Crypto Currency ??

coyrls

abash said:

eskbanker said:

abash said:

Blockchain is still very nascent.

Personally I think that's stretching a point - Bitcoin has been going for over fifteen years now....

Bitcoin is not blockchain. Unfortunately, everyone equates bitcoin to blockchain. Bitcoin is just 1 small utility on the blockchain and it's a first generation blockchain network.

As an analogy, internet was launched on 1st Jan, 1983. It didn't gain popularity until mid 1990s. 

Web 1.0 - News sites ... only way flow of information - one can only read 
Web 2.0 - Starting with email ... two way flow of information ... 1996 and beyond (when hotmail launched)

Strange history.  Email was one of the very first applications to use the Internet.

abash

eskbanker said:

abash said:

All the comments I've shared in this group is about blockchain as a tech and nothing to do with crypto.

[...]

I've no intention in convincing people to invest in crypto. I myself don't know about it. 

Didn't you think that a thread with this one's title was an odd one to jump into then?

Ha ha ha... In hindsight ... Yes 

eskbanker

coyrls said:

abash said:

eskbanker said:

abash said:

Blockchain is still very nascent.

Personally I think that's stretching a point - Bitcoin has been going for over fifteen years now....

Bitcoin is not blockchain. Unfortunately, everyone equates bitcoin to blockchain. Bitcoin is just 1 small utility on the blockchain and it's a first generation blockchain network.

As an analogy, internet was launched on 1st Jan, 1983. It didn't gain popularity until mid 1990s. 

Web 1.0 - News sites ... only way flow of information - one can only read 
Web 2.0 - Starting with email ... two way flow of information ... 1996 and beyond (when hotmail launched)

Strange history.  Email was one of the very first applications to use the Internet.

To borrow a phrase, 'everyone' equates internet to the world wide web....

GoldenOldy

I stumbled across this thread and am curious. Lets say I had some bitcoins and I wanted to buy a new couch. How would you go about purchasing it? Is it like foreign currency whereby I would need to exchange it back into sterling before i could make the purchase? I confess, i have yet to see any shops where I purchase goods offering the price in bitcoins.?
Many Thanks

flaneurs_lobster

GoldenOldy said:

I stumbled across this thread and am curious. Lets say I had some bitcoins and I wanted to buy a new couch. How would you go about purchasing it? Is it like foreign currency whereby I would need to exchange it back into sterling before i could make the purchase? I confess, i have yet to see any shops where I purchase goods offering the price in bitcoins.?
Many Thanks

Haven't found a retailer of sofas but if you wanted a rug to throw over it...

https://www.therealrugcompany.co.uk/pages/bitcoin-rugs/

That page has a simple description of the process to pay for the (in this case) rug using Bitcoin.

A Google search will find retailers etc accepting Bitcoin as payment.

fwor

flaneurs_lobster said:

Haven't found a retailer of sofas but if you wanted a rug to throw over it...

https://www.therealrugcompany.co.uk/pages/bitcoin-rugs/

Yes, but that's just another retailer that is treating Bitcoin as a foreign currency, isn't it? You're not getting a price displayed in Bitcoin - what happens is that you buy at a price stated in GBP and when you checkout, the payment processor goes away, converts GBP to Bitcoin, gives you a price, takes payment and then gives the retailer back the corresponding amount in GBP?

And when I tried it with a couple of different browsers, I couldn't persuade their Checkout to give me a QR code for Bitcoin payment anyway - so is that an example that actually works in practice?

flaneurs_lobster

fwor said:

And when I tried it with a couple of different browsers, I couldn't persuade their Checkout to give me a QR code for Bitcoin payment anyway - so is that an example that actually works in practice?

It's an example of a retailer that claims to take payment in Bitcoin that has a simple explanation of the mechanism.

I've absolutely no idea if it actually works - I don't need a rug and I don't have any Bitcoin.

fwor

flaneurs_lobster said:

I don't need a rug and I don't have any Bitcoin.

I don't either, but I tried pretending I did, and couldn't find any obvious way to do it - the instructions said that a QR code should appear, and it didn't (for my choice of browsers).

Malthusian

Good thing they sell rugs and not financial advice.

Bitcoins are perfectly safe, much safer than a credit or debit card. It is trillions and trillions of times easier to guess someones 16 digit credit card number, expiry date and ccv code than it would be to guess a private key for a Bitcoin address.

If someone guesses your credit card number you lose nothing. You contact your issuer's fraud department and the charges will be wiped. (Assuming no negligence on your part which gets them off the hook.)

It may not be realistically possible to guess a private key, but it is certainly very easy to have one stolen (simply hanging around a Bitcoin forum and reading the "I got hacked" posts will confirm that). Or lose one. Then you have no recourse. Welcome to being your own bank. Safer than a debit card lol.

GoldenOldy said:

Lets say I had some bitcoins and I wanted to buy a new couch. How would you go about purchasing it? Is it like foreign currency whereby I would need to exchange it back into sterling before i could make the purchase?

It is exactly like that, except that foreign currency can also be spent on a couch in the country where it was issued.

MeteredOut

I'm sure everyone knows the story of the guy that bough 2 pizzas with BTC...

https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/05/22/celebrating-bitcoin-pizza-day-the-time-a-bitcoin-user-bought-2-pizzas-for-10000-btc/