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We are past bubble stage with Bitcoin IMO. It has failed to become much other than a bullshit investment vehicle. People only worried about how high it can go

We are past bubble stage with Bitcoin IMO. It has failed to become much other than a bullshit investment vehicle. People only worried about how high it can go, instead of actually using it daily.

just_one_time_ 9y ago
I use it to save 20% on Amazon orders(1). I bought my coins in the $200-400 range, so am getting at 20% discount orn top of my 1,000% discount of the price of coins purchased to today's price (minus ~13% capital gains tax of course). Your opinion may be valid for you but I am literally feeding my family everyday with Bitcoin. 1. purse.io
faceplanted 9y ago
Seems pretty consistently used in drug trading nowadays.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  Obligatory: "Dollars are still used far more often for buying drugs than Bitcoin" That said, evasion of governmental restrictions is and always has been a core use case for Bitcoin. While that's not my primary concern I don't see that as a negative.
  - 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
    Obviously meant to say mainly.
    - LyndsySimon 9y ago
      I see no evidence to support the statement "Bitcoin is mainly used in drug trading these days." I do see some mild counter-evidence. There were two very large dark-net markets that were shut down recently, and the price of Bitcoin didn't seem to respond.
      - free_everybody 9y ago
        That's probably because most people see drug markets as a completely replaceable service. Silk Road down? Use AlphaBay. AlphaBay down? Use something else. It's so profitable to run these markets that the odds of someone developing a newer, better version are guaranteed.
  - yebyen 9y ago
    > evasion of governmental restrictions ... core use case for Bitcoin I think you're absolutely right, with the caveat that... Yes, just because people are coming to Bitcoin with this in mind, does not mean that ultimately Bitcoin is successful at that use case. Graphs like this coin flow graph[1] and the story[2] that goes with it, make claims that Bitcoin users can more successfully evade government restrictions, seem particularly dubious. Coinbase, a licensed Money Service business, follows Know Your Customer and grows increasingly interested in their customers. I recently had to answer a follow-up survey about how I use Bitcoin and where my income is coming from, in order to withdraw less than $1000. It would have been pretty easy to lie on this survey (and the questions were particularly non-invasive) but there's not really any doubt in my mind that Bitcoin is a platform where the users can be tracked. We're running out of examples of major Bitcoin heists that went unsolved. Bitcoin is absolutely more trackable than cash, and in a lot of cases (although maybe not so much for "tracking users" who are associated with governments, that already likely do have access to databases which the rest of us don't... but for the unprivileged anonymous internet users who are interested in tracking) Bitcoin is significantly more transparent and even more trackable than the banking system. [1]: http://wizsec.jp/images/theft_flow.svg http://wizsec.jp/images/theft_flow.svg [2]: http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html
  - jbmorgado 9y ago
    > "Obligatory: "Dollars are still used far more often for buying drugs than Bitcoin"" Sure, but let's compare apples to apples and compare the percentage of USD being used daily for buying illegal drugs (and other illegal) products with the percentage of Bitcoin being used daily for the same purpose.
aqsheehy 9y ago
Try buy drugs online with USD
CyberDildonics 9y ago
This might be your perception, but it certainly isn't reality. If that were the case the amount of transactions and acceptance of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies wouldn't be continuously trending upwards, which it is. There is a tremendous amount of adoption that's happened over the last couple of years. All you have to do it look at real data.
- lumberjack 9y ago
  But how much of that transaction volume is legal use of Bitcoin as a currency? Sure, it's being adopted by criminals. Great. Not many startups opportunities there, unless you want to risk a lifetime in jail.
  - CyberDildonics 9y ago
    I can't believe people still think this about bitcoin here. I use bitcoin more than a credit card. Overstock, Steam, lots of VPS and VPN services, as well as many other online stores take bitcoin. There are billboards in non-tech cities advertising bitcoin ATMs. If it was all illegal transactions, why would the number of transactions go up so sharply when the prices rises and there is media hype? All the main stream exposure immediately translates to even more people buying drugs? There is no evidence of these kinds of biases and lots of evidence to the contrary. Coinbase said that they added a million new customers on this last price rise and is now valued at well over a billion dollars. They shutdown people's accounts when they trace their transactions to dark net market activity. And yet people still keep going on about bitcoin only being adopted by criminals. Are you really going to tell me that the thousands of bitcoin ATMs around the world are all being used for people getting on the TOR network, using encrypted messaging, and buying drugs from darknet markets over TOR hidden services? https://coinatmradar.com/ https://coinatmradar.com/
    - lawrenceyan 9y ago
      I would argue yes. No one legitimately uses Bitcoin as a form of currency. The two types of people buying it are (1) those currently using it as a volatile investment vehicle and (2) those currently using it as a means of illicit transactions. Any other play is a losing one as your risk of huge devaluations in trying to use Bitcoin like cash make it incompatible to the average person. The usage of Bitcoin as it was originally envisioned is far from the truth.
kbody 9y ago
I guess that might be the majority of the situation, but for me personally it's been a lifesaver. Capital controls don't matter, I don't need a bank account, I pay whatever I can with bitcoin and if not possible I use my debit card which I load with bitcoins. That's been my daily life for a couple years now and it's been liberating. Certainly there's a challenge so you don't loss net-worth with volatility when it drops, but I see it as a cost of freedom.
- and0 9y ago
  It sounds like you're describing normal banking + massive volatility. How is that a lifesaver or particularly liberating? And what do you actually buy with Bitcoin? Also curious: is there a debit card that you can back with Bitcoins?
  - kasey_junk 9y ago
    The most obvious explanation is that they live somewhere where the money is also volatile and unusable.
    - and0 9y ago
      I don't follow. Would you mind naming some examples of the types of places you're thinking of?
      - abhi3 9y ago
        Go to the bottom of this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inflation_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inflation...
      - jononor 9y ago
        For some years now, Venezuela.
  - kbody 9y ago
    I can spend any amount I want without being restricting by anyone, that's pretty basic, but in some countries you just can't do that. I personally have found ways and can manage Bitcoin's volatility just fine (relatively predictable income/expenses + fiat reserve + futures) (of course you could just sell for a fiat currency/USD), so I really don't have a single issue with Bitcoin, apart from not being accepted yet to more places.
LyndsySimon 9y ago
> It has failed to become much other than a bullshit investment vehicle. I disagree, and think there is some observation bias going on here. I've been using a Bitcoin-linked debit card for a couple of years now, and take payment in Bitcoin for odd jobs I do for people online. I also always list that I accept Bitcoin when I post things for sale on Craigslist and other "classifieds" sites, and probably 10% of people use it for payment now. I've had several people buy things from me on Craigslist from across the country and the world that I wouldn't have accepted otherwise due to payments fraud. I'm happy to ship a $400 fountain pen to a buyer in Lagos (which I've done!) if they pay in Bitcoin, but I'd never consider doing so if they used any other payment method for fear of fraud. I don't see anyone posting about everyday uses, but they do seem to be happening. > People only worried about how high it can go The only time I really think about the current price of Bitcoin is when it's in a period of volatility. Otherwise it seems to be consistently slightly deflationary, which is exactly what I expect it will be long-term.
- travisby 9y ago
  If it's a $400 fountain pen and not a 144mBTC fountain pen, then I think you are thinking about the current price of bitcoin ;) I'm assuming you're placing your ad in USD and converting to BTC for the transaction, instead of listing a BTC price.
  - lloyd-christmas 9y ago
    Many finance publications use USD regardless of their country of origin. Financial Times, a UK-based company, regularly lists valuations with USD equivalent. Does that invalidate the GBP or EUR as real currencies? The market cap of USD is over 1.5 trillion. The market cap of bitcoin is $45b USD. It's more than sensical to display equivalent conversions.
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    An instrument can be a useful tool for value transfer and storage, without being that useful for pricing. There are however some people that price their "services" in BTC, most notably ransomware criminals. I think also bets are quite often valued in BTC.
mtgx 9y ago
What exactly makes it as "bullshit" investment vehicle, as opposed to a good investment vehicle?
- pmiller2 9y ago
  Here it is from my perspective: I raise this every once in a while on BTC discussions and nobody's ever been able to tell me anything about the investment fundamentals of BTC. Why should it even be worth anything, and why should it go up? Owning (some part of) a BTC just means that you can use the blockchain to prove that a while ago, someone raised the total entropy of the universe by solving a relatively unimportant crypto problem. I fail to see why that (solving an insignificant crypto instance) should be worth money in the first place. BTC is literally just some bits in a few computers out there. It is not backed by the full faith and credit of a stable entity like the US government, and, because the blockchain is literally a distributed, public transaction ledger, it's more trackable than cash (as another commenter noted. I can't reasonably expect to make significant amounts of transactions with them in day to day life (Bay Area coffee shops that accept BTC notwithstanding). I can't explain it to my mom, which tells me I don't understand it, and nobody else can explain it to me, which tells me they don't understand it. Even assuming you can answer why they should be worth something, why should these bits be worth more than the output of /dev/random, or some bits that make up a MP3 file?
  - polotics 9y ago
    Why do people value gold? Shiny or hard to fake? Gold ownership now is faked, bitcoin ownership cannot be.
  - luke3butler 9y ago
    Why is anything worth anything? Gold and silver have value because they're more rare than other metals, there's only so much of it that exists, and it takes time, money, and work to go out and mine them. The reason Bitcoins are worth something (unlike /dev/random output) is because there is a fixed output and total amount that will exist. It takes time, work, and money to mine them.
  - 9y ago
eth1 9y ago
People like you have been saying that since bitcoin was like 4 dollars. It is almost 3k. At which point will you be putting some a1 sauce on that foot?
r1ch 9y ago
I'm waiting for scaling to be fixed. Only then will daily use cases become relevant again. It's hard to sell a merchant on a payment method that can take hours to confirm.
ericb 9y ago
I wouldn't expect bitcoin to be used as a currency for transactions. Bitcoin is deflationary, and is the "best" currency (other currencies lose value due to inflation). You don't pay for things with your "best" currency--you hoard it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

We are past bubble stage with Bitcoin IMO. It has failed to become much other than a bullshit investment vehicle. People only worried about how high it can go, instead of actually using it daily.

just_one_time_ 9y ago

I use it to save 20% on Amazon orders(1). I bought my coins in the $200-400 range, so am getting at 20% discount orn top of my 1,000% discount of the price of coins purchased to today's price (minus ~13% capital gains tax of course). Your opinion may be valid for you but I am literally feeding my family everyday with Bitcoin. 1. purse.io

faceplanted 9y ago

Seems pretty consistently used in drug trading nowadays.

LyndsySimon 9y ago
Obligatory: "Dollars are still used far more often for buying drugs than Bitcoin" That said, evasion of governmental restrictions is and always has been a core use case for Bitcoin. While that's not my primary concern I don't see that as a negative.
- 2_listerine_pls 9y ago
  Obviously meant to say mainly.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    I see no evidence to support the statement "Bitcoin is mainly used in drug trading these days." I do see some mild counter-evidence. There were two very large dark-net markets that were shut down recently, and the price of Bitcoin didn't seem to respond.
    - free_everybody 9y ago
      That's probably because most people see drug markets as a completely replaceable service. Silk Road down? Use AlphaBay. AlphaBay down? Use something else. It's so profitable to run these markets that the odds of someone developing a newer, better version are guaranteed.
- yebyen 9y ago
  > evasion of governmental restrictions ... core use case for Bitcoin I think you're absolutely right, with the caveat that... Yes, just because people are coming to Bitcoin with this in mind, does not mean that ultimately Bitcoin is successful at that use case. Graphs like this coin flow graph[1] and the story[2] that goes with it, make claims that Bitcoin users can more successfully evade government restrictions, seem particularly dubious. Coinbase, a licensed Money Service business, follows Know Your Customer and grows increasingly interested in their customers. I recently had to answer a follow-up survey about how I use Bitcoin and where my income is coming from, in order to withdraw less than $1000. It would have been pretty easy to lie on this survey (and the questions were particularly non-invasive) but there's not really any doubt in my mind that Bitcoin is a platform where the users can be tracked. We're running out of examples of major Bitcoin heists that went unsolved. Bitcoin is absolutely more trackable than cash, and in a lot of cases (although maybe not so much for "tracking users" who are associated with governments, that already likely do have access to databases which the rest of us don't... but for the unprivileged anonymous internet users who are interested in tracking) Bitcoin is significantly more transparent and even more trackable than the banking system. [1]: http://wizsec.jp/images/theft_flow.svg http://wizsec.jp/images/theft_flow.svg [2]: http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html
- jbmorgado 9y ago
  > "Obligatory: "Dollars are still used far more often for buying drugs than Bitcoin"" Sure, but let's compare apples to apples and compare the percentage of USD being used daily for buying illegal drugs (and other illegal) products with the percentage of Bitcoin being used daily for the same purpose.

aqsheehy 9y ago

Try buy drugs online with USD

CyberDildonics 9y ago

This might be your perception, but it certainly isn't reality. If that were the case the amount of transactions and acceptance of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies wouldn't be continuously trending upwards, which it is. There is a tremendous amount of adoption that's happened over the last couple of years. All you have to do it look at real data.

lumberjack 9y ago
But how much of that transaction volume is legal use of Bitcoin as a currency? Sure, it's being adopted by criminals. Great. Not many startups opportunities there, unless you want to risk a lifetime in jail.
- CyberDildonics 9y ago
  I can't believe people still think this about bitcoin here. I use bitcoin more than a credit card. Overstock, Steam, lots of VPS and VPN services, as well as many other online stores take bitcoin. There are billboards in non-tech cities advertising bitcoin ATMs. If it was all illegal transactions, why would the number of transactions go up so sharply when the prices rises and there is media hype? All the main stream exposure immediately translates to even more people buying drugs? There is no evidence of these kinds of biases and lots of evidence to the contrary. Coinbase said that they added a million new customers on this last price rise and is now valued at well over a billion dollars. They shutdown people's accounts when they trace their transactions to dark net market activity. And yet people still keep going on about bitcoin only being adopted by criminals. Are you really going to tell me that the thousands of bitcoin ATMs around the world are all being used for people getting on the TOR network, using encrypted messaging, and buying drugs from darknet markets over TOR hidden services? https://coinatmradar.com/ https://coinatmradar.com/
  - lawrenceyan 9y ago
    I would argue yes. No one legitimately uses Bitcoin as a form of currency. The two types of people buying it are (1) those currently using it as a volatile investment vehicle and (2) those currently using it as a means of illicit transactions. Any other play is a losing one as your risk of huge devaluations in trying to use Bitcoin like cash make it incompatible to the average person. The usage of Bitcoin as it was originally envisioned is far from the truth.

kbody 9y ago

I guess that might be the majority of the situation, but for me personally it's been a lifesaver. Capital controls don't matter, I don't need a bank account, I pay whatever I can with bitcoin and if not possible I use my debit card which I load with bitcoins. That's been my daily life for a couple years now and it's been liberating. Certainly there's a challenge so you don't loss net-worth with volatility when it drops, but I see it as a cost of freedom.

and0 9y ago
It sounds like you're describing normal banking + massive volatility. How is that a lifesaver or particularly liberating? And what do you actually buy with Bitcoin? Also curious: is there a debit card that you can back with Bitcoins?
- kasey_junk 9y ago
  The most obvious explanation is that they live somewhere where the money is also volatile and unusable.
  - and0 9y ago
    I don't follow. Would you mind naming some examples of the types of places you're thinking of?
    - abhi3 9y ago
      Go to the bottom of this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inflation_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_inflation...
    - jononor 9y ago
      For some years now, Venezuela.
- kbody 9y ago
  I can spend any amount I want without being restricting by anyone, that's pretty basic, but in some countries you just can't do that. I personally have found ways and can manage Bitcoin's volatility just fine (relatively predictable income/expenses + fiat reserve + futures) (of course you could just sell for a fiat currency/USD), so I really don't have a single issue with Bitcoin, apart from not being accepted yet to more places.

LyndsySimon 9y ago

> It has failed to become much other than a bullshit investment vehicle. I disagree, and think there is some observation bias going on here. I've been using a Bitcoin-linked debit card for a couple of years now, and take payment in Bitcoin for odd jobs I do for people online. I also always list that I accept Bitcoin when I post things for sale on Craigslist and other "classifieds" sites, and probably 10% of people use it for payment now. I've had several people buy things from me on Craigslist from across the country and the world that I wouldn't have accepted otherwise due to payments fraud. I'm happy to ship a $400 fountain pen to a buyer in Lagos (which I've done!) if they pay in Bitcoin, but I'd never consider doing so if they used any other payment method for fear of fraud. I don't see anyone posting about everyday uses, but they do seem to be happening. > People only worried about how high it can go The only time I really think about the current price of Bitcoin is when it's in a period of volatility. Otherwise it seems to be consistently slightly deflationary, which is exactly what I expect it will be long-term.

travisby 9y ago
If it's a $400 fountain pen and not a 144mBTC fountain pen, then I think you are thinking about the current price of bitcoin ;) I'm assuming you're placing your ad in USD and converting to BTC for the transaction, instead of listing a BTC price.
- lloyd-christmas 9y ago
  Many finance publications use USD regardless of their country of origin. Financial Times, a UK-based company, regularly lists valuations with USD equivalent. Does that invalidate the GBP or EUR as real currencies? The market cap of USD is over 1.5 trillion. The market cap of bitcoin is $45b USD. It's more than sensical to display equivalent conversions.
- jerguismi 9y ago
  An instrument can be a useful tool for value transfer and storage, without being that useful for pricing. There are however some people that price their "services" in BTC, most notably ransomware criminals. I think also bets are quite often valued in BTC.

mtgx 9y ago

What exactly makes it as "bullshit" investment vehicle, as opposed to a good investment vehicle?

pmiller2 9y ago
Here it is from my perspective: I raise this every once in a while on BTC discussions and nobody's ever been able to tell me anything about the investment fundamentals of BTC. Why should it even be worth anything, and why should it go up? Owning (some part of) a BTC just means that you can use the blockchain to prove that a while ago, someone raised the total entropy of the universe by solving a relatively unimportant crypto problem. I fail to see why that (solving an insignificant crypto instance) should be worth money in the first place. BTC is literally just some bits in a few computers out there. It is not backed by the full faith and credit of a stable entity like the US government, and, because the blockchain is literally a distributed, public transaction ledger, it's more trackable than cash (as another commenter noted. I can't reasonably expect to make significant amounts of transactions with them in day to day life (Bay Area coffee shops that accept BTC notwithstanding). I can't explain it to my mom, which tells me I don't understand it, and nobody else can explain it to me, which tells me they don't understand it. Even assuming you can answer why they should be worth something, why should these bits be worth more than the output of /dev/random, or some bits that make up a MP3 file?
- polotics 9y ago
  Why do people value gold? Shiny or hard to fake? Gold ownership now is faked, bitcoin ownership cannot be.
- luke3butler 9y ago
  Why is anything worth anything? Gold and silver have value because they're more rare than other metals, there's only so much of it that exists, and it takes time, money, and work to go out and mine them. The reason Bitcoins are worth something (unlike /dev/random output) is because there is a fixed output and total amount that will exist. It takes time, work, and money to mine them.
- 9y ago

eth1 9y ago

People like you have been saying that since bitcoin was like 4 dollars. It is almost 3k. At which point will you be putting some a1 sauce on that foot?

r1ch 9y ago

I'm waiting for scaling to be fixed. Only then will daily use cases become relevant again. It's hard to sell a merchant on a payment method that can take hours to confirm.

ericb 9y ago

I wouldn't expect bitcoin to be used as a currency for transactions. Bitcoin is deflationary, and is the "best" currency (other currencies lose value due to inflation). You don't pay for things with your "best" currency--you hoard it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]