briehost, while those are certainly cool ideas, they are not realistic for getting Bitcoin implemented in the modern day economy.
(Also, bio-metric scanning would take away from the valuable privacy of Bitcoin.)

Unfortunately, cost and adoption is the limit on security measures.

To do what you are suggesting would require terminal manufactures to start making these units, and distribute them. You are talking about a huge scaling.
It will not make sense for a terminal manufacturer to do this for Bitcoin with such low adoption; if anything, it would first need to be adopted by the credit card companies, then Bitcoin.

Right now, terminals cost $100-$400 wholesale. A high tech solution like you propose would cost start at $800 wholesale, huuuuge price difference and merchant's would not want to change out all their terminals, just for Bitcoin. (Avg. merchant has 3 terminals for different lanes.)

Agreed, security ain't what it should be. But right now the goal is mass adoption of Bitcoin, not to rewrite the security protocols of digital transactions.

I must admit I was a littttttle bit jealous to read about BitInstant doing that, but then I read the article.

All they are doing is converting BTC to fiat and putting that value on a prepaid card. They are just MasterCard prepaid cards. All they are doing is acting as a money exchanger (and with that, privacy is lost to the consumer).
Not a game changer IMO. Nice product for them tho



I'm referring to the next 3-12 months.

So it failed? :/

In my system, the Point of Sale software automatically adjusts the price rung up at the register to reflect the current price in USD, in Bitcoin, using online lookup.

How long has it been since we've been looking at this page?


Not so much a problem if you can find high-volume buyers who want to avoid paying the fees at gox. Not very difficult these days depending on where you are. I feel that there are some services out there which only accept Bitcoin to go long on the currency without paying fees. One example that I have personally used is billpayforcoins.com, though I have only used them for a $50 payment. They offer BTC to USD Check sent anywhere in the US at the bit-pay spot rate. They charge 0% fees and even cover postage.

That depends upon the bank and the local law, but certainly in the UK the bank would almost certainly take the loss. Generally speaking over here the customer only bears the loss from fraudulent activity on his account if he has been negligent.  Otherwise the bank (or their insurers) take the hit.

Unrelated scenario is unrelated.

Credit card companies are trusted central points of control. No card is even required. Certainly, you've verbally authorized purchases before? The only reason the CC system works at all, it that CC companies make defrauded CC holders whole after any fraud.

In bitcoin, there is no such central party. Once your key is in the wild, nobody can recall it.


Bullshit. There is a vast spectrum of 'stores' from mobile kisoks using their iPhones to connect to CC networks, to WalMart. Again, if you cannot see that you have _no way_ to determine whether your are swiping a genuine certified* known bitcoin terminal, or a clever visual copy created by nefarious individuals, than I claim you are being intentionally obtuse.

*I assume you are envisioning some certification process, as I imagine is required for PCI compliance.

The points which are mentioned in this thread are correct but the usage of credit card members are increased day-by-day. Can you share some more information regarding this.


gspay scam

The day Bitcoin manages to put Bitcoin purchasing power into the hands of the masses i.e. credit card is the day we see mass adoption and see 2-3-4-5K Bitcoin price.

Amount shows on the terminal for your approval (much like a debit transaction). You press Yes (green) to accept, or Cancel (red) to decline.
Perhaps a pin code could be added somehow, this would be very hard to implement universally though, and I don't think it would be feasible, at least not at first.