What is it, precisely, that you think justifies the use of bitcoin?
Here, let's make this simple. Just list, explicitly, the top 3 reasons for using bitcoin. Then explain how these reasons are unique to bitcoin and also how they fully justify dealing with the problems of dealing with bitcoin (variable exchange rates, difficulty of converting into local denomination funds, etc.).
3) No third party is involved for the essential transaction (in this case the exchange of Bitcoin(s) for a ticket)
If you use Bitcoins as a method of transporting money you can cash them out as soon as you get them (which is within a few minutes) and getting Bitcoins isn't as hard as people make it out to be.
> If you use Bitcoins as a method of transporting money you can cash them out as soon as you get them (which is within a few minutes) and getting Bitcoins isn't as hard as people make it out to be.
I'm surprised nobody has made a service that transparently uses bitcoins to send someone not-bitcoins:
[For the purposes of the example, let's call the sender of the money Alice, the receiver Bob, and the two instances of this Exchanger service Eddie and Edna. Eddie is local to Alice's legal/financial jurisdiction, and Edna to Bob's.]
1. Alice, living in America, visits Eddie and tells him that she wants to send Bob, in Canada, $50 USD. Bob is only identified to Alice (and thereby to Eddie) by his bitcoin deposit address.[1]
2. Alice pays Eddie $50 USD (cash, Paypal, ACH, pre-deposited funds, an IOU, whatever);
3. Eddie buys bitcoins with those dollars, and transfers the bitcoins to Bob's address.
Then, separately, Bob set up his bitcoin bank with an "on deposit" webhook that calls Edna. When triggered,
4. Edna, acting under an access token Bob granted her through the webhook, withdraws the deposit into her own bitcoin bank account;
5. Edna immediately sells the bitcoins for CAD, thus preventing any currency volatility;
4. Edna sends Bob an email saying "you've got $51.42 CAD[2]", with a URL;
5. Bob visits the URL, and enters his [real, physical] bank account routing information;
6. Edna does a wire-transfer from her account to Bob's bank account.
In this example, Bob and Alice never meet. Eddie and Edna never meet, nor have to trust one-another. The money is exchanged anonymously and securely. And yet, neither Alice nor Bob ever touch a bitcoin, or deal with the volatility of the currency.
Why doesn't this exist yet?
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[1] This could be encapsulated further if Eddie and Edna both subscribe to Ronald the name-Registrar; then Edna could transparently register Bob as "bob@ronald", and Bob could tell Alice to send her money to that alias.
[2] Assuming neither Eddie nor Edna take a cut of this transaction.
So what was your point exactly?