Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by andrepd | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

andrepd

Don't forget about Bitcoin.

View on HN

Almost no one outside of my techie friends know about Bitcoin. Even fewer understand how it works, so that's a no go.

My 70 year old dad can use bitcoin. I'm sure your friends can learn.

Your 70 year old dad is an exception in a sea of people that don't want to learn.

One comedian put it this way: You can't fix stupid.

Point being: Learning is a lifelong pursuit, and if you don't want to learn then you will be left behind using Facebook Messenger to send money. Kidding, but you hopefully get the gist.

But at what expense? The existing system is not that broken for majority of the world so why should they care about learning this?

Not knowing the technical, or legal arrangements of SWIFT doesn't prevent one from making a traditional international wire-transfer.

That will change. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay. There is no undoing decentralized commerce. It will change the world in ways we can hardly fathom.

If your debts are in dollars, I don't see any point in Bitcoin with its fluctuating exchange rate.

The points are that you don't need 1. a bank account 2. a debit/credit card 3. facebook messenger in order to send money instantly.

You just need a bitcoin balance and the recipient needs a bitcoin address. Which practically seems like way more friction than the three items you listed.

So that is 2 requirements for bitcoin versus 5 requirements for sending via facebook: bank acct, debit/credit card, email acct, facebook acct, facebook messenger (let's not forget the immense amount of personal information you willingly give away).

Yet, bitcoin seems like way more friction?

Not to mention the fact that the recipient needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web. Worse, the recipient also needs a bitcoin exchange account to even make the conversion possible, then they have to wait two days for the exchange to ACH the money into their bank. This all assumes the exchange will even do business with them following their extensive KYC checks.

I've never had a bank require that I OAuth with Facebook or give them copies of my passport in order to get an account. Bitcoin is just not the solution to this problem.

>Not to mention the fact that the recipient needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web.

I guess you've never read https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade

No, I haven't read the list of locations where bitcoin is accepted. The reason for this is, like most people, I have a bank account and don't need to double check that I can actually pay for dinner and a movie before I patronize an establishment.

Except you weren't patronizing an establishment. You were spreading FUD.

What you call "FUD", the rest of the world calls "reality". Bitcoin is currently impractical as money, that's just a fact. The few businesses that accept bitcoin aren't even close to enough to make bitcoin practical for every day needs.

I'm not saying bitcoin is practical as money. I'm saying it is practical as a payment system, if anything. Just look at the gigantic $100,000,000 bitcoin transactions that happen and only pay a $0.20 or so fee.

Besides that, bitcoin is so profoundly different than traditional money systems it can't possibly be practical as money so soon. It shouldn't be practical as money so soon, but it is making progress.

> needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web

That's not true. Americans (Facebook's intended audience for this Messenger money-sending feature) can spend bitcoins directly at Microsoft, Dell, Expedia, Overstock, Newegg, Tiger Direct, DISH Network, etc. They can use and spend bitcoins theoretically received from FB friends without having a credit card, without even having a bank account.

100,000 (legitimate!) merchants worldwide accept Bitcoin - http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-now-accepted-by-100000-merc... It is time to kill the myth of "only the dark web accepts Bitcoin".

I think we need to kill the "bitcoin requires a passport" myth as well. I have used bitcoin for 4 years and have never had to present a passport for anything.

Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't mean it's a myth.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/246mlg/bitstamp_blo...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/25jyf1/bitstamp_ive...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/26c1y6/buying_bitco...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2renc7/why_dont_peo...

I could go on, all I did was search /r/bitcoin for the word "passport" and I was overflowing with results.

You brought up having to present a passport as if it were a requirement to using bitcoin, which it is not. Again, you were spreading FUD.

> You brought up having to present a passport as if it were a requirement to using bitcoin

I'm not sure how you read, "a passport is required to use bitcoin" from "I've never had a bank ask me for a passport when opening a bank account". My point, which I substantiated with those /r/bitcoin posts, is that it's not unusual for a bitcoin exchange to ask for a copy of a customer's passport as part of their KYC procedures.

>>This all assumes the exchange will even do business with them following their extensive KYC checks....I've never had a bank require...a passport..

One can deduce from the context that a passport is required to use bitcoin. It's FUD and incorrect.

What do banks require in order to open an account?

From the 1st result on google:

your name, your date of birth, your current address and phone number, Social Security number (in most cases) and your email address.

You don't need any of those to use bitcoin. You don't need any of those to buy or sell bitcoin.

> One can deduce from the context that a passport is required to use bitcoin.

You deduced incorrectly. I'm saying that if the KYC system flags the recipient, for whatever reason, then they will likely be required to produce a passport.

The KYC system is the exchange's, not bitcoin's. It's similar to blaming TCP/IP because a website requires you to use a password to log in.

> The KYC system is the exchange's, not bitcoin's

This is obvious. What is your point? Nobody is arguing that KYC is a requirement of bitcoin. Let me break down exactly what I'm saying:

1. For the vast majority of people, bitcoin is impractical as a method of payment for every day needs.

2. As a result of this, most people don't want bitcoins, and instead prefer legal tender that is usable wherever they might need to spend it.

3. The most practical and least stressful method for converting bitcoins into legal tender is through an exchange.

4. Exchanges have KYC procedures.

Very simple.

Admittedly, my dark web remark was an exaggeration, however, it remains a practical truth for every day life. In the overwhelming majority of locales, bitcoin cannot be used to pay for groceries, insurance, utilities, rent/mortage, fuel, student loans, daycare, tuition, taxes, medical expenses, phone service, car payments or pretty much any of the common expenses someone might need to pay for. Newegg, Tiger Direct, Microsoft etc are all great companies, but for most people those companies only account for a small number of purchases per year.

The reality is that using bitcoin as money is very impractical, that's just a fact.

All systems that require adoption are, initially, impractical.

Bitcoin is becoming more and more practical as more and more merchants adopt it. Again: 100,000 merchants accept Bitcoin today, and this number is (so far) increasing rapidly.

Do you know where that 100k number comes from? I see it said a lot but the only source listed is an ibtimes story saying "an industry source says 100k". Has anyone figured out how it was calculated?

BitPay alone has 50k merchants: http://blog.bitpay.com/2015/03/10/heartland-payment-systems-...

Coinbase has 38k: https://www.coinbase.com/about

Gocoin has 5.5k: https://ihb.io/2015-01-29/news/gocoin-announces-5500-merchan...

That's already 93.5k from merely 3 american bitcoin gateways. Add the rest of the world (China, etc) and it is clear there are 100k or more.

Thanks for the sources.

I'd be curious to see what the active merchants per month actually are for Bitpay and Coinbase. Until then I have a hard time believing they actually have those numbers live given the number of stories I've seen of people visiting stores/restaurants that accept bitcoin only to be told they don't do that anymore.

> All systems that require adoption are, initially, impractical.

I agree with that. It seems we agree that bitcoin is currently impractical, which is the crux of my argument. Bitcoin is not a practical way to send money unless the recipient already has a bank account and a bitcoin exchange account.

Bitcoin has its problems, but getting a bitcoin address is much less friction than setting up a bank account.

That's like encountering email in 1994 and dismissing it as a piece of crap because none of your friends have computers or internet access.

A better analogy is that it's like dismissing the alternatives to email that popped up in the later 90s and dismissing them because even though they were obviously better than email (but not as much so as email over snail mail), no one you knew used them.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com