If you don't think those things hold value, perhaps you need to take a brief look at how much was paid for vastly inferior technology that could only handle a subset of those tasks-
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-941964.html
Near as I can tell, the only thing that ever gave bitcoins value was the Greater Fool Theory.
1- near instant transfer of wealth from anywhere on the internet
2- no trust required of any central authority
3- ease of incredibly safe storage, *if* you know what you are doing
4- very low fees compared to paypal, bank transfers, or any other realistic alternatives
5- inflation is a precisely known value, you aren't at the whims of your government
6- mining is an interesting way to make money while securing the network, and many computer gamers already have video cards suitable for lite mining
Try to spin it if you want, but the end result is the same. Bitcoin weekly inflation comes crashing down and bitcoin loses 60% of it's value, Cyprus banks steal 80% of your deposits- same end result, you lost money value. The difference is that the bitcoin crash was caused by market forces with no special privileged or powers, while the Euro situation was decided by the governments involved.
Pick your poison. If you want to be under the thumb of oppressive governments, it's your choice.
There's tons of useful things that can be done with bitcoin. You don't hear about them because it takes too much thought, with deeper concepts than 'gimme MORE money'.
If you don't think those things hold value, perhaps you need to take a brief look at how much was paid for vastly inferior technology that could only handle a subset of those tasks-
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-941964.html
You don't seem to understand much about online commerce if you dispute the value of Paypal. It's one of the mainstays of online payment and is accepted nearly everywhere. That, again, is an essential aspect of what gives a currency value. The company also generates revenues in the form of service fees, which gives it value, and furthermore, it was especially valuable to a company like eBay, which needs a widely accepted means of online payment and had been spending money trying to promote an alternative to Paypal at the time it was acquired.
@Chiropteran
everything you're posting across multiple threads confirms one thing: bitcoin is not a currency, it's a commodity to be traded
As a hypothetical seller of cocaine, I can't fathom receiving 1 bitcoin for an 8ball, only to have the value of that bitcoin plummet by 50% the day after. How would I pay my dealers?
For a legit merchant, you can use a service such as bitpay that sets your prices based on USD and the current exchange rate, and when paid it sends you USD directly. You can accept bitcoin without ever touching them.
Yeah and if I receive $1 in PayPal yesterday, I have 97.2 cents today after fees.
If I received 1 bitcoin yesterday, who the fuck knows what I got today?
And once again, maybe I'm missing something - if the exchange is down for 12 hours, like it has been evidently?
or is there truly a system for real time BTC/USD conversion in AND out?
Not really true. If I send you $1 in paypal, I can later open up a dispute and unless you have proof of a shipment being sent to me (which you won't have for a digital purchase, for example) I will win the dispute and the money will be removed from your account retroactively.
https://bitpay.com/bitcoin-exchange-rates
But if you don't want to deal with the risk, you have your prices adjust in real time with the current conversion rate. It doesn't matter what the rate is, because you will get USD if that is your choice method of payment.
1s and 0s of course.@Chiropteran
everything you're posting across multiple threads confirms one thing: bitcoin is not a currency, it's a commodity to be traded
As a hypothetical seller of cocaine, I can't fathom receiving 1 bitcoin for an 8ball, only to have the value of that bitcoin plummet by 50% the day after. How would I pay my dealers?
Noticeably absent from your list, again: widespread acceptance.
I'm an online merchant. If I switch from Paypal to bitpay (or whatever) I might as well just shut down. I'd be better off saying that from now on I only accept payment in South German guldens.
Why on earth would you switch? It costs you nothing extra to accept bitcoin, you can simply offer it without dropping paypal.
That is it, that is the one problem bitcoin has.
It is just a matter of time.
i am about to let you guys in on something now.. that i probably shouldn't (because i'm a greedy bastard)
buy SOON.. not now.. but VERY SOON. BUY IT..
there is about to be a rebound the likes currency has NEVER seen.
this planet is about to FLOWER. buy it now... grab anything right now, that appreciates in value.. for a long time, the money/trade market has been tied down, but i'm telling you, it's about to EXPLODE. grab ahold now.
That is it, that is the one problem bitcoin has.
It is just a matter of time.
There are few purchases where you can really benefit from anonymity.
If it keeps surging and crashing like it has been, there's no way it'll gain widespread acceptance.
If you spend 10 bitcoins to buy a laptop on Monday, and by Wednesday you could have bought two laptops for the same number of bitcoins, you're gonna get pissed off. The same is true for sellers when it falls.
It's like an extremely volatile, mostly random stock that you can try to gamble on if you want. I guess the only real value is you can buy it and then immediately use it before the value changes significantly, so in that way you can use it as an untraceable currency. The question is, how much are you willing to give up to have an anonymous currency? There are few purchases where you can really benefit from anonymity.
Try to spin it if you want, but the end result is the same. Bitcoin weekly inflation comes crashing down and bitcoin loses 60% of it's value, Cyprus banks steal 80% of your deposits- same end result, you lost money value. The difference is that the bitcoin crash was caused by market forces with no special privileged or powers, while the Euro situation was decided by the governments involved.
Wrong. The precedent has been made. The world doesn't always move at internet speed, but everyone everywhere with significant Euro savings is thinking about what happened in Cyprus and wondering if the same could happen to them.
No, but I also didn't buy my bitcoin 2 days ago at maximum possible value. Less than two weeks ago, bitcoin was crossing the $100/BTC barrier for the first time ever. So what if it crashed? It's now back at $115. Except for tiny fraction of investors chasing the recent gains, value has been steadily increasing.
Taken as a whole, bitcoin has historically gained a fairly smooth 10X of value per year for the last 4 years. Taking the extreme bumps, you see higher growth followed by crashes, but after the crash has settled out the previous level of growth continues. While 10X per year will not continue forever, bitcoin is far from market saturation and I expect it to continue to grow at some rate.
Taken as a whole, the USD has been in steady decline for a century. I don't expect this to change significantly either.
It has nothing to do with "spin". If you buy $100 in bonds from XYZ company and that company goes into CH 7 bankruptcy and doesn't have sufficient solvency to survive outside of bankruptcy your bankruptcy trustee works with the company and approves a post-bankruptcy plan.
...
This is the price of having a banking system which is bigger than your country's assets. Now, you can go the way Iceland did and screw the foreign depositors while not touching domestic ones, then refusing to bail out those depositors AND depreciate their currency.
Nobody in the world gives a shit. What has happened to deposits in spain, italy, portugal, or anywhere else? NOTHING. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing. No runs on the banks, no huge withdrawals, NOTHING.
Look, you aren't getting this. NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOU. You keep saying "I bought it 2 days ago" or "I bought it at X and sold it at Y and made money so I don't care, I have nothing at risk". This is *EXACTLY* the problem with Bitcoin, you want it to be widely accepted as currency but you are speaking of it like a pure investment. Until somebody can be assured that EVERY DAY Bitcoin won't move more than .5% - 2%, EITHER WAY, it won't be possible for a single person to seriously accept them. Even 10% single-day swings make it impossible to accept as tender for services. Why? Because you may make 10% one day but you are just as likely, if not more likely, to lose 10% the same day.
How can you possibly run a business like that? YOU CANNOT. This is why almost everybody is OK with the dollar "losing purchasing power" the way it has, because it has done so at a pretty consistent and predictable manner. That manner has resulted in huge economic expansion.
Why?
Because you can plan, you can reduce your amount of spare liquidity, creating a far more efficient balance sheet. You can hire people because you know what you will earn with more certainty.
Certainty = less risk. Less risk = more willingness to expand. More willingness to expand = more jobs. More jobs = more growth.
This is a simple fucking equation that even a baboon should get with minimal education. Yet you fail to understand that.
Until somebody can be assured that EVERY DAY Bitcoin won't move more than .5% - 2%, EITHER WAY, it won't be possible for a single person to seriously accept them. Even 10% single-day swings make it impossible to accept as tender for services.
This. People saw bitcoin's value naturally rising, decided to make a get-rich-quick scheme out of it, over-invested, got burned, and now it's normalizing.
But don't tell anyone that. ZOMG BITCOIN VALUE IN FREE-FALL! THOUSANDS [of idiots] LOSE MONEY! MAN LOSES ENTIRE LIFE SAVINGS, WILL HIS FAMILY MAKE IT?
It's funny that the people who actually use bitcoin as a currency don't seem to give much of a shit. And that segment, although stalled for the moment, is slowly growing.
I do love that this is hurting the big-time miners who bought the multi-thousand dollar ASICs though. A lot of them aren't going to make back their initial investment anytime soon.
Try to spin it if you want, but the end result is the same. Bitcoin weekly inflation comes crashing down and bitcoin loses 60% of it's value, Cyprus banks steal 80% of your deposits- same end result, you lost money value. The difference is that the bitcoin crash was caused by market forces with no special privileged or powers, while the Euro situation was decided by the governments involved.