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Comment by zeckalpha | Hacker News Reader

Isn't number 3 just a variation of number 4, with a middleman? That's all I mean. Can't software exist for individual early adopters to sell their coin in exchange for fiat at market values without a centralized exchange? To me, it seems like centralized exchange just leads to collapse.

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> Can't software exist for individual early adopters to sell their coin in exchange for fiat at market values without a centralized exchange?

As I see it, the tricky bit without an exchange is (1) establishing a "market price" in the first place, and (2) coordinating the fiat side of the transaction with the cryptocurrency side (the same problem exists between two different cryptocurrencies with different networks) so that the two either succeed or fail together.

There is work being done on distributed exchange, the problem is quite difficult tho, I believe there is an exchange in germany that works quite well and users pay by bank transfer between each other (sepa transfers are cheap or free)

There is also localbitcoin

some people used mtgox to trade, but I can not understand why since their fees were high, trading engine slow and buggy and well there are better alternatives

Not all early adopters will want to sell. Heirs to their estate will ... which is why in the next 40 years there will be a few floods of bitcoin supply to deal with.

If that is the case, where does the exchange get its coin?

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