Using Bitcoins

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Insomniac
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Using Bitcoins

Post by Insomniac »

I would like to donate some cash to a foreign web service that I use, but they want payment in Bitcoins. Bitcoins are new to me, but I suppose it's the future and I should get with it. Anybody gone through the process of setting up a Bitcoin wallet, buying Bitcoins and using them? :?:
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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Insomniac wrote:Bitcoins are new to me, but I suppose it's the future and I should get with it.
I very much doubt they are the future. :geek:
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by IdOp »

I've never used them and know next to nothing about them, but from that total newb perspective the following article was about the most readable thing I've seen:

A beginner's guide to owning bitcoin (Globe&Mail)

The future, I expect, involves regulation, lots of it, if this becomes mainstream.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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EBA warns of more than 70 Bitcoin hazards
The EBA in December issued a rare customer warning telling European users of virtual currencies they faced violent fluctuations in the value of their investments and the possibility of accounts being hacked.
The future? Or back to the 19th century?
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

I'm not sure this forum's demographics is the ideal one for determining the future of Bitcoin ;)
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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Flaccidsteele wrote:I'm not sure this forum's demographics is the ideal one for determining the future of Bitcoin ;)
Pyramid schemes are as old as the hills.

All of which says nothing about the availability of greater fools to feed this particular ripoff.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

I appreciate you proving my point, but it really wasn't necessary.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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@FS: The comment on demographics is not valid - there are some young people on this site (but I know you were kidding)

The web service I am dealing with used to accept PayPal. The problem(?) with PayPal is that they are a middleman between customer and vendor and get involved in disputes. PayPal may withdraw funds from or freeze a vendor's account if a customer complains. The complaint may be justified, an error or fraudulent. With cash, there is no middleman and it's up to the customer and vendor to sort it out.

I could stuff a couple of bank notes into and envelope send it via Canada Post, but that's not very convenient. Bitcoin virtual cash sounds like a good fit, but as apater points out, it seems to be a great thing for the fraudsters.

Here is a Canadian site where you can work with Bitcoins. I have no experience with them: https://www.cavirtex.com/home
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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Flaccidsteele wrote:I appreciate you proving my point, but it really wasn't necessary.
What is fungible, what is liquid and what is a store of value are problematic from an historical point of view; leave all certainties aside, ye who enter here, be they gold, Rentenmarks, company scrip, air miles, gift cards ...
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

It was inevitable that the blockchain technology, the cornerstone of bitcoin, would eventually be used by the banks.

Personally I thought the underpinnings of bitcoin were genius, if a bit rough around the edges, and wondered why the banks didn't do something similar especially considering that the vast majority of money was moved around and verified electronically.

However, from what I understand the idea of using bitcoin and/or bitcoin tech was almost immediately brainstormed by a number of global banks as soon as bitcoin saw the light of day.
Nine of the world's biggest banks including Goldman Sachs and Barclays have joined forces with New York-based financial tech firm R3 to create a framework for using blockchain technology in the markets, the firm said on Tuesday.

It is the first time banks have come together to work on a shared way in which the technology that underpins bitcoin - a controversial, web-based "crytocurrency" - can be used in finance.

...

The other seven banks that have signed up to the initiative so far are JP Morgan, State Street, UBS , Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse , BBVA and Commonwealth Bank of Australia .

Nine of world's biggest banks join to form blockchain partnership
Nasdaq already has a specialized trading platform specifically for new issuance of securities as part of an IPO running on the bitcoin/blockchain system.

The question is if the bitcoin/blockchain protocol will eventually take over transaction/verification in financial services. I think so. The question is, if a simple open source protocol can eventually do this, why would the big banks need to employ tens of thousands of employees?

Most likely this tech will be in widespread use within a couple generations.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

In our children's lifetime perhaps. In our grand children's lifetime for sure.

Once I read how blockchain verifies by using the network, I knew this was a paradigm shift. Cheaper, instantaneous, multiple redundancy, secure. Job losses ahead for parts of 'conventional' banking.

The Future of Bitcoin Isn't Bitcoin - It's Bigger Than That
Earlier this year, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne bought a $500,000 bond issued by the online retailer.

But it wasn’t the size of the bond that drew attention. It was the way it was sold: through Overstock’s new digital trading platform T0, which records securities trades through the same shared ledger technology that backs cryptographic currencies like bitcoin.

Advocates of the digital ledger technology, known as the blockchain, say its use in traditional financial transactions could prove far more revolutionary than the alternative currencies for which it was first created.

Storing transactions in one automatically shared, tamper-proof database could eliminate the need for complicated procedures and clearinghouses now used to make sure banks have their records in sync, saving time and money and reducing the risk of error.

...

"What blockchains do is allow for a transaction to occur between financial institutions or people but without the need of that intermediary, because you can reliably send the assets to each other very quickly and in basically near real time and without any chance of having that transaction be reversed or changed,"

...

Banks might wish to adjust the size limits of transaction blocks, or the speed at which they’re added to the network, security features, or other settings, or keep their blockchains only accessible to their trading partners over a secure network. They may also incorporate support for so-called smart contracts—essentially simple programs embedded within the blockchain that define rules for when assets get transferred, allowing procedures such as dividend and interest payments and escrow arrangements to be automated with logic stored in the same shared database as the assets themselves.


Small note re: video above, which states that Bitcoin is a 'currency'. In the U.S. it is classified as a commodity. I think this is fair. Bitcoin, it and of itself is unremarkable. It's just one of many commodities that utilizes blockchain tech. The media just sensationalized 'bitcoin'. But that was never the point.

It's the blockchain tech that is the revolutionary aspect.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

Forgot to mention the Canadian banks who also partnered with R3

RBC, TD join top banks in using bitcoin technology

It's amusing that the media continues to use the misleading term 'bitcoin' probably because it's the more popular.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

Microsoft launches cloud-based blockchain platform
The blockchain works as a huge, decentralised ledger of every bitcoin transaction, which is verified and shared by a global computer network and therefore is virtually tamper-proof.

The financial industry is increasingly investing in the technology, betting it will reduce costs and increase efficiency.

Blockchain technology is not limited to bitcoin -- it can be used to secure and validate the exchange of any data. And other companies are now building their own blockchains that provide additional features to the original bitcoin one.
Banks of the future are going to start looking more and more like giant I.T. companies.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Flaccidsteele »

Change is coming to banking. Will likely be in my child's generation. Grandchildren for sure.

Blockchain, Bitcoin and the rise of banks as shared ledger providers
Financial institutions such as banks each have at least one ledger of record, and often times dozens. The largest banks sometimes have a few hundred ledgers due to acquisitions of other products and companies over time.

Consequently, while there are existing ways for financial institutions to share and reconcile information with one another — as I recently described in American Banker — that process today requires the utilization of trusted third, fourth and fifth parties in the handling and processing of proprietary financial information. This reconciliation and reporting process is often creaky, expensive and slow.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by Insomniac »

Could have bought one for about $600 when I started this thread about 3.5 years ago, but I didn't. Now they are over $15K. Oh well, could have dropped to zero too.

I don't like gambling.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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Didn't make sense to me when it was in the hundreds and it still doesn't make sense to me in the ten thousands.

Maybe I'm a little slow, but my personal, biased view is that I'm not :lol:
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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My response is Pffffffffffft! That and the tooth fairy.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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AltaRed wrote: 07 Dec 2017 16:15 My response is Pffffffffffft! That and the tooth fairy.
Perfect response.

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Re: Using Bitcoins

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I just googled "what backs the value of bitcoin?" It appears that its value is only based on faith. Now I suppose that some would argue that this is the same with every currency but at least the Canadian or US dollar is somewhat backed by the wealth of those nations. I'll leave it to others to reap the profits in bitcoin.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

Post by kcowan »

Oh yee of little faith! What about the investors that became rich on tulip bulbs? Keep the faith speculators!

A guy on the CBC said that it should peak at $150k per coin, so hang in for the ride of your lives.
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Re: Using Bitcoins

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A professor of value investing warns about the future of bitcoin
And this article
Bitcoin goes mainstream as Wall Street warns of risks
The group said it remained "apprehensive with the lack of transparency and regulation" surrounding bitcoin and questioned whether exchanges could ensure the cryptocurrency was not susceptible to "manipulation, fraud and operational risk."
As Keith says 'Anyone interested in Tulip Bulbs'
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