| > Fewer transactions and lower volume than last year. Again, for the 4th(!) time, you have no data proving this. > Multiple vendors on /r/bitcoin claiming little to no volume either compared to last year. A few anecdotes != reliable statistics > Right so reports from multiple vendors about lackluster sales are anecdotes. Yes. Your "multiple vendors" probably means "less than a dozen vendors", which is insignificant given there are tens of thousands of vendors in the world accepting Bitcoin. > How about the fact that bitpay has been claiming the 1m a day in transactions now for over half a year? How about that for no growth? Ha! Now you change your claim. You talked earlier about a significant reduction, a "huge flop". Now you claim stagnation, no growth. That's very different. > Here are the figures from their releases so far
> Jan 10 - 130K Jan 11-29 - $26K/day average Next 36 days to March 4th they do $400K - $11K/day average Next 83 days to May 27th they do $600K - $7200/day average
> Now they are claiming $7000 a day. Given that the $7200 * the number of days left in the year = $3m I'm guessing we'll see that $3m number change again when they actually release their financials. Sales were declining, but not anymore, not since September, not since the last 3 months. That is exactly what I claimed, and nothing more. I said: "They have reached a steady state of $7000-8000 a day FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS" (emphasis mine). > Cash works like this because you are physically present with the merchant when you use it so you can validate immediately if you are getting ripped off or not. Exactly, and I am glad to see you acknowledge that Bitcoin's lack of CC-like consumer protections is a total non-problem in such scenarios. You made it sound like such protections were absolutely necessary, at all time, or else Bitcoin can never work!!!!!1!one > Right but it has to satisfy enough common ones to convince users to make the additional effort to acquire it. It's not doing that. Yes, and I think you will agree that "reducing fraud to zero for merchants" is a pretty major use case given that fraud is a huge problem for merchants online. As well as "being able to pay a trusted merchant online while guaranteeing not having a CC number that can be stolen" since financial theft is becoming more and more frequent. > Yes that explains why there are no scams in bitcoin at all. And there were no complaints about Tigerdirect fulfillment related to bitcoin orders. Technological problems from one merchant's deployment of Bitcoin is hardly a sign that "OMG Bitcoin totally doesn't work and will never be adopted" as you make it seem to be. For every customer who experiences one issue paying/getting a refund in Bitcoin, there are many more customers who do so without any problem. > But it's not a tremendous hassle. You call the bank tell them the card was stolen(or they detect it) list any transactions you didn't make and the money is refunded and a new card is posted. There are a handful of cases where it is more difficult than that. Do you have examples of it affecting credit scores? Obviously, whether it is a tremendous or a minor hassle is a matter of personal experience, and a matter of how much of your life depends on credit cards. But my point is: it can be a tremendous hassle, and credit cards do not automatically make a theft a non-issue. Some examples of major hassles: having you card stolen and having to cancel it during a vacation away from home. After a theft you have to re-configure all automatic periodic payments that were due to be processed on the CC. You forgot to give the new CC number to your cloud service provider? Oops they can suddenly shut down your instances at 3am with little to no notice. Your wife had set up some other random online service paid through the CC, but you were not aware of it? Oops her online account will be closed as fraudulent and it will take multiple phone calls and emails to the support department to get it re-opened. The CC thief's actions lead to some negative events added to you credit history? Oops good luck spending multiple WEEKS contacting the credit scoring agencies indepedentently to get your records cleaned up, and submit the proper documentation to prove it was all due to a theft. Bottom line: you know how some Bitcoin fanboys blatantly ignore its kinks? Well you are guilty of the same thing when you blatantly and childishly ignore the kinks of credit cards when they are stolen and have to be replaced. > Walk me through the steps to buying and putting bitcoin on your hardware wallet that wouldn't be compromised by the user having a virus on their computer that targeted bitcoin. You mean the same computer where the virus will also steal the CC number that the user enters on a website when making a payement? Hmm? How does this virus scenario demonstrates that credit cards are safer? If the user cancels the first CC, gets a second one, what prevents the virus from stealing the second CC number at the next purchase? CCs don't solve this virus problem at all. However I can envision scenarios where Bitcoin hardware wallets actually solve this virus problem. The simplest one is: you could buy a pre-loaded cheap disposable wallet (maybe in the form factor of a credit card) hence completely skipping the virus-ladden PC. > Which one have you used and I'll tell you how to abuse it. I used casascius's Bitcoin Address Utility. It has a self-escrow (two-party escrow) functionality which is not user-friendly, but the it is cryptographically well implemented and very secure. > That is a physical presence. The fact that they are using someone elses physical presence doesn't mean they don't need one. It means they are using someone elses locations to subsidize their own. Companies tend to not like that which is why I would put money on sendbitcoin.mx being shut down within the next 6 months. We shall see. |
Go forth and compare https://blockchain.info/charts ignoring that the fact that they didn't mention sales at all is a pretty good indication.
>A few anecdotes != reliable statistics
A random statement about a random metric does not indicate growth
>Yes. Your "multiple vendors" probably means "less than a dozen vendors", which is insignificant given there are tens of thousands of vendors in the world accepting Bitcoin.
There are 10s of thousands of bitpay/coinbase accounts. That doesn't meant they are all still accepting bitcoin.
>Ha! Now you change your claim. You talked earlier about a significant reduction, a "huge flop". Now you claim stagnation, no growth. That's very different.
No change just another data point.
>Sales were declining, but not anymore, not since September, not since the last 3 months. That is exactly what I claimed, and nothing more. I said: "They have reached a steady state of $7000-8000 a day FOR THE LAST 3 MONTHS" (emphasis mine).
And given they change their numbers reported every few months I don't believe for a second it has stabilized. I'll wait for their year end.
>Exactly, and I am glad to see you acknowledge that Bitcoin's lack of CC-like consumer protections is a total non-problem in such scenarios. You made it sound like such protections were absolutely necessary, at all time, or else Bitcoin can never work!!!!!1!one
Yes, in face to face transactions bitcoin would be a good solution if cash wasn't already easier.
>Yes, and I think you will agree that "reducing fraud to zero for merchants" is a pretty major use case given that fraud is a huge problem for merchants online. As well as "being able to pay a trusted merchant online while guaranteeing not having a CC number that can be stolen" since financial theft is becoming more and more frequent.
The problem is consumers aren't willing to give up their customer protections to improve the rate of fraud for merchants. All the merchants in the world could accept bitcoin and that fact won't change. Why would you be willing to increase your own fraud window just to decrease the merchants?
>Technological problems from one merchant's deployment of Bitcoin is hardly a sign that "OMG Bitcoin totally doesn't work and will never be adopted" as you make it seem to be. For every customer who experiences one issue paying/getting a refund in Bitcoin, there are many more customers who do so without any problem.
I didn't say that. I said that they were a trusted merchant and they repeatedly screwed up. And the customers had no easy recourse like they'd have with credit cards.
>Some examples of major hassles: having you card stolen and having to cancel it during a vacation away from home.
What happens if you lose your phone/laptop while on vacation with bitcoin?
>After a theft you have to re-configure all automatic periodic payments that were due to be processed on the CC. You forgot to give the new CC number to your cloud service provider? Oops they can suddenly shut down your instances at 3am with little to no notice. Your wife had set up some other random online service paid through the CC, but you were not aware of it?
Given that bitcoin doesn't allow for automatic pull payments you have to remember all your accounts and manually pay them every month anyhow. This isn't an improvement.
>Oops her online account will be closed as fraudulent and it will take multiple phone calls and emails to the support department to get it re-opened.
Bullshit. No company is going to do this without contacting you and fraudulent? Seriously what world do you live in. This would never happen.
>The CC thief's actions lead to some negative events added to you credit history? Oops good luck spending multiple WEEKS contacting the credit scoring agencies indepedentently to get your records cleaned up, and submit the proper documentation to prove it was all due to a theft.
Notice you haven't shown a single example of any of this? Because it is fantasy.
>You mean the same computer where the virus will also steal the CC number that the user enters on a website when making a payement? Hmm? How does this virus scenario demonstrates that credit cards are safer? If the user cancels the first CC, gets a second one, what prevents the virus from stealing the second CC number at the next purchase? CCs don't solve this virus problem at all.
If a virus steals my CC details and spends on them I get the money back in my account. Does that happen now with bitcoin that I'm not aware of or do you lose your money for good?
It is not the same thing so I ask again. Can you walk me through those steps or do you admit you cannot do it easily?
>I used casascius's Bitcoin Address Utility. It has a self-escrow (two-party escrow) functionality which is not user-friendly, but the it is cryptographically well implemented and very secure.
What happens if we set up the transaction and I don't send you anything? Your funds are now trapped at no cost to me.