Bitcoin is many things to many people. its also not alot of the things they want it to be. objectively, its a cryptographicly secured unit of exchange that is part of a network that ensures only a finte number will be created. it has no value other than that which people who hold them deem it to have. but then that applies to alot of things.
another thing it is, very confused. it wants to be a currency and a store of wealth, which are mutually exclusive for all practical intents. people say its great when companies accept it, that gives it more legitimacy as currency, and more value. then they talk of it being worth $5k, $10k in the future. trouble is, that makes it pretty difficult to spend, if you believe its will be worth 10x as much in 6mth, a year even 5-10years. so some irony everytime a good news story comes out about whoâs accepting it, it makes it less a currency and more a store. where does that end⌠any rational analysis would tell you. im on the bus, but i aint sitting down.
and @Mikass, using âFIATâ⌠its not an acronym but a perfectly good word with out capitals. I think itâd be far more interesting if they built out their own cryptocoin, after all theres a computer at the end of every avatar and it might allow it to actually create a real economy.
Doing that would certainly be very interesting but for it to work theyâd have to use it in parallel with the current system so weâd end up with two in-game currencies. They canât just convert the USD pegged PED to some cryptocoin without upsetting people.
Thatâs not the kind of risk I was talking about. I agree if MA just accepted payment in BitCoins and immediately converted to USD or whatever, they wouldnât have any risk of this kind.
But fact is some governments are afraid of BitCoins. Would they go as far as banning Entropia and other businesses embracing this ârogueâ currency?
Well, thatâs the whole point. Thereâs no government able to stop it, since itâs not issued by a government.
Sounds like a natural match for Entropia
In any case, no matter how speculative Bitcoins may look, compared to PEDs and Entropian âeconomyâ as a whole itâs as solid as Fort Knox.
Oh, a serious problem Iâm afraid: It seems from MA posts, that they are under regulation for investigating withdraws, to ensure Entropia isnât used for money laundry.
Whoever imposes this regulation (swedish state? US tax office? FBI? DRs licenskontor?) might have a serious problem if BitCoins could be converted to USD through Entropia.
Then again. Maybe it wouldnât be a big problem.
I like the idea. But I doubt itâll happen. :dunno:
Bitcoin received the status of foreign currency in Switzerland and it has also been accepted in Germany as âunit of accountâ. Biggest university in Cyprus announced theyâve accepted Bitcoin payments recently and the Cypriot government is very Bitcoin friendly and they want to turn Cyprus into a center for Bitcoin business. It seems to be pretty well received in Europe overall.
Bit of a different story in China but donât think that matters much.
:eureka: Ting ! Mikass so where is this bitcoin factory? and who owns it? Iâll just go and buyout the factory and control the future currency of the world :smash:
Itâs not only China so mixed receives I think. We had a lot of warnings about BitCoins here in Denmark but no decisions yet. Theyâre still considering what to do.
But true generally better in Europe than Asia so far. But the jury is still voting.
Pretty sure some of the âworld control freak governmentsâ are afraid of it. (China⌠Maybe US too eventually, when NSA finds out they canât control it)
Ben Bernanke told Congress that virtual currencies â"may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system.â
âBitcoin represents something fundamental and powerfulâ
Fred Wilson
Co-Founder and Managing Partner Union Square Venture
Early backer of Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarer and Foursquare
âWeâre bullish on bitcoin and on crypto-currency in general, but bitcoin specifically.â
Ben Horowitz
Co-Founder and General Partner Andreessen Horowitz
Early backer of Facebook, Twitter, Skype and Pinterest
âI think [bitcoin] is a techno tour de force.â
I was being facetious, but if you must take things so seriously you should at least try to avoid syllogism.
By the way, only one of the people you quoted is an economist, and his quote starts with the word âmayâ.
If you want my genuine reaction to your OP, the key part of it is the suggested use of BitPay (or similar). Doing so renders the whole thing essentially meaningless, since all anyone would be doing is selling Bitcoins to BitPay in exchange for dollars, and then using those dollars to deposit. Itâs just a third party currency exchange, not a genuinely new payment system.
Accepting Bitcoins directly would of course be impossible (or at the very least, suicidal on MAâs part) due to the fixed dollar/PED exchange rate, as Iâm sure youâre aware.
Actually what the other guys said is more valuable than the opinion of Ben Bernanke, because they are people (most of them financial guys) who actually ran businesses in the private sector who understand finance and the economy way better.
Render it meaningless? Well I guess Wordpress, Zynga, Overstock and many others that accepted payments via Bitpay, Coinbase and other Bitcoin payment processors must be a bunch of short sighted fools. You canât be serious.
the point is that they are merely using bitcoin as a payment transfer mechanism. yes, its a positive move that bitcoins can be spent somewhere, but the nature of the transaction is to immediatly exchange to $ for the company to recieve. its no different to âacceptingâ Visa, Paypal, Ukash or others to recieve money from other currencies. many in the bitcoin community arenât seeing this.
We are in the state weâre in because of interventionist policies of central banks that create boom and bust cycles but thatâs totally off-topic discussion.
There are many advantages to using a payment processor like Bitpay or Coinbase. You get access to a very cool payment network and to a set of customers who have Bitcoin savings, the number of which continuous to grow exponentially. As I was saying earlier the Bitcoin is expected to reach a market cap of $100 billion in 2014.
There are way lower fees for using Bitcoin via these payment processors than using Visa or Mastercard. Entropia players could actually get more PEDs for their deposits as fees are extremely low when using Bitcoin when compared to the high fees Mastercard/Visa charge.
Mindark would be safe of charge backs, which are a risk for them when using Visa/Mastercard, Paypal and other payment systems.
Last but not least, thereâs very good potential for some free marketing and to recruit lots new players as a result. The Bitcoin community is very passionate community and supports those that adopt Bitcoin as payment and very often try out their product.
After the University of Nicossia in Cyprus accepted Bitcoin payments it was featured in papers and on-line magazines all over the world, they were invited to many talk shows and so on. Being the first university to accept Bitcoin generated massive free publicity for them. Check out these links and see for yourself: http://www.unic.ac.cy/digitalcurrencyhttp://dcbhm58xdznta.cloudfront.net/files/20131210-unic_digital_currency_initiative-final.pdf
