So, you're saying that Bitcoins are too much of a hassle to use and too much of a risk to buy and sell because of the exchanges -- even though you're convinced that you're going to get "near-guaranteed 50-80%" profit if you purchase a few bitcoins now.

You can see why some people here might be skeptical of it being the currency of the future.

...do any other, ahem, organs become more spherical? Because that could be a deal breaker.

I find that most debunkers and detractors operate out of some kind of emotional offense

Well, to be fair, most fans and defenders probably operate out of some kind of emotional defense. For example:

I have no strong feelings about Bitcoin, for or against. Which is why I found it amusing that when I mentioned the transaction malleability issue in a recent discussion -- and subsequently quoted the 3rd party sources (Forbes and TechCrunch) which attributed Silk Road 2's problems to this issue -- one of Bitcoin's staunch defenders accused me of wearing a "tinfoil hat", which was odd because I was neither putting forth a conspiracy theory nor quoting a source which was. This individual said that I could either believe his facts or [what he asserted to be] non-facts from sources that I consider to be slightly more reliable than a random pseudoanonymous Slashdot user. Yes, "Appeal to Authority" may be a logical fallacy, but you can't counteract it simply by claiming to be more authoritative, all the while resorting to Argumentum ad Hominem.

Has Bitcoin been demonized? Well, it has gotten bad press, because of various things. What it has been used to purchase. The problems with various exchanges. The perceived complexity of use compared to conventional fiat currency.

Then there are the Bitcoin fellow-travelers, like the Winkelvoss twins and Bill Gates, who I think manage to turn a lot of Slashdot readers off Bitcoin simply by singing its praises. Sure, that's irrational too. If I found out that Steve Ballmer liked chocolate and kittens, I wouldn't immediately hate those things. True, I'd enjoy them a little less because of the uncomfortable association, and I wouldn't eat them in the same sandwich like he does, but still. Chocolate and kittens.

Are non-Bitcoin adopters jealous of the ones who jumped on the mining bandwagon early? Maybe, in some cases, there's a fox-and-the-grapes issue at work. But mostly I think there's just a lot of eye-rolling at the picture of a bright, shiny, government-intervention-free financial future that some cryptocurrency advocates are hyping. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?... to understand what this is like on the receiving end.

So let's allow for a little irrationality on both sides of the fence.

My bad, then. But that's the trouble with trying for a parody of Comic Book Guy in a world where this exists.

(I recommend suffixing such posts with ~s or bracketing them with <ComicBookGuy> tags)

Come on, GP was being funny. No need to go full Comic Book Guy on him.

By feeling truly present, you can share unbounded spaces and experiences with the people in your life. Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures."

We need some PR-friendly slang for this new kind of interaction. I propose that we call it "going outside". There could be entire phone apps devoted to "calling" your friends and arranging to "meet" them somewhere...

No, it's just that, â, Issac Asimov really did, â, stammer and clear his throat a lot, âoe, when, â, he said this.

I'm not so certain about that, at least not in the case of people who are actively using Bitcoin (which does not include myself).

But I do think that people seek out the most convenient way of doing things, and unfortunately it appears that the most convenient places to keep a Bitcoin wallet are also the least-safe ones.

And yet, people keep their money in exchanges time and again, despite all the recent news and all warnings to the contrary. Why do you think that is?

Ah, but does the NSA have the same cozy relationship with CSIS that they do with GCHQ? Ya know, technically the grounds of the British Embassy in DC are "another country". Just sayin'...

(Ok, I'm gonna stop now before somebody takes me seriously.)

(I was actually going for the +1 Funny, Being modded +1 Insightful on this is a little... unnerving.)

...all domestic telephone calls will be routed through Great Britain from now on.

Good point, which is why it's a good idea to diversify your assets among multiple banks and multiple account types at each bank (e.g., $250K in Savings, $250K in an IRA, etc.): in that manner you can have far more than $250K secured by FDIC. I'll wager that most Americans don't hit that $250K limit, and the ones who are way above it have other ways of securing their portfolio against disaster. For example, you can insure your retirement funds independently.

Now consider, why was FDIC brought into existence back in the 1930s? Because of the stock market crash of '29 and the subsequent Great Depression. People learned the hard way that they couldn't just take their money out of the bank if the bank became insolvent. The FDIC was created by the US government to restore confidence in the banking system and encourage savings/investment again.

As Wikipedia notes, "The FDIC also examines and supervises certain financial institutions for safety and soundness, performs certain consumer-protection functions, and manages banks in receiverships (failed banks)." And how does it do this? "Insured institutions are required to place signs at their place of business stating that "deposits are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Government."

I could be mistaken, but this form of oversight appears to be precisely where many Bitcoin enthusiasts don't want to go. They prefer to be free from government interference. Which is fine, if you like living in the Wild West. Most people didn't, which is why the Wild West was tamed. :-)

Was it invented by a mom?

Not so fast, Ras. I said that transaction malleability was exploited by hackers; it was. My only error was confusing the Mt.Gox incident with the Silk Road 2 incident. Here, from the very first paragraph of this Tech Crunch article ( http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/... )

Silk Road 2 moderator Defcon reported in a forum post that hackers have used a transaction malleability exploit to hack the marketplace. The hackers stole over 88,000 4474.26 bitcoins worth $2,747,000, emptying the site’s escrow account.

The site used a central escrow service to send bitcoins from buyers to sellers. The hackers exploited the transaction malleability bug – essentially a way users can mask transfers and ask for the same amount of BTC multiple times – to clean out this wallet. This is the same bug that forced Mt. Gox to halt all withdrawals and recent updates have made average bitcoin wallets secure against this sort of attack. According to the site, hackers used the Silk Road’s automatic transaction verification system to order from each other and then request refunds for unshipped goods. Hackers were able to use the transaction malleability bug because the Silk Road used only transaction ID to confirm the transfer of bitcoins. You can read more about the problem here.

The fact that the Bitcoin software no longer has this bug does not change the fact that it once did have this bug, and that this bug has been exploited. I think I can be forgiven for having confused one multimillion dollar Bitcoin loss with another caused by the same underlying problem. :-)

But Mt.Gox and Silk Road 2 and every other incident is immaterial when taken individually. As I said in my post, let's leave that aside for a minute and focus on the real issue. I have seen people tying themselves in knots to defend Bitcoin exactly-as-is when that energy would be far better spent acknowledging the weakness in the ecosystem and laying out clear plans to eradicate them. Your own reply speaks about the Mt.Gox fiasco as if losing 350M to incompetence is somehow better than losing it to a targeted attack. The longer people deny the existence of these problems with the existing ecosystem, the longer it will take for cryptocurrencies to find a firm footing in the world. Which I think is a shame.

Finally, as for your "tinfoil hat" comment.... save the name-calling for the conspiracy theorists, of which I am not one. I have only said what many have said already, that Bitcoin is not yet ready for adoption by the masses. It currently, currently, lacks the necessary economic infrastructure to be used safely and effectively by the public. I don't know why that easily-supported statement bruises so many feelings.