Re: BitCoin Smart Card

Posted by Arlo Barnes on Dec 04, 2013; 10:04pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/BitCoin-Smart-Card-tp7584417p7584433.html

This device (or others like it?) might make the difference...  A fully wireless/electronic/mostly?-secure electronic-debit system?

A few months back my friend paid for our high-speed cab ride (to catch my train...unsuccessfully) with Square. I had heard people talk about it on the lists (The three sisters? Do we have a better name? Anyway, FriAM, Discuss, and WedTech) but not seen it in use, and I was impressed with how informal it seemed to make payment.

If/when KickStarter, IndieGoGo and most auspiciously Amazon accept BitCoin as a currency, I think we'll see the bubble inflate some more and the stock for these companies (are K and I even publicly traded?) inflate along with it.

Neither are publicly traded: IndieGoGo & Kickstarter.

In the theory of "frictionless money", BitCoin might be about to reduce the Newtons/Newton ratio significantly.

But can one buy Fig Newtons in BTC yet?

BitCoin seems to be at least open/transparent with the "transaction fees" going to the people doing the work to manage the system (self-organized, distributed BitCoin Minters) rather than to the arbitrary monopolizers of the infrastructure.

 I do not think 'miners' (rather than 'minters') is an inappropriate analogy; at least in principle, a miner of something like gold is someone who is rewarded for feeding the supply of material by which value is exchanged, which matches BTC miners more or less accurately.

-Arlo

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