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We're in the early adoption phase so concerns like yours are understandable. However, give it some time and the infrastructure and services will be built to mak

We're in the early adoption phase so concerns like yours are understandable. However, give it some time and the infrastructure and services will be built to make Bitcoin a true competitor to Chase. Just imagine back in the early days of the Internet when someone said, “I’ll shop at the brick and mortar store down the street any day of the week over an online store thank you very much.” It was a legitimate concern back then but we moved past it to the point that it sounds ridiculous today. Just wait :)

cinquemb 13y ago
I always wondered why people don't transfer to offline wallets as soon as the trade goes through since most people are holding anyways. On traditional banking, It also depends on where you live. I doubt people in Cyprus, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and a couple other places feel that safe with their life savings in banks post 2007. I know JPM recently put capital controls on transfers greater than 50k outgoing from the US (but accepting incoming), I wonder what that is all about.
- qnr 13y ago
  Much of Bitcoin criticism (the chicagofed paper included) is very western centric and fails to take into account how utterly dysfunctional most countries' money systems are. In most countries in the world local currencies are unstable and subject to the whim of politicans (would you keep your life savings in argentinian pesos? Neither would Argentinians!), there are no easy ways to accept online payments, there are no easy ways to transfer money to/from abroad etcetera. I would argue that adopting Bitcoin is an immediate quality of life improvement for a big portion of the world population, moreso when/if it value stabilizes.
- lectrick 13y ago
  On the offline wallet thing- For the record, BIP 0038 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0038 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0038 was released just a few days ago (although it was a working draft for a while). You can, right now, create a BIP38 encrypted paper wallet (finally!) over at bitaddress.org which means that someone with access to your paper wallet can't just sweep it unless they know the key, and the key uses scrypt so it's quite resistant to brute forcing. I recently moved most of my btc savings into this type of paper (or in my case, pdf) wallet and entrusted the key (broken into pieces of course) to trusted people. Much better peace of mind. I set the public addresses as "Watch Only" on blockchain.info/wallet so even if blockchain is hacked, nobody can get to those wallets, they are effectively airgapped, and I can monitor any activity on them from anywhere.
kybernetikos 13y ago
In order to achieve bank levels of trust you need to be confident of being able to enforce contracts against the organisation you're dealing with. This usually comes from them being vulnerable to an actor who you believe will wield force on your behalf if they break contract. This then means you're stuck trying to find an actor who 1. you trust to wield force on your behalf (i.e. they're not just some cutout established by your counterparty) 2. who you are sure has means to wield the force against the counterparty (perhaps they can prove that they know where the counterparty lives) Those are difficult criteria to fill, which is among the reasons why over a long period of time, we've invented governments we can put up with. I can imagine two other scenarios where you might be able to generate the level of trust you want: 1. If the counterparty can somehow prove that it's not in their short-term interest (because sometimes people run successful and profitable services for years and then abscond with the money suddenly) to just take all your money and run. 2. If you have insurance with an insurer that you are sure could pay you if everyone transacting with that counterparty made a claim at once. (But then, how can you trust that insurer unless they are vulnerable to someone you can trust to wield force against them on your behalf if they break contract?) I think any future where bitcoin organisations are as trusted as banks is a future where they are registered with the government as financial bodies and regulated in such fashion.
kale 13y ago
Bitcoin will be a competitor to Chase as much as the U.S. Dollar is a competitor to Chase.
- atom-morgan 13y ago
  I never really meant to imply that Bitcoin was a competitor to Chase. I just referred to them because of the concern that was raised in the comment I replied to. As for Bitcoin being a competitor to centrally controlled government currencies on the other hand...

cinquemb 13y ago

I always wondered why people don't transfer to offline wallets as soon as the trade goes through since most people are holding anyways. On traditional banking, It also depends on where you live. I doubt people in Cyprus, Zimbabwe, Venezuela and a couple other places feel that safe with their life savings in banks post 2007. I know JPM recently put capital controls on transfers greater than 50k outgoing from the US (but accepting incoming), I wonder what that is all about.

qnr 13y ago
Much of Bitcoin criticism (the chicagofed paper included) is very western centric and fails to take into account how utterly dysfunctional most countries' money systems are. In most countries in the world local currencies are unstable and subject to the whim of politicans (would you keep your life savings in argentinian pesos? Neither would Argentinians!), there are no easy ways to accept online payments, there are no easy ways to transfer money to/from abroad etcetera. I would argue that adopting Bitcoin is an immediate quality of life improvement for a big portion of the world population, moreso when/if it value stabilizes.
lectrick 13y ago
On the offline wallet thing- For the record, BIP 0038 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0038 https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0038 was released just a few days ago (although it was a working draft for a while). You can, right now, create a BIP38 encrypted paper wallet (finally!) over at bitaddress.org which means that someone with access to your paper wallet can't just sweep it unless they know the key, and the key uses scrypt so it's quite resistant to brute forcing. I recently moved most of my btc savings into this type of paper (or in my case, pdf) wallet and entrusted the key (broken into pieces of course) to trusted people. Much better peace of mind. I set the public addresses as "Watch Only" on blockchain.info/wallet so even if blockchain is hacked, nobody can get to those wallets, they are effectively airgapped, and I can monitor any activity on them from anywhere.

kybernetikos 13y ago

In order to achieve bank levels of trust you need to be confident of being able to enforce contracts against the organisation you're dealing with. This usually comes from them being vulnerable to an actor who you believe will wield force on your behalf if they break contract. This then means you're stuck trying to find an actor who 1. you trust to wield force on your behalf (i.e. they're not just some cutout established by your counterparty) 2. who you are sure has means to wield the force against the counterparty (perhaps they can prove that they know where the counterparty lives) Those are difficult criteria to fill, which is among the reasons why over a long period of time, we've invented governments we can put up with. I can imagine two other scenarios where you might be able to generate the level of trust you want: 1. If the counterparty can somehow prove that it's not in their short-term interest (because sometimes people run successful and profitable services for years and then abscond with the money suddenly) to just take all your money and run. 2. If you have insurance with an insurer that you are sure could pay you if everyone transacting with that counterparty made a claim at once. (But then, how can you trust that insurer unless they are vulnerable to someone you can trust to wield force against them on your behalf if they break contract?) I think any future where bitcoin organisations are as trusted as banks is a future where they are registered with the government as financial bodies and regulated in such fashion.

kale 13y ago

Bitcoin will be a competitor to Chase as much as the U.S. Dollar is a competitor to Chase.

atom-morgan 13y ago
I never really meant to imply that Bitcoin was a competitor to Chase. I just referred to them because of the concern that was raised in the comment I replied to. As for Bitcoin being a competitor to centrally controlled government currencies on the other hand...