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Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

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Renegade:
To the moon!!! ┗(°0°)┛ ..○

Arizona Hot:
Does anyone here use Bitcoins?

Bitcoin Replaces Bag of Bills as Preferred Ransom

I won't make any other comment in order not to incite the criminally-minded here.

SeraphimLabs:
And that's game.

http://www.coindesk.com/real-cost-applying-new-york-bitlicense/

New York State is requiring sites and services that handle digital currencies on behalf of other people to apply for a "BitLicense" intended to protect end users from the many vicious scams out there and to prevent criminal activity like money laundering and terrorism.

In response though, the majority of the bitcoin-related sites I've been using have opted to simply discontinue service to NYS, listing it alongside Iran and Syria as an area that is not allowed to use their service.

This is the end for bitcoin if other states follow suit. They'll little by little regulate it away until everyone has forgotten what it could have been, then ban it outright and mop up the stubborn people who wouldn't let it go peacefully.

IainB:
I have long been interested in Bitcoins, but as a medium of exchange rather than as a speculative punt.
However, I have been and shall remain entirely hands-off Bitcoins until the following conditions are established:

* (a) the Bitcoin price stablilises sufficiently for it to act as a safe (i.e., secure and risk-free) medium of exchange.
* (b) Bitcoin transactions can be easily and reliably executed through the existing Payments System.
Looks like neither condition is likely to occur in the near future, judging by this thoughtful post on Bitcoins from the economist Gary North:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
Bitcoins and the IRS: Walmart's Problem
Gary North - October 10, 2015

It's time for me to revisit the story of bitcoins. As you may have noticed -- or not have noticed -- you don't hear much about bitcoins these days.

A bitcoin used to be worth about $1100. These days, it is worth $250. The price has settled into this range for most of the year. It's boring. The financial media have dropped the topic. So has the hard money community.

I was an early critic of bitcoins, which earned me the hostility of the bitcoin community, which was small then and remains small.

TAXABLE EVENTS
I want to talk about what should be obvious to anybody. Every time some retailer or wholesaler sells something in exchange for bitcoins, this creates a taxable event. The IRS is highly interested in taxable events.

As you know, the IRS taxes people in United States dollars. It taxes businesses in terms of profits made in United States dollars. This is why every business has to keep an account of whatever it has paid out in United States dollars, which constitutes a deductible business expense. At the same time, every business has to keep a record of how many dollars have come in from sales.

This means that every business that does business in bitcoins must keep a record of the price of the bitcoin in terms of dollars at every point of sale or point of purchase. The IRS wants to know how many dollars came in or went out. It is not interested in bitcoins.

This creates huge problems for any business that wants to use bitcoins. Its computerized point-of-sale software must have a conversion system for bitcoins into United States dollars. When somebody buys something from the retailer, and he uses bitcoins to make the purchase, the retailer's software must instantly convert the value of the bitcoins into the value of United States dollars. The businessman is going to be taxed in terms of the value of the bitcoins in United States dollars.

This is obvious, isn't it? But the implications are not obvious.

If you want to get some estimate of the number of businesses that are using bitcoins as part of their operations, you must find out how many businesses have incorporated a conversion system that records the value of the bitcoins at the point of sale. This means barcode software.

Here is what I have discovered: there is no such barcode conversion software available.

This means that no national retail business sells anything for bitcoins. It also means that no small business does, unless its barcode software is integrated with conversion software that enables the business to find out exactly how many dollars came in when somebody purchased something. In other words, until the small business barcode software has built-in bitcoin conversion, bitcoins will remain a dream in the minds of bitcoin enthusiasts.

Here is an article written by a bitcoin enthusiast for small businesses. It discusses integrating bitcoin purchases with QuickBooks. If you want to read incoherent gibberish, read this. I dare you.

Try to find any small business that uses QuickBooks that has integrated this plan for the business operations. The next one will be the first one.

But QuickBooks is a minor issue. The major issue is barcode software.

We were told from the beginning that bitcoins would soon be used for retail businesses. Try to find a store that has anything visible that says it accepts payments in bitcoins. If you find one, ask the person at the checkout counter how many people are using bitcoins to buy something. He will never have heard of it.

PRIVACY
There is no privacy with respect to bitcoins if you are a retail merchant. All the talk about gaining privacy with bitcoins refers only to consumers. None of it refers to businesses.

A business has to defend every deduction, and the business has to defend every purchase. You don't see Walmart, or Target, or any other national business set up to use bitcoins. That's because their point-of-sale software does not have automatic conversion into bitcoin prices.

I have said from the beginning that the use of bitcoins would be limited to a handful of computer programmers and the Mexican drug cartels. They don't report to the IRS. Any normal business reports to the IRS, and it has to account for its sales and purchases, not in terms of bitcoins, but in terms of United States dollars. This means that there will be no adoption of bitcoins until there is a huge market of consumers who use bitcoins, because of the cost of rewriting all of the point-of-sale software to deal with the problem of the conversion factor. This is the chicken-and-egg problem that the bitcoins movement face. There will not be large numbers of bitcoin users until Walmart and Target and similar national chains make available their products in exchange for bitcoins.

Until you see major national chains adopting point-of-sale software that provides automatic bitcoin conversions, you can safely ignore bitcoins. Still.

--- End quote ---

Stoic Joker:
The only thing that impressed me about that article is that it's abundantly clear that the author has not a clue what barcodes do.

Here is what I have discovered: there is no such barcode conversion software available.
-the Article
--- End quote ---
Right, that's because barcodes are nothing more than a laser readable font...that never gets "converted" to anything.

How can we possible process a BTC sale through a POS system?!? Derp... as ~like~ cash maybe?? Oh wait that was covered - IMO - rather clearly in the "incoherent gibberish" article they linked to.

FUD spreader much?

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