8 ms·

Bitcoin hasn't been useful as a currency for a long time. I don't think that's a good measure for determining how an event might affect bitcoin price.

robertAngst 8y ago
speak for yourself, only thing I cant pay is my mortgage. I have a shift card, bought tacobell with bitcoin.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  That's not buying anything with Bitcoin. You are converting your Bitcoin to USD and then purchasing using the traditional, centrally controlled financial system. And that's not even considering the transactions fees it costs to get the Bitcoin to your account. Then there are the transaction fees for using the card, which coinbase says is free "for now".
  - brownbat 8y ago
    That's like saying you can't buy anything with a VISA. Sure, transactions are intermediated through some consensus denomination for exchange. So? He still lost bitcoin and gained tacos. Just as someone else might lose a portion of a credit balance and gain tacos. You get just as full either way.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      It's more like saying you can't buy anything with gold. Credit and debit cards are just a way of shifting dollars around. Bitcoin is more a commodity than a currency. Yes, you can convert gold or oil to dollars and buy things, but you can't walk into a store and give them some gold flake or a quart of Texas crude in exchange for a candy bar.
      - brownbat 8y ago
        > Credit and debit cards are just a way of shifting dollars around A credit card is shifting a line of credit, an intangible promise to pay, a form of trust, that happens to be denominated in dollars. We can pretend it's just a balance of dollars, even though it technically isn't, because it makes conversations easier, and in practical fact that's how it appears to work. But that's just a shorthand. We can use the same shorthand to say someone bought something with bitcoin. There's no reason to demand perfect technical precision with bitcoin and no similar pedantic precision with lines of credit. > you can't walk into a store and give them some gold flake or a quart of Texas crude in exchange for a candy bar I think this is the best test. Here the guy has done that. He walked in with bitcoin and walked out with tacos. When you say that's not really what happened, it feels like a no true scotsman response.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        wpietri 8y ago
        It did not. He gave them dollars, not a quart of crude. That he might have a side deal with somebody else to trade beanie babies for dollars does not make beanie babies a currency. Bitcoin is not a currency. Plenty of other things are true currencies, so there's no fallacy here.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - beefield 8y ago
      No. Someone is traveling to Europe, going to a restaurant and paying for the Euro nominated beer with his US based VISA and starting to claim that hey, cool, I paid for the beer with USD. You see, I lost a portion of my USD balance and gained a beer. If you insist that the guy paid his beer with USD, it is going to be very difficult to discuss about anything as the meanings of the concepts are so twisted. It is quite obvious that using a credit card that then accepts BTCfrom you does not mean that you use BTC to pay for anything but your credit card bill.
    - nicky0 8y ago
      Was there an individual bitcoin transaction for each purchase? No, he just paid his credit card bill with bitcoin.
    - kjhnwasdkn 8y ago
      Sure you could also pay your groceries with lead dispensed from a gun. But that's currently nowhere near broad addoption. It just doesn't meet the definition of "currency", though it will virtually always be current.
    - lagadu 8y ago
      Whatever the receipt says is what you paid with; those receipts are definitely in USD.
- IncRnd 8y ago
  Shift isn't sustainable in it's current form. They are temporarily not charging for domestic transactions. Since there is a cost for those transactions, there will eventually be a fee per transaction.
- tromp 8y ago
  You didn't buy tacobell with bitcoin unless Taco Bell quoted you a price in BTC...
hapnin 8y ago
Bitcoin averages something on the order of 200,000 transactions per day. It's useful to someone.
- wpietri 8y ago
  That's definitely not proof of real economic utility. How many bets happen in Las Vegas every day? But economically, they're negative-sum events exploiting cognitive weaknesses.
  - hapnin 8y ago
    Use as a currency was the point I was addressing. Bitcoin has been a working network for 9 years with 300,000,000 plus transactions. It's a useful currency.
    - simias 8y ago
      300 million transactions in 9 years is ridiculously low compared to any "fiat" currency. Googling around I find a post that gives a lower bound for number of debit card transactions in the USA alone as 47 billions for 2012 alone[1]. That's not counting the rest of the world and the other exchange media like cash or bank transfers. 300 million transactions is nothing. I mean thing about it, it's one single transaction for every person in the USA over the course of 9 years. Alternatively it's less one transaction per year for the entire population of Canada. Amazon alone probably handles more transactions over the course of a couple of weeks. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-credit-and-debit-card-transactions-are-there-every-year https://www.quora.com/How-many-credit-and-debit-card-transac...
    - Frondo 8y ago
      I wonder how many minutes it'd take for cash to manage 300 million transactions.
    - wpietri 8y ago
      Gambling has way more transactions. LIBOR options have more transactions. Any actively traded stock has more transactions. None of those things are currency. Even prominent Bitcoin advocates agree it's not effective as a currency: http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/

robertAngst 8y ago

speak for yourself, only thing I cant pay is my mortgage. I have a shift card, bought tacobell with bitcoin.

jjeaff 8y ago
That's not buying anything with Bitcoin. You are converting your Bitcoin to USD and then purchasing using the traditional, centrally controlled financial system. And that's not even considering the transactions fees it costs to get the Bitcoin to your account. Then there are the transaction fees for using the card, which coinbase says is free "for now".
- brownbat 8y ago
  That's like saying you can't buy anything with a VISA. Sure, transactions are intermediated through some consensus denomination for exchange. So? He still lost bitcoin and gained tacos. Just as someone else might lose a portion of a credit balance and gain tacos. You get just as full either way.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    It's more like saying you can't buy anything with gold. Credit and debit cards are just a way of shifting dollars around. Bitcoin is more a commodity than a currency. Yes, you can convert gold or oil to dollars and buy things, but you can't walk into a store and give them some gold flake or a quart of Texas crude in exchange for a candy bar.
    - brownbat 8y ago
      > Credit and debit cards are just a way of shifting dollars around A credit card is shifting a line of credit, an intangible promise to pay, a form of trust, that happens to be denominated in dollars. We can pretend it's just a balance of dollars, even though it technically isn't, because it makes conversations easier, and in practical fact that's how it appears to work. But that's just a shorthand. We can use the same shorthand to say someone bought something with bitcoin. There's no reason to demand perfect technical precision with bitcoin and no similar pedantic precision with lines of credit. > you can't walk into a store and give them some gold flake or a quart of Texas crude in exchange for a candy bar I think this is the best test. Here the guy has done that. He walked in with bitcoin and walked out with tacos. When you say that's not really what happened, it feels like a no true scotsman response.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - wpietri 8y ago
        It did not. He gave them dollars, not a quart of crude. That he might have a side deal with somebody else to trade beanie babies for dollars does not make beanie babies a currency. Bitcoin is not a currency. Plenty of other things are true currencies, so there's no fallacy here.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - beefield 8y ago
    No. Someone is traveling to Europe, going to a restaurant and paying for the Euro nominated beer with his US based VISA and starting to claim that hey, cool, I paid for the beer with USD. You see, I lost a portion of my USD balance and gained a beer. If you insist that the guy paid his beer with USD, it is going to be very difficult to discuss about anything as the meanings of the concepts are so twisted. It is quite obvious that using a credit card that then accepts BTCfrom you does not mean that you use BTC to pay for anything but your credit card bill.
  - nicky0 8y ago
    Was there an individual bitcoin transaction for each purchase? No, he just paid his credit card bill with bitcoin.
  - kjhnwasdkn 8y ago
    Sure you could also pay your groceries with lead dispensed from a gun. But that's currently nowhere near broad addoption. It just doesn't meet the definition of "currency", though it will virtually always be current.
  - lagadu 8y ago
    Whatever the receipt says is what you paid with; those receipts are definitely in USD.
IncRnd 8y ago
Shift isn't sustainable in it's current form. They are temporarily not charging for domestic transactions. Since there is a cost for those transactions, there will eventually be a fee per transaction.
tromp 8y ago
You didn't buy tacobell with bitcoin unless Taco Bell quoted you a price in BTC...

hapnin 8y ago

Bitcoin averages something on the order of 200,000 transactions per day. It's useful to someone.

wpietri 8y ago
That's definitely not proof of real economic utility. How many bets happen in Las Vegas every day? But economically, they're negative-sum events exploiting cognitive weaknesses.
- hapnin 8y ago
  Use as a currency was the point I was addressing. Bitcoin has been a working network for 9 years with 300,000,000 plus transactions. It's a useful currency.
  - simias 8y ago
    300 million transactions in 9 years is ridiculously low compared to any "fiat" currency. Googling around I find a post that gives a lower bound for number of debit card transactions in the USA alone as 47 billions for 2012 alone[1]. That's not counting the rest of the world and the other exchange media like cash or bank transfers. 300 million transactions is nothing. I mean thing about it, it's one single transaction for every person in the USA over the course of 9 years. Alternatively it's less one transaction per year for the entire population of Canada. Amazon alone probably handles more transactions over the course of a couple of weeks. [1] https://www.quora.com/How-many-credit-and-debit-card-transactions-are-there-every-year https://www.quora.com/How-many-credit-and-debit-card-transac...
  - Frondo 8y ago
    I wonder how many minutes it'd take for cash to manage 300 million transactions.
  - wpietri 8y ago
    Gambling has way more transactions. LIBOR options have more transactions. Any actively traded stock has more transactions. None of those things are currency. Even prominent Bitcoin advocates agree it's not effective as a currency: http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/ http://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/