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This means that if you call up Domino's and ask them "How much does a large pizza with extra cheese cost?", and they quote you a price in USD or JPY or not-a-to

by patio11 14y ago

This means that if you call up Domino's and ask them "How much does a large pizza with extra cheese cost?", and they quote you a price in USD or JPY or not-a-toy, you can reliably expect that quote to last long enough to pay for the pizza. (There is a related concern, as a pizza providing entrepreneur, that your currency should be stable enough that sales of Monday's pizzas can reliably purchase Tuesday's tomatoes without losing half their value overnight, but it actually does Bitcoin way too much credit to say that that is the main reason you can't reliably make a bitcoin-accepting pizzeria.)

drewblaisdell 14y ago
I don't understand why you think this is a point to be made. Yes, the ingredients/labor cost of a pizza from Domino's is USD-relative and the value of this new currency is volatile.
- wsdom221 14y ago
  I think the point is that it's not really a currency if nobody can print a menu with it as the denomination that is valid for even a month. MSFT or AAPL isn't a currency either. Sure, you can use it to buy money, but there's a reason no one even tries to accept it for a pizza. To be a currency, I do believe you should be able to print it on price tags that change no more often than weekly!
jerguismi 14y ago
> not-a-toy I'm kind of disappointed with your attitude towards bitcoin since I otherwise highly respect your writings and opinions. A software entrepreneur should see the things that bitcoin can potentially enable. Just that it is now just used by black markets and some tech freaks, doesn't mean that this will be the case forever.
- taligent 14y ago
  > software entrepreneur The good ones also understand business. And Bitcoin as a brand is strongly associated with illegal activities.
  - viraptor 14y ago
    I never got this argument. Currently the money you pay with in the shop is the only one associated with funding wars, gangs, human trafficking, etc.
    - mootothemax 14y ago
      I never got this argument. Currently the money you pay with in the shop is the only one associated with funding wars, gangs, human trafficking, etc. One thing that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth is that Bitcoin encourages people to use services that would otherwise be referred to as money launderers, all in order to try and guarantee their anonymity.
      - yebyen 14y ago
        Please elaborate on what you're saying. I don't see that Bitcoin encourages anybody to do anything -- Bitcoin just is. It's not clear to me what services would otherwise be referred to as money launderers, or how they are promoting anonymity. Paypal? Mt.Gox? Is it money laundering when you buy Dominos gift cards, or phone cards? Pre-paid mobile phones that you can recharge using cash at any gas station? Web hosting from GoDaddy?
        mootothemax 14y ago
        Please elaborate on what you're saying. I don't see that Bitcoin encourages anybody to do anything -- Bitcoin just is. I could have phrased that better. By "bitcoin encourages," I meant some of the community, e.g.: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity It's not clear to me what services would otherwise be referred to as money launderers "Mixing" services. Is it money laundering when you buy Dominos gift cards, or phone cards? If the purpose behind doing so is to launder money, then yes, absolutely - why wouldn't it be?
        yebyen 14y ago
        What is a "mixing" service? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service I had never heard this term before. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity The link you passed seems to start with the misconception that Bitcoin is actually anonymous -- that users of Bitcoin might come because they think it makes them more anonymous. I was also interested to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring Did you know it's called "smurfing" when you read and understand the law, and make your deposits in such a way that they will fly under the radar? Money laundering just seems like such a nebulous crime to me. Maybe it's because I've never imagined having enough money to bring the scrutiny of federal agencies down on me. I'm still paying so much interest every year in federal student loans, at the end of the year they actually pay me just to have a job and keep it.
dlss 14y ago
FYI this is a concern that companies using USD also face. (For example Apple will quote a USD price for a laptop that they will build using Yuan... even though the exchange rate between USD and Yuan is always changing). In fact, your USD pizza parlor example is actually more complicated than you make it sound -- tomato prices, wheat prices, etc all fluctuate based on supply and demand. I think this is a place where web entrepreneurs get confused because their high margins and large suppliers do such a good job isolating them from the problem: if web profit margins were 10% over the cost of hardware, and if you were running your own servers, you'd be exposed to the fluctuation of energy and bandwidth prices... you'd have the same problem predicting how much it would cost to serve a web request. (I imagine Google actually faces problems like these because of their scale). So it's not like these problems don't happen when you use USD... it's that your margins are so high, and your providers are so good, that you've forgotten the problem existed in the first place. #firstworldproblems For those curious how these sorts of problems are handled by non-web companies, the answer is derivatives. Apple will hedge their USD -> Yuan conversions as necessary with currency options, Dominos uses wheat futures, the farmers supplying wheat to dominos are using oil futures, and the oil company will have currency hedges for the 50+ countries they operate in. By buying and selling risk, companies are able to give you the feeling that prices are stable. Even though prices aren't stable. If you'd like to do something like this for your bitcoin site, you should check out https://icbit.se https://icbit.se (a bitcoin derivatives exchange)

by patio11 14y ago

drewblaisdell 14y ago

I don't understand why you think this is a point to be made. Yes, the ingredients/labor cost of a pizza from Domino's is USD-relative and the value of this new currency is volatile.

wsdom221 14y ago
I think the point is that it's not really a currency if nobody can print a menu with it as the denomination that is valid for even a month. MSFT or AAPL isn't a currency either. Sure, you can use it to buy money, but there's a reason no one even tries to accept it for a pizza. To be a currency, I do believe you should be able to print it on price tags that change no more often than weekly!

jerguismi 14y ago

> not-a-toy I'm kind of disappointed with your attitude towards bitcoin since I otherwise highly respect your writings and opinions. A software entrepreneur should see the things that bitcoin can potentially enable. Just that it is now just used by black markets and some tech freaks, doesn't mean that this will be the case forever.

taligent 14y ago
> software entrepreneur The good ones also understand business. And Bitcoin as a brand is strongly associated with illegal activities.
- viraptor 14y ago
  I never got this argument. Currently the money you pay with in the shop is the only one associated with funding wars, gangs, human trafficking, etc.
  - mootothemax 14y ago
    I never got this argument. Currently the money you pay with in the shop is the only one associated with funding wars, gangs, human trafficking, etc. One thing that leaves a nasty taste in my mouth is that Bitcoin encourages people to use services that would otherwise be referred to as money launderers, all in order to try and guarantee their anonymity.
    - yebyen 14y ago
      Please elaborate on what you're saying. I don't see that Bitcoin encourages anybody to do anything -- Bitcoin just is. It's not clear to me what services would otherwise be referred to as money launderers, or how they are promoting anonymity. Paypal? Mt.Gox? Is it money laundering when you buy Dominos gift cards, or phone cards? Pre-paid mobile phones that you can recharge using cash at any gas station? Web hosting from GoDaddy?
      - mootothemax 14y ago
        Please elaborate on what you're saying. I don't see that Bitcoin encourages anybody to do anything -- Bitcoin just is. I could have phrased that better. By "bitcoin encourages," I meant some of the community, e.g.: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity It's not clear to me what services would otherwise be referred to as money launderers "Mixing" services. Is it money laundering when you buy Dominos gift cards, or phone cards? If the purpose behind doing so is to launder money, then yes, absolutely - why wouldn't it be?
        yebyen 14y ago
        What is a "mixing" service? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mixing_service I had never heard this term before. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Anonymity The link you passed seems to start with the misconception that Bitcoin is actually anonymous -- that users of Bitcoin might come because they think it makes them more anonymous. I was also interested to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuring Did you know it's called "smurfing" when you read and understand the law, and make your deposits in such a way that they will fly under the radar? Money laundering just seems like such a nebulous crime to me. Maybe it's because I've never imagined having enough money to bring the scrutiny of federal agencies down on me. I'm still paying so much interest every year in federal student loans, at the end of the year they actually pay me just to have a job and keep it.

dlss 14y ago

FYI this is a concern that companies using USD also face. (For example Apple will quote a USD price for a laptop that they will build using Yuan... even though the exchange rate between USD and Yuan is always changing). In fact, your USD pizza parlor example is actually more complicated than you make it sound -- tomato prices, wheat prices, etc all fluctuate based on supply and demand. I think this is a place where web entrepreneurs get confused because their high margins and large suppliers do such a good job isolating them from the problem: if web profit margins were 10% over the cost of hardware, and if you were running your own servers, you'd be exposed to the fluctuation of energy and bandwidth prices... you'd have the same problem predicting how much it would cost to serve a web request. (I imagine Google actually faces problems like these because of their scale). So it's not like these problems don't happen when you use USD... it's that your margins are so high, and your providers are so good, that you've forgotten the problem existed in the first place. #firstworldproblems For those curious how these sorts of problems are handled by non-web companies, the answer is derivatives. Apple will hedge their USD -> Yuan conversions as necessary with currency options, Dominos uses wheat futures, the farmers supplying wheat to dominos are using oil futures, and the oil company will have currency hedges for the 50+ countries they operate in. By buying and selling risk, companies are able to give you the feeling that prices are stable. Even though prices aren't stable. If you'd like to do something like this for your bitcoin site, you should check out https://icbit.se https://icbit.se (a bitcoin derivatives exchange)