Re: Just off the wire

hi,

I reckon the assumptions below are a bit misguided:

- you only have one currency as long as you only take into account Bitcoin
and not Dogecoin, Ripple, Litecoin and the rest. The moment you want to
establish exchanges among currencies (whether crypto or fiat) there will be
fragmentation and exchange trading again. This is like saying "we should
all use US dollars and then there will be no fragmentation" - interesting
but not realistic

- the blockchain is no guarantee of globalization nor lack of manipulation.
As a matter of fact the known issue of delegated control of blockchain (the
51% attack) has already been plausible more than once since the creation of
Bitcoin (eg:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184427-one-bitcoin-group-now-controls-51-of-total-mining-power-threatening-entire-currencys-safety
)

As a general note: what I'm seeing crypto-currency companies generally lack
of is a valid defensible point that shows what difference they bring over
"imagine we all used just dollars and we all just operated inside the VISA
network". As of now, the VISA network will win on at least one of the above
(no 51% problem) - so better to focus on other competitive points, no?

With this I don't mean this approach shouldn't be tested. I reckon there
should be multiple "wallets" being able to be invoked from the browser,
including cryptocurrency-based ones. What I'm saying is that one has to be
realistic about what is and isn't achieved by each of the approaches.

Saludos!


On Sat, Nov 1, 2014 at 9:49 AM, Rene Bartsch <ml@bartschnet.de> wrote:

> Am 2014-11-01 01:25, schrieb Pindar Wong:
>
>> http://www.coindesk.com/wc3s-web-payments-redesign-bypass-bitcoin/ [1]
>>
>>
>> Links:
>> ------
>> [1] http://www.coindesk.com/wc3s-web-payments-redesign-bypass-bitcoin/
>>
>
>
> Current payment systems have 4 drawbacks:
>
> - Fragmentation of currencies (USD, EUR, ...)
> - Fragmentation of payment providers (PayPal, Mastercard, VISA, local
> banks, ...) with different concepts and data sets
> - Manipulation of accounts
> - Only trustee accounts
>
> The complexity of (currencies x payment providers = oo) renders existing
> payment systems unusable in a global network. I don't see a chance to pack
> all that currencies and payment providers with different systems into one
> API/GUI. It doesn't solve the manipulation of accounts, either.
>
> A Bitcoin wallet integrated into browsers on the other hand solves all
> three problems:
>
> 1. Users buy Bitcoins and transfer them to their browser wallet -> only
> one currency
> 2. Blockchain -> ONE global payment system ANYONE can join
> 3. Blockchain -> no manipulation of accounts/malicious trustees
>
> Considering the "ambitious" interest group roadmap I suggest partnering up
> with Mozilla to integrate a Bitcoin wallet into Firefox and show the W3C
> what's technically possible.
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Rene "Renne" Bartsch, B. Sc. Informatics
>
>
>
>


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