hi derek, Thanks for the prompt response.
¨I didn't see any actionable requests in this long diatribe. ¨ Yeah, sorry, my passion for bitcoin, knows no bounds. ¨What exactly are you asking? ¨ I suppose I´d like to see bitcoin supported as a mainstream currency, despite the lack of official ISO recognition. I imagine GnuCash not only being able to support bitcoin in the regular (more intuitive) way it handles any other currency, but that it could be set as the default and even better as a sort of meta-currency into and from which, all others may be derived or converted. The particular advantage of bitcoin, (besides that which I have already mentioned), is that it is instantly available for online transaction between peers on the network. Itś exchange rate is also a live public value that can easily be tracked online in real time. The facility to do this, would be through the APIś of one or more of the popular exchanges. There would be little preventing GnuCash from seamlessly supporting any users installed instance of ´bitcoind´ the GUI-less daemon, and allowing scripted transactions to be instigated via its (bitcoind´s) APIs and the JSON network interface. This kind of functionality, would allow for user initiated transactions, not just within and between their own bank accounts, but as a seamless interface, for transacting between individual users.* Also note:* In the case of using bicoin for a transactional medium, the transactions are practically free of costs. ¨Note that you can always add your own commodity to GnuCash, although you need to treat it like a stock or fund instead of a "currency"¨ For some reason I find this approach sort of clumsy and unintuitive. I wouldn´t rule out that itś just a /ME/ thing though. ¨but all that means is that GnuCash forces you to always explicitly transact with an exchange rate.¨ So, thatś a static exchange rate then is it? Iḿ under the impression that this has to be user configured, manually and before any transaction or attempt to balance ones accounts. Again... it may just be me. The problem for bitcoin, is that itś such a young currency and therefore it tends to be quite volatile. As a transacting medium though, itś power far surpasses any traditional currency. The relevance of the fluctuating market value simply vanishes, if all the user wants is a convenient vehicle of transaction and a temporary store of value, to enable nearly instant online transactions. You simply buy or earn and hold no more currency than you intend for your immediate transacting needs. Itś like carrying only spending money in your wallet. You shouldn´t carry much more than you are likely to need. This volatility of bitcoin however, is mitigated by the ubiquitous online and live nature of itś liquidity. Bitcoin can be thought of as cash that can be spent over the internet. Like paper cash, bitcoin is also peer to peer. You can hand over some paper cash, to anybody, whether in a shop, at home, or on the street, but such digital representations of cash, now allow the internet citizen to transact just as freely in any place at anytime. Likewise, any suitably networked, desktop application, may also be liberated by the same freedom to transact, without need for any third party financial institutions presiding over (manipulating and monopolizing) the process. We are technologically passed the days of asking banks to forward our cash and provide *(their)* up to date conversion rates. Online bitcoin exchanges, have no power to control the current exchange value of bitcoin, but merely charge (0.65% or there about), for providing the user, the benefit of buying or selling bitcoin. Fortunately, it costs nothing to get updated conversion rates, and so any software can be kept updated (with live market value) in real time. Thatś a boon for a very volatile currency, but unless you can get a live feed and have your desktop and mobile apps, updating in real-time and providing seamless integration of this live feed, it somewhat takes the shine off the possible immediacy and transparency of the process. I mean, if I have to visit MtGox and copy the exchange value, then paste that into an obscure configuration dialog box for a workaround fudge, of a pseudo-currency that is being treated a s a ´stock´ or ´fund´, I will loose all of the convenience of live transactions and live exchange rates which Adjust themselves in real-time, according to supply and demand (as apposed to manipulated third party banking institutions trading prices, which reflect the banks own stacked conversion values). Itś easy to see how bitcoin could become something of an online meta-currency, that could eventually be stabler than any other, as it has the capacity to buffer the comparative values of other currencies and even facilitate short term arbitrage. I consider it likely to increase the competition (and lower the profitability of) Forex style middleman exploits. Putting all the economics arguments aside, the accountancy application with the capacity of live, real-time currency transaction is an interesting one, even from a purely technical POV. The simple practical benefits, of being at will to translate one currency into another, via the ubiquity of an intermediate, real-time store of value, should have obvious ramifications. I hesitate to deliberate on specific implementation approaches, suffice is to say that the components of real-time transacting and market valuation, are the real treasures to be elicited from a thorough going, bitcoin compatibility effort. Beyond that, the capacity to implement bitcoin as a politically and commercially neutral meta-currency, aught to be the open-source, fiscal libertarians dream of pure nirvana. ¨If you need to use a currency, you can always use XXX until ISO catches up with you.¨ I think that he problem here, is that the ISO, is yet another corrupt central authority, and judging on a few tentative efforts so far to have them recognize bitcoin as a legitimate (and formerly declared) currency, we are a loooooong way off gaining their acceptance. Given the power allegiances here, I think we are much closer to importing icebergs from Hell. The important task at hand then, is to lobby our real allies and muster our real strength as a grass roots movement, able and willing to circumvent these sort of dictatorial power structures. Much as open-source itself, gets around the copyright and licensing issues of software, bitcoin circumvents the financial power dictators, who might wish to tell us what we can and cant collectively honor as legal tender. GnuCash, would be an ideal ally in that respect and so the imperative might be considered as the willingness of such well placed OSS products as GnuCash, to sidestep the power-base of fiscal authoritarians who control our mutual money supply, effectively disregarding their regulatory impositions, controlled by their contrived (exclusive) standards. Currency, like software, aught to be autonomous. I´d gladly PAY to see that happen. I bet if the online bitcoin exchanges caught wind of an effort to fully integrate bitcoin into GnuCash, they´d be throwing cash at it, like a horny drunk stripper down to her suspenders and knickers. PS: Sorry again for the length of my wind, if not the tenacity of my convictions. Regards. Karmicads. -- View this message in context: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/For-The-Love-Of-Bitcoin-tp4348895p4390020.html Sent from the GnuCash - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ gnucash-devel mailing list gnucash-devel@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-devel
