Tag Archives: Google Wallet

Business, Finance, Technology

Bitcoin Exchange, and Practical Usage: What Can I get for a Bitcoin?

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I was reading the article, As Big Investors Emerge, Bitcoin Gets Ready for Its Close-Up, and am amazed how far people are taking Bitcoin as a real currency.  I read in the article that there are investors paying substantial real money to acquire Bitcoins.  The article states they hope retail places like Starbuck or Amazon may accept this currency.

When I go to Marketwatch.com and compare the currency exchange rates, GBP: USD, for example, I’d like to see this currency listed so I understand the actual value, the futures of this ‘foreign’ currency.  There are many economic questions regarding the creation of a currency, and the belief in that currency.  Look at Greece and the Euro, the Peso, the Loonie, speaking of, it seems that there may be a market for bitcoins, but not in the traditional sense that ‘physical’ goods are currently exchanged.

Bitcoins will be traded for the use of cloud resources and services, such as computation cycles, and other cloud applications and resources.  If Grid Computing, where users allow the utilization of their computation resources as I suggest in my Post Grid and Cloud Computing Going Head to Head: Profit for You, then both Cloud and Grid computing can trade in Bitcoins,and what they buy is cloud resource utilization.  An exchange may exist so people can trade,  and the value of these coins may have value, allowing for the  ‘tangible’ purchase of computation resource, which may actually mean something.

This approach gets muddied when you are able to apply cloud printing resources which print 3D ‘physical’ goods.    I would have to see major cloud players, such as Amazon to allow for the acceptance of these coins.

For starters, I can see, if you acquire an Amazon Visa or Mastercard, instead of the points system where the cardholder gets reward points, they can be allocated Bitcoins.  Amazon would have to acquire real Bitcoins, and an exchange would have to be established, so if Amazon’s clients are distributed Bitcoins, they are given the proper allocation, e.g. 1 USD to N Bitcoins.  Anyway, Starbucks coffee for thought.

Here are a few other ideas for Bitcoin Applications:

  • Atlantic City, Las Vegas, or Other Physical Casino slot machines that accept and pay out in Bitcoins
  • On line gaming, such as on line poker or slots, that accept and pay out Bitcoins
  • Affinity Card programs that pay out in Bitcoins, according to their own standard, anything from On line stores like Amazon, to Computer Electronics Brick and Mortar stores to Credit Cards
  • PayPal, or other intermediary transaction firms that allow their customers to send and receive Bitcoins as payment.  The transaction intermediary firm may have an independent account for Bitcoins specifically, exclusive from other currencies.
Business, Finance, Technology

Next Gen Spend Without Hi-Tech Spend

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If you want to allocate money to someone, like a gift card without spending the money for a smartphone with an app to transfer the money? What gave me the idea, in part, was the post office and printing out bar code stamps. There are several approaches that include protection against fraud exist.

1) Print out a QR/UPC bar code sticker label which contains information such as monetary allocation plus identification which can match the person’s drivers license, have a brief expiration for the label and the person can go and print out a new label when it expires e.g. a day or week, etc. from an intermediary source or financial instirution.

2) Silicone braclet contains smartcard chip. The braclet comes in colors the intemediaary and/or financial indtitution issue. Braclet interacts with issued short range RF wrist band to indicate identity and help protect against fraud.

Just a thought, give a silicone braclet for the holidays?

Expand this to loyalty programs as well.  There was a gimmick a few years ago with a new shape in credit cards by Discover Card services, however, this was too big and bulky, and shaped oddly, not convenient to attach to a keychain.  It did not catch on, and that before the Smartphone craze, so this avenue wasn’t pursued.  It has merit, because children love the band brackets, so they can get a specific allocation on the card to limit spending.  The wristbands are a great stylistic component which will be popular with a large consumer, Women.