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6-8 Weeks Until Bitcoin Debit/Credit Card, says BitInstant
- paulhauggis 14y agoIt's interesting how Bitcoin is now becoming exactly what Bitcoin was always against: a centralized bank. A bad and unreliable one at that. It kind of shows you the evolution of our banking systems and why we need one.
- enmaku 14y agoEven if I concede the point that Bitcoin is becoming a centralized bank - which I don't - how exactly is it "bad and unreliable"? At least this bank is run algorithmically by the crowd/cloud and can't rape pillage or otherwise screw you out of your money on the whim of a handful of rich white men... Perhaps I'm showing my politics too clearly here, but I do honestly believe that math is a better tool for deciding what happens to my money than the board of directors at Goldman-Sachs.
- anologwintermut 14y agoI may or may not subscribe to your politics, but you are sorely mistaken if you think bitcoin stops most of the problems with the worlds financial system( unless you consider how Central Banks handle the money supply such a problem). Using BTC instead of USD or GBP changes nothing for Goldman-Sachs or Barclays but the denomination used to value the financial instruments they manipulate ( oh and maybe who's tax laws they have to evade). Even if we are talking about comercial banking as apposed to investment banking, little changes.Bitcoin is just a protocol. However, as more people interact with it via exchanges that may hold their private keys(think mtgox,bitconica, etc), we start to see things that look a lot like comercial banks: organizations run by people entrusted with the currency you store with them. The owners of these "banks",whether we white guys tanned by trips to the cayman islands and the vineyard or monitor-tanned cipher-punks of some more cuddly ethnicity/gender, can and eventually will abuse that privilege. The will abscond with peoples money, commit fraud, issue bad lonas and do any number of other things with it. Moreover, in the case of bitcoin exchanges,there is very little regulation and no legal recourse in the event of theft or default(since all transactions are final and there is no FDIC for bitcoin).
- hammersend 14y agoYou had me up until the "very little regulation and no legal recourse" part at the end. Theft is theft and believe me, there are regulations against that.
- anologwintermut 14y agoThere is regulation against theft( though does any legal authority investigate bitcoin thefts?) . I meant regulations dealing what bitcoin exchanges can do with your money or what steps they have to take to protect it. For example, although I don't think any bitcoin exchanges loan out money yet, if they did, there is no amount they are required to keep as a minimum balance to cover withdrawals (unless the government legally deems them a bank, in which case my entire post is irrelevant)
- doasyouplease 14y ago... You use the exchange for exactly that, exchanging bitcoins, not holding them. Yes an exchange may possess your coins right after you convert your dollars to BTC, but you can just put them in your own account to be held for free.... That wouldn't give the exchange much time to do anything with your money.
- hammersend 14y agoI would imagine that even if for some strange reason the Secret Service (who likely would investigate something like this) didn't pick up your claim you would still have grounds for a civil suit. Just insert sympathetic jury!
- quotemstr 14y agoBitcoin has deflation baked into the system. Deflation is _terrible_ for the economy because it encourages people to hide cash under mattresses instead of spending it on useful projects. (Or in more abstract terms, deflation raises the minimum viable rate of return on investment.) We've learned this lesson well. All the really terrible depressions --- the 1870s, the 1930s --- featured crippling deflation that kicked the economy while it was already down. When Williams Jennings Bryan seared "you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold", he was talking about how using gold for money kept inflation too low and hurt ordinary people in the economy. (Bryan's "free silver" movement would have been inflationary and beneficial.) One important thing stopping the current depression from being as catastrophic as the great depression is the policy of the Federal Reserve (which is hugely influenced by Goldman Sachs) of printing money and keeping interest rates at 0%. If they didn't do that, we'd be far worse off right now. So yes, as far as regulating the money supply goes, I'd trust the directors of Goldman Sachs over some algorithm any day, especially when that algorithm seems to have been designed by people with a very dogmatic theory of value, a theory that history demonstrates is incompatible with happiness.
- mkup 14y agoThis is what one school of thought says. Another school of thought says that people still buy deflating computers, mobile phones and other electronics, and Intel would have gone bankrupt long time ago if "mattress theory of deflation" is valid. Another school of thought also says that inflation is a second form (after the taxes) of government oppression over the citizens; and that truely free currency should avoid both forms of government oppression: inflation and taxation.
- gph1 14y agoHe's talking about economy wide price level deflation, not some particular group of products. Inflation is a necessary element of capitalism, since productivity growth would have a deflationary outcome if prices staid flat.
- sgornick 14y agoIf silver was a nice addition to a gold based money system, how isn't Bitcoin a nice addition to the existing monetary system just as well? It isn't an either/or scenario. Parallel currencies for the win!
- drivebyacct2 14y agoWhat? How can a currency become a bank? You have a very strange definition of the word bank. I don't even know what you're trying to say. Downvoting, really? That's like me saying "USD is becoming a bank! And that's awful!".
- swalsh 14y agoI think he's referring to the centralization rising up around the currency, not necessarily the currency itself.
- pkulak 14y agoKind of how Gmail has turned email into a centralized communications system? The existence of a bank based on Bitcoin doesn't remove your ability to store your wallet on a flash drive any more than Gmail removes your ability to run your own mail server.
- femto 14y agoKeep in mind that every transaction, whether it be email or bitcoin, has to involve two parties. If the centralised solution become widespread, it becomes difficult to avoid it because the chances are that the other party is centralised, even if you're not.
- weavejester 14y agoWhy is that a problem? Just because someone has a debit card, doesn't mean the bank can suddenly trace how physical cash trades hands.
- discountgenius 14y agoThe limitations in the usability of Bitcoin are slowly being shored up by third-party opportunists. Just because Bitcoin is starting to be able to be used the way people use banks does not mean it is becoming a bank.
- ekianjo 14y agoUnreliable ? Where?
- rheide 14y agoThis seems like an excellent opportunity for authorities to physically track people who use their bitcoins for illegal purposes.
- enmaku 14y agoOnly if they're stupid enough to fund cards tied to their real identities with coins from a shady past. Bitcoin is as anonymous as you make it, put in the effort and you'll be ok - don't put in the effort and expect sirens.
- sgornick 14y agoSince this is just one of the many options available for spending bitcoins or cashing out, the criminals are probably not planning on using these.
- grakic 14y agoIt would be more fun to have card balance in BTC. I do not know how fast will it be to load the card with new BTC.
- enmaku 14y agoCard balance can be kept in BTC, according to the IRC logs at least. It's an international card so it can apparently hold balances in multiple currencies at once. Also, according to the logs, BTC transactions < $1,000 USD will be accepted on the first confirmation, so about 10 minutes to load the card.
- grakic 14y agoCan you quote user bitinstant from the IRC log on this. I see only the following: > <bitinstant> JimN, the card is denominated in USD, EUR, GBP so far
- enmaku 14y ago<ThomasV_> bitinstant: is there an option to keep the deposit as BTC until the card is used to make a payment or withdrawal? <bitinstant> ThomasV, yes Then later... <sharpfocus> so the card can have fiat and btc on it concurrently presumably <bitinstant> sharpfocus, yes precisly Extra lines redacted to reduce noise :)
- brianwillis 14y ago>6-8 Weeks After Stack Overflow, we should really start referring to this as an "Atwood period".
- enmaku 14y agoLMAO I thought the exact same thing, actually...
- kolinko 14y agoCan you explain?:)
- brianwillis 14y agoWhen asked how long version 1.0 of Stack Overflow would take to produce, Jeff Atwood famously replied "six to eight weeks" without any sort of serious planning or consideration. It took quite a bit longer. Listeners of the Stack Exchange podcast got to hear Joel Spolsky make fun of Jeff for this many times.
- enmaku 14y agoAnd since then, nearly every major upgrade, feature request, etc. has been scheduled as "6 to 8 weeks" or occasionally some variant like "6 to 8 months"
- vijayboyapati 14y agoThis will be a huge factor in increasing demand for bitcoin if it comes through. The biggest problem with bitcoin now is that it's not widely accepted for payment (i.e., it's not yet a medium of exchange). A debit/credit card is a big step in allowing people the ability to exchange their bitcoins for real goods. What will be really exciting is the day when you can actually see goods priced in bitcoin. E.g., that cupcake is going to cost you 0.1 bitcoins.
- taligent 14y agoReally you think THAT is the biggest problem with Bitcoin. Not the fact that its value fluctuates so wildly ?
- jerguismi 14y ago> Not the fact that its value fluctuates so wildly ? This does not worry me at all, since the value has been mostly fluctuating upwards. The positive risk outweights the negative. With this card, people can invest in to bitcoin small amount each month, and they still can use their bitcoin reserves when they need.
- jmgao 14y agoBUY BUY BUY [1] SELL SELL SELL [2] BUY BUY BUY [3] [1] http://i.imgur.com/ICznv.jpg http://i.imgur.com/ICznv.jpg [2] http://i.imgur.com/YeS9o.jpg http://i.imgur.com/YeS9o.jpg [3] http://i.imgur.com/IXsjv.png http://i.imgur.com/IXsjv.png
- dohko 14y agoYou understand how currencies work, right? On one end of the trade there is a person that buys and the other a person that sells. Even if what you said were true (That bitcoin has mainly being flunctating upwards), then the people selling things in bitcoins are actually losing on the trade. What do you think the result of that is going to be? Goods sold in bitcoins are going to be really unstable and sellers are going to be disincetived in selling them (or they'll just charge a premium for them - making them more expensive than if you paid for them in dollars). The point is, that a currency flunctating a lot, even if mainly upwards, is not a really good thing. From a speculator perspective, volatility is a great thing, but not for everyone else.
- paulsutter 14y agoI hope it's for real. I was just looking for a backup debit card for international travel. This would give me a low-risk but high-utility reason to finally try bitcoin. And avoid opening another damn bank account
- enmaku 14y agoThese are exactly the kind of thoughts I like to see people having about Bitcoin.
- maayank 14y agoBut isn't international credit/debit cards (even such with "limited charge") a solved problem? Except when under 18, all my credit cards were always international.
- viraptor 14y agoDepends on the charges. If you're ok with around 1£ added to every transaction while you're abroad, then yes, it's a solved problem. But if you're travelling a lot and don't want to exchange the paper money and always be stuck with some change you'll probably never use again... it could be better.
- josteink 14y agoIf you're ok with around 1£ added to every transaction while you're abroad, then yes, it's a solved problem. How about £0? That's a solved problem too. In the parts of the world with a working, modernized banking system and proper competition. I could chose to be part of those who got charged £1. I chose not to, and so did so many others, that where I live, finding a bank which charges you money at all to withdraw anywhere in the world is the exception, not the rule. There may be merits to bitcoin (although I do admit I have very little knowledge, insight or understanding of the system), but you don't need it to have working banking institutions and free trade. That I do know.
- zokier 14y ago> You own the address on the card, though BitInstant has not yet determined the best way to hand over your private keys, or whether they should even offer such an option Sounds like trouble.
- shell0x 14y agoAnyone of you got more bitcoins then me?(0) ;) I tried to get a single bitcoin for multiple times, but it never worked out ;) I guess my hardware is too bad.
- Tichy 14y agoYour hardware is too bad if you don't have a dedicated miner with specialized hardware.
- tuananh 14y agohmm so who own the best hardware win the game? what if Google decided to join!?
- Tichy 14y agoA company like Google could probably hijack the bitcoin network. However, no matter how much hardware you throw at it, you will never make more than 300 BTC per hour. So it would be unlikely to be economically feasible to throw a giant server farm behind calculating bitcoins. Perhaps it would become a sensible concern if a country would adopt BTC as their currency and another country would decide to attack that country by destroying their currency.
- Tichy 14y agoI think I might be inorrect: if somebody hijacks the bitcoin network, perhaps they could make more money by changing transactions of the past. Not really sure, though. Anyway - that would only destroy the network, not really make them richer.
- icebraining 14y agoDue to the heavy competition, mining BTC on a standard machine is no longer worth it. Unless you have access to "free" electricity, you're better off buying one.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- malandrew 14y agoThey should change the name to Bitstant. It's two syllables and rolls off the tongue more smoothly.
- kami8845 14y agoThe sound of BitStant reminds me of "stunt" like a trick, or stunted like stunted growth. Either way not words i'd like associated with my brand were I a credit card company.
- joering2 14y agoHow does "chase" sound to you? In my country we have a bank that is called "roberry". Very popular. Look it up its called "skok" bank szewczyka.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoAlso, BitInstant, for its length, is more memorable and makes sense.
- batgaijin 14y agoIf MasterCard actually lets this happen I'll eat my hat.
- diminoten 14y agoI'm still so afraid the market will crash again, it still makes me hesitant to take bitcoin seriously.