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Comment by ronyeh | Hacker News Reader

Cool stuff, but I wonder, even if the price of BTC stabilizes, will "normal everyday people" use it?

I'm taking a coursera class (Startup 101 by Stanford) where we'll use BTC to fund our projects. But it seems like it's more confusing to the average user to see a "Donate Bitcoin" button on my page. I'd rather it just say "Donate" and have my payments processor accept any local currency.

Also, the Winklevoss twins are BTC speculators.

http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2013/07/02/beware-the-risks-o...

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> I'd rather it just say "Donate" and have my payments processor accept any local currency.

They have dealt with the ecentricities of their local money their entire life. Bitcoin is new. In the end, from an objective standpoint, scanning a QR code and confirming the transaction is easier than dealing with debit / credit cards -> bank accounts -> checkbooks, etc. I still have a POS time with routing numbers and bank account numbers and those are effectively fiat bitcoin addresses.

Bitcoin is so much easier to use because all you need to use it is a bitcoin address.

But to obtain BitCoin in the first place, you need to trust Coinbase with your account and routing number and possibly ID documents, wait a week for your BitCoin to become available, and then spend it.

To my knowledge there is no way for a first-time BitCoin user to make a purchase right away.

Coinbase delays the disbursement to keep you from chargebacking. Same thing happens in Dwolla. If you send a money order over snail mail to an exchange, you can get your funds available same day (they receive it).

It isn't anything bitcoin can change - it is moving money from a chargeback system to one without a way to reverse transactions. If they allowed chargebacking, they would be exploited and go bankrupt.

Transactions in person and Bitcoin ATM's will be the bread-and-butter of exchanging fiat money for BTC as it gains widespread adaptation.

The easiest way is to purchase bitcoin from a friend or coworker. Hand them cash, and they should be happy to show you how to download a wallet app, and send you some bitcoin.

You don't have to buy bitcoins with coinbase. They use coinbase to accept them, but the donator can get them from any method they choose, including coinbase, campbx.com, localbitcoins.com, friends, mining, etc.

But none of those methods can happen on the checkout page. My mom already knows her credit card number; why is she going to put off her purchase until she can buy BitCoin somewhere else?

That's a bad comparison. You're comparing using Bitcoin after its set up, with a bank account with no set up. I have direct deposit plus a credit card, and using my money is as easy as a swipe or inputting some numbers. And unlike Bitcoin, I get chargeback protection and account insurance.

I would imagine that in order for the price of bitcoin to stabilize normal everyday people will have to already have adopted it. I guess its a bit of a chicken and egg problem. But so is a lot of new tech I guess.

I think it will take off when people will be able to use "NFC rings" as their wallets, and it would have an easy to use UX. But there also needs to be NFC infrastructure in all stores.

"if the price of BTC stabilizes" is the key

Does anyone else think that BTC is the greater fool theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory) ?

Will the world allow itself to be swindled by the Winklevoss twins? For all its advantages, it seems there will always be high risk and speculation to it.

I could say you're part of the greater fool theory anytime you get paid in or sell something for fiat money. It only has value as long as people are willing to accept it, same thing applies to Bitcoin.

But Bitcoin is also an incredibly small market and as such it's susceptible to manipulation from already wealthy individuals like the Winklevii. Unfortunately for them bitcoin are worthless without circulation (i.e. people willing to accept them).

Bitcoin gained a lot of traction and new blood this year, most of these newcomers are standing around wondering where things will go without thinking about why they invested in the first place. People also don't seem to understand it's still in testing despite the high value.

We will see how the Bitcoin experiment goes.

Maybe fiat money is the worst form of currency except all those other forms that have been tried.

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