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So I suppose people must use it all the time to buy goods and services. Right?
by exitb 2y ago
So I suppose people must use it all the time to buy goods and services. Right?
- cranberryturkey 2y agoI know i'm not your typically bitcoiner, I started investing in it at $4. but I pay all my part-time employees in it.
- asterix_pano 2y agowhy not use something that's better to transact (less or no fees and faster) ?
- cranberryturkey 2y agoactually i've been using ETH lately because its cheaper in fees, but I acquired a lot of BTC, so its kind of wash to transfer to ETH
- fallingsquirrel 2y agoSadly no, despite how long they've been around, it's pretty rare for people to use gold or index funds to buy goods and services. They're worthless.
- TkTech 2y agoSpeculators buying from speculators and hoping today isn't the day the hot potato explodes.
- wyager 2y agoHow long do you think it will take you to update your priors on this?
- MuffinFlavored 2y agoHow long has this been the case for gold roughly? Since the 1970s?
- kerbs 2y agoGold is used to make things. You can argue what its value should be as a material alone, but it’s not entirely speculation.
- exe34 2y agocan you make useful things with abstract art? They're not even good as toilet paper and yet people still buy and trade them.
- hparadiz 2y agoCrypto can be used as a store of wealth when crossing borders preventing search and seizure of your wealth against overzealous governments. See Russia in the early 90s which would regularly search and confiscate cash from people leaving. That alone makes it very valuable.
- Larrikin 2y agoWhat's the scenario where the government can take the digital money from your bank accounts but can't take the digital money from your crypto wallet?
- DennisP 2y agoAny scenario where you're sufficiently careful with your private keys.
- rounce 2y agoWhat happens when they bust out the $5 wrench?
- fallingsquirrel 2y agoThey would need 300 million wrenches, one for each citizen. That leaves society in a much better position than letting them do it at scale with an sql query.
- laurentiurad 2y agono, but I am using my index fund on s&p 500 to buy goods and services
- Retric 2y agoDividends provide a real income stream people live off of, bitcoins need buyers. It’s the difference between owning a farm and a gold bar.
- mrighele 2y agoThere are plenty of companies whose stock is sought after but that never paid dividends (I think Tesla and Amazon are some example, or used to be at least)
- onlyrealcuzzo 2y agoThey return cash to shareholders in the form of buybacks.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Retric 2y agoNever have isn’t never will, dividends and buybacks are a sign the company doesn’t have use for the money. Meta and Google both eventually started paying dividends because they’re essentially tapped out of internal investment ideas. Telsa and Amazon on the other hand believe they have something meaningful to do with the money. But eventually successful companies just don’t have anything useful to do with their giant piles of cash.
- tfehring 2y agoIt’s not really about dividends. If you buy a share of Amazon stock, you’re getting a cut of the value that a million+ people are producing every day by writing code or moving stuff around. The value most workers create for their employers’ shareholders is much bigger than their rent check, and capturing that value is even easier than being a landlord. Dividends are just moving money from one pocket to the other, the value created by people’s work is where the returns come from. Financial returns without value creation are an anomaly, though not necessarily a rare or short-lived one.
- tim333 2y agoThe hot potato has gone 5000+ days without exploding and seems fairly non explosive.
- 4gotunameagain 2y agoMore than 70% drop in less than a year is not an explosion ?
- disqard 2y agoThe hot potato can remain non-explosive longer than you can remain armored.
- treme 2y agogramps, btc has taken over as storage of value akin to digital gold at this point many years ago. No more convenient/secure way to move money.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- the__alchemist 2y agoCould you please elaborate on this supposition? I assume from the context that you suspect the price does not reflect an intrinsic value of the coin. I infer that from reading your sentence as sarcasm; your implication is, it's not used to buy goods and services, therefor this is a bubble. (?)
- yzdbgd 2y agoStablecoins are much better for payments, no one would use BTC for goods and services with the transaction fee and the confirmation time being so bad. https://www.coinbase.com/institutional/research-insights/research/market-intelligence/stablecoins-new-payments-landscape https://www.coinbase.com/institutional/research-insights/res... TL;DR from the article : Stablecoins settled $10.8T worth of transactions in 2023 of which $2.3T were related to organic activities including payments and cross-border remittances, among others Today’s payment giants suffer from major disadvantages including high transaction costs, slower settlement times and limited transparency albeit there are tradeoffs to stablecoins too
- bawolff 2y agoBut at that point you are giving up on the alleged benefits of crypto (decentralization) and you might as well just pay cash.
- Ferret7446 2y agoNot quite. Stablecoins are still more decentralized than classic fiat and AFAIU it's easier to trade stablecoins to/from other coins/tokens. Practical example, credit/debt card processors almost universally have banned/are banning many adult content sites, but those sites are starting to accept stablecoins. While stablecoins can be tracked, transactions cannot be universally controlled, especially not by private entities (depends on the exact stablecoin of course).
- MuffinFlavored 2y ago> Stablecoins are much better for payments Stablecoins on what 'network/coin/layer/chain'? Stablecoins on top of ETH? On top of SOL? On top of ETH BASE? On top of ETH Arbitrum/Optimism? Binance Smart Chain? Tron? Polygon?
- yunohn 2y agoDoesn’t even matter, because stablecoins are basically acknowledging that all of the crypto tech is a farce and all you need is a digital currency tied to IRL currencies.
- mdgrech23 2y agothis isn't why people buy Bitcoin. they buy it b/c they don't have confidence in the power of the US dollar or want to hedge their bets. It's the equivalent of gold, that is people turn to it when they think shit may hit the fan but it doesn't have the downsides of physically holding gold.
- jsheard 2y ago> don't have confidence in the power of the US dollar Whenever the US stock market slumps, doesn't Bitcoins price usually slump too in almost perfect lockstep?
- jcfrei 2y agoYes, bitcoin effectively trades like the 3x leveraged nasdaq indices (TQQQ).
- hparadiz 2y agoEh the USA hasn't defaulted on its debt. Yet. Once it does BTC will stop shadowing the USD.
- jcfrei 2y agoThe companies in the Nasdaq don't care much about the US defaulting: The cash (and cash equivalents in treasuries, etc.) don't make up a large part of their market valuation. If US defaults USD will tank and equity prices of public companies will soar (just like every other price including oil, gold, groceries, and probably also btc).
- hparadiz 2y agoIf that happens those companies will likely see an asset sell off as owners seek cash to buy basic commodities which will perpetuate a great depression. Sufficiently sized multinationals will relist themselves on different exchanges with other more stable currencies but the general panic will cause a downward spiral for most securities.
- jazzyjackson 2y agoNo, but people are feeling sketchy about keeping their wealth in USD
- MuffinFlavored 2y ago> USD sketchy > BTC less sketchy I get what you are saying but it is still a wild sentence. I get monetary policy, debasement, inflation... but there is no rule/law that says "BTC MUST be a safe-haven alternative to inflation"
- marcosdumay 2y agoThe relative sketchiness between those two just had a significant change. Prices are set on the margins. Not at the absolute values.
- tucnak 2y agoNobody is alluding that it _must_ be a safe-haven w.r.t. inflation; just that it's less sketchy than USD. However, I personally wouldn't put my money there, because there exist cryptocurrencies with much stronger fundamentals. XMR is one of them: the cartels, major organized groups, money laundering industries are all doing their books in it. People often claim that Bitcoin is weak fundamentally, nobody uses it for goods and services, etc etc, well they should buy XMR—it's really strong, and indeed, stable like that.
- MuffinFlavored 2y ago> just that it's less sketchy than USD. I think the asset with $20t (M2) that has been around for hundreds of years and has a military behind it is less sketchy that the internet math coin.
- seadan83 2y agoWhile tempting to link the two, you really can't. Post-hoc rationalization fallacy. I've come to appreciate that all of Yahoo finance/stock news is true bullshit. Markov process, random fund manager deciding to move money, these are all potential explanations rather than an actual identifiable and causative zeitgeist. In other words, a lot if it is really just quite random (potentially with a long term trend. But let's say again, post-hoc rationalization fallacy)
- bawolff 2y agoI know you are being snarky, but i think its worth pointing out that ever increasing prices is bad for a medium of exchange not good. The higher prices decreases the liklihood of it being used like a currency.
- yunohn 2y agoYes, absolutely. But that’s exactly the problem. What is crypto - currency, investment, technology, religion? Apparently for all the crypto people I know, it’s somehow all of the above.
- dragontamer 2y agoIts a thing you buy that will go up in value as Trump, Elon, JD Vance, and RFK Jr. enter power. Its about that simple now. Whether or not that's good for the country (IE: does anything useful) is irrelevant now.
- jsbg 2y agoby that logic people would not buy TVs or memory cards
- hanniabu 2y agoBitcoin can't be used for anything. Bitcoin is the idea, Ethereum is the execution. You can find many non-crypto native organizations building on Ethereum: https://ethereumadoption.com/ https://ethereumadoption.com/
- wvlia5 2y agoNever. Yet, btc price keeps rising. Ergo, your model for understanding economics is worthless.
- LambdaComplex 2y agoThe economy can handle the existence of both currency and securities.
- tootie 2y agoThe point is that it isn't a currency. Nor is it debt or equity. More like an incorporeal commodity.
- bdd8f1df777b 2y agoDo people use gold all the time to buy goods and services? That doesn't diminish the value of golds, or its validity as a store of value.
- agumonkey 2y agohope as a service
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chairmansteve 2y agoIt's digital gold. For whatever that is worth.
- Loudergood 2y agoGold transactions are much cheaper.
- itsoktocry 2y ago>Gold transactions are much cheaper. How so? Have you ever tried to buy anything with gold? Or store it?
- lottin 2y ago'Digital gold' is a meaningless sentence. What is digital gold? How does it differ from, say, digital iron?
- chairmansteve 2y agoPeople buy gold coins and hide them under the mattress. For when the zombie apocalypse happens. Bitcoiners think BTC can be used for the same purpose.
- t0bia_s 2y agoBitcoiners use it on daily basis for all kind transactions. There are some, that completely abandoned fiat and use only crypto.
- tim333 2y agoNot really - it functions economically in a similar manner to gold. Both have a primary use - jewellery or digital payments - and a secondary function as a store of value. Iron isn't much use for financial reserves unlike bullion.
- lottin 2y ago
- dudus 2y agoYes. All the time, just not for the things you and I buy such as groceries and transportation. Instead Bitcoin is used to buy illegal products and services such as drugs, weapons, politicians and hit men
- str3wer 2y agoah the old debunked story "but crypto is used only for crime" https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-false-narrative-of-bitcoins-role-in-illicit-activity/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/haileylennon/2021/01/19/the-fal...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- diegoholiveira 2y agoUSD and EUR is also used to buy illegal products.
- FabHK 2y agoWell, yes, fiat is extraordinarily useful, and used, including for crime. However, there are many rules and mechanisms in place to stop fiat being used for crime (KYC, AML, CTF, ...). So, it is better suited to legitimate transactions, and worse for illegitimate ones. Lastly, fiat is indispensable in running a modern economy. In contrast, crypto is designed (qua permissionlessness) to evade regulation. Since it's fairly crappy technology, it's also slow and inefficient and cumbersome. So, it is better suited to illegitimate transactions than to legitimate ones. Lastly, crypto is entirely dispensable.
- diegoholiveira 2y ago> However, there are many rules and mechanisms in place to stop fiat being used for crime Yes, but even with those mechanisms in place, crime was doing ok without crypto. > Lastly, fiat is indispensable in running a modern economy. Not sure about this.
- diegoholiveira 2y agoAccording to Gresham's Law, people will always spend the worst money first.
- wyager 2y agoThis is such a hilarious objection. Do people use gold or equities or real estate to buy coffee? Well then I guess they must all be some kind of bubble
- timcavel 2y ago[dead]
- BurningFrog 2y agoWhen buying "gray market" prescription medications from India, Bitcoin is the main way to pay. US credit cards refuse such transactions.
- munksbeer 2y agoIn the UK, using bitcoin is a taxable transaction, and acquiring bitcoin requires you to do so through regulated exchanges with full know your customer checks. So the government know you have bitcoin, they know your wallet address and they can see that you made a transaction, that you should be declaring and paying tax on. I don't want a tax evasion charge hanging over my head and I can't be bothered declaring crypto transactions on my tax return, particularly when I'm using to buy medication that I may not be legally allowed to buy.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- tim333 2y agoI did actually manage to use some via the lightning network to buy a regular service the other day - cell phone credit on Silent Link. But yeah the usual way to buy goods and services is to convert to fiat first.
- Nifty3929 2y agoI don't know about you, but I routinely pay for groceries with crypto. I just ask the checker for the store's wallet address and preferred currency. Sometimes we have to negotiate about which currency I use that they also use, but this is a detail that only takes 5-10min. Once we agree on a proper currency, I pull out my 2FA dongle to auth my phone wallet app, scan their QR code, check the address twice and click send. Occasionally I will have to add or subtract a bit from the posted price, to account for market moves since I put the items in my basket. Then I just have to wait about 20min or so for enough nodes to confirm the transaction. Then I can go with my ice cream and broccoli. It's just that easy!
- squintychino 2y agoCan you provide the name and location of this grocery store? Or any grocery store that accepts btc? I've never encountered ONE single grocery store, or store for that matter, that accepts bitcoin as payment.
- Slyfox33 2y agoThink that was sarcasm.
- npoc 2y agoThe fact that you interchange the words "bitcoin" and "crypto" says all I need to know.
- rajnathani 2y agoIt's like asking whether one would use ACH to buy coffee. Yes, nobody uses Bitcoin for transactions per se, but if it were to be used as a currency then one would transact Bitcoin over more efficient payment ledgers rather than the Bitcoin ledger. This analogy is similar to how Transferwise enables cross-border payments without actually sending the equivalent volume of money across borders. I know this doesn't address your main question, but either way it is worth thinking over when you think of "transacting with Bitcoin".
- npoc 2y agoNo, the opposite. To not spend - to save in.