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Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment. There is more or less the same places where to spend it as there was 4, 5 years ago. And they all have about the same

Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment. There is more or less the same places where to spend it as there was 4, 5 years ago. And they all have about the same traffic, which is nearly zero. Most people only use it for speculation. This can't end well.

jstanley 9y ago
I use bitcoin for payment. I get paid in bitcoin and I pay in bitcoin wherever possible.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Does your pay get adjusted according to the current price of BTC? It's got to be strange to have money in your account that is worth 20% more over the weekend.
  - jstanley 9y ago
    I'm self-employed. I occasionally adjust my prices when the value of BTC changes.
mdgrech23 9y ago
Why? Gold is used for speculation. So is land...
- cvsh 9y ago
  You can't build an apartment complex on a bitcoin
  - jstanley 9y ago
    And you can't transfer an apartment complex to the other side of the world within minutes without asking for permission. What's your point?
viridian 9y ago
This simply isn't true. If you pointed out that adoption and price aren't growing in a correlated manner I'd be inclined to agree, but steam, whole foods, and subway weren't accepting bitcoin 4 years ago. At least three of those payment acceptors also make to US top 25 list for traffic (Microsoft's bing, reddit, wikipedia) so they aren't exactly zero traffic, either. https://99bitcoins.com/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-bitcoins/ https://99bitcoins.com/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companie... I don't even have a dog in this fight, as I don't own any, but this is blatant misinformation.
knocte 9y ago
I disagree, I use it for booking flights and hotels everytime I travel (e.g. Expedia, Destinia; 9flats, CryptoCribs). Smooth experience, much better than paying with {credit|debit} cards. I also get paid in bitcoin thanks to bitwage. It's easier to get good (figurative) raises this way instead of depending on your boss x-) If you're wondering how the hell I'm so crazy to "bet" my salary on this, check this shower thought: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/79zy2d/shower_thought_when_i_work_for_fiat_money_im/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/79zy2d/shower_thou...
- panarky 9y ago
  > Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter). 1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions 2) It's all speculation 3) There's no intrinsic value 4) Tulips I say, TULIPS! 5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money" 6) Governments will shut it down 7) Transactions aren't really private 8) Mining uses more energy than entire nations 9) Nobody will ever spend a deflationary currency 10) It's only useful for drugs, assassinations, gambling and ransoms 11) It doesn't scale, not enough transactions per second, blockchain will get too big 12) It's too volatile to be useful 13) Since the exchange rate keeps rising it's not useful for payments 14) Since I can't buy coffee with it it's not useful 15) Since fees are high it's not useful 16) It's a scam, Ponzi, pyramid 17) The "market cap" is (a) too small to be relevant, (b) evidence of a bubble 18) Will never completely replace gold / national currencies / corporations so there's no value 19) There are a lot of shady exchanges that (a) get hacked, (b) steal customer deposits, (c) are secretly insolvent 20) If the cryptography gets broken / bugs or exploits are discovered and the whole thing goes to zero Maybe so many new people are just now getting involved that we keep rehashing a decade of stale thinking? Let's talk about some new ideas!
  - lucozade 9y ago
    What may be more helpful that a definitive list of arguments is a definitive list of valid responses to those arguments. As a random example, mining does use more energy than some nations. Why this may be a good thing in a medium of exchange/value store tends to receive somewhat hand wavy responses. If you have a great answer then it might be helpful to share it.
ssanders82 9y ago
Nobody really pays for anything with gold Krugerrands either.
koheripbal 9y ago
You can buy drugs with it online. ...and also pay ransomware ransoms.
ryanlol 9y ago
I’ve been paying salaries for a while using bitcoin. My volumes aren’t entirely insignificant and using Bitcoin is far more convenient than wire transfers. I just paid my 25k rent deposit using bitcoin too, it was much easier than dealing with a SWIFT wire. It took only minutes for the landlord to be confident that he’s got the money. I’ve been living without personal bank accounts for multiple years now, and thanks to bitcoin it’s been pretty great. And no, I won’t be crying if bitcoin drops back to $300.
0bsidian 9y ago
I'm going to repeat myself here, but please bear with me if you haven't heard this argument before. I respectfully disagree with the idea that Bitcoin's killer-app is to be used as a currency for transactional purposes. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked). Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key. (2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. (3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad. (4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach. This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." Reference [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter-thiel-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter...
- jstanley 9y ago
  > I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West I can think of one: if you get paid in Bitcoin, having to buy some GBPs just so you can buy a coffee or a sandwich is a hassle.
  - aninhumer 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

jstanley 9y ago

I use bitcoin for payment. I get paid in bitcoin and I pay in bitcoin wherever possible.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Does your pay get adjusted according to the current price of BTC? It's got to be strange to have money in your account that is worth 20% more over the weekend.
- jstanley 9y ago
  I'm self-employed. I occasionally adjust my prices when the value of BTC changes.

mdgrech23 9y ago

Why? Gold is used for speculation. So is land...

cvsh 9y ago
You can't build an apartment complex on a bitcoin
- jstanley 9y ago
  And you can't transfer an apartment complex to the other side of the world within minutes without asking for permission. What's your point?

viridian 9y ago

This simply isn't true. If you pointed out that adoption and price aren't growing in a correlated manner I'd be inclined to agree, but steam, whole foods, and subway weren't accepting bitcoin 4 years ago. At least three of those payment acceptors also make to US top 25 list for traffic (Microsoft's bing, reddit, wikipedia) so they aren't exactly zero traffic, either. https://99bitcoins.com/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companies-stores-take-bitcoins/ https://99bitcoins.com/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companie... I don't even have a dog in this fight, as I don't own any, but this is blatant misinformation.

knocte 9y ago

I disagree, I use it for booking flights and hotels everytime I travel (e.g. Expedia, Destinia; 9flats, CryptoCribs). Smooth experience, much better than paying with {credit|debit} cards. I also get paid in bitcoin thanks to bitwage. It's easier to get good (figurative) raises this way instead of depending on your boss x-) If you're wondering how the hell I'm so crazy to "bet" my salary on this, check this shower thought: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/79zy2d/shower_thought_when_i_work_for_fiat_money_im/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/79zy2d/shower_thou...

panarky 9y ago
> Nobody actually uses bitcoin for payment Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter). 1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions 2) It's all speculation 3) There's no intrinsic value 4) Tulips I say, TULIPS! 5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money" 6) Governments will shut it down 7) Transactions aren't really private 8) Mining uses more energy than entire nations 9) Nobody will ever spend a deflationary currency 10) It's only useful for drugs, assassinations, gambling and ransoms 11) It doesn't scale, not enough transactions per second, blockchain will get too big 12) It's too volatile to be useful 13) Since the exchange rate keeps rising it's not useful for payments 14) Since I can't buy coffee with it it's not useful 15) Since fees are high it's not useful 16) It's a scam, Ponzi, pyramid 17) The "market cap" is (a) too small to be relevant, (b) evidence of a bubble 18) Will never completely replace gold / national currencies / corporations so there's no value 19) There are a lot of shady exchanges that (a) get hacked, (b) steal customer deposits, (c) are secretly insolvent 20) If the cryptography gets broken / bugs or exploits are discovered and the whole thing goes to zero Maybe so many new people are just now getting involved that we keep rehashing a decade of stale thinking? Let's talk about some new ideas!
- lucozade 9y ago
  What may be more helpful that a definitive list of arguments is a definitive list of valid responses to those arguments. As a random example, mining does use more energy than some nations. Why this may be a good thing in a medium of exchange/value store tends to receive somewhat hand wavy responses. If you have a great answer then it might be helpful to share it.

ssanders82 9y ago

Nobody really pays for anything with gold Krugerrands either.

koheripbal 9y ago

You can buy drugs with it online. ...and also pay ransomware ransoms.

ryanlol 9y ago

I’ve been paying salaries for a while using bitcoin. My volumes aren’t entirely insignificant and using Bitcoin is far more convenient than wire transfers. I just paid my 25k rent deposit using bitcoin too, it was much easier than dealing with a SWIFT wire. It took only minutes for the landlord to be confident that he’s got the money. I’ve been living without personal bank accounts for multiple years now, and thanks to bitcoin it’s been pretty great. And no, I won’t be crying if bitcoin drops back to $300.

0bsidian 9y ago

I'm going to repeat myself here, but please bear with me if you haven't heard this argument before. I respectfully disagree with the idea that Bitcoin's killer-app is to be used as a currency for transactional purposes. I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations). On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked). Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key. (2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. (3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad. (4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach. This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." Reference [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter-thiel-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter...

jstanley 9y ago
> I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West I can think of one: if you get paid in Bitcoin, having to buy some GBPs just so you can buy a coffee or a sandwich is a hassle.
- aninhumer 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]