# Furry fandom can benefit from adopting Bitcoin more than any other community!



## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

There is apparently a crap-ton of misunderstanding and misconception (along with general idiocy) with regards to bitcoin among the furry community. Which is really f'in sad, considering just how much this currency can help the fandom. Specifically:



No restrictions on payments (pay for any kind of porn to anyone in the world)
Extremely low fees (0 to 10 cents per transaction regardless of how much you send)
Can send microtransactions, such as just a few pennies per payment.
No need to set up any bank accounts or create button links like you do with PayPal. Just install an app, or sign up on blockchain.info or Coinbase.com to get a bitcoin address (a string of text) and you're done.
Can be used internationally, especially for furs that travel to foreign conventions.

To receive a bitcoin payment, all you have to do is copy/paste text, such as 1BTC1oo1J3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac. That's it. What I think would be really awesome (or at least useful) is to include this bitcoin address text in the description field under every picture artists submit. If people like the art, they can send a few cents as a donation or a thanks. Even better, you can create different bitcoin addresses for every pic you post, and see which ones are liked most just based on the amount of donations it gets.

As for usability, you can easily convert bitcoins to dollars trough Coinbase (in US) or many other exchanges, for at most a 1% fee, or use bitcoin to pay for things directly through a ton of available services, which let you shop on Amazon (with 6% discount for using bitcoin), Target (3% discount), or a ton of other places.

*I want 2014 to be the year the furry community finally adopts Bitcoin*, and would appreciate any help with achieving that goal, and I will personally volunteer my time to help anyone with getting set up, as well as be happy to answer any questions about it. I also want to finally dispel all the rumors, misconceptions, and stupid claims about it that seem to persist despite tons of evidence contradicting them.

P.S. Regarding myself, I have a background in IT and have a Master's in international finance and economics (from Robert H. Smith School of Business, which uses Harvard University curriculum/materials). I currently work as a Senior Financial analyst for the State of MD, as well as a director of a bitcoin-based charity, through which I have personally already sent out thousands of dollars (over $40k in the last 2 months), including to animal rescue type charities. I will also be sending out a $1,000 donation to Toonseum.org in Pittsburgh within a week. I am also a bitcoin early adopter, know everything there is to know about bitcoin and cryptocurrencies (which I learned about wile being a SecondLife early adopter back in 2003), and live entirely off bitcoin, so if I can do it, there is definitely something bitcoin can be used for.


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## Joey (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> (pay for any kind of porn to anyone in the world)



ANY kind, you say?


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## Taralack (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> [*]Can send microtransactions, such as just a few pennies per payment.



Furry artists ALREADY underprice themselves massively compared to their peers, and you want them to underprice even more?


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## Tica (Jan 30, 2014)

People are naturally shy of a volatile commodity, after all the burst bubbles we've had to live through since the 80s.


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## ADF (Jan 30, 2014)

Speculators ruin everything, Bitcoin is no different.

It was an attempt to create a currency governments couldn't abuse, but the moment exchanges popped up it was subject to speculation. Speculators are responsible for the volatility, they're turning it into a pump and dump mania. Never mind unlike the currency itself, exchanges can be targeted by governments to attack the currency.

Bitcoin is far too young to consider adopting at this time, if ever at all, assuming the speculators don't end up destroying it for an easy buck.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Bitcoin is only really useful if someone wanted to buy drugs.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Bitcoin was a proof-of-concept for cyptocurrencies. On a small scale, it works fine, is cute, and was nice for doing things like buying drugs, laundering money, and hiring fake assassinations that were actually government agents.

On a larger scale, bitcoin is horrendously inefficient due to its implementation; every transaction has to be sent to every "miner" (transaction enforcer), and there are *a lot* of miners. I believe the miners alone in the network were using around 2 LHC's worth of power, and that was a year ago (the network was growing exponentially last time I checked). For the bitcoin network to handle the volume of yearly transactions that Visa handles, it would use 26 *terabytes* of bandwidth per miner, per year, I believe. Basically, the decentralized nature of the network means that, by its very definition, the network must be many, many magnitudes more inefficient than a centralized server would be. 

Not only that, but the nature of "mining" encourages power and bandwidth theft; it's impossible to break even otherwise. Miners are often children stealing from their parents, or workers stealing from their companies (people talk about their mining rigs on bitcoin forums, openly mention the fact that they run it from their parents home/workplace all the time). Furthermore, the implementation of "mining" is essentially an arms race; the more people mining on the network, the more difficult it is to mine, leading to miners purchasing more powerful, and more power-consuming mining devices. In a sort of ironic twist, the entire network could technically be run off an SNES, if the SNES was the only miner (would never happen, but still).

There are also quite a few flaws in the implementation and security of the protocol, including the fact that your entire life savings can be stolen instantaneously, with no hope of recovery, if you are unlucky enough to contract a computer virus which your scanner doesn't pick up (there are ways to mitigate damage from such events, but I'm gonna assume that 40-70% of regular users don't bother with extreme security measures for their computers). Also, new viruses and spyware are popping up that are designed to essentially steal power from your grid for their profit (running your computer as a miner).

So yeah, between an efficient, centralized, transaction method such as Visa, or an inefficient, decentralized transaction method like Bitcoin, that encourages theft and wastes massive quantities of power, I'll go with visa, thanks.

e: I mean, there are also problems like: the entire thing is essentially speculation, and the large majority of transaction volume is speculatory trade. The fact that the way mining was set up makes it look like a ponzi scheme (the people who bought in early made it big, have a large monetary incentive to pressure new blood into the system). The fact that transactions are *extremely* slow (10 transactions across the network/minute or something?). The fact that the "currency" was designed to be deflationary (I don't really care about that, but it apparently makes economics majors cry). But I mostly care about the horribly flawed nature of the protocol itself.


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Alex The Lemur said:


> ANY kind, you say?



As opposed to *no* kind of porn imposed by PayPal and such.



Taralack said:


> Furry artists ALREADY underprice themselves massively compared to their peers, and you want them to underprice even more?



On the contrary. Furry artists can keep charging the same low prices, but keep more of their money (fewer fees), sell to anyone in the world (as opposed to only their local currency areas), AND can get donations of a few cents for their submissions, which they weren't able to before. Instead of getting jack for your art post, you may get $0.25. Not much, but better than nothing.



ADF said:


> Speculators ruin everything, Bitcoin is no different.
> It was an attempt to create a currency governments couldn't abuse, but the moment exchanges popped up it was subject to speculation.
> ... exchanges can be targeted by governments to attack the currency.



Speculators add volume. Bitcoin is useless to merchants who's suppliers don't take bitcoin, or furry artists who need to pay for things with dollars, without exchanges and speculators around offering to convert their money. Volatility is just due to low total price of all bitcoin (market cap). It's easy to move the price by selling $1mil when there's only $20mil available for sale. Volatility will shrink as more businesses adopt it (Overstock and TigerDirect already have, and NewEgg will within a few months)



PastryOfApathy said:


> Bitcoin is only really useful if someone wanted to buy drugs.



This is the kind of uninformed ignorance I was talking about.
I personally use bitcoin to buy: Cell phone minutes, groceries, furniture, airplane tickets and hotels, household items, everything from Amazon. The *only* thing I can't buy with bitcoin is gas for my car. That's it. At this point, you can fly to AnthroCon, and pay for your tickets, hotel, and food while you are there, entirely with bitcoin. Heck, you now can even walk down to the Toonseum and buy your ticket with bitcoin.


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## ADF (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Speculators add volume. Bitcoin is useless to merchants who's suppliers don't take bitcoin, or furry artists who need to pay for things with dollars, without exchanges and speculators around offering to convert their money. Volatility is just due to low total price of all bitcoin (market cap). It's easy to move the price by selling $1mil when there's only $20mil available for sale. Volatility will shrink as more businesses adopt it (Overstock and TigerDirect already have, and NewEgg will within a few months)



They don't care about Bitcoin, it's just a tool for making more money from money to them. People holding Bitcoins in the hope of selling them for more later aren't interested in its use as a currency, it's just something to pump and dump to them. They'll create a bubble that will eventually burst, the crash will hurt the people who bought near the top and the people burned won't want to touch Bitcoins again.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> This is the kind of uninformed ignorance I was talking about.
> I personally use bitcoin to buy: Cell phone minutes, groceries, furniture, airplane tickets and hotels, household items, everything from Amazon. The *only* thing I can't buy with bitcoin is gas for my car. That's it. At this point, you can fly to AnthroCon, and pay for your tickets, hotel, and food while you are there, entirely with bitcoin. Heck, you now can even walk down to the Toonseum and buy your ticket with bitcoin.



And all of those things can be just as easily bought with actual money, which I already have plenty of and don't run the risk of becoming completely worthless overnight because some bubble popped. Putting all your financial eggs into the bitcoin basket is exceedingly dangerous.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> words


Oh my god, I know you. You're the furry on the bitcoin forums. The one with the giant naked fox coffee table.


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## Ansitru (Jan 30, 2014)

I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole as the value of bitcoins fluctuates too rapidly and too much.
I'll stick to official currencies, thankyouverymuch.

And I'm sorry, but you're defending underpricing? Yeah ... How about no.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Ansitru said:


> I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole as the value of bitcoins fluctuates too rapidly and too much.
> I'll stick to official currencies, thankyouverymuch.
> 
> And I'm sorry, but you're defending underpricing? Yeah ... How about no.


Pfft, it usually only changes 10% in an hour. That's _plenty _of time to bail out.

well, I mean, it's not really possible to bail out by converting bitcoin to USD currently, as MTGox (Magic The Gathering: Online eXchange) has a waiting line months long. I believe the standard means of bitcoin->USD currently is through buying amazon giftcards. Either that or striking deals in Real Life for far below market value.


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## Ansitru (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> Pfft, it usually only changes 10% in an hour. That's _plenty _of time to bail out.
> 
> well, I mean, it's not really possible to bail out by converting bitcoin to USD currently, as MTGox has a waiting line months long. I believe the standard means of bitcoin->USD currently is through buying amazon giftcards. Either that or striking deals in Real Life for far below market value.



Oh, I stand corrected. I'll hop on that solid investment _right away_! :v


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## Volkodav (Jan 30, 2014)

"There is apparently a crap-ton of misunderstanding and misconception [...]"

"No restrictions on payments (pay for any kind of porn to anyone in the world)"

Yeah, no. Not taking your black market currency


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

ADF said:


> They don't care about Bitcoin, it's just a tool for making more money from money to them.



It doesn't matter why they do it, as long as they are providing a useful service. Liquidity is a useful service, and as long as there is liquidity, and ability to speculate, they will keep speculating, and everyone else will keep trading.



ADF said:


> People holding Bitcoins in the hope of selling them for more later aren't interested in its use as a currency, it's just something to pump and dump to them. They'll create a bubble that will eventually burst, the crash will hurt the people who bought near the top and the people burned won't want to touch Bitcoins again.



As more merchants accept bitcoin, there will be no reason to "dump." Why dump, declare your net worth,  be subject to as much as 35% capital gains, and risk your money getting stuck in some country's bank, when you can just pay for everything you need with bitcoin directly, and have total control of all your wealth, regardless of where you choose to move?


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> Oh my god, I know you. You're the furry on the bitcoin forums. The one with the giant naked fox coffee table.



You mean Terrie Smith's Chester? Yeah. So?


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## ADF (Jan 30, 2014)

To be fair, it's rather silly to talk about a black market when there is no comparison between Bitcoin and Dollars for use in criminal activities. Governments and central banks just hate currency competition, whatever form it takes, because they cannot control it



Rassah said:


> It doesn't matter why they do it, as long as they are providing a useful service. Liquidity is a useful service, and as long as there is liquidity, and ability to speculate, they will keep speculating, and everyone else will keep trading.



I'm simply telling you what's going to happen. They're going to pump it, dump it, and all the people actually trying to use it as a currency will get steam rolled. When that happens, they'll be so burned that it could very easily kill Bitcoin.

That's what happened to gold in the 80s. Government intervention to protect their fiat currencies caused the price to collapse, and all the people who bought gold at the top didn't want anything to do with it for decades after. It took a new generation who hadn't been burned for the market to start up again.



Rassah said:


> As more merchants accept bitcoin, there will be no reason to "dump." Why dump, declare your net worth,  be subject to as much as 35% capital gains, and risk your money getting stuck in some country's bank, when you can just pay for everything you need with bitcoin directly, and have total control of all your wealth, regardless of where you choose to move?



For the same reason they'll dump any speculative asset. They don't care about Bitcoin, they're after fiat currencies, Bitcoin is just one of many means they're using to earn them.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> You mean Terrie Smith's Chester? Yeah. So?


So it's exciting! This is like Christmas come early! You're _that guy I kept reading about_! In forum-person! With the coffee table that has the big ol' erection!


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Ansitru said:


> I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole as the value of bitcoins fluctuates too rapidly and too much.
> I'll stick to official currencies, thankyouverymuch.



If you worry about fluctuations, just have someone convert all bitcoins to dollars for you as soon as you get them. It will still cost you WAY less than accepting VISA or PayPal. Hell, Coinbase will do the first $1,000,000 of your revenue for free.



Ansitru said:


> And I'm sorry, but you're defending underpricing? Yeah ... How about no.



I wasn't. If you mean underpricing VISA and PayPal's fees, sure. If artists want to continue to sell their $20 art for $15, that's their choice and not my concern. It's just that, with Bitcoin, they'll be able to keep more of that $15 for themselves. My main interest, though, is in getting artists to post bitcoin addresses in the description fields in their art submissions. You know, the ones they get *zero* money for. This way, people who appreciate their work can give them a few cents as a thanks. Unless you think it's a bad idea to support furry artists with donations? Or think that furries aren't generous enough to spare a nickel?


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## Ansitru (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> If you worry about fluctuations, just have someone convert all bitcoins to dollars for you as soon as you get them. It will still cost you WAY less than accepting VISA or PayPal. Hell, Coinbase will do the first $1,000,000 of your revenue for free.



Or, radical idea (I know): I stick to official currency that doesn't fluctuate faster and more often than a rollercoaster-ride.




> I wasn't. If you mean underpricing VISA and PayPal's fees, sure. If artists want to continue to sell their $20 art for $15, that's their choice and not my concern. It's just that, with Bitcoin, they'll be able to keep more of that $15 for themselves. My main interest, though, is in getting artists to post bitcoin addresses in the description fields in their art submissions. You know, the ones they get *zero* money for. This way, people who appreciate their work can give them a few cents as a thanks. Unless you think it's a bad idea to support furry artists with donations? *Or think that furries aren't generous enough to spare a nickel?*



Except, you defended the fact that artists could keep on underpricing because bitcoin has less fees.
Also, in response to the bolded part: PFSHHAHAHAA. Clearly you've not looked at the Art Exchange. Or gotten a shitton of notes to ask for free art. Or people who say they want to commission you, but only if you slash your prices so it effectively comes down to $0.10 / hour. Whoooo boy, thanks for the laugh.

ETA: you're also assuming commission-artists don't calculate the paypal-fee into their prices. In which case: snrk.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

ADF said:


> I'm simply telling you what's going to happen. They're going to pump it, dump it, and all the people actually trying to use it as a currency will get steam rolled. When that happens, they'll be so burned that it could very easily kill Bitcoin.


The odd thing is, because it's currently ludicrously difficult to convert bitcoin -> USD, any crash bitcoin could experience would be _really slow_. It's in a sort of situation where it's frozen; not sure how low liquidity has affected giant bubbles in past history, but the inability to bail is currently appears to _help_ the transaction medium (although it's terrible for anyone who's bought in)


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> well, I mean, it's not really possible to bail out by converting bitcoin to USD currently, as MTGox (Magic The Gathering: Online eXchange) has a waiting line months long. I believe the standard means of bitcoin->USD currently is through buying amazon giftcards. Either that or striking deals in Real Life for far below market value.




This is the type of wilfull moronic ignorance I was talking about (maybe in another thread). Bitcoin currently trades over $50,000,000 *a day*. So, unless you have a few million to get rid of (which you can do in private), you can trade freely and instantly without affecting the price. If you are in US, use Coinbase (standard 2 day bank transfer). If you are in Europe, Bitstamp. Russia and Eastern Europe, BTC-e. China, BTCChina. Tons of other exchanges in many other countries. Even MtGox does instant withdrawals in Japan, as it's only their USD that's locked up.
And yes, you can even use bitcoin to buy Amazon gift cards with a 3% discount from Gyft, or 6% discount from Purse.io (does your VISA give you 6% discount for Amazon?)


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> And all of those things can be just as easily bought with actual money, which I already have plenty of and don't run the risk of becoming completely worthless overnight because some bubble popped.



Why would bitcoin pop? It's a technology, with price based on usefulness, not monopoly money that's just traded like pogs with nothing behind it.




Clayton said:


> Yeah, no. Not taking your black market currency



LOL! HSBC just got fined billions for launderiing money for drug cartells and terrorists, so which currency are you referring to?


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## Ansitru (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> This is the type of *wilfull moronic ignorance* I was talking about (maybe in another thread). Bitcoin currently trades over $50,000,000 *a day*. So, unless you have a few million to get rid of (which you can do in private), you can trade freely and instantly without affecting the price. If you are in US, use Coinbase (standard 2 day bank transfer). If you are in Europe, Bitstamp. Russia and Eastern Europe, BTC-e. China, BTCChina. Tons of other exchanges in many other countries. Even MtGox does instant withdrawals in Japan, as it's only their USD that's locked up.
> And yes, you can even use bitcoin to buy Amazon gift cards with a 3% discount from Gyft, or 6% discount from Purse.io (does your VISA give you 6% discount for Amazon?)



> People who express their doubts about bitcoin are "wilfully moronic" in their prejudices.

Excellent PR you've got there.


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## ADF (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> The odd thing is, because it's currently ludicrously difficult to convert bitcoin -> USD, any crash bitcoin could experience would be _really slow_. It's in a sort of situation where it's frozen; not sure how low liquidity has affected giant bubbles in past history, but the inability to bail is currently appears to _help_ the transaction medium (although it's terrible for anyone who's bought in)



Bitcoin lost half of its value over night because, unsurprisingly, a government barred financial institutions from supporting it. So Bitcoin can have flash crashes, and all governments want to see it dead because they cannot just "print" it.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Ansitru said:


> > People who express their doubts about bitcoin are "wilfully moronic" in their prejudices.
> 
> Excellent PR you've got there.





Rassah said:


> I am heavily into bitcoins, and furries are *dumb as fuck for dismissing it*, when they can benefit from it more than any other community out there!



[Crosspost] He is clearly the grand master of PR, yes 8)



ADF said:


> Bitcoin lost half of its value over night because, unsurprisingly, a government barred financial institutions from supporting it. So Bitcoin can have flash crashes, and all governments want to see it dead because they cannot just "print" it.



I think MTGox was actually Sort Of Functioning and there were other btc->USD services during the last crash, though I might be wrong in that regard. I recall reading in a couple of places how liquidity has decreased significantly over the past half year or so(?)


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

ADF said:


> I'm simply telling you what's going to happen. They're going to pump it, dump it, and all the people actually trying to use it as a currency will get steam rolled. When that happens, they'll be so burned that it could very easily kill Bitcoin.



What about people who use it as a transaction mechanism, stock and bond shares, property titles, cryptographic contracts, nootary services, and data tickers?



ADF said:


> That's what happened to gold in the 80s. Government intervention to protect their fiat currencies caused the price to collapse, and all the people who bought gold at the top didn't want anything to do with it for decades after. It took a new generation who hadn't been burned for the market to start up again.



But gold has little use as money, and not much use in electronics. Plus it's extremely easy to screw with, since due to it's weight and security issues, it's mostly kept as backed paper. Bitcoin is kept as bitcoin, can't be confiscated, and unlike gold, can be transported and traded anonymously. I'm sure governments will try, but I'm fairly confident they'll be as successful as they were with bittorrents.



ADF said:


> For the same reason they'll dump any speculative asset. They don't care about Bitcoin, they're after fiat currencies, Bitcoin is just one of many means they're using to earn them.



Did you consider why speculators dump an asset? Usually it's loss in confidence of the thing backing it (not very likely), or because they think it's at the top (bitcoin isn't even close), or because they want to "cash in" their profits so they can spend them. In a few years, people may be "cashing into" bitcoin itself, since they will be able to spend it anywhere. Gold wasn't exactly accepted at merchants for quite some time.



Ansitru said:


> Or, radical idea (I know): I stick to official currency that doesn't fluctuate faster and more often than a rollercoaster-ride.



Hey, if you like paying 2% more for everything, and having your accounts frozen because the service you're using doesn't like what you are buying/selling, and don't like the idea of being able to donate microtransactions, be my guest!  (I won't even go into the whole supporting military, NSA, corporate welfare, etc thing)





Ansitru said:


> Except, you defended the fact that artists could keep on underpricing because bitcoin has less fees.



*FACEPALM* Ok einstein, let me spell it out. If an artist wants to charge $15, they can charge $15. If they want to charge $20, they can charge $20. *It doesn't matter if they use Bitcoin or PayPal. The only thing that will matter is whether they lose 3% on that trade, or 1%.*



Ansitru said:


> ETA: you're also assuming commission-artists don't calculate the paypal-fee into their prices. In which case: snrk.



Sure I have. Except now they can charge the same amount, but keep more.



Ansitru said:


> > People who express their doubts about bitcoin are "wilfully moronic" in their prejudices.



No, people who rehash the same bullshit *from 3 years ago*, refusing to take in new information despite it being readily available, are willfuly ignorant. If you have doubts, you bring them up and ask questions, not make completely wrong troll statements.



Kazooie said:


> I think MTGox was actually Sort Of Functioning and there were other btc->USD services during the last crash, though I might be wrong in that regard. I recall reading in a couple of places how liquidity has decreased significantly over the past half year or so(?)



Here's most (not all) of the current liquidity http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ The crash was on the BTC China exchange. BTC China now accepts direct bank deposits again, and the crash was an overreaction to bad news.


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## Ansitru (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> [Crosspost] He is clearly the grand master of PR, yes 8)



Good golly gee, a representative is calling me dumb as fuck for not using bitcoin?
I'm now *so* tempted to start using the service because* goodness me* those ad hominems sure did convince little ol' me. :v


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## Schwimmwagen (Jan 30, 2014)

put your buttcoins up yer pooper op


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## Mentova (Jan 30, 2014)

Forget bitcoins, the furry fandom should make its own cryptocurrency: yiffcoins! 

Edit: Also all the cross posting stuff is getting a bit close to a callouts. Lets avoid going down that road please. :C


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## ADF (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> What about people who use it as a transaction mechanism, stock and bond shares, property titles, cryptographic contracts, nootary services, and data tickers?



Genuine users will suffer the consequences of a speculative bubble, receiving considerable devaluation once that bubble bursts. Even if they believe in the fundamentals of Bitcoin, seeing so much of their money go up in smoke acts as a deterrent. They may not want to get burned a second time, so abandon it.

The reason gold went up so high in the 1980s is because the gold standard was cut in 1971 and fiat currency was rapidly devaluing, people were running to a safe haven. When governments banned the purchasing of gold on the markets to protect their fiat currencies, the price crashed and all those people who held gold as a safer alternative to fiat currency got burned.

Gold was dead for decades after that, people were afraid to touch it because of the memory of how bad they got burned last time. The same can happen to Bitcoin.



Rassah said:


> But gold has little use as money, and not much use in electronics. Plus it's extremely easy to screw with, since due to it's weight and security issues, it's mostly kept as backed paper. Bitcoin is kept as bitcoin, can't be confiscated, and unlike gold, can be transported and traded anonymously. I'm sure governments will try, but I'm fairly confident they'll be as successful as they were with bittorrents.



Prior to 1971, gold *was* money, it had been money for thousands of years. Paper money was simply a more convenient representation for transportation and day to day use, because the paper could be exchanged for gold at the central bank it was treated as gold. 1971 wasn't that long ago in the grand scheme of things, the association between gold and money is still in living memory.

Bitcoin has an intrinsic value of zero, only unlike fiat currency it hasn't got a government threatening you to accept it. Yet it is treated like digital gold, in that it's scarce and has to be "mined" using time and energy. It's true governments cannot attack it in the same manner as gold, but you know their efforts to destroy or control it will scale with its use. Russia's central bank declared it a "terrorist currency", governments could really fuck with Bitcoin if they wanted to and that makes ownership and use an uneasy thing.



Rassah said:


> Did you consider why speculators dump an asset? Usually it's loss in confidence of the thing backing it (not very likely), *or because they think it's at the top (bitcoin isn't even close)*, or because they want to "cash in" their profits so they can spend them. In a few years, people may be "cashing into" bitcoin itself, since they will be able to spend it anywhere. Gold wasn't exactly accepted at merchants for quite some time.



And who are you to declare the top? No one can declare the top of any market, if they could they would be very rich. Bitcoin's perceived value has increased substantially since it started, the people who bought in on the low profited substantially. As they're cashing out, other people are cashing in, people who eventually will want to cash out themselves. As with every market ever, eventually someone wants to cash out but there isn't someone who wants to cash in. These are the people who are destroyed at a bubbles end.

And you really think bitcoin will ever be used everywhere? That's highly optimistic, governments wouldn't let it happen, they'd sooner declare every bitcoin user a financial terrorist than allow it to directly compete with their own currencies. They'd ban retailers from using it under threat of making it very hard for them to do business.

Governments can be very aggressive and open about being aggressive when they feel threatened, the "with us or with the terrorists" mentality that tell people to shut up and do as they're told.


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## ACraZ (Jan 30, 2014)

Give it up, the intellectuals have trodden down your currency, and the den's populars have disregarded it too, along with everyone who doesn't appreciate your political standing and your respect (or lack thereof) for those you debate, both of which you have made very clear.

Find other markets, maybe other forums, FA isn't buying in.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Why would bitcoin pop? It's a technology, with price based on usefulness, not monopoly money that's just traded like bogs with nothing behind it.



Actually that's a really good way of describing it as there is literally nothing behind it aside from the promises from speculators, and shills such as yourself. Granted you could say the same exact thing with actual currency but unlike bitcoin they have 100's of years worth of relative stability (as in we still actually use them) and if I lose or forget certain information I won't lose all my money with no chance of getting it back.


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## Mentova (Jan 30, 2014)

Keep this civil please.


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

ADF said:


> And you really think bitcoin will ever be used everywhere? That's highly optimistic, governments wouldn't let it happen, they'd sooner declare every bitcoin user a financial terrorist than allow it to directly compete with their own currencies. They'd ban retailers from using it under threat of making it very hard for them to do business.



I guess I'm too optimistic, then, but I believe a decentralized system that is essentially a form of communication (an idea) is much stronger than a centralized bureaucracy. Especially when that decentralized system empowers people who are pissed off at their bureaucracy (Bitcoin is getting more and more popular in Argentina, as their currency controls get more severe. There is now a 25% tax on online purchases, and a limit of 2 online items purchased per year, which is enforceable on their own currency, but completely unenforceable with Bitcoin)



ADF said:


> Governments can be very aggressive and open about being aggressive when they feel threatened, the "with us or with the terrorists" mentality that tell people to shut up and do as they're told.



Sure, but governments are just greedy, self interested people too. They're not going to go down with the ship when it starts to get attacked, they just take everything they can, and bail. Even military doesn't work for free. Look what happened in Russia after their economy collapsed. They are still having tons of problems collecting tax revenue, though they have tons of natural reserves to continue to fund their totalitarianism 



ACraZ said:


> Find other markets, maybe other forums, FA isn't buying in.



FA isn't aware of how much money I have yet. My only question is whether I believe this will be a worthy cause to benefit the fandom, or whether it's a lost cause and I should just abandon them to their usual complaining-without-bothering-to-do-anything-about-it.



PastryOfApathy said:


> Actually that's a really good way of describing it as there is literally nothing behind it aside from the promises from speculators, and shills such as yourself.



Actually, no, Bitcoin's price doesn't depend on my, or other shills, in any way. There is just as much behind bitcoin as there is behind TCP/IP, SMTP, HTML, and to a point Google and Microsoft. It's a technology that was invented to do something nothing else before it could, and it's now a technology that tons of other businesses are investing to build on top of. Look up Byzantine Generals problem, which was unsolvable for 30 years. Bitcoin solved it, and only because of it became the very first trustless globally distributed asset ledger in the world.


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## Kalmor (Jan 30, 2014)

Try not to double/triple post, please.


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## Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> Bitcoin was a proof-of-concept for cyptocurrencies. On a small scale, it works fine, is cute, and was nice for doing things like buying drugs, laundering money, and hiring fake assassinations that were actually government agents.
> 
> On a larger scale, bitcoin is horrendously inefficient due to its implementation; every transaction has to be sent to every "miner" (transaction enforcer), and there are *a lot* of miners. I believe the miners alone in the network were using around 2 LHC's worth of power, and that was a year ago (the network was growing exponentially last time I checked). For the bitcoin network to handle the volume of yearly transactions that Visa handles, it would use 26 *terabytes* of bandwidth per miner, per year, I believe. Basically, the decentralized nature of the network means that, by its very definition, the network must be many, many magnitudes more inefficient than a centralized server would be.
> 
> ...



I am I the only one that caught that Silk Road reference?


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Actually, no, Bitcoin's price doesn't depend on my, or other shills, in any way. There is just as much behind bitcoin as there is behind TCP/IP, SMTP, HTML, and to a point Google and Microsoft. It's a technology that was invented to do something nothing else before it could, and it's now a technology that tons of other businesses are investing to build on top of. Look up Byzantine Generals problem, which was unsolvable for 30 years. Bitcoin solved it, and only because of it became the very first trustless globally distributed asset ledger in the world.



I Googled Bitcoin and literally one of the first result states that "The value of [bitcoin] is largely derived from speculative trading". But that's irrelevant as the point is there's literally ZERO reason to use bitcoin unless you fall under one of these categories. You use drugs, you're in it for the novelty, or you're a speculator wanting to make some money as everything you can do with bitcoin, you can do with actual money.


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## Willow (Jan 30, 2014)

Pretty sure artists are better off using Monopoly money to make transactions


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## ACraZ (Jan 30, 2014)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> I am I the only one that caught that Silk Road reference?


Yes, the creator of the Silk Road named himself the Dread Pirate for a reason lol. Apparently criminals with millions in online drug(/child pornography/everything else illegal under the sun) money have a good sense of cinemas. He was in his twenties when he was arrested in the library he had been using for WiFi for his laptop. It took years to catch this guy and shut down his black market... oh would you look at that, his Silk Road was only made possible by the bitcoin and the previously rarely exploited "deep web".


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## ADF (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> I guess I'm too optimistic, then, but I believe a decentralized system that is essentially a form of communication (an idea) is much stronger than a centralized bureaucracy. Especially when that decentralized system empowers people who are pissed off at their bureaucracy (Bitcoin is getting more and more popular in Argentina, as their currency controls get more severe. There is now a 25% tax on online purchases, and a limit of 2 online items purchased per year, which is enforceable on their own currency, but completely unenforceable with Bitcoin)
> 
> Sure, but governments are just greedy, self interested people too. They're not going to go down with the ship when it starts to get attacked, they just take everything they can, and bail. Even military doesn't work for free. Look what happened in Russia after their economy collapsed. They are still having tons of problems collecting tax revenue, though they have tons of natural reserves to continue to fund their totalitarianism



I'm not defending the present, quite frankly criminal and inhumane, monetary system. The present monetary system is intrinsically immoral and indefensible. No sane person would choose this system, it was created by bastards to serve bastards. Is Bitcoin a defence against that? Not without going to war against the present controllers of the state currency. If you had exclusive access to a printing machine that created unlimited money, and everyone else had to serve you to compete for that money, you wouldn't give it up very easily. You'd use everything at your disposal to maintain that privilege.

The gold and silver movement basically attempted what Bitcoin is trying to do, research how the government reacted to that threat. There was a business that minted gold and silver coins for people to use in barter, the government raided them and shut them down for "domestic terrorism". A judge ruled attempting to undermine the official currency of a country is terrorism, that status applies to Bitcoin.



> “Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”


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## Mr. Sparta (Jan 30, 2014)

Mentova said:


> Forget bitcoins, the furry fandom should make its own cryptocurrency: yiffcoins!



Bad Dragon should use this as on-site credit.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Ieatcrackersandjumpcliffs said:


> I am I the only one that caught that Silk Road reference?


:3c



Rassah said:


> Can send microtransactions, such as just a few pennies per payment.


This reminds me. Another flaw of the bitcoin protocol, is that it's *absolutely terrible for microtransactions*. In fact, the network was temporarily, and hilariously, crippled by a certain microtransaction service.

The story of Satoshidice, if you will:
Back in 2012, bitcoin was picking up steam, and a person thought to himself, "Hey, if I install a random number generator onto a website, people will give me millions of dollars. For free!" The person hammered out the code:

```
[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]INPUT bet[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]IF (sys.RNG > 50%)[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]    YOU_WIN (bet*1.98)[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]ELSE[/COLOR][/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif][COLOR=#000000]    YOU_LOSE[/COLOR][/FONT]
```
People promptly threw millions upon millions of dollars at the person. They threw so much money, in such little amounts, that the bitcoin network couldn't process all the requests! It was flooded! Transactions were made virtually impossible!

This angered people. They argued that this extremely successful website should be taken down, because it was destroying bitcoin. By being successful. It was destroying bitcoin by being successful.

Sadly, bitcoin eventually recovered, with satoshidice still making up the vast majority of bitcoin volume. But if other websites come round that successfully leveraged bitcoin via microtransactions, this whole story may play out once more!

(bitcoin is terrible for microtransactions)


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## Volkodav (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> This angered people. They argued that this extremely successful website should be taken down, because it was destroying bitcoin. By being successful. It was destroying bitcoin by being successful.



This is what I don't get about it. It's virtual fucking currency, someone with the skill and know-how could easily just hack in and change their amount and become rich.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Clayton said:


> This is what I don't get about it. It's virtual fucking currency, someone with the skill and know-how could easily just hack in and change their amount and become rich.


Uhh, it's complicated to explain, but, while it's quite easy to _cripple _the network, to actually steal stuff directly from the network itself is really, really difficult. To cause a permanent "fork" (it would allow you to steal stuff), you'd need inject mining that exceeded half the amount of total processing power currently in the network. That's not gonna happen.

It's much easier to just steal bitcoins directly from users. The history of bitcoin is a plethora of scammers (no chargebacks!), faulty, insecure websites, and people not being meticulously careful with their data (always keep the majority of your 'coins in an offline storage space. Locked in a vault. Preferably a bank vault. Lock your bitcoins in a bank vault.)


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> There's literally ZERO reason to use bitcoin unless you fall under one of these categories. You use drugs, you're in it for the novelty, or you're a speculator wanting to make some money as everything you can do with bitcoin, you can do with actual money.



Could "I have a lot of it, and wish to donate to artists I want to support" be a good reason?



Kazooie said:


> This reminds me. Another flaw of the bitcoin protocol, is that it's *absolutely terrible for microtransactions*. In fact, the network was temporarily, and hilariously, crippled by a certain microtransaction service.
> 
> The story of Satoshidice, if you will: <snip>



Hey, wrong again! SatoshiDice wasn't a site, it's a gambling script that was built right into Bitcoin. It used the hash number of a transaction to see if you won, not a random number generator, so there was no way the site could cheat you of your money (why it was popular), and you don't need a website to use it. Just send bitcoins to one of the addresses from anywhere in the world, and get a payout back.
And it didn't cripple the Bitcoin network in any way. Not even close. Bitcoin is software limited to 7 transactions per second (it can handle 20,000 if needed), and even with SatoshiDice, the number of transactions hasn't gotten to that level. What it did is use up block space, pushing out free transactions, and forcing people to pay a penny to send bitcoins, which pissed people off, but there was absolutely no effect on the network otherwise.



Clayton said:


> This is what I don't get about it. It's virtual fucking currency, someone with the skill and know-how could easily just hack in and change their amount and become rich.



An, good question. This is actually a problem that for the last 30+ years was thought to be impossible to solve. Bitcoin is a distributed consensus network, with everyone having a copy of the account ledger, and crosschecking everyone else for every transaction. Simple example: You and I have a piece of paper, with a list of accounts A and B, along with their balances (this is the "blockchain") Let's say my account A has 3 bitcoins, and I want to send you two. All I would do is crate a message that says "From Account A to Account B send 2" sign it with my account's secret key, and give it to you. Then I change my own paper, decreasing A and increasing B by 2. When you (and everyone else on the system) receives that message, they look at their copy of accounts, check that A really has the money and that the secret key signature is valid, and updates their papers, too. Now the coins are yours.

If I try to send you 5 coins, you'll see on your paper that I only have 3, and ignore my transaction as invalid. If I send you 5 coins from account V, even if I have a correct secret key signature for V, you'll look on your paper, see that V isn't an account on the list, and ignore it too. Bitcoin is actually very simple and basic at its core, and thus can't really be hacked. There is very very little to hack. At this point, successfully hacking Bitcoin will net you a prize of $10 billion dollars, so you can be sure that hackers are working very hard on it, and so far not finding it easy.



Kazooie said:


> The history of bitcoin is a plethora of scammers (no chargebacks!), faulty, insecure websites, and people not being meticulously careful with their data (always keep the majority of your 'coins in an offline storage space. Locked in a vault. Preferably a bank vault. Lock your bitcoins in a bank vault.)



Bitcoin has a long way to go to catch up to the insecurity of credit cards. And no need for vaults. Just use a password on the paper backup, or split the keys among a few papers where you need, say, 3 out of 5 papers to spend that money, and stash the papers around. Even if someone finds one, it'll be useless to them.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Could "I have a lot of it, and wish to donate to artists I want to support" be a good reason?



What's preventing you from using actual money to do that? Like, why do you need bitcoin to do something that simple?


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## Volkodav (Jan 30, 2014)

Gee willikers, I can't wait to see the hackers get away with $10 million Monopoly Money
They'll be fucking rich
Yeah I'm still not touching this shit with a ten foot pole, I'll stick to money I can buy my food and my pets food with.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> What's preventing you from using actual money to do that? Like, why do you need bitcoin to do something that simple?


Basically, the concept is that it's cheaper to use bitcoin as a transaction medium over the internet than currency; to transfer money directly, you need both Banks and a company like Paypal. These companies take a slice from the transaction - because people get involved, costs are added to the transfer.

Bitcoin does not use people; if everyone used bitcoin, we wouldn't need banks or paypal. The problem with this is, however, that our grid and internet infrastructure _literally would not be able to handle the volume of information, _and the amount of power the "miners" would consume would be horrendous. Basically, from the calculations I've seen, the cost of power and bandwidth of running bitcoin far exceeds the cost of hiring people to run centralized services, such as paypal (if bitcoin were to handle equal volumes). Its decentralized nature makes it really inefficient.

There's also the "fiat is evil death to government" angle to bitcoin. Some people want to use it over standard transaction means because of that.

Also there's the "oh hey it's really easy to do illegal things on this" angle.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> Basically, the concept is that it's cheaper to use bitcoin as a transaction medium over the internet than currency; to transfer money directly, you need both Banks and a company like Paypal. These companies take a slice from the transaction - because people get involved, costs are added to the transfer.
> 
> Bitcoin does not use people; if everyone used bitcoin, we wouldn't need banks or paypal. The problem with this is, however, that our grid and internet infrastructure _literally would not be able to handle the volume of information, _and the amount of power the "miners" would consume would be horrendous. Basically, from the calculations I've seen, the cost of power and bandwidth of running bitcoin far exceeds the cost of hiring people to run centralized services, such as paypal (if bitcoin were to handle equal volumes). Its decentralized nature makes it really inefficient.
> 
> ...



I get that, but it's like the value of bitcoin fluctuates so goddamn much and at such massive levels it's that any money I would spend on fees, would be wouldn't mean much in comparison to the amount I could randomly lose.


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> I get that, but it's like the value of bitcoin fluctuates so goddamn much and at such massive levels it's that any money I would spend on fees, would be wouldn't mean much in comparison to the amount I could randomly lose.


Inefficiencies aside, bitcoin is in a pretty interesting catch-22.

What bitcoin needs is solid, non-speculatory volume; they need people to actually use bitcoin to actually buy things. If enough people do that, the effects of speculation should diminish, and the price should stay relatively stable.

However, because bitcoin _doesn't_ have solid, non-speculatory volume, it's extremely unstable, which makes it unsuitable for people to actually use bitcoin to actually buy things. _Which is what bitcoin needs to stabilize the price in the first place_.

To add another delicious ingredient to the catch, for people who own bitcoin, it's in their best interest to try to get others to buy in, as it'll drive up the price. Ironically, driving up the price decreases stability.


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> What's preventing you from using actual money to do that? Like, why do you need bitcoin to do something that simple?



It's simple? I don't know any of their bank account of PayPal info, I doubt they will be willing to give that, or go through the trouble of adding a button to their image description field, I don't even know what country some of them live in, and I'm sure if I send them $1, they will get $0.60 of it. Using Bitcoin I just take out my phone, scan a pic on the screen, and hit Send. Best of all, both of us don't have to use the same money service. PayPal can only be sent through PayPal, but I can get Bitcoin through Coinbase, and they can withdraw it through BitPay, Bitstamp, or anything else. One is a restrictive monopoly, the other is an open platform. Which is good, because restrictive monopolies suck.



Clayton said:


> Yeah I'm still not touching this shit with a ten foot pole, I'll stick to money I can buy my food and my pets food with.



As I said, I by my food and everything else with Bitcoin, with a 3% discount, and in a much more secure way than with credit cards, so that concern is not valid.



Kazooie said:


> The problem with this is, however, that our grid and internet infrastructure _literally would not be able to handle the volume of information,
> _



Debunked in previous post. Bitcoin can scale, being very efficient at only sending data to wallets that they need. My Android bitcoin wallet, which I use as frequently as a credit card, used less than 500Kb of data in the last 30 days.



Kazooie said:


> the amount of power the "miners" would consume would be horrendous.



And still MUCH less than the current financial and government fiat system.



PastryOfApathy said:


> I get that, but it's like the value of bitcoin fluctuates so goddamn much and at such massive levels it's that any money I would spend on fees, would be wouldn't mean much in comparison to the amount I could randomly lose.



FYI, the dollar has fluctuated wildly this past year, sometimes as much as 5% within a week. You just didn't notice it, because everything you buy is priced in dollars. All you saw was changing prices at stores. Euro fluctuated a lot, too, but you didn't notice because you don't keep track of that. You noticed Bitcoin because it went up 3,200% and was all over the media. Once Bitcoin becomes more widely adopted, and things start getting priced in Bitcoin, you won't notice fluctuations, either.



Kazooie said:


> What bitcoin needs is solid, non-speculatory volume; they need people to actually use bitcoin to actually buy things. If enough people do that, the effects of speculation should diminish, and the price should stay relatively stable.
> 
> However, because bitcoin _doesn't_ have solid, non-speculatory volume, it's extremely unstable, which makes it unsuitable for people to actually use bitcoin to actually buy things. _Which is what bitcoin needs to stabilize the price in the first place_.



The likes of Overstock, TigerDirect, and soon to be NewEgg and Google aside, even unstable it still works as a great donation mechanism, and was used extensively for such. People receiving a donation probably don't care what price they got it at. And yes, I do own Bitcoin, but I'm not trying to get people to buy it, I'm trying to get give it away. I have no need for USD, and convert mine to Bitcoin whenever I get it.



> Ironically, driving up the price decreases stability.




That is, in fact, exactly backwards. Bitcoin is way more stable now at $800 than it was at $100 or $10. It used to fluctuate between $7.50 and $12 almost weekly, which was considered normal, but is the equivalent of $750 to $1,200 now. Look up the price volatility of Small-Cap vs Large-Cap stocks.


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Debunked in previous post. Bitcoin can scale, being very efficient at only sending data to wallets that they need. My Android bitcoin wallet, which I use as frequently as a credit card, used less than 500Kb of data in the last 30 days.


I'm not talking about blockchain bloat, I'm talking about the power and bandwidth consumed by the miner network.


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> It's simple? I don't know any of their bank account of PayPal info, I doubt they will be willing to give that, or go through the trouble of adding a button to their image description field, I don't even know what country some of them live in, and I'm sure if I send them $1, they will get $0.60 of it. Using Bitcoin I just take out my phone, scan a pic on the screen, and hit Send. Best of all, both of us don't have to use the same money service. PayPal can only be sent through PayPal, but I can get Bitcoin through Coinbase, and they can withdraw it through BitPay, Bitstamp, or anything else. One is a restrictive monopoly, the other is an open platform. Which is good, because restrictive monopolies suck.



The difference being that 1. It's not really hard to send money to someone on paypal since you're purposely making it sound more complex than it actually is and 2. If you actually want to spend your bitcoins since the _vast_ majority of places don't take them you would most likely need to convert that cash which is in itself another tedious process.

There's also the whole massively fluctuating value thing as well as the who instability business I talked about earlier.


----------



## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> I'm not talking about blockchain bloat, I'm talking about the power and bandwidth consumed by the miner network.



Yes, I addressed that. The only things need to store the blockchain, and thus need the bandwidth, are nodes and mining pools. Miners only get work from the pools, in the form of "Calculate the next few million hashes from X, and get back to me in 30 seconds." Thus, miners use very little bandwidth, doing most of the work locally, and only getting updated work hashes once pools bundle new transactions into a new hash. As for power, it's less power than the current financial system would take up (especially considering Bitcoin can make lots of jobs obsolete, which include bankers, property lawyers, title/deed securers, stock brokers, lenders, and security guards). Plus that power creates waste heat, and there are already talkes of using ASICs for things like keeping water pipes from freezing in factories, once mass production makes them  ridiculously cheap.



PastryOfApathy said:


> The difference being that 1. It's not really hard to send money to someone on paypal since you're purposely making it sound more complex than it actually is and 2. If you actually want to spend your bitcoins since the _vast_ majority of places don't take them you would most likely need to convert that cash which is in itself another tedious process.



What if I don't have PayPal? What if I want to pay for porn, and don't want my account frozen? What if I can't send a lot, and the person is in another country? Withdrawing from Bitcoin into my bank account is no harder than withdrawing from PayPal into my bank account.

Hey, how about a comparison of how easy it is to set up a payment. Let's both add a payment system to our forum post, you using your system of choice, and me using Bitcoin. Ready? Go!

Copy/Pasta!!!  1BTC1oo1J3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac

There. Now I can accept payments from anyone in the world, without relying on any third party service, paying fees, or risking any of my personal info (not even my email). Your turn


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## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Thus, miners use very little bandwidth


hmm



> Assuming that the Bitcoin wiki is a source anyone would trust (it's 'their team'), the average transaction size is about half a kilobyte.
> 
> Visa alone covers 150 million transactions per day; if those transactions were all paid for using Bitcoin, that would be 71.5 gigabytes a day, or 25.5 terabytes per year—again, just for one payment processor: this isn't considering Mastercard, cash, checks, paypal, paychecks, allowance money, wire transfers, etc.
> 
> And remember, in an ideal buttfuture, _everyone has a copy of the blockchain in their possession. Bitcoin is supposed to be, and is touted to be, a decentralized currency, but unless it somehow becomes easy fort the average person to obtain dozens of terabytes worth of data storage every year, it fundamentally cannot satisfy that democratic / decentralized ideal, AND eclipse even one of the global players in payment processing._


25.5 terabytes/miner/year. How many miners are currently on the network?


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> hmm
> 
> 
> > _And remember, in an ideal *buttfuture*, __everyone has a copy of the blockchain in their possession.
> ...



Obviously written by some very smart people. No, I kid of course. Everyone doesn't have to have a copy of the blockchain. Miners don't, users don't, merchants don't. Only storage nodes do. I have a miner, too. It's 5 USB sticks, on a USB hub, with my computer running nothing but mining software, using up 0.5% of the resources, and no perceivable effect on my network (Task Manager doesn't show more than the usual noise. That's because miners don't need to see transactions to mine, just the hashes of a bundle of them. It's called the Stratum Mining Protocol, and is the only way miners can process trillion bits of data every second while mining in a pool.

So, 25.5 terrabytes per data center node per year. There may be only a dozen nodes, and the system will still work fine. No one can know how many miners there are, but there could be one in every heater in the world (homes, businesses, and vehicles), and it still won't be much bandwidth.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> What if I don't have PayPal? What if I want to pay for porn, and don't want my account frozen? What if I can't send a lot, and the person is in another country? Withdrawing from Bitcoin into my bank account is no harder than withdrawing from PayPal into my bank account.
> 
> Hey, how about a comparison of how easy it is to set up a payment. Let's both add a payment system to our forum post, you using your system of choice, and me using Bitcoin. Ready? Go!
> 
> ...



What if I don't have bitcoins? What if I want to pay for gas? What if I want to pay my bills? What if I don't want to invest in a bubble? 

I can do that too  

Also on a side not do you actually plan on posting here or are you just here to advertise bitcoins as some sort of miracle currency like some kind of snake oil salesmen.


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

On another note, this is a good opportunity to link an excellent audio novel:

King of bitcoin (has a couple nsfw parts later in)

(also, buttcoin is pretty funny, sorry  )


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## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> What if I don't have bitcoins?



Take your pick of any of these services. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ You're not limited to any one, and if they charge too high fees, or screw you with TOS restrictions, you can move. Competition between them will result in lower fees and higher service, unlike the monopoly of our credit cards. I'll still be able to accept whatever you send me (unlike being stuck only with PayPal, only with VISA, only with MasterCard, and setting up separate accounts for each)



PastryOfApathy said:


> What if I want to pay for gas?



Then you're out of luck  Unless you meet with someone through Localbitcoins.com at a gas station and swap for cash. This problem will be solved soon enough though.



PastryOfApathy said:


> What if I want to pay my bills?



https://www.billpayforcoins.com/  You can even pay your tax bill to the IRS with that one.



PastryOfApathy said:


> What if I don't want to invest in a bubble?



BitPay or Coinbase will swap your coins into dollars for less than 1% as soon as you get them, so if you charge $20, you will get $20 (they take on the volatility risk), and deposit it into your bank the next day (and you will never get the money yanked back out from someone using stolen cards or accounts)



PastryOfApathy said:


> Also on a side not do you actually plan on posting here or are you just here to advertise bitcoins as some sort of miracle currency like some kind of snake oil salesmen.



I plan to try to get bitcoin used within the fandom, whether that means promoting and answering questions about it at conventions, buying add space on furry art sites, or even giving out free bitcoins to artists and such.

Why, what did you want to talk about?


----------



## ACraZ (Jan 30, 2014)

Yeah! Go back to your geometry fandom, we don't care too much for your pyramids!

Get it? Cuz pyramid schemes... and pyramids are part of geom- never mind, it sounded better in my head, sorry.


----------



## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

ACraZ said:


> Yeah! Go back to your geometry fandom, we don't care too much for your pyramids!
> 
> Get it? Cuz pyramid schemes... and pyramids are part of geom- never mind, it sounded better in my head, sorry.









Seriously, that was a pretty good attempt :-D


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## Volkodav (Jan 30, 2014)

"Notice BillPayForCoins is now closed. Feel free to view your payment information through the end of 2013. Thank you for your business. "

Do you think the IRS figured out that they were getting Monopoly money



"(and you will never get the money yanked back out from someone using stolen cards or accounts)"
So basically, any parent whose kid steals their card to buy Play Money is totally and 100% screwed when they see their jacked up credit card bill.
Awesome.



I just noticed your signature, advertisement threads aren't allowed.


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## PastryOfApathy (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Take your pick of any of these services. http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/ You're not limited to any one, and if they charge too high fees, or screw you with TOS restrictions, you can move. Competition between them will result in lower fees and higher service, unlike the monopoly of our credit cards. I'll still be able to accept whatever you send me (unlike being stuck only with PayPal, only with VISA, only with MasterCard, and setting up separate accounts for each)


That doesn't solve the whole "I don't want to invest in a bubble" thing. 





Rassah said:


> https://www.billpayforcoins.com/  You can even pay your tax bill to the IRS with that one.




Did you check your own link? It literally has a notice that says "BillPayForCoins is now closed."



Rassah said:


> BitPay or Coinbase will swap your coins into dollars for less than 1% as soon as you get them, so if you charge $20, you will get $20 (they take on the volatility risk), and deposit it into your bank the next day (and you will never get the money yanked back out from someone using stolen cards or accounts)



What if the $20 in bitcoins I bought suddenly is suddenly worth half that overnight because bitcoins fluctuate like crazy? That's right, I just lost $10 because some asshat wanted to pay me in funny money. 





Rassah said:


> I plan to try to get bitcoin used within the fandom, whether that means promoting and answering questions about it at conventions, buying add space on furry art sites, or even giving out free bitcoins to artists and such.
> 
> Why, what did you want to talk about?



Something that won't lose people money.


----------



## Ansitru (Jan 30, 2014)

I don't even know what you're trying to achieve here. 
The people you're trying to convince to use the currency, artists, will most likely not trust a volatile currency. Hell, I don't trust it either. 

And your PR of calling people "dumb as fuck" for being cautious is just hilariously bad. 
But hey: shine on, you bitcoin-stan, you.


----------



## Lobar (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Actually, no, Bitcoin's price doesn't depend on my, or other shills, in any way.



Uh huh.

So what's the value of a Bitcoin should you be unable to get some other shill to accept it as currency?


----------



## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Clayton said:


> "Notice BillPayForCoins is now closed. Feel free to view your payment information through the end of 2013. Thank you for your business. "
> 
> Do you think the IRS figured out that they were getting Monopoly money



Ack! Sorry, I knew a service was coming out, didn't remember the name, just googled for it, and assumed it was that one. The actual service is Snapcard which will roll out its IRS payment service shortly. I suspect that business will fail, though, since bitcoiners are probably not the types to pay taxes on their bitcoins (or so I hear)




Clayton said:


> "(and you will never get the money yanked back out from someone using stolen cards or accounts)"
> So basically, any parent whose kid steals their card to buy Play Money is totally and 100% screwed when they see their jacked up credit card bill.
> Awesome.



You guys keep looking at it from the wrong direction. No, as a credit card user, if someone steals your card, you will be reimbursed. It doesn't matter if the card was used to buy bitcoin or something else. It's the merchants  (and charities, and artists) that get screwed, since if your card is stolen, and you ask for the money back, the merchant is the one who pays for the loss, not the credit card company. Well, technically we all do, since the 3% or so that merchants lose to credit card chargebacks just get added to the price of things we pay for.



Clayton said:


> I just noticed your signature, advertisement threads aren't allowed.



What am I advertising? You want $1,000?



PastryOfApathy said:


> That doesn't solve the whole "I don't want to invest in a bubble" thing.



If you use BitPay, you won't even see the coins. All you'll be investing in, is being able to get payments and donations from anywhere in the world, for much cheaper fee than you pay now. If bitcoin is too complicated for you to figure out, just think of it as _cheaper credit cards._




PastryOfApathy said:


> Did you check your own link? It literally has a notice that says "BillPayForCoins is now closed."



Yeah, oops. Quick google search without followup. Meant to point to SnapCard.



PastryOfApathy said:


> What if the $20 in bitcoins I bought suddenly is suddenly worth half that overnight because bitcoins fluctuate like crazy?



It won't affect you at all. If you charge someoe $20 through BitPay or Coinbase, *you get $20 into your bank, guaranteed.* Those services sell the coins instantly for you, and take on any fluctuation risk onto themselves. Plus you'll get at least 1.5% more than you would if you didn't use "funny money."



PastryOfApathy said:


> Something that won't lose people money.



Guess how much I lost on Bitcoin in the last 3 years?



Ansitru said:


> I don't even know what you're trying to achieve here.
> The people you're trying to convince to use the currency, artists, will most likely not trust a volatile currency.



I'm hoping to dispel that exact misconception. Bitcoin has a lot of FUD and BS floating around it, mostly perpetrated by the same trolls that spread FUD and BS about the furry fandom. Bitcoin is only as volatile as you want it to be, has way more benefits than disadvantages, and can be a huge benefit to artists over the other payment networks.



Ansitru said:


> And your PR of calling people "dumb as fuck" for being cautious is just hilariously bad.



Oh, it wasn't for being cautious. I'm all for being cautious. I track every penny (and bitcoin). I don't invest in anything I don't know everything about and I wouldn't recommend investing into bitcoin any more than you are willing to throw away. It's a beta still under development, and I completely admit that. My issue is with people that... well... Have you heard of Something Awful and their interactions with and opinions of the furry fandom? It's exactly like that with them and Bitcoin, and the claims of extreme anti-bitcoin types I've seen within the furry fandom are about as legitimate as SA goon claims about furries.


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> since bitcoiners are probably not the types to pay taxes on their bitcoins (or so I hear)


"Guys you can evade taxes with bitcoins. Just saying. I know *I* didn't claim any of *my* capital gains! And you know what, the IRS can't do *anything* abo- wait, someone's at my door, says they're the police, one second."


----------



## Rassah (Jan 30, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> "Guys you can evade taxes with bitcoins. Just saying. I know *I* didn't claim any of *my* capital gains! And you know what, the IRS can't do *anything* abo- wait, someone's at my door, says they're the police, one second."



As far as anyone knows, I don't have any bitcoins  But I do pay my taxes! The full 30% of my total income. I also know a few millionaires that are now able to travel to and live anywhere (even without visas), completely anonymously, with no one realizing who they are, and them taking their entire wealth with them (paying cash, converted from bitcoins, for their apartments, food, etc)

Also, Oh, hey! Just noticed your info say you're from Toronto! I live that place, and typically visit during Thanksgiving break (we unpatriotically leave the country to visit the closest thing to Europe this side of the pond, instead of eating turkeys like good god fearing Americans). There's also a HUGE bitcoin meetup group there (something like 400 people), and I'll also be traveling to Toronto's bitcoin conference on April 11th with my husband. Maybe tat's the weekend you want to be out of town or whatever


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> As far as anyone knows, I don't have any bitcoins


I know you have bitcoins. You literally linked your wallet in the OP.


----------



## Lobar (Jan 30, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Oh, it wasn't for being cautious. I'm all for being cautious. I track every penny (and bitcoin). I don't invest in anything I don't know everything about and I wouldn't recommend investing into bitcoin any more than you are willing to throw away. It's a beta still under development, and I completely admit that. My issue is with people that... well... Have you heard of Something Awful and their interactions with and opinions of the furry fandom? It's exactly like that with them and Bitcoin, and the claims of extreme anti-bitcoin types I've seen within the furry fandom are about as legitimate as SA goon claims about furries.



I've got stairs in my house _right this very second_.

Can't help but notice this didn't get a response:



Lobar said:


> So what's the value of a Bitcoin should you be unable to get some other shill to accept it as currency?


----------



## Rassah (Jan 31, 2014)

Lobar said:


> I've got stairs in my house _right this very second_.



Whut o.o



Lobar said:


> Can't help but notice this didn't get a response:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Didn't think you would really care. Honestly, I won't gain or lose anything regardless of whether anyone in the fandom accepts it (actually I will probably lose a bit, just from me giving money out. Which I'm used to. Check out this link https://blockchain.info/address/1BTC1oo1J3MEt5SFj74ZBcF2Mk97Aah4ac Every outgoing transaction is me sending out money to a charity). If I can't get anyone else to accept the currency, my best guess is it'll be about $10,000 by the end of the year, and maybe $100k or more within 2 or 3 years. Honestly, I don't know exactly. No one can predict the price. But I do know of a few big investment firms that are working on adding Bitcoin to their hedge fund portfolios within the first half of 2014, and that there are a few investment banks (Wells Fargo among them) that are planning to add bitcoin as an option to their IRA's and 401k's by the end of 2014 (imagine the price if long-term hold retirement money starts pouring in). Also, NewEgg is working to add Bitcoin, as well as eBay, and once OverStock, TigerDirect, eBay, and NewEgg do it, it won't take long for Amazon to follow suit. Also, Google is adding Bitcoin as a payment option to their apps marketplace, and to their Google Wallet app as a payment method. And that's just in USA.

Plus there's also the ton of bitcoin-specific businesses and developments coming out later this year, like super-secure wallets, distributed P2P exchanges that won't rely on a single exchange like MtGox, distributed markets (think BitTorrent for eBay), a new contract scripting algorithm that will let you program anything you want directly into the currency (think distributed P2P cloud computing, right on the blockchain), much better integration among all systems with distributed domain name DNS system (Namecoin), and a system that will work with bitcoin as essentially a bank-in-a-box, where you'll be able o use it to do anything and everything a bank, corporation, or brokerage can do (a system as revolutionary as bitcoin, which I personally donated 20BTC to to support).


----------



## chesse20 (Jan 31, 2014)

Ban op plz


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 31, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Also, Oh, hey! Just noticed your info say you're from Toronto! I live that place, and typically visit during Thanksgiving break (we unpatriotically leave the country to visit the closest thing to Europe this side of the pond, instead of eating turkeys like good god fearing Americans). There's also a HUGE bitcoin meetup group there (something like 400 people), and I'll also be traveling to Toronto's bitcoin conference on April 11th with my husband. Maybe tat's the weekend you want to be out of town or whatever


We should hang out; I'm a big fan of the annex area if you're up for lunch at the butler's pantry or something similar.



> I've got stairs in my house _right this very second._


_
_I am protected.


----------



## Lobar (Jan 31, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Didn't think you would really care. Honestly, I won't gain or lose anything regardless of whether anyone in the fandom accepts it (actually I will probably lose a bit, just from me giving money out). If I can't get anyone else to accept the currency, my best guess is it'll be about $10,000 by the end of the year, and maybe $100k or more within 2 or 3 years. Honestly, I don't know exactly. No one can predict the price.



$100k based on _what_?  If you couldn't get anyone to take it as payment, how would it be worth _anything_?  It doesn't even have some industrial utility like gold, it's nothing more than a solution to an interesting but pointless math problem that is hard for computers to solve.  Its only value is in what you can get the next sucker to cough up for it.


----------



## Butters Shikkon (Jan 31, 2014)

Why does this guy only post bitcoin shit on here? Look up his posts... :/


----------



## Mr. Sparta (Jan 31, 2014)

chesse20 said:


> Ban op plz



But then he can't convert us to his magical internet money!


----------



## Rassah (Jan 31, 2014)

chesse20 said:


> Ban op plz



Did I hurt your feelings? 



Mr. Sparta said:


> But then he can't convert us to his magical internet money!



And you're awesome! 



Kazooie said:


> We should hang out; I'm a big fan of the annex area if you're up for lunch at the butler's pantry or something similar.



Sounds pretty good. And there's two of them! Typically when we go, we spend most of our time down in the tunnels, or at St Lawrence's Market. This past time was the first time we could afford to get dinner at the CN tower, and then on the drive home, despite being in Toronto maybe 6 times already, I found out that you guys have an actual castle O.O Whatever plans I may have, I must visit that castle! (and maybe the shoe museum, if it's not too stinky)




Lobar said:


> $100k based on _what_? If you couldn't get anyone to take it as payment, how would it be worth _anything_?



Based on adoption by people other than you. There are lots of people in the world that really want to get it, but who currently can't (Argentina, UK, Iceland). Mainly because either their currencies suck, or there are too many banking restrictions they want to get around. Not even to mention the kind of disruption it can make in India and Africa for their poorest population.



Lobar said:


> It doesn't even have some industrial utility like gold, it's nothing more than a solution to an interesting but pointless math problem that is hard for computers to solve. Its only value is in what you can get the next sucker to cough up for it.



Yeah, you're one of those who is only able o see it as a "coin" and not the network. That's why I'm not sure I should bother explaining, since you will probably dismiss all the "utility" it, alone, can provide as useless.




Butters Shikkon said:


> Why does this guy only post bitcoin shit on here? Look up his posts... :/



Things I like to talk about: Globalization/business, economics, world travel, gourmet cooking, philosophy, politics, foreign cultures, languages, history, art, books, cutting edge tech, biotech, artificial intelligence, sci-fi, anime, and furry art. Sadly, most furs aren't into most of those things. Also, most of them are off-topic for this forum, and there's not much to talk about with just furry stuff. Maybe "Come to Furthemore! It's only a few sort months away!" And I'll be there helping with their moneys. How's that?


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 31, 2014)

Rassah said:


> (and maybe the shoe museum, if it's not too stinky)


The shoe museum rules. There's also an aquarium that's opened below the 'tower. I'm more of a fan of the zoo, though. The zoo rules.


----------



## Mentova (Jan 31, 2014)

Lobar said:


> I've got stairs in my house _right this very second_.


I, too, am protected. 

Buttcoins can :frogout:


----------



## Lobar (Jan 31, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Based on adoption by people other than you. There are lots of people in the world that really want to get it, but who currently can't (Argentina, UK, Iceland). Mainly because either their currencies suck, or there are too many banking restrictions they want to get around. Not even to mention the kind of disruption it can make in India and Africa for their poorest population.



Yeah, and you just assume that there's always going to be someone else that will accept it, which isn't guaranteed.  Hence, it only has value as long as you can get someone else to pony up something for it.


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 31, 2014)

Mentova said:


> I, too, am protected.
> 
> Buttcoins can :frogout:


cosbycoin for life

[marquee]
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




[/marquee]​


----------



## Mr. Sparta (Jan 31, 2014)

I'm still waiting on my shipment of dogecoins.


----------



## Butters Shikkon (Jan 31, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Things I like to talk about: Globalization/business, economics, world travel, gourmet cooking, philosophy, politics, foreign cultures, languages, history, art, books, cutting edge tech, biotech, artificial intelligence, sci-fi, anime, and furry art. Sadly, most furs aren't into most of those things. Also, most of them are off-topic for this forum, and there's not much to talk about with just furry stuff. Maybe "Come to Furthemore! It's only a few sort months away!" And I'll be there helping with their moneys. How's that?



You are full of shit. 

We have anime threads, we've talked about artificial intelligence in threads before, art is a constant thing talked about on here, Rilvor and Ouiji are huge fans of cooking, etc. etc. Which you would know if you stuck around to actually participate in the forum. 

I think you just come around to push this bitcrap and some random dude who just comes around forums to do that is pretty fishy in my book.


----------



## Karuvatto (Jan 31, 2014)

Mr. Sparta said:


> I'm still waiting on my shipment of dogecoins.



What's the difference with Doge and Bitcoin?


----------



## Lobar (Jan 31, 2014)

Karuvatto said:


> What's the difference with Doge and Bitcoin?



Same shit different brand.  There's a crapload of these now.  All of these are real:





Dogecoin





Animecoin





Potcoin





Gabencoin





Coinye Coin





Pikacoin





Fedoracoin





RonPaulCoin





Cryptoshekel​
THIS IS TOTALLY THE FUTURE OF MONEY, GUYS


----------



## Willow (Jan 31, 2014)

Rassah said:


> It's simple? I don't know any of their bank account of PayPal info, I doubt they will be willing to give that, or go through the trouble of adding a button to their image description field, I don't even know what country some of them live in, and I'm sure if I send them $1, they will get $0.60 of it. Using Bitcoin I just take out my phone, scan a pic on the screen, and hit Send. Best of all, both of us don't have to use the same money service. PayPal can only be sent through PayPal, but I can get Bitcoin through Coinbase, and they can withdraw it through BitPay, Bitstamp, or anything else. One is a restrictive monopoly, the other is an open platform. Which is good, because restrictive monopolies suck.


You know, just because one is less restrictive doesn't mean it's a better alternative. Especially if it's such a volatile market. Let alone the fact that you're trying to get artists to use something that could pretty much work against them in the long run. 





> FYI, the dollar has fluctuated wildly this past year, sometimes as much as 5% within a week. You just didn't notice it, because everything you buy is priced in dollars. All you saw was changing prices at stores. Euro fluctuated a lot, too, but you didn't notice because you don't keep track of that. You noticed Bitcoin because it went up 3,200% and was all over the media.


Yeah, but the dollar doesn't fluctuate so wildly that $1 suddenly becomes useless. 



> Once Bitcoin becomes more widely adopted, and things start getting priced in Bitcoin, you won't notice fluctuations, either.


You sure about that? You seem really confident it won't but how can you know that for sure? Especially if the fluctuations are extremely noticeable now??






> What if I don't have PayPal?


Then you couldn't buy art in the first place.



> What if I want to pay for porn, and don't  want my account frozen?


You don't specify what you're paying for. Literally all you have to say on Paypal is that you're paying for art. If you're stupid enough to say "Hey here's the money for my shitting dicknipple picture", then it's your own fault if your account is frozen. 



> What if I can't send a lot, and the person is in  another country?


Then you probably wouldn't be buying art in the first place. Again. It's like you're purposefully trying to make this harder than it is.


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Jan 31, 2014)

Lobar said:


> THIS IS TOTALLY THE FUTURE OF MONEY, GUYS



I don't know, I really want to buy some cryptoshekels now.


----------



## Mr. Sparta (Jan 31, 2014)

I feel oppressed if I can't pay my taxes with pikacoins.


----------



## Butters Shikkon (Jan 31, 2014)

Mr. Sparta said:


> I feel oppressed if I can't pay my taxes with pikacoins.



It should obviously be pokedollars :v


----------



## Mentova (Jan 31, 2014)

I am euphoric, not because of some phony cryptocurrency, but because I am enlightened by my own fedoracoins.


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 31, 2014)

Mentova said:


> I am euphoric, not because of some phony cryptocurrency, but because I am enlightened by my own fedoracoins.


Fedoracoins are not only guaranteed to reel in those ladies who you deserve because of how much of a nice guy you are, but you also get 6% off neckbeard implants!


----------



## Lobar (Jan 31, 2014)

There was a FurryCoin that started up just earlier this month but their website domain is already vacant. :B


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Jan 31, 2014)

Kazooie said:


> Fedoracoins are not only guaranteed to reel in those ladies who you deserve because of how much of a nice guy you are, but you also get 6% off neckbeard implants!



But do they make you look like an intellectual?


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 31, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> But do they make you look like an intellectual?


yes, they are guaranteed to attract HB7 and lower. HB8 and up will require some negging, but it'll still greatly accelerate your PUA progression via appearance of technical finesse and by giving you an easy opener.


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Jan 31, 2014)

I like how in the span of like a single page I've been more convinced to buy fedoracoins and cryptoshekels, where as the OP hasn't convinced a single person in 4. Amazing.


----------



## Kazooie (Jan 31, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> I like how in the span of like a single page I've been more convinced to buy fedoracoins and cryptoshekels, where as the OP hasn't convinced a single person in 4. Amazing.


I'm waiting on Barkley-sponsored neocryptoshekels, myself. Gonna buy so many chicken fry's.


----------



## picklejuice (Jan 31, 2014)

I heard Gemany and Switzerland were adopting it as a recognized currency. If that's true, then MAYBE...

But my opinion? NO.

It's too volitile. If it was $100 per coin a year ago and is $900 now, it can drop right back down to $100 or less or NOTHING depending on what legislators decide. Also, when I tried to set up an account, I had a tough time converting it into real money. You know, the kind of money you can pay rent with and buy food with?

Kinda important.

I did it successfully once.

Then there were bank problems, and I couldn't find anyone to honor my bitcoins.

Maybe I didn't look hard enough, or maybe I just didn't have the time to waste on it, after the literal 4 different organizations I had to give my personal info to in order to transform money into bitcoins and back. Usbank (that one was easy, that's my bank), dwolla, mtgox, AND bitcoin itself now ALL have one of my logins and passwords and email... AND the knowledge that I'm the kind of person who likes to GAMBLE with his money in a VOLITILE market.

My friend invested $400 into bitcoin back when it was $100 per, and due to how he's been trading it, he's earned $1300 just transferring money back and forth. He COULD have earned $4000 by now, but he didn't wait.

He doesn't share my opinion that, as a volitile currency, it's not a good investment. He doesn't share my opinion that it's basically gambling with your money. Money I can't really afford to lose right now.

ALL THAT SAID... I plan on offering it as a method of payment. Because my friend said he'd honor my bitcoins with real cash.


----------



## Kitsune Cross (Jan 31, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> I like how in the span of like a single page I've been more convinced to buy fedoracoins and cryptoshekels, where as the OP hasn't convinced a single person in 4. Amazing.



I'll totally buy fedoracoins for the lulz, and then tell everybody look I have fedora coins I'm better than you


----------



## Volkodav (Jan 31, 2014)

I don't get it
Like is the moderating here just done willy-nilly and at the mod's own discretion?
There are multiple threads about the exact same thing: Snake-oil salesmen that came here for the sole reason of trying to get people to join Bitcoin
This guy is doing NOTHING BUT ADVERTISING, HE FUCKING STATES HE'S AN ADVERTISER FOR BITCOIN IN HIS SIGNATURE.


Spam. This includes (but is not limited to) the pointless revival of old topics (whether the "thread revival" is relevant or not is ultimately left to the staff's discretion, use common sense), destructive thread derailment, double/triple posting, pointless posts (such as "inb4lock"), *posting advertisements* (except where allowed, such as the Black Market), posting only image macros, general chat threads (use IRC instead), creating threads solely to parody other topics, etc.


Can we fucking close these stupid threads already?


----------



## Mentova (Jan 31, 2014)

Clayton said:


> I don't get it
> Like is the moderating here just done willy-nilly and at the mod's own discretion?
> There are multiple threads about the exact same thing: Snake-oil salesmen that came here for the sole reason of trying to get people to join Bitcoin
> This guy is doing NOTHING BUT ADVERTISING, HE FUCKING STATES HE'S AN ADVERTISER FOR BITCOIN IN HIS SIGNATURE.
> ...


I looked through OT and R&R and didn't see any buttcoin threads.  If this guy really, _really_ wants to make threads about bitcoins then there isn't anything in the rules that states he can't. This thread isn't saying "Go to my website and buy bitcoins!" He's talking about how he thinks the fandom should use bitcoins. There is actual discussion about bitcoins going on in the thread.

I mean yeah part of his intent on making the thread was to try and convince people to invest in bitcoins but the fact that there is actual discussion going on and it seems like he intended actual discussion to happen and not just to shill his coin things is making me not want to lock this.

Now please calm down dude.

(also using the report button helps instead of complaining in the thread)


----------



## Lobar (Jan 31, 2014)

Mentova said:


> I looked through OT and R&R and didn't see any buttcoin threads.  If this guy really, _really_ wants to make threads about bitcoins then there isn't anything in the rules that states he can't. This thread isn't saying "Go to my website and buy bitcoins!" He's talking about how he thinks the fandom should use bitcoins. There is actual discussion about bitcoins going on in the thread.
> 
> I mean yeah part of his intent on making the thread was to try and convince people to invest in bitcoins but the fact that there is actual discussion going on and it seems like he intended actual discussion to happen and not just to shill his coin things is making me not want to lock this.
> 
> ...



You can check his post history.  He has 54 posts, and I counted exactly 5 that don't have anything to do with buttcoins.  That's less than 10%.


----------



## Mentova (Jan 31, 2014)

Lobar said:


> You can check his post history.  He has 54 posts, and I counted exactly 5 that don't have anything to do with buttcoins.  That's less than 10%.



I did glance through his post history. I mean I guess the guy just _really_ loves his goofy bitcoins.

If you see him making any posts that you feel serve no purpose but to advertise his stuff, report it and we'll look into it. I just don't feel like this thread itself is worth locking.


----------



## Volkodav (Jan 31, 2014)

Mentova said:


> I looked through OT and R&R and didn't see any buttcoin threads.  If this guy really, _really_ wants to make threads about bitcoins then there isn't anything in the rules that states he can't. This thread isn't saying "Go to my website and buy bitcoins!" He's talking about how he thinks the fandom should use bitcoins. There is actual discussion about bitcoins going on in the thread.
> 
> I mean yeah part of his intent on making the thread was to try and convince people to invest in bitcoins but the fact that there is actual discussion going on and it seems like he intended actual discussion to happen and not just to shill his coin things is making me not want to lock this.
> 
> ...



He's trying to push buttcoins onto furries lol. Like the actual thread is about trying to convince us why buttcoins are great and why we should all do what he wants.


http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/719295-Who-s-into-bitcoin

Not going to fall for the "report the threads you feel are violating the rules" trick again. This is the last I'm even talking about this crap.


----------



## Mentova (Jan 31, 2014)

Clayton said:


> He's trying to push buttcoins onto furries lol. Like the actual thread is about trying to convince us why buttcoins are great and why we should all do what he wants.
> 
> 
> http://forums.furaffinity.net/threads/719295-Who-s-into-bitcoin
> ...


So one other thread about bitcoins made days ago by another user? That doesn't exactly mean this specific guy is advertising.

And how is telling you to handle standard forums procedure as "trick?" If you see a thread that you feel requires action, report it. Simple as that.

Anyways that's enough on this subject, don't bring it up anymore.


----------



## Rassah (Jan 31, 2014)

Lobar said:


> Yeah, and you just assume that there's always going to be someone else that will accept it, which isn't guaranteed.



Actually it is. Do you assume that people will continue to want to wire money internationally, especially remittances to poor nations? Do you assume that they will prefer to use whatever method is cheaper? Then they will use bitcoins. Not because shills will talk to and try to convince them, but because my acquaintances are busy building businesses to make that happen.



Butters Shikkon said:


> we've talked about artificial intelligence in threads before



Honestly this place is pretty dead, so on first glance I didn't see any of that. Incidentally, one of the things Bitcoin allows is for a computer program to own and have full control of its money, not tied to any bank or person. There is a project underway to create an "autonomous entity" that will work like a virus of sorts, but have its own money in bitcoin, use it to buy storage space to propagate, and use genetic algorithms and pay for mechanical turn services to improve itself to figure out how to earn money. The idea is to create a virus that provides file storage, like MegaUpload, but with nothing but a computer program behind it, which you can't arrest.



Willow said:


> Let alone the fact that you're trying to get artists to use something that could pretty much work against them in the long run.



How so?




Willow said:


> You sure about that? You seem really confident it won't but how can you know that for sure? Especially if the fluctuations are extremely noticeable now??



I know, because I have years of experience and degrees in this finance stuff. The bigger a market gets, the less volatile it is. If all of bitcoins were worth $100, me selling $10 would drop the price about 10%. If they are worth $100,000, my sale wouldn't even be noticed. Stocks work the same way, with largest being the last volatile.



picklejuice said:


> Also, when I tried to set up an account, I had a tough time converting it into real money. You know, the kind of money you can pay rent with and buy food with?



Use Coinbase. That let's you withdraw and deposit right into your bank account. Also, you can use it directly with Gyft to buy gift cards with a 3% discount, or purse.io for Amazon with 6% discount.



Clayton said:


> This guy is doing NOTHING BUT ADVERTISING, HE FUCKING STATES HE'S AN ADVERTISER FOR BITCOIN IN HIS SIGNATURE.



Please point out where in my signature it says that I advertise for Bitcoin? If you can't, I can suggest a creative activity you can go do with yourself.

All I came here to suggest, all I want, is for furry artists to add Bitcoin addresses to the description fields of their art so I can send tips and donations. That, and try to dispel the myths that people have. That's it. Did I ask you to buy Bitcoin? Am I offering to sell anything? Am I forcing anything on anyone? (Other than PLEASE TAKE MY MONEY!)

Something is seriously wrong with you... Seriously, some of you are like the most conservative people ever!


----------



## Mr. Sparta (Feb 1, 2014)

Op should set up a poll, a simple yes or no question to using bitcoin.

Also I just converted my entire college funds to glorious pikacoins. No regrets.


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## Lobar (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Actually it is. Do you assume that people will continue to want to wire money internationally, especially remittances to poor nations? Do you assume that they will prefer to use whatever method is cheaper? Then they will use bitcoins. Not because shills will talk to and try to convince them, but because my acquaintances are busy building businesses to make that happen.



They'll use what is reliable.  You're still not generating any real demand for bitcoins through such services because you have to sell them again on the other end to convert back into real currency, which is still dependent on getting some sucker there to buy the damn thing.



Rassah said:


> Honestly this place is pretty dead, so on first glance I didn't see any of that. Incidentally, one of the things Bitcoin allows is for a computer program to own and have full control of its money, not tied to any bank or person. There is a project underway to create an "autonomous entity" that will work like a virus of sorts, but have its own money in bitcoin, use it to buy storage space to propagate, and use genetic algorithms and pay for mechanical turn services to improve itself to figure out how to earn money. The idea is to create a virus that provides file storage, like MegaUpload, but with nothing but a computer program behind it, which you can't arrest.



Surely this can only end well!


----------



## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

Lobar said:


> You're still not generating any real demand for bitcoins through such services because you have to sell them again on the other end to convert back into real currency, which is still dependent on getting some sucker there to buy the damn thing.



Not "some sucker," a currency exchange. People are investing millions into setting up such exchanges in various countries, so that someone can send $100 to their family, and instead of paying $10 to $20 to Western Union, they'll pay $1 or $2 to an exchange. Are you still stuck in the belief that it's hard to convert bitcoins in and out of cash? Even after I pointed to a link showing that "suckers" trade over $50 million of it every day?




> Surely this can only end well!



See, that's the difference between me and people like you. I hear that and I think, "Cool! Let's explore that!" You hear that and you think, "Oh no! That's scary!" That's what I meant by conservative, and that's what breeds the likes of SA goons, racists, ignorance, and bullies. If it's new or different, it must be stomped out!


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## Lobar (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Not "some sucker," a currency exchange. People are investing millions into setting up such exchanges in various countries, so that someone can send $100 to their family, and instead of paying $10 to $20 to Western Union, they'll pay $1 or $2 to an exchange. Are you still stuck in the belief that it's hard to convert bitcoins in and out of cash? Even after I pointed to a link showing that "suckers" trade over $50 million of it every day?



Just because you have a lot of suckers today doesn't mean that you will still have them tomorrow, or that they're not suckers.  How well do you think you'll be able to process your wire transfers through your completely unregulated exchange in the midst of the inevitable bust cycle?



Rassah said:


> See, that's the difference between me and people like you. I hear that and I think, "Cool! Let's explore that!" You hear that and you think, "Oh no! That's scary!" That's what I meant by conservative, and that's what breeds the likes of SA goons, racists, ignorance, and bullies. If it's new or different, it must be stomped out!



It's scary because it's _not_ different from things that are already bad, except that it's trying to be much worse in scale.  It sounds like the high-frequency trading algorithm-bots that are currently churning the real market, which have been demonstrated to be a vulnerability to the economy should they glitch and cause a "flash crash", only written to be completely and irrevocably autonomous and then turned loose to self-propagate as a grey goo throughout the internet.  That's insanity.


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> How so?


You're essentially paying someone with a currency that isn't stable. And seeing as how there's no restriction on this, it's easier for both artists and commissioners to scam each other and get away with it whereas with Paypal you could open a dispute and have a chance at getting even a partial refund. 



> I know, because I have years of experience and degrees in this finance stuff. The bigger a market gets, the less volatile it is. If all of bitcoins were worth $100, me selling $10 would drop the price about 10%. If they are worth $100,000, my sale wouldn't even be noticed. Stocks work the same way, with largest being the last volatile.


So because you have a degree, you know with certainty that this issue will suddenly go away if more people start using it? 

You might as well suggest people start paying each other in stocks because that's essentially what Bitcoins are.



Rassah said:


> I hear that and I think, "Cool! Let's explore  that!" You hear that and you think, "Oh no! That's scary!" That's what I  meant by conservative, and that's what breeds the likes of SA goons,  racists, ignorance, and bullies. If it's new or different, it must be  stomped out!


You know. If you're trying to persuade someone to use a product, the least you could do is stop being condescending. Especially since this is something people are _already_ opposed to using.


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## Lobar (Feb 1, 2014)

Willow said:


> You might as well suggest people start paying each other in stocks because that's essentially what Bitcoins are.



Stocks pay dividends and are a claim on real assets.  Bitcoins do neither.


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2014)

Lobar said:


> Stocks pay dividends and are a claim on real assets.  Bitcoins do neither.


I meant same principle. I realize stocks are way more legit than this but from what it sounded like, they're something you can sell to others on their own in addition to buying things.


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## Butters Shikkon (Feb 1, 2014)

I don't even understand why you would need or want these bits. 

I'm not looking to buy childporn, meth, chemicals to help make a bomb to blow up my highschool, or a assassin from the dark brotherhood. So why would I need em? I'm not getting arrested or trying to hide my transactions. 

This is a worthless idea and Strutebucks sound cooler anyway.


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## Volkodav (Feb 1, 2014)

Butters Shikkon said:


> I don't even understand why you would need or want these bits.
> 
> I'm not looking to buy childporn, meth, chemicals to help make a bomb to blow up my highschool, or a assassin from the dark brotherhood. So why would I need em? I'm not getting arrested or trying to hide my transactions.
> 
> This is a worthless idea and Strutebucks sound cooler anyway.



I too am curious as to why _anybody_ would be bothered to use BitCoin.
Paypal is easy to use. Paypal is certified.Paypal is accepted everywhere. Paypal is used by most furry artists. Paypal has rules to keep people from buying guns and babies from the black market. Paypal allows you to transfer money in and out of your bank account. Paypal can assist you in theft. Paypal can lock your account if it's being hacked. Paypal's currency rate is based off of Real-Life Money currencies and doesn't fluctuate by 10% every hour.

Why the fuck would anybody want to deviate from this.


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## Karuvatto (Feb 1, 2014)

Clayton said:


> I too am curious as to why _anybody_ would be bothered to use BitCoin.



I've always been looking for a gun, if that counts.

_Not to harm others with of course._


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 1, 2014)

Clayton said:


> I too am curious as to why _anybody_ would be bothered to use BitCoin.
> Paypal is easy to use. Paypal is certified.Paypal is accepted everywhere. Paypal is used by most furry artists. Paypal has rules to keep people from buying guns and babies from the black market. Paypal allows you to transfer money in and out of your bank account. Paypal can assist you in theft. Paypal can lock your account if it's being hacked. Paypal's currency rate is based off of Real-Life Money currencies and doesn't fluctuate by 10% every hour.
> 
> Why the fuck would anybody want to deviate from this.



Because fuk da system XDD libertarian 4 lyf ron paul 2010, or something like that. 

But seriously why the hell is the OP still here? Like it's more than apparent this thread was meant to persuade everyone to convert to his miracle currency that will solve world hunger and give everyone free handjobs. But it's become more than apparent that he isn't ever going to convince anyone here so why stay? I mean there's plenty of other sites to shill his monopoly money too and who knows maybe he'll find someone dumb enough to buy in to his scheme?


----------



## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

Lobar said:


> Just because you have a lot of suckers today doesn't mean that you will still have them tomorrow, or that they're not suckers.  How well do you think you'll be able to process your wire transfers through your completely unregulated exchange in the midst of the inevitable bust cycle?



All the exchanges are licensed and regulated. That's why it's costing millions to set them up. Just because people find Bitcoin more useful than alternatives today *doesâ€‹â€‹â€‹, *in fact, mean they will keep finding it useful in the future. You are like someone bitching about email in early 90's, insisting that post letters are more reliable and easier to use, and claiming that just because some suckers are using email now, doesn't mean they'll be using it tomorrow. In the end, the suckers are the one who fail to grasp the potential of new technology.



Lobar said:


> It sounds like the high-frequency trading algorithm-bots that are currently churning the real market, which have been demonstrated to be a vulnerability to the economy should they glitch and cause a "flash crash", only written to be completely and irrevocably autonomous and then turned loose to self-propagate as a grey goo throughout the internet.  That's insanity.



You are describing trading bots on Bitcoin exchanges, which, by the way, exist on USD currency exchanges too. Bitcoin by itself is like TCP/IP of money. As for flash crashes, since the last one in the stock market, markets, including Bitcoin exchanges, implemented a "circuit breaker" that shuts down the exchange for a few minutes to an hour if the price drops past a certain threshold, so they are unlikely to happen again. I'm guessing you don't invest or save for retirement for fear of volatility and flash crashes, too?



Willow said:


> You're essentially paying someone with a currency that isn't stable.



Depends on the currency. If you pay an artist who lives in Argentina, Cyprus, Venezuela, Ukraine, or even China to a point (their currency could "snap" at any second), paying them in Bitcoin is more stable than in their own currency. And if they are worried about stability, they can use a merchant processor, just like they use PayPal or VISA, which will instantly convert bitcoins to dollars. Except instead of paying 3% to receive a payment, it will only cost them 1%. Regardless of everything else, Bitcoin is already a cheaper and more reliable way of getting paid than credit cards and PayPal.



Willow said:


> And seeing as how there's no restriction on this, it's easier for both artists and commissioners to scam each other and get away with it whereas with Paypal you could open a dispute and have a chance at getting even a partial refund.



You can use escrow with Bitcoin too. It would cost you an extra 1% fee or so. I think it's nice to have a choice to not be forced to pay for that service if I'm trading with someone I trust, and pay for it if I need it.



Willow said:


> So because you have a degree, you know with certainty that this issue will suddenly go away if more people start using it?



Yes, because I understand the mechanics of how it works and what causes volatility.



Willow said:


> You might as well suggest people start paying each other in stocks because that's essentially what Bitcoins are.



Stocks can not be traded person to person, charge high brokerage fees for every trade (at least $5), depend on the health of a company to continue to exist (company dies, your "money" dies), and are not specifically designed to work as money.



Willow said:


> You know. If you're trying to persuade someone to use a product, the least you could do is stop being condescending. Especially since this is something people are _already_ opposed to using.



I don't expect to persuade those people, since I know it's about as likely as persuading a christian to become an atheist. Ironic that someone in an atheist group (Lobar) has such strong faith in their own beliefs about bitcoin





Lobar said:


> Stocks pay dividends and are a claim on real assets.



Most socks don't pay dividends, because that is a market signal of "We don't know how to innovate and grow any more, and don't know what to do with all our money, so we'll just give it back to investors." Stocks of banks, financial companies, and software companies (Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter) have no real assets, since they are entirely based on service and/or software.



Willow said:


> it sounded like, they're something you can sell to others on their own in addition to buying things.



In that sense they're more like foreign currency, like euros, which you can sell to someone else, or use them to buy things.



Clayton said:


> I too am curious as to why _anybody_ would be bothered to use BitCoin.
> Paypal is easy to use. Paypal ... PayPal... PayPal
> 
> Why the fuck would anybody want to deviate from this.



If you prefer to be charged 2.7% per transaction, follow TOS that restricts sale of porn, support an evil monopoly that screws people (including furry artists) over, and restrict itself to highly privileged people living in highly privilidged areas (you can't use it in India, Russia, China, and much of the rest of the world), then by all means, keep using it. No one is forcing you to switch.
But if you're curious as to why others will, I wrote an extensive list here http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=1786&piddl_msgid=1240030#msg_1240030



PastryOfApathy said:


> Because fuk da system XDD libertarian 4 lyf ron paul 2010, or something like that.



When the internet first started, it was only for subversive, hacker, libertarian types and pornographers, too. There were lots of complains from people that the internet is a bad thing, and only assists criminals.



PastryOfApathy said:


> But seriously why the hell is the OP still here? Like it's more than apparent this thread was meant to persuade everyone to convert to his miracle currency...



Not convert, just add to the list of other services. You *canâ€‹ use PayPal* and Bitcoin at the same time. Despite being aware of the stereotype about furries and jobs/money/business (i.e. their general incompetence with it) I came here thinking that maybe there are some people here who aren't ignorant trolls, who would be willing to help me do something really  beneficial for our community. (I know it's a stereotype because I hang out with high income furries, and know a bunch who both have businesses, and use Bitcoin, but stereotypes persist for a reason) I know for a fact that adopting Bitcoin will improve the lives of furry artists, and, having money and being very charitable, I was willing to donate a few $k of my own to the cause. 
But you're right. Me being a Senior Financial Analyst of one company, CEO of another, CFO of a third, and Financial Consultant/Brand Manager of a fourth, I don't have a lot of time to waste, so it was perhaps foolish for me to extend an offer to this group. Mind you, I do consider you a small group not representative of the furry fandom as a whole, and being mostly  inconsequential, so I'm not too discouraged.


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> I don't expect to persuade those people, since I  know it's about as likely as persuading a christian to become an  atheist.



So you're only here to piss, moan, and get into shit-flinging contests with everyone? It's all coming together now. 



Rassah said:


> If you prefer to be charged 2.7% per transaction, follow TOS that restricts sale of porn, support an evil monopoly that screws people (including furry artists) over, and restrict itself to highly privileged people living in highly privilidged areas (you can't use it in India, Russia, China, and much of the rest of the world), then by all means, keep using it. No one is forcing you to switch.
> But if you're curious as to why others will, I wrote an extensive list here http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=1786&piddl_msgid=1240030#msg_1240030



87 cents off of a 30 dollar commission is a fair price to be able to actually use my money. Also we already debunked the whole porn issue since it only effects people retarded enough to explicitly say they're buying porn.

*EDIT: *Just because this is so precious. 


Rassah said:


> Not convert, just add to the list of other services. You *canâ€‹ use PayPal*  and Bitcoin at the same time. Despite being aware of the stereotype  about furries and jobs/money/business (i.e. their general incompetence  with it) I came here thinking that maybe there are some people here who  aren't ignorant trolls, who would be willing to help me do something  really  beneficial for our community. (I know it's a stereotype because I  hang out with high income furries, and know a bunch who both have  businesses, and use Bitcoin, but stereotypes persist for a reason) I  know for a fact that adopting Bitcoin will improve the lives of furry  artists, and, having money and being very charitable, I was willing to  donate a few $k of my own to the cause.
> But you're right. Me being a Senior Financial Analyst of one company,  CEO of another, CFO of a third, and Financial Consultant/Brand Manager  of a fourth, I don't have a lot of time to waste, so it was perhaps  foolish for me to extend an offer to this group. Mind you, I do consider  you a small group not representative of the furry fandom as a whole,  and being mostly  inconsequential, so I'm not too discouraged.



If you consider us "a small group not representative of the furry fandom as a whole" and "mostly  inconsequential" why are you here in the first place? Clearly you thought we were valuable enough to not just advertise here, but to argue for 5 fucking pages with people you think are so insignificant. I mean for someone whose time is supposedly so valuable you sure spend a lot of it doing nothing. 

Also I'm going to lay some wisdom on you because you sorely need it. You're not actually impressing anyone. Anyone can waltz into some random forum claiming to make x amount of money and to be the CEO of multiple companies while spewing some awful, condescending attitude.

Oh and I'm curious, what companies are you CEO of? I'm sure they're probably bitcoin-related and I want to laugh when they all collapse.


----------



## Socks the Fox (Feb 1, 2014)

Wait, Bitcoin's anonymous? Since when?


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## Butters Shikkon (Feb 1, 2014)

The moments when Pastry makes me proud as an faf member are very few and far between, but today is one of them. 

Son, I am not disappoint.


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## thoughtmaster (Feb 1, 2014)

Why use a currency that isn't universally accepted when you are able to use a currency that is? The way I see it, using bitcoins is akin to having a middleman in the exchange. You exchange your currency for bitcoins, the bitcoins are exchanged for goods or services, then the person receiving the bitcoins exchanges them for currency. Now it is that or exchange your currency for goods or services. Now, which one is easier?


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## Ansitru (Feb 1, 2014)

You know what? This thread is *excellent PR* to persuade people to *not* use bitcoin.

Rassah, buddy: you will not get people to use bitcoins if you keep insulting them. Rub your two braincells together for a moment and _reflect _on all statements you've made so far concerning people who are not willing to use bitcoin. _Think_ about how that looks to people who may still be on the fence and who are now put off by your constant stream of smug replies and insults. And then, feel free to consider the fact you've just done more harm than good to your little pet-project.

Good job, man. A+, even.
I think it may be time to step back, take a breather and to let someone else handle the PR because while this is funny as hell, it's not constructive for your business. Unless your goal is to make it collapse faster.


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## Sonlir (Feb 1, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> And all of those things can be just as easily bought with actual money, which I already have plenty of and don't run the risk of becoming completely worthless overnight because some bubble popped. Putting all your financial eggs into the bitcoin basket is exceedingly dangerous.


I agree with this, does anyone want to talk about putting all their money into gold or silver?


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## ACraZ (Feb 1, 2014)

thoughtmaster said:


> Why use a currency that isn't universally accepted when you are able to use a currency that is? If you can't spend it easily, what point is there in having it?



Look up, someone said it exactly. No, no not the economic debates, the Ron Paul 2010 thing. There's your answer exactly. For the higher ups its nothing more than another pyramid scheme


----------



## ADF (Feb 1, 2014)

This still going? O.=.o

You have to remember the reason so many alternatives are popping up is because the present system is such a mess, these are symptoms of a failing and crooked system. A bunch of economists didn't get together and decide this would be the best monetary system, we're basically still living in the fallout of the Nixon Shock that forced the present system into existence. Not by design, but because it was what they were able to rummage together given the circumstances.

Given a blank slate, no economist would pick this system. They rationalise for it after the fact.

So I can understand why someone would be enthusiastic and passionate at a possible alternative, because the recession/depression we live in and the accelerated increase in inequality is damn good evidence we are in need of a new system. But I'm of the line of thinking that economic change only comes when it is forced, when the present mess blows up even more (and it will) and they are given no alternative but to rethink economies. Until then they're maintaining the patchwork they have now, regardless of the problems it causes, because the established interests benefit from it far too much to willingly give it up.

Bitcoin isn't the first nor is it going to be the last attempt to overthrow the crooked system before it goes belly up again.


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 1, 2014)

Butters Shikkon said:


> The moments when Pastry makes me proud as an faf member are very few and far between, but today is one of them.
> 
> Son, I am not disappoint.



Aww :3


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## Mr. Sparta (Feb 1, 2014)

Ansitru said:


> You know what? This thread is *excellent PR* to persuade people to *not* use bitcoin.



/thread


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## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> 87 cents off of a 30 dollar commission is a fair price to be able to actually use my money.



Sure, but it's worse than 30 cents off of a 30 dollar commission for money you can actually use, isn't it?




PastryOfApathy said:


> Also we already debunked the whole porn issue since it only effects people retarded enough to explicitly say they're buying porn.



Artists don't have to explicitly say they're selling porn, though. PayPal sometimes checks what their service is being used for (checking sites), and finds out anyway. Have you seriously not heard of the many cases where people's PayPal accounts were frozen, and transactions reversed, including getting their money pulled right back out of their personal bank accounts?




PastryOfApathy said:


> If you consider us "a small group not representative of the furry fandom as a whole" and "mostly  inconsequential" why are you here in the first place?



Because I didn't do my research before making this post, and only really realized that after seeing the same 5 or so people reply over and over. The only reason I'm still arguing is because you are still saying wrong things that need to be corrected  (plus I'm taking a break from spending all day writing the financial projections section of a business plan for a London currency exchange)



PastryOfApathy said:


> Also I'm going to lay some wisdom on you because you sorely need it. You're not actually impressing anyone. Anyone can waltz into some random forum claiming to make x amount of money and to be the CEO of multiple companies while spewing some awful, condescending attitude. Oh and I'm curious, what companies are you CEO of?



Honestly, that's now my typical form of communication. I'm usually extremely nice and very polite. But when I end up being dropped into a pit of trolls, I sometimes get a bit defensive. When you make provably nonfactual statements and debunked claims (lies), I can't help but to step in and make a correction. Not because I want to be right, but because your lies may mislead others into believing something that will harm them in the long run. I only brought up my credentials to emphasize that I actually know the stuff I'm talking about, i.e. this kind of stuff is my job, my source of income, and my life, instead of being some faf troll with no experience beyond what he learned on the forums. Perhaps I should have brought up my furry credentials instead? Let's see... I've been in the fandom since 1993, including helping run a MUCK or two back in the day. I've been to tons of furry cons since 1999 (mostly AnthroCon). I know 2 and Kage fairly well (to give you an idea, Kage, at one point, was riding in the back seat of a car with me, drunk, *on my lap*, on the way to/from a 2am doughnut run when we were visiting a close friend of mine). I was one of the fist furs on SecondLife, joining while it was in beta in 2003 (where I first learned about possibilities of digital currencies) and was one of the first avatar designers, though I wasn't very good, and mostly did programming there. I own a ton of furry art and commissions, and over the years have donated thousands to charities at conventions. And finally, I'm on staff of one of the newer furry cons, where I help run their accounting and money stuff (though  admittedly there has't been much work for me yet). Is that any better?
P.S. I'm a CEO of a MAGLEV company. We own some really high value magnetic levitation and propulsion patents, and are working on developing the system for use in high speed transportation, roller coasters and rides, and extremely cheap space launches.




thoughtmaster said:


> Why use a currency that isn't universally accepted when you are able to use a currency that is?



Because it's cheaper, and it's global.



thoughtmaster said:


> The way I see it, using bitcoins is akin to having a *choice of *middleman in the exchange. You exchange your currency for bitcoins *using whatever service you like*, the bitcoins are exchanged for goods or services *with anyone in the world*, then the person receiving the bitcoins exchanges them for currency *using their own cheapest or preferred choice of middleman*. Now it is that or exchange your currency for *a currency stored in a bank account, use a third party that restricts you in how you use that currency, where you send it, and whom you could send it to, to send it to the bank account of the receiving person, and they exchange it back to their own currency which they can then use on *goods or services.



Hope that explains it better Really, the only direct exchange you mentioned happens with in-person cash. That is the same as online bitcoin, with either party being ok to just use bitcoin. anything else requires a middleman, except bitcoin gives the sender and the receiver a choice of middleman, instead of both of them being stuck having to use the same one (bot have to use VISA, or both have to use PayPal, etc). Plus bitcoin's middle men are way cheaper.



Ansitru said:


> You know what? This thread is *excellent PR* to persuade people to *not* use bitcoin.
> 
> Rassah, buddy: you will not get people to use bitcoins if you keep insulting them. Rub your two braincells together for a moment and _refl _...blah blah blah...



Yeah, not trying to persuade you. Doubt you would even care if I offered you $100 worth of btc.

Since you are so awesome at PR, please, pray tell, how should I go about answering people who make completely wrong statements, and resort to insults and general douchebaggery when I correct them? And btw, I'm not a PR person. Not my job. If someone want to be a douchebag, I am only happy to oblige and respond in kind (not like they earned my respect, right?)



Sonlir said:


> I agree with this, does anyone want to talk about putting all their money into gold or silver?



Do you put all your money into VISA or PayPal? Same thing. Bitcoin is a transaction mechanism. It can work as USD -> BTC -> USD just as easily as USD -> PayPal -> USD, but for less than half the fee. 



ADF said:


> But I'm of the line of thinking that economic change only comes when it is forced, when the present mess blows up even more (and it will) and they are given no alternative but to rethink economies.



And someone is always there trying to warn and teach others about how to avoid getting badly hurt by such blow-ups, but alas..  (what was that Forest Gump quote?)


Seriously, though, to everyone who is saying "_This thread is _*excellent PR to persuade people to not use bitcoin*" what method would you have recommended? Facts apparently are not a legitimate form of argument.


EDIT: By the way, I'm trying to send $350 to someone in Indonesia over PayPal right now. I have their correct PayPal e-mail address, but every time I try to send, it just tells me "We're sorry, but we can't send your payment right now."  The first time I tried, it put my account into a compromised state, forcing me to change my password and security questions. I changed them, and still nothing. No help or explanation from support, either. This is why I frikin hate PayPal.


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## ADF (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> And someone is always there trying to warn and teach others about how to avoid getting badly hurt by such blow-ups, but alas.. (what was that Forest Gump quote?)



There is only one thing that historically is sure to avoid you getting hurt during times of financial instability, that's a diverse portfolio of material wealth. Property, land, resources, famous art etc. There is a reason why the rich hoard material wealth, it is not simply greed but financial security. This is why the rich always survive while the poor and middle class get wiped out. The lower and middle class save in currency, which is always being debased. The more they debase the currency, the higher the monetary value of the assets held by the rich. 

When the 42+ year currency experiment we are undergoing inevitably fails, when all fiat currencies are called to question, what's special about Bitcoin? It's backed by nothing, it has no intrinsic value, just like fiat currency.

Bitcoin derives its value from confidence and faith. The very things that will be in short supply in the event of a currency crisis. The old shilling I carry around in my wallet has a substantially better chance of holding its value than bitcoin, even though it's a discontinued currency, because at the very least it's made of sterling silver.

-edit

Had to see the below when having a casual browse before bed >_>

Not responding on a touch screen. Assuming it hasn't fallen behind into irrelevance by tomorrow I'll respond then.


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## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

ADF said:


> There is only one thing that historically is sure to avoid you getting hurt during times of financial instability, that's a diverse portfolio of material wealth. Property, land, resources, famous art etc.



Huge problem with this is that land is easily taxed and confiscated, and resources, property, art etc. is very difficult to secure, and even more-so to transport. Especially across borders. Such wealth didn't help people in Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or WW2 Germany, isn't helping them in Argentina and Venezuela, and won't help them in US or Europe should their currency start collapsing due to welfare driven hyperinflation. Those in power will take everything they can to keep the system going to the very end. Bitcoin presents a new interesting dynamic, in that the rich are now able to keep (or easily convert) all their wealth on them on simple storage devices (or on paper, or even in their head with brainwallets), in a way that no one even knows that they are rich or how much they own, and allows them to easily take their wealth across borders with no way to enforce regulations to prevent then from doing so. So, whereas before the answer to capital flight due to economic collapse used to be more and more capital controls and restrictions on taking money out of the country, in a vain attempt to try to hold up a crumbling system, that option is no longer available. Now (or once bitcoin becomes more mainstream), if a country's government screws up its economy by making their regulatory environment unfavorable to business and investment, they can expect most of their big money to simply get up and leave, without any way to stop them. The only option is to actually compete against other countries, in a sense finally bringing free-market competition between countries and government policies, for the wealth of the richest and most productive people in the world. The country that will be the best off will be the one with the types of policies that make setting up a business, doing R&D, and hiring employees the easiest.



ADF said:


> The lower and middle class save in currency, which is always being debased. The more they debase the currency, the higher the monetary value of the assets held by the rich.



Which is also why I really dislike inflation, and scoff at those who claim deflation is a problem (granted deflation *is* a problem: for wealthy bankers).



ADF said:


> When the 42+ year currency experiment we are undergoing inevitably fails, when all fiat currencies are called to question, what's special about Bitcoin? It's backed by nothing, it has no intrinsic value, just like fiat currency.



Backing is a liability. It's an IOU, based entirely on trust. You either don't want backing (own the actual thing doing the actual thing), or you want enormous trust. Gold-backed means you trust the issuer of the certificates to actually have the gold. Government backed means you have to trust promises of politicians not to borrow to the point where hyperinflation is the only way out (hah!). When you buy gold, oil, or diamonds, you don't have to trust anyone that you actually own those things, or that they will continue to have their properties and continue to be scarce (though with gold, you better check it for tungsten). When you buy a bitcoin, you likewise don't have to trust anyone that this bitcoin is indeed yours, that it will continue to have all its functions, and that it will continue to be scarce without someone printing more. So bitcoin is the actual thing, and has an enormous trust system built in.
n the end, all money is, is a bartering tool, which requires convenience, fungibility, and scarcity. It doesn't matter what form it comes from, as long as those things are maintained. And as long as math is math, bitcoin will keep being bitcoin.



ADF said:


> Bitcoin derives its value from confidence and faith. The very things that will be in short supply in the event of a currency crisis. The old shilling I carry around in my wallet has a substantially better chance of holding its value than bitcoin, even though it's a discontinued currency, because at the very least it's made of sterling silver.



What is the use value of your coin v.s. use value of a bitcoin? If US dollar and economy collapses, we will likely still have internet (or at least phones), and while your shilling will be spendable within your local economy, my bitcoin will still be spendable globally, including remotely in economies that are still thriving. Likely what will happen is, since VISA won't be able to operate on a collapsed dollar, and may not have other digital currencies to work with (no high hopes for Euros, and a new gold-backed currency may not have enough history and trust), they'll end up having to convert your shilling to bitcoins to send it over long distance.


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Artists don't have to explicitly say they're selling porn, though. PayPal sometimes checks what their service is being used for (checking sites), and finds out anyway. Have you seriously not heard of the many cases where people's PayPal accounts were frozen, and transactions reversed, including getting their money pulled right back out of their personal bank accounts?


They can't check what site you're using the service for if you never say or allude to what site you're coming from. What are they going to do then? Scour every art site for your name?

The people who usually get their accounts frozen are again, people who state explicitly that they're coming from Furaffinity. Or they've been reported. 

Paypal isn't omniscient. They don't actively seek out people who are breaking their rules unless they've been alerted to it. 




> Seriously, though, to everyone who is saying "_This thread is _*excellent PR to persuade people to not use bitcoin*" what method would you have recommended? Facts apparently are not a legitimate form of argument.


Your facts really don't support much of anything. And it's basically TRUST ME GUIZ I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Even though several people have already given you reasons why this isn't a good idea. 

Also Paypal and other virtual wallet sites that use real money work really well for people who aren't stupid.



> I only brought up my credentials to emphasize that I actually know the  stuff I'm talking about, i.e. this kind of stuff is my job, my source of  income, and my life, instead of being some faf troll with no experience  beyond what he learned on the forums.


You know..just because it's your job doesn't automatically mean you know what you're talking about.


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## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

Willow said:


> They can't check what site you're using the service for if you never say or allude to what site you're coming from. What are they going to do then? Scour every art site for your name? ... They don't actively seek out people who are breaking their rules unless they've been alerted to it.



Uh, no, the just follow the IP or referral URL of where their PayPal buttons are posted to. Unless someone says "To pay, please send $X to this PayPal e-mail," PayPal can easily track and see which sites their payment buttons are on. They do actively check sites, but since there are so many of them, they can't check them all. Maybe you'll get caught, maybe not. There's also the problem of PayPal having differing definitions of "porn" than other people...




Willow said:


> Your facts really don't support much of anything. And it's basically TRUST ME GUIZ I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. Even though several people have already given you reasons why this isn't a good idea.



Fact: As a seller, you have no exposure to bitcoin's volatility if you use a merchant processor who instantly converts your bitcoins to dollars for you.
Fact: Using such merchant processors is cheaper than using PayPal or VISA, and if you don't like your processor, you can switch without losing customers.
Fact: You are not restricted to certain countries, and the exchange rates between high volume exchanges are typically lower than the rates charged by banks for international transfers.
Fact: You can send and receive payments as small as a few pennies, without the transaction fee taking up the entire amount.
Fact: You can set up a bitcoin account even if you don't have or don't qualify for a bank account (14yo and a really good artist? Screwed)
Fact: You can add a payment or a donation option ANYWHERE, just by copy/pasting a short string of text, and not be restricted by having to embed buttons with HTML code.

If you don't "TRUST ME," I can back al these things up. If you claim that these are false, I expect you to back your own statements up (if we're on this level, I mean). I know this stuff because, as I mentioned, I have been heavily involved in this, at all levels, for almost three years. But I understand if my claims about experience don't mean much to you, and you wish to read a source from some other guy you don't know.

*Now, would you be so kind and tell me why it is not a good idea for a furry artist to open a bitcoin wallet at blockchain.info and copy/paste a bitcoin address in the description field of the picture they post to FA? The artist isn't losing any money. People who use that address to send tips are not forced to donate. And there's even a possible benefit of the artist using a different address for different pictures, so they can track what type of art gets the most support. I would love to hear your concerns about this, or why you think this is idea.*




Willow said:


> Also Paypal and other virtual wallet sites that use real money work really well for people who aren't stupid.



America-centric middle to high class privilege... No, PayPal does not work for you if you can't get a bank account (too young or live in too poor of a town), or if you live in 95% of the rest of the world.



Willow said:


> You know..just because it's your job doesn't automatically mean you know what you're talking about.



You know, just because you've come out of the closet and have been openly gay for the last 15 years doesn't mean you know what it's like to be gay. Yeah, it's kinda like that (Not claiming you are or you aren't, just using the statement as an example). Incidentally, remember all the conservative christians screaming bloody murder at gays testifying in court in relation to gay rights and gay marriage causes, claiming that that's awful and unjust, because those gays are "biased?" Whom would you like to explain bitcoin to you? A car mechanic? (incidentally, I tinker too)

In-b4-Clayton: No, my sig is not about advertising Bitcoin. Bitcoin100 is a charity foundation that I inherited from the creator, and now help run, who's sole purpose is to give out $1,000 donations to charities that add bitcoin as a donation option to their site. Basically, if you are a non-religious non-political charity, all you have to do is add bitcoin to the list of your donation options, and we send you $1,000. That's it. If you use one of the merchant processors, like BitPay or Coinbase, they will get those bitcoins instantly converted to USD for you, and for charities they charge 0% fees, so, you get to keep 100% of the USD value that was donated to you (no volatility effect either). So far we have sent $1,000 to the likes of kittysafehaven.org, donkeyrescue.org, primateeducationnetwork.org, and dozens of others. So, if I am advertising for you to do something with my sig, the only thing that may be is for you to maybe get a charity you like to receive a $1,000 donation for very little work. Also, if you believe this is a bad idea, I can give you a list of about 50 names you can contact, whom you can send e-mails to explaining why it's a bad idea, and telling them why they shouldn't have those $1,000 in their bank accounts.


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## Volkodav (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> If you prefer to be charged 2.7% per transaction, follow TOS that restricts sale of porn, support an evil monopoly that screws people (including furry artists) over, and restrict itself to highly privileged people living in highly privilidged areas (you can't use it in India, Russia, China, and much of the rest of the world), then by all means, keep using it. No one is forcing you to switch.
> But if you're curious as to why others will, I wrote an extensive list here http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=1786&piddl_msgid=1240030#msg_1240030


I don't buy porn. I don't sell porn. If you HAVE TO sell furry porn, just umm iidk... DON'T ADDRESS THE TRANSACTION WITH "FURRY PORN" AS THE TITLE.
Evil monopoly that screws people over.. with no explanation. Convincing point!
Restricts itself to highly privileged areas liiikkeee... uhhh Europe, Australia, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Poland, Russia, UK, Canada, America, South America, basically everywhere you can fucking think of because I buy shit off of EBAY FROM THESE SELLERS THROUGH PAYPAL. You're lying. I purchase items *all the time* from China through Paypal.

You're not convincing anybody. I'm going to continue using Paypal and purchasing things from areas of the world where you say it's impossible to purchase things from through Paypal lmfao


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Uh, no, the just follow the IP or referral URL of where their PayPal buttons are posted to. Unless someone says "To pay, please send $X to this PayPal e-mail," PayPal can easily track and see which sites their payment buttons are on. They do actively check sites, but since there are so many of them, they can't check them all. Maybe you'll get caught, maybe not. There's also the problem of PayPal having differing definitions of "porn" than other people...


So tell me then, how is it that artists who have been using Paypal for years still have their accounts? It's not like PayPal just recently started saying no transactions involving porn and the blacklist on FurAffinity's been in place for at least four years now. 



> If you don't "TRUST ME," I can back al these things up. If you claim that these are false, I expect you to back your own statements up (if we're on this level, I mean). I know this stuff because, as I mentioned, I have been heavily involved in this, at all levels, for almost three years. But I understand if my claims about experience don't mean much to you, and you wish to read a source from some other guy you don't know.


I don't know who you are so your point is kind of moot. 



> *Now, would you be so kind and tell me why it is not a good idea for a furry artist to open a bitcoin wallet at blockchain.info and copy/paste a bitcoin address in the description field of the picture they post to FA? The artist isn't losing any money. People who use that address to send tips are not forced to donate. And there's even a possible benefit of the artist using a different address for different pictures, so they can track what type of art gets the most support. I would love to hear your concerns about this, or why you think this is idea.*


I don't see why I should. 




> America-centric middle to high class privilege... No, PayPal does not work for you if you can't get a bank account (too young or live in too poor of a town), or if you live in 95% of the rest of the world.


95% is a bit of a stretch as is everything else you just said. A pretty good chunk of Asia and Latin America use Paypal. 

Also, you can set up a personal account at 13 unless they just recently changed that and you don't need a bank account to use it. A home address maybe but that's about it. 

Even if you did need a bank account, you can set one up at any age so long as your parents approve of it. 




> You know, just because you've come out of the closet and have been openly gay for the last 15 years doesn't mean you know what it's like to be gay. Yeah, it's kinda like that (Not claiming you are or you aren't, just using the statement as an example).


No I wouldn't actually, you're right. I may have experience and my commentary on issues is still valuable, I'm a credible source, but that doesn't mean my experience as a gay man is the same for every other gay man or woman. You really can't use that as an example for two reasons mainly. 1. personal experience varies among individuals and 2. the only way someone could argue with you is if they are also gay. 

This is more like a doctor telling a patient to do something the patient knows isn't right but the doctor of course has credentials since you know, being a doctor and helping people is their job. So your concern is stupid. 



> Whom would you like to explain bitcoin to you? A car mechanic?


No. I'd like someone who doesn't come off as condescending and actually _listens_ to what people are telling them as opposed to pushing an agenda and assuming anyone opposed to them is an idiot for opposing it.


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## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

Clayton said:


> I don't buy porn. I don't sell porn. If you HAVE TO sell furry porn, just umm iidk... DON'T ADDRESS THE TRANSACTION WITH "FURRY PORN" AS THE TITLE.



See prior post about not needing to address transactions, and PayPal tracking what sites their buttons are posted to. Also, glad to know you are 100% representative of the entire world, and that anything that anyone does entirely depends on whether you do it to. I will keep that in mind next time I want to ask about the needs of glider pilots at private airports, or the quality of swords and merchants needed by Iaido practitioners. Simply asking you alone will save me a lot of time.



Clayton said:


> Evil monopoly that screws people over.. with no explanation. Convincing point!



Source: http://www.paypalsucks.com Did you know that to use PayPal's network, you MUST have a PayPal account? Or, have you heard the one about PayPal getting someone to destroy a possibly priceless Paganini violin replica, with no recourse for the seller? I know it's anecdotal evidence, but I know a fury artist personally who sold mature (not actualy pornographic) art over PayPal for over a year, and at some point PayPal somehow checked what he was selling, locked his account, *reversed his last $300 commission sale* by literally pulling the money out of his personal checking account, and since he has already pulled that money out to pay for bills, cost him almost a hundred dollars in overdraft fees. So, please excuse me for not being a PayPal fan.




Clayton said:


> Restricts itself to highly privileged areas liiikkeee... uhhh Europe, Australia, China, Korea, Hong Kong, Poland, Russia, UK, Canada, America, South America, basically everywhere you can fucking think of because I buy shit off of EBAY FROM THESE SELLERS THROUGH PAYPAL. You're lying. I purchase items *all the time* from China through Paypal.



Source: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/country-doesnt-work-paypal-66099.html PayPal (surprisingly) only added support for Russia this past September. Brazil and Argentina are in Sout America, and are either restricted or don't work with PayPal. It is still completely blocked for sending money to India, and is heavily restricted in many of the other countries you mentioned. Specifically, in most countries on PayPa's list you can only use PayPal to send money to someone else *in your same country*, or send money to USA, but can't have someone from USA send money to you. With eBay, you may be able to send money because PayPal works as an escrow for the transaction, and oversees an actual exchange of goods, as opposed to as just a money transmitter. Also, not a single country in your list is one that can be classified as "3rd world" or "emerging economy," so my point stands: PayPal only serves the privileged world.



Clayton said:


> You're not convincing anybody. I'm going to continue using Paypal...



And no one is asking you to stop...



Clayton said:


> and purchasing things from areas of the world where you say it's impossible to purchase things from through Paypal lmfao



Except for all the areas where it actually is impossible, apparently. Glad you find it funny. Hope you learned something new.




Willow said:


> So tell me then, how is it that artists who have been using Paypal for years still have their accounts? It's not like PayPal just recently started saying no transactions involving porn and the blacklist on FurAffinity's been in place for at least four years now.



I do not know. I'm not PayPal. Maybe they don't actually sell porn. Maybe they only sell it in private transactions instead of on their own art pages. Maybe they are lucky and haven't been found out yet. Why does it matter? Is it irrelevant that furry artists *have* been screwed by PayPal before, for doing something that's not technically illegal or immoral?



Willow said:


> I don't see why I should.



You don't see why you should add bitcoin addresses to your art posts? (no one is forcing you to) Or you don't see why you should tel me that it's a bad idea? (you are the one who brought it up, so it's on you to defend or retract that claim)



Willow said:


> 95% is a bit of a stretch as is everything else you just said. A pretty good chunk of Asia and Latin America use Paypal.



See above. They can use it locally within their own country only.



Willow said:


> Also, you can set up a personal account at 13...



For a savings accounts yes. For checking accounts you need to be 18, because checks are considered legal contracts, and you must be of legal age to enter into a contract. Some banks let you open a account with a parent or a legal guardian as a cosigner (though I believe most still restrict to 16 and older). It's also still more of a pain than just installing a bitcoin app on your phone or in your browser, and you can still buy most everything a kid might need through Gyft without needing any accounts. I'm not saying it's superawesome, I'm saying it's an actual, viable option.





Willow said:


> This is more like a doctor telling a patient to do something the patient knows isn't right but the doctor of course has credentials since you know, being a doctor and helping people is their job. So your concern is stupid.



But, apparently, my credentials as having a Bachelos in Business Finance, and a Master's in Global Business and Economics from a school on the world's Top-20 list wasn't good enough *cry* Should I get a PhD in finance before I start talking about this stuff?



Willow said:


> No. I'd like someone who doesn't come off as condescending and actually _listens_ to what people are telling them as opposed to pushing an agenda and assuming anyone opposed to them is an idiot for opposing it.



If you have a legitimate question, concern, or misunderstanding, I reply and answer your question or address your misunderstanding.

If you reply with things like "Bitcoin is only really useful if someone wanted to buy drugs" despite tons of Media Coverage about Silk Road being aken down in September, and about tons of companies coming out to support it, clam I am defending the idea that artists should charge less for their works when I did no such thing, claiming that's it's not possible to convert bitcoins to dollars without crashing the market (an oft-repeated, extremely easily verified claim about a problem that didn't exist for over 2 years now, often repeated by people who have no idea about anything bitcoin related other than "I hate it"), claims that I am trying to advertise something of mine or am trying to make money off of this, or any other such bs, yeah, I won't really give you much respect. I have dealt with A LOT of trolls and SA goons in my life. Sorry if many of the comments I had hostile replies to were *exactly the same claims put forward by rather overly hostile SA goons.* Perhaps I erred in thinking that furrs with such claims are not quite as hostile and, um, hardheaded as goons, but that does not seem to be the case.

EDIT: Or compare Bitcoin to monopoly money, which shows zero research into the subject. Why do people have such objections to someone making claims about a subject they suspect that someone may not know anything about, right after making a claim they themselves apparently know nothing about?


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## Mr. Sparta (Feb 1, 2014)

There's other options besides paypal, ya' know.


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## Ansitru (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Yeah, not trying to persuade you. Doubt you would even care if I offered you $100 worth of btc.
> 
> Since you are so awesome at PR, please, pray tell, how should I go about answering people who make completely wrong statements, and resort to insults and general douchebaggery when I correct them? And btw, I'm not a PR person. Not my job. If someone want to be a douchebag, I am only happy to oblige and respond in kind (not like they earned my respect, right?)ur money into VISA or PayPal? Same thing. Bitcoin is a transaction mechanism. It can work as USD -> BTC -> USD just as easily as USD -> PayPal -> USD, but for less than half the fee.



Here's a radical idea: don't fight fire with fire and stoop to being a condescending [redacted] (I seriously couldn't think of anything that's not an insult), but stay professional and explain your stance without resorting to ad hominems, condescension and smugness.

There. A+ advice on how not to be a PR-disaster. I happily await the undoubtedly condescending reply that you will have in response to this comment.


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2014)

How credible is a site called "Paypal Sucks" going to be? 

Maybe I should start a site called Bitcoin Sucks just to talk about all the horrible things Bitcoin does. Totally credible gaiz.


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## Rhee (Feb 1, 2014)

More than any other community? that's interesting is there any proof backing that statement up? or is it false advertisement?

Honestly this just reminds me of those people whom frantically buy/sell gold thinking they will come out ahead.


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Artists don't have to explicitly say they're selling porn, though. PayPal sometimes checks what their service is being used for (checking sites), and finds out anyway. Have you seriously not heard of the many cases where people's PayPal accounts were frozen, and transactions reversed, including getting their money pulled right back out of their personal bank accounts?



If you just type in "art" you're not going to get found it. Paypal isn't run by wizards. Again, it's only stupid people who get caught. 




Rassah said:


> Because I didn't do my research before making this post, and only really realized that after seeing the same 5 or so people reply over and over. The only reason I'm still arguing is because you are still saying wrong things that need to be corrected  (plus I'm taking a break from spending all day writing the financial projections section of a business plan for a London currency exchange)



For someone whose time is supposedly so valuable (until it's suddenly not) you're really shitty at time management. Seriously learning to let shit go is like something you learn in high school. 




Rassah said:


> Honestly, that's now my typical form of communication. I'm usually extremely nice and very polite. But when I end up being dropped into a pit of trolls, I sometimes get a bit defensive. When you make provably nonfactual statements and debunked claims (lies), I can't help but to step in and make a correction. Not because I want to be right, but because your lies may mislead others into believing something that will harm them in the long run. I only brought up my credentials to emphasize that I actually know the stuff I'm talking about, i.e. this kind of stuff is my job, my source of income, and my life, instead of being some faf troll with no experience beyond what he learned on the forums. Perhaps I should have brought up my furry credentials instead? Let's see... I've been in the fandom since 1993, including helping run a MUCK or two back in the day. Words words words hey guys look how important I am words words words...



You must truly be insufferable. I almost feel sorry for you if unwavering condescension and passive-aggression is your default method of treating people who deviate from your views in any way. 




Rassah said:


> P.S. I'm a CEO of a MAGLEV company. We own some really high value magnetic levitation and propulsion patents, and are working on developing the system for use in high speed transportation, roller coasters and rides, and extremely cheap space launches.



That didn't answer my question. What specific company are you the CEO of? If you don't answer I'm going to assume you're lying out your ass .



Rassah said:


> Seriously, though, to everyone who is saying "_This thread is _*excellent PR to persuade people to not use bitcoin*" what method would you have recommended? Facts apparently are not a legitimate form of argument.


How about not arguing with, and belittling your audiences intelligence?


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## Willow (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> I do not know. I'm not PayPal. Maybe they don't actually sell porn. Maybe they only sell it in private transactions instead of on their own art pages. Maybe they are lucky and haven't been found out yet. Why does it matter? Is it irrelevant that furry artists *have* been screwed by PayPal before, for doing something that's not technically illegal or immoral?


6 years is a really long time to not get caught. And yes, these are artists who probably sell porn. 

But it matters because it makes your claim that Paypal will essentially hunt you down to see if you're using their services properly false. Not to say people don't get screwed over by Paypal, but I've been screwed over by a lot of places before too. Doesn't make them bad necessarily. 




> You don't see why you should add bitcoin addresses to your art posts? (no one is forcing you to) Or you don't see why you should tel me that it's a bad idea? (you are the one who brought it up, so it's on you to defend or retract that claim)


I've already explained it. I see no point in retelling you why I think it's a bad idea because you've already "disproved" my point. 



> For a savings accounts yes. For checking accounts you need to be 18, because checks are considered legal contracts, and you must be of legal age to enter into a contract. Some banks let you open a account with a parent or a legal guardian as a cosigner (though I believe most still restrict to 16 and older). It's also still more of a pain than just installing a bitcoin app on your phone or in your browser, and you can still buy most everything a kid might need through Gyft without needing any accounts. I'm not saying it's superawesome, I'm saying it's an actual, viable option.


Crazy thing, I have my Paypal linked to my savings account (it's actually my credit union account) and use it to buy things when I don't have money in Paypal. Or to transfer money to my account. All you need to do is get the tracking number for your account and link it to Paypal. Simple as that. 




> But, apparently, my credentials as having a Bachelos in Business Finance, and a Master's in Global Business and Economics from a school on the world's Top-20 list wasn't good enough *cry* Should I get a PhD in finance before I start talking about this stuff?


I thought business people were supposed to be good at reading. 



> If you have a legitimate question, concern, or misunderstanding, I reply and answer your question or address your misunderstanding.


Questions, maybe. Everything else, no. 




> EDIT: Or compare Bitcoin to monopoly money, which shows zero research into the subject.


I guess you don't know what sarcasm is.


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## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

Ansitru said:


> Here's a radical idea: don't fight fire with fire and stoop to being a condescending [redacted] (I seriously couldn't think of anything that's not an insult), but stay professional and explain your stance without resorting to ad hominems, condescension and smugness.



When you deal with SomethingAwful goons, or others of their ilk, how do you reply to a comment such as "Furries are perverted, diaper-wearing sickos!" Perhaps your answer will help me in formulating an answer to "Bitcoins are monopoly money, only used by criminals to buy drugs and child porn!" I know it's not exactly the same, but I hope you can see the similarity, as well as the intent and opinion (and knowledge level) of the poster.



Willow said:


> How credible is a site called "Paypal Sucks" going to be?



About as credible as any site that collects and aggregates customer complaints.



Willow said:


> Maybe I should start a site called Bitcoin Sucks just to talk about all the horrible things Bitcoin does. Totally credible gaiz.



And you wouldn't be the first. I encourage you to do it, especially since Bitcoin is a completely open-source project with a completely open community, and they would welcome any recommendations on how to improve things (as long as you provide actual suggestions instead of just opinions about how you think it sucks)



Rhee said:


> More than any other community? that's interesting is there any proof backing that statement up? or is it false advertisement?



What other community or fandom is global, has members frequently traveling to conventions around the world, has people submitting as much free content to free sites online, and has as many people actually attempting to make a living from commissions and content they submit online?

No, I'm not suggesting "Invest in Bitcoin!" like "Buy Gold!" or some such sh.. I actually recommend people stay the heck away from gold, and don't invest in bitcoin any more than they are willing to lose. What I *am* recommending is furry artists using bitcoin's much cheaper payment transfer option and super-simple donation option to actually keep and make more money. Because I like furry artists, and want to support them with money so they can eat, live, and keep drawing.




PastryOfApathy said:


> If you just type in "art" you're not going to get found it. Paypal isn't run by wizards. Again, it's only stupid people who get caught.



Ok, serious question, do you know what a referring URL is?




PastryOfApathy said:


> You must truly be insufferable. I almost feel sorry for you if unwavering condescension and passive-aggression is your default method of treating people who deviate from your views in any way.



No, I actually participate in a lot of debates and arguments, and really really respect people who challenge me and make me think and work really hard to defend my positions. If someone has a view that's different from my own, I think that's great, because it means I either have a chance to learn something new (yay!), or learn how to support my position better(also yay!). With you, I just really don't like you personally. You know what they say about first opinions, right? *This* was what formed mine of you, and *this* was the one that sealed my opinion of you as being someone who has no knowledge of the subject, no interest in discussing it, and no interest in learning anything new about it. That's really all there is to it.




PastryOfApathy said:


> That didn't answer my question. What specific company are you the CEO of? If you don't answer I'm going to assume you're lying out your ass .



TozoniMAGLEV. Which changed the name from AmlevTrans since Dr. Tozoni passed away a few years ago. What are you a CEO of? Or manager of? Or, hell, anything? Why are you someone people should listen to? (especially on this topic)



PastryOfApathy said:


> How about not arguing with, and belittling your audiences intelligence?



So, "Oh yes, you are absolutely right. Bitcoins are just a tulip mania ponzi used for selling drugs online, and is not a real money that can't be traded on Magic the Gathering Online Exchange." Right. That will answer all questions and concerns.




Willow said:


> Not to say people don't get screwed over by Paypal, but I've been screwed over by a lot of places before too. Doesn't make them bad necessarily.



What about of unethically screwing people gets you from being ok, to being bad? Where is the grey line? (Sorry, I'm a bit of a stickler for ethics...  I know that bothers some people who like to take "necessary evil" into account)





Willow said:


> Crazy thing, I have my Paypal linked to my savings account (it's actually my credit union account) and use it to buy things when I don't have money in Paypal.



"Cheat unlocked!" Wow, I stand corrected  (wow as in "awesome to hear that's an option," not wow as in "wow, someone proved me wrong." I'm happy to be proven wrong.) 




Willow said:


> I thought business people were supposed to be good at reading.



Huh? That's what I do about 6 hours a day (mostly business articles and development reports about bitcoin... yeah, I know...)



Willow said:


> I guess you don't know what sarcasm is.



Have you heard of Poe's law?


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> When you deal with SomethingAwful goons, or others of their ilk, how do you reply to a comment such as "Furries are perverted, diaper-wearing sickos!" Perhaps your answer will help me in formulating an answer to "Bitcoins are monopoly money, only used by criminals to buy drugs and child porn!" I know it's not exactly the same, but I hope you can see the similarity, as well as the intent and opinion (and knowledge level) of the poster.



Are you seriously bitching about Something Awful? Is this 2009?




Rassah said:


> Ok, serious question, do you know what a referring URL is?



Yeah I do, plenty of artists use Paypal without any issues. 




Rassah said:


> No, I actually participate in a lot of debates and arguments, and really really respect people who challenge me and make me think and work really hard to defend my positions. If someone has a view that's different from my own, I think that's great, because it means I either have a chance to learn something new (yay!), or learn how to support my position better(also yay!). With you, I just really don't like you personally. That's really all there is to it.



So you don't like me personally because I have a different opinion which in turn makes me a troll in your mind. Somehow I think you're lying, and you're just mad because I don't share your obsession with internet funny money. 




Rassah said:


> TozoniMAGLEV. Which changed the name from AmlevTrans since Dr. Tozoni passed away a few years ago. What are you a CEO of? Or manager of? Or, hell, anything? Why are you someone people should listen to? (especially on this topic)



So according to your companies website your only the CEO because your grandfather died and lent the company to you. Man I'm super impressed, you most have worked _really _hard and must have possessed some truly expansive knowledge to get into your position. 

Also a side note, you don't need to be a CEO of some no-name company to have an opinion. 




Rassah said:


> So, "Oh yes, you are absolutely right. Bitcoins are just a tulip mania ponzi used for selling drugs online, and is not a real money that can't be traded on Magic the Gathering Online Exchange." Right. That will answer all questions and concerns.



I'm so convinced right now you have no idea.


----------



## Ansitru (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> When you deal with SomethingAwful goons, or others of their ilk, how do you reply to a comment such as "Furries are perverted, diaper-wearing sickos!" Perhaps your answer will help me in formulating an answer to "Bitcoins are monopoly money, only used by criminals to buy drugs and child porn!" I know it's not exactly the same, but I hope you can see the similarity, as well as the intent and opinion (and knowledge level) of the poster.



"_I'm sorry you feel that way"_ and you _move on_. Woah, a simple solution to a simple problem! Whodathunk!


----------



## Rassah (Feb 1, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Are you seriously bitching about Something Awful? Is this 2009?



Something Awful moved on from furry since 2009, and have focused on a new target from 2010 through 2013. Care to take a guess what their new target was? Care to take a guess on how different their insight and opinions were from their insight and opinions about furry fandom? The reason I became hostle is because your opinions were *exactly the same*, literally, as yours. (in a copy/paste literal actual real use of the word "literally")




PastryOfApathy said:


> Yeah I do, plenty of artists use Paypal without any issues.



Plenty of people go on living without being murdered, so I guess if some get murdered that's ok. No, sorry, too strong. Use robbed instead, (since that's what PayPal literally does). Robbery is ok, because most people don't get robbed. 
Plus, again, *i am not advocating that people stop using PayPal, and start using Bitcoin instead. You CAN, in fact, use both,* using PayPal for those who live in the same country as you and don't mind charging you a 2.7% fee, and using Bitcoin for everyone else, including those who live overseas, who only want to make you pay a 1% fee. Please don't make me repeat this a thi... fo.. is it fifth time? Damn, I lost count 




PastryOfApathy said:


> So you don't like me personally because I have a different opinion...



There is a difference between having a different opinion, and having a useless troll-like statement. Let me see if I can come up with some examples.

Different opinion: The Prius has a lot of overly complicated technology, and thus may break more frequently and cost more to repair.
Useless troll statement: The Prius is only driven by smug environmental assholes who don't know how to drive.

Different opinion: Anime is lacking in any quality story lines, and uses a cheap art style to save money, resulting in nothing but cheap quality products.
Useless troll statement: Anime is cartoons for babies, and the artwork sucks.

Different opinion: Anarchy can never work, because you need an authority to establish a working infrastructure, and a power vacuum will always be filled by those seeking power.
Useless troll statement: Anarchists are just angsty criminals looking for attention, or people who don't want to pay taxes.

Do you notice the subtle difference? The opinions are claims about facts (based on personal education and experience), and can be debated and refuted with countering facts. Useless troll statements are just opinions that bring nothing to the discussion, and have no real answer or counter argument, aside from maybe, "I know you are, but what am I?!"
(P.S. before anyone attacks me, I personally hold the opposite of each of those differing opinions and can likely defend them)



PastryOfApathy said:


> So according to your companies website your only the CEO because your grandfather died and lent the company to you.



Um, no, it's because I actually founded it for our family way back in the late 90's, and did things like spend summers, morning till dawn, taking crash courses in doctorate level physics and electromagnetics, traveled to industry conferences around the world where I did tech presentations and mingled with representatives and top scientists from Japan, China, and Germany, handled all the legal and financial documents for the corp, did major work on helping flesh out the patent (grandfather only spoke Russian, patent needed to be in English), followed by having vigorous debates and discussions with the patent examiner after our claim was initially rejected, searched around the world for funding wile meeting with various bankers, searched around the world for manufacturers while meeting with various factory representatives (surprisingly a lot of NDAs regarding secret amusement park rides in the works ), and even came close to securing a $6,000,000,000 grant from the Rothschild Foundation to build a line connecting Eilat and Ashkelon in Israel, wich would have allowed tankers to unload containers and transport them to the Mediterranean, bypassing the severely backed up Suez Canal (sadly that fell through when they held back the money once the Arab Spring started). But hey, I'm sure you'll find something else to make fun of me for. So have at it tiger! 



PastryOfApathy said:


> Also a side note, you don't need to be a CEO of some no-name company to have an opinion.



No you do not. But a CEO's opinion on business and finance is preferable to a McD's burger flipper's. Unless I'm not understanding how things work in your version of furryland (is it based on how big your avatar's dick is, and how many boobs it has?)

P.S. Please, don't ever buy bitcoins. When they reach $100k, your regret will be so special to me! (I'm kidding, of course. I won't even remember this within a few months)


To everyone else, I hope you are enjoying the entertainment. Please remember I have nothing against anyone personally.



Ansitru said:


> "_I'm sorry you feel that way"_ and you _move on_. Woah, a simple solution to a simple problem! Whodathunk!



Tried that once. Let's just say the answers were not as conducive to the discussion. Plus it wasn't nearly as entertaining to just stay polite while having idiots yell at you.


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Feb 1, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Something Awful moved on from furry since 2009, and have focused on a new target from 2010 through 2013. Care to take a guess what their new target was? Care to take a guess on how different their insight and opinions were from their insight and opinions about furry fandom? The reason I became hostle is because your opinions were *exactly the same*, literally, as yours. (in a copy/paste literal actual real use of the word "literally")



I haven't been to SA in like 5 years. Do you just accuse anyone who doesn't like bitcoin of being from SA because they're the only ones who cannot like them or something?




Rassah said:


> Plenty of people go on living without being murdered, so I guess if some get murdered that's ok. No, sorry, too strong. Use robbed instead, (since that's what PayPal literally does). Robbery is ok, because most people don't get robbed.
> Plus, again, *i am not advocating that people stop using PayPal, and start using Bitcoin instead. You CAN, in fact, use both,* using PayPal for those who live in the same country as you and don't mind charging you a 2.7% fee, and using Bitcoin for everyone else, including those who live overseas, who only want to make you pay a 1% fee. Please don't make me repeat this a thi... fo.. is it fifth time? Damn, I lost count



There's that condescension I'm looking for. I knew you still had it in you buddy. 




Rassah said:


> There is a difference between having a different opinion, and having a useless troll-like statement. Let me see if I can come up with some examples.
> 
> Different opinion: The Prius has a lot of overly complicated technology, and thus may break more frequently and cost more to repair.
> Useless troll statement: The Prius is only driven by smug environmental assholes who don't know how to drive.
> ...



So by your own logic you're a troll. Unless "Something is seriously wrong with you... Seriously, some of you are like the most conservative people ever!" is an intellectual statement by your logic. Of course this is ignoring the fact that everyone here has presented more formal arguments and you've still accused them of being trolls so you're just a silly hypocrite. 




Rassah said:


> Um, no, it's because I actually founded it for our family way back in the late 90's, and did things like spend summers, morning till dawn, taking crash courses in doctorate level physics and electromagnetics, traveled to industry conferences around the world where I did tech presentations and mingled with representatives and top scientists from Japan, China, and Germany, handled all the legal and financial documents for the corp, did major work on helping flesh out the patent (grandfather only spoke Russian, patent needed to be in English), followed by having vigorous debates and discussions with the patent examiner after our claim was initially rejected, searched around the world for funding wile meeting with various bankers, searched around the world for suppliers wile meeting with various manufacturing company representatives (surprisingly a lot of NDAs regarding secret amusement rides in the works ), and even came close to securing a $6,000,000,000 grant from the Rothschild Foundation to build a line connecting Eilat and Ashkelon in Israel, allowing tankers to unload containers and transport them to the Mediterranean, bypassing the severely backed up Suez Canal (sadly that fell through when they held back the money once the Arab Spring started). But hey, I'm sure you'll find something else to make fun of me for. So have at it tiger



Just a friendly reminder that acting as condescending and smug as possible does not make you look smart and in fact just makes everyone think you're incredibly angry.



Rassah said:


> No you do not. But a CEO's opinion on business and finance is preferable to a McD's worker's. Unless I'm not understanding how things work in your version of furryland (is it based on how big your avatar's dick is, and how many boobs it has?)



I like how this was in the same post as you bitching about people being trolls. I mean you're know you're mad but you can at least stay consistent.



Rassah said:


> P.S. Please, don't ever buy bitcoins. When they reach $100k, your regret will be so special to me! (I'm kidding, of course. I won't even remember this within a few months)
> 
> 
> To everyone else, I hope you are enjoying the entertainment. Please remember *I have nothing against anyone personally.*






Rassah said:


> With you, I just really don't like you personally.



lol


----------



## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Do you just accuse anyone who doesn't like bitcoin of being from SA because they're the only ones who cannot like them or something?



No, not accusing of being from SA. Accusing them of being just as bad, if they spew exactly the same claims, with the exact same level of hate and vitriol.



PastryOfApathy said:


> There's that condescension I'm looking for.



For you, I'm aways happy to be so. Or were you actually expecting a polite conversation after the way you started talking to me?




PastryOfApathy said:


> So by your own logic you're a troll. Unless "Something is seriously wrong with you... Seriously, some of you are like the most conservative people ever!" is an intellectual statement by your logic. Of course this is ignoring the fact that everyone here has presented more formal arguments and you've still accused them of being trolls so you're just a silly hypocrite.



Yes, I can be a troll sometimes. I'm definitely guilty of feeding them. Yes, I can defend my statement some people are extremely conservative. From Google's definition search:

Conservative - holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.

I bring up an idea of using a new currency and payment system to try to improve how things are. Some of you freak the fuck out and start throwing disparaging, unsubstantiated hearsay about the topic, and defending the established system with all your might. Thus, conservative. It doesn't always have to do with politics, and isn't always about homosexuality, but is almost always a bad thing. E.g. Soviet Union Communists were extremely conservative - they liked their socialist system, and even killed to keep it going.



PastryOfApathy said:


> Just a friendly reminder that acting as condescending and smug as possible does not make you look smart and in fact just makes everyone think you're incredibly angry.



Just a friendly reminder that making assumptions about someone inheriting something for no work just because their relative died, when in fact they worked heir ass of while working close with their relative for years, were quite hurt and angry at that relative's senseless death-in-obscurity, and took over to continue their legacy to make sure they are not forgotten, makes you an [redacted under extreme duress so as not to offend the mod's sensibilities]



PastryOfApathy said:


> I like how this was in the same post as you bitching about people being trolls. I mean you're know you're mad but you can at least stay consistent.



Did you read the part where I said I communicate in kind? You get the same level of respect from me that you offer me yourself. If you wish to switch to a more polite tone, I will gladly oblige (maybe). I do come from a family where etiquette training was a must...




PastryOfApathy said:


> Rassah said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Sorry, wrong choice of words. Meant to say I don't like you specifically. Otherwise you are not important enough for me to care either way *shrug* You are just entertainment.


----------



## Ozriel (Feb 2, 2014)

Using bitcoin right now is very risky akin to putting all your money in the stock market. It is very unstable as a form of currency and that kind of thing is VERY dangerous to invest in if your are a small business or a freelance artist. Perhaps when it stablizies...or if it stabilizes in a few years it can be used. Right now, there are better online payment options that are less fickle. Hell, even Western union is a better payment option.

Also, this is just a reminder to keep the mud slinging down. If you want to discuss it, do so in a civil manner.


----------



## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Ozriel said:


> Using bitcoin right now is very risky akin to putting all your money in the stock market.


 
I'd say riskier...



Ozriel said:


> It is very unstable as a form of currency and that kind of thing is VERY dangerous ti invest in if your are a small business or a freelance artist, Perhaps when it stablizies...or if it stabilizes in a few years it can be used. Right now, there are better online payment that are less fickle.



What about putting just $10 into it, and then using it to send $0.25 tips to artists or pictures you like? Though someone else already pointed out that furries are not at all generous and are rather stingy with their money, so maybe that's a useless idea. Then again, no one really sent tips over Reddit until that feature was added, so maybe this culture can be just slightly changed too. Regarding online payments, are there issues about BitPay or Coinbase that you know about that makes them fickle? Since I know the people behind them, I can send suggestions directly to them to have them fixed. If you meant something else is fickle, please elaborate.

I believe the biggest problem may be that there are a lot of tools available to reduce or get rid of most of the problems, but most people just aren't aware of them. My best option is likely to create a furry-specific FAQ or education site that can walk people, step-by-step, through what it takes to set up an account, convert your money in and out, hedge against risk, and protect yourself against problems.



Ozriel said:


> Also, this is just a reminder to keep the mud slinging down. If you want to discuss it, do so in a civil manner.



Noted.


----------



## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

I'm not actually going to respond to everything because honestly it's kinda pointless and I'm tired. No matter what I would say (as evidenced by how you've responded to everyone regardless of tone) you're just gonna give some kind of non-answer while desperately attempting to make yourself look like some kind of pseudo-intellectual gentlemen or something by being as condescending as possible. So if you want to like parade around claiming "victory" or something, or you want to keep babbling about how I'm "entertainment" in order to help yourself cope with the fact that you failed to convince a single person to buy in to your delusional scheme go ahead. I'm just going to move on, not that it matters to you since I'm sure you'll still be here since you've already told us you can't deal with dissenting opinions.


----------



## Hakar Kerarmor (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> No, not accusing of being from SA. Accusing them of being just as bad, if they spew exactly the same claims, with the exact same level of hate and vitriol.



The exact same level? How do you measure that?
Do you use kilonazis are a unit of measurement?



Rassah said:


> Did you read the part where I said I communicate in kind? You get the same level of respect from me that you offer me yourself. If you wish to switch to a more polite tone, I will gladly oblige (maybe). I do come from a family where etiquette training was a must...



Damn, I can't decide what quote to use here.
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"Do not wrestle with pigs. You'll only get dirty and the pig enjoys it." or
"On this world, hatred cannot be destroyed by hatred. Only by nonhatred can it be destroyed."

But seriously, please don't do the whole 'he started it, so I can do it too until _he_ stops first.' thing. I'm sure quite a few wars started because of that attitude.


----------



## Mr. Sparta (Feb 2, 2014)

Hakar Kerarmor said:


> Damn, I can't decide what quote to use here.
> "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
> "Do not wrestle with pigs. You'll only get dirty and the pig enjoys it." or
> "On this world, hatred cannot be destroyed by hatred. Only by nonhatred can it be destroyed."



My vote's for #2.

And you guys realize paypal isn't the only online wallet service, right?


----------



## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Mr. Sparta said:


> My vote's for #2.
> 
> And you guys realize paypal isn't the only online wallet service, right?



I'm not religious, and I know some bigoted minds can never be changed (especially if combined with religion), so my vote is for #2 too.

Yes, there is also Venmo and Dwolla. Possibly some others by now, too. I haven't checked in a while, since there is little benefit to them. Sure, they have lower fees, but the other person has to use the exact same service, because they are all restrictive closed platforms.
I like open, unrestricted, and full of choices (I also use Linux and Android). Kinda like internet for voice communications (Skype, VOIP, Google Talk), or even more appropriately email (Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail can all freely send messages to each other) rather than closed platforms like telephone of the mid to late 20th century (or the current credit card network). Closed platforms don't allow competition or innovation, and thus stagnate, never really improving much. Compare our long distance phone options for decades during the phone monopoly era, with the rapid advancement of voice over internet in just the last decade. Or the credit card network of the 50's to today. After half a century, there's barely any improvement to service, security, or features, and "touch-to-pay" is the grand achievent the card processors all excited about. And, aside from my intentions, this is why I like this system. It's not what it can or can't do now, and it's not who is using it and for what. It's what the possibilities hold. And they're quite wondrous.


----------



## ACraZ (Feb 2, 2014)

Ok guys, bitcoin isn't winning anything with us, but let's all please stop feeding the troll that is the thread and OP


----------



## Ansitru (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Tried that once. Let's just say the answers were not as conducive to the discussion. Plus it wasn't nearly as entertaining to just stay polite while having idiots yell at you.



So instead of using your time more productively, as this forum is clearly not having any of your schtick, you decide to run into the same wall over and over again?
We've got a proverb in Dutch for people like you.


----------



## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

I can't believe this thread is 7 pages long already.

I'll add my two cents and say if somebody offered me bitcoin for a commission, I'd laugh at them and block them. Don't want your fake monies. They won't pay the bills, and their value is only as good as the demand for them. You could pay me 1000 bitcoins or whatever but at the end of the day it's lucky if they're worth a penny.


----------



## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Nashida said:


> I'll add my two cents and say if somebody offered me bitcoin for a commission, I'd laugh at them and block them. Don't want your fake monies. They won't pay the bills, and their value is only as good as the demand for them. You could pay me 1000 bitcoins or whatever but at the end of the day it's lucky if they're worth a penny.




Lol! You would refuse a million bucks which you could instantly and easily convert into USD? (Someone ordered and paid for $1mil worth of stuff with Bitcoin through a merchant processor called BitPay, and BitPay was able to convert those bitcoins into USD and have the $1mil deposited into the merchant's bank account the very next day) Do you really hate Bitcoin, or just have no idea how it works? Would you take a commission for Euros or British Pounds, or would you consider those fake monies too?

Frankly, it's kinda sad hearing people say stuff like this, where something can obviously benefit them (like receiving 1,000 btc), but they're so misinformed that they think it's a waste of time. Happened all the time when I did personal financial analysis for various families, and heard them say the same about things about stuff like retirement investments and such (and 3/4th of people reaching 65 don't have enough to retire, thus must keep working, so financial education is pretty severely lacking in this country).


----------



## ADF (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Huge problem with this is that land is easily taxed and confiscated, and resources, property, art etc. is very difficult to secure, and even more-so to transport. Especially across borders.



They can also kill your ass, I don't think Bitcoin will be particularly effective in defending against that. You're basically digging yourself into a hole not even Bitcoin could get out off in an effort to criticise anything other than Bitcoin...

Again, material wealth has a 'historical track record of wealth preservation during financial instability'. We're talking hundreds, even thousands of years. Because at the end of the day material wealth is what we all want, currency is just the go between. You're being delusional if you think you can hold Bitcoin up to that track record.



Rassah said:


> Such wealth didn't help people in Soviet Union, China, Cuba, or WW2 Germany, isn't helping them in Argentina and Venezuela, and won't help them in US or Europe should their currency start collapsing due to welfare driven hyperinflation.



I can see it now... all these people in oppressive communist countries carrying around thumb drives and using portable electronics to make exchanges... Really? Again, it comes to a point were nothing will protect you because the government can kill your ass, at that point the stability of the currency is the least of your worries.

And good job rewriting history there. Guess who didn't get wiped out in the Weimar hyperinflation? Guess who didn't get wiped out in the Zimbabwe hyperinflation? I'm sure you're familiar with the wheelbarrow story from the German hyperinflation, were the currency was left but the wheelbarrow was stolen. That's because the wheelbarrow had intrinsic value, even if just as fire wood. The currency was destroyed but all the material wealth was still there, revaluing against the hyper inflating currency.



Rassah said:


> Those in power will take everything they can to keep the system going to the very end. Bitcoin presents a new interesting dynamic, in that the rich are now able to keep (or easily convert) all their wealth on them on simple storage devices (or on paper, or even in their head with brainwallets), in a way that no one even knows that they are rich or how much they own, and allows them to easily take their wealth across borders with no way to enforce regulations to prevent then from doing so.



Again, you're assuming broad acceptance of a digital based currency at a time of crisis. I think this thread has demonstrated the vast majority of the people are not interested in Bitcoins, never mind whatever society you'll be dealing with at a time of financial controls.



Rassah said:


> So, whereas before the answer to capital flight due to economic collapse used to be more and more capital controls and restrictions on taking money out of the country, in a vain attempt to try to hold up a crumbling system, that option is no longer available. Now (or once bitcoin becomes more mainstream), if a country's government screws up its economy by making their regulatory environment unfavorable to business and investment, they can expect most of their big money to simply get up and leave, without any way to stop them. The only option is to actually compete against other countries, in a sense finally bringing free-market competition between countries and government policies, for the wealth of the richest and most productive people in the world. The country that will be the best off will be the one with the types of policies that make setting up a business, doing R&D, and hiring employees the easiest.



Yeah... I totally see a mass acceptance of Bitcoin on this scale...



Rassah said:


> Which is also why I really dislike inflation, and scoff at those who claim deflation is a problem (granted deflation *is* a problem: for wealthy bankers).



People in power always push the line that inflation (to an extent) is a good thing, and you won't get any academics following their ideology who will disagree. Those who bother to research it will of course know that inflation is a stealth tax, the symptom of wealth confiscation by banks and the government. The public will of course not like it, the victims of thievery rarely do, but theft is the basis of our monetary system after all.



Rassah said:


> Backing is a liability. It's an IOU, based entirely on trust. You either don't want backing (own the actual thing doing the actual thing), or you want enormous trust. Gold-backed means you trust the issuer of the certificates to actually have the gold. Government backed means you have to trust promises of politicians not to borrow to the point where hyperinflation is the only way out (hah!). When you buy gold, oil, or diamonds, you don't have to trust anyone that you actually own those things, or that they will continue to have their properties and continue to be scarce (though with gold, you better check it for tungsten). When you buy a bitcoin, you likewise don't have to trust anyone that this bitcoin is indeed yours, that it will continue to have all its functions, and that it will continue to be scarce without someone printing more. So bitcoin is the actual thing, and has an enormous trust system built in.
> n the end, all money is, is a bartering tool, which requires convenience, fungibility, and scarcity. It doesn't matter what form it comes from, as long as those things are maintained. And as long as math is math, bitcoin will keep being bitcoin.



Bitcoin is not the "actual thing", it has an entirely virtual existence, no different from 95%+ of the currency supply we already deal with. While its supply is artificially limited, it's value is still based on nothing more than a promise it can buy something, which is depending on someone being willing to accept it. At least the government has legal tender laws that force people to use them, there is no guarantee I can spend a Bitcoin on anything. You and maybe a handful of others are the only people who would accept Bitcoins on this site, the vast majority do not. I don't want to limit by ability to commission people based on whether they accept a minority internet currency...

Physical backing has all sorts of problems, but at least it worked for over 5000 years. Currencies from long dead civilisations still have value today because of their mineral content, which is more than I can say for fiat currencies; whose average lifespan is measured in decades.



Rassah said:


> What is the use value of your coin v.s. use value of a bitcoin? If US dollar and economy collapses, we will likely still have internet (or at least phones), and while your shilling will be spendable within your local economy, my bitcoin will still be spendable globally, including remotely in economies that are still thriving. Likely what will happen is, since VISA won't be able to operate on a collapsed dollar, and may not have other digital currencies to work with (no high hopes for Euros, and a new gold-backed currency may not have enough history and trust), they'll end up having to convert your shilling to bitcoins to send it over long distance.



Really? So somehow online transactions don't work, but your Bitcoins do? You don't half have some fanciful scenarios were somehow Bitcoin is the only currency immune to global problems.

What is my coin worth? Well let's see...

My shilling weighs 5.58 grams of sterling silver, let's just call it 5.5 grams. According to a scrap silver calculator, this gives it a value of Â£1.62.

So a trip down the local pawn shop and I can get myself Â£1.62 in spending power. That could get a loaf of bread and a pint of milk, or I could get a six pack of eggs and bread. 

But oh wait, the currency got bitch slapped, the pound is down 90%. What does this mean? Well if I'm holding the Â£1.62 I'm fucked. But if I'm still holding the shilling I again take it down the pawn shop, exchange it for the going rate in currency, then go out and likely get those things I mentioned. 

If they're not accepting pounds because the monetary system is in trouble, they may even accept the shilling directly in exchange for those things. Why? Because 5 grams of silver is five grams of silver, wherever you are in the world or what the monetary system is doing. If the currency collapses, it will still be five grams of sterling silver, it's a store of value that can then be exchanged into whatever the next currency is. Hell, if your Bitcoins are still around it can be exchanged into those as well if need be.

Currency chases material wealth, if the value of the currency falls; the numeric value of material wealth goes up. That shilling has a fiat currency value of 12 pence, it's mineral content is worth 13.5 times its face value because as the currency debased the price of silver revalued against it.

I'd rather have something of intrinsic material value that can be converted to the currency of the day, rather than gamble with a young virtual currency that all governments want to see dead.


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## Sar (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> *I want 2014 to be the year the furry community finally adopts Bitcoin*



I think Furries would more likely adopt dogecoin purely because of the doge. You know what Furries are like with animal mascots.



Karuvatto said:


> What's the difference with Doge and Bitcoin?



Much diffrence


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## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

I would refuse a million bucks because you can SAY they are a million bucks, but you can't honestly expect me to take your word for it (which it honestly seems a lot of people, at least in this topic, agree). Plus if you tried to transfer a million bucks into my account like that my account would get locked up and then where would I be?

I've been paid in pounds, Euros and Chinese RMB because Paypal has this nifty conversion tool so they can convert to USD on their end. Hell, I paid myself in RMB to move money from my Chinese account to my American one. You know why? If I can look in the business sections of my newspaper and see those currencies listed, they're real. I don't see Bitcoin. I also don't see smiles, songs or rainbows. 

A currency only has as much value as the person receiving it values it. Look at currency exchange rates in the business section of your newspaper. Some countries value the dollar, for example, more than others. An example is an American dollar is worth about 6.06 Chinese RMB at this point in time. If you tried to give someone 1,000,000 Chinese RMB, or yuan, it's really only worth $164,992 back on Eagle Turf.  If your intended recipient (e.g., me) doesn't value your Bitcoin as much as you do, it's not really worth a million is it?


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## Hakar Kerarmor (Feb 2, 2014)

Ansitru said:


> So instead of using your time more productively, as this forum is clearly not having any of your schtick, you decide to run into the same wall over and over again?
> We've got a proverb in Dutch for people like you.



"Een ezel stoot zich nooit tweemaal aan dezelfde steen" of "Wie voor een dubbeltje geboren is zal nooit een bitcoin worden"?

("A donkey will never bump into the same rock twice" and "If you are born a dime, you will never be a bitcoin")



Nashida said:


> I would refuse a million bucks because you can SAY they are a million bucks, but you can't honestly expect me to take your word for it (which it honestly seems a lot of people, at least in this topic, agree). Plus if you tried to transfer a million bucks into my account like that my account would get locked up and then where would I be?



Want to a draw a picture for me? I'll pay you 20 acres of land on Pluto, and the title of Archduke of Io.


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## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

No thanks, I'm more interested in the Brooklyn Bridge and some waterfront property in Arizona.

Archduke? I lack certain parts to be archduke.


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## Hakar Kerarmor (Feb 2, 2014)

Nashida said:


> No thanks, I'm more interested in the Brooklyn Bridge and some waterfront property in Arizona.
> 
> Archduke? I lack certain parts to be archduke.



Alright, I'll make it 30 acres and throw in the parts, and that's cutting me own throat.


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## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

Hakar Kerarmor said:


> Alright, I'll make it 30 acres and throw in the parts, and that's cutting me own throat.



Deal.


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## Mr. Sparta (Feb 2, 2014)

So if bitcoin's value is very unstable, wouldn't using them be not unlike playing the stock market? There would be points where the currency is very low in value, so people would sell things for a large quantity of coins. Then you would get points where bitcoin is worth crazy amounts of money, so people would be buying things with the coins they got from when the value was down. If bitcoin becomes widespread while being unstable, you would have points where people are souly buying things with bitcoin and times where they are only selling things for bitcoin. This raises the question that if you're in one of these buying or selling seasons, there would be a lack of exchange in coins for either, assuming you cannot have an infinite number of the currency circling through the system, i.e. able to generate bitcoins from selling your merchandise to a virtual shop like a pokÃ©mart.


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## Gnarl (Feb 2, 2014)

Why is this advert still going?? is it not obvious that most won't trust it and there is no point to continue?


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Nashida said:


> I would refuse a million bucks because you can SAY they are a million bucks, but you can't honestly expect me to take your word for it.



Of course I won't! That's why I pointed you to this link in my initial reply to you http://bitcoinmagazine.com/7811/bitpay-processes-1-million-bitcoin-merchant-transaction/ and can also point you to this http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/, which lists most (not all) of the exchanges out there, along with the many international currencies they handle, bitcoin's current price on those exchanges in the second column (currently about $820), and 24 hour volume on each exchange in the last column (meaning how much has traded between bitcoin and other currencies on each exchange), which shows about $3.7mil for the top USD one (it's low because on weekend you can't get USD into them. Banks are closed). If you look at the 5th column (Volume, about in the middle), you'll see that about $356 million dollars worth of bitcoin has been traded over the last 30 days, at an average of about $827 per bitcoin. So, if you needed to cash out $1mil worth of bitcoin, and weren't in a hurry to do it (could spread it out over a week), you could *very* easily convert it to "real money" without affecting the exchange rate at all.




Nashida said:


> Plus if you tried to transfer a million bucks into my account like that my account would get locked up and then where would I be?



At most they would lock up that deposit, not your whole account. Plus you'd be hit with a $350,000 tax bill X(



Nashida said:


> I've been paid in pounds, Euros and Chinese RMB because Paypal has this nifty conversion tool so they can convert to USD on their end. Hell, I paid myself in RMB to move money from my Chinese account to my American one.



BitPay and Coinbase have the exact same feature or bitcoins, letting you accept bitcoin as if it's a foreign currency, and convert it into USD for you. There is absolutely no difference.




Nashida said:


> If I can look in the business sections of my newspaper and see those currencies listed, they're real. I don't see Bitcoin.



You didn't see bitcoin articles in Business Week, Yahoo Finance, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, or any others? Or do you mean price tickers?




Nashida said:


> Look at currency exchange rates in the business section of your newspaper. Some countries value the dollar, for example, more than others. An example is an American dollar is worth about 6.06 Chinese RMB at this point in time. If you tried to give someone 1,000,000 Chinese RMB, or yuan, it's really only worth $164,992 back on Eagle Turf.



Look at the currency exchanges that include bitcoin. Currently people value 1 bitcoin more than 1 dollar, since 1 bitcoin is now worth $820 American dollars (don't take my word for it, look at the exchange prices). In some countries, like Argentina and China, some people value bitcoins even more than dollars. For example, although the average price for BTC over the last 30 days was $827 USD, for the same time period the price in China was Â¥5,051 CNY, or about $833.33 (in late fall, the price was $100 to $150 higher even). It is more valuable than dollars in those countries, because dollars are limited to traditional financial transfer methods, and thus can be monitored and restricted by their currently very oppressive regimes, while bitcoin gives them freedom to keep their money private from government, and allows them to pay for things overseas without restrictions. (Argentina currently has 25% tax on products ordered online, and restricts to 2 online orders per year)



Nashida said:


> If your intended recipient (e.g., me) doesn't value your Bitcoin as much as you do, it's not really worth a million is it?



That's not rational. If you don't value 1 euro at $1.35, you would still accept it knowing that you can trade it for $1.35 on the open market, instead of demanding that, in your opinion, it's only worth $0.01.





Hakar Kerarmor said:


> Want to a draw a picture for me? I'll pay you 20 acres of land on Pluto, and the title of Archduke of Io.



I just provided a list of sources showing that there are lots of people willing to trade millions of dollars for bitcoin. If you were to point me to a source showing that there are millions of dollars being actively traded every day for land on Pluto, I would consider it. Otherwise there is no comparison, and you are just being silly (<- nice word substitute). As for the title, I know this offer isn't for me, but I'm already a Count, so I would't be interested 





Mr. Sparta said:


> So if bitcoin's value is very unstable, wouldn't using them be not unlike playing the stock market? There would be points where the currency is very low in value, so people would sell things for a large quantity of coins. Then you would get points where bitcoin is worth crazy amounts of money, so people would be buying things with the coins they got from when the value was down. If bitcoin becomes widespread while being unstable, you would have points where people are souly buying things with bitcoin and times where they are only selling things for bitcoin. This raises the question that if you're in one of these buying or selling seasons, there would be a lack of exchange in coins for either, assuming you cannot have an infinite number of the currency circling through the system, i.e. able to generate bitcoins from selling your merchandise to a virtual shop like a pokÃ©mart.



The first underline isn't very likely. Bitcoin can't be "very low in value" when it is widely adopted, because the total amount is (eventually) limited to 21million, and even if 1% of the world's economy relied on it, it would already be worth about $50k. I.e. it could reach that price just being tied up in the BTC part of the USD -> BTC -> USD transfer, even if it was there for a few seconds without anyone actually actively hoarding it (based on average of $50trillion tied up in transactions globally, which is a very rough and low estimate). At the same time, the more widespread a currency or stock is, the more stable it is, partly because it is much more diversified (one country or part of a company crashes, another comes in to buy up cheap things or balance things out), and partially because it takes a lot more effort to move a larger market.

The second underline doesn't really make any sense, because whenever someone buys a thing with bitcoin, someone else is actually selling that very thing for bitcoin at that exact same time. Maybe you meant that people who have bitcoin would spend more of it wen bitcoin value goes up, and less when it goes down. That is likely, and has been empirically shown by sales reports from BitPay, Gyft, Coinbase, and others, who all report higher merchant sales when bitcoin climbs in price, and lower when it's crashing (people feel like they have more extra spending money when it suddenly increases ten-fold)



Gnarl said:


> Why is this advert still going?? is it not obvious that most won't trust it and there is no point to continue?



What is the point of debate and discussion? To win, or to learn something new?


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## Aleu (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> That's not rational. If you don't value 1 euro at $1.35, you would still accept it knowing that you can trade it for $1.35 on the open market, instead of demanding that, in your opinion, it's only worth $0.01.



The thing is, Euros aren't fake money. Stop comparing technological jargon to real currency, because it's not.


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Holy shit it's still going. I mean you're constantly going on about how insignificant we are and little we mean to you but yet you're still here arguing with people who've clearly stated they aren't going to be persuaded. Something tells me you just like us.


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## Mr. Sparta (Feb 2, 2014)

To be honest, these drama-filled threads are the reason I come here at all.


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## Ansitru (Feb 2, 2014)

Hakar Kerarmor said:


> "Een ezel stoot zich nooit tweemaal aan dezelfde steen" of "Wie voor een dubbeltje geboren is zal nooit een bitcoin worden"?
> 
> ("A donkey will never bump into the same rock twice" and "If you are born a dime, you will never be a bitcoin").



The first one, though OP seems to like bumping into the same rock over and over and over and over.


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## Tica (Feb 2, 2014)

okay, here's a question.

What happens after all the bitcoins are mined, and hard drives start dying, leaving less bitcoins in circulation? will it eventually disappear? will they discover a new "vein" of bitcoin to start mining?


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Separate post because big and politics :9



ADF said:


> They can also kill your ass, I don't think Bitcoin will be particularly effective in defending against that.



I don't see why this is an argument for real assets over bitcoin (they can kill your ass for having assets, too), but bitcoin does allow you to be more private. Ross Ulbricht, the guy allegedly running Silk Road, rented a small apartment with a couple of roommates, paid in cash, owned a few clothes and a laptop, and was't much to look at No one knew he has $11mil. The few bitcoin millionaires I know also rent apartments with cash, don't own much, move around a lot (they like to travel and sight-see), and don't look like millionaires. Bitcoin allows them to stay hidden, anonymous, and easily take all their millions with them. Yes, they can be killed, but it's much harder to blend in with the "proletariat" when your money is in your head, than when it's in gold bars, land, and expensive art.




ADF said:


> Again, material wealth has a 'historical track record of wealth preservation during financial instability'. We're talking hundreds, even thousands of years. Because at the end of the day material wealth is what we all want, currency is just the go between. You're being delusional if you think you can hold Bitcoin up to that track record.



That is NOT a fair comparison. We only had public internet for maybe 2 decades, and enough computational power for global communication and cryptography to support cryptocurrencies for maybe 10 years. We also have a historical track record of murders solely for possession of material wealth, though that is also a fairly recent phenomenon with the advent of socialism and communism. But you wouldn't argue that horses are much better than cars, because we've used horses for thousands of years, and cars for only a century, would you?




ADF said:


> I can see it now... all these people in oppressive communist countries carrying around thumb drives and using portable electronics to make exchanges... Really?



Um... that's what they're doing in China, and arguably near-Communist, socialist, restrictive Argentina and Venezuela. As long as you can get access to the internet, or even a phone, you can spend your money. And if you are super paranoid, you don't even need to carry money on a thumb drive. Just memorize the seed for the private key, or set up an anonymous wallet online. The point is to still be able to GTFO out of your country, with all your money, without anyone knowing you're carrying it.



ADF said:


> And good job rewriting history there. Guess who didn't get wiped out in the Weimar hyperinflation? Guess who didn't get wiped out in the Zimbabwe hyperinflation?



Wealthy, gold-owning jews? Dude, I'm not talking about hyperinflation and hedging against it (which, yes, gold works). I'm talking about economic collapse in a socialist environment, where the population comes after anyone who happens to own anything, and kills you if you don't give it up. Owning gold will not protect you from socialist fascists with guns, and may in fact make you a target instead.



ADF said:


> Again, you're assuming broad acceptance of a digital based currency at a time of crisis.



I'm assuming global acceptance (already there, tough on a small scale), and from my travels around the world, I'm assuming that a crisis will not affect the entire planet all at the same time. The world is just way too big. Even is USA goes down in flames and takes China and Europe with it, there are still countries around the world that won't give a damn, and will happily swoop in to buy up the cheap assets and cheaper employees. Staying in a country's currency mostly limits me to transacting within that country and exposes me to that country's political and economic risk. Staying in hard assets like gold and silver limits me to face to face transactions within my community, and exposes me to the local economic risk of that asset (silver may still be $32+ on the international market, but, being fairly useless as a round piece of metal, and somewhat unwieldy for trades in areas where food is more valued, may only fetch me $15 in a collapsed economy). Bitcoin is literally the first asset that is not exposed to economic or political risk of any country, bank, or company, and which can be traded globally, thus allowing you to hedge it globally.





ADF said:


> I think this thread has demonstrated the vast majority of the people are not interested in Bitcoins, never mind whatever society you'll be dealing with at a time of financial controls.



Nah, I think that this tread demonstrates that these particular furs are in the (overly cautious and conservative) late adopter crowd, the type that will eventually just start using new technology because everyone else already is.  Like grandparents with cell phones or e-mail. And that's fine. The ones that will be doing the adopting, and dragging these folks into it kicking and screaming, will be businesses looking to save money, early adopters looking to make money, and the world's underprivileged looking to skip ahead to the world's level. Just as 3rd world has bypassed land-line phones and computers, and skipped right ahead to cell phones and smartphones, they are now skipping bank accounts and financial institutions (which don't exist there), and are opening bitcoin accounts instead.



ADF said:


> Those who bother to research it will of course know that inflation is a stealth tax, the symptom of wealth confiscation by banks and the government.



My main concern isn't even that. It's that inflation is a massive incentive to borrow instead of save. Under inflation, it's much cheaper to borrow and buy now, than save and buy later. As a result, we have 65 year olds reaching retirement with less than $100k in their savings (meaning they either work till death, or depend on us to keep them going), average credit card debts of $15,000+ per household, a massive culture of instant gratification, complete lack of financial planning and education (why bother learning about money if you don't plan to keep any), and ever increasing world-wide government debt, which mathematically can't keep increasing for ever. I think we used the complaint of too many crashes caused by deflation, and created a system where the crashes are essentially "bought off" into the future in perpetuity, right until we don't have anything left to by them off with.




ADF said:


> Bitcoin is not the "actual thing", it has an entirely virtual existence, no different from 95%+ of the currency supply we already deal with.



Not true. A specific bitcoin is something that is entirely unique, can not be copied or duplicated, can not be forged, and can not be changed into something else. There is also absolute 100% trust that the total supply of them will never change, since that is enforced by each individual bitcoin user, not a central authority. So, aside from being digital in nature, it's much closer in property to being a physical thing than a digital representation we are used to. And sure, you can't form it into physical tools like a knife, but you can't really do much with other things we value, like gold or diamonds, either. Yet, like other valuables, it does have unique features and properties that can't be substituted by anything else (that whole programmable money thing).



ADF said:


> While its supply is artificially limited, it's value is still based on nothing more than a promise it can buy something, which is depending on someone being willing to accept it.



Everything's value is like that, no exceptions.



ADF said:


> At least the government has legal tender laws that force people to use them



Only for repayment of debts (in US), and that doesn't actually "base" up the value, as it doesn't matter whether you use one piece of paper to pay for something, or a barrel full. Governments don't force people to pay a certain amount for a certain item. When they do, the value decreed by the government isn't a true value, a black market quickly develops, and the currency collapses soon after.



ADF said:


> there is no guarantee I can spend a Bitcoin on anything.



Again, likewise for every single other thing out there. We could have a giant gold asteroid his us tomorrow, making gold markets freeze up. There are no guarantees, but there are probabilities. And with the current levels of trade, there is a much higher probability that you can spend a gold coin or bitcoin on something, than a cowry shell.



ADF said:


> You and maybe a handful of others are the only people who would accept Bitcoins on this site, the vast majority do not. I don't want to limit by ability to commission people based on whether they accept a minority internet currency...



Why would you limit your ability? It's just adding another choice. And as more and more people try it, use it, and talk about it, the more it will be accepted.



ADF said:


> Physical backing has all sorts of problems, but at least it worked for over 5000 years. Currencies from long dead civilisations still have value today because of their mineral content, which is more than I can say for fiat currencies; whose average lifespan is measured in decades.



Again, how long have we had digital anything? If you're really concerned about physical, print out your bitcoin to a piece of paper. Now it's physical, still has all the same values and properties of bitcoin, and you can secure it and pass it around like any other coin.



ADF said:


> Really? So somehow online transactions don't work, but your Bitcoins do?



Online transactions do, but online transactions need a digital form of currency to function. You can't convert gold to digital. The currency your country used to operate in is dead. Your only options are a foreign currency or bitcoin. Yes, VISA could switch to some other foreign currency, if the country decides to adopt it, but why, if there is already a globally functional established alternative?




ADF said:


> What is my coin worth? Well let's see...
> 
> My shilling weighs 5.58 grams of sterling silver, let's just call it 5.5 grams. According to a scrap silver calculator, this gives it a value of Â£1.62.
> 
> So a trip down the local pawn shop and I can get myself Â£1.62 in spending power. That could get a loaf of bread and a pint of milk, or I could get a six pack of eggs and bread.



Um, doubt it, since there's always a pretty high premium for converting into and out of metals, especially at pawn sops, but maybe you know the guy... But I digress.




ADF said:


> But oh wait, the currency got bitch slapped, the pound is down 90%. What does this mean? Well if I'm holding the Â£1.62 I'm fucked. But if I'm still holding the shilling I again take it down the pawn shop, exchange it for the going rate in currency, then go out and likely get those things I mentioned.
> 
> If they're not accepting pounds because the monetary system is in trouble, they may even accept the shilling directly in exchange for those things. Why? Because 5 grams of silver is five grams of silver, wherever you are in the world or what the monetary system is doing. If the currency collapses, it will still be five grams of sterling silver, it's a store of value that can then be exchanged into whatever the next currency is. Hell, if your Bitcoins are still around it can be exchanged into those as well if need be.
> 
> Currency chases material wealth, if the value of the currency falls; the numeric value of material wealth goes up. That shilling has a fiat currency value of 12 pence, it's mineral content is worth 13.5 times its face value because as the currency debased the price of silver revalued against it.



And I'm not arguing that material wealth like this is a good hedge against fiat currency fluctuation. But the exact same scenario you described would apply in the case of bitcoin, too. Keep in mind that with each coin being unique, just like a silver coin, there being no need for trust in its supply, like your coin, and it being traded (and thus "hedged") globally, just like the element in your coin, should GBP crash 90%, bitcoin will likely go up the same 90%. The only difference between your story and mine is that, instead of having to go to a pawn shop, and possibly waiting for the merchant to check your coin to make sure it's legit, I would just bring my phone directly to the merchant, scan a QR code, tap send, and be on my way, with the merchant being 100% secure in knowing that my bitcoin is legit, and that he can spend it anywhere else in the world (just like he could with your coin).




ADF said:


> I'd rather have something of intrinsic material value that can be converted to the currency of the day, rather than gamble with a young virtual currency that all governments want to see dead.



And that's... somewhat understandable. We are physical animals in a physical world, and this whole concept of digital is still new to us. Cryptography and "unique" numbers even more so. Though you wouldn't need to convert anything if you used BTC, since it's specifically made to be a currency already, it won't be young for long, and some governments (like USA) are actually apparently embracing it. Frankly, I'm surprised you are concerned about what governments want to see dead. I thought you didn't like governments, and would believe power should come from the people?
(Personally, I'm very curious to see what governments trying to kill bitcoin will look like. I think it may be somewhat hilarious in its ineptitude.)


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Aleu said:


> The thing is, Euros aren't fake money. Stop comparing technological jargon to real currency, because it's not.



Please define "fake" vs "real" money, and explain why it's relevant to their value. It's a bit frustrating when people make flat claims without actually explaining what they mean, or defining their terms.




Tica said:


> okay, here's a question.
> 
> What happens after all the bitcoins are mined, and hard drives start dying, leaving less bitcoins in circulation? will it eventually disappear? will they discover a new "vein" of bitcoin to start mining?



Every time a bitcoin is lost (lost hard drive, lost password, etc), it decreases the total supply of bitcoin, and makes everyone else's bitcoins go up in value (the supply / demand / price function, where decreasing supply, but constant demand, makes the price go up). As the price goes up, we will use smaller and smaller units of bitcoin. It used to be 1BTC was $1, and now 0.0001BTC, or 1mBTC (millibit) is ~$1. Right now bitcoin is divisible to 8 decimal places, or into 0.00000001 units. That, however, is not fixed, and can be changed if necessary, either by extending it into smallet units, or by moving the decimal place. For instance, if all the bitcoins in the world were lost but one, and we had an equivalent of $70 trillion in the world's economy, that would make the smallest unit be worth $700,000. Before that happened, we would either extend the decimal point, letting us divide it to 0.000000000000001 units (or $0.01 per unit), or just move the decimal point over for everyone at the same time, where if you've had 0.0001BTC one day, you'd have 10000.000 the next. Since this will happen for everyone, everyone's % of the total wealth, and thus the total value of bitcoin in existence, won't change (it would just be a visual change).

There will never be a new "vein" or an increase in bitcoin, because the "they" is actually you as a bitcoin wallet holder. The reason the limit can not be broken is because everyone's wallet software includes code that says something like

If LastMinedBlock.Reward <> 25BTC, Reject LastMinedBlock

so the limit is maintained by everyone using the system. Basically, anyone is free to change the code (it's fully open source) and try to mine more bitcoin, but those bitcoins will not be accepted by anyone else's wallets, since they will not fit into the consesus-established rules enforced by everyone individually. It's like deciding that "dog" will from now on refer to what we know as a "cup." Sure, you're free to do that, but no one else can be forced to follow your definition change, and will keep using "dog" as is.


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## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

Wait wait wait.



> but those bitcoins will not be accepted by anyone else's wallets, since  they will not fit into the consesus-established rules enforced by  everyone individually. It's like deciding that "dog" will from now on  refer to what we know as a "cup." Sure, you're free to do that, but no  one else can be forced to follow your definition change, and will keep  using "dog" as is.




This is essentially what we've been trying to tell you for 8 pages now and you're not getting. You are free to use bitcoin if you want. The rest of us don't have to,and it shouldn't be our fault for choosing not to.


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Nashida said:


> This is essentially what we've been trying to tell you for 8 pages now and you're not getting. You are free to use bitcoin if you want. The rest of us don't have to,and it shouldn't be our fault for choosing not to.



But that makes lesser people not fit for his bitcoin utopia.


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## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

I already know I'm a lesser people. I embrace that. I get to sit on a pile of money.


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## Aleu (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> *Please define "fake" vs "real" money, and explain why it's relevant to their value*. It's a bit frustrating when people make flat claims without actually explaining what they mean, or defining their terms.



Ok what? How is it hard to get? Do you not understand the concept of "counterfeits" and why they're not accepted? What exactly is the value of bitcoin and why is it supposedly so valuable that it's worth $800 a pop?

It just seems like if you're mining...something that's not really something but just...a computer generated thing it's no different than using Runescape gold for real currency.


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## ADF (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> snip



When responses are more than twice the height of my 1080p monitor, we've got a problem... To respond to every little bit of that and add to the growing wall, or try to summarise and compress it down...

The purpose of "they can also kill your ass"; was to point out that you can come up with a myriad of rational as to why using any wealth storage medium other than Bitcoin is subject to a aggressive government, but that also applies to Bitcoin. You're pretending everything is a danger, except Bitcoin, somehow governments are defenceless against that. But as with communist countries, tyrannical governments, vicious dictators etc. there is no defence. Bad governments will do as they please and Bitcoin won't stop them. Store the code in your head and that just makes it easier to destroy portions of the Bitcoin currency supply, by taking that head off.

And that is a fair comparison. Bitcoin is just an exchange mechanism, a storage of buying power, no different from any other currency. It's not the currency people are after, it's what that currency purchases. Bitcoin doesn't change anything about that, it's still just a tool of trade. A diverse portfolio of material wealth will always be a better store of value than currency, no matter how long Bitcoin is around. A hundred years from now if Bitcoin is still around, as unlikely as that would be, it is still just an exchange mechanism for what people really want.

Economic collapse in a socialist environment? This is one of these economic doomsday scenarios, an extreme scenario utilised for a meaningless point, like a prepper nut waiting in impatient anticipation for the world to end so he actually as an excuse to use their hoard. When angry mobs go house to house looting, Bitcoin isn't going to protect you. Currency is the least of your concerns in that scenario because you want the necessities of life. Not currency. "But you can transfer your wealth invisibly" you will say... Wealth in that scenario is food, water, shelter etc. Not a bunch of numbers on a thumb drive, not a shiny slap of metal. You cannot eat gold, you cannot eat bitcoins either. Currency is worthless in a total collapse, never mind digital currency. At least you can burn paper money for warmth.

International market? Good luck buying food on the internet when it's a warzone outside your house. When you go to such extremes to justify something the absurdity become self evident. Again, money is the least of your worries in this scenario. The basic infrastructure of the country would be struggling, food pipelines blocked. 

Furs are the late adopter crowd? So basically your emotional investment in Bitcoin doesn't allow you to even consider the possibility that it won't succeed, any critiques are just postponing the inevitable to you. That's not a good position to be in for reasoned arguments, that's akin to religious zealots pestering for an inevitable conversion to "the truth"... 

Inflation is an incentive to borrow? Only to a point. Inflation combined with low interest rates helps banks and governments, as they may even get negative effective interest rates. But for normal people, hell no. They pay substantially above the central banks base rate, that and their buying power would have to increase in line with the debt being devalued for repayment to become easier. How many people get inflation adjusted pay rises these days? I accept that this is a terrible environment for savers, which is incredibly dangerous as you cannot have a healthy capitalist model without capital to invest. But borrowers are not living the high life, that's why we've got pay day lending sharks taking advantage of the poor supply of credit to everyday people. All the cheap credit is getting gobbled up by banks and government.

You know what... it's 11 at night and I'm quickly running out of motivation to continue responding to this. Right, just the highlights now.

Giant asteroid of gold? That's just a ridiculous argument. I might as well argue a EMP from a solar flare will wipe out modern human civilisation and your Bitcoins would be utterly destroyed. Would that be an acceptable argument?

Why is physical important? Because all the things we want are physical. I cannot eat a burger in Second Life, therefore making it of lessor value to a real burger. If I cannot hold it I don't really own it, it can be stolen away and there is nothing I can do about that. Which is what would happen should Bitcoin or any other currency fail, which is why a strong portfolio contains a lot of tangible investments.

That £1.62 quote came from a scrap metal calculator, meaning that's the price they would pay. It's not the value of the actual silver, it already factors their cut. The 'spot price' of that quantity of silver, the value of its weight, is £2.06 as of right now.

Again, we know silver is universally accepted world wide because it is a desirable raw material. There is no guarantees your Bitcoins would be acceptable, *it's your hope* that they will become acceptable were as 'I know' silver is accepted. You really need to understand that, a lot of your scenarios are dependant on Bitcoin becoming as widely accepted as fiat currency.

*"Personally, I'm very curious to see what governments trying to kill bitcoin will look like."*

You mean like the US government declaring alternative currencies a form of terrorism, therefore subject to the punishments of terrorism? Getting locked up is a pretty big deterrent, flash crashes from government raids on exchanges or restricting Bitcoins use is a pretty big deterrent.


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## Ozriel (Feb 2, 2014)

Aleu said:


> Ok what? How is it hard to get? Do you not understand the concept of "counterfeits" and why they're not accepted? What exactly is the value of bitcoin and why is it supposedly so valuable that it's worth $800 a pop?
> 
> It just seems like if you're mining...something that's not really something but just...a computer generated thing it's no different than using Runescape gold for real currency.



Or buying cartel coins with currency in SWTOR. In the end, it isn't a good idea right now.


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## ADF (Feb 2, 2014)

They should link Bitcoin mining to Folding@Home or some other scientific resource that can use the processing power. At least then all that time and energy is being put to something productive.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Nashida said:


> Wait wait wait.
> 
> This is essentially what we've been trying to tell you for 8 pages now and you're not getting. You are free to use bitcoin if you want. The rest of us don't have to,and it shouldn't be our fault for choosing not to.



No, it's what *Iâ€‹â€‹ *have been trying to tell you for the last 8 pages, you don't have to use Bitcoin if you don't want to. But you can, and there are benefits to adding it to the list of your options. That's it. So why are people people so vehemently against adding more options and doing things that at best may get them more money and at worst won't cost them a thing?



Aleu said:


> Ok what? How is it hard to get? Do you not understand the concept of "counterfeits" and why they're not accepted?



Sure I do. A counterfeit is something that is attempted to be passed off as copy of something it's not. A $20 bill printed on a laser printer is a counterfeit for a real $20 bill. A â‚¬20 Euro note is not a counterfeit for a $20. Likewise, a bitcoin is not a counterfeit for a $20. And while $20s can be counterfeited (it's a problem encountered often when doing face to face bitcoin trades), it's impossible to counterfeit a bitcoin. But what does counterfeiting have to do with this?



Aleu said:


> What exactly is the value of bitcoin and why is it supposedly so valuable that it's worth $800 a pop?



It's exactly the same thing as the value of all other currencies: mass delusion based on expectation that you can trade it for something later, with price based on supply and demand.



Aleu said:


> It just seems like if you're mining...something that's not really something but just...a computer generated thing it's no different than using Runescape gold for real currency.



Oh, yeah, the mining thing screws a lot of people up. The purpose of mining isn't too create bitcoins, it's to provide account auditing service and cryptographically secure transactions to make them tamper-proof. The idea is to create a signature on a transaction that is so complex that it would take more Bitcoin computing power than already exists in the world to undo the signature. That keeps someone from sending someone coins, and then reversing that transaction to take your coins back. The reward you get from mining is basically a payment for providing that service, as well as a way to distribute the currency in a more distributed and democratic way.




ADF said:


> They should link Bitcoin mining to Folding@Home or some other scientific resource that can use the processing power. At least then all that time and energy is being put to something productive.



That mining is productive. It provides accounting checks and keeps the financial system secure. Problem with linking mining to something else like Folding@Home is that it's nearly impossible to come up with a useful problem that is difficult to solve but can be instantly objectively checked, and that tying it to something like that ties a secondary value to it, which would make the currency value not as "pure," and fluctuate based on how useful whatever you're solving is.


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## Tica (Feb 2, 2014)

wait didn't someone say that it costs more electricity to mine bitcoin than bitcoin is worth?

isn't that like spending a million dollars to unearth a single thousand-dollar diamond?


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## Kazooie (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassash said:
			
		

> That mining is productive. It provides accounting checks and keeps the financial system secure. Problem with linking mining to something else like Folding@Home is that it's nearly impossible to come up with a useful problem that is difficult to solve but can be instantly objectively checked, and that tying it to something like that ties a secondary value to it, which would make the currency value not as "pure," and fluctuate based on how useful whatever you're solving is.


mmm, no. The mining difficulty is artificial, and transaction rate is fixed (the protocol can be modified (by a centralized source, in bitcoin's case)), and would be the same regardless of how many miners are on the network. 1 miner? 7/second. 1 million miners? 7/second. The only thing more miners do, is essentially makes it harder to "brute force" the network. The calculations themselves are complete junk, and, humorously enough, the dedicated ASICs produced by fine companies such as BFL are utterly useless for any other application.



Tica said:


> wait didn't someone say that it costs more electricity to mine bitcoin than bitcoin is worth?
> 
> isn't that like spending a million dollars to unearth a single thousand-dollar diamond?


About a year ago the power consumed by the bitcoin network was estimated to be the magnitude of a of small city or so.

e: one estimation was around $15 million per day, seems generous at the time, but that article's a year old. Another estimation (a year ago) was 150k/day. So yeah, conservative estimate, 500k/day in power, generous, 2mil or so?

The theory, I believe, behind cost of mining is that, if it becomes too expensive (in power) to mine, the number of miners will decrease. This doesn't take power theft into consideration, nor people who don't know the difference between revenue and profit. Nearly every "Years To Break Even" 'sheet I've seen of the ASIC miners has been: "Years 'till the machine pays for itself: infinite". So yeah. Lots of people stealing power (or people not looking at their bank books).


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## Nashida (Feb 2, 2014)

> No, it's what *Iâ€‹â€‹ *have been trying to tell you for the last 8  pages, you don't have to use Bitcoin if you don't want to. But you can,  and there are benefits to adding it to the list of your options. That's  it. So why are people people so vehemently against adding more options  and doing things that at best may get them more money and at worst won't  cost them a thing?



Because you're not respecting our choices to not go with Bitcoin. We've said why we don't want to use it, and you're acting like a Jehovah's witness who doesn't mind that we're trying to close the door on your foot. That's why.


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## Duality Jack (Feb 2, 2014)

I only see bitcoin as a high risk investment and a way to hire assassins and buy drugs or humans.


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## Willow (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> That's not rational. If you don't value 1 euro at $1.35, you would still accept it knowing that you can trade it for $1.35 on the open market, instead of demanding that, in your opinion, it's only worth $0.01.


I wouldn't because I don't live in Europe. Therefore Euros are still virtually worthless to me unless I somehow wind up there. 

However, if I _do_ find myself in Europe with a few Euros, there's a better chance their value is still 1â‚¬ = $1.35 as opposed to $1000 Bitcoins = $1000 or whatever it is


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> No, it's what *Iâ€‹â€‹ *have been trying to tell you for the last 8 pages, you don't have to use Bitcoin if you don't want to. But you can, and there are benefits to adding it to the list of your options. That's it. So why are people people so vehemently against adding more options and doing things that at best may get them more money and at worst won't cost them a thing?



So that's why you've done nothing but argue with people and insult those who don't want to?


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## Volkodav (Feb 2, 2014)

Hey, look on the bright side people
If you need a brick of cocaine, a machine gun, and someone to kill your arch enemy, you'll know where to go, right?

Just pray the coked up assassin doesn't realize you paid him in funny-money before you use it to leave the country and change your identity.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Gah, sorry about another long reply. I tries to cut out most of it...



ADF said:


> When angry mobs go house to house looting, Bitcoin isn't going to protect you.




When that happens, I won't be anywhere near my house. I'm not a prepper, and I think they're silly, but I know enough history to know how things progress.

First a country gets into debt. That's either from waging too many wars, making too many promises for handouts to the voters, or screwing with the economy by setting up regulations that favor established corps and keep out competition.
Second, as things start to get worse, they increase welfare spending to support those who are in financial trouble, while punishing the wealthy businesses and corporations they blame for the problem. Usually through increased taxation or more strict regulation. This, of course, only makes the economy worse and puts the country into more debt.
Third, as things start to crumble, and those with money and brains, as well as businesses, start to flee, government starts to impose capital controls that restrict how much you can take out of your bank, move between banks, or take out of the country. This step just keeps getting progressively worse, as "the rich" and "corporations" are blamed more and more, the currency hyperinflates, and people resort to rioting.
Fourth step is either a collapse of a currency and government, kicking out of the old politicians, and establishment of new currency and politicians (good), or a popular revolution with a socialist populist leader (bad).

Happened in tons of countries over the last century. In some more than twice. Argentina is now far into the third step. America just added more restrictions to international transfers (though possibly inadvertantly), and banks are adding more and more restrictions to withdrawals. The idea is to be gone before it gets anywhere near #4, which gets harder as capital control restrictions get stricter.




ADF said:


> Good luck buying food on the internet when it's a warzone outside your house.




Incidentally, phones, and more recently even internet, still worked during such economic collapses in those countries. I'm a bit more realistic than Mad Max, I think.




ADF said:


> So basically your emotional investment in Bitcoin doesn't allow you to even consider the possibility that it won't succeed...




I think it can fail. Sure. Just not for the reasons that have been mentioned here. When a new piece of technology gets invented that is a massive improvement over old technology, and that that technology is free and open for anyone to use, adoption is usually inevitable.




ADF said:


> How many people get inflation adjusted pay rises these days?




Right now, when we're having economic issues? Not many, but what about over the last century?




ADF said:


> I might as well argue a EMP from a solar flare will wipe out modern human civilisation and your Bitcoins would be utterly destroyed. Would that be an acceptable argument?




Sure. My point was just to point out that everything is based on hope at some point. It was an obviously overly-ridiculous example.




ADF said:


> Why is physical important? Because all the things we want are physical.




That's demonstrably untrue, considering our service economy, and enormous software market. Maybe you meant "all the things we need for physical survival?"




ADF said:


> If I cannot hold it I don't really own it, it can be stolen away and there is nothing I can do about that. Which is what would happen should Bitcoin or any other currency fail, which is why a strong portfolio contains a lot of tangible investments.




Er... "Can't hold it, it can be stolen" really only applies for X-backed certificates (someone steals X, your certificate is worthless), or government fiat (they inflate it, stealing the value of yours). Neither applies to bitcoin... If Bitcoin fails, it won't be because it was stolen, it'd be because something in the software algorithm broke  catastrophically. Which, hopefully, would be patched, rolled back a day or two, and rebooted... So, I'm sorry, but I still see little difference (or rather believe you aren't grasping the similarity).




ADF said:


> There is no guarantees your Bitcoins would be acceptable, *it's your hope *that they will become acceptable were as 'I know' silver is accepted.



That's true. Somewhat. I know that Bitcoin is already accepted and traded for cash by people all around the world (localbitcoins.com), and my 'hope' is just my wishes and dreams, but what I believe to be a logical conclusion based on what I know about the technology, what businesses can implement it, and what businesses are currently working on implementing it.



ADF said:


> You mean like the US government declaring alternative currencies a form of terrorism, therefore subject to the punishments of terrorism? Getting locked up is a pretty big deterrent, flash crashes from government raids on exchanges or restricting Bitcoins use is a pretty big deterrent.




Yeah, like that. It would be amusing how many people and countries US pisses off around the world, when it starts going after other countries' citizens and businesses for doing something that is completely legal in that country. Or the enormous waste of money it would have to throw at a problem of tracking anonymous currency used anonymously by people in other countries...


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## RTDragon (Feb 2, 2014)

I think it's safe to say here that the OP does'nt know what he's talking about after reading through this entire thread. Let's face it not many people would adopt bitcoin since it's unreliable.


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## Duality Jack (Feb 2, 2014)

Okay OP, the primary things you can buy with bitcoin are against the law, do you want to associate your fluffy morally ambiguous fandom with that? 


Also this is becoming a dead horse thread.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Tica said:


> wait didn't someone say that it costs more electricity to mine bitcoin than bitcoin is worth?



Not usually. If it does, the miners stop mining until either difficulty adjusts to make it easier, or Bitcoin price goes up to make the reward more profitable. It's self adjusting to keep mining cost about same as mining profit.



Kazooie said:


> The only thing more miners do, is essentially makes it harder to "brute force" the network.




Um, yes. In the same way as a reinforced bank vault us just strong walls and a door. Making it harder to "brute force" the network is important when breaking into the network is the same as breaking into a vault storing $10bil. That's the only think giving the cryptocurrency security and trust.




Nashida said:


> Because you're not respecting our choices to not go with Bitcoin.



Yes I am. I'm only not respecting your choices to make false claims and get away with it.



Mokushi said:


> I only see bitcoin as a high risk investment and a way to hire assassins and buy drugs or humans.



Yes, that's what most people who take a first brief look at it see... 



Willow said:


> I wouldn't because I don't live in Europe. Therefore Euros are still virtually worthless to me unless I somehow wind up there.
> 
> However, if I _do_ find myself in Europe with a few Euros, there's a better chance their value is still 1â‚¬ = $1.35 as opposed to $1000 Bitcoins = $1000 or whatever it is



Er, you can exchange euros for dollars in practically every bank in US :\

By the way, I just realized something kind of funny and ironic. The typical claims are "Why would I take something that's worth $1000 today, when it can be worth $500 or $0 tomorrow?" But, the historical trend of bitcoin price has been up, not down. Extremely up. So, while there's a good chance 1â‚¬  will still be around $1.35, there's also a good chance 1BTC may be $2k, $3k, or even more, instead of $820 that it is today. So, why are people OK with using historical precedent for some things ($ was worth x, so will be worth x), but use the opposite of it for btc?



Mokushi said:


> Okay OP, the primary things you can buy with bitcoin are against the law, do you want to associate your fluffy morally ambiguous fandom with that?



Please go here http://www.gyft.com or here https://bitpay.com/directory#/
Let me know which of the things sold on that list are against the law.


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## Duality Jack (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Yes, that's what most people who take a first brief look at it see...


Which using it makes you suspect of what...?

Basically bitcoins are largely suspect by governments and some groups are already planning on banning banks within countries from exchanging it.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Mokushi said:


> Which using it makes you suspect of what...?



Um.. Nothing? It makes me suspect that the media has been doing a horrible job making it all sensationalist, just like it did with the internet, back when it was only for hackers and child pornographers. (You remember those early 90's days? Some even claimed that Internet's impact won't be much more than that of a fax machine)
Personally, I use it to buy groceries, Amazon stuff, cell phone minutes, vacation things like plane tickets and hotel rooms, etc.



Mokushi said:


> Basically bitcoins are largely suspect by governments and some groups are already planning on banning banks within countries from exchanging it.



Please provide more info. I read all btc related news and want to make sure I didn't miss anything. (US is fine with it BTW)


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## Willow (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Er, you can exchange euros for dollars in practically every bank in US :\


Why pay someone in money they can't readily use though? At least Paypal converts your money to whatever currency the place you're buying from uses. 



> By the way, I just realized something kind of funny and ironic. The typical claims are "Why would I take something that's worth $1000 today, when it can be worth $500 or $0 tomorrow?" But, the historical trend of bitcoin price has been up, not down. Extremely up. So, while there's a good chance 1â‚¬  will still be around $1.35, there's also a good chance 1BTC may be $2k, $3k, or even more, instead of $820 that it is today. So, why are people OK with using historical precedent for some things ($ was worth x, so will be worth x), but use the opposite of it for btc?


Because jumping hundreds of dollars a day is really risky.


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Yes I am. I'm only not respecting your choices to make false claims and get away with it.



So I'm assuming your definition of "false claim" comes down to "anything that's remotely critical of bitcoin" seeing as you've either argued with or flat out had a temper tantrum towards just about everyone.




Rassah said:


> Yes, that's what most people who take a first brief look at it see...


Let me list the things I can only buy with cash. 
- Cash
- Gas
- My Rent
- So many things that I can't even begin to list them throughly

Now let's list the things that can only be bought with bitcoins (at least on the internet)
- Drugs
- Hitmen
- Drug Paraphernalia 

One can only wonder why people think your monopoly money is primarily used for buying drugs.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Willow said:


> Why pay someone in money they can't readily use though? At least Paypal converts your money to whatever currency the place you're buying from uses.



BitPay and Coinbase does that exact same thing for you too, for cheaper fees and zero volatility risk. Even if bitcoin is being really risky and jumping hundreds of dollars a day. Can we get off this argument please? I don't see the point of pointing out how PayPal converts foreign currencies for you over and over, when I can just keep pointing out that so does BitPay (for bitcoin).



PastryOfApathy said:


> So I'm assuming your definition of "false claim" comes down to "anything that's remotely critical of bitcoin"



No, I mean false claim. Like, you can't use it for anything but drugs, or it's hard to convert to dollars, or it's not worth anything, or it's too risky to accept for payments. If you you have legit criticisms that aren't contrary to Google search results, have at it.
(EDIT: Causing issues with too much energy use from mining, detrimental effects of deflation on economy and business investing, possible collapse of social safety net system due to increased tax evasion, risk of SHA256 getting broken, too difficult to use if you are in a 3rd world country with just a dumb phone, autonomous entities taking over certain jobs and causing increased unemployment, etc. are all legitimate criticisms)




PastryOfApathy said:


> Let me list the things I can only buy with cash.
> - Cash
> - Gas
> - My Rent
> ...



Yeah, false claims like these. Go to gyft.com and look through their list. All that you can buy with Bitcoin (including everything on Amazon). Go here https://bitpay.com/directory#/ Every business that sells something here lets you buy stuff with bitcoin. Go to http://spend-a-bit.com if you want to refil a cell phone plan (they cover many different countries). Go to http://cheapair.com if you want to buy plane tickets, or http://9flats.com and http://www.travelforcoins.com/ to book a B&B or hotel. Need I go on? Note just one of those makes your claim false.

Now, on the other hand, it's obviously true that dollars are only used to buy cocaine and crystal meth. I know this, because I watched Breaking Bad.


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> No, I mean false claim. Like, you can't use it for anything but drugs, or it's hard to convert to dollars, or it's not worth anything, or it's too risky to accept for payments. If you you have legit criticisms that aren't contrary to Google search results, have at it.



Everyone has given legitimate criticisms and every time you've just brushed them off, and screamed at them. We could write a fucking 500-page essay approved by every leading economist on the planet explaining why we don't share your bitcoin fetish and you would still say it's illegitimate. 




Rassah said:


> Yeah, false claims like these. Go to gyft.com and look through their list. All that you can buy with Bitcoin (including everything on Amazon). Go here https://bitpay.com/directory#/ Every business that sells something here lets you buy stuff with bitcoin. Go to http://spend-a-bit.com if you want to refil a cell phone plan (they cover many different countries). Go to http://cheapair.com if you want to buy plane tickets, or http://9flats.com and http://www.travelforcoins.com/ to book a B&B or hotel. Need I go on? Note just one of those makes your claim false.




None of those websites let me buy gas for my car (Don't you dare deny this, because you even admitted it). None of those things let me pay my landlord's rent. You're just proving what I said, you're immediately dismissing anything that's remotely critical of bitcoin and as a result you automatically spam me with random websites that have nothing to do with what I actually said. 




Rassah said:


> Now, on the other hand, it's obviously true that dollars are only used to buy cocaine and crystal meth. I know this, because I watched Breaking Bad.



Man I'm so burned right now. Keep on going on you master of wit you.


----------



## Mr. Sparta (Feb 2, 2014)

Again, OP, just set up a goddamn poll so you don't have to keep probing us to agree with you and your sales pitch.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> Everyone has given legitimate criticisms and every time you've just brushed them off, and screamed at them. We could write a fucking 500-page essay approved by every leading economist on the planet explaining why we don't share your bitcoin fetish and you would still say it's illegitimate.



I didn't "brush them off" as you said, I gave examples, pointed to sources, and explained why the ones that were wrong were wrong. You know, things like "you can only buy drugs with bitcoin." Do you know why that is wrong? Or do yo think you are still right in claiming that? Nothing is illegitimate. If it's your opinion, it can still be legitimate. And I may not have a good answer for it. But a legitimate opinion doesn't make it a fact. It could be a legitimate opinion based on lack of information. Like someone who's only exposure to bitcoin has been an article on Silk Road from 3 years ago. It's perfectly legitimate for them to believe that, based on their limited source of information. But they'd still be wrong.





PastryOfApathy said:


> None of those websites let me buy gas for my car (Don't you dare deny this, because you even admitted it). None of those things let me pay my landlord's rent. You're just proving what I said, you're immediately dismissing anything that's remotely critical of bitcoin and as a result you automatically spam me with random websites that have nothing to do with what I actually said.



I don't deny that you can't buy gas or pay your landlord's rent in it. But do any of those sites list, as you said, "Drugs, Hitmen, [and] Drug Paraphernalia?" No? Then your claim that those are things "that can only be bought with bitcoins" is invalid. Does that make sense?

And by the way, I know you are a troll, and actually come out and claim as such. What I'm not sure about is whether you are actually this... "convinced about your intellectually staked out position," or whether you are just making shit up in an attempt to rile me up.




Mr. Sparta said:


> Again, OP, just set up a goddamn poll so you don't have to keep probing us to agree with you and your sales pitch.



I'm not interested in what is your click-button opinion, based on what you know or don't know. I'm interested in what you actually know, and how right or wrong what you know is. (plural you).


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## zanian (Feb 2, 2014)

That's what I think of this thread =P
http://forum.deviantart.com/community/complaints/1936474/


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## Volkodav (Feb 2, 2014)

My cat may have IBS and pica
vet visits are very expensive, costing around 70$ on average per visit, just to get him looked at and maybe a bottle of pills thrown in

my vet won't let me pay him in bit coins
what do i do

should i just give up and let my cat die so i can at least get gloves out of his fur?


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> I didn't "brush them off" as you said, I gave examples, pointed to sources, and explained why the ones that were wrong were wrong. You know, *things like "you can only buy drugs with bitcoin.*" Do you know why that is wrong? Or do yo think you are still right in claiming that? Nothing is illegitimate. If it's your opinion, it can still be legitimate. And I may not have a good answer for it. But a legitimate opinion doesn't make it a fact. It could be a legitimate opinion based on lack of information. Like someone who's only exposure to bitcoin has been an article on Silk Road from 3 years ago. It's perfectly legitimate for them to believe that, based on their limited source of information. But they'd still be wrong.



I never said that, I said it's *primarily* used to buy drugs. No one is denying that it's possible to buy legitimate things with your monopoly money, we're just saying it's kind of pointless to do it. Again you're just showing that you're not actually reading what people are saying. 



Rassah said:


> I don't deny that you can't buy gas or pay your landlord's rent in it. But do any of those sites list, as you said, "Drugs, Hitmen, [and] Drug Paraphernalia?" No? Then your claim that those are things "that can only be bought with bitcoins" is invalid. Does that make sense?



The only places on the internet that allows me to buy coke and hitmen are "deep web" tor markets which _surprise_, only accept bitcoins. Just because you didn't list Sheep Market or Silk Road doesn't mean they suddenly don't exist. Also everything on those sites you listed can be bought with cash so your point is kind of moot. Does that make sense?

*EDIT:* Since you keep adding shit. 



Rassah said:


> And by the way, I know you are a troll, and actually come out and claim  as such. What I'm not sure about is whether you are actually this...  "convinced about your intellectually staked out position," or whether  you are just making shit up in an attempt to rile me up.


"He has a different opinion than me...HE MUST BE A TROLL!" That's a pretty sad way to go about life.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Clayton said:


> My cat may have IBS and pica
> vet visits are very expensive, costing around 70$ on average per visit, just to get him looked at and maybe a bottle of pills thrown in
> 
> my vet won't let me pay him in bit coins
> ...




You could post this sob story on Reddit, along with your bitcoin address, get tons of donations from sympathetic strangers who don't know anything about you (happens very often), convert those bitcoins into dollars through https://btc-e.com/ (works well in that region), and have the money in your bank account by the end of the week. Personally, I wouldn't donate, because you sound like a pretty angry and disgusting person  (what are "skin worms?") but there are plenty of people out there who don't know you, so... good luck?


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## Volkodav (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> You could post this sob story on Reddit, along with your bitcoin address, get tons of donations from sympathetic strangers who don't know anything about you (happens very often), convert those bitcoins into dollars through https://btc-e.com/ (works well in that region), and have the money in your bank account by the end of the week. Personally, I wouldn't donate, because you sound like a pretty angry and disgusting person  (what are "skin worms?") but there are plenty of people out there who don't know you, so... good luck?



First off. Don't talk smack about skin-worms. They are serious business.

Second. What if I don't want Redditors knowing my bitcoin address.

Third. I can't wait an entire week for vet visits. There are appointments.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

Clayton said:


> Second. What if I don't want Redditors knowing my bitcoin address.



You can create a near-infinite amount of bitcoin addresses. Create a new one just for this reddit post, and send all the coins it gets through an anonymizer before cashing them out.
Unlike a credit card number no one can steal your money just from knowing your bitcoin address.



Clayton said:


> Third. I can't wait an entire week for vet visits. There are appointments.



You can also use your own money for it, instead of asking for handouts, or ask your vet if he'd be willing to take bitcoins, or plan a week ahead of time. All options are valid.


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> I never said that, I said it's *primarily* used to buy drugs.



Here's your full quote:

PastryOfApathy said:


> Let me list the things I can only buy with cash.
> - Cash
> - Gas
> - My Rent
> ...



Excuse me for not realizing that that "primarily" down there was supposed to go together with the "list the things that can only be bought with bitcoins" up there.



PastryOfApathy said:


> The only places on the internet that allows me to buy coke and hitmen are "deep web" tor markets which _surprise_, only accept bitcoins.



That probably has to do with bitcoin being the only currency that can actually be used privately online, AND the only currency trustworthy enough to be used among criminals. Using PayPal and VISA with that group will get you ripped off really fast (reversed transactions/chargebacks, stolen accounts, etc)




PastryOfApathy said:


> "He has a different opinion than me...HE MUST BE A TROLL!" That's a pretty sad way to go about life.



Ah, no. It's 


> Biography:I'm some sperglord on the internet.
> Interests:Being a jerk on the internet
> *le epik troll XDD*



and your avatar pic, and your general behavior that made me think that. I can't be faulted for agreeing with your own description of yourself, can I?


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## PastryOfApathy (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Excuse me for not realizing that that "primarily" down there was supposed to go together with the "list the things that can only be bought with bitcoins" up there.



For someone who allegedly has a bunch of degrees and is the CEO of a bunch of companies you sure aren't very good at reading. 




Rassah said:


> That probably has to do with bitcoin being the only currency hat can actually be used privately, AND the only currency trustworthy enough to be used among criminals. Using PayPal and VISA with that group will get you ripped off really fast (reversed transactions/chargebacks, stolen accounts, etc)



Exactly. Thanks for proving my point about why bitcoins are mostly associated with pot heads and drug addicts.




Rassah said:


> Ah, no. It's
> Biography:I'm some sperglord on the internet.
> Interests:Being a jerk on the internet
> *le epik troll XDD*
> ...



God forbid I make jokes and statements that are obviously not meant to be taken seriously. I should have had the foresight to accommodate those unable to understand what jokes are, my apologies.


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## Jashwa (Feb 2, 2014)

I don't understand why people want to convert their stable money into money that is extremely likely to deflate and make them lose everything. 

What's the real benefit? The false hopes and dreams that there is going to be, like, infinitely rising demand for it?


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## Volkodav (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> You can create a near-infinite amount of bitcoin addresses. Create a new one just for this reddit post, and send all the coins it gets through an anonymizer before cashing them out.
> Unlike a credit card number no one can steal your money just from knowing your bitcoin address.


this sounds like a very secure and good way to send money
I don't know who I'm sending money to 



Rassah said:


> You can also use your own money for it, instead of asking for handouts, or ask your vet if he'd be willing to take bitcoins, or plan a week ahead of time. All options are valid.


What if I make the majority of my money online
P.S you were the one who suggested I ask for bitcoins on Reddit.
I told you vets won't accept bitcoins, only real money.
Planning a week ahead of time for emergencies is not possible


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

zanian said:


> That's what I think of this thread =P
> http://forum.deviantart.com/community/complaints/1936474/



Sorry, this is a bit off topic for this thread, but does your claim of


> Aside from the fact that most Libertarians seem to have all the social grace of antimatter at a matter meeting, a single word and you explode, and couldn't hold a job if someone ran up to you and gave you the first paycheck for simply being there, thus keeping you from having any actual finances...


also include such poor unemployed libertarians as Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon), Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock), John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods), Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal), and Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia)? I'm sure you use at least some of those libertard's services...


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## zanian (Feb 2, 2014)

Rassah said:


> Sorry, this is a bit off topic for this thread, but does your claim of
> 
> also include such poor unemployed libertarians as Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon), Patrick Byrne (CEO of Overstock), John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods), Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal), and Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia)? I'm sure you use at least some of those libertard's services...



If you have a problem with the thread in question, take it to complaints on DA with the same arguments and attitude; I'm sure they will give you quite the welcome =P

And I see you did; have fun with them, then =P
*Now to make popcorn and enjoy this thread*


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## Rassah (Feb 2, 2014)

PastryOfApathy said:


> For someone who allegedly has a bunch of degrees and is the CEO of a bunch of companies you sure aren't very good at reading.



Or you're not good at writing.




PastryOfApathy said:


> Exactly. Thanks for proving my point about why bitcoins are mostly associated with pot heads and drug addicts.



Is your point that a money transfer network having so much security that it can be used to trade with criminals anonymously online is a bad thing, and that money transfer networks should be very insecure and susceptible to fraud so that they don't get used by criminals? (except for when those criminals take advantage of the weak security and use it for fraud)




PastryOfApathy said:


> God forbid I make jokes and statements that are obviously not meant to be taken seriously. I should have had the foresight to accommodate those unable to understand what jokes are, my apologies.



I'm sorry too. It was my mistake in thinking that you are an asshole, when you've only been acting like one.



Jashwa said:


> I don't understand why people want to convert their stable money into money that is extremely likely to deflate and make them lose everything.
> 
> What's the real benefit? The false hopes and dreams that there is going to be, like, infinitely rising demand for it?



Er, the definition of "deflate" for currency means go up in value. It's counter-intuitive . Inflationary currency inflates in number of total currency units, with each $1 decreasing in value, and deflationary currency decreases in number of units, with each $1 going up in value. 
But I know what you meant. Based on historical performance and pent-up demand, it's actually much more likely to go up in value than drop, making people a ton of money in the near future. The benefit is, if you can handle the risk, you can make your investment go up by *a lot*, and if you can't, you can use it just for it's built-in money transfer mechanism, which lets you accept payments cheaper than you can with VISA or PayPal. Or you can read the tech paper for it, sit back, and enjoy watching the crazy inventions people are building on top of it (communications, domain name registry, distributed stock exchange, autonomous agents, automatic robotic contracting agents, point-to-point delivery networks like in Mirror's Edge, mesh network balancing systems, etc).




Clayton said:


> this sounds like a very secure and good way to send money
> I don't know who I'm sending money to



If the person you are sending money to wants to be anonymous, yes. If they want to be public, they can say "this is my name, and this is my address." Either option is possible. Best part is, if you give out your bitcoin address, no one else can do anything with it. If you pay them with your credit card, they have full access to charge you anything they want. If you give them your PayPal account, they now have your (likely) primary e-mail address.



Clayton said:


> What if I make the majority of my money online



Then you are an even better candidate for it, because you can literally accept payment from anyone in the world, regardless of where in the world you are. Then you can pick up and move to any other part of the world, easily take all your money with you, and still get paid to the same account. I'm not making the majority of my money online yet, but I'm transitioning to such a job, and I'll be getting paid 100% in Bitcoin (I'm in US, the company I'll be working for is in Vienna). There are a few people already who make their money online, who get paid entirely in bitcoins (mostly in India, Russia, and other places with lots of software developers, and no good way to send money to).


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## Mentova (Feb 2, 2014)

Alright things are getting a bit too far on the sales pitchy side of things and I don't like how you keep talking about the fact that it can be used for illegal goods is a good thing. This is sketchy, so I'm (finally) locking it.


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