Bitcoin Forum

Do you think the volatile Bitcoin could be money?

Why not! It means to be internet money, or called cashless money,  has a lot of advantags comparing with fiat money!

volatility will adjust itself the more people use it, so it isn't actually bitcoin fault, the fault lies with the people that don't want to use bitcoin, and prefer to go with fiat scam

besides this, we are in a pretty stable market

Its adaptable enough to fit any of the definitions economists want.  Why cant it be a few things, the internet is a information transfer platform which allows you to transfer information is a variety of ways.  Bitcoin is the same thing but for value transfer.

Call it what you want. As long as I can get paid in Bitcoin and buy things with it, you trying to put some word to it does not really matter.

exactly.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/bitcoin-volatility-compared.png

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/6543/bitcoin-volatility-analysis/

To be honest, Bitcoin probably sees wider use as a speculative investment rather than use as an actual currency. Those who do use it as a currency (rather than simply a means to get more fiat) probably see it as being a currency though. And for others, it may be a mix of both.

If you want to go with the more stricter definition of what economists consider "money" to be, then they define it as being something that fulfills three qualities: a medium of exchange, a store of value, and a unit of account. The strongest argument against Bitcoin being money isn't actually its high volatility but rather it's the fact that it isn't a unit of account - i.e. merchants don't price their goods and services in BTC but they usually get the fiat value and convert this to BTC instead.

Even ignoring the above, it's hard to deny that a volatile exchange rate makes a poor fit for a currency and that extreme volatility can make a currency unusable. Bitcoin seems to be improving in this regard as much of the extreme volatility that we witnessed in 2013 has subsided in recent months.

EDIT: Also, plenty of national currencies have experienced periods of extreme volatility in the past and survived so there's that to consider as well.

that is actually what i was thinking for some time now. i believe that as long as bitcoin price is so volatile , people will only consider it as an investment not a currency (money) which you can spend just like fiat.

How do you define money? In my opinion, everything which could be exchanged for other things is "money" in some way.
So, from this definition, Bitcoin is already money.

Best post of the day.

If I want to invest in Bitcoin, then I use it as an investment. If I want to purchase something, then I use it as money. It's not important to me what Bitcoin is being considered. To me, actual use is the most important.

It already is money. It just isn't legal tender... yet.

For bit coiners, it doesn't matter! Although it is actually substitute of fiat money, but if govs recognize it as legal money, the masses would be comfortable to adopt it as money!

It is obviously money. Volatility doesn't stop people from accepting it (if the price decreases, it's a good opportunity to stack more coins by selling exactly the same thing...). The scale is obviously different, but fiat currencies aren't static either...

Well in the last 6 months and more Bitcoin is getting quite stable in comparison with the early period of his existence, and in coparison with 1 or 2 years ago too.

Is the Venezuela Bolivar money?

http://insidebitcoins.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/image.png

and never will be, because of its decentralized nature, i doubt the government will declare it, as a legal tender like their fiat currency, also some country already has taken decision on it, by declaring it as a property or commodities

declaring it a legal tender would mean , basically, inciting people to use it instead of fiat, essentially it is like going against themselves

I guarantee it will be the legal tender of a nation some day.

well bitcoin's volatility would be suppressed if many people will accept and use it like money
more or less, bitcoin will be just considered like an investment. like stocks

bitcoin can be everything. gold 2.0 , a currency, investment, place where you store value. for each person bitcoin can be something different. no need to give it a certain name.

when i take a look at the fast BTC development - that should happen in 2016  ;)


@randy8777

right. and at the same time it is a global ledger for value. pretty impressive!

it depends how you define money..

bitcoin is certainly a medium of exchange, to me it also fullfills the store of value attribute regardless of volatility.

the thing you can argue most about, is the unit of account property, because stuff is always priced back to another currency like USD and BTC is not really used as the accounting currency, except for altcoin markets mbe.


i wouldnt worry about things like officially accepted money by law (legal tender), as most of the $/€ we use is technically not official money, its just created by banks out of thin air and is not issued by the fed or ECB. (in reality we have 2 seperated money cycles)

Bitcoin is already more stable than certain fiat currencies and has been more stable than the crashing Euro on a weekly basis from March to June 2015(Daily BTC is slightly more volatile). The BTC token is both a currency and an asset and will likely become more stable as market capitalization grows. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more stable than all fiat currencies in 20-40 years.

Bitcoin is more than just a currency when we look at it's features none other has like this so comparison with old fiat currencies it doesn't make sense because now it is in early developing stages but Bitcoin is more stable in it's growth and market capitalization so it need little more time to go mainstream and get more adoption from masses.

You can always find time periods to satisfy your hypothesis. On an overall basis, there is no denying the fact that Bitcoin is volatile. Of course, this is to be expected in its initial stages. Give it time, and it will find its stable level.

It could not while it's volatile, but once mass adoption happens there would not be much volatility or at least not more than there is today with fiat currency markets..

Not for regular people I don't think. If you need to feed a family of four and pay bills at the end the month, if you're on a tight budget where every cent counts, volatility is stress you could probably do without. If you live by yourself and/or can afford to take a small loss from time to time then sure.

not yet ....but......has much potentiality ......... in the future .... it'll be a currency  :P

That is true.
We have the exchanges where one can exchange their Bitcoins to other currencies.
We have stores/businesses, both online and retail, that accept Bitcoin as a payment method.

Does it really have to be called "money" though?

I think it works just fine being called Bitcoin :)

First, we should ask ourselves what is actually money?
If money is simply any means of payment, with which we can get a certain value of goods or services in the market, then bitcoin is certainly money, not different from so-called hard currency.
Volatile bitcoin?
Yes, I can agree that BTC is still unstable but what to say about many other currencies in the world today?
Greece will probably go bankrupt and return to the drachma.
A similar thing happened to Argentina recently, also to Iceland, Ireland etc.
What happened with their currencies?
So, in my opinion, BTC is definitely money, and if I can predict, in a few years value of BTC will increase a lot, so we will not need to worry any more about volatile bitcoin.

Every currency in the world goes through a volatile period. If you compare the Zimbabwean dollar to the US Dollar, you will come to the same conclusion as in most of these graphs.

How long has the US Dollar been around, compared to Bitcoin? Is the US Dollar more stable or is this being manipulated by governments and reserve banks?

We have entered the most stable period in Bitcoins existence, since it was developed... Is price volatility really a problem?

This thread belong here ---> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=7.0

it is volatile because it has not found its right spot yet, and because the only way to derterminate a value for something like bitcoin, it is through supply and demand, and seeing how bitcoin is decentralized, it can't be valued so easily as a standard fiat, from a central authority

the volatility will become increasingly thin, the more the ratio between supply and demand will increase

It depends on how you define money...

If you are thinking I am going to retire and store all my money under my mattress than Bitcoin is worthless as money to you.

But if you are thinking I need to buy some things without being my credit card being tracked or bypassing the troubles of "SO CALLED" money, then Bitcoin is made for you.

So you decide if it's money or not.

Bitcoin  is volatile because it hasn't not found its right spot yet,but because of it's
volatility nature it does not affect the main benefits of Bitcoin as a payment system to transfer money from one source to another. ;D

Could be.. Bitcoin is currency, it's can be money, it's simple.
Volatile, because the supply and demand, it's not like fiat which supply and demands is
almost balanced, i means the price is more stable, but every currency have their volatile time, it's depends on supply and demand.


~iki

Bitcoin price will be stable if :

1. Huge Adoption
2. Big Market
3. Most merchants using
4. Most people using it for not only exchange but also buy/sell products using bitcoins

Bitcoin is already very well known as Digital Currency, or you can call it as Digital money if you prefer and you are certainly aware of that you can do many transactions with Bitcoin, now a days many countries are seriously thinking to adopt bitcoin digital currency in their financial transactions.

bitcoin is an investment as long as it is volatile but it can not be considered an investment anymore if the price was fixed. like stocks if you know that the price is fixed there is no reason to "invest" in it.
the only way that will be left is to use it as a currency and look at it like USD or anything like it.

It is hard using Bitcoin as a currency while it is very volatile. These past few months of stability have been great for using Bitcoin as a currency though. Even though using Bitcoin as a currency while it is volatile can be confusing and cause some problems, I believe that Bitcoin's price will stabilize with mass adoption.

Yes, we need only 1-3% fluctuation for 24 hours..... then we can call bitcoin is a currency

Volatility is relative. People tends to think that their fiat money's value is stable, this is because people are using it as a standard unit of value, then the value of other things start to fluctuate against it. In fact fiat money's value drops quickly against many things like gold and house, or bitcoin. People use fiat money as standard unit of value because it is easy for accounting

When people use bitcoin as a standard unit of value, then other thing's value will start to drop against it

BTC: 3.5 billion USD
EUR: 11760 billion USD

BTCVOL: ~15%
EURVOL: ~5%

So how come this monetary mass 3360 times greater than BTC is only 3 times more stable?!

Hundred percent, it is the future pioneer in the financial sectors, Volatile is the bit hard word to describe the Bitcoin digital currency, but you can called it variable, due to the market demands and money flow in the transactions. It is an internet digital money which has no central bureau.

maybe because the more it fall the more hard is to have a good % in stability, the more you are big, the more tiny is the progress akin to a logarithmic scale(base ten), were going from 100 to 1M will only make it x3

What are you saying here? That fluctuation doesnt mean we can call bitcoin as a currency. This will need some regulations to make this as a currency