Bitcoin Forum

What is bitcoin used for today? Anything other than the black market?

I understand that one day the hope is the BTC becomes a major world-wide accepted currency.. but right now, what do all of these people use it for that keeps BTC from being a bubble where people are only buying and selling to and from each other or hoarding?

transfer value to any place in the world where internet is. People dont realize yet how important is that.

gambling.. eg poker, sathoshidice
and there is a bitcoin super store if you live in us

I use it at a local bar for lunch, dinner and drinks.
I paid for 3 of us to have dinner last night and it was about a half a Bitcoin.

Had to tip in cash tho - Bummer

really? where do bars  accept this? im pretty sure places in ohio would look at me like im from the future if i show them my wallet address lol

Whisky Dick's in Orlando FL

FYI - Stoney Creek Roasters in Cedarville OH has a Google+ review from about a year ago that reports that the coffee shop owner accepts Bitcoin
Found that with a Google maps search of "Bitcoin" in Ohio

Nice.  Well i feel a bit better about it knowing that its actually used for more than putting hits out on people.

There's a lot of money spent on transferring money internationally, and sometimes it's really, really hard to do this, depending on which countries you're transferring between.

For example, I was in Eastern Europe, and lost my wallet. I had plenty of money in my US bank account, and plenty of people in the US who would have loaned me money, but no way to receive it.

If my family had sent me some bitcoins, it looks like I could have walked a few blocks to someone on localbitcoins.com who is trying to buy bitcoins, and gotten local cash, probably about a day later. As it stood, I ended up waiting weeks by the time my bank issued new cards and mailed them to me internationally.

A lot of digital-only merchants are starting to accept bitcoin, since it has significantly lower fees and they already have the tech team and infrastructure to easily accept a new payment type.

Brick & mortar will take a bit longer.

BitPay has over 2 millions $ of transactions per month, and all legal transactions  ;)

Reddit
Wordpress
4chan
Archive.org
bitcoinstore.com

Thanks :) really good info

OkCupid recently started approving BTC sales. Right now they do it by hand, but they plan to introduce a system for this.

i wasnt aware okcupid charged you for anything

http://www.thebitcoinlist.com/

There are so many new places accepting bitcoins I'm having a hard time keeping the site updated properly.

You could buy stuff at websites like bitmit.net (sor of like a bitcoin Ebay)

You could invest in companies at one of the bitcoin stock exchanges (mpex.us, btct.co, bitfunder.com, etc)

If you have a friend who you owe money to you could ask them if they will take it in BTC.

Or you could just use bitcoins as a method of storing your savings. Put money into bitcoin now, then later if nobody is selling what you want for bitcoins then you just exchange them back into USD or whatever currency people are using. It is a better financial strategy to save up for things instead of buying them using credit now.

You could use bitcoins to bet at sites like bitbet.us

Or just use them for speculation! The bitcoin market is one of the most volatile markets around, if you know what you are doing you could make a bunch of money trading them!