> I think this is actually the most interesting point. The truth is that, no, you don't actually need to use bitcoin right now. And that's different than not needing to use the internet in 1993. Right now, there are plenty of substitute goods - more stable, more accessible currency that is used by more people. In 1993 there weren't that many substitute products for the internet.

There is always a risk with drawing parallels, but the Internet-Bitcoin one isn't entirely silly.

Tell me, right now, what's the easiest way for me to safely send you 5 Euro? I think that would be putting cash in an envelope with enough stamps on it to reach your house? And how would I know you really live there? And how can we both assert that the transaction happened? Perhaps if you happen to live in Europe (as I am) we could do a bank transfer. But what if you're in the USA, or in Africa?

That's something that today can only be done with Bitcoin. Sure it's no panacea (bitcoin), but neither was editing a mail in VI and ELM.

Question is: is there a need for this? I believe so, given that there even supposedly is a need for something like SnapShat.

>That's because with POS systems, you're not waiting for 6 confirmations. It's just assumed that you won't try to double spend your coins, and that no forks or orphans in the block chain happen. This is not 100% reliable - if you wanted a guaranteed, irreversable transaction immediately, well, you're out of luck. Permanent or immediate: pick one.

Actually, in absence of double spends, forks or orphans are innocent: valid transactions (w.r.t a chain) that are not part of a block will be picked up eventually by the main chain. So there's only an (expensive/complicated) double spend risk, and not a (more common) orphan block risk.

If the electricity collapses, the light goes out. Stay away from LEDs.

For bitcoin it's easy to argue that it's useful for almost zero-cost transactions, world wide, with relatively short confirmation times. Other applications are being invented: cryptographic proof-of-existence (on top of the block chain) or perhaps also distributed/anonymous DNS.

You really need to see it as a powerful idea, not just a speculative asset

Yes you can. You do not necessarily need a confirmation if you are willing to take a small risk (and a vendor accepts risks much bigger than that if he's in business).

Considering the extent to which cigarette vendors around here keep their merchandise locked up, I don't think they're willing to take on a lot of "I hope these bitcoins are legit" risk.

Merchant software can listen to the network for 10 seconds. If no contradicting transactions have been broadcasted, the probability of the bitcoins not being legit is EXTREMELY small. You only need confirmations for large transactions. Zero-conf are completely safe for the large majority of transctions.

Bitcoin-type technology has tons of potential, my friend.

Or I can use actual money and forget all this nonsense ... Which do I choose?

What about credit cards? Chargebacks are quite common.

Credit cards are not a feature of a currency. You could just have credit cards that keep debt in BTC instead of USD.

The point of the person you're replying to is that, for 99.999999% of businesses, there is no benefit to using BTC. It doesn't offer the buyer any protection, it's extremely volatile, and it would require an overhaul of the entire economy's infrastructure to implement in any meaningful way.

Sounds like nonsense to me: if you buy 1 BTC from me, then at the same time I've sold 1 BTC? That makes it by definition as equally hard (or easy) to buy as to sell?

No.

Try buying an iPhone 3g right now on Craigslist. I bet it takes you all of two minutes.

Then try selling it. I bet it takes quite a bit more time.

Asymmetry.

That would imply there are currently more people wanting to sell an IPhone 3G than people want to buy it. Certainly the price of IPhone 3G's isn't rising. And that makes sense.

Currently (and for the last years), the price of BTC has been rising implying that's actually easier to sell BTC than to buy? Moreover there are exchanges that are entirely symmetric (when opening accounts you do not need to qualify as a buyer or seller).

Asymmetry is a nice word but I don't see what's asymmetric here?

I'm not familiar enough with Bitcoin to engage in dialogue about its market dynamics specifically. I only wanted to point out that the mere fact that all sales involve both a buyer and a seller doesn't make it "by definition as equally hard (or easy) to buy as to sell".

Depends on who is in the middle of that transaction and how long that one takes to fullfill that operation, in this case, exchanges.

Are you all really having trouble understanding how instability in currency makes it difficult to trade in a currency?

Also there is some basic lapse in logic here. Just because a WoW nerd can trace the currency on a technical level, does not mean it is "easy."