRLY challenged him to show he's done better work - he had ZERO).
& NO WAY I'd "cry" like you "playing victim ne'er-do-wells" on /. (TROLL /.ers, not all) OR post on hosts offtopic.
YOU HELPED ME https://science.slashdot.org/c... (& you quit trying to make me look bad trying to "tell lies" on hosts as "ME" IN YOUR IMPERSONATIONS of me e.g. https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... as regards Intel speculative execution attack? Hosts PREVENT 'EM)
APK
P.S.=> I KNOW the 2nd to last link above's KILLING YOU - YOU ACTUALLY HELPED ME getting me to see if hosts stop more than portsmash (& Meltdown + Spectre too) & "lo & behold" - hosts WORK on 'em - U LOSE... apk
buying and selling at essentially bitcoin ATMs.
The concern however I heard was that the ATMs were also livefeeding to the FBI so they could perform facial recognition on any bitcoin ATM users under the assumption it was being used for money laundering. While I am not sure of the truth, it was enough to make me wary of using them.
One pack of Luck Farts? That will be 3 bitcoins please. Four if you don't hurry
There is no ban on sugary drinks in New York. If you require "alternative facts" to make your point, maybe your point just sucks.
Or are you lying out of "love" again?
You are welcome on my lawn.
If I told you you had a beautiful Bitcoin, would you hold it against me?
See subject & I didn't post this (YOU did + you want it to SEEM I play "victim" but SLIME LIKE YOU are MY victims) https://slashdot.org/comments.... & FUNNIEST PART?
* You PROJECT you use the "help me mommy" VICTIM bs in YOUR wasted DO-NOTHING "ne'er-do-well" life - save that for your mommy, ok? It doesn't WORK on me you pitiful little manipulative DOUCHE - you're TOO STUPID to even TRY pull that - get over your LIMITED brain's capacity & don't think too highly of yourself... you're way too dumb for that.
Your FAVORITE COLOR? Has to be TRANSPARENT since you're SO easy to see through...
APK
P.S.=> & I'm also SURE your PUNY TRICKS don't work on others here either as you try "turn them against me" etc. case in point e.g. = gweihir https://it.slashdot.org/commen...
Only people stupid enough to smoke would be stupid enough to but bitcoin.
THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR LIES SUPER FAGGOT KEN DOLL
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Wasn't the original point of crypto to act as a replacement for cash in order to purchase goods and services?
Yes, but the point is you would buy the bitcoin from the tobacco shop to use to purchase things you could not buy at the shop, hint hint...
Either way you are buying something to burn later for some form of enjoyment.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A) If you were PopeRizzo, maybe you would understand a joke when you read one.
B) "the government does not want them to have" != ban
C) Future-proofing the joke for later readers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Only, not this time. Maybe in the near future. Maybe in the far, far, far future.
This should convince even the most ardent cryptocurrency believer that it’s over - it’s time to move on.
#DeleteChrome
Was at her apartment, but that kind of worked. She is into anal, said she will be on her period soon and doesn't want to take the risk. So we did the dirty. She kept making me pull out and squirt some gel lubricant called "astronaut lube" or something bizarre like that. Whatever, it was fun--loved seeing her get into it and she never touched her clit the entire time. Phew.
L) Ken doll you're a dishonest faggot and everyone on this site for any length of time knows it.
I) Ken doll you're a dishonest faggot and everyone on this site for any length of time knows it.
A) Ken doll you're a dishonest faggot and everyone on this site for any length of time knows it.
R) Ken doll you're a dishonest faggot and everyone on this site for any length of time knows it.
I will not buy this bitcoin, it is trashed.
While I am enamored by the cleverness of the entire proof of work system it seems like there's an inescapable problem with the proof of work concept.
To boil bitcoin down to it's most elemental irreducible aspect there is one and only one thing that all cryptocurrencies have to do. This is prevent double spending the same token without using a central authority to regulate when a coin is transferred and can't be spent again. There's other nifty bells and whistles but that is the one thing they must do.
The bitcoin solution to this is to make it prohibitively expensive not impossible. It works by making it so that in order to spend twice you have to be able to hash the ledger at least twice as fast as the rest of the system's combined effort. If you can do that then you can spend a coin, let the transaction close, then go back to the old ledger without the coin being spent, and hash it two more times quickly. Now you have the longest blockchain and it by fiat is the one that will be accepted. In practice you might actually need to be more than 2x.
So when would it be worth it to acquire so much computing power? When the double spend value to you exceeds the compute cost.
Therefore to make it prohibitive the compute cost has to be pegged to be near (or half) the most you could steal in one transaction.
That is the irreducible cost. It's not that the computation is expensive, it's that it HAS to be expensive ot the whole process fails.
Therefore the larger the transactions on bit coin and the more outstanding coinage there is to steal, the higher the transaction costs needs to be.
Thus bit coin baked in the seeds of it's own destruction. It can't expand past a certain capitalization without becoming too expensive to hash. that part of it cannot be removed.
So it's trash
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Think about how much Bitcoin would rise again if even 10% of the people in most modern cities around the world bought and started using a few hundred $ worth.
Now think about how much it would be worth if they didn't.
PS: Currencies aren't supposed to "rise", they're supposed to be stable.
You'll be mocked mercilessly until you grasp this concept: A thing can't be both an investment instrument and a working currency at the same time.
No sig today...
I am anticipating poor sales, as BTC is circling the drain.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
A thing can't be both an investment instrument and a working currency at the same time.
A) I am saying it's mostly going to be a working currency, however...
B) are you really trying to say that currencies are never are treated as investments? Really?
Even the USD (sort of stable) is used by people around the world as a hedge if nothing else. Just what life experience makes you think any currency cannot work for people and also be an investment at the same time? The more I think about it I am pretty sure you have the mocking direction backwards on that one. But I for one will not mock you for that deeper understanding of the workings of currency, as most people don't think about it that way...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It is more natural for people to be drawn to APK and his hosts file engine.
Give up, and submit to APK! You know it is the right thing to do. The ONLY thing to do.
ALL HAIL APK
This is proof that the crypcoin craze is over.
Good riddance.
If you really want to impress her, take a shit on her chest. She'll love you forever.
Did Ken Doll buy a lot of crypto while the price was high?
"French Tobacco shops... selling cigarettes, newspapers, magazines, and lottery tickets."
Well, that's the stamp of financial legitimacy right there. Classy!
True, no where near the financial legitimacy as say a Magic the Gathering Trading Card Exchange that was handling 70% of all bitcoin transactions in 2014, before it noticed that 850,000 bitcoins were missing and shut down and filed for bankruptcy.
Seriously, I did not make that up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Now my financial investments can go up in smoke, in addition to my other purchases from that shop.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Think about how much Bitcoin would rise again if even 10% of the people in most modern cities around the world bought and started using a few hundred $ worth.
How does one "use" bitcoin in daily life? In many national jurisdictions with those modern cities bitcoin is considered an asset. So when you buy a cup of coffee with bitcoins you have to note the price of those coins when you received them, note the current price at which you used them, calculate the gain or loss that was just realized and report that gain/loss to your tax authority when you file your tax return. Just as if you sold an asset such as stocks.
Of course buying that coffee was theoretical. Except when engaging in some sort of public stunt, a product or service purchased with bitcoin has to be one where it is OK to wait about an hour for the bitcoin transfer to verify.
Bitcoin is not a currency at this time. It is currently two things. (1) A highly speculative investment vehicle. (2) A method to transfer funds person to person. Note that in such bitcoin transfers neither party usually holds bitcoins for an appreciable amount of time, typically bitcoin is purchased with a real currency, the bitcoins transferred and verified, and the bitcoins immediately sold for a real currency (which may be different than the previous currency). Similarly merchants that engage in public stunts where they accept bitcoins for goods or services typically use a payment processor that immediately converts the bitcoins received to a real currency in some manner. There merchants usually do not hold bitcoins. Bitcoins are generally held only by the speculators.
But they'll help you die penniless as well. What a brilliant idea.
Or maybe eet's fantastique. Really, I don't give ze, how you say, merde.
Slashdot was always a disgusting hole, but this yuk. For a start, most of the things you're describing aren't even things a woman likes! Some young clueless man is going to read this and wonder why she ran away when he shat on her chest. Come on... I'm against censorship.
Don't make them wield it against valid but offensive opinions and facts that "trigger" people - with the excuse being *your* poor taste and disgusting attitudes to sex.
This stuff *reeks* of Anti-Fa and the far left false-flagging these posts so that the censorship *they want* is implemented!
I have a solution:
1) No More AC
2) No Censorship
3) Public Discussion and Moderation System Functions As It Should
4) Add "ignore" per-user to every post. Cut that idiot out of your "circle". Posts by users who pass an "ignore threshold" are not shown to anonymous users or search engines (appeal-able, decisions to be given to the actual moderation system en-masse)
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
Think about how much Bitcoin would rise again if even 10% of the people
So you are hoping for even more wild swing in value of a purported 'currency' that people are going to trust.
You're not doing Bitcoin's case for becoming a stable currency people trust as a means for exchange any kind of favor.
In the revolutionary (non-corrupt) days of the Soviet Republic, they lined speculators up against the wall.
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2018/11/21/les-bitcoins-dans-les-bureaux-de-tabac-une-information-fumeuse_5386538_4355770.html
"And for your non-white markets. Hard physical cash is king."
When has that been the case? Black market only strives on times of trouble and times of trouble bring inflation.
If there's one situation you definitely don't want to depend on hard cash is on an inflationary economy.
"So you are hoping for even more wild swing in value of a purported 'currency' that people are going to trust.
You're not doing Bitcoin's case for becoming a stable currency people trust as a means for exchange any kind of favor.
In the revolutionary (non-corrupt) days of the Soviet Republic, they lined speculators up against the wall."
My opinion of bitcoins as currency is not any higher than yours, but this is as much a strawman argument as it can get.
His argument was not that bitcoin was a good currency because of its speculative prospects but that speculation could very well be the means for bitcoin to become mainstream. Those that get on board early would get the speculative profits while later adopters would use it just as expected for a currency at whatever the exchange rate it happens to be stable enough.
The same would happen for, i.e. a "blue chip" stock: those that went into, say, Google early on may become millionaires while those buying it today (with more or less a stable valuation) would "merely" use it for its long-term retirement founds' value -note that it was the speculative phase the one that allowed this stock its growth to reach its current strong and stable status.
This is the term I hear from people that believe in crypto. You use it and you top up when you you spend it.
Problem solved.
Still better than the ones who didn't qualufy.
People are stupid. They smoke, vape, gamble. You're doomed.
"A thing can't be both an investment instrument and a working currency at the same time."
What compleat horse shit you have crapped out, there. Of course it can. It depends on the timing and duration of the investment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No one is offering to BUY Bitcoin and Etherium? Suckers...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It depends on the timing
A yes, the famous I will "time" my way to riches. Wall St. is absolutely paved with the shirts of all the people who uttered those words.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Go buy some coffee with shares of IBM.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
A briefcase full of dollars vs the rise and fall of bitcoins?
Actually, what the government doesn't want is for you to be a hyperobese moron who has to be transported on a mobile sled because you got suckered into consuming tons of liquid sludge at a prodigious markup.
You know, unless they were bought out by Big Sugar which has kept up the Cuban embargo for decades, just to keep us under their thumb.
Cash, grass, or ass (where ass can mean physical labor in exchange for goods and services; and not just the giggity definition).
This space unintentionally left blank.
Until you can get Bitcoin from a shop or bank it will never be adopted as a currency. Frankly, it's a pain in the ass to buy and even more so when it's depreciating by the day. On this basis it's useless as a currency for casual shoppers.
The primary real-world use of cryptocurrencies is money laundering. The business model of the shop will be to facilitate the acquisition of illegally acquired cash, transfer to bitcoin, transfer it somewhere else, and for somebody else to get out laundered money, some other time or some other place.
That's a good business for on-the ground shops who already have lots of cash business. Furthermore the shops could convert some of their own cash receipts of their typical sales of goods into bitcoin and evade taxes and scrutiny from regulated banks from depositing much more currency than reported on tax reports.
Shop owners will convert some gross receipts into bitcoins and then take it out in some other tabac shop. The overt business will appear to operate at a loss or breakeven. The shop owners will all agree to go for it so they all benefit.
It makes sense for the shops to want to do this, and it makes sense to disallow it.
The problem we have right now is too many people are focused on speculation and not enough people are focused on acceptance. Without wider acceptance / use it's not as useful or stable as it could be. I find crypto currencies useful because I can receive small and large sums of money from customers online and spend it locally or online and save about 3% in credit card processing fees on each end of a transaction (when I accept it and when I spend it).
The problem is right now there are still people out there pushing crypto in terms of an investment, but it's not really useful/worth anything if there is nowhere to spend it. That isn't to say nobody is accepting it, but the "investors" are hyping the shit out of it and it's wrongly being toughed as if its being widely used thus having more value than it does currently. This is based largely on trading volume rather than actual usage in commerce. The potential is there for the hype, but nobody "investing" in it should be speculating more than 10 years out based on current usage (as opposed to trading volume).
While these places should sell it- they should also accept it back as payment. Otherwise we will continue to have speculation overshadow its real world usefulness and value. There are three or four use cases and I see it actually being used- but mostly in pockets in different places. Primarily online merchants (my company accepts it), at brick and mortar retail shops/restaurants/etc in Venezuela and New Hampshire (I spend it 3-4 times a day typically online and off), and on the dark web (haven't done it myself, but I know it's being used here).
Stfu tranny, You are the offended leftist. Get dialated
Yes, let's get rid of all pseudo Anonymity on the web. So web mistress Rachael there can be DOSed/murdered by the right/left wing and those of us who value free expression know not to post anything at all that might be offensive to an imperial president elected years after we post. What could go wrong?
It would be nice if slashdot implemented a click to read more by default, so the ApK/obsessed didn't take an extra finger swipe to scroll past though.
I wonder who will use that service. Except for the case of people getting infected with ransomware, the interest for cryptocurrency in the general population is rather low.
The original news is not true. The following post (in french) gives a denial from the Banque de France
https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2018/11/21/les-bitcoins-dans-les-bureaux-de-tabac-une-information-fumeuse_5386538_4355770.html
La Banque de France a démenti auprès du Monde avoir conclu la semaine dernière un accord en ce sens avec la Confédération des buralistes"
The Bank of France has denied to Le Monde to have concluded last week an agreement to this effect with the Confederation of tobacconists "
The unfortunate reality is that you are probably right. I can be so naive!
Also, to the idiot who called me a leftie. my posts years ago were from the left, but I left the left sometime in early 2010's. I felt very alone for a while!
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
It sounds like you're trying to double down on the idea that this Crypto"currency" should be an investment vehicle.
No. The whole point in a currency is trust and stability. When the value of a currency swings wildly, it's called "inflation" or "deflation" and it disrupts the entire economy. Currencies are supposed to be very stable means of exchange. A dollar's worth of sand should be a dollars worth of sand five weeks from now.
at whatever the exchange rate it happens to be stable enough needs to be so static an exchange rate that there really aren't any speculators involved at all.