Re: Global Trade [Formerly: Tradehill Bitcoin exchange shut down for 2nd time in 2 years]

hallo all,

I think the last part of your email offers a really good summary about why
I was suggesting that there are topics to be separated in this group

> If W3C can get Bitcoin and other decentralized payment media integrated
into the browser, I expect that we'll see a massive jump in what is already
a non-trivial amount of P2P international trade.

Yes, of course that would be a great thing... the problem is that at the
moment, not even "centralized" payment media is integrated into the
browser, though.

Do we agree that by simple logic, the event "have decentralized payment
media integrated in the browser" depends on both "have payments integrated
in the browser" and "decentralized payments becoming accepted and
integrated"? Should we just try to get some achievable deliverables on the
first one rather than continuing with the second?

I mean, there will be alternatives out there to streamline payments from a
browser. Mozilla FirefoxOS Payment API could be one. Google's
requestAutocomplete being another.. And unless there's some other open
alternatives proposed, in the "cruel world of specs" we live in, working
implementations are worth more than high motives

Saludos!

---
ricardo



On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Charles Evans <cevans@chyden.net> wrote:

>  "...the work we're doing here and how it can impact trade throughout the
> globe."
>
> The Bitcoin projects that I am aware of in South Florida--as Co-Organizer
> of Miami International Bitcoin, one of the largest Bitcoin Meetup groups in
> the USA--are associated with international trade.  Our strengths--as
> individuals in a region supported by logistics, tourism, and international
> financial services--lie in moving large amounts of freight, individuals,
> and money efficiently.
>
> We have no great engineering schools, and when Phil Zimmerman graduated
> with his undergraduate degree down here, he left the area.  However, we
> have the world's TWO busiest cruise ports, two major transshipment hubs, a
> huge financial district, and Florida's second-largest tourist destination
> (South Beach); and seemingly *everyone* in the Western Hemisphere changes
> planes in Miami or Fort Lauderdale.
>
> The Bitcoin projects that my students and I are working on are all
> associated with enabling the half-billion to the south of us, who do not
> have access to credit and capital markets, to access markets to the north
> of us.  Most of the projects down here are relatively small-scale still,
> but the number of them is growing.
>
> In Latin America, the Argentines are all over Bitcoin, and their user
> group has several hundred members.  A Bitcoin evangelist whom I know has an
> office in the same complex as Startup Chile.  We are hearing a lot about
> interest in Colombia.  I recently had a meeting to introduce the head of
> the Hispanic Business Iniative Fund at his office in the Miami Free Zone
> (We have a Free Trade Zone, too.), and he was very enthusiastic.  I also
> met with a representative of micro-lending organization Accion, who bought
> $1 worth of bitcoin from me there in her office.  This week, I am
> delivering a guest lecture at the University of Miami on Bitcoin.  I gather
> from my real estate contacts that some Brazilians are looking at Bitcoin as
> a medium for investments in commercial buildings in South Florida.
>
> I also am working with a Bitcoin advocate in Ghana to use Bitcoin as a
> medium for funding entrepreneurs there, and my friend Pelle Braendgaard is
> in Nairobi working on Kipochi, which brings Bitcoin to pre-smartphone
> feature phones.
>
> If W3C can get Bitcoin and other decentralized payment media integrated
> into the browser, I expect that we'll see a massive jump in what is already
> a non-trivial amount of P2P international trade.
>
> C.Evans
>
>
>
> On 09/09/2013 09:46 PM, Manu Sporny wrote:
> > This isn't just about a mathematical problem that needs to be solved,
> > there is a large social and regulatory aspect to the problem that
> > must be taken into account in the solution that we create. There is a
> > large portion of the work that we do that has to be evangelized to
> > the worlds financial community as well as those that don't have the
> > time to read these sorts of discussions... The Internet
> > Governance Forum (IGF) participation from this group is about
> > educating world leaders about [**]the work we're doing here and how it
> > can impact trade throughout the globe[**]. It's also about bringing what
> > we learn from the meeting back into the technical work that this
> > group is doing. -- manu
>
>
>


-- 
Ricardo Varela -  http://twitter.com/phobeo
"Though this be madness, yet there's method in 't"