4 ms·

"No one wants to buy anything with bitcon, and no one wants to go through the trouble of selling anything with bitcoin." You have absolutely no idea what you a

by mrb 14y ago

"No one wants to buy anything with bitcon, and no one wants to go through the trouble of selling anything with bitcoin." You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. - There are at the very least 5k+ merchants selling products & services for bitcoins - a small fraction of them is listed on https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade - and this is increasing every day - BitPay alone signed up 1500 businesses accepting Bitcoin: http://finance.sfgate.com/hearst.sfgate/news/read/23400142/when_your_paypal http://finance.sfgate.com/hearst.sfgate/news/read/23400142/w... You are not a Bitcoin user and have no idea how successful it is, that is fine, but do not spread lies. Obviously you have no idea how quickly the number of buyers and sellers using Bitcoin is rising...

betterunix 14y ago
It is kind of difficult to determine the rate at which Bitcoin use is growing from your comment. 5000 merchants, 1500 businesses...and in what period of time? How many are still using Bitcoin today e.g. is the EFF among the thousands of Bitcoin businesses you cite? If you want to tell people that they need to get a clue, you could at least try to give them a clue in the process.
- mrb 14y ago
  Ok, well, for example one can look at the estimated USD transaction volume maintained by blockchain.info: http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-u... which went, over 1 year, from $0.5M to $10M transacted per day (it uses an algorithm to attempt to ignore the change of a transaction, hence "estimated"). A fraction of this volume is from people just moving BTC between their different wallets. It is impossible to estimate how large this fraction is. But the reasonable assumption that people are not artificially trying to game this chart by moving coins around leads to the reasonable conclusion that the volume of real transactions is increasing as well. You can look at the USD volume traded on the top Bitcoin exchanges which went, over 1 year, from $200-300k to $1.0-2.5M per day: http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume You can look at Silk Road, who went, over 2 years, from zero to $2 million/month of Bitcoin revenues: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/study-estimates-2-million-a-month-in-bitcoin-drug-sales/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/study-estimates-2... A Bitcoin casino went, over 6 months, from zero to $0.5 million profits (in bitcoins): http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/bitcoin-based-casino-rakes-in-over-500000-profit-in-six-months/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/bitcoin-based-casino... Bottom line, all the indicators point to increased Bitcoin spending.
slinkyavenger 14y ago
Every business I hear about that starts accepting bitcoin does so through a third party exchanger - so companies are still getting paid in USD. That doesn't count as a bitcoin accepting company.
- Anderkent 14y ago
  Can I pay with bitcoin? Yes. Then it is a bitcoin accepting company. I don't care if they use someone else for the infrastructure and sell the bitcoins immediately.
  - slinkyavenger 14y ago
    That's called going through a re-seller. Of course, they also make sure to get a cut. Still just about anyone not doing business below the table is going to prefer USD, or some other state-backed currency.
- mrb 14y ago
  It is irrelevant whether people who spend bitcoins do it through a payment processor or not. You argued that "nobody spends bitcoins", and I wanted to show you why this specific statement is wrong. Payment processor or not, people do spend coins.

by mrb 14y ago

betterunix 14y ago

It is kind of difficult to determine the rate at which Bitcoin use is growing from your comment. 5000 merchants, 1500 businesses...and in what period of time? How many are still using Bitcoin today e.g. is the EFF among the thousands of Bitcoin businesses you cite? If you want to tell people that they need to get a clue, you could at least try to give them a clue in the process.

mrb 14y ago
Ok, well, for example one can look at the estimated USD transaction volume maintained by blockchain.info: http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-u... which went, over 1 year, from $0.5M to $10M transacted per day (it uses an algorithm to attempt to ignore the change of a transaction, hence "estimated"). A fraction of this volume is from people just moving BTC between their different wallets. It is impossible to estimate how large this fraction is. But the reasonable assumption that people are not artificially trying to game this chart by moving coins around leads to the reasonable conclusion that the volume of real transactions is increasing as well. You can look at the USD volume traded on the top Bitcoin exchanges which went, over 1 year, from $200-300k to $1.0-2.5M per day: http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume http://blockchain.info/charts/trade-volume You can look at Silk Road, who went, over 2 years, from zero to $2 million/month of Bitcoin revenues: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/study-estimates-2-million-a-month-in-bitcoin-drug-sales/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/study-estimates-2... A Bitcoin casino went, over 6 months, from zero to $0.5 million profits (in bitcoins): http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/bitcoin-based-casino-rakes-in-over-500000-profit-in-six-months/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/bitcoin-based-casino... Bottom line, all the indicators point to increased Bitcoin spending.

slinkyavenger 14y ago

Every business I hear about that starts accepting bitcoin does so through a third party exchanger - so companies are still getting paid in USD. That doesn't count as a bitcoin accepting company.

Anderkent 14y ago
Can I pay with bitcoin? Yes. Then it is a bitcoin accepting company. I don't care if they use someone else for the infrastructure and sell the bitcoins immediately.
- slinkyavenger 14y ago
  That's called going through a re-seller. Of course, they also make sure to get a cut. Still just about anyone not doing business below the table is going to prefer USD, or some other state-backed currency.
mrb 14y ago
It is irrelevant whether people who spend bitcoins do it through a payment processor or not. You argued that "nobody spends bitcoins", and I wanted to show you why this specific statement is wrong. Payment processor or not, people do spend coins.