Talk:Bitcoin

Merged articles

Economics section lead

The starting sentence: "Bitcoin has garnered comments and attention from economists and journalists, as well as investors and speculators." - this looks to be related to the "Reception" section. Thus, I would prefer to move it to "Reception", maybe together with the subsequent sentence. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:42, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Because you think it's inappropriate to say that in the economy section, or because you think it's necessary to say that in the reception section? It seems like a basic, mundane introduction to the section, and if Reception is lacking something, I'd just add whatever it's lacking. Agyle (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Because "has garnered comments" looks like a formulation from and appropriate for "Reception". Also, the fact that it has garnered comments does not look like something inherently economic. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:37, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: agree with your logic.--Wuerzele (talk) 08:39, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

It does sound like something that should go into the reception section. But since it's uncited, it's probably best to just delete it. What about replacing it with something along the lines of "while Bitcoin is often referred to as a currency, the current state of the Bitcoin economy means most economists disagree with that characterization." If you read the current section, that seems like a more appropriate intro sentence. Fleetham (talk) 17:23, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Sressler (talk) 12:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)User:Sressler: "Bitcoin is a decentralized virtual currency..." this characterization from the St. Louis Fed is accurate and we should use that characterization.

Fleetham:"while Bitcoin is often referred to as a currency, the current state of the Bitcoin economy means most economists disagree with that characterization." - that looks acceptable. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:26, 23 March 2014 (UTC) Or, maybe a bit shorter: "While bitcoin is often referred to as a currency, most economists disagree with that characterization at present." Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:29, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: am aware of the debate whether Bitcoin is a currency, and that is worth to insert(see March 15 Economist for example), but "most economists", really?--Wuerzele (talk) 06:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Any that could be bothered said bitcoins are not a currency. I don't think you'd be able to find a single economist who argues that bitcoins should be considered a fully fledged currency. There is a widely agreed on definition of what constitutes a currency: it should be a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Bitcoins do not hold all three properties simultaneously. Fleetham (talk) 07:18, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

@Fleetham: "Any that could be bothered said bitcoins are not a currency" - That statement is incorrect. Basically all economists in US government agencies that use the term virtual currency, of which there arent few, the Treasury, GAO, and yes, as of today the IRS consider it a currency. fully fledged maybe not but a currency. Fleetham, bring evidence when you delete , or make a claim, otherwise dont. you may not have noticed, but I have inserted quite a bit of material that sticks and I know the sources I studied. I dont wait to see what others write, to jump up for a revert/delete or correction of a minute grammar edit to go on the edit counter, which seems to be your yardstick. --Wuerzele (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

@Wuerzele: Thanks for adding information about the definition of what constitutes money to the page, but there's no such thing as a "condition 1" or "condition 2"... I'm not sure where that's coming from. Also, you cited an article that clearly had a thesis of "bitcoins are not money" for the statement "economists debate whether or not bitcoins are money." Sorry to revert, but... please be more careful! Fleetham (talk) 08:18, 25 March 2014 (UTC) Not true. Fleetham, show me where in the article the debate about Bitcoin as money is decided. I think, you are reading something into it that isnt there. The author even qualified each of the 3 functions of money: "does best as medium of exchange", "not exactly a stable store of value", and volatility has worked against it being a measure of account. In every paragraph there is something about it evolving and "possibility of"--Wuerzele (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

No, merely reverting is not the way to go. How many more times do I have to say this? It's been a month that youve been doing this, and you still do this. There are many many points in my edit and you should edit what you dont think is proper. Removing a large addition for a minor error you dont like condition 1 and 2, well find a better wording. You are making it too easy for yourself. Please be more careful. I will revert your revert.--Wuerzele (talk) 08:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I am guilty of not doing a comprehensive research on this. If I understand well, Wuerzele considers the sentence to be unverifiable in that we may not have a research article doing the "statistic job" of finding what the majority of economists thinks. I have to admit that the articles saying "bitcoin is not a currency" are not a statistic information about the majority opinion. If we find some source mentioning the majority, then there is no need to dismiss the sentence, otherwise we may need to look for a more verifiable statement. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 10:18, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

You are not guilty of anything ! Ladislav Mecir, yes, you grasp what I want to relay, economists are struggling with the concept of Bitcoin, as is society, it is simply evolving, maturing in teh word of teh Economist article. of course there are zero data of a majority opinion. when in doubt, be cautious and thats what I was. --Wuerzele (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

@Wuerzele: I do agree it's best to not revert. Please don't assume that I only found fault with a small portion of your edit. If I had done so, I wouldn't have reverted your entire edit. I'll make changes now, and please let me know what you think. Also, changing something, having it reverted, and then reverting the revert is not following WP:STATUSQUO. In this case, I would be reverting per WP:STATUSQUO, and you would be edit warring. Let's not do that and instead work together to create a great page! Fleetham (talk) 16:18, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I do what you do to show you, that it's nuts. why dont you try edit BEFORE reverting me? obviously there was substance in what I wrote and editing would have sufficed; thats what I would do. complete revert, then edit, is the wrong way round, plus so aggravating and inefficient.--Wuerzele (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I made changes that I believe are in concert with your original changes. I did not, however, understand the following quote. Can you please clarify? You wrote, "At present, this appears in furthest reach given Bitcoin's money supply problems (disappearance of large exchangers) and finite reserves, the arbitrary cap of 21 million." Fleetham (talk) 16:40, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

@Fleetham: the latter is taken from the Economist article, if you read it. you quoted my sentence out of context, so I had to go all the way back and see what "this" refers to, so here is teh whole section again :

Although economists as of 2014 are still arguing, whether Bitcoin is money[72] this has not prevented their being used as a   
medium of exchange.[73] Bitcoin is used as a currency,[74] with about 1,000 brick and mortar businesses willing to accept    
payment in bitcoins as of November 2013[75] and more than 35,000 merchants online.[76] The bitcoin market currently suffers   
from volatility, limiting the ability of bitcoins to act as a stable store of value, which is condition 2 for a currency, <br 
besides condition 3 "being a unit of account, against which value an economy is measured".[72] At present, this appears in  
furthest reach given Bitcoin's money supply problems (disappearance of large exchangers) and finite reserves, the arbitrary 
cap of 21 million.[72] Nevertheless, Bitcoin has become a target for speculators trading bitcoins as a speculative asset, an 
investment vehicle, and a network serving customers of international remittance business.[77]

Being a unit of account is in furthest reach. and no your changes are not in concert with mine as they are misrepresenting teh source. BTW: the very last sentence which you deleted for no reason, isnt from me, was there before and since it is sourced I wouldnt delete it but move it to "speculators". As I have shown, subsection ledes are unusual on wikipedia ( exist in 12%- but you wrote "the norm").IN NO CASEweretehy subsection summaries, so I am all for cutting duplication ie move sentence to speculator subsection. --Wuerzele (talk) 09:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC).

@Wuerzele: Sorry, but I still don't even have the most basic grasp of the sentence's meaning... I've gotten as far as understanding that "this" means "being a unit of account." What does "in furthest reach" mean? What is a "finite reserve"? Do you mean "fixed money supply"? I think that what you're trying to explain is why Bitcoin isn't used as a unit of account, but, again, I'm not entirely sure... Fleetham (talk) 15:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I have got several notes to the "moneyness" of Bitcoin:

• Bitcoin has been classified as currency by a federal court. This makes the classification a part of law in USA if I understand it well. I do not think the decision can be overturned by economists.
• The "store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account" is not the only definition possible. Historic money did not have all the properties listed in the definition, while economists agree that historic money were money despite the definition. I find this fact amusing and telling about the state of economy as a science. A property of having a definition that is not universally applicable should be reserved for pseudosciences.
• Austrian economists use a more universal definition: "widely used medium of exchange". This definition does not make bitcoin money automatically either, since it is highly arguable whether or not bitcoin is "widely used" (I tend to think it is not widely used yet).
• The "medium of exchange" classification of bitcoin is uncontroversial. However, when I see the text of the Bitcoin article, I am pretty sure that it would become unreadable if we replaced all occurrences of "money" and "currency" by "medium of exchange". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 12:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: I think that we agree on this here, Ladislav. The German court thing: Obviously doesnt seem to matter/impress folks here, in the U.S. -I will stick in the term currency again, for reasons mentioned further above, that have been un-opposed, and yet all the info I put together was edited out, by, looks like by Fleetham.--Wuerzele (talk) 06:04, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

A German court classified Bitcoin as a unit of account. Despite this, Bitcoin is not used as a unit of account. Courts don't decide how people use bitcoins in the real world, and it appears that currently this currency is only used as a medium of exchange, And why should we use outdated or seldom-recognized definitions? Fleetham (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Because people, media and institutions are discussing it, Fleetham, as on this page ! Bitcoin is morphing and wikipedia can and should reflect it. once again, you opinionize and bring no source to the table, you editorialize on the talk page, and cut and and delete other people's stuff on the article page. for all the talk of lets create a great page, lets see it. --Wuerzele (talk) 06:04, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I do not think that the German court decided people should use bitcoin as a unit of account. In my opinion, the court took the reality into account (disclaimer: I did not read the ruling) recognizing that bitcoin is a unit of account used in the block chain, which it obviously is. I think that you, Fleetham, just interpret the situation differently, thinking that a "unit of account" must be also a "yardstick" of value, which bitcoin is not at present for the majority of its users. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:58, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Stop referring to bitcoins as a currency. It is not a currency. It is a property like a stamp or a cigarette. Cigarettes are often used in prisons as a medium of exchange. Anything can be a medium of exchange. That is all that bitcoin is: a property that some people will use as a medium of exchange: just like cigarettes or stamps. Nothing more. It is easy to transfer bitcoins over the internet. That is bitcoins only advantage over stamps and cigarettes. BitcoinrealityCheck (talk) 19:39, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but as Mercir pointed out, it's just not feasible to say "medium of exchange": repeatedly... Fleetham (talk) 00:33, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

BitcoinrealityCheck trying to understand where you are coming from with your well, zealous assertion that Bitcoin aint no currency: is it the IRS decision? what else? any other sources you could back this up with? Ta.--Wuerzele (talk) 06:04, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

It is even debatable whether IRS actually ruled what bitcoin is. The source says that IRS ruled how bitcoin shall be handled for tax purposes, which is their responsibility. Other institutions, like the above mentioned federal court did what was in their responsibility as well, and even though the decidions may seem to contradict each other, they most probably do not. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:58, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

arbitrary limit of 21 million bitcoins

@Agyle: saw you reverted insertion of the "arbitrary limit" of 21 million bitcoins. thanks for catching my error of not adding reference #7 - i dont know/recall what happened, I thought I did add it, but obviously I didnt @Ladislav Mecir:thanks for rescuing the statement too. i've always wondered, where that 21 million number came from and when i found out, i had to add it.....happy spring, y'all, snow finally on the retreat and ground visible hereabouts!--Wuerzele (talk) 21:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I found a Motley Fool source for the information, but it would have been shorter to use #7, so feel free to make the change if you prefer.Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: Thank you again.--Wuerzele (talk) 06:05, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: Do you know what happened to the "arbitrary"? It is gone. I looked and dont understand the diff from March 15 to March 16; it disappeared, even though it doesnt look like you cut it.--Wuerzele (talk) 04:21, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I still see it in the sentence where you originally put it. Maybe you are looking at some other place? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: it's gone. Fleetham edited out, sigh...--Wuerzele (talk) 00:23, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Recent change to "Transactions"´

I would say that the previous formulation was not very readable, indeed. However, the formulation: "... user sends a payment it triggers..." is called "subject change" in some languages and it is strictly prohibited as not understandable. Thus, the updated formulation looks less readable than before. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:26, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: thanks for your opinion. I only understand that i supposedly made things "less readable than before". I wish I understood your argument, but I basically understood nothing: 1. what do you mean by the term "subject change" ? A quick search on www AND wikipedia gave no references. 2.then the claim "Subject change is strictly prohibited"- wow ! strictly even! If that were so, I should have heard something about that during my career. Or one should be able to find a wikipedia entry about it. there must be something lost in translation, please elaborate on / source this, so I can understand. 3."subject change is prohibited as not understandable" - why ? not self evident. again where does that come from ?

my rewording was probably too cautious and not radical enough, and can be improved. however, i object to your reversion of the sequence of my 2 sentences ("When a user sends a payment it triggers the broadcast of digitally signed messages to the Bitcoin network, requesting an update to the ledger or public transaction database, in Bitcoin terms:the block chain. Because a transaction transfers ownership of money from one Bitcoin address to another Bitcoin address it must be recorded in the block chain to take effect.") into "Bitcoin transaction is a digitally signed message transferring the ownership of bitcoins from one Bitcoin address to another. A user sends a payment triggering the broadcast of the transaction to the Bitcoin network. For the transaction to take effect it must be recorded in a public ledger or public transaction database called the block chain".

To write for a layperson it is best to go from known to unknown. Therefore we should explain/ describe in lay terms, even use an analogy of a concept that is hereforth unexplained, and then name the concept, rather than the other way round. And as it stands now, the first 2 sentences in this very section that follows the top lede, the Bitcoin-page-idiosyncrasy of a subsection summary, which I have objected to lengthily on this page Talk:Bitcoin#section summaries (section leads) before subsections are mouthfuls of technical terms summarizing what hasnt been explained, plus they are in broken English. The indefinite article is missing in the first sentence and the conjunctive clause in the second. I will fix this and revert the sequence. Best would be as I have argued to get rid of this rare idiosyncrasy and focus on the subsections themselves--Wuerzele (talk) 23:56, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

'1. what do you mean by the term "subject change"' - the formulation "... user sends a payment it triggers..." - uses "user" as the subject until it starts to use "it" as the subject. That is what I mean by "subject change", since "user" and "it" are distinct subjects, as far as I can tell. Such a formulation may not be prohibited in English, but the readability is poor at best. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 00:57, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: Incorrect: "user" and "it" are not "distinct subjects". The user sending a message is the simple subject of my sentence (which in itself shows the grammatical principle). you neither verified the term "subject change" in the context of English grammar nor the extreme warning you gave me ("is prohibited"). most sadly, your reply in and by itself is an example of incomprehensibility. you are much needed here, you are very sensitive when it comes to meaning; your comprehension of nuances is excellent, and better than that of many native editors, but please accept that your expressive language is not at the same level as your English comprehension. please acknowledge the limits of your proficiency. to prevent edit warring do not pick a battle when it comes to a linguistic or grammatical detail in English, especially if you cant back it up. back off a bit. I've learnt during my working career that not the strengths of some US editors either. --Wuerzele (talk) 04:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

After the latest update the text looks better, but the formulation: "When a Bitcoin user makes a purchase," uses a special case "makes a purchase", while the original formulation used a more general (and therefore correct even in cases in which "makes a purchase" is incorrect) "send payments" formulation. In my opinion, readability related adjustments should not replace correct statements by incorrect reformulations. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 01:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: Thanks for your opinion. You probably meant "since" not after. So you dont like the third rewrite either. "When a user makes a purchase" may not (yet be) the all-encompassing-case of what a user can do on Bitcoin, but it's a) a start b)something KNOWN from which a reader can work as explained above and c) not incorrect. IMO an incomprehensible statement is worse than a comprehensible statement, and not what we want on wikipedia. I find your use of the word correct is narrow and appears to stem from mathematics. this is wikipedia, not a mathematical textbook, nor a cast in stone journal article. improve constructively with an alternative, work with it - expand it if you want, because the readable and most precise formulation will evolve. And: Relax. Peace out.--Wuerzele (talk) 04:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: I've added an Overview section as an introduction to the Transactions section which I think addresses the readability issues; I think users will have an easier time following Transactions after reading it. PTAL.Richardbondi (talk) 03:33, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Miners as "volunteers"

A recent edit suggested that bitcoins miners be described as "those that volunteer to maintain the block chain." As miners maintain the block chain in the hopes of a 25 bitcoins reward, describing miners in this way is misleading. I understand that the wording is technically correct: volunteer does not necessarily denote someone who works without wages. As the word is often used to describe people who do charity work without pay, however, using it to describe miners could cause confusion. Why not simply say something along the lines of "those who freely take part in maintaining the block chain?" I've removed mention of miners as volunteers per WP:STATUSQUO. Fleetham (talk) 05:49, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I am ok with that suggestion. the reason I wrote "those that volunteer to maintain the block chain" even though I know they could be making bitcoins along the way is to demonstarte the process better than it was before. "Those who maintain"says nothing about the attitude of those who maintain. Volunteering implies yes anyone could participate with their computer. this is a novum in currencies, worth communicating.--Wuerzele (talk) 23:58, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd agree, that's an extremely unusual characterization. There may be a RS that says that, but there's plenty of coverage about bitcoin mining, and most of it does not phrase it that way. While it's technically true – nobody is forcing people to mine bitcoins against their will – the word "volunteer" has a charitable connotation in American English, something that people do for free. Bitcoin miners, if they're lucky, are rewarded with bitcoins. Agyle (talk) 10:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

@Agyle:I actually never understood why you said "extremely unusual characterization" - I ve read the term "volunteering" now several times, last [on 4-4-14] in WSJ Bitcoin's Boosters Struggle to Shore Up Confidence. --Wuerzele (talk) 07:05, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

am/was aware of the charitable connotation, but some of that may have been the sport of the early days, you know. reward: i agree with stress on "if they're lucky" as many probably arent any more; and then there's always reward in volunteering, even if unmeasured.volunteering was not my word creation but read in ("Bitcoin: Bitcoin under pressure". The Economist. 30 November 2013, so not extremely unusual! guys, i am glad you are vigilant, but it's a bit like splitting hairs here sometimes :_)--Wuerzele (talk) 23:58, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

There's absolutely no reason we must use "volunteer" to describe "freely participate." It could cause confusion, so why not use a non-confusing synonym? Fleetham (talk) 14:52, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Fleetham, there's rarely any edit from me that you leave untouched. first you say "a recent edit (like,anonymous) suggested to use ", then you close by saying "no reason we must use". seems liek you cant leave anything I write ever alone. does every sentence have to have your stamp of approval?--Wuerzele (talk) 03:49, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

@Wuerzele: (who presumably wrote the unsigned message above) No, and I can understand that questioning your content additions or changes can be annoying. I'll do less of that in the future. But that doesn't mean I don't have valid points, and the way to deal with such annoyances isn't to make personal attacks. Thanks for being civil in your above post. I suggest the best way forward is for everyone to worry less about minutia and focus more on adding cited content to the page. I don't think that the article is complete by any means, and there really is a lot of news articles about Bitcoin. By now there's probably also a much deeper pool of academic research. Fleetham (talk) 07:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Link to CoinTouch

In the "Buying and Selling Bitcoins" section I added the following:

Social trading platforms such as CoinTouch mitigate this risk as users transact directly.

Ref: "CoinTouch – Do Your Friends Buy and Sell Bitcoin?". Bitcoin Magazine. 2014-03-20. Retrieved 2014-03-20.

This was reverted by another user today, and I'd like to propose its re-inclusion, since the news source is NPOV and the language used to describe CoinTouch was neutral. Beachy (talk) 16:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Does a source besides Bitcoin Magazine mention CoinTouch? I'm not sure if the source you currently have would pass WP:Reliable Sources Fleetham (talk) 03:14, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

"Social trading platforms" are mentioned in Forbes as well. I think it's perfectly reasonable to include a sentence about them, though that sentence should explain more clearly what they are, and I would drop the claim "mitigate..." – at best they try to mitigate risk. Including a link to a specific company is clearly inappropriate, and is not even approaching a gray area. I don't see a reason to mention specific software/services/companies (even unlinked), as they're so obscure that they won't aid the average reader's understanding of the topic; it's sufficient to say they exist. Agyle (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Bitcoin Magazine is the first notable publication to mention CoinTouch. I considered it a reliable source as it was a print magazine Beachy (talk) 16:44, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

pseudo-anonymous

@Chrisarnesen: welcome back today after some weeks of absence. I noticed a number of deletions of my edits without properly explaining why (only "awkward" or "not a real thing"). As you may not know, or do not remember: I copy-edit for the main stream reader. If I add anything substantially new, it is carefully sourced info.

as far as the term 'pseudo-anonymous': It is a term I've seen used at least twice in connection to Bitcoin. [[An analysis of anonymity in the bitcoin system. Fergal Reid, Martin Harrigan. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.4524v2.pdf p1-28.7 May 2012. In Yaniv Altshuler, Yuval Elovici, Armin B. Cremers, Nadav Aharony, and Alex Pentland, editors, Security and Privacy in Social Networks, pages 197 223. Springer New York, 2013.]] and [[www. dl.acm.org/event.cfm?id=RE398 Sergio Martins and Yang Yang, Introduction to bitcoins: a pseudo-anonymous electronic currency system. In Proceedings of the 2011 Conference of the Center for Advanced Studies on Collaborative Research, CASCON '11, pages 349{350, Riverton, NJ, USA, 2011. IBM Corp.]]

It is not the same as pseudonymous, which means using a false identity to disguise a real one. Please check Pseudo-Anonymous, defined as Verified (Authenticated) but not traceable (http://iiw.idcommons.net/Pseudo_Anonymity_and_Reputation_Systems) and [Bitcoin not so anonymous, Irish researcher says. 2014 Deutsche Welle 29.07.2011 for example the developers would say that it's rather pseudo-anonymous.]] Before accusing/deleting , plse ask / discuss, just like you asked me, when I first came to this site. It's a small point, but its almost only single points you picked at.Thanks. --Wuerzele (talk) 06:40, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

As for the talk page, I asked you to post things first here because you came out of the woodwork as a new editor and I didn't agree with most of your edits. Before I got a new job a couple weeks ago, I was extremely active here (like much of the day on most days) for months, and of course I agree with all my edits :) I've already discussed on the talk page the use of the words "anonymity" and "pseudonymity"; you just weren't around yet to see it. To the point at hand, "pseudo-anonymity" isn't a real word that people commonly use. I know you know that because you put quotes around it in the article too. There's already a word for the concept that "pseudo-anonymity" is trying convey, it's "pseudonymity". That's BY FAR the more common term used to describe the level of anonymity in bitcoin, and I suggest we stick with it. Your argument is that a couple articles use the term. So what? I can find you two articles that do something else we shouldn't do. Does that mean we should do it? http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.4524v2.pdf doesn't even use the term as far as I can tell, despite what you said. The other article is from 2011. Google "pseudo-anonymous". All the hits are from 2011 because people have started using the right word now. Bitcoin users ARE operating on the network with an assumed identity, their Bitcoin addresses. I had a bit of a hard time wrapping my mind around it at first too, but now I know it's the right thing. Chris Arnesen 13:17, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

i hear what you are saying. you claim pseudo-anonymous is "not commonly enough used" to be included on the page. That may be so. You say that "people have started using the right word now" (where right is undefined). i dont hear you understand why i wrote pseudo-anonymous instead of the term pseudonymous, which i was aware of. i see you didnt realize, that i could have possibly googled for pseudoanonymous. i see that you cant imagine, that i can wrap my mind around the assumed identity of a bitcoin address. i think you are talking past the point, and you are missing a nuance. i d appreciate, if you were more careful in assuming stuff and choosing neutral language in the edit summary. BTW i read the talk page before i "just weren't around yet to see it" and have seen what you have contributed on Bitcoin. i will not belabor this more. --Wuerzele (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

External links

Hmm @Chrisarnesen: you could be right, but let's review these links. I defend the DMOZ link, because of its usability. I personally support the use of {{dmoz}} instead of links flood. The shortcut of this policy is WP:ELMAYBE, but the full title is Links to be considered and regarding to it's content, in such cases like too many link this option really should be considered, I think. That's a recommended option to avoid of too many links. Chris, I hope you agree with me, this link is OK and resolves many problems.

• Bitcoin at Curlie
• A detailed description of Bitcoin by Zulfikar Ramzan on Khan Academy
• Chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, Gavin Andresen interviewed on the TV show Triangulation on the TWiT.tv network

I think the 2nd is rather too insignificant. Regarding the Interview link, it is better to place it in Bitcoin Foundation, there will be more useful. --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 13:12, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

The 2nd and 3rd are obvious removes. I don't know why you like DMOZ so much. What's "usable" about it? It's owned by AOL and the content is mediocre at best. I'd rather have us just pick a couple choice links from that page and put them explicitly as external links on Bitcoin, bitcoincharts and blockchain.info for example. Chris Arnesen 13:25, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy defines it as often neutral candidate, it just better that a long list of links. Policy doesn't permit this, so let's just add it. --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 14:44, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I support adding the DMOZ link to the EL list and removing the bitcoin.org link. @Chrisarnesen: recently reinstated an EL to bitcoin.org, which I had deleted. While a lot of the content is acceptable, some does fall foul of WP:ELNO. In other places it doesn't fully meet the WP:ELYES criterion of "sites that contain neutral and accurate material..."

The above ELNO rule states that external links to avoid include those that mislead the reader by providing factually inaccurate information. The bitcoin.org FAQ, for example, states that Bitcoin "has a strong security track record" and that "there are often misconceptions about thefts and security breaches..."

Additionally, the FAQ is often a bit too forceful with its praise:

• "Bitcoin is designed to be a huge step forward in making money more secure..."
• "Bitcoin is freeing people to transact on their own terms."
• "No bank holidays. No borders. No imposed limits. Bitcoin allows its users to be in full control of their money."

Such hagiographic language does not seem to fit with the site's stated aim to "remain a neutral informative resource about Bitcoin."

Some of the answers in the FAQ also make you think the site is not a neutral source. The answer to the question of criminal activities includes the statement: "Bitcoin can bring significant innovation... and the benefits of such innovation are often considered to be far beyond their potential drawbacks."

Chris states that bitcoin.org is only "loosely" associated with the Bitcoin Foundation. WP:ELNO admonishes any "blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority." I'm not sure how the Bitcoin Foundation is associated with bitcoin.org, but their logo does appear on the site. In any case, some of the statements made on the Bitcoin Foundation website itself fail WP:FANSITE. Fleetham (talk) 17:34, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, bitcoin.org seems to be the first domain about the Bitcoin (as a concept, not network), it's significant from the historical point and topic scope. A paper by Nakamoto also relies on this domain, originally. Optionally, we can create for it a separate section containing notability references. --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 18:31, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I would say by all means a link to an cached version should be included. I think this one is best. It's not the oldest cache archive.org has available, but it's the first with pictures that load. Fleetham (talk) 19:48, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Nice idea, but why not include the non-archived link to the website at current state? It's still the same website, has just more content and CSS. --Rezonansowy (talk • contribs) 21:16, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you take a look at the archived link and the current site... they're quite different. It's not the same site it was when Bitcoin launched. As for reasons why the current site shouldn't be linked, please see my above post. I think the best resolution is simply to link to DMOZ. Fleetham (talk) 21:58, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

The current bitcoin.org website should not be linked. It is purely promotional in pages such as Bitcoin for Individuals and Bitcoin for Businesses. About Us explicitly says it "Bitcoin.org is not an official website". WP:ELYES suggests linking official websites, or websites with "neutral and accurate material", both of which are clearly lacking here. Agyle (talk) 16:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

I removed the link to Bitcointalk.org, a web forum. WP:ELNO says to generally avoid linking to "chat or discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups)". Given that guidance, I'd suggest seeking consensus before reverting, if you think it should be included. Agyle (talk) 00:30, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

 Added DMOZ link. --Rezonansowy (talk | contribs) 17:39, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Capital B vs. lowercase b confusion

Fleetham reverted my edit: "... the US Treasury has called bitcoin a decentralized currency..." to a version using uppercase "Bitcoin" stating "see the lede". Citing: "Conventionally, the capitalized word "Bitcoin" refers to the technology and network, whereas lowercase "bitcoin" refers to the currency itself." The sentence explicitly refers to the currency ("decentralized currency"), so it is no doubt that the word should be lowercase. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:47, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Can somebody write an article on Bitcoin and tax rules?

Could somebody write an article on Bitcoin and taxes? There are a lot of different approaches between countries, and there seems to be a general lack of good basic information. Also, taxation procedures such as FIFO and LIFO accounting should be explained and their implications discussed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.135.11.33 (talk) 21:23, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

You would be better speaking to an attorney. Also, articles are written on notability and verifiability, and tangentially, WP:NOTHOW may be invoked to disallow such a page. That doesn't stop huge columns of 'legal or illegal' in columns though. So there could be a chance. Nonetheless, it would be more useful to speak to an attorney yourself if you have any doubts. Ging287 (talk) 21:38, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I'd prefer if you don't mix up the development of Wikipedia content with unsolicited discussions of my personal financial affairs. My suggestion refers clearly to the former, and rest assured that the latter is in good care. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.135.11.33 (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a good suggestion, just a question of whether someone feels like writing such an article. Legality of Bitcoins by country has a very small amount of information on the topic. Agyle (talk) 15:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Biggest Bitcoin purchase.

Article mentions the biggest Bitcoin purchase of a $500,000 Bali house, yet in Estonia a $1.3 million manorhouse has been reported to have been bought for Bitcoin. Two sources in English: http://news.err.ee/v/economy/53ba6308-7ca1-4b4a-9a52-0156165267d6 http://hans.lougas.ee/2014/03/bitcoin-can-buy-you-a-1-3m-manor-house/

external links to sister wikis (I think this is my third edit on this :-)

• my edit (→‎External links: not in WQ or WV---yet (not the neatest edit I admit))
• my edit reverted (→‎External links: Remove external links that don't satisfy the criteria set forth in Wikipedia:External links)
  Wikipedia:External links
• my restoration (I put back sister project links in external links. At least Wiktionary deserves a link. Will read the Wikipedia meta-page later.)
• edited out again (Undid addition of external links. The wiktionary entry is inaccurate (says "BitCoin" is an acceptable alternative capitalization), the other content is mediocre at best. Why would we link to that? Nothing in Wikipedia:External links requires it.)

Wiktionary has a number of alternate spellings for wiktionary:bitcoin and a decent discussion about it on their page. External links might not require it, nor does it forbid it. Besides, isn't sister project external links a bit different from other type of external links?Civic Cat (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Civic Cat thanks for posting this. Ive been staring at this occasionally, wondering why nobody replies... I have no problem with your edit(s), and I encourage you to just do it again. The person that reverted you 3x is no longer active on this site. I dont know the answer to your question if sister project external links are "different" from other type of external links.--Wuerzele (talk) 21:04, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Mining pools

It is OK to tell what a mining pool is, but I think that the description of the reward systems is too much. What about moving the reward systems to a more specialized article? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:31, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav thanks for your comment; a more specialized article, such as? Until and unless there is "more of a specialized article", I want to keep it here. Also, this is specific to Bitcoin. ---Why is the info on reward systems "too much?" I could have said the numerous malware sections was too much. I didnt. I think the info on the different reward system is highly interesting. I am no miner, but I feel covering that area should be part of an encyclopedic article about Bitcoin.--Wuerzele (talk) 02:45, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir I removed the info about the reward systems (it appears to have been taken from a Bitcoin wiki) and re-wrote the section using good sources. (The only source present prior was from Arxiv, which doesn't pass WP:RS I think.) Please let me know what you think! If you know of a technical article that could benefit from the reward system info please add it there. I agree that it's too technical for the page. Fleetham (talk) 21:42, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Wow, You are asking Ladislav what he thinks AFTER you deleted my section as usual within 14 h? I, the author of the section and regularly contributing editor to this page think this is uncivil. Once again a good faith edit has been completely deleted without good cause.

The allegation that the info is from a wiki is not only wrong, but unfounded. This is new material for the page, sourced, nothing was taken from a wiki. Furthermore Fleetham mixes cases up (again), previously [deleted a similar contribution that was unsourced], but I found a source, and reported what is in the source. The allegation that source doesnt pass WP:RS is just that, an allegation.

what Fleetham replaced instead is missing the mark, bad prose (always a "while..." sentence) and completely miss the points I added.

• The first sentence is superfluous, unneeded.
• The second sentence "The odds of being the lucky winner are so slim that the amount spent on electricity to power your computer likely outweighs any bitcoins received in payment" is misattributed to the source (Purdue). Fleetham paraphrased a sentence almost verbatim from arbiteronline: "The energy you spend, the resources you consume to run your computer to mine the Bitcoins may not match what you gain from being part of a pool that gets the bitcoins out".
• The third sentence "To get around this problem, some miners combine their efforts by joining so-called mining pools that share the task of mining among many participants and the rewards as well." Is less precise than the source and even contradicts the source. Its not some its "the most common way now for people to begin mining bitcoins is through joining a pool".
• The last sentence concludes with what I consider an unfounded value judgement of the topic mining pools. Consider the source! The ARbiteronline interviewing 2 assistant political science professors "Even those who join pools may not earn more than the electricity spent on mining, however."

I cant help noticing, that Fleetham is continuously finding and emphasizing negative aspects of Bitcoin, (see the above 4 sentences) something I have said before, "undue weight". I'd appreciate if Fleetham created new stuff himself, worked on finding citations, where citation needed signs are up, gets reference 8 in line etc. put inline signs up, waits for some days for responses. If there is an error, he should edit in small ways, add, like others do instead of continuously wholesale deleting stuff you simply don't like.

The problem is, that 90% of the time Fleetham deletes good faith edits, deletes within 24 h without giving readership a real a chance to react, and worst, deletes WITHOUT PRIOR DISCUSSION. This is disruptive editing. Fleetham who talks to the hand so much, should read WP:TALKDONTREVERT himself. --Wuerzele (talk) 02:45, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

@Wuerzele: Perhaps both you and I could benefit from reading WP:TALKDONTREVERT: " Contributors with good social skills and good negotiation skills are more likely to be successful than those who are less than civil to others." Just back off the personal attacks please, and I'll do less immediate reverting of unsourced material. Fleetham (talk) 04:41, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

No self revert then ? But more allegations, since these are no personal attacks. I criticize extremely poor editing skills, that happen to be disruptive. Someone wrote earlier that one has to be a masochist to edit here endure this atmosphere. Fleetham has shown poor social skills and reverted on all sites hes involved in, as far back as I could research when I reported his edit warring; he has a block log history and a user page scarred with complaints. Fleetham's "if --then" proposal doesnt even work in a kindergarten; one must model, but Fleetham deletes, regardless, as can be seen in the edit history today.--Wuerzele (talk) 00:28, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, Fleetham's edits are highly inaccurate. For example, "...the amount spent on electricity to power your computer likely outweighs any bitcoins received in payment. To get around this problem, some miners combine their efforts by joining so-called mining pools..." does not make sense at all. If I cannot get enough to pay for electricity bills, joining others cannot help me. It contradicts any serious sources. Also, there are miners doing it for profit, and the underequipped, unsophisticated and irrational should not be presented as the rule. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:30, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

I propose to use this text:

Solo mining means an individual works alone to calculate hashes, to collect the reward of finding a block. Success depends on time and hash rate. The luck factor, or mathematically speaking the variance was calculated in 2011 to be quite high. A "joint effort of several miners to work on finding blocks together," and decrease the variance is called a mining pool.[26] The reward is split among participants in proportion to their contribution.

, we just need to find the sources verifying it. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:40, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir thanks for your proposal. Ref1 for solo mining and variance:

Ref 2 best def for mining pool, even if commercial source "Mining pools are a way for miners to pool their resources together and share their hashing power while splitting the reward equally according to the amount of shares they contributed to solving a block. A "share" is awarded to members of the mining pool who present a valid proof of work that their miner solved."

Ref 3 The rise and fall of Bitcoin mining. By Aaron Sankin, January 29, 2014 i believe is already in the ref list (ahh, it got lost in the extraordinary editing bonanza today), mentions pools, their history since 2010 and their power, shows a graph of incr. "difficulty" (units?), but sloppily written.

I propose to also write sthg like 'initially people were able to mine by themselves, but with ever increasing calculation time, as of 2014 it is most common for miners to join organized mining pools'. --Wuerzele (talk) 02:23, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

What I do not understand is , why despite this LONG discussion here, the present version is still Fleethams's. He reverted my last edit (as almost anything I wrote). Ladislav? Anyone? on this page there seems consensus, but on teh article page Fleethams opinion rules?--Wuerzele (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

moving the stuff on capital Band small b bitcoin in lede

guys, the lede is what people first read, this capital Band small b bitcoin stuuff is such a technical small footnote , can we please please leave it at the end. It is totally not central. if it comes 3 sentences after the important stuff people will still figure it out . its really a jerky issue I find ( as Richardbondihas said somewhere.please no edit war on this. Its not essential enough to be up front ok? sorry to disagree with you Ladislav, I know where you are coming from.--Wuerzele (talk) 08:08, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly disagree. Until defined, nobody knows "Bitcoin" means the system and "bitcoin" means the digital currency. The purpose of the Wikipedia is to define the notions for people, and I see the mess caused by inconsistent use of the definition in the lead. I have got a totally different proposal: I propose to use the notions consistently as defined, i.e., use "Bitcoin" to mean the system and "bitcoin" to mean the digital currency consistently throughout the article. Is there any objection agaist this? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:14, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh Ladislav! wholeheartedly even ! please save your good heart for something else!

I know how messed up it is, I know, I know, I know, and I am with you! I see the inconsistency , believe me, BUT i honestly think you and I arent the majority in this. folks just dont care about it. and I cant blame them entirely. this isnt science. this is some freaking weird money. there's an american expression about this situation: Dont sweat the small stuff. -:) and this is. we got bigger fish to fry. ok?

BTW hey, what happened to the anonymity section? it vanished. I dont see who cut it ( by mistake probably). I was just going to edit it.--Wuerzele (talk) 08:30, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I did not notice the deletion of the anonymity section either. Regarding my proposal: there actually are alternatives:

• we can use "Bitcoin" to mean the system and "bitcoin" to mean the digital currency, explain the terminology to the reader, and use it consistently throughout the article
• we can use "Bitcoin" and "bitcoin" inconsistently, following the use in the cited sources
• there may be other preferred alternatives I did not list

I think that you did not indicate your preference, do you have some? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:43, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

As a scientist, I see the benefit of the definition and adherence to it, to communicate unambiguously (pers. pref).

As a person in the US I say, well: I do realize my fellow citizens dont care about this, not agyle, not bondi, not fleetham, and the media ? i havent payed enough attention. again: small stuff. my preferenece is "leave it be", Wild West.outside science nobody cares and money and economics as you have stated before aint science.

As an editor on this page: I am throwing my hands in the air! definitely got other priorities, thats why I moved this thang down to the end! ok?--Wuerzele (talk) 09:20, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I do not think you should speak for agyle or others here. The purpose of Wikipedia is to explain the terminology to readers so they can discern "indolence" from "intelligence". The rules don't state it should read as either a textbook or a novel. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 11:04, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Whoa ! I responded to your question, even taking the time to qualify my response 3 fold, obviously too complicated and wasted, if I earn a slap in the face for that. All I said is that as a person in the US my preference is to go along with what the rest here does and in the context on this page, this means I go along with my fellow editors from the US. - You however jumped to the conclusion, that I spoke for them. Maybe I didnt say it clearly enough but I think, you misunderstood. I did NOT SPEAK FOR them . I have observed that, they didnt care about b or B. Richard expressedly said so. Now I am going to ping everyone, so we can make this darn thing official and basta. And please do not accuse me of pushing for a novel or a textbook or indolence. I was trying to get across that there are principles, but there are also human realities of space and time. These have to be negotiated.

Agyle, richardbondi, Fleetham, can you please weigh in on this minor issue? see above. Thanks for your time.--Wuerzele (talk) 11:22, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I did not intend to reprimand, I just wanted to make sense of your answer. Frankly, I did not understand it, since if I take the first sentence, I think that you prefer the consistent terminology. The subsequent text seemed to contradict the starting sentence, therefore I just wanted to sum up what the official policies of Wikipedia have to say to the subject. I did not want to accuse you of wanting to turn the article into a textbook or a novel, but, we should not forget that the official policies are to prefer the encyclopedic aspect. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 11:37, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's that important whether the sentence is in the first or second paragraph, but personally I'd put it no later than immediately after the first time a different capitalization is used, which is currently in the first paragraph. (I'm not addressing approaches that would not use that sentence).

As an aside, I think the sentence itself gives the false impression that this is a widely followed convention. "Bitcoins" (plural, clearly the currency) is capitalized consistently by The Guardian and The Financial Times, often but inconsistently by The NY Times, USA Today, the UK Daily Telegraph, Sydney's Daily Telegraph and Forbes, very rarely by The LA Times and never by The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post...at least looking at the first page of Google results). This WSJ article explains their switch to using lowercase "b" in all cases, and The LA Times seems to try to always use lowercase but make occasional mistakes. Among all these publications, none seem to follow "the convention". However, the question here isn't whether the sentence about the convention is factual, it's just about where to put it. :-)

As a word of caution when applying the convention consistently, there seem to be different conventions on applying the convention. For example, some would use uppercase in the phrase the Bitcoin currency, because "currency" specifies what aspect of the Bitcoin system is being talked about, while others would use lowercase since as a whole the phrase refers to the currency. There are also gray areas. The phrases bitcoin transactions and Bitcoin transactions are both used in this article; they have different meanings, but in most cases, either would be correct, so it's simply a matter of preference. You could similarly use "Bitcoin", "bitcoin", or "bitcoins" in the phrase gun dealers can use Bitcoin to sell arms; they'd all have different meanings (the Bitcoin system, the Bitcoin currency as an uncountable noun, and the Bitcoin currency as a countable noun), but all be correct. Using "bitcoin", the currency, as a singular mass (uncountable) noun, the way "the euro" could be used, seems to bug some people, so it might worth avoiding.

Agyle (talk) 20:35, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

"As an aside, I think the sentence itself gives the false impression that this is a widely followed convention." - Oh, yes! I prefer to use some convention throughout the whole article, and it would be best to use the one that might be understandable to most people. The boundary cases Agyle mentions - yes, agreed to all cases. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 23:23, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

If no one actually follows the convention, I don't think there's much point to including any mention of it. Why not transition the entire page to lowercase b bitcoin and disregard a widely ignored "convention"? Fleetham (talk) 23:41, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

If this article follows the convention, I think it's worth mentioning that, regardless of what others do, to explain the changing case. Also, some publications follow it, differing only in gray areas; CoinDesk is particularly consistent about it. Agyle (talk) 00:17, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Agyle for weighing in, particularly with the evidence you listed. So, to summarize a sentence that coudl be inserted: "There is no uniform convention of Bitcoin nomenclatura using lowercase "b" vs capital B. Most recently, the WSJ in a 3/14/14 article suggested using lowercase "b" in all cases. Other newspapers havent followed suit, but for ease this article will follow the suggested convention." So 2 questions, pinging you AgyleLadislav, Richardbondi+ 2 new recent contributors on talk page Jonpatterns and ChocTinFoil :

• should we stick the above sentence in, following the (easier) WSJ rule, hoping this will become dominant, or stick with sttus quo/the rule that's been in the article? Fleetham already opined and I am inclined to agree.
• Next: How high up should this be in the lede? status quo or , technical footnote at the end, my preference, since I started this discussion after being reverted; the topic Bitcoin is overwhelming enough for the reader, the least thing to worry about IMHO.thanks.--Wuerzele (talk) 04:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Your suggested sentence is true, but relies on original research/synthesis. I'd reflect published sources, something like "One writing convention uses Bitcoin, capitalized, to refer to the concept or system, and bitcoin, uncapitalized, to refer to the currency, while The Associated Press Stylebook and The Wall Street Journal switched in early 2014 to using bitcoin in all cases.^[1][2][3][4] This article follows the [former or latter] approach."

I favor always using lowercase. It's usually clear from context or unimportant which meaning of bitcoin is intended, and where it isn't, it's better to reword it so that it is, rather than depend on B versus b for clarity. Regarding placement, if consensus is to go with all lowercase, I think it should go in the opening section, since it refers to the style used throughout the article. I'd add it as a final paragraph in the section, but I don't feel strongly about where it goes in the opening section.

^[1] Bustillos, Maria (2 April 2013). "The bitcoin boom". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved 19 April 2014. (Standards vary, but there seems to be a consensus forming around Bitcoin, capitalized, for the system, the software, and the network it runs on, and bitcoin, lowercase, for the currency itself.)

^[2] AP Stylebook (25 February 2014). "AP Style tip: Bitcoin is a..." Twitter. Retrieved 19 April 2014. AP Style tip: Bitcoin is a digital currency. As a concept, Bitcoin is capitalized. The currency unit, bitcoin, is lowercase.

^[3] Metcalf, Allan (14 April 2014). "The latest style". Lingua Franca blog. The Chronicle of Higher Education (chronicle.com). Retrieved 19 April 2014.

^[4] Vigna, Paul (14 March 2014). "BitBeat: Is it Bitcoin, or bitcoin? The orthography of the cryptography". The Wall Street Journal. BitBeat blog.

Citing blogs and tweets is non-ideal, but I think valid in this case under WP:SPS (Metcalf is an English professor who's written books about language; @APStylebook is a verified Twitter account). 2013 and 2014 copies of the AP Stylebook would be awesome replacements if anyone has them handy.

––Agyle (talk) 06:57, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the research. Taking into account that the original convention had serious issues summed up comprehensively by Agyle and making it hard to follow, I prefer to make the things easier. I think that we should switch, but we shall mention it in the lead or as a technical footnote, since it is crucial for the reader to be able to understand the text. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:48, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir Thanks. So, Oooookaay- then ?

looks like all 4 of one opinion, despite initial wholehearted objections, good thing I asked. I will put in the sentence I proposed. Cant follow Agyle, your accusation of OR and WP SYNTH. ( pretty serious accusation) I just hope it is repeated misunderstanding as several times previously, when you didnt read a paragarph etc. Antyway , you can edit, Agyle.--Wuerzele (talk) 06:02, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Re: The bursting of one bitcoin bubble in April 2013 was correctly predicted by a financial journalist.

This information is not serious. I checked the source and found out that it labelled bitcoin a "speculative bubble", stating that "the bubble is sure to burst". There was no specification when, though, and other sources stated something similar even before. Thus, there is no doubt that the cited source did not demonstrate any exceptional ability to predict the event. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 12:25, 19 April 2014 (UTC) I ve been thinking teh same thing for a long time. --Wuerzele (talk) 06:47, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't be too worried about the lack of time specificity. No one's going to say, "it's going to burst in two weeks exactly" because it's very difficult to know that. Even if you did think the bubble would burst in less than two weeks, you'd more than likely have significant doubts about your own ability to predict such things (or the ability of whoever you got the information from) and therefore keep your mouth shut. I think a more realistic concern is the possibility that there's a lot of journalists saying "the bubble is sure to burst," and Mr. Salmon, who wrote the article you reference above, simply was the lucky one. Even if it was the case that many predictions were made and Mr. Salmon's simply happened to be 10 days before the value of a bitcoin fell by 70%, he still predicted that particular instance. Obviously, you shouldn't think of Mr. Salmon as some sort of mystic sage just as you shouldn't think of someone who won a lottery as a person of particular skill in number picking. But that doesn't mean the person who won a lottery didn't actually win. Fleetham (talk) 16:40, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I totally agree. A ton of people predicted that Bitcoin will drop down to 50$ after the bubble burst, but here it is hovering at about $500~. To claim that this was vaguely predicted by a journalist would be irresponsible. People like to make vague predictions about claims, and then try to claim responsibility when it does finally happen. "Somewhere, in the next 5 years, a bridge will fall in this city." And then a piece of crap bridge falls in the 2nd year after she made that prediction. It's ludicrous. Now, taking it a step further, if she gave an exact date and time, and specified which bridge, then it may garner inclusion. For this, though, saying 'the bubble is to burst soon' and trying to garner inclusion is simply irresponsible. Tutelary (talk) 17:13, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the prediction was borne out at all. There certainly was a crash, but no bubble was burst, and Bitcoin prices have risen and fallen enormously since then and are now way up compared to that particular crash. Besides, several Bitcoin insiders had already predicted there would be a number of crashes before Bitcoin was successful. I think the sentence is silly and needs to be removed. Martijn Meijering (talk) 17:23, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's probably best to just remove the whole thing then. Fleetham (talk) 17:47, 19 April 2014 (UTC)

editwarring 33RR

(Personal attack removed) Fleetham (talk) 20:06, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

editwarring 3RR

I am restoring a section Fleetham reverted illegitimately with the summary WP:NPA . the section was renamed 33RR to create an intermediate edit, so the action couldnt be undone. Fleetham, I suspect you want the policy reference for calling your removal illegitimate: it is WP:NPA#WHATIS --Wuerzele (talk) 07:09, 22 April 2014 (UTC) -----------------------------------------------------------------

Fleetham, you have twice removed interwiki links that you call "erroneous", (which is incorrect because tehy arent erroneous), or "confusing" without saying how.

Your edit summaries are no replacement for discussions. first here "Please don't just link to "big words" because often the page would only confuse the reader" then on April 20 here saying "erroneous" not responding to my reasoning at all, pushing POV.

Numerous times now you have reverted the sentences on Bitcoin as currency, because for you the case appears to be clear: it's no money, so why bother mentioning that the US gvt sees it as currency. You are pushing POV.

Here you removed a whole paragraph I had written, after first shortening the list of agencies by et al then removing it and all references I assembled to it. Ladislav and I had a consensus, yet you "delete": Various US government entities refer to bitcoins as digital currency or virtual currency, however, including the Government Accountability Office, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Justice, the FBI, et. al.

Fleetham, you appear to be unable to leave sentences I write alone even for 24h. Despite assurances of the contrary here your continuous flurry of disruptive edits add little to nothing, but often come at a loss of precision. I have protested against these edits here several times. You continue to make dubious edits, that introduce ambiguity or harm the clarity, specificity and also erase valuable work that's been put into it: the last one is here where you strike "The thief hacks an online wallet service by finding a bug in its website or spreading malware to computers holding the private keys" which is a perfectly good sentence, saying "unhelpful explanation of how theft occurs". I didnt write the sentence, I am not taking ownership as you apparently do, (observed by many). I will reinsert this. You reverted, and you should discuss.

You took yet another bite at a newbie User:ChocTinFoil, the second in 2 weeks, a "normal occurrence" which has been quietly tolerated by editors on this page.

lest you accuse me once more of the unfounded allegation of personal attacks: I have previously challenged you to find any personal attack on you by me and you have not come forth with anything. I provide evidence for my constructive criticism in every talkpost or edit summary. you pretend to mix up criticism with personal attack. you deflect criticism to divert attention or to be uncivil.

I could list more of the 39 edits, and the 20 before, -the amount of reverts on 4-18-14 alone are too numerous to count- but this seems enough for now; increasingly I doubt the usefulness to spend any time editing here, because for 2 months you have nothing but reverted (and get away with it).--Wuerzele (talk) 07:34, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Incentives to mine

as written, I think this section belongs under 'mining' not 'security'.

It also has zero refs, so I will flag it.

BTW: Ladislav MecirYou removed from can be thought of as tip "before the service is rendered" saying it is inaccurate, miner can get the fee only after rendering the service. I dont understand your reasoning. Seeing this from the customer or miner perspective the sentence is accurate, because the tip is given BEFORE the transaction is complete. or were you against the word "tip"? ( customarily given after service) I didnt write this sentence, but am a little concerned about the amount of righteousness on this page of reverting and deleting. --Wuerzele (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

To explain further: the miner obtains the fee only after rendering the service, and this, of course, means that the tip is not given before the service is rendered. Comparing it to other cases, it may be seen like a customer in a restaurant promising a tip to the waiter before the service is rendered, but the waiter obtaining the tip only after rendering the service. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 11:28, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir thanks for replying. I am aware, that a tip is customarily given after the service ( see above), but since the transaction fee is paid BEFORE the transaction is complete, well, the tip is paid before the service is rendered! BTW many coffeshops have a glass saying "tips appreciated", and the servers don't "receive" the tips until it's split at the end of a shift or day. so same thing as here; to delete on grounds that "miner doesnt receive the fee until service is rendered" is, ehem, splitting hairs. This site does need metaphors. this isnt a bad one. my 2 cents.--Wuerzele (talk) 21:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I think that virtually everything in this section is already in the Mining section lead. Do we really need duplicates? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

the Mining section lead? or teh mining section ?we come full circle here, on the lede section discussion! remember? It was me who brought this up March 11 i think the intro texts on the whole bitcoinpage are very unfortunate and redundant duplications on what usually follows 1/2 inch below but nobody else agreed. see also subsection Section ledes before subsections from March 12, 2014 Only 12% of the good articles had a subsection lede, so its not necessary. yes agree the incentive paragraph can be shortened. by comparison, the reward systems I added, were zero repetition, but they were deleted....--Wuerzele (talk) 21:31, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and deleted the section. Not only is much of it redundant, it uses language that's not defined in the article prior. Nonce, e.g. I tried to save the info on transactions fees, as this wasn't in the mining section already. Fleetham (talk) 20:04, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Thefts

I find the sentence: "Generating and storing keys offline mitigates the risk of theft, yet it occurs on a regular basis..." highly problematic, since it suggests that the bitcoins with offline keys are stolen on a regular basis, which is not what is happening. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:02, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav, i agree. The word theft may have to be repeated to be clear.--Wuerzele (talk) 03:12, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Wallet section feedback

Let me know if you have any feedback on my recent edit to the "wallet" subsection. I think my changes make the concept easier to understand but am willing to make changes if some are suggested. Also, I think the section could do with more paring down... the "software" and "security" sections could be condensed in my opinion. Let me know what you think. Fleetham (talk) 21:49, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

The closure of the Silk Road had failed to dampen illegal online drug sales

I changed a recent content addition from "the closure of the Silk Road had failed to dampen illegal online drug sales..." to " the closure of the Silk Road had little impact on the number of Australians selling drugs online, which had actually increased." The article doesn't mention anything about the volume of drugs sold online only that there were more individual vendors. While it doesn't necessarily follow from this that fewer drugs were sold online after the Silk Road take-down, it doesn't mean more were. There could very well have been a greater number of sellers and a smaller number of sales. Fleetham (talk) 06:25, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Referencing regarding whether Bitcoin is a considered money

Fleetham, what is wrong with you? There is a statement in the article: Economists generally agree that it does not meet the definition of money. A citation was requested. I supplied various citations referring to Central Banks. You state that refers to lawyers. Because you show your ignorance about the subject at hand, regarding the references, you go and delete the statement. What is the problem with you? So, you have a problem with a reference that, according to you is not from an economist. Fine. Then remove that reference. Don´t remove the statement. Remove the reference. I am sure you understand this, Fleetham. So, now you go and remove the reference that according to you has nothing from an economist. Leave the statement alone. Only deal with the reference you do not like. Do you understand this, Fleetham? If you do not, then just respond here and say you do not understand what I am saying over here. Then I will have another go at explaining to you. In the mean time, please leave the statement in question in the article. OK, Fleetham? I am sure you now understand. Thank you for your kind co-operation in this matter. Titfditroyl (talk) 23:32, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Well, when the statement is "most economists agree bitcoin isn't a currency," so why not provide citations that actually support this instead of some complex explanation about how your citations "kinda" support the statement? I mean, you didn't write "some lawyers and a central bank (which employs a lot of economists!) don't think bitcoin is a currency." In anycase, no citation is needed... the info is cited in the body of the article, and there's no need for extra citations. Having five really is over-citing. Also, have you contributed to this page before using a different name? Fleetham (talk) 23:55, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

I've changed the title of this topic as it could be considered a personal attack. It maybe be helpful to quote want sentence you want adding or removing, and any supporting references.Jonpatterns (talk) 09:37, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Bitcoin white paper

The white paper is currently used as both a cited source and an external link. I suggest to keep just one of the forms. Which one do you prefer to keep? (my preference is to remove it from the list of external references) Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:32, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

External link is better. I believe you've already made the change. Fleetham (talk) 21:45, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

why better? --Wuerzele (talk) 03:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

You hadn't, so I did. Fleetham (talk) 22:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

This is too hasty, yours is the only opinion preferring this alternative, taking into account that I indicated the opposite preference. Please wait for other editors to be able to express their preferences. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:49, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

a reference is a source's preferred status, and default status and here status quo. If there's no place for a source to fit as a reference THEN and only then it becomes an external link. agree with Ladislav on both accounts. (strike under external links and Fleetham is too hasty, as almost always)--Wuerzele (talk) 03:23, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Oops, yes too hasty. I thought Ladislav meant remove it as a reference... external links are usually referred to as "links" not "references." Apologies! I've removed it from the external links section and restored it as a reference. Fleetham (talk) 07:07, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Reduce confusion about bitcoins as currency but not money

I was hoping to get some feedback on a recent change. The second sentence originally read,

Although it doesn't meet the definition of money, the digital currency created and used in the system has been variously referred to as virtual currency, electronic money, or cryptocurrency.

I changed it because it seems contradictory... we say "BTC not money" then "BTC is currency." Even if readers give us the benefit of the doubt and don't think we're simply stupid, they might imagine that somehow bitcoin falls on one side of a small distinction between "money" and "currency." I don't believe that to be the case. If there is any distinction, it would be that currency is the tokens used as money while money could take any form. I've changed the sentence to the below:

Although it doesn't meet the definition of money, bitcoin has been referred to as a digital currency, virtual currency, electronic money, or cryptocurrency.

Fleetham (talk) 22:17, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

The formulation is clumsy at best. In fact, we do need some term to use, the "digital currency" seems to be the most frequently used. Also, we need to specify that the digital currency (besides to the system) is also called "bitcoin", which is a notable information worth mentioning in the article lead. The contradictory nature of your formulation does not make the things clear at all. If you consider it notable to mention that economists generally find bitcoin to not be money according to their definition, then you can put it in as a separate information in a separate sentence not distorting or removing other useful informations. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:55, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Also, "the definition of money" is a debatable formulation. There are two economic definitions, both well sourced, in the Money article, and the one mentioned in this article is not even the most prominent one, as you can easily find out. Moreover, I am pretty sure that there are many legal definitions of money, (maybe as many as there are states). I find it preferable to make this more clear in the article. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 23:01, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Adding a note related to the "digital currency" usage. The fact that you call something "digital currency", "virtual currency" or "cryptocurrency" does not mean that you state that it actually must be a currency; especially the adjective "virtual" is used to indicate that the subject looks like a currency, but may not be one. Using adjectives is a way how to tell that the subject is not just some "currency", and that it actually is something more specific, which may differ from "just currency" in some way. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 23:18, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. How would you propose to include information that bitcoin meets no generally recognized definition of money? I'm willing to sign up for making a distinction between bitcoins and bitcoin, and it sounds like you don't have a objection to making it clear that bitcoins aren't money as long as doing so doesn't "distort or remove other useful information." Perhaps the best thing to do is simply insert a sentence somewhere around the bottom of the paragraph that informs the reader that just because it's often referred to as a currency doesn't mean that it is. Let me know if this is agreeable, and I'll write up a draft. Fleetham (talk) 03:58, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

"How would you propose to include information that bitcoin meets no generally recognized definition of money?" - I propose to be specific and mention that bitcoin does not meet the generally recognized economic definition of money. I think that should be OK, and it is notable enough to be inserted into the article lead, in my opinion. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:34, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

That sounds agreeable... but since there is unlikely to be any other definition of money besides an "economic" one, I suggest just "generally recognized definition." There may be various legal definitions of what is legal tender, but I don't think there exists a separate legal definition for money. Fleetham (talk) 12:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Actually, there are legal definitions of money. Also, take into account, please, that the source you are using (The Economist) is quite specific that it means the definition of money used by economists, not, for example, the definition used by the judge Mazzant when deciding bitcoin is money. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 19:36, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Again, I'm really not sure there are legal definitions of money. Or at least one that is different in any way from an economic definition. This book on pages 36-37 discusses the appearance of a separate legal definition for money but then concludes that there really isn't one. Googling "legal definition of money" doesn't bring up any results that differ from the two definitions on the money page. It may well be that asking for a legal definition of money is a bit like asking for an economic definition of a tort. The Economist article does say that "economists reckon money is anything that serves three main functions." But that doesn't mean other people or other disciplines reckon money is something else entirely. What if an article reads, "lawyers reckon a tort is something that causes someone to suffer, unfairly, a loss?" You wouldn't imagine that what is provided is simply the legal definition of a tort. Fleetham (talk) 22:24, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

"This book on pages 36-37] discusses the appearance of a separate legal definition for money but then concludes that there really isn't one." - Well, quite the opposite is true:

1. In the cited pages, Ludwig von Mises states that "money is only the common medium of exchange" using a significantly different definition of money than you pretend to be "the general definition of money" proving that there are other definitions than your "the definition..." In fact, economists use (in a slightly edited version) his definion to the present day. See the first definition of money in the Money article and check the citations verifying it. Your "the definition..." is just the second definition mentioned in the article.
2. The cited pages state: "For the jurist, money is a medium of payment" actually making a point that there are legal definitions of money differing from the economic. Von Mises' point being that "The economist, to whom the problem of money presents a different aspect, may not adopt this point of view if he does not wish at the very outset to prejudice his prospects to the advancement of economic theory."

"You wouldn't imagine that what is provided is simply the legal definition of a tort." - why do you think I "wouldn't imagine" that? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:36, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Summing up, I find it verifiable that there are other definitions of money, even economic, not to mention legal. This is why I propose to specify which definition is meant. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:43, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you're reading the book closely. It is a little confusing, since it was originally written in German and in the 1920s... You are correct in thinking that book defines money simply as a medium of exchange, however. But again, it was written in the 1920s. The generally recognized definition, today, is the same as that found on the money page. In any case, bitcoin meets no generally recognized definition of money. So I don't see any reason not to simply use the term "generally recognized definition." Fleetham (talk) 06:57, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

And yes, you have a valid point in that other definitions of money do exist. But that 1920s book was written by an economist... so while I have no qualms about specifying what definitions of money bitcoin does and does not meet, I don't think the one it doesn't meet is rightly called the economic definition. Fleetham (talk) 07:07, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Bitcoins are not money in the strict sense of the concept since they are not legal tender and they are not - at the same time - a unit of account in any country. You cannot pay your taxes with bitcoins and no-one does their financial reports in terms of bitcoin. However, it is "a type of money" as the judge stated referring to it being a medium of exchange. Money generally has to be relatively stable in real value to fulfil its three functions as money. The expectation that bitcoin may rise significantly in value because of its eventual fixed limit in supply will make it always less similar to money. Accountants actually assume money is stable in value in traditional accounting. Bitcoins are certainly a medium of exchange which is the reason why it is generally described as a virtual currency, electronic money and a cryptocurrency. All these descriptive names given to bitcoin are always references to it being a medium of exchange - which it is. However, to say that bitcoin is equal to money, in my opinion, would not be correct. SpiltOctacle (talk) 21:17, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Well I'm not sure exactly where we've gotten. While I think it's clear that there exists a minority opinion that simply being a medium of exchange is sufficient for something to be considered money. (See this 2001 book for example.) I don't believe that there is clear evidence for a separate "legal definition of money." The best support for that idea seems to be a 1920s book that, closely read, suggests that there is no functional difference between the economist's and the lawyer's viewpoint. Fleetham (talk) 03:01, 1 May 2014 (UTC)asons discussed in multiple

Ladislav and SpiltOctacle, I suggest to avoid the term money as long as User:Fleetham edits the page or until history sorts itself out. Leave the currency in, for reasons amply discussed (see talk archive or "Talk:Economics lead section" still on the page etc. This has been a never ending and fruitless discussion for months now.--Wuerzele (talk) 03:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Re "Bitcoins are not money in the strict sense of the concept since they are not legal tender and they are not - at the same time - a unit of account in any country." - this is yet another definition of what money is, and significantly different from the economic one; according to this editor money is defined as being:

1. legal tender
2. a unit of account in a country

There is a question whether such definition makes sense (that may be arguable, since it excludes most of historic money), whether it is widely used, and whether its use is notable and verifiable. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:16, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

[User:Fleetham|Fleetham]] wrote: "Well I'm not sure exactly where we've gotten." - What I found interesting in the source you cited to support the information that "there exists a minority opinion that simply being a medium of exchange is sufficient for something to be considered money." is that the source called the definition listing the functions of money as the functional definition of money. That does not look bad as a name for the definition, since the definition does exactly what is suggested by the name, listing the functions of money. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:31, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Although most of what I am about to state is already implied in my previous contribution, I will attempt to state the - in my opinion - long definition of money in economics:

For any economic item to pass the essential requirements to qualify as being money in terms of the science of economics it has to be:

1. A widely used medium of exchange which overcomes the double coincidence of wants associated with barter;

2. A perfectly stable store of real value;

3. A perfectly stable real value unit of account;

4. Legal tender in the economy.

Everyone will point out that not a single fiat currency is generally perfectly stable in real value over time and thus generally never a perfectly stable real value unit of account. That is correct. This problem was solved very long ago in history by economists and accountants by simply assuming money is perfectly stable in real value: the stable measuring unit assumption which is the basis of the traditional, generally accepted, globally implemented, at least three-thousand-year-old Historical Cost Accounting model. It is normally simply stated in textbooks that one of the three functions of money is that it has to be a unit of account. It is almost always then also stated that it is assumed that this unit of account is (perfectly) stable in real value.

The Measuring Unit principle: The unit of measure in accounting shall be the base money unit of the most relevant currency. This principle also assumes the unit of measure is stable; that is, changes in its general purchasing power are not considered sufficiently important to require adjustments to the basic financial statements.

Walgenbach, Dittrich and Hanson 1973, p. 429

Bitcoin does not meet all the above requirements. It is not legal tender anywhere: no government currently accepts bitcoin as payment for taxes, for example. It does not qualify as money in the strict economic definition of money. However, in general terms, it is common that anything that is a widely accepted medium of exchange is described as money. It is a fact that bitcoin is described as digital money or virtual money (virtual in its sense as digital).SpiltOctacle (talk) 18:48, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: You're right that the "three functions of money" definition is a functional definition. But there also appears to be a minority view that anything that's a medium of exchange is money. This "medium of exchange = money" definition is also a functional definition. There's also a few more basic attributes of money as this book explains. A different book quotes a 1973 work as saying "...to the present day there is no agreement on the most fundamental of questions—what is money?" It then goes on to say that the economic definition of money is "any commodity that is generally accepted as a medium of exchange and a measure of value." This would be a third functional definition of money. Perhaps it's agreeable to simply say that bitcoin does not meet most definitions of money? Fleetham (talk) 22:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Further reading leads me to believe that those sources which suggest money need only be a medium of exchange actually state that money must be a widely accepted or common medium of exchange. I no longer feel that these sources support considering bitcoins as money. While I haven't come across any definition of money that would allow bitcoins to be thought of as money, I propose to add to the lede something like, "while commonly referred to as a currency, bitcoin is should not be considered one under most definitions." Please let me know how well that suits the citations we currently have available. Fleetham (talk) 07:49, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) Fleetham (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

@Fleetham You "analysed" (researched) the many already researched independent individual references, some of which you indicated in the article and others here on the talk page. Then you , personally - all on your own, by your very self - came to a completely new, independent, original view, namely that "I haven't come across any definition of money that would allow bitcoins to be thought of as money". It might be true that no-one has - to date - done as thorough research as you have done here on WP. That certainly is original research, isn´t it? Or do you have an independent reference for "there is not any definition of money that would allow bitcoins to be thought of as money"? This is not a personal attack or in any way intended to be a personal attack in any way or form. SpiltOctacle (talk) 09:25, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: You recently changed the bitcoin as money section to read, "Bitcoin is often referred to as a currency, but it does not conform to widely used definitions of money." As I point out above, I haven't come across any definition of money, obscure or popular, that would classify bitcoin as money. I think what you've written is a bit misleading because it suggests that bitcoin is a money according to less widely used definitions. But as far as we know from the current sources, it's not a money according to any definition. Do you have a source for an obscure definition of money that would cover bitcoin? Fleetham (talk) 20:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

"As I point out above, I haven't come across any definition of money, obscure or popular, that would classify bitcoin as money." - that is irrelevant. The fact is that anybody can write a definition, but for Wikipedia only notable definitions matter. "But as far as we know from the current sources, it's not a money according to any definition." - wrong. Judge Mazzant used a definition which indicated that bitcoin is money and that definition sufficed for him to make the decision he made. The decision was notable enough for the press and obtained coverage by independent sources. I am sorry to have to disagree with you, but, I have to tell you that this is not, according to my findings, the only definition covered by independent sources according to which bitcoin is money. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 16:09, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, well you're right about the court ruling bitcoin is a currency. That should probably be mentioned in the section, too. Fleetham (talk) 22:22, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

If you look above, you may find out that I proposed to merge "Classifications" into one section (possibly with two or more paragraphs), and the proíposal was unopposed, in fact. I agree that the definitions of money that are most notable for Wikipedia do not define bitcoin as money, though. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:29, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Price and volatility

Currently there are the sentences:

• "Bitcoin has an extremely volatile exchange rate."
• "The price of bitcoins has fluctuated wildly..."

The sentences (at least to an uninitiated eye) pretend that the former is somehow distinct from the latter, which is false; both are equivalent, in fact. Therefore, I prefer to either

• keep just one of the sentences, or
• explain to the reader (which is a reasonable encyclopedic approach) that both formulations are encountered, but they are the same information

Ladislav Mecir (talk) 17:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav , saw this too, agree, we must be thinking the same things. suggest to keep the second sentence in line with the commodity argument, bloombergs new price info service, rather than exchange rate, which reminds everyone of money (!?%&*#) "Bitcoin's price has fluctuated very much." I think the terms wild and extreme shouldn't be used, are sensationalizing WP:ASTONISH and thus editorializing. thanks for bringing it up. --Wuerzele (talk) 20:21, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion "exchange rate" should be changed to "price" in the first sentence. "Exchange rate" is normally used meaning a foreign exchange rate between two different national currencies. Bitcoin has no nationality. It is a universal medium of exchange. Bitcoin is never a foreign exchange. I do agree that a price is the exchange rate at which a bitcoin and another economic item is exchanged. The term "exchange rate" is normally associated with foreign exchange.SpiltOctacle (talk) 20:50, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

[User:Wuerzele|Wuerzele]], in fact, there is the information from Mark T. Williams specifying how large the volatility is. That makes any weasel formulation (including "fluctuating very much") superfluous. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:25, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

SpiltOctacle re '"exchange rate" should be changed to "price"' - your arguments are very weak, based just on WP:OR; "exchange rate" can be used whenever exchange is performed, especially when it is used by reliable sources. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:29, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I was just making an honest and good faith suggestion. Will avoid it in future.SpiltOctacle (talk) 22:01, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

'You don´t have to attribute WP:OR to me' - I never did. I attributed it to the idea that "exchange rate" cannot be used for some contrived reason. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:01, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

I changed the quote about the "price of bitcoins has fluctuated wildly." The citation says "wild gyrations" but doesn't specifically state wild price gyrations. Fleetham (talk) 22:35, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

this is the most disingenious edit you could do, and it is typical of your disruptive editing behavior. your edit ignores etiquette and discussion, (and this is no personal attack, merely facts, read the policy). to me, you shoot from the hip, and you do it knowingly, have been doing it for years, despite others pointing it out.--Wuerzele (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: Just a friendly reminder... You said about the below two quotes from the article that you "prefer to... keep just one of the sentences..." I previously removed the 'fluctuated wildly' one, so no need to delete the other one, too!

• "Bitcoin has an extremely volatile exchange rate"
• "The price of bitcoins has fluctuated wildly..."

Fleetham (talk) 20:30, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the "extremely volatile price" is unspecific. It is also superfluous, since the specific information is available. Certainly, even 6 times the volatility of gold would be extreme, however, 7 times volatility of gold is not just "extreme", it is higher than 6 times volatility of gold. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:50, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Insisting on the unspecific information is like insisting to write that RMS Titanic was "long" when knowing the length was 269.0 m. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:06, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Having a "non-specific" measure of volatility is important because it provides context for those who are unfamiliar with what is considered a "normal" amount of volatility. Simply saying something is "1000 units" or "10 times bigger than a thingamajig" is specific but also meaningless for anyone who is unfamiliar with the magnitude of a unit or the size of a thingamajig. There is no WP policy that insists on removing unspecific measures, and when I add the sentence back to the article with a new citation I trust that you won't remove it! Fleetham (talk) 22:17, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

Just a small roundup of sources that refer to bitcoin as being very volatile:

• "Bitcoin Crashes, Continues To Be Extremely Volatile" valuewalk.com
• "It makes sense that a startup currency would be highly volatile..." Forbes
• "Bitcoin is extremely volatile right now" Washington Post
• "bitcoin is also known to be extremely volatile" coinreport.net
• "The Bitcoin market is extremely volatile" Delaware County News Network
• "Bitcoin is extremely volatile" The Darien Times
• "The assumption that Bitcoin is a bubble comes from the digital currency’s extreme volatility." bitcoinmagazine.com

Fleetham (talk) 22:36, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

"Having a "non-specific" measure of volatility is important because it provides context for those who are unfamiliar with what is considered a "normal" amount of volatility." - that is actually not the case, if the "information" provided does not give any useful comparison. Certainly, the specific information provided by Mark T. Williams gives a useful comparison, since it compares the volatility to both gold and S&P 500. The "information" that the volatility is "extreme" is totally useless for anybody unfamiliar with volatility since it does compare it to anything at all. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 05:38, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

context does not mean comparison. Fleetham (talk) 07:49, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, I see that I should make it understandable. Using your terminology, there is absolutely no "context" in the "volatility is extreme" formulation. For it to provide at least some context, it would be necessary to specify the group in which the volatility is extreme (maximal). Stating "volatility is extreme" without providing the context does not provide any information at all. For example, if taking a group containig just one element (bitcoin), bitcoin surely would be both maximal and minimal, i.e., extreme in the group. Does that provide any information at all? No. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 15:46, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, I think that saying "volatility is extreme" does provide context. And I'm not sure I understand your "bitcoin is wholly unique" argument above. The very fact that it does have high volatility is an argument for the fact that bitcoin is not one of a kind. I mean, it's like I'm saying, "whales have big flippers," and you're saying "whales aren't fish!" Yes, but they still have big flippers. If you take a look at all the things that have volatility, you'll find that few are as volatile as bitcoin. Fleetham (talk) 22:41, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

"I'm not sure I understand your "bitcoin is wholly unique" argument above." - that is because I did not make it. You just did not understand the implications of the example I made. Let's make another simple example, this time it should be more clear. A locomotive of 5 m length may be extreme (minimal) in some group of locomotives, being relatively small to other members of the group. However, if taken as a member of a group of locomotives under 10 m it may be average size. As a member of a group of locomotive models it may even be huge compared to other locomotive models. Thus, without providing context, saying something is "extreme" does not give any information at all. Yet another example concerning bitcoin: Mark T. Williams wisely and rightly chose a group containg 3 members: bitcoin, gold, S&P 500. If he used a group containing just two elements, then, perhaps surprisingly for you, both members would be extreme in the group, one being minimal and the other being maximal. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:03, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, why do you object to mentioning it on the page then? From what you're saying, as far as I can understand, there's no reason not to mention it... Fleetham (talk) 07:08, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I already demonstrated that the sentence mentioning that the volatility is extreme without providing some "context" is uninformative. I think that should be clear now. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 10:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Banks

(Personal attack removed) Fleetham (talk) 22:33, 1 May 2014 (UTC) (Personal attack removed) Fleetham (talk) 21:09, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Fleetham, you reverted a change I made here without discussion. Your edit summary WP:FUTURE does not fit. Large financial institutions have become increasingly bullish. This isnt future and is perfectly true. I wrote this, because Bank of America isnt "just a bank", neither is Bloomberg LP and its financial institutions that are getting into the game and need to be in this article. Please revert your edit.--Wuerzele (talk) 20:38, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

User:Fleetham you also reverted my other addition about the development of high speed trading. You found a mistake: i wrote 'launch' instead of 'development'. Good! so why not correct it? you deleted wholesale, and THIS IS HOSTILE BEHAVIOR. YOU KNOW THERE ARE OTHER WAYS of communicating /editing. Warning: If you revert one more time today, I will report you again. --Wuerzele (talk) 21:14, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Restored ---Wuerzele (talk) 05:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC) User:Fleetham, I havent received a response to teh above in a week.

Besides the above reversals , on May 1 you also deleted 320,000 terminals I had included. I find this information is relevant. It gives an idea of the magnitude of Bitcoin exposure to Wall Street traders. I reinserted it absent other opinions by Ladislav or MonteDaCunca, for example.

Besides the above reversals you also reinserted , and changed the semicolon that clearly conjoined the 2 sentences to a period, under "Price" (which you also changed to Price and Volatility) The sentences are sourced from the same reference as I clearly communicated to you . It is your duty to read the sources and respect a good faith edit. I find it hostile to reinsert the despite my information that its in the source. I think you owe me an apology.

you have been told that you overreference by several users in the past. Per WP:Citation overkill, if one source supports consecutive sentences in the same paragraph, one citation of it at the end of the final sentence is sufficient. It is not necessary to include a citation for each individual consecutive sentence, as this is overkill.citations should be placed at the end of the passage that they support. --Wuerzele (talk) 06:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

A missing notable thing about bitcoin

Antonopoulos says bitcoin is the first currency not controlled by government or a company. While the lead mentions it isn't controlled by a single entity it doesn't state that it is the first currency to do so. Shouldn't that be included? - Shiftchange (talk) 07:27, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, please do add it! I'm not sure the lede is the best place to do so, but it should be included in the article. Fleetham (talk) 08:16, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I would not say it is the first. In history, there were many currencies not controlled by government or a company. The fact is, though, that at present currencies are controlled by government or a company, bitcoin being an exception. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 14:16, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir Please specify which company/ies control which currencies in which ways?

All (the many) cryptocurrencies - appearing daily - are not controlled by government: bitcoin is not an exception. Bitcoin is part of the norm that cryptocurrencies are created outside the control of central banks/monetary authorities/governments.

@ Shiftchange The lede refers to central banks (which are set up by governments, but are generally policy independent from governments) by example. So, the reality that bitcoin is not controlled by government is already in the lede.

MonteDaCunca (talk) 17:35, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Bitcoin´s transfer costs apparently not "nominal"

Bitcoin Is an Expensive Way to Pay for Stuff. See

It appears that the statement in the article that bitcoin is transferable at a "nominal" fee is misleading.

Maybe that statement should be improved.

MonteDaCunca (talk) 15:59, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

If you read the source carefully, you will find out that the source does not speak about "fee" but about "transfer costs", which is not the same. Also, the source is rather mistaken, counting inflation (in the sense of increase of the supply) into the transfer costs. For the comparison to be realistic, the source would need to do the same for all cases it compares, which it does not do. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 18:15, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

@ Ladislav Mecir So, you would thus state that bitcoin transfers are done at a nominal cost - almost for free or an immaterial cost?MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:21, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I think that there is nothing wrong in finding a source for the information and put the reference in. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 18:29, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

Aha, well, checking the sources already present in the article, I think that they already suffice to verify the sentence. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 18:48, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

So the article has a reference(s) to the fact that bitcoin transactions are basically almost free of charge or at a nominal, almost immaterial cost and the Bloomberg columnist is completely mistaken? Could you please indicate that reference(s)? Do we still mention the contrary opinion? Or is that not notable from Bloomberg? MonteDaCunca (talk) 19:06, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

It's hard to find a WP:RS reliable source for this. First, there's a fee paid to Bitcoin "miners" for inclusion in the block chain. The current default fee is 0.0001 BTC per simple transaction. This is simply a default value in the most popular client program. The client can set a higher or lower fee. Transactions with higher fees are processed first, which only matters during very busy periods. (Per [1] but not RS.) There are other costs. Dealers such as Coinbase have a buy-sell spread.[2] Coinbase has a small spread, but with some Bitcoin ATMs it's much higher, plus there's a fee.[3] Bitcoin exchanges have trading fees, and sometimes withdrawal fees. There's also a sizable risk associated with Bitcoin exchanges; over half of them have failed, including the once-largest Mt Gox. It's reasonable to say that Bitcoin-only transactions are cheap, but getting in and out of Bitcoin is substantially more expensive and risky. John Nagle (talk) 20:04, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

"So the article has a reference(s) to the fact that bitcoin transactions are basically almost free of charge" - the "Bitcoin pursues the mainstream" source mentions that transactions are accepted even with zero fee, the "Bitcoin primer" source also mentions the transaction fee. I do not want to question the notability of the Bloomberg source. The source states that it uses its own definition of "transaction costs" different from transaction fee, and it also mentions that the additional amounts are paid neither by the payers nor by the payees, so they cannot be called "transaction fees" or compared to transaction fees of other payment methods, which use just transaction fees as paid by either the payer or the payee. I do not think the journalist is "mistaken". I do think that he states that there is a possibility to define some value called "transaction cost" different from "transaction fee". The problem is that he does not propose the "transaction cost" as a notion applicable to other payment methods, which automatically renders it unuseful for comparisons. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:10, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

'It appears that the statement in the article that bitcoin is transferable at a "nominal" fee is misleading.' - frankly, it is not, since the fee is "nominal". The journalist needed to define a completely different category "transaction cost", which he stated is not paid by either the payer or the payee. He knows and states in the article that he may be mistaken doing it this way. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:14, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm definitely with Mercir on this. The "nominal fee" mentioned refers to an optional transaction fee that can be added to a transaction and works like a tip. The Bloomberg article discusses how the mining reward acts as a tax on everyone who uses bitcoin, and the author is nice enough to note that this cost "isn't a transaction fee." Fleetham (talk) 04:53, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The citation is required in terms of WP policies for the term "nominal fee". The Bloomberg article has nothing to do with the citation for "nominal fee". I noted that the Bloomberg article stated the opposite. Fee and cost is the same thing. The term cost is well understood. It is well known that fee is also a cost. Please ignore the Bloomberg quote with reference to the citation request. MonteDaCunca (talk) 08:35, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me, I may be wrong, that you are pretending that I was giving the Bloomberg quote as the required reference. I did not. You keep referring the Bloomberg reference. The Bloomberg article has to do with the opposite of "nominal fee". It has to do with "expensive" which is the opposite of nominal fee. MonteDaCunca (talk) 08:51, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Mr Mecir, I think it is a punishable offense on WP to remove a citation request without giving the citation. Please don´t do it again. Someone may sancion you here on WP for doing that.MonteDaCunca (talk) 09:04, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

A citation request cannot be removed without giving the citation. As per WP rules.

As a procedural point, I believe that MonteDaCuna is right on this. Per WP:BRD you can revert to a prior consensus for content changes, but you cannot remove tags like "citation needed", "dubious - discuss" or "the neutrality of this page is disputed". As a substantive point, I'm not sure the average fee can be considered nominal anymore, unless you compare it to the fees for international transactions. The fee mechanism in bitcoin-qt is being overhauled precisely because fees had become unreasonable. Martijn Meijering (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

"I'm not sure the average fee can be considered nominal" - the statement does not tell anything about "average". It states that users can pay a nominal fee, which is verified. The average is not mentioned at all. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 22:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I added the word average, but I'm referring to the same thing as the cited source, the optional transaction fee. Averaging is appropriate, because while the fee is optional, the transaction may be dropped unless the fee is paid. The average is therefore a good measure of the actual fees that are paid. I wasn't disputing that we have a source for the nominal fee, I'm pointing out that the source may be wrong or rather outdated. We'd need an additional source if we want to change the text to reflect that, I'm merely sharing a piece of information. Maybe we should find a source that describes recent changes to the default fee mechanism, why they were made, what future changes are planned etc. Shouldn't be too difficult, I'll see if I can find anything appropriate. Martijn Meijering (talk) 13:21, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

An editor removed the citation request for "nominal" and stated that the article states that fees are from zero to 2%. Zero is nominal, but .25%, .5%, .75%, 1%, 1.25%, 1.5%, 1.72%, 2%, etc, etc are not nominal. Editor John Nagel, above, said bitcoin fees are cheap. We all know that cheap is not nominal. A company worth 100 billion USD being bought for 30 billion USD is cheap, but the $30 Billion is not a nominal value. If bitcoin fees were nominal surely it must be very easy to google for "bitcoin fee nominal" and get a WP Reliable Sources if that were true? MonteDaCunca (talk) 10:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The satement is: "Users can buy, send, and receive bitcoins electronically for a nominal fee" Note the can word. The source stating that users are allowed to pay nothing confirms that they can do that. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 15:14, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

The article states "transaction fees are lower than the 2–3% typically imposed by credit card processors." That statement is not equal to "bitcoin transaction fees are nominal". MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:27, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Re: 'The citation is required in terms of WP policies for the term "nominal fee"' - I pointed out that the citation existed in the article, and was attached to the subsequent sentence.

However, to make the things absolutely clear even for MonteDaCunca

If you would like others to regard you as a valued editor please immediately stop the personal attacks on MonteDaCunca. Comment on the content not the contributor. Wikipedia is written by people who have a wide diversity of opinions. Wikipedia tries hard to make sure articles have a neutral point of view. Your recent edit above: "However, to make the things absolutely clear even for MonteDaCunca" seems less than neutral to me. It is rather insulting. Please read and follow WP:NPA.MonteDaCunca (talk) 01:24, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

I rearranged the citation to make it clear that it applies to the "nominal fee" formulation. The formulation in the article does not state that the fee must be nominal at average, or for every user, it just states that users can make transfer, etc., for a nominal fee, which is verified by the statement in the source mentioning nothing as a possible fee. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 15:34, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, consensus is that the "nominal fee" bit is correct. And "nominal" does not mean "nothing" or "free." A nominal amount is a very small amount. Please don't revert, MonteDaCunca. Fleetham (talk) 16:49, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

Mr. Fleetham: My first response (I have more to everyone) to you, specifically, is that Martijn Meijering (talk), who seems to be well versed in WP procedures, states above: "The fee mechanism in bitcoin-qt is being overhauled precisely because fees had become UNREASONABLE. I know, for a fact, that "UNREASONABLE" is not the same as "nominal": that I am absolutely sure of, even though Mr Mecir doubts my basic intellectual abilities - tsk, tsk. tsk. Mau, Mau, Mr Mecir! That statement by Mr Meijering puts an overwhelming onus on me to revert, which I will do in due course.MonteDaCunca (talk) 17:36, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I am confident that everyone here will agree that WP is about consensus. At the moment here on the talk page we have:

Mecir : nominal

Fleetham : nominal

John Nagel : cheap

Meijering : unreasonable (no-where even near nominal) The whole fee structure is to be overhauled.

MonteDaCunca: expensive - per Bloomberg.(also no-where near nominal)

NO citation for " Users can buy, send, and receive bitcoins electronically for a nominal fee." As Fleetham pointed out: nominal does NOT mean free or nothing. I agree with Fleetham. The current citation does not satisfy the request made.

I think the above is one of the indications why we need a specific citation - from a reliable source - for the statement that " Users can buy, send, and receive bitcoins electronically for a nominal fee.""

I agree - as I have stated above (which Fleetham and Mecir ignore) - that bitcoin fees can be zero (nothing) - see above. Yes. And also nominal. And also .25%, and also .5%, and also .75%, and also 1%, and also 1.25%, and also 1.5% and also 1.75%, upto close to 2%. It is very clear from all these different fee levels that, yes, free and nominal(the same) are two levels (one?), but, it is definitely NOT the general case. If someone should ask: how much are bitcoin fees? Then the answer: Bitcoin fees are generally nominal (as stated in the article) would NOT be correct. It certainly would be a misleading answer. Yes, they can be nominal, but, that is certainly not the GENERAL case. I am sure we all agree on this point.

Compromise: I suggest we add after "a nominal fee" "to just under a 2% fee." Thus: nominal fee stays and we add "to just under 2%." I think that is very close to correct. What is your response?MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:13, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

That would cover the whole fee range from nothing (free) all the way to just under 2%: the perfect answer. It is impossible for anyone (including Mecir and Fleetham) to be against this solution.MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

And people would not laugh at WP (us) for possibly misleading them (albeit unknowingly) that bitcoin fees are generally NOMINAL in real value - which they aren´t.MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:31, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

In the lede, all the article states is (a) "Users can buy, send, and receive bitcoins electronically for a NOMINAL fee" as if that is the GENERAL case (completely untrue - a lie, in fact) and (b) "merchants have an incentive to accept the currency because transaction fees are lower than the 2–3% typically imposed by credit card processors." Yes, they are generally NOMINAL - according to the article which is NOT TRUE - and, yes, NOMINAL is lower than 2-3%. There is currently NO specific content in the article that bitcoin fees can be from .25% to just under 2%. Everyone knows 1.75% is NOT NOMINAL when Kipetty states in Capital in the 21st Century that capital earns 3%. Imagine paying 1.75% fees when capital only grows at 3%!! 1.75% is NOT NOMINAL: it is MORE THAN 50% of your capital growth! MonteDaCunca (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I think everybody should be happy now. The current statement in the article "Users can send and receive bitcoins electronically for, from a nominal, to just under a 2% fee" with the Ladislav Mecir (talk New York Times reference "Fees for a merchant accepting bitcoin payments often range from nothing to less than 2 percent" now correctly indicates that bitcoin fees are not generally "nominal" but range from nominal to less than 2 percent. MonteDaCunca (talk) 03:36, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

OK, let's talk about accuracy of the formulation relative to the source. You correctly read: "...range from nothing to less than 2 percent...".

• Why, then, you felt the need to start the range at "nominal", which is a small fee higher than "nothing"?
• Why do you state "just under two percent", when "less than 2 percent" is not indicating that?
• Why do you tell your formulation is consensual, when nobody approved it? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:11, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

As an opening preamble: In my honest and humble opinion, I do not think your interrogative or courtroom style is very conducive to consensus building. This is not the Oscar Pistorius trial and you are not Gerrie Nel. We are here to work together as a team, not to put each other through the Inquisition. Just my friendly opinion. I think you are a person with legal training. Fine. But, I don´t think we should treat this like a courtroom.

I have already changed the article to state the exact quote in the New York Times reference, namely "from nothing to less than 2 percent". Thus, absolutely no area for disagreement. Now, Mr. Gerrie Nel, let me answer your Inquisition, My Lady! :-) :-)

I originally "felt the need to start the range at "nominal", which is a small fee higher than "nothing"", because "nominal" was already in the text.

I originally stated (past tense) "just under two percent", when "less than 2 percent" is not exactly the same

because I am trained in the field of economics and the European Central Bank states:

"The ECB’s Governing Council has announced a quantitative definition of price stability:

"Price stability is defined as a year-on-year increase in the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area of below 2%."

The Governing Council has also clarified that, in the pursuit of price stability, it aims to maintain inflation rates below, but close to, 2% over the medium term."

As you can see from the above, I am used to the idea that a target "below 2%" would normally be "below, but close to, 2%".

Your very serious concern and final question regarding my original formulation is now irrelevant since I have already changed it (before I started answering all your questions) to the exact formulation in the source which should now result in complete consensus: the formulation in the article is 100% equal to the formulation in the source.MonteDaCunca (talk) 09:12, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

Ok, let´s talk about you Ladislav Mecir (talk.

• Why, then, do you want to know the motivation behind my edits, when this is not the normal procedure on WP?
• Is there a WP Policy that is about explaining your motivations for your edits? For example WP: MOTIVATION?
• Is MOTIVATION one of the pillars of WP policy, like WP:VERIFIABILITY and WP:NOTABILITY?
• What is your motivation behind asking me to EXPLAIN my motivations?
• Are you trained in the legal profession or in any legal area?
• Are you a public prosecutor in normal life?
• Were you planning to delete my edits and justify your deletions as "wrong or unacceptable motivations"? I am really perplexed.

MonteDaCunca (talk) 12:39, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

unindent. The lede currently states "Users can send and receive bitcoins electronically for a fee ranging "from nothing to less than 2 percent"". This is better than claiming nominal, but is not quite accurate in that 2 % is an arbitrary figure. In truth the miners transaction fee can be zero up to 100 %. Any source that claims it's limited to 2 % is mistaken or oversimplifying. The New York Times source actually states "Fees for a merchant accepting bitcoin payments often range from nothing to less than 2 percent". It's refering to merchant transactions, not pure person to person (or better address to address) bitcoin blockchain-mediated transactions.

How to phrase that idea in the lede though?

I suggest unambiguously separating the miner's transaction fee (which can be zero up to 100%) from off-blockchain fees charged by entities (eg. exchanges, payment processors). Removing the 2 % mention would be a start.

The next sentence is also misleading: "Bitcoin as a form of payment for products and services has seen growth,[13] and merchants have an incentive to accept the currency because transaction fees are lower than the 2–3% typically imposed by credit card processors".

Maybe rephrase this as "... because total transaction fees/costs can be made lower than ... "? -84user (talk) 09:23, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Do you have citations? Fleetham (talk) 10:01, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

The claim "miner's transaction fee (which can be zero up to 100%)" could be cited from Satoshi's paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, page 4, section 6.: "The incentive can also be funded with transaction fees. If the output value of a transaction is less than its input value, the difference is a transaction fee that is added to the incentive value of the block containing the transaction." Although "arbitrary, possibly zero" could be better phrasing given [4] and [5]. We could leave the full details to the body as they are complex and would confuse the reader. An academic secondary source could be [6] section 4.2. -84user (talk) 20:57, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

84user (talk I agree with you that "I suggest unambiguously separating the miner's transaction fee (which can be zero up to 100%) from off-blockchain fees charged by entities (eg. exchanges, payment processors)." The two need to be separated. MonteDaCunca (talk) 09:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

84user (talk Thank you very much for your very valuable input. I think we all agree that the matter of "bitcoin fees" has three aspects:

1. It is certainly not NOMINAL as some people tried to assert. It is natural that bitcoin price speculators would like to push this idea. That is fine. That is normal for speculators to do that. Nothing wrong with that. We now know, however, that fees are NOT normally NOMINAL. I think that matter has been properly resolved.

2. There are merchant fees

and

3. There are miners´ fees,

The article needs to show this. The article needs to show, with citations, what merchant fees are and what miners' fees are, in general.

MonteDaCunca (talk) 17:30, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Apropos: The following 2 sentences "Payers have an incentive to include transaction fees because their transactions will likely be added to the block chain sooner; miners can choose which transactions to process[citation needed] and prefer to include those that pay fees." are superfluous IMHO (in my humble opinion), because already stated in the preceding sentence, which quotes Bitcoinfoundation (better source needed). I am for deleting those 2 sentences, FYI Fleetham and Ladislav.

MonteDaCunca and 84user feel free to describe merchant and miner's fees; there's just the little problem of finding the sources for it... :-) I've only seen the murky term "transaction fees". --Wuerzele (talk) 06:02, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Wuerzele With regard to finding/not finding a source: On the Citation template WP policy specifically asks editors not to remove an item they know is correct just because they cannot find an appropriate reference. Very accommodative and very good approach. I suppose it is called good judgement. MonteDaCunca (talk) 06:24, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

MonteDaCunca Fair enough. (I dont think I removed anything, or did I ? ) Just be mindful to find a ref for those terms, because someone may say its been sitting there long enough, needs WP:VERIFIABILITY.--Wuerzele (talk) 01:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Recent changes to article lead

Am I to understand that MonteDaCunca must be allowed to put in any false statement and mark it ? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 18:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

I also want to point out that it was MonteDaCunca that both put the sentence in and marked it . Ladislav Mecir (talk) 18:09, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Mecir, when you read this talk page, previous topic, you will see that the statement was offered by another editor, 84 something. He/she supplied some useful info regarding fees here on the talk page. I put in the statement and asked for a citation, just like Fleetham asked for a citation here on the talk page. We have to treat all editors with respect. That is why I asked for a citation. If no citation is supplied, I am not sure about the time period that has to be allowed, maybe one month or so, then we simply remove the statement. I personally know almost nothing about bitcoin fees. Editor 84 seemed to be well-informed about the subject of bitcoin fees. He actually suggested some changes to the article. I made the suggested changes to the article, BUT, I asked for citations, because I, personally, have no idea whether the statement is completely false or not. But, we have to show respect to the editor. That is why I asked for a citation in the article, just like Fleetham enquired about citations in the talk page. It would be better to follow WP procedures and leave the statement in, as offered, and leave the citation request in. Remove it after the correct period, if no ¨citation is provided. The worst part here, is that you remove a citation request. That is completely forbidden. I have no idea whether the statement is false or not. That is why we have to follow WP procedure and ask for a citation. It is quite simple actually. I agree it must be frustrating to you if you know that the statement is completely false. I honestly know almost nothing about bitcoin fees. I don´t know whether it is false or not. I only know we have to show respect to all editors and follow WP procedures.MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:38, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) Fleetham (talk) 05:16, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Citation for nominal fee

I added the citation as researched by 84user to the consensual wording of the sentence:

Users can send and receive bitcoins electronically for a nominal fee using wallet software on a personal computer, mobile device, or a web application.

Previously, there were questions whether the above formulation was correct/verifiable, so I think that the citation verifying the formulation is of use. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Your reference is not for USERS .. USING.. MOBILE DEVICE or for NOMINAL FEE. Your reference is for transaction fees during mining. A user, 84, suggested disambiguation of above. Please read his comments. And please stop edit warring. Accept the verifialble facts as stated above and on the article. Thank you.MonteDaCunca (talk) 10:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

In this case I saw MonteDaCunca removing the citation 3 times in a short period of time. I know that Fleetham and Wuerzele are interested in the article lead wording, that is why I would like them to contribute to this discussion. Thanks. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 10:05, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Plse see comment above by John Nagle (talk

by -84user and by editor Meijring regarding this subject above.

I do not think you will find anyone agreeing that a reference regarding transactions fees during mining refers to users using a mobile device or referring to the phrase "nominal fee". MonteDaCunca (talk) 10:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Just restore the citation and modify the article text to fit the source. Replace "nominal" by "arbitrary" or "optional" and replace "fee" with "miner's transaction fee". Something like this:

"Users electronically send and receive bitcoins including an arbitrary fee (insert cite here); they do this using various wallet software on a personal computer, mobile device, or web application. Some software enforces a standard possibly non-zero fee."

That's just one suggestion, there're many ways to phrase the concept. Cites for various software are not hard to find, see blockchain.info. -84user (talk) 11:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

84user (talk Is it possible to mine bitcoins on a mobile device?MonteDaCunca (talk) 12:02, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully irrelevant, see below. -84user (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Rather, do users actually carry out bitcoin mining on a mobile device, apparently a mobile phone on a notable and verifiable manner? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MonteDaCunca (talk • contribs) 12:08, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Also hopefully irrelevant, see below. -84user (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Clearly an "arbitrary fee" ONLY and exclusively refers to mining and nothing else. It does not refer to commercial transactions between clients on exchanges and shops and online ecommerce. You cannot buy bitcoins on an exchange and "arbitrarily" decide to pay a fee or not to pay a fee. You always pay a fee. The same is true in bitcoin commerce. I think it is best to separate fees into transactions fees in mining and bitcoin commerce fees. MonteDaCunca (talk) 12:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

No, true, who knows, who knows, unclear, agree. Hopefully clarified below. -84user (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

84user wrote: "Just restore the citation and modify the article text to fit the source." - thank you for a sensible suggestion. If wanting to modify the formulation, I would probably prefer "optional transaction fee", since it communicates (in my opinion) the fact that the transaction fee must be nonnegative better than the formulation "arbitrary fee". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree, even "optional miner's transaction fee" to make doubly clear we are discussing just the bitcoin protocol and not any intermediary service. Also, I erred in including "and receive" because the bitcoin protocol does not provide such a function (as far as I know). -84user (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

The basic problem remains: it is a wrong citation. The citation request is for "nominal fee" which is allegedly paid by "users" including on a mobile device. The citation offered by 84user is for transaction fees paid by miners and not for "users" making bitcoin payments including on a mobile device.MonteDaCunca (talk) 15:12, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

My suggestion avoids any need for a citation for "nominal" as that term should disappear from the article. I fail to understand what you mean by "transaction fee paid by miners" - this appears to be a confusion with the fees that miners get, they do not pay them. Noone is suggesting mining on a mobile device, that text should be discussing only the client to client transfer of bitcoins (in reality address to address, but better leave that for the technical details section). -84user (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

84user made a another very sensible suggestion: "I suggest unambiguously separating the miner's transaction fee (which can be zero up to 100%) from off-blockchain fees charged by entities (eg. exchanges, payment processors). Removing the 2 % mention would be a start."MonteDaCunca (talk) 15:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

The above is "to make the things absolutely clear even for " Ladislav Mecir.

The phrase "to make the things absolutely clear even for [insert honest, valuable contributor and good-faith editor name here]" was first used by Ladislav Mecir on this Bitcoin Talk Page with reference to me. Please see above. This phrase is obviously now freely available for use by anyone on Wikipedia. MonteDaCunca (talk) 15:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

It seems that it has become the norm here on Wikipedia for normal, honest and good faith editors to be treated like sub-human and stupid, half-beings like Ladislav Mecir treats me above. This is very sad, but, unfortunately, there is nothing we can do about it. This is how Wikipedia works. Take it, or leave. MonteDaCunca (talk) 17:49, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

So, Ladislav Mecir, merrily proceed with your further insults. You are securely protected because Wikipedia regards you as a "valued editor" and Wikipedia regards me as not a valued editor. MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:05, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

we'll, if you would like others to regard you as a valued editor please immediately stop the personal attacks on Mercir. Comment in the content not the contributor. Please read and follow WP:NPA. Fleetham (talk) 21:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

I notice you ignored Ladislav Mecir´s personal attack on me above: "to make the things absolutely clear even for MonteDaCunca". As you can see, my statement to him was in response to his ignored personal attack on me. Please read and follow WP:NPOV. MonteDaCunca (talk) 01:38, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

CN tag removed from unsourced material

@Wuerzele: Hi. In this recent edit, you removed a citation needed tag stating that no citation was needed because the source at the end of the paragraph supported the sentence. The sentence is question reads, "Access to price information has been difficult due to bitcoin's decentralized nature and lack of transparency." I've copied and pasted below the article you say supports that sentence. Could you please highlight the specific section? I haven't been able to find it.

Bloomberg to List Bitcoin Prices, Offering Key Stamp of Approval

More Than 320,000 Subscribers to the Firm's Terminals Will Now Have Access to Bitcoin Prices Bloomberg LP plans to list bitcoin prices on its financial data terminals, a move that could give the volatile digital currency a stamp of respectability and spark interest in U.S.-based trading platforms.

According to a blog post on Bloomberg's corporate website, the more than 320,000 subscribers to the firm's terminals will now have access to bitcoin prices from Kraken and Coinbase, both of San Francisco. Kraken bills itself as a bitcoin exchange while Coinbase, which provides payment processing for merchants and digital wallets for individuals, functions more as a broker-dealer. One person familiar with Bloomberg's decision said it was made in response to requests from hundreds of customers wanting access to bitcoin prices. The facility, which allows users to chart prices, has been in development since last year.

"While bitcoin and other virtual currency markets are still nascent, they represent an interesting intersection of finance and technology," wrote Tod Van Name, Bloomberg global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities in the blog post. "Given that Bloomberg sits squarely at that intersection, providing pricing for this underdeveloped market is a natural fit for us."

He added that the move reflects the firm's objective of bringing transparency to "all markets, even digital currencies."

Bloomberg competes with Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, in news and other areas. Dow Jones is owned by News Corp. NWSA +1.65%

In relaying prices from the two exchanges, Bloomberg's move doesn't enhance or standardize existing prices like a newly engineered index from multiple price feeds would. The financial data provider said its move didn't amount to an endorsement or guarantee of bitcoin and that customers wouldn't be able to trade the digital currency on a Bloomberg terminal.

Still, investors could welcome the news as a vote of confidence in bitcoin, which has seen its price halved since December following a string of negative developments.

Bloomberg terminals, a fixture on trading desks across Wall Street, are a key part of the trading infrastructure used by banks, hedge funds and other deep-pocketed professional investors, a group whose money could bring significantly more liquidity to bitcoin trading.

"On Wall Street, an investible asset class is considered to be something that's quoted on the Bloomberg terminal," says Barry Silbert, chief executive of SecondMarket Inc., which launched a bitcoin investment fund in September. He has predicted once Bloomberg quotes a bitcoin price it would open it the currency up to "substantial institutional investor interest."

The blog post hinted that more bitcoin products could be in the works, telling readers to "stay tuned for more." It wasn't clear whether a price index, trading functionality or some other enhancement was under consideration.

Bloomberg's decision to draw prices from Kraken and Coinbase could provide a boost to those firms, raising their profile among professional investors. For Kraken in particular, which like Coinbase and other U.S.-based bitcoin businesses has been busily gathering U.S. regulatory backing for its operation, it could help it compete with offshore exchanges such as Slovenia-based Bitstamp and Bulgaria-based BTC-e, currently the two biggest bitcoin exchanges.

Bloomberg's decision to publish bitcoin prices coincides with moves to develop high-tech, federally regulated exchanges that would cater to professional investors in the digital currency rather than the individuals who have comprised most of the trading volume until now. These include a new platform targeted at high-frequency trading firms launched by Atlas ATS in New York and Hong Kong, one from London-based Coinfloor, which claims to the first auditable bitcoin exchange, and a separate SecondMarket project to build an exchange for institutional investors.

Digital-currency enthusiasts on Wall Street and pro-bitcoin venture capitalists argue these new exchanges are needed to generate the kind of trading volumes that would smooth out bitcoin's price, whose volatility is seen as an impediment to its widespread adoption.

According to an index from news site Coindesk, bitcoin's price soared last year from $13.51 at the end of 2012 to an all-time high of $1,151.30 on Dec. 4. That was driven in part by increased adoption as businesses world-wide began accepting payments in the digital currency and as U.S. regulators signaled an unexpectedly accommodative stance toward the new technology.

But since then, the price has fallen sharply amid concerns over a crackdown in China, a hacking attack that briefly crippled the digital currency's core network, and the collapse of Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the dominant bitcoin exchange.

Thanks, Fleetham (talk) 18:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Fleetham , Thanks for pasting the article here.

the term transparency is here: the move reflects the firm's objective of bringing transparency to "all markets, even digital currencies." the term "access to bitcoin prices" is here: a person familiar with Bloomberg's decision said it was made in response to requests from hundreds of customers wanting access to bitcoin prices. I dont see a quote for access to price info being difficult. Maybe it was in teh paper version. You may know they differ quite a bit. I found another ref for that from 20 Feb 2014 should you find it necessary--Wuerzele (talk) 07:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay... so I guess what your saying is that you have no source to support the claim, "access to price information has been difficult due to bitcoin's decentralized nature and lack of transparency"?

First, you need something that states, "access to price information has been difficult".

Second, you need something that says this difficulty is due to "bitcoin's decentralized nature and lack of transparency".

Neither your original source nor the link you just posted do this. Fleetham (talk) 07:29, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Unit of account

"bitcoin" is a currency unit of account since bitcoin is a digital currency as the German ruling found. How do you count how many bitcoins there are in an electronic wallet or on an exchange, etc?

However, it is not used as a unit of account in accounting, to price all items in the economy, calculate the Consumer Price Index, etc.: it does not perform the "monetary" unit of account function for which it has to be perfectly stable (or assumed to be perfectly stable - generally relatively stable, like fiat currencies) in real value (speculators actually hope it will eventually increase in price continuously).

But, it is a unit of account since it is a digital currency. Its unit is 1 and it can then be in decimal fractions of 1. MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:30, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ledger is an accounting term. It is only possible to make entries in an account in a ledger in terms of a unit of account. MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:52, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

In the lead it is stated that bitcoin is a unit of account. Then later on it is stated that it is not a unit of account in terms of a function of money. It is thus very useful to show the difference between currency unit of account (every currency is always expressed in at least its basic unit of account, normally 1) and the monetary function "unit of account" which is the "accounting" unit of account.MonteDaCunca (talk) 20:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The change replacing the standard, widely used, and covered by a Wikipedia article "unit of account" term by a nonstandard, original, and not attributable to reliable sources "accounting unit of account" term is mistaken. There is no such notion in the literature; please respect the Wikipedia:No original research policy. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 20:18, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

"There is not such notion in the literature". Ask any accountant and he/she will tell you you are making a big mistake. I think you are making a mistake. Understanding something, is not the same as original research. Unit of account in accounting is not an original term I now first identified here on WP. See, for example: "In cases where people wish to keep track of their financial activities, they also use units of account in a practice known as accounting." The google search "Unit of account in accounting" produces 67 300 000 results.MonteDaCunca (talk) 20:42, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

You state: ""accounting unit of account" term is mistaken. There is no such notion in the literature" Well look at this: What is unit of account? Unit by which value of a thing is accounted.

And this: economics the function of money that enables the user to keep accounts,

And this: a monetary denomination used for accounting purposes,

there are 67 million more according to google

MonteDaCunca (talk) 20:58, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

The WP article Unit of account also states: "Inflation destroys the assumption that the unit of account is stable which is the basis of classic accountancy. In such circumstances, historical values registered in accountancy books become heterogeneous amounts measured in different units. The use of such data under traditional accounting methods without previous correction often leads to invalid results.

Unit of account is all about accounting because it is one of the three functions of money and money is used as the unit of account in accounting.

MonteDaCunca (talk) 21:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Ladislav Mecir Thus, can you please take back your accusation that I am doing original research here on WP. I am sure you can see by now that you have made a mistake. Or do you maintain that unit of account now has nothing, has had nothing in the past and will never in the future have anything to do with accounting? How do you suggest the world economy would then function without using the monetary unit of account in accounting? Please explain. It would be a revolution to do accounting without a monetary unit of account. We are open to your suggestions. MonteDaCunca (talk) 21:40, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, unless Mercir has strong objections, I don't see any reason to not say "bitcoin is the unit of account for the bitcoin system." That seems sort of self evident. Fleetham (talk) 04:59, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I have no objections at all against using the "unit of account" term. My above objections were against the edit replacing the "unit of account" formulation by "accounting unit of account". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:50, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

In the lead it is stated that Bitcoin uses its own unit of account. Then further down it was stated that it is not commonly used as a unit of account. That was confusing. I changed it to not being commonly used as an accounting unit of account. (Personal attack removed) MonteDaCunca (talk) 08:56, 12 May 2014 (UTC)~

@MonteDaCunca: I do have to agree with Mercir on objecting to the formulation "accounting unit of account." What does that mean? Also, follow WP:NPA. This is the second time I've had to ask. Fleetham (talk) 15:19, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

See above. This is waste of time. MonteDaCunca (talk) 16:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Please remember to remain WP:CIVIL. No need for all-caps, and no place for personal attacks. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:01, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Martijn Meijering Please be civil. Please stop your personal attacks on me. MonteDaCunca (talk) 16:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Reminding people to remain WP:CIVIL does not constitute a personal attack, let alone multiple attacks. Disruptive editors tend to dig their own graves and end up blocked. Martijn Meijering (talk) 16:39, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Martijn Meijering Please inform me: What must I do when I have written a detailed explanation of "accounting unit of account" in this sub-section above and then I am asked: what do you mean by "accounting unit of account" ?? I suppose your answer will now be: what do you mean with "accounting unit of account"? Please ask me that question too. MonteDaCunca (talk) 16:15, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Year of next halving of bitcoins mined per block changed from 2017 to 2016.

The article previously gave 2017 as the year in which bitcoins mined per block is expected to fall from 25 to 12.5. This is incorrect. The last halving was in 2012 with changes occurring roughly every 4 years. The next halving is expected to occur around min 2016 as per http://bitcoinclock.com/. Technically the change will occur after exactly 210,000 blocks have been mined since the last change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aussiejohn (talk • contribs) 05:27, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Secure storage or safe-deposit box

About Bitcoin#Security, another interesting issue is the "secure storage" (bitcoins banks), like "Xapo bank". --Krauss (talk) 16:28, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Regarding bitcoin as a "real currency"

It has come to my attention that there is some degree of an edit war regarding whether or not bitcoin is a "real currency". An assertion in the first paragraph specifically calls bitcoin "not a real currency". This statement lacks citation, is clearly a controversial one, and may be impossible to source. There may have been cases of this in the past, but it is common sense that whether or not something is "real" or "true" is a matter of opinion. Please read WP:IRS. For the time being, I have removed any assertion that the currency is "real" or "not real". If anyone can provide a significant reliable source from an authority on whether or not currencies are real, you are free to change it providing citation from that source. Teggles (talk) 09:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

As I understand it, no citation is needed in the lede as long as citations exist in the body of the article. As they do, I don't feel a citation is needed. I've restored the material in a slightly modified format pending discussion per WP:STATUSQUO. Fleetham (talk)

We have citations and lots of arguments in both ways, so we can use something like "While not considered an standard currency..." instead of "While not considered a true currency..." I'll put it that way and wait to see if this is a good fit for most people.

--Jaumenuez (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure that "we have citations and lots of arguments in both ways." Please provide them... Fleetham (talk) 09:55, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

We don't have citations for either view, we have an opinion blog post. While you are correct that citations are only required in the body of the article, the citation in question is opinion-based. The issue is that this opinion is being presented as fact. Lous Woodhill is not an authority on whether or not a currency is real or true. Teggles (talk) 10:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

For added point, we have a blog post from the exact same website stating that Bitcoin is, in fact, real money -- this one backed by a US judge. Regardless, I am worried the statement boils down to a "no true scotsman" argument. Dictionary definitions of currency hold that it can be in any form, and in actual use as a medium exchange. Bitcoin fits this definition. If we are not holding it to this definition, which definition are we holding it to? Teggles (talk) 10:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Lastly, I think it's relevant to point out that the Bitcoin#Not classified as money section is full of original research, and most of it drawing far (or even contradicting) the sources, and even approaches the topic with much less certainty than the intro. The only definite source it has refers to the People's Bank of China. Does the Bank of China have the last word on whether something is a "real currency" or not, and do their views override that of a U.S. judge? I urge you to consider a more neutral version. Teggles (talk) 10:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

And then we may discuss about the authority about who said what, etc. Just trying to find something verifiable and with a larger consensus. That's the way to go.

--Jaumenuez (talk) 10:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Again, no citation is needed as long as citations exist in the body of the page. Such citations do exist; see the section titled, "not classified as money." The idea that there can be no definitive definition of money, only your own opinion, is somewhat flawed (and also unsourced.) Fleetham (talk) 10:22, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm concerned you are ignoring the central points of the issue. Can you address them? Teggles (talk) 10:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what they are... I believe I did address them. Please clarify. Fleetham (talk) 10:28, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

So Fleetham This is like saying email is not true mail. But anyway, that "true" word it's a bad idea, I would recommend to find something else. --Jaumenuez (talk) 10:35, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Okay, the best way to effect a change to the article is to provide citations or show how current citations do not support the sentences they cite. Simply saying, "you're totally wrong--X is like Y" is not an effective method. Fleetham (talk) 10:40, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

1. The majority of the "not classified as money" section uses original research to draw conclusions based on various definitions of money. These definitions do not reference bitcoin, and the conclusions are not obvious -- they require interpretation, and that is not what Wikipedia does.
2. The in-depth source in the "not classified as money" section that actually discusses definitions of money is on an Economist opinion blog called Free Exchange. This is not an authority on currency. The article provides a definition with 3 tenets, actually shows that bitcoin meets 2 of these tenets (whether volatile or not) and does not draw a conclusion on the 3rd tenet. Is this really enough to conclude that it is a fact that bitcoin is not a true currency?
3. While the People's Bank of China does claim bitcoin is not a currency, and this is the clearest source, we have a U.S. judge that disagrees.

All three of these issues imply that the text in the body -- "bitcoin is not a real currency" -- is not neutral. It ignores the fact that we need to avoid original research, it avoids the fact that the Economist article is from an opinion blog, it ignores the fact that the Economist article never draws a conclusion so clearly, and it most of all ignores the fact that authorities on the matter disagree. I cannot see how you can observe these issues and still hold the text to be neutral. Teggles (talk) 10:44, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

To address your concerns: The section titled, "not classified as money" does not use WP:OR. No interpretation is required. None of the sources used are "opinion blogs." The only seemly valid complaint is that a judge ruled bitcoins to be money. I suggest you focus on that or further explain why you deem a source "an opinion blog" or where interpretation of sources is required. Fleetham (talk) 10:51, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

You have merely refuted each point with no argument. This isn't how you reach consensus. The original research lies in this statement: "Bitcoin is unlikely to be considered money under this definition" -- it is not the job of Wikipedia editors to decide how a definition might be interpreted. The Free Exchange blog is written by Ryan Avent [7], and while they never use the word "opinion", his follow-up article[8] clearly shows that the argument is opinion-based, with statement like "My personal view" and "Maybe I will be proven wrong. We shall see". We, again, are only left with the Chinese bank refutation. And, again, all the matters here is that there is clear disagreement whether or not bitcoin is money[9]. I'm not trying to incite a flamewar here, but it seems like you're not being rational about this -- would it make more sense to start a Request for Comment? Teggles (talk) 11:26, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

"An assertion in the first paragraph specifically calls bitcoin "not a real currency". This statement lacks citation, is clearly a controversial one, and may be impossible to source."

See the article for the source stating that the People's Bank of China stated that bitcoin "is fundamentally not a currency". That surely means the same as bitcoins "is not a real currency"?MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

What the People's Bank of China is stating is that Bitcoin is not an official currency. The problem with the word "true" or "real" is that sensu contrario implies it's "fake" or "false". --Jaumenuez (talk) 11:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

No, the People's Bank of China is stating that bitcoin is "not a currency." If this central bank actually meant that bitcoin is not an official currency, that's certainly not something we can know. 11:24, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The first issue here is that the People's Bank of China is not the final authority on whether or not a currency is real. The conclusion we can draw from this is that "China has declared that the currency is not real", not that "the currency is not real". The second issue is that there is [10] clear disagreement from others in similar positions. Teggles (talk) 11:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the best argument for bitcoin being "real money" is a court decision. The idea that we should look for a "final authority" that decides what is or is not money is completely irrelevant. Fleetham (talk) 11:34, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

No one said anything about the best argument. The important thing is that relevant parties disagree on the matter, and so we cannot make a statement that implies there is consensus between all authorities. WP:IRS even states in bold that all majority and significant minority views must be covered. It also states that Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces...are rarely reliable for statements of fact. -- and that key Economist article is at best an analysis. In terms of the relevancy of an authority on the matter, it is obvious to say that an authoritative statement requires a source from an authority on the matter. The People's Bank of China is an authority on whether or not bitcoin is a currency in China: it does not decide whether or not bitcoin is a currency in the entire world. Teggles (talk) 11:43, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

In China the PBOC is the final authority on what is fundamentally a currency or not. That is the case with every Central Bank in every country. The US IRS ruled it is not a currency at all. The US IRS ruled it is a property. MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:43, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The key statement there is "in China". We cannot take a source that shows bitcoin is "not a real a currency in China", and extrapolate to say bitcoin is "not a real currency". We cannot do the same for the IRS. We cannot take the views of two parties, ignore the view of one other party, and state that the first two parties have the view of all parties. Teggles (talk) 11:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's not actually true. Perhaps a central bank is the final authority on what is or is not legal tender. But money is de facto not de jure. The PBOC is clearly not saying "bitcoins are not yuan." It states that they're not currency. Fleetham (talk) 11:46, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

There is another test whether an item is currency, namely, is it perfectly stable in real value or, and this is what is actually important, is it "assumed to be" perfectly stable in real value. Why? All actual fiat currencies are "assumed to be" perfectly stable in real value for traditional accounting purposes (Hist Cost Acc). Why? Because not a single fiat currency is in fact perfectly stable in real value and the traditional HCA model that is used to account economic activity globally implements the stable measuring unit assumption. Bitcoin is not and is not (and never will be) "assumed to be" perfectly stable in real value. MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Fiat currencies are "real currencies". They are all assumed to be perfectly stable in real value for traditional (HCA) accounting purposes. MonteDaCunca (talk) 11:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

What about the Zimbabwe dollar, is that money? Also, the first flying machines of the Wright Brothers were not stable enough to be called airplanes. So those were not true airplanes either?.--Jaumenuez (talk) 12:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are 100% correct: the Zimbabwe Dollar WAS fiat money. It´s legal status as a fiat currency ended on 20 November 2008. That is why it's real value as a fiat currency (you can most probably still buy 100 trillion ZimDollar notes on E-bay as a collector's item today) was completely destroyed by hyperinflation: it was fiat money with the real values of the notes assumed to be perfectly stable. However the Central Bank of Zimbabwe printed ga-zillions of them and created hyperinflation of 89 00000000000000000000000% (89 and 23 zeros - that is how I remember it). MonteDaCunca (talk) 12:33, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Besides all these arguments here, can we agree on the statement that bitcoin is "has been disputed as a real currency"? I am not happy with any blanket statements that aren't backed up by blanket authorities. Currently, the article is locked on "While not considered a true currency" -- which implies that bitcoin has never been considered a true currency by a relevant party, and that statement is clearly false [11][12][13][14] (I could continue...) Teggles (talk)

Also, bitcoin might not be legal tender, or gov backed money, but no body can say it's not "real" or "true" money as the facts show us it's beign used as money for some years now. About a definition for Bitcoin this is one of the best papers I have ever seen about it. It might be of help here. "Bitcoin: a Money-like Informational Commodity" http://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.4778v1.pdf --Jaumenuez (talk) 12:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately for you, your "one of the best paper I have ever seen" is entitled "a Money-like" Informational Commodity. Your "best paper" thus agrees with the view that bitcoin is not a real currency: it is not money, but, like money or money-like: not actual money or real money.MonteDaCunca (talk) 12:21, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

MonteDaCunca Obviously you have not read it. BTW, there is no consensus about using the word "true", so why is it being used in this article?? Why not use

some other with more consensus?. Really, is this debate going to finish with something like "your God is not the true and real God" ?? To whoever has authority here: please change that. --Jaumenuez (talk) 14:49, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

A currency is an emergent behavior anyway. A central authority making a statement about this is like legislating the sunrise. You need words like "Although financial authorities disagree on whether Bitcoin is a currency [PBOC and US judge references here], it's intended purpose and common use is that of a currency." Gandrewstone (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

All people, in general, agree that bitcoin is a currency in terms of it being a medium of exchange - only in this specific narrow sense. No problem with that. You will find it very hard to get an economist or central banker to agree that bitcoin is a currency in terms of the generally accepted definition of money, namely, a medium of exchange, store of value and unit of account. So, yes, bitcoin is a currency in terms of being a medium of exchange. No, bitcoin is not a currency in terms of the generally accepted definition of money. MonteDaCunca (talk) 16:14, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

There are a few problems with your argument. The first and most important is that people, including economists and central bankers are biased towards their own systems. Yet a few are changing their minds: The first sentence of this document from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago acknowledges Bitcoin as a currency by saying "In this Chicago Fed Letter, I explain the digital currency called bitcoin" (http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/chicago_fed_letter/2013/cfldecember2013_317.pdf). The second is that the generally accepted definition of money was created by examination of existing currencies (so your argument is circular) AND even so some esoteric currencies fail it (Yap stones -- too heavy to exchange except notationally, value is questionable, denominated too highly to truly be a unit of account). Third, many people believe that Bitcoin does meet those criteria, with qualifications given its youth. As I previously stated currencies are actually emergent social behavior, which people then attempt to describe and label... another way of thinking of it is that in practice Bitcoin may be so incredibly good at one aspect (medium of exchange) that weakness in another is ignored. Gandrewstone (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you as I stated above. It is a currency, just not a real currency. See my explanation above about all real currencies being fiat currencies, i.e., assumed to be perfectly stable in real value. To me, all bitcoin's value comes from it being decentralized and a digital currency, a digital medium of exchange platform. MonteDaCunca (talk) 16:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

As an aside: It seems a lot of new editors don't know the indentation conventions here yet, but I'll pretend not to notice :P This is a response to Teggles' original post.

Thanks, Teggles , for bringing up this topic in a civil manner, I had planned to say something about it myself. While I understand that the current phrasing, "While not considered a true currency", is born out of an (honest) attempt at compromising, it is also incredibly awkwardly phrased, and, more importantly, not sourced properly and presumably impossible to source in this form.

What would a "true currency" be? Let's take a look at currency: in the lead we see that "currency" can have two meanings: (1) "... tokens used for money by a government" and (2) "anything that is used in any circumstances, as a medium of exchange". It's even more clearly stated in the next paragraph: "A definition of intermediate generality is that a currency is a system of money in common use, especially in a nation." Note the word "especially" before "nation", currencies are dominantly considered to be, but not exclusively in the domain of a country (in the second meaning of the word).

To summarize, I see no way to justify (and source) calling Bitcoin "not a true currency". It can, and should be, clearly stated that it is not the "official currency of any country", but the second, "means of exchange", meaning of currency certainly applies to Bitcoin, which prohibits the qualifier "not a true currency", by WP's own definition of currency.

EDIT: I propose the following alternative phrasing: "While not the legal tender of any country, Bitcoin is commonly referred to ... " — Preceding unsigned comment added by Minvogt (talk • contribs) 18:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Minvogt (talk) 18:44, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I second the whole "please indent properly people" thing and might add that it's best to write a response to my post below my post not inside your original one! (Not directed at you, Minvogt.)

Anyway, the reason it's justified to state bitcoin "is not a real currency" is because it doesn't meet the definition of a currency--not because bitcoins aren't used as legal tender by any nation. The concept of currency is not exclusive to legal tender used in a single country. The currency article states, "the most specific use of the word refers to money in any form when in actual use or circulation." Specifically, bitcoin doesn't conform to the various criteria of money, and therefore cannot be a currency. Other editors have suggested using the formulation "not a traditional currency" or "not a standard currency." The issue I have with your proposal is the same one I do with these suggestions: bitcoin literally is not a currency. It's not some newfangled currency created by techno-wizards simply because it's sold as such: there is a "real" definition of currency, and bitcoin doesn't meet it.

No one would seriously claim that PayPal, for instance, is a currency, and because bitcoin uses its own unit of account (viz. bitcoins) does not mean it suddenly meets longstanding definitions of currency or money. It's an online payment system with its own unit of account and likely meets the criteria necessary to be considered a digital currency, virtual currency, or an electronic money. But this does not mean it meets the criteria necessary to be considered currency or money. Fleetham (talk) 19:30, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I agree that bitcoin is literally not a currency, like the PBOC stated "it is fundamentally not a currency" and the IRS stated it is a property. The fact that it is not assumed to be perfectly stable in real value under the Historical Cost paradigm when all real (fiat) currencies are all assumed to be perfectly stable in real value, also clearly indicates that it is fundamentally not a currency. These are technical issues. In the economy at large, bitcoin is called a digital currency or virtual money because it is widely accepted as a medium of exchange on the internet even though it is not a real currency. MonteDaCunca (talk) 19:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Having read the explanations above I agree that "not a true currency" or "not a real currency" are opinions, and that they are not neutral, expressing just one point of view. I also do agree that different authorities do not present a unified opinion. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 19:50, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The only unified opinion world wide is that bitcoin is not a fiat currency. MonteDaCunca (talk) 19:57, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps surprisingly, there is a source mentioning bitcoin as a "fiat currency". I think that the source is already cited in the article. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 20:06, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. That would be hilarious. Please indicate the link location. I would love to read the article. MonteDaCunca (talk) 20:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Well the arguments here seem really all over the map. I don't think it much matters if it's a "fact" or "opinion" that bitcoins are or are not currency. What does matter are reliable sources. Instead of making disparate arguments that don't seem to address what any of the other editors are saying, I think a good plan of action would be to find relevant WP:RS, change the "not classified as money" subsection to reflect the minority view that bitcoins are a currency, and then discuss what impact this should have on any statements made in the lede. Fleetham (talk) 20:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

In the bitcoin-as-currency corner:

• US judge rules btcoin a currency

In the bitcoin-is-not-a-currency corner:

• A The Economist article stating, "Economists reckon money is anything that serves three main functions. ... The American dollar meets all three conditions. Bitcoin has some way to go."
• The PBOC states bitcoin is not a currency

Nowhere did the judge state in his report that "bitcoin is money" or "bitcoin is a currency" and stopped there. He stated bitcoin is "a currency or form of money". He stated "a currency" but then immediately qualified it with " or form of money". He did not say "bitcoin is a currency or money". There is thus no reliable source that states "bitcoin is money". MonteDaCunca (talk) 20:29, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't understand the second sentence

I was going to edit, but I'm not 100% sure if I'm correct, I think the line "The payments in the system are recorded in a public ledger using its own unit of account,which is also called bitcoin." should read "The payments in the system are recorded in a public ledger using its own unit of account,[5] which is called the block chain."

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_chain 

Like I said I'm not 100% sure so I'll leave this comment and hope someone more knowledgeable or authoritative than me can fix it ^^; Simplicity lies within chaos (talk) 09:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Well, the "unit of account" is bitcoin. The "public ledger" is the block chain. As the appositive lies closest to "unit of account," the words after the comma should describe "unit of account" not "public ledger." The sentence as it stands is correct. If you are in need of further clarification, the sentence could read: "The payments in the system are recorded in a public ledger, called the block chain, using its own unit of account, which is also called bitcoin." Fleetham (talk) 09:45, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Ah, yes that makes more sense, sorry. I'm not the sharpest tool in the box, hence why I posted here first Simplicity lies within chaos (talk) 09:54, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Tone of the Leading Summary

The lead summary of for the article has a distinct negative bias with a single positive remark "fees are lower", and 5 negative remarks "European warning", "bitcoins stolen", "illegal activities", "silk road", "China restrictions" in the last 2 paragraphs:

Bitcoin as a form of payment for products and services has seen growth,[13] and merchants have an incentive to accept the digital currency because fees are lower than the 2–3% typically imposed by credit card processors.[14] The European Banking Authority has warned that bitcoin lacks consumer protections.[15] Unlike credit cards, any fees are paid by the purchaser not the vendor. Bitcoins can be stolen and chargebacks are impossible.[16] Commercial use of bitcoin is currently small compared to its use by speculators, which has fueled price volatility.[17]

Bitcoin has been a subject of scrutiny amid concerns that it can be used for illegal activities.[18] In October 2013 the US FBI shut down the Silk Road online black market and seized 144,000 bitcoins worth US$28.5 million at the time.[19] The US is considered bitcoin-friendly compared to other governments, however.[20] In China, buying bitcoins with yuan is subject to restrictions, and bitcoin exchanges are not allowed to hold bank accounts.

But most importantly, the lead does not explain why some people are interested in Bitcoin. The answer to the question "why does this thing even exist?" is the most important answer in any Wikipedia article. So we need some words about its independence from central banks, its rapid worldwide transfer, zero transaction fees, the inability to have funds confiscated or transactions blocked, etc.

For controversial (and undecided) topics an article has to report the bias without being biased itself using words like "Proponents of the currency use it because..." Gandrewstone (talk) 17:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I suggest you read the article carefully. I think most probably all the items you mentioned are already reflected in the article, properly referenced and in consensus. For example, we already know there is no such thing as generally zero transaction fees. MonteDaCunca (talk) 18:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)