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Well, I disagree. Bitcoin is purely speculative market right now. Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency - thing you pay with. Right now constant deflation means

Well, I disagree. Bitcoin is purely speculative market right now. Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency - thing you pay with. Right now constant deflation means nobody uses it to pay, which defeats its purpose. Bitcoin is also not gold. It has no inherent value, it's not useful in any way besides as payment instrument and right now utility of BTC as payment instrument is close to zero. Finally, Bitcoin is extremely expensive to maintain (electricity and computing power) and there is no way to lower that cost. Once BTC network processing power is too small percentage of world's total processing power, it becomes feasible to perform an attack on a Network (you need 51% as everybody knows). So, given that production of Bitcoin has a hard limit, at some point increase in price won't be able to offset resources necessary to mine, which will cause collapse of network processing power, which in turn will make network susceptible for attack. Mind you, it has nothing to do with product competitiveness(contracts, transaction times etc.). Bitcoin is designed in a way that is not sustainable and it will become clear at some point.

mrb 9y ago
«nobody uses it to pay» Always the same misconception being repeated... Your opinion is not supported by data. Usage is quickly growing: https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all (before someone says "it's speculators": no it's not—buying, holding, and selling BTC on an exchange does not create transactions on the blockchain; the vast majority of speculators leave their BTC in an exchange and never move it)
- foobardeveloper 9y ago
  There is an important distinction between valuing something inherently with bitcoin and accepting bitcoin for a real time USD conversion. What your are seeing with all these merchants is the latter I suppose, they have an intermediary who accepts bitcoin and converts it to USD and hands them the amount. Until something can be stably valued in Bitcoin similar to USD, it's use as a currency will be a moot point.
  - mrb 9y ago
    Your argument is like saying an American manufacturer whose British sales office accepts GBP as payments which are immediately converted to USD means that "GBP's use as a currency is moot in this case".
    - foobardeveloper 9y ago
      The conversion is just a workaround of a fundamental problem, the real question is, Can a product be stably valued for a reasonable period of time using bitcoin? I can express the value of say a laptop for weeks, if not months, in USD / GBP, can the same be done natively in bitcoin? Can you point me to any manufacturer or business entity that values something in bitcoin instead of mapping it to a fiat?

mrb 9y ago

«nobody uses it to pay» Always the same misconception being repeated... Your opinion is not supported by data. Usage is quickly growing: https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-growth-2017/ https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all (before someone says "it's speculators": no it's not—buying, holding, and selling BTC on an exchange does not create transactions on the blockchain; the vast majority of speculators leave their BTC in an exchange and never move it)

foobardeveloper 9y ago
There is an important distinction between valuing something inherently with bitcoin and accepting bitcoin for a real time USD conversion. What your are seeing with all these merchants is the latter I suppose, they have an intermediary who accepts bitcoin and converts it to USD and hands them the amount. Until something can be stably valued in Bitcoin similar to USD, it's use as a currency will be a moot point.
- mrb 9y ago
  Your argument is like saying an American manufacturer whose British sales office accepts GBP as payments which are immediately converted to USD means that "GBP's use as a currency is moot in this case".
  - foobardeveloper 9y ago
    The conversion is just a workaround of a fundamental problem, the real question is, Can a product be stably valued for a reasonable period of time using bitcoin? I can express the value of say a laptop for weeks, if not months, in USD / GBP, can the same be done natively in bitcoin? Can you point me to any manufacturer or business entity that values something in bitcoin instead of mapping it to a fiat?