[ajross]

thank the legacy financial system for these unexplainable delays

I understand your feelings on this. But the fact remains that the using the "legacy financial system" I can move my money between investments on my etrade account with a latency of minutes. I can buy that car on a credit card or with a personal check with zero latency. Bitcoins aren't remotely there yet.

There may be some privacy or social justice reasons behind pushing bitcoins. They may be fun (I'm sure they're more fun for a hacker to play with than mutual funds). But they're not a serious option for someone looking to "invest" their money, and claiming they are is doing the people you're trying to sell on the idea a disservice.

[mrb]

This latency is not a pb inherent to Bitcoin. It happens whenever you hold currency X and need currency Y, for any value of X != Y. You are going to waste time exchanging one for the other. This is one of the reason why I expect Bitcoin's adoption to take off for international trade where the 2 parties of a transaction use different currencies to begin with.

Also I doubt you can sell stocks on Etrade and withdraw dollars to your bank in minutes. When I do this with my stockbroker (TD ameritrade) it takes at least 2-3 days because the transfer is made by ACH which takes a while to clear.

This latency is perfectly acceptable for stock market investors, therefore I see no reason why it would not be acceptable for Bitcoin investors...

[nfriedly]

My understanding of when they move money around in minutes is that they're basically giving you a short-term, interest-free loan in exchange for using their service. In reality, it still takes a day or two for things to clear.

[ajross]

Right. Because it's a robust system with clear properties and sufficient risk tolerance to make that practical. The bitcoin economy lacks those properties, which is my whole point. And people who plus bitcoins as "investments" without awareness of these issues are hurting, not helping.