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I don't even know what problem Bitcoin is solving anymore. I haven't seen a single website accepting Bitcoin as a payment in the last whole year.

paulmd 7y ago
the problem is largely allowing chinese nationals to extract hard currency past PRC capital controls (any electricity you burn is converted to BTC, and it's easy to bribe a local official to ignore it) and a side of russian mafia transactions (cryptolocker/etc) there really aren't any significant (legal) north american/european transactions that occur in BTC
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  Care to cite your sources?
xur17 7y ago
I regularly use it to pay for gift cards on cardcash for an additional 2% discount. It makes a lot of sense for sites selling items highly prone to fraud or with thin margins.
sodafountan 7y ago
It's solving a much much bigger problem than electronic payments (which was never really a problem in the first place unless you're overly concerned about privacy). We have a major problem with inflation in this world, you can't just put your money somewhere and have it retain its value anymore and it hasn't been like that for years, we're forced to play the stock market game which just consolidates power to big corporations and leaves a lot of people all over the world left behind - bitcoin actually solves that problem, and just to drive that point home, if you'd invested in bitcoin and held during just about any given 365 day period throughout its ten year lifespan you'd have likely beaten the stock market in gains by a lot, that helps a ton of people, especially young people who are saddled by debt. We have countries that have no reliable form of currency at all, again bitcoin solves that problem. I agree with some of the sentiment of the article, bitcoin's energy consumption is something to keep an eye on and if we can seamlessly move to an algorithm that's greener then so be it but you have to realize the tremendous amount of good that bitcoin is doing for the world and will likely continue to do as it becomes scarcer and scarcer, don't knock a technology that can single handedly lift a continent like Africa out of poverty. *edit: Nothing like defending bitcoin on Hacker News and getting downvoted to oblivion, hey rather than downvote why don't you point out exactly what you disagree with so we can have a discussion
- puranjay 7y ago
  > We have countries that have no reliable form of currency at all, again bitcoin solves that problem Countries that don't have reliable forms of currency also don't have reliable power or internet access.
  - sodafountan 7y ago
    and yet all you need is a simple phone and access to these satellites: https://blockstream.com/satellite/ https://blockstream.com/satellite/ I agree the infrastructure isn't there yet but problems with national currency is a government issue, infrastructure issues can usually be solved but governmental issues tend to be a lot harder and all countries that rely on fiat currency are subject to inflation
    - puranjay 7y ago
      Countries that don't have reliable currencies are countries like South Sudan and Somalia. Do you really expect illiterate people (3 in 4 women in Somalia are illiterate, 1 in 2 men) to use Blockstream? You can tell that Bitcoin, and its advocates, are from developed countries. No one who has lived in a developing country and seen crushing poverty would make such arguments.
      - RidingPegasus 7y ago
        Given the choice would you suggest a person from somewhere such as Venezuela keep their personal savings in Bitcoin or Venezuelan bolívars?
        atq2119 7y ago
        This is a false dichotomy, since USD are very widely spread on South America.
        paulmd 7y ago
        I'd suggest keeping it in USD or other hard currency. Bitcoin provides no advantages in obtaining/transacting hard currency relative to other currencies, nor any stability while holding it. Either way you are going to a black market, and you are paying real, unaffordable conversion rates compared to transacting in (worthless) hyperinflationary currency. The bitcoin guy is not going to accept 1 Zimbabwe dollar to 1 USD any more than your black market dealer who has USD. The real currency conversion rate is the problem, not the act of obtaining actual hard currency.
bdcravens 7y ago
We were an early adopter of Stripe’s Bitcoin integration. I even was sent a Stripe t-shirt for finding bugs in their docs. In the entire time until Stripe ended the integration, we never received a single payment using Bitcoin.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  Tbh I'm pretty sure that people who ask for BTC never intend to pay. It's just another deflection in a long list from people who won't pay. I now see it as all kinda wasted effort. Probably should just focus on making things better for the guys with the dollars rather than the guys who promise the money if you'll only do X.
btcd 7y ago
Bitcoin's main function is store of value, with the additional benefit of being relatively easy to transfer. It is basically a more convenient form a gold. After all these years of growth, Bitcoin's market cap becomes its own unique edge. One simply cannot transfer significant amount, say tens of millions of dollars, easily in any other crypto currency. The cost of energy is minuscule compared to alternative means of achieving the same: vaults, guards, banks, lawyers, etc.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Buy $10M worth of bitcoin, and then sell it again the next day, and we'll see how much you lost (on average). I'd guess you'll lose far more than doing the same with gold, because the market slippage due to lack of liquidity far exceeds the cost of those vaults, banks, and guards.
  - btcd 7y ago
    This is not true. I used to be a professional market maker in Bitcoin. This year, Bitcoin market is relatively calm in at least half of the time, meaning 12 hours out of a 24-hour day, longer than most established equity market. Under these normal conditions, trading $1m worth of Bitcoin moves the market by less than 0.01%.
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      Citation needed. Checking the bitfinex order book: https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book A trade of $10M, or 1250 bitcoins, would move the market by 6%
      - sobani 7y ago
        Maybe pick an exchange that isn't #60 based on transaction volume? https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/ https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/
- xg15 7y ago
mirimir 7y ago
There are hundreds of VPN services that accept Bitcoin. It's easier to list ones that don't: HideMyAss. Many server, VPS and web hosting services accept Bitcoin. You can buy giftcards for many sellers with Bitcoin. And there are Bitcoin-funded debit cards.
glenneroo 7y ago
And I have seen ever more who do such as Overstock, Microsoft, Expedia, Wikipedia, Namecheap, NewEgg. I'm sure there are more.
- biolurker1 7y ago
  you missed the news of the last couple of years with all these names dropping btc because if the high fees, a problem that could be solved but wasn't due to politics
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Also transaction times + volatility. Because it takes so long to confirm, the underlying exchange rates were shifting out from under customers, so even though you'd paid the right amount, by the time the transaction cleared, they either needed to refund you or you needed to pay extra. The whole system was so asinine nobody wanted to use it, and it created tons of customer service headaches.
crtasm 7y ago
Here's a list I found earlier: https://www.wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk/search https://www.wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk/search I might order a raspberry pi from The Pi Hut and a hammock with 50% off for paying with BTC at another site.

paulmd 7y ago

the problem is largely allowing chinese nationals to extract hard currency past PRC capital controls (any electricity you burn is converted to BTC, and it's easy to bribe a local official to ignore it) and a side of russian mafia transactions (cryptolocker/etc) there really aren't any significant (legal) north american/european transactions that occur in BTC

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Care to cite your sources?

xur17 7y ago

I regularly use it to pay for gift cards on cardcash for an additional 2% discount. It makes a lot of sense for sites selling items highly prone to fraud or with thin margins.

sodafountan 7y ago

It's solving a much much bigger problem than electronic payments (which was never really a problem in the first place unless you're overly concerned about privacy). We have a major problem with inflation in this world, you can't just put your money somewhere and have it retain its value anymore and it hasn't been like that for years, we're forced to play the stock market game which just consolidates power to big corporations and leaves a lot of people all over the world left behind - bitcoin actually solves that problem, and just to drive that point home, if you'd invested in bitcoin and held during just about any given 365 day period throughout its ten year lifespan you'd have likely beaten the stock market in gains by a lot, that helps a ton of people, especially young people who are saddled by debt. We have countries that have no reliable form of currency at all, again bitcoin solves that problem. I agree with some of the sentiment of the article, bitcoin's energy consumption is something to keep an eye on and if we can seamlessly move to an algorithm that's greener then so be it but you have to realize the tremendous amount of good that bitcoin is doing for the world and will likely continue to do as it becomes scarcer and scarcer, don't knock a technology that can single handedly lift a continent like Africa out of poverty. *edit: Nothing like defending bitcoin on Hacker News and getting downvoted to oblivion, hey rather than downvote why don't you point out exactly what you disagree with so we can have a discussion

puranjay 7y ago
> We have countries that have no reliable form of currency at all, again bitcoin solves that problem Countries that don't have reliable forms of currency also don't have reliable power or internet access.
- sodafountan 7y ago
  and yet all you need is a simple phone and access to these satellites: https://blockstream.com/satellite/ https://blockstream.com/satellite/ I agree the infrastructure isn't there yet but problems with national currency is a government issue, infrastructure issues can usually be solved but governmental issues tend to be a lot harder and all countries that rely on fiat currency are subject to inflation
  - puranjay 7y ago
    Countries that don't have reliable currencies are countries like South Sudan and Somalia. Do you really expect illiterate people (3 in 4 women in Somalia are illiterate, 1 in 2 men) to use Blockstream? You can tell that Bitcoin, and its advocates, are from developed countries. No one who has lived in a developing country and seen crushing poverty would make such arguments.
    - RidingPegasus 7y ago
      Given the choice would you suggest a person from somewhere such as Venezuela keep their personal savings in Bitcoin or Venezuelan bolívars?
      - atq2119 7y ago
        This is a false dichotomy, since USD are very widely spread on South America.
      - paulmd 7y ago
        I'd suggest keeping it in USD or other hard currency. Bitcoin provides no advantages in obtaining/transacting hard currency relative to other currencies, nor any stability while holding it. Either way you are going to a black market, and you are paying real, unaffordable conversion rates compared to transacting in (worthless) hyperinflationary currency. The bitcoin guy is not going to accept 1 Zimbabwe dollar to 1 USD any more than your black market dealer who has USD. The real currency conversion rate is the problem, not the act of obtaining actual hard currency.

bdcravens 7y ago

We were an early adopter of Stripe’s Bitcoin integration. I even was sent a Stripe t-shirt for finding bugs in their docs. In the entire time until Stripe ended the integration, we never received a single payment using Bitcoin.

scarejunba 7y ago
Tbh I'm pretty sure that people who ask for BTC never intend to pay. It's just another deflection in a long list from people who won't pay. I now see it as all kinda wasted effort. Probably should just focus on making things better for the guys with the dollars rather than the guys who promise the money if you'll only do X.

btcd 7y ago

Bitcoin's main function is store of value, with the additional benefit of being relatively easy to transfer. It is basically a more convenient form a gold. After all these years of growth, Bitcoin's market cap becomes its own unique edge. One simply cannot transfer significant amount, say tens of millions of dollars, easily in any other crypto currency. The cost of energy is minuscule compared to alternative means of achieving the same: vaults, guards, banks, lawyers, etc.

londons_explore 7y ago
Buy $10M worth of bitcoin, and then sell it again the next day, and we'll see how much you lost (on average). I'd guess you'll lose far more than doing the same with gold, because the market slippage due to lack of liquidity far exceeds the cost of those vaults, banks, and guards.
- btcd 7y ago
  This is not true. I used to be a professional market maker in Bitcoin. This year, Bitcoin market is relatively calm in at least half of the time, meaning 12 hours out of a 24-hour day, longer than most established equity market. Under these normal conditions, trading $1m worth of Bitcoin moves the market by less than 0.01%.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    Citation needed. Checking the bitfinex order book: https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book https://www.bitfinex.com/order_book A trade of $10M, or 1250 bitcoins, would move the market by 6%
    - sobani 7y ago
      Maybe pick an exchange that isn't #60 based on transaction volume? https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/ https://coinmarketcap.com/rankings/exchanges/
xg15 7y ago

mirimir 7y ago

There are hundreds of VPN services that accept Bitcoin. It's easier to list ones that don't: HideMyAss. Many server, VPS and web hosting services accept Bitcoin. You can buy giftcards for many sellers with Bitcoin. And there are Bitcoin-funded debit cards.

glenneroo 7y ago

And I have seen ever more who do such as Overstock, Microsoft, Expedia, Wikipedia, Namecheap, NewEgg. I'm sure there are more.

biolurker1 7y ago
you missed the news of the last couple of years with all these names dropping btc because if the high fees, a problem that could be solved but wasn't due to politics
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Also transaction times + volatility. Because it takes so long to confirm, the underlying exchange rates were shifting out from under customers, so even though you'd paid the right amount, by the time the transaction cleared, they either needed to refund you or you needed to pay extra. The whole system was so asinine nobody wanted to use it, and it created tons of customer service headaches.

crtasm 7y ago

Here's a list I found earlier: https://www.wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk/search https://www.wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk/search I might order a raspberry pi from The Pi Hut and a hammock with 50% off for paying with BTC at another site.