And someone else pointed out that it hasn't been legal to do that in sweden at any point in history"
Is there some reason you made all that up? Parliamentary immunity still holds and would be perfectly valid as suggested. The plan was announced in anticipation of the pirate party winning seats and the pirate party just didn't win the seats.
"Galatians 1:19 he refers to meeting "James, the Lord's brother."
That isn't even a definitive reference to Christ, let alone a reference to Christ being a man.
But that is beside the point. Christ is very distinct from Alexander the Great not because of the gap in time of the writings, which was massive given the time period, but because there is physical evidence to corroborate the accomplishments of Alexander the Great. Records of Alexander are widespread and extensive. Nothing of the sort exists with regard to Christ.
The only other reference is from Jewish scholar named Josephus who wrote around that time period. The references to Jesus are not characteristic of the rest of his work and are were "discovered" by Christian scholars much later. Despite the fact that scholars far and wide referred to the works of Josephus often none of them caught these references to Christ and people continued to not refer to them or to refer to them in a tongue-in-cheek manner until relatively modern times.
Paul does not refer to Jesus as a person but as a vision. He gives no indication that he ever thought Jesus lived as a man and indicates that Peter also had a vision and that his own vision is at least as credible.
"Perhaps the best source of historical information about Jesus of Nazareth is Josephus [wikipedia.org]"
It is debated and in fact doubtful that Josephus wrote anything about Christ. It is far more likely Church scholars injected the references much later.
"While plenty of people may dispute the deity of Jesus Christ, there's no shortage of historical documentation that he existed"
Care to produce some? Accounts of Christ were injected by the church into the writings of a Jewish historian and that is pretty much the extent of non-biblical references to Christ as a human. At least in a work written in the ballpark of the time the human is supposed to have lived. The earliest new testament work was written by Paul much later, he had a vision of Christ which he claimed was just as valid as the vision had by Peter. There was no indication that Christ was ever thought to have been an actual human being. References to Christ as a person come far later. Tales of Christ generally parallel those of other typical sun deities. Virgin Birth/Divine Father, born under an important star, dies and resurrected (as the seasons and sunset/sunrise). Actually, Christ is a rebirth. It is a story of Mithra the sun deity and takes most of its source material there. Mithra is renamed to Christ and adapted into the Jewish messiah. As time goes on the new testament book authors went back and fulfilled prophesies for the messiah unfortunately they mistranslated said prophesies and the Christ stories fulfill the mistranslations. Even if you believe Christ lived, the Christians represented a very small fringe cult of fanatics until the roman emperor Constantine got the idea of using their religion.
The idea that it is universally accepted and undisputed that Christ probably lived by historians is a myth. The myth was perpetrated mostly by Christian "historians" and "archaeologists" and taken mainstream by urban legend. Today if you ask most people they will tell you it is so. Of course most people will tell you that people only use x% of their brain (10%, 15%, 30% it varies) when in reality everyone uses their entire brain. Both represent ignorance that is common knowledge.
"they have taken what seems like a plus point of cash, that it is anonymous and fungible, and made it digital, but as you point out this makes it less secure"
It isn't a one off trade. You are trading some security in one form (the potential for a third party to return stolen funds) for a great deal of security (a greatly reduced possibility of a third party being able to take your funds). A bank will protect your funds from unauthorized third parties but the government and financial industry and not you decides who is authorized. All those trails also make you vulnerable to data mining. For instance by reviewing your financial trail and correlating it to publicly available information I can determine if you have a security monitoring system, what type, what level of service, I can see if you've paid a security company to install a safe, I can tell by how much you paid them what price level of safe you have and with a little social engineering find out what models that company offers in that range. Armed with the amount of the transaction and the details the bank has on file for you I can probably social engineer who performed the installation and where his notes indicated he installed it! But who has access to this information? Low paid bank staff for one. But without them, Bank of America is one example that has lost account details for millions of accounts at least three times now.
With Bitcoin you have no stick ups. No charge-backs. No bounced checks. No hidden fees charged later. No recurring charge scams. Most importantly you and not some other party like a bank, government, or even a court are the final arbiter of when and if funds are released from your accounts.
"I and most other people place far greater value on that than anonymity of transactions."
For myself, it depends largely on the transaction.
"same gulling of the vulnerable who view it as a store of value"
Bitcoin is an excellent short term store of value especially as an exchange medium.
Examples of times when you will want Bitcoin:
* When carrying large quantities of Cash abroad (purchasing properties, acquiring dual citizenship, or even just traveling). People sometimes carry hundreds of thousands in cash for these situations and all of it runs the risk of being taken by third world customs.
* When you've have a debt or a have been accused of a financial, tax, political, or drug related crime and still need access to funds to survive.
* When you wish to keep transactions confidential from a spouse, family member, or guardian.
Everything carries a security risk. In the past I've had credit card companies post fraudulent e-checks against my accounts.
I've had banks charge fees on which we had no meeting of minds and engage in every dirty trick imaginable to milk more fees including re-writing history by re-ordering transactions to produce the most fees. My bank just adjusted its web page to cache account balances and added a delay to account-to-account transfers to cause additional fees.
My employer can take back funds from account at will. The bank can do the same and then blame you for any shortages it causes. So can the government. So can anyone you've ever given your account and routing number in the form of a check or electronic payment.
If you write me a check and I go to your bank to get them to honor it they will usually steal about $5 of the face value as a 'fee'. States jump on the slightest excuse to call safe deposit boxes unclaimed funds and destroy/fire sale the contents.
The SSA made up a mythical payment that is sent me in the past and deducted it from my tax return (nevermind that I've never collected any form of social security in my life).
The point being the people who are most likely to steal from me are the government and financial institutions in fact they are the only ones who actually have stolen from me in the past. A large part of my life has been spent with a smaller margin between managing to float food, roof, and utilities from being taken away and the amounts taken from my accounts by these other parties.
Banks certainly do not represent security these days, the vault doors are meaningless.
No it didn't. The first post of this thread to mentioned Bitcoin destruction said this: "If the policy is based on the value at the time it's issued, the insured party has a motivation to purposefully lose or destroy the coins if the market dramatically drops - the insured value is higher than the market value."
To which I (in part) replied "How does one destroy a Bitcoin?" given the context that becomes, "How does one destroy, as opposed to lose, a Bitcoin?" It was a rhetorical question, one cannot actually destroy a Bitcoin.
Someone else in a different sub thread replied to that with a redundant post saying deleting the wallet.dat effectively destroyed the Bitcoin.
"If I burn your notes about something, that information isn't truly lost either. it still lives on in the details of the radiation, in minor variations on the distribution of air molecules, etc."
Uh huh and if I delete your wallet.dat that Bitcoin still lives on in the details of... the exact same actual Bitcoin because Bitcoins don't physically live in a wallet.dat. And yes if you burn my notes on something you've destroyed only my notes. If I write E=MC^2 on a note and then burn it the matter and energy of the universe doesn't stop conforming to E=MC^2 even if you burn all such writings throughout the entire world.
And the delivery available to you affects me or anyone who doesn't live where you do in what way? I've lived in IL, NV, FL, NM, DE, in towns and cities ranging from pop 12k to cities as large as (and including) Miami. In none of those places was there a delivery experience like you describe unless "mostly anything" is limited to things sold by pizza places, Italian restaurants, Chinese, and sandwiches in exactly that order of likelihood. The list in the delivery section of the phone book and other directories is longer but that is because they mix take out and delivery. Pretty much everywhere does take out.
Do you actually put so much stock in your personal anecdotal evidence that you actually think it means that it is impossible for me to be telling the truth about limited delivery options to my office? I don't even buy your claims.
So tell me, without a third party delivery service can you get proper Mediterranean? Cajun? Thai? Can you order Churches, Golden Pride, Subway, Olive Garden, Carrabas, Outback, Hooters, Red Lobster, Wing Basket or any of the other major chains that aren't one of the things I mentioned above? If yes to any of the above, could you if you weren't within say 1/4-1/2 mile? The answer has been a no everywhere I've been from rural Illinois, to Albuquerque, to Miami, to downtown Chicago. Most of those chains are national and nationally don't deliver so the answer is no where you are too wherever that may be. Pretty much all of them are listed in the delivery/take-out menu section of the phone book but are take-out only.
If I hit your car and I hit a tree my car might be totaled either way but depending on which insurance policy I have there is a very different outcome.
If we are being technical then no the coin technically is not destroyed and may be recovered one day. If we are being practical, in context we are referring to an insurance payout, a policy that doesn't cover loss but does cover destruction wouldn't pay out because of the technical point just made. So, in this context, the coin neither technically nor practically destroyed.
"It is a moot point, because the ability to recover a truly lost private key would render the whole system worthless as currently implemented"
Lost and Truly lost are the same thing it is lost or not lost. Remembering a password. Finding a print copy of a key. Recovering access to a safety deposit box. Data recovery on a damaged hard drive and Brute forcing are all examples of recovering a key.
Someone managing to brute force a key doesn't invalidate the system. The system is already known to be vulnerable to brute force along with all other encryption types. People always talk about brute forcing as if one has to try all the possible keys and therefore it takes however long it would take to try all the possible keys. That is the longest possible time brute forcing could take, not how long it does take. The correct key could be the first one I try.
All that aside the point is not whether losing access is the same as effectively destroying it. The point is whether it would qualify as destroyed for insurance purposes and if in doubt the answer is whichever one means the insurance company doesn't have to pay.
If you want to count what delivery services can pick up then sure. We have one of those too but the fees are ridiculous. If you don't count overpriced delivery services that will charge $8 plus another 20% tip (likely to total more than your lunch) your options for delivery include pizza joints and... pizza joints. We are downtown but this is true of pretty much the entire city (Albuquerque) unless you are in one of the large office buildings which often have someone making a few bucks by taking orders from a limited menu and picking them all up and delivering in bulk.
Seriously if we don't like paying paypal fees or 2.75% fee to use a card for a "square" phone payment why would be okay with doubling the price of the meal by using a third party delivery service?
Yup just like your real wallet. At the same time you can also make printable keys and store them in a safe deposit box. Just like your real wallet. So either one can gain the benefits of the physical security of a bank. You can even keep your digital wallet on a portable device and store that in the bank.
Of course some states are known for using the slightest excuse to steal err seize SD boxes as unclaimed property *cough* california *cough* and then destroy/auction/spend the contents but that is another issue.
That is called privacy which has a value all its own. But yes there is a trade off in the form of having to provide your own security. Those audit trails have mostly been instituted for the benefit of tax authorities and whether that is a 'good' reason is up for debate. Bitcoin is digital CASH, money in your bank account is NOT cash. Money in your physical wallet is cash. If someone steals your physical wallet there is less chance of catching them than with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin itself doesn't implement an audit trail but digital access to a file certainly does. Unlike your physical wallet stealing your bitcoin requires hacking your computer system which is a federal crime. You can most definitely call the authorities if this happens and invite the federal crime lab to examine the digital trail left by the attacker. Unlike local law enforcement tracking your stolen physical wallet the FBI can trade the digital footprints involved and demand the cooperation of internet providers to do so. If you are talking about a substantial theft then forensic accounting can be used to trace the funds but unlike actual cash the bitcoin global audit trail is visible to authorities without requiring any warrants or foreign cooperation and not all bitcoin addresses are anonymous. Many are publicaly known.
Is all this going to happen for your couple thousand in bitcoin? Probably not but then again there isn't likely to be any actual manhours dedicated to your lost wallet with $2000 in it either. For that matter nobody is going to expend effort investigating $2000 stolen from your bank account or $2000 worth of credit card fraud.
Bitcoin is like gold. It has a value independent of fiat currency. If the US dollar collapses tomorrow my bitcoin still has worth. Like gold it is relatively trivial to 'wash' the take if its stolen so it is upon me to protect it. Like gold the value relative to fiat currency is not guaranteed. Like gold bitcoin is an option for storing wealth used for transactions that are none of anyone's business. Like gold, your an idiot if you put all your wealth in bitcoin. At the end of the day you have to physically and digitally secure your bitcoin but only physically secure your gold. Even if you print your keys and lock them in a safe deposit box you risk the network somehow being hacked. So gold is superior in this sense. But gold has practical limitations to its use for small transactions. A tiny amount of gold is worth too much to be practical for paying me back for lunch. Bitcoin is infinitely divisible. It really doesn't matter if my normal transaction unit is 1 BTC.1 BTC or.01 BTC because these are just numbers on a screen and I need no scale to accurately divide bitcoin in this way. Bitcoin also allows me to make what amounts to a cash transaction with someone across the world where this is difficult with cash or gold.
Bitcoin can also be easily converted into local currency when traveling internationally alleviating the need to carry large sums of precious metals or cash that could be stolen by customs or pick pockets.
"Mmm, but isn't part of the point of bitcoin it gets harder to break the more people use it?"
That assumes that the underlying algorithms and the mathematical assumptions they rely upon remain sound. It also depends upon the type of computing power required to brute force the key growing at a similar or lesser rate than the computing power used to encrypt the network. Specialized hardware targeted at breaking the encryption could tip these scales.
"Either case results in a bitcoin that cannot be spent, so it is effectively destroyed."
Inaccessible is not destroyed. Lost treasures are recovered all the time. You'd need an insurance policy that covers loss, not merely destruction to cover this.
Losing access to the coin does not destroy it. The coin still exists its just not any good to you. Good luck finding an insurance policy that would pay if you deleted the wallet.dat.
If you deleted the wallet.dat of a client business liability insurance might cover it. If you had a natural disaster you might get homeowners to cover it. But if you delete your own wallet.dat? Nothing is going to cover that.
And even if it did, you'd still only get replacement Bitcoin.
True enough. The insurance that applies in this case would be normal business liability insurance which does have a cap. They aren't just going to hand out the cap every time though. They will replace the Bitcoin or offer replacement value on the settlement date. Actually something like Bitcoin with public exchanges and extreme liquidity is probably about as easy as it gets for valuation. Even replacing a safe full of cash is more difficult because you have to value the safe!
Jokes aside think about it. Nobody carries cash these days and nobody delivers lunch. Somebody has to pick it up and everyone who uses a card has to be present to sign their slip even if cashiers are competent enough to split a check among cards. We tried Paypal but the fees are annoying especially when co-workers are picky about the cents. Some of us got "square" so we could take a card right on our phones. After the cool factor wore off the fees were just as annoying as paypal.
Finally it settles to Bitcoin. No transaction fees required. We don't even wait for all the confirmations so instant transactions. If a co-worker wants to hack fake bitcoin to screw you on a lunch transaction then more power to him... it'll work once with a maximum take of maybe ten bucks.
I can, there is a little cafe down the street that takes Bitcoin. In our office Bitcoin is also the typical method of settling a shared check for lunches. You can also conduct all manner of black market trade with Bitcoin. Drugs, guns, prostitutes, all on the table. Or you can just turn it into your local currency to conduct business.
Bitcoin has plenty of uses. It doesn't have to be used as a drop in replacement for us dollars.
Slashdot Mirror
"No, someone said 'we're going to do that'
And someone else pointed out that it hasn't been legal to do that in sweden at any point in history"
Is there some reason you made all that up? Parliamentary immunity still holds and would be perfectly valid as suggested. The plan was announced in anticipation of the pirate party winning seats and the pirate party just didn't win the seats.
http://torrentfreak.com/swedish-pirate-party-fails-to-enter-parliament-100919/
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-07/5/pirate-bay-swedish-parliament
"Galatians 1:19 he refers to meeting "James, the Lord's brother."
That isn't even a definitive reference to Christ, let alone a reference to Christ being a man.
But that is beside the point. Christ is very distinct from Alexander the Great not because of the gap in time of the writings, which was massive given the time period, but because there is physical evidence to corroborate the accomplishments of Alexander the Great. Records of Alexander are widespread and extensive. Nothing of the sort exists with regard to Christ.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-07/5/pirate-bay-swedish-parliament
The only other reference is from Jewish scholar named Josephus who wrote around that time period. The references to Jesus are not characteristic of the rest of his work and are were "discovered" by Christian scholars much later. Despite the fact that scholars far and wide referred to the works of Josephus often none of them caught these references to Christ and people continued to not refer to them or to refer to them in a tongue-in-cheek manner until relatively modern times.
Paul does not refer to Jesus as a person but as a vision. He gives no indication that he ever thought Jesus lived as a man and indicates that Peter also had a vision and that his own vision is at least as credible.
"Perhaps the best source of historical information about Jesus of Nazareth is Josephus [wikipedia.org]"
It is debated and in fact doubtful that Josephus wrote anything about Christ. It is far more likely Church scholars injected the references much later.
"While plenty of people may dispute the deity of Jesus Christ, there's no shortage of historical documentation that he existed"
Care to produce some? Accounts of Christ were injected by the church into the writings of a Jewish historian and that is pretty much the extent of non-biblical references to Christ as a human. At least in a work written in the ballpark of the time the human is supposed to have lived. The earliest new testament work was written by Paul much later, he had a vision of Christ which he claimed was just as valid as the vision had by Peter. There was no indication that Christ was ever thought to have been an actual human being. References to Christ as a person come far later. Tales of Christ generally parallel those of other typical sun deities. Virgin Birth/Divine Father, born under an important star, dies and resurrected (as the seasons and sunset/sunrise). Actually, Christ is a rebirth. It is a story of Mithra the sun deity and takes most of its source material there. Mithra is renamed to Christ and adapted into the Jewish messiah. As time goes on the new testament book authors went back and fulfilled prophesies for the messiah unfortunately they mistranslated said prophesies and the Christ stories fulfill the mistranslations. Even if you believe Christ lived, the Christians represented a very small fringe cult of fanatics until the roman emperor Constantine got the idea of using their religion.
The idea that it is universally accepted and undisputed that Christ probably lived by historians is a myth. The myth was perpetrated mostly by Christian "historians" and "archaeologists" and taken mainstream by urban legend. Today if you ask most people they will tell you it is so. Of course most people will tell you that people only use x% of their brain (10%, 15%, 30% it varies) when in reality everyone uses their entire brain. Both represent ignorance that is common knowledge.
There really isn't any compelling evidence that there ever was such a person, let alone DNA.
I was under the impression that the site was hosted by the pirate party as a function of office now and thus gained immunity to prosecution in Sweden?
"they have taken what seems like a plus point of cash, that it is anonymous and fungible, and made it digital, but as you point out this makes it less secure"
It isn't a one off trade. You are trading some security in one form (the potential for a third party to return stolen funds) for a great deal of security (a greatly reduced possibility of a third party being able to take your funds). A bank will protect your funds from unauthorized third parties but the government and financial industry and not you decides who is authorized. All those trails also make you vulnerable to data mining. For instance by reviewing your financial trail and correlating it to publicly available information I can determine if you have a security monitoring system, what type, what level of service, I can see if you've paid a security company to install a safe, I can tell by how much you paid them what price level of safe you have and with a little social engineering find out what models that company offers in that range. Armed with the amount of the transaction and the details the bank has on file for you I can probably social engineer who performed the installation and where his notes indicated he installed it! But who has access to this information? Low paid bank staff for one. But without them, Bank of America is one example that has lost account details for millions of accounts at least three times now.
With Bitcoin you have no stick ups. No charge-backs. No bounced checks. No hidden fees charged later. No recurring charge scams. Most importantly you and not some other party like a bank, government, or even a court are the final arbiter of when and if funds are released from your accounts.
"I and most other people place far greater value on that than anonymity of transactions."
For myself, it depends largely on the transaction.
"same gulling of the vulnerable who view it as a store of value"
Bitcoin is an excellent short term store of value especially as an exchange medium.
Examples of times when you will want Bitcoin:
* When carrying large quantities of Cash abroad (purchasing properties, acquiring dual citizenship, or even just traveling). People sometimes carry hundreds of thousands in cash for these situations and all of it runs the risk of being taken by third world customs.
* When you've have a debt or a have been accused of a financial, tax, political, or drug related crime and still need access to funds to survive.
* When you wish to keep transactions confidential from a spouse, family member, or guardian.
Everything carries a security risk. In the past I've had credit card companies post fraudulent e-checks against my accounts.
I've had banks charge fees on which we had no meeting of minds and engage in every dirty trick imaginable to milk more fees including re-writing history by re-ordering transactions to produce the most fees. My bank just adjusted its web page to cache account balances and added a delay to account-to-account transfers to cause additional fees.
My employer can take back funds from account at will. The bank can do the same and then blame you for any shortages it causes. So can the government. So can anyone you've ever given your account and routing number in the form of a check or electronic payment.
If you write me a check and I go to your bank to get them to honor it they will usually steal about $5 of the face value as a 'fee'. States jump on the slightest excuse to call safe deposit boxes unclaimed funds and destroy/fire sale the contents.
The SSA made up a mythical payment that is sent me in the past and deducted it from my tax return (nevermind that I've never collected any form of social security in my life).
The point being the people who are most likely to steal from me are the government and financial institutions in fact they are the only ones who actually have stolen from me in the past. A large part of my life has been spent with a smaller margin between managing to float food, roof, and utilities from being taken away and the amounts taken from my accounts by these other parties.
Banks certainly do not represent security these days, the vault doors are meaningless.
No it didn't. The first post of this thread to mentioned Bitcoin destruction said this: "If the policy is based on the value at the time it's issued, the insured party has a motivation to purposefully lose or destroy the coins if the market dramatically drops - the insured value is higher than the market value."
To which I (in part) replied "How does one destroy a Bitcoin?" given the context that becomes, "How does one destroy, as opposed to lose, a Bitcoin?" It was a rhetorical question, one cannot actually destroy a Bitcoin.
Someone else in a different sub thread replied to that with a redundant post saying deleting the wallet.dat effectively destroyed the Bitcoin.
"If I burn your notes about something, that information isn't truly lost either. it still lives on in the details of the radiation, in minor variations on the distribution of air molecules, etc."
Uh huh and if I delete your wallet.dat that Bitcoin still lives on in the details of... the exact same actual Bitcoin because Bitcoins don't physically live in a wallet.dat. And yes if you burn my notes on something you've destroyed only my notes. If I write E=MC^2 on a note and then burn it the matter and energy of the universe doesn't stop conforming to E=MC^2 even if you burn all such writings throughout the entire world.
And the delivery available to you affects me or anyone who doesn't live where you do in what way? I've lived in IL, NV, FL, NM, DE, in towns and cities ranging from pop 12k to cities as large as (and including) Miami. In none of those places was there a delivery experience like you describe unless "mostly anything" is limited to things sold by pizza places, Italian restaurants, Chinese, and sandwiches in exactly that order of likelihood. The list in the delivery section of the phone book and other directories is longer but that is because they mix take out and delivery. Pretty much everywhere does take out.
Do you actually put so much stock in your personal anecdotal evidence that you actually think it means that it is impossible for me to be telling the truth about limited delivery options to my office? I don't even buy your claims.
So tell me, without a third party delivery service can you get proper Mediterranean? Cajun? Thai? Can you order Churches, Golden Pride, Subway, Olive Garden, Carrabas, Outback, Hooters, Red Lobster, Wing Basket or any of the other major chains that aren't one of the things I mentioned above? If yes to any of the above, could you if you weren't within say 1/4-1/2 mile? The answer has been a no everywhere I've been from rural Illinois, to Albuquerque, to Miami, to downtown Chicago. Most of those chains are national and nationally don't deliver so the answer is no where you are too wherever that may be. Pretty much all of them are listed in the delivery/take-out menu section of the phone book but are take-out only.
No the same outcome doesn't happen.
If I hit your car and I hit a tree my car might be totaled either way but depending on which insurance policy I have there is a very different outcome.
If we are being technical then no the coin technically is not destroyed and may be recovered one day. If we are being practical, in context we are referring to an insurance payout, a policy that doesn't cover loss but does cover destruction wouldn't pay out because of the technical point just made. So, in this context, the coin neither technically nor practically destroyed.
"It is a moot point, because the ability to recover a truly lost private key would render the whole system worthless as currently implemented"
Lost and Truly lost are the same thing it is lost or not lost. Remembering a password. Finding a print copy of a key. Recovering access to a safety deposit box. Data recovery on a damaged hard drive and Brute forcing are all examples of recovering a key.
Someone managing to brute force a key doesn't invalidate the system. The system is already known to be vulnerable to brute force along with all other encryption types. People always talk about brute forcing as if one has to try all the possible keys and therefore it takes however long it would take to try all the possible keys. That is the longest possible time brute forcing could take, not how long it does take. The correct key could be the first one I try.
All that aside the point is not whether losing access is the same as effectively destroying it. The point is whether it would qualify as destroyed for insurance purposes and if in doubt the answer is whichever one means the insurance company doesn't have to pay.
If you want to count what delivery services can pick up then sure. We have one of those too but the fees are ridiculous. If you don't count overpriced delivery services that will charge $8 plus another 20% tip (likely to total more than your lunch) your options for delivery include pizza joints and... pizza joints. We are downtown but this is true of pretty much the entire city (Albuquerque) unless you are in one of the large office buildings which often have someone making a few bucks by taking orders from a limited menu and picking them all up and delivering in bulk.
Seriously if we don't like paying paypal fees or 2.75% fee to use a card for a "square" phone payment why would be okay with doubling the price of the meal by using a third party delivery service?
Yup just like your real wallet. At the same time you can also make printable keys and store them in a safe deposit box. Just like your real wallet. So either one can gain the benefits of the physical security of a bank. You can even keep your digital wallet on a portable device and store that in the bank.
Of course some states are known for using the slightest excuse to steal err seize SD boxes as unclaimed property *cough* california *cough* and then destroy/auction/spend the contents but that is another issue.
That is called privacy which has a value all its own. But yes there is a trade off in the form of having to provide your own security. Those audit trails have mostly been instituted for the benefit of tax authorities and whether that is a 'good' reason is up for debate. Bitcoin is digital CASH, money in your bank account is NOT cash. Money in your physical wallet is cash. If someone steals your physical wallet there is less chance of catching them than with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin itself doesn't implement an audit trail but digital access to a file certainly does. Unlike your physical wallet stealing your bitcoin requires hacking your computer system which is a federal crime. You can most definitely call the authorities if this happens and invite the federal crime lab to examine the digital trail left by the attacker. Unlike local law enforcement tracking your stolen physical wallet the FBI can trade the digital footprints involved and demand the cooperation of internet providers to do so. If you are talking about a substantial theft then forensic accounting can be used to trace the funds but unlike actual cash the bitcoin global audit trail is visible to authorities without requiring any warrants or foreign cooperation and not all bitcoin addresses are anonymous. Many are publicaly known.
Is all this going to happen for your couple thousand in bitcoin? Probably not but then again there isn't likely to be any actual manhours dedicated to your lost wallet with $2000 in it either. For that matter nobody is going to expend effort investigating $2000 stolen from your bank account or $2000 worth of credit card fraud.
Bitcoin is like gold. It has a value independent of fiat currency. If the US dollar collapses tomorrow my bitcoin still has worth. Like gold it is relatively trivial to 'wash' the take if its stolen so it is upon me to protect it. Like gold the value relative to fiat currency is not guaranteed. Like gold bitcoin is an option for storing wealth used for transactions that are none of anyone's business. Like gold, your an idiot if you put all your wealth in bitcoin. At the end of the day you have to physically and digitally secure your bitcoin but only physically secure your gold. Even if you print your keys and lock them in a safe deposit box you risk the network somehow being hacked. So gold is superior in this sense. But gold has practical limitations to its use for small transactions. A tiny amount of gold is worth too much to be practical for paying me back for lunch. Bitcoin is infinitely divisible. It really doesn't matter if my normal transaction unit is 1 BTC .1 BTC or .01 BTC because these are just numbers on a screen and I need no scale to accurately divide bitcoin in this way. Bitcoin also allows me to make what amounts to a cash transaction with someone across the world where this is difficult with cash or gold.
Bitcoin can also be easily converted into local currency when traveling internationally alleviating the need to carry large sums of precious metals or cash that could be stolen by customs or pick pockets.
"Mmm, but isn't part of the point of bitcoin it gets harder to break the more people use it?"
That assumes that the underlying algorithms and the mathematical assumptions they rely upon remain sound. It also depends upon the type of computing power required to brute force the key growing at a similar or lesser rate than the computing power used to encrypt the network. Specialized hardware targeted at breaking the encryption could tip these scales.
"Either case results in a bitcoin that cannot be spent, so it is effectively destroyed."
Inaccessible is not destroyed. Lost treasures are recovered all the time. You'd need an insurance policy that covers loss, not merely destruction to cover this.
Losing access to the coin does not destroy it. The coin still exists its just not any good to you. Good luck finding an insurance policy that would pay if you deleted the wallet.dat.
If you deleted the wallet.dat of a client business liability insurance might cover it. If you had a natural disaster you might get homeowners to cover it. But if you delete your own wallet.dat? Nothing is going to cover that.
And even if it did, you'd still only get replacement Bitcoin.
True enough. The insurance that applies in this case would be normal business liability insurance which does have a cap. They aren't just going to hand out the cap every time though. They will replace the Bitcoin or offer replacement value on the settlement date. Actually something like Bitcoin with public exchanges and extreme liquidity is probably about as easy as it gets for valuation. Even replacing a safe full of cash is more difficult because you have to value the safe!
Jokes aside think about it. Nobody carries cash these days and nobody delivers lunch. Somebody has to pick it up and everyone who uses a card has to be present to sign their slip even if cashiers are competent enough to split a check among cards. We tried Paypal but the fees are annoying especially when co-workers are picky about the cents. Some of us got "square" so we could take a card right on our phones. After the cool factor wore off the fees were just as annoying as paypal.
Finally it settles to Bitcoin. No transaction fees required. We don't even wait for all the confirmations so instant transactions. If a co-worker wants to hack fake bitcoin to screw you on a lunch transaction then more power to him... it'll work once with a maximum take of maybe ten bucks.
The prostitute who takes bitcoins also probably takes IT work in trade... how else did she get set up for bitcoins and the dark web?
I can, there is a little cafe down the street that takes Bitcoin. In our office Bitcoin is also the typical method of settling a shared check for lunches. You can also conduct all manner of black market trade with Bitcoin. Drugs, guns, prostitutes, all on the table. Or you can just turn it into your local currency to conduct business.
Bitcoin has plenty of uses. It doesn't have to be used as a drop in replacement for us dollars.
Speak for yourself. I conduct trade in Bitcoin on a regular basis.