Yeah, the biggest threat has always been regulating it out of existence. But bitcoin attracted a lot of wallstreet venture capital recently, so regulators are treading lightly. And such a change from earlier last year with Lord Holder on his slash and burn campaign rivaling General Sherman’s March to the Sea, to rid the country of all digital currencies ex Paypal. His over-the-top take down of Liberty Reserve using the Patriot Act effectively scared remaining third party payment providers into refusing to do business with US Clients.
I’ve used Bitcoin now to fund a couple of FOREX brokers. Works great! So nice not to risk identify theft sending personal info across the globe for a particular payment sytem, only to find out later, “sorry we don’t accept customers from the USA anymore”. With Bitcoin (or something similar) will never have to deal with those third party digital payment providers again. Oh, the Joy!
[QUOTE=“Mr Gone;604831”]Idolizing is bad idea. Really bad.[/QUOTE]
What’s so bad about idolising a technology that could revolutionise the way the world operates? The scope of it is enormous. I see that in the future any systems not using the bitcoin protocol or the more mature version of it will be seen as shady and probably illegal. That is if politicians see the benefit. In the future I see all voting done using the bitcoin protocol, all business accounting, all pay and tax done using it and all trading be it stocks, futures, currency’s, pretty much anything. Unfortunately it will probably take another financial crash for politicians to realise that you cant trust banks to do their accounting and valuations properly and that the public isn’t going to stand to bail them out again.
Yeah but something wich authorities cannot do nothing well. BTC is just speculative crap.[/QUOTE]
I don’t quite follow your first point. But yes I do agree that most of the buying of BTC currently is purely speculative. However you could make the same argument of every other currency with the daily trading volume of the forex market far exceeding the actual use of those currencies for business transactions.
Just saying BTC works surprisingly well to pay for goods and services. You can deposit/withdraw in BTC at FXOpen, Forex Metal, Lite Forex, and a few other brokers. Expect more brokers to accept bitcoin in the future.
But I only get BTC to make payments. Hoarding physical bitcoins is pointless and even dangerous. Read a story today how the FBI can seize bitcoins if they trace back to illegal activity – even if you purchased them legally.
As for speculation, why ignore a 24/7 market totally uncorrelated to global economic data? Several brokers now offer bitcoin CFDs: FXOpen, Forex Metal, Avatrade, Plus500, FXChoice, eToro, Bit4x. I know FXOpen charges .25% round turn plus a couple dollar spread. Considering Bitcoin’s volatility, that’s not bad.
am sceptical about bitcoin purely for the fact that as it is unregulated, a lot of criminal organisations are using it for money laundering purposes, and already several people that are heavely involved in BT in US have been arrested under suspicion of money laundering BBC News - US makes Bitcoin exchange arrests after Silk Road closure
There was a discussion on etoro last year about bitcoin when they first started offering it as a tradable stock. I continually tried to point out to people that it cannot be classed as currency until it has government backing somewhere and is widely accepted as a source of payment. Several people pointed out different businesses you can use bitcoins for online payments, but as I pointed out, until I can walk into any pub/bar/***** house/restruarnt/shop/bank in the UK and have bitcoin accepted, then I will not class it as currency. At the moment, it is too unregulated and easy frauders and others to get a hold of for governments to consider touching, and as such it is something I will view with a lot of caution.
You’re right, Bitcoin is an electronic payment system that’s not widely accepted. But most third party payment systems aren’t widely accepted either. For example, I’m looking at FXOpen’s deposit/withdrawal page. These guys offer 20 different electronic payment systems to choose from…most of them I’ve never heard of. What the heck is “Dixipay” or “Fasapay”? So now they’ve added Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Namecoin to the list.
Anyway, this is how I think Bitcoin will eventually fit into the global payment ecosystem – just one of many choices customers can use. Bitcoin doesn’t ever have to be widely accepted to fullfill that role.
And Bitcoin does have some special significance for US residents. Due to severe requlatory restrictions, all third party international electronic payment providers (besides paypal) either no longer accept US clients or have placed limitations on the accounts making them useless for funding FOREX brokers. At least for now, our regulators have not forced any such restrictions on Bitcoin. One can always use Bankwire, but why pay those expensive deposit/withdrawal fees. Even more importantly I would be very uncomfortable giving any FOREX broker my bank account details – ID theft.
The lack of centralized control of bit coin leaves it open to too many attacks IMO. Too many stories of stolen funds going on and then there’s nothing there to help you get them back …
Having said that , with the volatility of it’s value the last 6 months, who am I to judge - plenty of traders I know have made small fortunes from it.
I do think that it will all eventually blow up though
I think the lack of centralised control is one of its strengths. The problem is the difficulty in connecting with traditional banking systems. Ideally bitcoin should be used as a cash substitute, and you wouldn’t carry around large sums of cash because it isn’t safe. You get cash out of a bank to use and you put it back in the bank to store safely. There are now bitcoin banks that have been set up that are designed to be unhackable by storing the bitcoins in computers disconnected to the Internet. I’m am sure that there is more theft of regular money through bank fraud then bitcoin hacking anyway as its much easier to do, only a few people can programme well enough and understand the protocol well enough to pull it off. Just the media like to put bitcoin down.
im totally done with the pros and cons, the stunting by gox probably gives it a bad name to people who dont follow it or dont know what is so
ask these people or attend, for all your questions and answers Speakers
or Bitcoin Technology
or ask the winklevoss twins what they think about it, they seem like they know a thing or two and probably look a little less bummy than i do
the discussion is already over, the only question that remains is : what unforeseen things will the blockchain bring us in the future
(these links dont advertise, they’re both informative on conferences in the near future with pretty much renowned speakers as far as i can see)
end of story ?
no this is only the beginning
Bitcoin is an interesting alternative for traditional currencies and this is one of its biggest threats. Many countries will be afraid of accepting bitcoin as an alternative currency, because it can undermine positions of their own currencies. Moreover nobody controls bitcoin in a formal way, which is unacceptable for many central banks. The future of bitcoin can be bright but it must be recognized by at least few serious countries.
it seems like speculative currency with the millions already stolen and the varying price range it seems that a few people have already staked out a crooked investment relying on people to vary the value of the bitcoins while the thieves play with their stolen coins buying and selling the coins themselves.
I guess some forex and binary brokers are still not accepting this to be paid as a deposit however many as said above allows you to deposit bitcoin as payment.
