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You are questioning trust in the markets connected to the Bitcoin network. You make it clear that trust can't be regained by saying it's irreparably tainted for you.

I agree with the assertion there may be things plugged into the network which affect price in either a (unnatural?) negative or positive fashion. /r/bitcoinmarkets has been talking about China intentionally pushing the price down for months now by way of implementing marketing sentiment, China style. However, I believe there are far more positive connections being added to the network (as you mentioned in your comment) and these connections will bring added value and stability to the market by acting as dampener to value manipulation.

Overstock has real sales with BTC. Sure, they aren't much, but it's a good start for what is essentially the world's largest startup. The only reason we're not all circle jerking each other over Bitcoin like we would something like Instagram (photo sharing site sold for $1B? really?) is because of what cryptocurrencies in general represent for humanity: computed trust. Trust implemented by a thing that we all run and none of us can stop except maybe for the devs, which requires consensus. That's a POWERFUL and scary tool.

When something messes with trust, interest and fear, you get the AWE response from humans. This results in either great joy from trusting and being interested it, or anger from fearing it. This is why discussions around Bitcoin are so polarizing.

Killer apps bring trust in a widespread way. Killer apps for powerful tools aren't invented overnight. It takes conviction and hard work to figure out opportunities and it usually requires lots of experimentation. Resenting or judging based on the fact some will fail in a given time range is illogical. I do hear you when you say you think the blockchain is the real story. I agree, but in a much broader sense of any type of computed trust.

Please exit of my brain. You exactly transcripted my mind into your post ;)

The keyword is "computed trust". This is a freaking awesome huge - never seen - feature. I just hope the tech behind is solid enough.

It's the fourth knob of the cloud: compute, storage, network...trust. Pay for it like the rest.

To be successful, cryptocurrencies don't need "normals" to adopt them, or Walmart to accept them, or for the exchange rate to double every six months.

It's perfectly OK if they remain a primarily black-market phenomenon, the currency of System D [1]. Use dollars at Walmart, euros at the train station, and Bitcoin for remittances, VPNs and burner phones.

As repressive regimes restrict personal freedom in the "legitimate" economy, and as the global 0.1% extract ever more wealth from working people, System D will become larger, more sophisticated and globally connected.

Cryptocurrencies enable human freedom and dignity through System D. They provide independence from those who would control you and from parasites who profit from your labor.

Spend your dollars on consumer trinkets and meaningless entertainment. Save your Bitcoin for what matters.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2012/03/19/could-bitc...

> the currency of System D

For those who, like me, thought of the init system and were very confused confused:

> System D is a slang phrase pirated from French-speaking Africa and the Caribbean. ... They say that inventive, self-starting, entrepreneurial merchants who are doing business on their own, without registering or being regulated by the bureaucracy and, for the most part, without paying taxes, are part of “l’economie de la débrouillardise.” Or, sweetened for street use, “Systeme D.” This essentially translates as the ingenuity economy, the economy of improvisation and self-reliance, the do-it-yourself, or DIY, economy.

Is this a common term in the Bitcoin world?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemd

I've read a ton about bitcoin and own some and have mined some... and this is the first I've heard of it.

Keep in mind, there are a few different types of people interested in bitcoin:

1.) Get Rich Quick types 2.) Techies 3.) Crazy Extremist Libertarians

I'll let you be the judge who is who.

I think it's a fairly common word amongst sociologists and economists. I've heard it in both contexts.

We're still very early in the bitcoin story. Every "chicken and the egg" market gains traction like this - the start is fueled by early adopters on one side (btc buyers and miners) while the other side slowly opens up to it (venders).

Since it has such low liquidity, it is also manipulated to hell and back by various bots, exchanges, scammers, etc. There was an article floating around that showed most of the last price rise was beside of a bot operating on MtGox: http://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report...

Nothing is stopping another exchange or malicious person from doing the same thing.

>> There is still no incentive to get paid in BTC

How about no chargebacks? That seems to be a pretty big issue for anyone doing business on the internet.

Collectively we (as a generation, let alone a culture) haven't reached a point where more shopping is done online then in person. Until we start to approach that point we don't start to a bigger push for online digital currencies form the general population.

And even then "online digital currencies" aren't really particularly needed where there are satisfactory online digital payment mechanisms denominated in traditional currencies.

Chargebacks, while inconvenient for vendors, provide utility to consumers, especially online when there can be a long delay between paying and getting to receive/examine the product.

Chargebacks do provide utility to consumers, but they also provide utility to scammers and fraudsters, who use chargebacks to steal more than $10 billion a year in the US alone. The cost of this, and fraud prevention and dispute resolution, is ultimately passed back to the consumer as higher prices.

From the most negative point of view, the chargeback mechanism could be seen as a sleight of hand marketing trick that was necessary to get consumers to accept new payment methods, by hiding the real costs.

When people mention "no charge-backs" as an incentive to merchants to use bitcoin, they seem to not realize or gloss over the fact that for that benefit to be realized would require the merchant only transacting in bitcoin. It's not like they can say, charge-back scammers have to use bitcoin, everyone else, credit/debit is fine.

I can't imagine that there are many business where the cost/benefit of only accepting bitcoin to eliminate chargeback losses makes sense.

It doesn't have to be so black and white as that. You can take into account other factors such as country of origin of the consumer and identifying information provided as whether to accept a credit card payment or not.

No chargebacks is an excellent reason for a consumer not to use Bitcoin.

I have never ever had to request a chargeback from my credit card company. I have, however, returned many items which were voluntarily refunded by the merchant, even those items paid with cash or cash equivalent. But then again, I also don't buy from sketchy vendors that have no incentive to want to gain/maintain your trust.

I made a purchase from a site operated by an artist I had been a fan of for 8 years. The order was never fulfilled despite my PayPal account being charged. No one from the site ever returned my messages. I reversed it without issue. If it had been bitcoin, I'd simply have lost the money.

Consumers like knowing they have an element of protection when buying something from a store they can not visit from people they'll never meet. As someone that has worked with ecommerce websites for the past 15 years and currently has $110 worth of bitcoin in my wallet, I don't think that is likely to change anytime soon. Especially not with the current pitch of bitcoin.

The report you refer to, about the bot at MtGox, is itself speculative, interpretative, and proves nothing. Just a heads up, before you jump into your radical conclusions:

An Occam's Razor approach to understanding the data, is that the bot was performing legitimate buys for an institutional investor who would have made a deal offline, and directly, with MtGox. There is a perfectly plausible explanation to the bot that is not nefarious. So, please reconsider you "irreparable" decision, since its basis are far form solid.

There are many reasons to believe the rise is 'real', especially that the fundamentals are enormously more solid now than when it crossed $650 now than when it reached that price for the first time (in november).

Fundamentals, you say? I am afraid that there are more serious ways to learn about those than whether the "normals" you interact with are using it or talking about it just now. Your personal perspective might not necessarily provide the whole picture! I recommend you get your data from a site like http://www.bitcoinpulse.com/ check it, please, and tell me if you still stand by your arguments.

Also, 'volatility' is not argument enough to eliminate the reasons why people like to be paid in Bitcoin. I prefer Bitcoins over Dollars without hesitation, and I am very glad I have been paid in Bitcoin in the past. Other people just want to accept any kind of money their customers want to give them, and eliminate the volatility exposure by using Bitpay and the like.

> There is still no incentive to get paid in BTC

I get paid by clients in bitcoin. It saves me significant wire transfer fees.

Seems cool, but a bit risky. A modest decline in value of a bitcoin would likely cost you much more than the wire fee, no?

You'd expect it to average out. But since my job involves bitcoin, I'm often clued into the price and can time my conversions on an upswing.

How much do you actually save when you include selling them on an exchange and getting cash into your bank account?

I second that question.

I guess my english is not good enough. Is my question offending ? Why downvote ?

I didn't downvote you, but I am guessing you were downvoted because your comment didn't add value. It's basically just saying, "I agree" which, by the way, you could have indicated by simply upvoting your parent.

It is possible to buy goods and services with bitcoin. OP doesn't have to send them through an exchange.

Yes, but buying stuff is a small part of the things you have to pay each month(rent, bills, taxes, etc).

About $14.50 per wire on average.

I've a similar attitude towards Bitcoin. To use it I'd need to understand it and why it's seemingly so easy to get taken by an exchange. Understanding that takes an investment of time. I've yet to see something more compelling (to me) than "no charge backs" to justify that investment of time.