since this is already way off topic, if an economy goes bust the real currency that will be used is the barter system. people will trade skills for food, or other skills. Best investment would be in chickens and goats.
I’m of the belief that the economy will be fine. It’s the U.S. dollar that is going bust. Just like every other fiat currency in human history… it won’t be worth the paper it’s printed on. It has already lost 99% of it’s purchasing power in the last 100 years. Can 99.9% be far away?
still think chickens. I will give you 10 chickens for a year membership.
Banks, couriers, and back pockets have all been robbed multiple times causing much more significant dollar losses.
Years ago, one of my wealthy friends made national news when he tried to pay his property taxes with a huge pig. He carried it right up the courthouse steps while wearing a pair of overalls. The funny thing is… the judge accepted it toward his taxes.
How do you get the ten chickens to some one in NY state .
With bitcoins to simple .
For those of you thinking bitcoin is some panacea how do you feel about currency that is not worth over 30% less than it was only a few days ago?
April 29 to May 5 2013
FedEx?
That is too funny. There is probably some old law still on the books about using livestock as tax payment, similar to the no spitting on the sidewalk laws, or no riding of horse into saloons.
uh oh… Bitcoins accounts seized.
Jeff
** World's first Bitcoin ATM goes live in Vancouver Tuesday | CBC News**
World’s first Bitcoin ATM goes live in Vancouver next week
CBC News Posted: Oct 25, 2013 1:44 PM ET Last Updated: Oct 25, 2013 1:44 PM ET
The world’s first Bitcoin kiosk, made by Robocoin, begins operation in Vancouver next week. (Robocoin/Canadian Press)
What’s believed to be the first Bitcoin ATM in the world will go live next week in Vancouver, operated by Nevada-based Robocoin and Vancouver’s Bitcoiniacs.
Mitchell Demeter, co-founder of Vancouver bitcoin trading company Bitcoiniacs and part-owner of Robocoin, has invested in five such machines to be placed across Canada.
Bitcoins are an emerging digital currency that isn’t controlled by any authority such as a central bank. It’s an idea that is moving into the mainstream, despite the scandal surrounding Silk Road, an anonymous online marketplace for illegal drugs and other illicit goods that used Bitcoins.
Bitcoin kiosks coming to five Canadian cities
The new ATM, to operate near downtown Vancouver coffee house Waves, will trade Canadian dollars for online Bitcoins. Users are required to do a palm scan and are permitted to exchange up to $3,000 per a day.
Canadian cash is exchanged on Canada’s VirtEx exchange for Bitcoins, which are then entered in your online bitcoin wallet. Transactions will be anonymous.
The palm scan is to limit people to less than $3,000 worth of transactions, and avoid tangling with Canada’s anti-money-laundering laws, says Demeter, who adds that he believes he is complying with all Canadian laws
Bitcoins currently trade for close to $200, but have swung widely in value from $13 to $250 in the past year. Until now, most have been traded person-to-person in individual transactions or through various unregulated exchanges that exist mostly online.
Last year, a bitcoin exchange in Europe, Bitcoin-Central, was authorized to operate as a bank. Robocoin, which showed the ATMs at a California conference earlier this year, says the Vancouver ATM is the first to begin operation.
Bitcoiniacs says it’s eyeing major Canadian cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa for the other four machines, to come in December.
“Basically, it just make it easier for people to buy and sell Bitcoins and hopefully will drive the adoption of Bitcoin, and make it more accessible for people,” Demeter told CBC News.
Bitcoins are mathematically generated through a series of commands executed by computers in a peer-to-peer network. The process is called Bitcoin “mining” and is set up so that the total number of Bitcoins that can ever be generated is limited to about 21 million.
While some have doubted Bitcoin’s validity and others have raised concerns that the unregulated currency is being used for nefarious means, a U.S. judge ruled last month that Bitcoin, which has been around since 2009, is a real currency
1252
World’s first Bitcoin ATM goes live in Vancouver
Published Tuesday, October 29, 2013 7:27PM EDT
Last Updated Tuesday, October 29, 2013 7:30PM EDT
VANCOUVER – Bernd Petak recalls a time when, curious about how exchanging cash for the digital currency Bitcoin worked, he stood at Union Square in New York City and wandered among the sellers to try and get the most bang out of his buck.
“You meet at a certain time outside and there are people standing around with their hand up, and they’ll sell you Bitcoin, and you can shop with various people and you can see who has the best price,” he said.
Such transactions involve buyer and seller scanning each others’ smartphones to transfer the Bitcoins – a virtual currency that isn’t controlled by a central bank – to the buyer’s so-called digital wallet.
- Canada to get world’s first permanent Bitcoin](http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/canada-to-get-world-s-first-permanent-bitcoin-1.1516549)
John Russell, co-founder of Robocoin, works out the kinks of what is being billed as the world’s first Bitcoin ATM at a coffee shop in Vancouver, Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2013. (Jonathan Hayward / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
On Tuesday, however, the world saw the first Bitcoin automatic teller machine go live in a downtown Vancouver coffee shop, allowing people to exchange Canadian cash for the digital currency at a current rate of $211.79 per Bitcoin.
New users set up a digital wallet by scanning their palm on the machine, while others who already have a Bitcoin wallet select how much money they want to spend, insert the cash, and scan a complex square bar code on their phone to have the Bitcoins transferred to their wallet.
Petak, who came to check out the machine on behalf of his technology investment firm, said he enjoys using Bitcoin because it is can be used wherever merchants accept the currency.
“If you’ve ever dealt with your bank in an international context, you’re never quite sure whether your Visa card’s going to be taken, you’re never quite sure whether your ATM card is going to work where you are,” said Petak, who came to check out the machine on behalf of his technology investment firm.
“This basically gets around all of that.”
Bitcoins are transferred through a peer-to-peer network and transactions appear on a public ledger that is accessible to all who use the currency. Users must first set up a digital wallet, which gets managed through an app.
Bitcoins are typically bought through an exchange. The process involves setting up an account, waiting about a week for it to be verified, and then transferring funds to the account so that one can start buying Bitcoins.
Mitchell Demeter of Bitcoiniacs, a Bitcoin broker and the firm that installed the ATM in Vancouver, said Bitcoin transactions are much more convenient than other forms of payments because transactions are instant and there are no processing fees.
“Right now, if I wanted to send you $5,000, and say you’re in Toronto, it would take three to five days for a wire transfer to come through and it would cost me $35, and it would cost you a fee,” he said.
“With Bitcoin, I can send you that money instantly and it would cost pennies.”
Demeter said his firm plans to set up the kiosks, built by Las Vegas-based company RoboCoin, in other Canadian cities as well.
About 16 Vancouver-area merchants accept Bitcoin. Despite its rise in popularity, industry experts say consumers should still be aware of the risks associated with the digital dollars that some argue isn’t a currency at all.
Since Bitcoin is not backed by a mint, its transactions are not subject to the same regulations surrounding money laundering as other currencies, said Peter Lamey with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC.
“If someone were to walk into a bank or a credit union with a duffle bag full of twenties, their deposit would require a paper trail for them to deposit it and they would have a report filed with FINTRAC and we would know about it,” he said. “(Bitcoin) is not subject to those requirements.”
Demeter argues Bitcoin transactions are safer than, say, online credit card payments because users are not required to attach any personal information to their digital wallets. Since the public ledger is accessible to “anybody and everybody,” network users can audit it any time, he said.
However, Catherine Johnston, president of ACT Canada, a non-profit that works to ensure safe online payments, says anonymity makes tracking fraud harder.
“One of the ways you deal with money laundering is to know who’s doing it,” she said. “If you provide complete anonymity in currency and something goes wrong, how do you track it back to the perpetrator?”
A U.S. judge has ruled that Bitcoin is a real currency, but earlier this month, authorities shut down the anonymous online marketplace Silk Road, whose users allegedly used Bitcoins to buy and sell drugs illegally.
Winnipeg native Katrina Caudle, who exchanged $60 for 0.27 Bitcoins at the ATM on Tuesday, said she understands skepticism surrounding the digital dollars, but she expects it will subside as more and more people use it.
“The only reason Bitcoin is worth anything is because people said, 'Oh yeah, I’ll take your Bitcoin for something,”’ she said.
“That’s how most currency works, but because with our current currency, we have our banking system, we have our government system, that gives us a sense of security with it. (Bitcoin) is essentially as safe as any currency, but it doesn’t have that social history yet.”
Bitcoins
are an International Internet currency…
The devaluation of the USA Dollar has led to the acceptance of the valuation of this currency…
Something to watch moving forward…
Bitcoins / Internet Currency
Dept. of Technology
The Crypto-Currency
Bitcoin and its mysterious inventor.
**by Joshua Davis October 10, 2011 **
OK, try burning bitcoins and see how much warmer you get! :twisted: :mrgreen:
If we’re going to use an imaginary currency, let’s use pork chops or Chateau Lafitte Rothschild '52 or at least something that’s useful and pleasant in theory!
LOL, now that is funny…
Jim