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Raw cryptocurrency is definitely not for the layman. Really it's for the financial processors. Personally I view the benefit of Bitcoin and its ilk to be the e

by bdamm 9y ago

Raw cryptocurrency is definitely not for the layman. Really it's for the financial processors. Personally I view the benefit of Bitcoin and its ilk to be the efficiency, transferability and accountability that comes with the blockchain. Those willing to invest time and energy can also carry raw bitcoins in their safe if they so choose, but this is a far way away from being accessible to the layman. Think HTML. How many laypeople know HTML? Yet they get the benefit of the web thanks to all of the developers that have built services using it. Those services wouldn't be available without it.

CGamesPlay 9y ago
Can you give an example? I'm having a lot of trouble following your comparison to HTML. HTML is a material which composes documents, and I don't have to understand the material to understand the value of the resulting document. What will bitcoin build that will be useful to me without needing to own bitcoin directly?
- bdamm 9y ago
  Making intra-bank transactions more efficient is one; the floor of money transfers will be both cheaper and faster. Wire transfers are expensive and can be very slow (sometimes more than a day) for example. Bitcoin being a real transaction mechanism between institutions that is cheaper than wires and faster than wires (works on Sunday!) puts pressure on the banks to either compete or adapt. Another example is enablement of micro-payments (perhaps on side-chains) where conventional money transfers don't scale well - someone, not your (artists) preferred broker, is holding your money until it aggregates up to a transferrable sum. Now there's pressure to make that sum smaller and the transfer frequency greater. And, although not everyone needs this, for those of us that have been in the situation of doing international money transfers, they are a huge pain, unreasonably expensive, and slow too. Bitcoin puts pressure on all this, and I believe we're already seeing companies pop up that offer transfers in your preferred currency but are using Bitcoin behind the scenes to settle the transfers.

by bdamm 9y ago

CGamesPlay 9y ago

Can you give an example? I'm having a lot of trouble following your comparison to HTML. HTML is a material which composes documents, and I don't have to understand the material to understand the value of the resulting document. What will bitcoin build that will be useful to me without needing to own bitcoin directly?

bdamm 9y ago
Making intra-bank transactions more efficient is one; the floor of money transfers will be both cheaper and faster. Wire transfers are expensive and can be very slow (sometimes more than a day) for example. Bitcoin being a real transaction mechanism between institutions that is cheaper than wires and faster than wires (works on Sunday!) puts pressure on the banks to either compete or adapt. Another example is enablement of micro-payments (perhaps on side-chains) where conventional money transfers don't scale well - someone, not your (artists) preferred broker, is holding your money until it aggregates up to a transferrable sum. Now there's pressure to make that sum smaller and the transfer frequency greater. And, although not everyone needs this, for those of us that have been in the situation of doing international money transfers, they are a huge pain, unreasonably expensive, and slow too. Bitcoin puts pressure on all this, and I believe we're already seeing companies pop up that offer transfers in your preferred currency but are using Bitcoin behind the scenes to settle the transfers.