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Once upon a time you could actually buy goods and services like pizza and games with BTC, nowadays the most likely reason for an average person to buy bitcoin i

Once upon a time you could actually buy goods and services like pizza and games with BTC, nowadays the most likely reason for an average person to buy bitcoin is to pay the ransom for their locked up computer. Without a legitimate use case (selling your nintendo switch to somebody in venezuela does not count) BTC will be forever associated with the small scale crime scene.

Tenoke 6y ago
This is definitely not true. The most likely reason for someone to buy BTC is speculation. Darknet markets and ransomware volume is tiny in comparison.
xur17 6y ago
You can still buy pizza and games with BTC. If anything, I'd argue that the market for this has increased.
WinstonSmith84 6y ago
BTC was never meant to be used to purchase groceries (transaction fees + limitation on the number of tx/s). There are other cryptos which (could) do that very well, however. But large bank transfer may be convenient with Bitcoin: have you ever purchased a used car, not for $500USD, but for $10k+? Arguably, it's a legal, but definitely an edge case. Just giving an example :-) Speculation is one thing, but BTC is going nowhere and in a world hit by an incoming significant inflation, many have understood that Bitcoin is simply an easy place where to safeguard your wealth if the outlook is at least +5 years, not days / months. That's why people buy Bitcoins at the moment.
- vanschelven 6y ago
  "small casual transactions" is described as a goal of Bitcoin in the opening paragraph of the introduction of the whitepaper
  - zekrioca 6y ago
    Paper which was written in 2007/2008. Who would have thought that the ARPANET would be the basis for today's Internet.. and still, here we are..
alentist 6y ago
> selling your nintendo switch to somebody in venezuela does not count How about buying food and paying bills? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25797143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25797143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25889590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25889590 https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research > By and large, this is true in Venezuela. Expats use bitcoin to send remittances back home, where locals convert it to bolivars to buy food and pay bills. With crypto remittances from expats plunging, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions within the country have proven resilient. LocalBitcoins and Paxful trades using bolivars peaked in the first half of 2019, and have since hovered around $20 million. > “People living in Venezuela are living under a very unstable and predatory government. They suffer from extreme inflation and general economic instability. And here’s a censorship-resistant, inflation-proof asset, so it’s very attractive to people who are looking for a way to maintain value,” said Andrea O’Sullivan, director of tech and innovation at James Madison Institute, a Washington think tank.

Tenoke 6y ago

This is definitely not true. The most likely reason for someone to buy BTC is speculation. Darknet markets and ransomware volume is tiny in comparison.

xur17 6y ago

You can still buy pizza and games with BTC. If anything, I'd argue that the market for this has increased.

WinstonSmith84 6y ago

BTC was never meant to be used to purchase groceries (transaction fees + limitation on the number of tx/s). There are other cryptos which (could) do that very well, however. But large bank transfer may be convenient with Bitcoin: have you ever purchased a used car, not for $500USD, but for $10k+? Arguably, it's a legal, but definitely an edge case. Just giving an example :-) Speculation is one thing, but BTC is going nowhere and in a world hit by an incoming significant inflation, many have understood that Bitcoin is simply an easy place where to safeguard your wealth if the outlook is at least +5 years, not days / months. That's why people buy Bitcoins at the moment.

vanschelven 6y ago
"small casual transactions" is described as a goal of Bitcoin in the opening paragraph of the introduction of the whitepaper
- zekrioca 6y ago
  Paper which was written in 2007/2008. Who would have thought that the ARPANET would be the basis for today's Internet.. and still, here we are..

alentist 6y ago

> selling your nintendo switch to somebody in venezuela does not count How about buying food and paying bills? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25797143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25797143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25889590 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25889590 https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research > By and large, this is true in Venezuela. Expats use bitcoin to send remittances back home, where locals convert it to bolivars to buy food and pay bills. With crypto remittances from expats plunging, peer-to-peer cryptocurrency transactions within the country have proven resilient. LocalBitcoins and Paxful trades using bolivars peaked in the first half of 2019, and have since hovered around $20 million. > “People living in Venezuela are living under a very unstable and predatory government. They suffer from extreme inflation and general economic instability. And here’s a censorship-resistant, inflation-proof asset, so it’s very attractive to people who are looking for a way to maintain value,” said Andrea O’Sullivan, director of tech and innovation at James Madison Institute, a Washington think tank.