How To Use Bitcoin – The Most Important Creation In The History Of Man

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Ferguson said:
Foodler accepts bitcoins, and they have a few pizza places near me: https://www.foodler.com/user/Bitcoin.do
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Interesting. Foodler is a pure intermediary; they produce no food themselves, instead partnering with restaurants and restaurant delivery services, handling only the ordering and payment. But they also function as an intermediary for the money, too -- you purchase foodlerbucks and then order _via those_ for food, thus insulating the restaurants from the negative side effects of Bitcoin. Intriguingly, they _only_ do this for Bitcoin; you pay cash on delivery as normal, and you can pass your credit card through them to the restaurant if you like.

This is also a brand new feature: from the page, "And as of April 2013, you are able to pay with Bitcoin! ... And there are never any exchange fees. Your BTC will be converted to USD per the Mt Gox exchange rate at the time the transaction is received."

We'll see how that works out for them, since it should be obvious to even a casual student of this particular game that they could easily get pillaged bigtime the next time BTC has a spike; deposit funds in Foodler to lock in your gains, then eat for effectively half price (or less!) when it reverts and leave Foodler holding the bag. It looks like they're a brand new business in a lot of ways; there are only 32 restaurants listed for the _entire_ metro Atlanta area, and zero of them within 10 miles of me. (The only two worth a crap are Rocco's and Landmark, too, but that's a different thing entirely.)

I'll be interested to come back and check on this after the next big volatility bounce in BTC, though it's possible that Foodler just doesn't have enough volume to attract BTC speculators in that manner (even without the Bitcoin, they have a pretty piss-poor selection; eating for half price is great but if you get half quality too... well...)
 
remirol said:
We'll see how that works out for them, since it should be obvious to even a casual student of this particular game that they could easily get pillaged bigtime the next time BTC has a spike; deposit funds in Foodler to lock in your gains, then eat for effectively half price (or less!) when it reverts and leave Foodler holding the bag.
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And if the average price of bitcoin increases 10-fold over 6 months they are still laughing.
 
remirol said:
Interesting. .....
We'll see how that works out for them, since it should be obvious to even a casual student of this particular game that they could easily get pillaged bigtime the next time BTC has a spike....
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LOL you may have overlooked something. Bitcoin was developed by an expert cryptographer and nurtured by a community of computer geek/hacker/math experts. These kinds of guys have figured that market volatility in their head down to a couple of percentage points and do it before a sip of coffee every morning.

Like, just for fun.

ROFL....

HINT - HINT - DON'T play poker with them...
 
mhaze said:
Makes no difference to me if you are interested in something or not interested in something or anything at all. There were a lot of people like that in Europe, very rational people. Then came Cyprus....
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You don't like to respond to the substantive part of others' posts, do you? Of course my personal throw away at the end of the post makes no difference to you. Why would I expect it to? You still haven't responded to the fact that I've quoted your own source back to you, proving you wrong.

Of course, it makes no difference to me if you are right or wrong about something or anything at all... There are a lot of bright people involved in bitcoin. It's still not a currency.
 
Belz... said:
I thought we had agreed that it was more of a commodity ?
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We agree on something??? :faint:

More seriously, I did the maths and concluded that as long as the average price of bitcoin continues to rise, its volatility is not as serious an impediment to it being used as a currency as might be supposed (not for those who accept it as payment anyway).

Post #2055 explains the commodity/currency thing anyway. As usual, it's about semantics.
 
psionl0 said:
And if the average price of bitcoin increases 10-fold over 6 months they are still laughing.
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In other words, they've potentially bet their business on speculation. Good business plan, that :rolleyes: Again, we'll see how things play out for them. In their favor, "zero bitcoin transactions" also counts as a positive since you can advertise it without having to pay the price.

I don't expect to see them in the news as the Next Big Thing anytime soon, but for different reasons. Reading further into their site, I suspect the reason they're going into Bitcoin is because they simply don't have the customer volume required to get the decent restaurants/takeaway places to sign on board with them, and they need to get those places to get people like me, who won't eat from roacharaunts. The problem they face is competing with other existing delivery services and I don't see how their business model is sufficiently an improvement over those to warrant any sort of mass switch by consumers.

Also from the web: "We process thousands of orders daily," <-- Huge red flag for an organization that supposedly has 12,000+ affiliated restaurants. Assuming that's 9,999 orders per day and skewing it appropriately (lots to the popular restaurants, less to others), only a tiny fraction of Foodler's clients are seeing any business.
 
psionl0 said:
... because no true scotsman ...
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Of course, other people can redefine words for the purposes of producing stimulating (or as the case may be, incredibly dull...) conversations.

Eric Voorhes:

Bitcoin’s attributes enable it to operate freely and grow within an increasingly larger sphere of activity.

Inevitably, this means it will start displacing monies with inferior attributes.

Bitcoin will grow like a benevolent hydra, with heads sprouting up in every country and community. It will gobble up commerce that has, until now, been shackled to the economic witchcraft of a decrepit fiat financial system, and will leave an expansive, frictionless marketplace in its wake. It is up to all of you, to capture and grow that new marketplace.


Someday, in school, the curriculum will be different. The children will be taught the true nature of money. They’ll learn the difference between a real asset, like Bitcoin, which is based on merit, and virtual currency, like the US dollar, which based on coercion.​

Greshams Law, and the reverse Greshams Law, rule flows of money.
 
psionl0 said:
... because no true scotsman ...
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The trick to the no true scotsmen fallacy is that it asserts characteristics in addition to those that actually define a scottsman (ie. the dictionary entry for same). If you claim that what I've done exhibits that fallacy then you might as well chuck the dictionary and all attempt at actual communication in the garbage. But nice try.
 
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.html
Currency vs. Virtual Currency

FinCEN's regulations define currency (also referred to as "real" currency) as "the coin and paper money of the United States or of any other country that is designated as legal tender and that [ii] circulates and [iii] is customarily used and accepted as a medium of exchange in the country of issuance." In contrast to real currency, "virtual" currency is a medium of exchange that operates like a currency in some environments, but does not have all the attributes of real currency. In particular, virtual currency does not have legal tender status in any jurisdiction. This guidance addresses "convertible" virtual currency. This type of virtual currency either has an equivalent value in real currency, or acts as a substitute for real currency.
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So if you are arguing that bitcoin is not a "real" currency then we are in agreement.

If you are arguing that bitcoin is not a currency at all then maybe you should write to FinCEN and point out the error of their ways.
 
psionl0 said:
http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/guidance/html/FIN-2013-G001.htmlSo if you are arguing that bitcoin is not a "real" currency then we are in agreement.

If you are arguing that bitcoin is not a currency at all then maybe you should write to FinCEN and point out the error of their ways.
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I am arguing that the term "real currency" as defined by FinCEN is identical to the term "currency" as defined by at least 4 different published dictionaries which I have consulted, as well as to the way that the term "currency" is used in common parlance.

I am also arguing that the term "virtual currency" as defined by FinCEN, does not coincide fully with any published definition of the term "currency" that I am aware of, nor with the way the term "currency" is used in common parlance.

I am still further arguing that this distinction is actually meaningful and not just semantic wordplay. That those features of "real currency" which are included within the common understanding of "currency" but are missing from Bitcoin and other "virtual currencies" are important to many people, including myself, and that this justifies my position.

I am yet still further arguing that bitcoin is perfectly well described as a "financial instrument", so there's no reason to hijack the common term "currency" which would leave me and many others forced to use FinCEN's "real currency" or some other term to mean what we've meant by "currency" all along.

I have no need to write to FinCEN. Given the scope of their mission, I am perfectly satisfied with their terminology as it stands.
 
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Prometheus said:
I am arguing that ...

I am also arguing that ....

I am still further arguing that ...

I am yet still further arguing that ....

....
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Hmmm...

But with whom are you arguing? You can't argue with someone like myself who has said that he does not think it relevant either what you believe or what I believe as the subject matter can be empirically described in it's own right.

You are somewhere in the position of a late 19th century guy who thought....

- something could not possibly be an engine if it didn't have steam as a motive force
- planes couldn't possibly fly if they didn't have propellers
- ships couldn't sail without sails.
- phone numbers could not be dialed without dials on the phones.
 
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mhaze said:
Hmmm...

But with whom are you arguing? You can't argue with someone like myself who has said that he does not think it relevant either what you believe or what I believe as the subject matter can be empirically described in it's own right.
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I don't really need to argue with you, mhaze. You agree with me; you just don't realize it yet. :p



mhaze said:
You are somewhere in the position of a late 19th century guy who thought....

- something could not possibly be an engine if it didn't have steam as a motive force
- planes couldn't possibly fly if they didn't have propellers
- ships couldn't sail without sails.
- phone numbers could not be dialed without dials on the phones.
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Not even close.

I am not arguing that bitcoin doesn't work, nor that it isn't useful. I'm not arguing that bitcoin can't ever be a currency, nor am I saying that it doesn't currently exhibit several features of a currency. But those missing features matter quite a bit to a lot of people, and thus warrant the use of separate terminology. The term "currency" has been in use for years and until "virtual currencies" came along it has always been used to describe instruments that have those features which bitcoin does not.

It's just that bitcoin is different enough from real currencies to make it worthwhile to use a different word to talk about it.

I completely agree with you that my own personal opinion about whether or not bitcoin is useful to me is completely irrelevant to everyone else.
 
Amazon coins will bury bitcoins !!

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/am...cy-buying-apps/story?id=19170199#.UZ6jy4IzKzw


"Today the e-commerce giant announced Amazon Coins, its own digital currency for Kindle Fire owners. You will be able to buy Coins on Amazon.com -- 500 Coins cost $5; 1,000 cost $10; and 10,000, $100 -- and then use them to buy apps and games. If you buy Coins in bulk, Amazon says, you will get a discount on them.
Buy why use Coins and not good old dollars?
Well, Amazon hopes that the Coins will make it easier for customers to buy apps. You buy a chunk of Coins, and you don't have to worry about handing over more cash to Amazon. Amazon also says the Coins never expire and there are no fees."
 
applecorped said:
Amazon coins will bury bitcoins !!.....Amazon hopes that the Coins will make it easier for customers to buy apps. You buy a chunk of Coins, and you don't have to worry about handing over more cash to Amazon. Amazon also says the Coins never expire and there are no fees."
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So hand your money over now and you won't have to worry about handing your money over? Why, that makes perfect sense(NOT).

All this stuff is being taken way, way too seriously. It's time to have some fun while you lose three fourths of the value in those old bank accounts earning zip, and while you cringe at gas pumps and shove miserable plastic cards at them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WiXMcsfvXE
 
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