Bitcoin Product ideas

Well, as you mentioned in my last post, I am running out of things to say about bitcoin. It may be time for me to expand this page to include new things. In the mean time, I did have a few product ideas regarding bitcoins that I submitted for my class, they are assuming enough that I thought I might share them on here as well. In marketing there are four ways to create new products, you can Solve everyday pain, Ride a wave of consumer interest, stretch an idea to the extreme, or cool huntings( ie taking an existing product in a foreign market and bringing it to your target market). Here I will show two of those:


Riding the way of interest

Currently there is a lot of buzz about bitcoins, and a lot of people want them. But, what a lot of people don’t want to do is put a lot of money into a pretty skeptical investment: in other words they don’t want to crank out 600 bucks for a bitcoin. They also don’t want to provide their driver’s license number and other personal information to somewhat sketchy exchanges in Slovenia. So there exists an unmet interest in bitcoins. This interest can be tapped into by my product idea, bitbottles. So the idea is simple: in fact it is basically how my Coke Rewards work with a twist. When you buy a bottle of bit bottle soda, under the cap is a code, you use this code online and you get a small portion of a bitcoin. Then you can also use these bitcoins online to buy other products from our site or anywhere you want: it’s your bitcoin. Fountain drinks sell with huge margins, thus it will be easy to give back a few cents of BTC a bottle. Also, the exchanges will be slightly favorable to the company, making a small amount of money on every transaction. This allows for people to get bitcoins small time without any scary foreign exchanges or any real risk. I found this idea by looking at an existing problem and interest of mine: bitcoins. I then looked at existing methods to distribute them, which lead me to the “my Coke Rewards” idea as a model.

Stretching or entertaining to the extreme
Similar to the issues above, when you want to buy a bitcoin or cryptocurrency, you have to go to an online foreign exchange. You are unable to simply exchange your money for them like you would at a bank. My product idea is to provide this service to customers with an extreme twist: its located in a restaurant. The restaurant holds two purposes: one it is a location to exchange money and cryptocurrencies and also it is a location to spend those coins as well. The décor will be zany and a bit off the wall. It is taking the idea of a currency exchange to a whole new level, becoming a cool hang out location in addition to its business purposes. This idea should also bring these crypto currencies to a new light, and promote their use. This idea is a fusion of some of my interests in life, one owning a restaurant, and two incorporating the financial sector into it. This service helps add value to the bitcoin and other crypto currencies.
While in my mind there exists some fundamental flaws with the Bitcoin, making it hard to use as a true currency. The idea behind it is interesting to say the least. I think it could be a forerunner in many ways to the currencies of the future. Maybe one day we will have a centralized digital currency, like a government issuing its currency in a digital format. Perhaps, not unlike the digital credits we see in many sci-fi movies. Alas, only time will tell.

BitBored

Well, it has been a while. However, it seems like the Bitcoin isn't up to much new lately, at least to me. MTGox is still in bankruptcy, and according today's issue of the NY times faces liquidation. Big investors like Warren Buffet warn against the bitcoin, and it faces new struggles in china. The price of bitcoins has been fluctuating like crazy, although I suppose it always has. I guess the only big change is that College humor has been making more videos about it. I think might be the fate of bitcoin, just a craze. We know the coin itself has no  intrinsic value. Its only value  is that which people give it. Thus, it is my prediction the value of bitcoins will again return to almost nothing at some point; it is only a matter of time. That's not to say we can't ride a wave of interest in the mean time! So enjoy CH:

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Jake and Amir: Bitcoin, and MTGox

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6957821/jake-and-amir-bitcoin

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

It is always amuses me to see Bitcoin in popular media, like it Jake and Amir here. I thoroughly enjoy opening the New York Times and seeing Bitcoin on the front page of the Business section. My delight however, often turns to dismay as the contents of the articles generally aren’t the best of news. It would seem scandal and arrest shroud the bitcoin, from illicit silkroad activities to MTGox refusing to pay out bitcoins.

I was recently very tempted to by a Bitcoin at MTGox. Their price was  floating around 100 dollars a coin which is insanely low! In fact, it was probably too good to be true. All the other markets ate floating about $500 a coin. Due to “breaches in security”  they are now withholding bitcoins, thus  actually receiving the bitcoin in your wallet is doubtful at best. Can’t blame a guy for trying though right. It now seems MTGox's $100 price was too good to be true as they are now filing for bankruptcy.

Events like this however have made me begin to question bitcoins future. I always knew bitcoin was unstable, however, for some reason I thought it might be predictable unstable. I now I am starting to think that it is not, and if I were to make money or lose money with it, it would be purely luck.

Get your own pathetic scrape of bitcoin dust.

There exist many lists on the internet that claim to have free bitcoin sites ( http://www.bestfreebitcoin.com/ and http://free1bitcoin.blogspot.com/ being two of them). In my experience  however, many of these sites do not work. On the other hand, I have discovered two sites that do infact work and I have confirmed payments from.

Now, even though I saw these site do infact work, don’t get your hopes up too much.They pay in you μbtc which is one millionth, or 10−6   of a bitcoin. Furthermore, this is for 5 min of viewing a site. with a payout at 100 μbtc, which takes more than a day to get (as they run out of ads), by the time you reach that 100 μbtc, you will have more or less 7 cents. wow. So its not great. If you want some bitcoin dust to occupy your wallet, this is the way to do it though.

The first Site is:

http://www.bitvisitor.com/

Which I think Is the best. I have quite a few payments from there. It shows you your current balance on the page as you move to the next ad. It also remembers this balance if you close your browser or turn off your computer or whatever, so you will be there to hang around.

The second site, which seems to take a bit longer and often has more problems is:

http://earnfreebitcoins.com/

This has a lower payout at 55 μbtc, so it is less money, but in my experience takes the same, if not more time. This website also has a referral option, which give you 30% of the money your referrals make. Which might increase your earnings potential a bit. You can help me try it here if you are so inclined:

http://earnfreebitcoins.com?ref=1QCJQDD1qFP9ddELrdytUEaYVtNYt1i3Ki

(Note: Bitvisitor claims to have a referral program as well, but according to my internet sources and my own personal experience, it does not work.)

If you have any sites to add, feel free to comment. I will look at them and attempt to make them work. I have looked at quite a few sites already, so I may have information about these sites as well.

Ponzi schemes? Oo

Though the viewing of many bitcoin sites via the Bitvisitor, it has come to my attention, much to my alarm, that there is a prevalence of Ponzi schemes in the bitcoin community. Bitcoins, not being a recognized currency, can be gambled online. It also seems they are eligible for other forms of nonsense that are illegal for recognized currents, like Ponzi schemes. Currently I wouldn't trust a bitcoin anywhere but your own wallet ( and even then you probably ought to have number of security measures to keep others out and provide a backups for yourself if you lose it).

Update, I just found a website that literally is named BTC Ponzi 120%. I am shocked. I am completely at a loss of what to say. I mean this awful fairly easy to see though ponzi scheme are one thing, but THIS! This is a whole new level of terrible. I hope no one thinks that this is a good idea in the slightest. Wow, and I thought the Bitcoin community would be better than this. Hopefully all the transactions listed there are fake.

I went on to find countless other sites that are similar to this. Some say they are Ponzi schemes, others do not. Here is a disclaimer from one of the sites:

THIS IS A PONZI SCHEME

We want to be clear: This is a Ponzi Scheme - This means that the returns on your investments come from other investors.

As long as people invest after you, your payout is absolutely guaranteed!

Any deposit amount between 0.001 and 0.5 will be allowed!

To keep this system running, please promote it - So everyone participating will benefit from it!

Seriously? So everyone will benefit? haha. More like, the owners will benefit and the majority of people will be screwed. Sounds like a great deal to me.

But one level up from the ponzi scheme, actually, multiple levels up, is MLM . So the Banner I'm providing gives you free cryptocurrency everyday for free. You just need to sign up. You need to refer other people to it though in order to really get anything though, which makes in Multi-level marketing in my book. But with a sign up taking all of 30 seconds and free, it doesn't look too awful. Let me know what you think.

Repost: Best Bitcoin video ever.

I just recently watched a great video explaining some more confusing concepts in Bitcoin. Here is a great video that shows this. Some of the highlights to look for is:

• An explanation of the 51% attack ( it doesn't mention it by name, but you can figure it out)
• It shows exactly how bitcoins are transferred
• It explains the purpose of mining ( it actually has a purpose which I didn't understand before)
• Also public keys are randomly generated in your wallet. There is no confirmation with the network that the key isn't taken.

The Bane of the BitCoinminer

 This week I have experienced a nuisance of villainous proportions.

    

A problem that was born in the darkness....

Well, more the darkness itself, or even more accurately, the cause of that darkness, as I have lost power in my room for the past few weeks, which is quite obnoxious to say the least. Fortunately, its not all my room that has lost power, just half of it. I have been using for the past week one single outlet, with my route taking up one plug and my laptop the other. My desk being on the other side of the room just a distant memory of a time of more comfortable computer usage. So there I am, legs crossed sitting on my bed looking for a relatively smooth part of my mattress to us my mouse on. Perhaps its good I didn't go out and get a big asic yet as I would have no where to run it. But alas, it is fixed now, and I once again can enjoy the comforts of a desk as I use my computer.

 Well, on another note, as you may have noticed I have redone the Blog! Its now called Bitcoin Plus, as I will be talking about Bitcoins, among other things. If you have feedback, or want me to write about anything in particular, drop me a line, and I would love to get back to you.