Apple's App Store Guidelines Now Allow for 'Approved' Virtual Currencies in Apps

[mactumors]

I would trust Chase over Mt Gox.

Me too. And I would trust a landline over an iPhone for calls too.

Bit Coin is programmable in that you can use it to turn on the lights in your living room if you have a Hue system. (You might be able to create a bot, give it a few thousand dollars and let it play the dollars to Bit Coin game until it goes broke.)

WHAT? WHAT? WHAT!? WHY WOULD YOU PAY YOUR LIGHTS? And bitcoin is one word.

 

[dXTC]

Since you are on the bandwagon, could you please explain? I don't understand the point of bitcoin as opposed to any other currency. With PayPal or credit card I can already pay for anything I want online. What does bitcoin get me?

Right now, you are right. It's not as convenient as a credit card to you. The only advantage I can think of is that if you wanted to buy something online, you can just push a button and send the person bitcoin, instead of having to create an account and put in your credit card info and billing address...

The real benefits right now are for merchants, who don't have to pay credit card processing fees and don't have to worry about chargebacks or fraud...

... Credit cards today are expensive for merchants and terrible for fraud and theft. In the age of the internet, Visa is an unnecessary middleman that bitcoin could do away with.

... It's an amazing accomplishment for encryption and networking. That's why some people are excited about it from a purely tech angle.

Count me in on that last statement. I think that it's pretty cool from an encryption angle, so I have a locally-stored Bitcoin wallet (an account at a Bitcoin exchange such as Bitstamp and the now-defunct Mt.Gox is not necessary to have a Bitcoin address). From an overall feasibility standpoint, Bitcoin is worth more as a commodity than a currency at this point; although there are a few well-known mainstream online retailers/services that now accept Bitcoin (Overstock.com, TigerDirect and WordPress among others), there are very few brick-and-mortar stores that do.

If anyone wants to try getting fractions of Bitcoins for free, here's my referral links. I'm only listing websites from which I have received multiple payments so you know they are legit.

CoinAd (daily ads)

Daily Bitcoins (you can play every hour)

FreeBitco.in (you can play every hour)

...

I'll add two other "free Bitcoin" places:
BitVisitor, which shows (mostly) Bitcoin-related Web sites-- stores, Bitcoin mining services, casinos, etc-- as "virtual ads" for those sites. Low payout, but completely anonymous.
BitcoinGet, which ties into the microtasking site called CrowdFlower. Bitcoin is earned by performing microtasks, such as verifying Google search placement for websites, moderating images for inappropriate content, filling out surveys, etc. Payout is a little bit higher than other free-Bitcoin sites, due to the fact that you're doing active work for the site's clients and are often monitored for "accuracy"-- usually by the requesting clients having placed "gold standard" questions they expect to be answered a certain, usually logical way.