[sc0rb]

I've been to Spain multiple times. A lot of places didn't even take credit card. Good luck getting people to use an internet currency.

Bitcoin is not ready for prime time yet. I can't wait for some malware to empty everyone's wallets...

I'm guessing most USA based commenters here know nothing about Spain.

[icebraining]

While it's true that a lot of (small) shops don't accept bank cards, this is mostly immaterial. The threat in Cyprus was that the government could seize a good percentage of all the money deposited, including whole life savings.

In that view, keeping most of your money in a non-seizable currency (Bitcoin or not) and just some "hand money" in the bank makes perfect sense. As a Portuguese, I'm considering it myself.

[sc0rb]

If what you say about the gov seizing money is true, why wouldn't they try and take some sort of legislative control over BTC? Why wouldn't they make it illegal or do some other thing with the law to make it harder to use without running the risk of a knock on the door? No country is just going to stand by and let a new currency disrupt them.

[icebraining]

If what you say about the gov seizing money is true

Well, it's not exactly a conspiracy theory, it's all over the news about Cyprus that the Parliament voted (and rejected) that measure[1], which was proposed by the Eurogroup (and others, IIRC).

why wouldn't they try and take some sort of legislative control over BTC? Why wouldn't they make it illegal or do some other thing with the law to make it harder to use without running the risk of a knock on the door? No country is just going to stand by and let a new currency disrupt them.

My argument wasn't just about Bitcoin, but in any case, I certainly wasn't suggesting a situation where half the population or so would suddenly turn to BTC.

That said, while they could illegalize Bitcoins, preventing people from actually using them would be much harder than just telling a few banks what to do. To buy Bitcoins you just need to make an online payment to some exchange (e.g. Mtgox) - you don't even need to run the Bitcoin client.

So to enforce that illegalization, it would take up much more time and effort to implement the technical and legal counter-measures, and it would either be largely ineffective (see "fight against file sharing") or politically hard to implement (e.g. very large number of arrests).

Finally, this is all mostly irrelevant, because the real reason this measure was proposed wasn't because the money from Cypriots, but because there's a lot of money from wealthy Russian business men which would get seized as well, and which definitively won't be using Bitcoins.

[1]: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/plan-to-seize-deposit...

[Jare]

When I lived in Chicago back in 1998 I distinctly remember feeling that the common use of credit cards (and mobile phones) was much more primitive compared to Spain. 10 years later, I needed to use cash way more often the 3 years I lived in Vancouver than the 3 years since I came back to Madrid. Heck, I haven't visited an ATM in at least 3 months.

That said, you are probably right that the technical education and trust needed to embrace bitcoins is much less common in Spain. I first heard of bitcoins in, of all places, an episode of "The Good Wife" couple years ago, and have only found a handful of people who know about them. I imagine this will be changing rapidly in the following months, just like it's doing everywhere else.

[melenaboija]

mmm...

What do you mean with 'A lot of places didn't even take credit card'? Are you sure you've been in Spain?.

I guess YOU know nothing about Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...

[sc0rb]

I was in Madrid three weeks ago for work. I took my clients out to dinner and had to pay in cash... It happens often.

The GDP of the country has little to do with credit card use. I was surprised when I went to Australia and discovered that Debit cards are a new thing that required marketing to spread. Credit cards were in wide use but paying for things directly out of your bank account with a card is still relatively new.

Are you one of the many Americans that don't even have a passport never mind exploring anywhere that doesn't take your cheap money?

http://www.theexpeditioner.com/2010/02/17/how-many-americans...

[icebraining]

Well, half my family is Spanish, and I travel there every year for a few weeks, and at least in Galicia, small shops that don't accept bank cards are still reasonably common, yes. Even in Vigo, which isn't exactly that small, it's not hard to find a few.

Oh, and that was certainly true of Lloret de Mar as well, just a few years ago. Supermarkets and such all accept cards, but the bazaars (run mostly by easterners, from what I could tell) mostly didn't.