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Comment by shawnz | Hacker News Reader

Since you are apparently very used to people doing things for you, you might want to look at online wallet services[1] that hold your money. You might think that it is less safe to do things that way, and you are right, but it is no less safe than giving your cash to the bank.

EDIT: Sorry for being rude; last night was a long night. What I'm really trying to say is that, by running wallet software locally, you are opting yourself in to a few responsibilities that go beyond just storing your own money. If all you want is the ability to store your bitcoins, there are already services that will provide you that ability with no fuss.

[1] http://bitcoin.org/en/choose-your-wallet

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I just don't think the snark is necessary here. I'm pretty technically savvy and I found the wallet setup process to be... unintuitive. For example, transactions didn't show up until I told my wallet to sync back to before I created it because Multibit doesn't sync by default to a sane time.

Also, it's demonstrably less safe to give your Bitcoin wallet to a site than to give your cash to a bank. To imply that the security and insurance of these sites is comparable to banks is laughable -- you frequently hear about sites getting hacked and losing all of their BTC.

Of course, banks have other problems (depending especially on how you view the Fed), but disingenuous claims like this do nothing to help Bitcoin.

People are critical of these services, but the poster you're replying to is correct: bitcoin is not ready for prime time. As much as the bitcoin faithful would like to deny it, bitcoin will not be widely adopted until there is a financial services industry around it. The necessity of credit, the convenience of easy payment, the security of your money in a bank, it's just too tempting for people to walk away from. Nevermind that there is still a massive part of the first world population that can't program their clock, much less download a bitcoin wallet. And the fact that Internet infrastructure is still limited worldwide. Try paying with bitcoin on your phone in some more remote parts of Montana.

That's the most exciting thing about Bitcoin. The protocol and the technology is sound, just imagine how it will explode once the UX is polished.

You're looking at the internet in the BBS stage right now.

In this analogy does that make bitcoin the future AOL?

Well, it is less safe than a bank.

Most deposits in a bank are insured. Most (all?) online bitcoin wallets are not.

Except that banks (in the US) are insured by the FDIC.

US Bank accounts are insured by the FDIC.

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