Bitcoin Forum

Main point...




All of these merchants that are 'accepting Bitcoin' are really accepting USD through BitPay. 99.9% of Merchants will likely never accept Bitcoin directly due to extreme foreign exchange risk.

Other than for very niche privacy related applications that are likely international, there is no reason to go USD-BTC-USD by converting USD to BTC to purchase something with bitcoins that will be converted immediately back into USD.....unless one already holds BTC as an investment.

And the people that invest are hoarding, for the most part, so I see this as something that will stunt BitPay's growth. And if BitPay does grow tremendously, the market would likely trend down because A) USD-BTC-USD (mainly for gambling and niche privacy related uses) would be an offsetting transaction that should not move the market and B) investors that have been holding bitcoins are very likely the main consumers transacting, so if they began making a huge number of online purchases the market would, if anything, trend lower because 99.9% of merchants must use BitPay and immediately convert to USD.

I see Bitcoin's utility in transnational transactions, albeit with high foreign exchange risk. For intra-border (within the US) transactions, the only reason to transact is if you are already an investor. It's a tall order to ask the general public to invest in Bitcoin or for merchants to accept it directly simply to save, at best, 1% on transaction fees. BitPay charges 1% and the BTC spread is usually 0.5% - 1% (or 5%+ during high volatility), and merchants must account for the spread when pricing through BitPay, so at a minimum the fees are still 1.5% - 2% split by the purchaser and the merchant. This doesn't include the extreme foreign exchange risk assumed by the purchaser (or merchant if they chose to accept Bitcoin and not BitPay), which can easily dwarf CC fees in a very short time.

And as much as I dislike Paypal, they offer completely free money transfers (non-purchase related, free for sender & receiver) that are certainly as easy if not easier than purchasing Bitcoin. They also offer very low international transfer rates (0.5% - 2%).

Huh. Who cares about US?

Most of the new merchants that are now accepting Bitpay are US-based.

Merchants that accept only credit card payments are technically not accepting USD...

Then, who cares about BitPay? Huh.


People who believe in bitcoins (ah ah ah ah :D ), are buying bitcoins and use them as a currency.
People who don't believe in bitcoins are trading and trying to make some profits.

So "Speculation" certainly seems like the most suitable place to post this, Aha? ::)

Who cares?  If merchants accept Bitcoin via BitPay it means that people can buy goods and services with Bitcoin. And that's what matters.

BitPay is using Bitcoins. It may be USD -> BTC -> USD, but there is still a BTC link in there.

I think of the currency war like netscape thought about the browser war. They needed navigator on the machine first even though they were offering it for free so they could then extend netscape's influence on the machine slowly. Its a lot easier to get somebody to not exchange a currency they already use rather than telling them to switch to a currency they have never heard about.

They accept:

• Lower fees
• No chargebacks
• More potential clients
• Exposure to a huge community

I am a merchant in Germany and I do accept BTC and I use BitPay for Settlement.

From customers all over the globe.

the term  "currency wars" has nothing to do with bitcoin, all it means is countries around the world are racing to find excuses to print & borrow  as much money as they can b4 its over... its almost over  8)

That's right!  Exchanges are now a necessary evil.

This ends the thread. 

Manticore, please stop posting. You're really really bad at it.

How do they use it as a currency? Do they buy things online? Ok, well 99.9% of merchants will only accept BitPay and not Bitcoins due to extreme foreign exchange risk. So most anything these Bitcoin believers will be purchasing will likely go through BitPay where it will be converted immediately into USD.

The other point is that 'people who believe in bitcoin' are really investors and are not incentivized to use bitcoins as currency very much (hence the hoarding). One has to be an investor to make transactions with Bitcoin.

There is no reason to purchase BTC to make intra-border transactions. So the utility here is mainly for investors, niche privacy related transactions, and international transactions (still with great risk of currency fluctuation). Otherwise, for someone in the US, for instance, to go USD-BTC-USD simply to make a transaction.....it's like being required to purchase shares of Paypal to use as a currency for online transactions. You must take on exchange risk and be a true-believer/investor to use the protocol.

How is adding an extreme level of foreign exchange risk (requiring an investment, basically) making anything easier for the vast majority of people transacting within the borders of the US (or any country), where nearly all of these new BitPay merchants are accepting orders? Hopefully this is boosting their international sales because I don't see much of a boost in domestic sales....even with international sales, the currency exchange risk is still possibly higher than any potential savings on wire or CC fees. Really, foreign exchange risk negates intra and inter-border utility.

I don't understand the significance of bitpay and the whole "not accepting bitcoin" argument. I don't care if the merchant accepts bitcoin, usd, or live chickens; I only care that I am able to send bitcoins to that merchant and receive a product or service in return - what the merchant does with those bitcoins (keep them, exchange them to fiat, purchase chickens, etc.) is entirely irrelevant to me. Is there an obvious flaw in my logic that I'm not seeing?

One can also accept bitcoins through BitPay and take bitcoins, either fully or a portion of the sales. Our company is an integrator partner with them, and we know that not all merchants do the fiat conversion. But it's true that only true Bitcoin believers do that. It should change through time though, since it's quite beneficial for companies to simply hold as much bitcoins as humanly possible.

So this boosting your international sales? That makes sense....

actually, I'd say my largest customer bases are

The UK
Netherlands
The US
Germany

in equal parts.
Then, the rest of the world.

The level of foreign exchange risk applies to intra and inter-border customers. Still, I can see some utility in international transactions if customers are willing to risk a large fluctuation in Bitcoin to save on wire fees, etc.

+1

You guys are missing the point here.

It's a tall order to make someone become an investor by exposing them to large foreign exchange risk (currency fluctuation risk) simply because they want to save money on wire fees and credit card fees, which seems to be what many champion when discussing Bitcoin. There is no point in highlighting the fact that BTC can save any money on fees because it likely can't.

It is simply a tool for investors to make purchases with their investment. It doesn't offer the public a cheaper transactional fee structure. It forces them to become investors by making them take on enormous currency exchange risk (USD/BTC) in order to, under perfect circumstances, save maybe 1% in various transactional fees because:

A) 99.9% of online purchases are through BitPay and their 1% charge
B) Spread is 0.5% - 1% (or 5%+ during high volatility) and must be accounted into sale price through BitPay
C) Foreign exchange risk (USD/BTC fluctuations) are greater than any CC or wire fee
D) Paypal offers free intra-border money transfer, so this does not help people who aren't already invested in BTC
E) Paypal offers low cost international money transfer, ditto.

So champion it for what it is, an investment that allows investors to make purchases with their investment. Only with a great deal of luck will it save anyone else anything on transaction fees.

Because only investors are incentivized to make purchases with BTC, and because there is an incentive for investors to hoard, I see this as something that limits BTC online transactions (and BitPay because 99.9% of merchants will only accept through them).

And If people begin making substantial online purchases with BTC, because these purchases will likely be made by investors who already hold substantial coins, the market will likely trend lower because there will be no off-setting transaction for the BTC to USD (or whichever currency) conversion that happens through BitPay.....again, because almost all merchants accept Bitcoin through BitPay.

The vast majority of these customers are likely Bitcoin investors that are using their investment to make purchases, not people using BTC because they save money on transaction fees (perhaps the international customers, but currency exchange risk is potentially much higher than savings even for them).

Sure, but the vast majority want immediate conversion. An entire industry exists for hedging this type of risk (futures/forex). Why would Bitcoin be any different? As long as foreign exchange risk is there, the overwhelming majority of customers will want the conversion.

If the price weren't fluctuating at all, I would have all of my money as possible in bitcoins. In fact I tried during the long 5$ period last year. I don't use myself as an "investor", but as an user that has its own bank. There were several potential purchases last year that I didn't make because I had to go to the bank, do transfers, etc.

Potential clients includes investors, but also users that just want to save in bitcoins. It doesn't matter that merchants convert the money into USD, the other advantages still applies.

Also, PayPal is very expensive for very small purchases.

Again, you are missing my point. Because this fluctuates so wildly, anyone who wants to use Bitcoin IS an investor.

Imagine if the USD (or pick a currency) fluctuated wildly in reference to CPI (consumer price index)? One would be required to essentially become a forex trader in order to maximize everyday purchases. This is why Argentines & Venezuelans trade for USD (on a massive black market), because it's stable comparatively. Bitcoin does not enjoy this type of stability.

It is an investment tool that can be used to make purchases from merchants who use BitPay to hedge, nothing more.

Lower fees....debatable. We just moved from from $166+ to $157 in no time. That transaction just became 5%+ more expensive if I purchased @ $166, not including spread and BitPay transaction fees. Actually, while I'm writing this we are now at $153.....so much more expensive than any CC fee. This is the foreign exchange risk I'm talking about. $166 - $153 is almost 8% in a matter of minutes.....plus 1% for BitPay and 1% for the spread (now at 1.5% due to volatility).

So if I had bought a few minutes ago at $166 BTC for a transaction that just occurred, it would have cost 10%.......way higher than any credit card fee.

No chargebacks.....true.
More potential clients.....are you finding people that only use Bitcoin and not fiat???
Exposure to a huge community.....are you finding a community that exists entirely outside the fiat landscape???

Didn't bitpay report that many merchants are willing to convert a smaller share of the payment to USD than before.

Perhaps, but still minuscule.

I see it as potentially a intermediary step on the way to widespread adoption.

1) Due to increased user interest merchants sign up with BitPay and accept BTC converted to USD
2) With more merchant accepting BTC as a form of payment, more users become aware of it and start using BTC
3) Go to step 1, if sufficient merchants accept BTC and enough users adopt BTC see step 4
4) Some suppliers for merchants begin to accept BTC
5) With market cap up due to user adoption plus ability to order supplies for BTC, merchants begin to hold more of their sales in BTC from their processor
6) Eventually a full BTC economy is born

Of course I'm not saying the above will happen.  Only that if Bitcoin does become mainstream, that may be a possible path it could take.  Therefore I think there is a chance that merchants accepting BTC converted to USD could just be a valid stepping stone to the wide spread success of a future Bitcoin economy.

Definitely a valid concern Maticore, however I still see value in more merchants accepting BTC even if the vast majority convert it all to USD for now.  Not long ago many people would have thought there would be no incentive for merchants to bother accepting BTC at all in any form, certainly at least on any larger scale.  That was a valid concern at the time, but somehow we got from there to here.  If things work out long term for BTC I think it will be an iterative process.  At each step you will be able to make the complaint we aren't at the next step, and it will be a valid concern until it isn't.

It's true that bitcoin needs to be less volatile to be more useful as a currency. But how do we accomplish that? As long as there are people who would rather have fiat than bitcoin, it will always be volatile. The only solution is for BTC to have its own booming economy where you can buy and sell just about anything. When that happens, people will no longer want to trade their bitcoins for fiat.

I don't know the solution......but I believe that if everyone had a more balanced approach to Bitcoin 'investing' they may be less prone to create an endless wave of bubbles that will render it useless as a currency. The more excited everyone gets over press releases of little substance, the more it gets pumped, the less useful it is as a currency, and the less likely it is to succeed. I'm not sure there is a price level ($1000, etc.) that will prevent it from being volatile.

I posted this on another thread: http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-results?SurveyID=SV_8qRwhHaLc7b5Sp7

Most major economists believe that the most serious shortcoming of Bitcoin is its inherent volatility.

Take the 24-hour weighted average. Or 3-day weighted average. Is what regular people should use. Also, this volatility won't remain forever. Merchants don't like volatility, even when converting to USD, so at least they believe it's temporal.


I do use fiat, but as I said earlier, there were several potential purchases that I didn't do at all because of lack of merchant support. Having a bitcoin option makes me more prone to spend money.

This is the chicken and egg problem. Your statements are like critizing creating e-commerce 10-15 years ago: the public was too small, but we needed those early merchants to keep the ball rolling, get more people used to do online transactions, hence geting more merchants doing e-commerce... etc.

Why would I do this if I purchased BTC at $166 a couple of hours ago and made a purchase at $146 a few minutes ago for 13.5% in total fees (12% more BTC or USD, however you want to look at it, 0.5% spread to be generous, and 1% to BitPay).


No, it's nothing like e-commerce. We're talking about massive and constant currency fluctuations that Nobel Laureates are saying is the biggest threat to the currency (but perhaps you have a better grasp of economics than they do?). E-commerce had adoption issues but there was nothing inherent to e-commerce that imperiled its usefulness (nor was anyone calling into question its usefulness). Slow adoption and security were issues but it quickly caught on and never looked back.

It's not a chicken and egg problem. All things equal, if the current companies that have adopted BitPay had never issued press releases, we would not have bubbled to this extent and those businesses would still easily be able to transact business. Over-exuberance is not required to make Bitcoin useful. It does need to appreciate, but not at this rate and not due to press releases of little substance. The higher this goes, the more hoarding will become an issue.

The more volatile it is, the more limited its use will be because only investors will be willing to purchase it and subsequently use it for transactions. It would be nice if we had a much broader potential transactional market than Bitcoin speculators.

I'm not trolling, regardless what any of you think. I am actually offended at the people that want nothing more than to keep this pumped into the stratosphere because it will only slow adoption by consumers, which is more important than merchants because merchants are really just accepting USD through BitPay. It's the consumers that have to assume the massive foreign currency exchange risk, not merchants.

I am a libertarian who loves the concept, is tech savvy (not a programmer but very familiar with Linux, etc), and is primarily involved in the finance industry. I only say this because people may be getting the wrong idea as I am usually making negative postings. I am invested in Bitcoin in various ways and want to see it succeed. Irrational exuberance will not aid this success.

 

I think one potential problem is that early (or earlier) adopters with a low cost basis are much less concerned with the foreign exchange risk when making transactions than newcomers (the people who will push this higher).

Users can see what the actual exchange will be applied and choose to wait if diverted too much from the average.

You can't prevent press releases, sudden price swings... Do you know any other way of finding the correct price according to use?

Wow, what an incredibly stupid question.  The only thing dumber than that question is the collection of answers given.

All money's value derives solely from the belief that others will want to use it for trade.  That's kinda what money is.  In historic times, there was regression, where unlimited demand for something made that something useful as money because of a belief that it could be dumped into a waiting buyer in exchange for something else of value.

But we've gone way past that now.  Our money is nonsense.  There is no entity (or group) willing to accept it in unlimited quantities in exchange for something of value, there is just a great mob where each person uses it because everyone else uses it.  That is the essence of our modern money system.  It is, therefore it is.  And it works.  It isn't "backed" by anything, and yet, anyone can use it to obtain anything.

Bitcoin is exactly the same thing.  It is nonsense, shared by a crowd.  It works because it works, and for no other reason.

The dollar's value fluctuates over time, and yet people dont stop using it.  Hell, the value has declined by like 99% over the last century or so, and we still use it.

The value of everything fluctuates, all the time.  Bigger markets, like the dollar, tend to fluctuate more slowly, because they are big, not because they are magic.  Smaller markets, like bitcoin, tend to fluctuate more quickly, because they are small (and thus easier to move), not because they are flawed in some way.

To which answers are you referring? Let's see....a panel of Nobel Laureates was asked a similar question and gave similar answers regarding foreign exchange risk. Wait, but they're not members of the Bitcoin foundation so they're incredibly stupid....

I don't see much of an argument here unless being condescending is your mechanism for arguing? The dollar doesn't fluctuate very much relative to CPI, which is one reason people continue to use it.

Slow fluctuations make a currency much more usable (and define the usability of a currency, hence why Zimbabwe's currency wasn't so useful or why Argentines prefer the USD). If the price of corn is $1.28 now and will be $1.28 two hours later (or even two weeks later), that's certainly helpful. All currency may be nonsense, but the one constant to any 'good' currency is usability vis-à-vis stability. Bitcoin is not quite there yet.

If the price of a computer accessory is 1 BTC now and 1.5 BTC (or 0.5 BTC) one hour later, not nearly as helpful. The latter promotes hoarding, which further drives up the price and makes it even less usable.

Commodity markets are massive and they fluctuate wildly as well, so market size doesn't necessarily have very much to do with it. Bigger markets like the dollar fluctuate less because the Fed uses monetary policy (ineptly, sure) to at least attempt to control inflation/deflation. I'm no fan of the Fed so no need to offer your explanation against their methods. Bitcoin is deflationary by nature and will probably continue to fluctuate wildly because it derives its value entirely from the free-market a la the network-effect.

You are obviously a sound money advocate and not a stable money advocate. Give me one good reason I would want to risk a 13.5% fee (as would've been lost today using BTC to make a purchase from $166 to $146 including spread & BitPay fee) when I can use the USD for a 2.7% fee or make a free Paypal transfer? I am an advocate of calling Bitcoin what it is, an interesting investment that one invests in with the hope that at some future date it will become stable enough to be used as a currency.....and every libertarians dream. If it never becomes stable as a currency most will question its existence as a purely speculative investment.

Currently, foreign exchange risk is a major issue whether you want to admit it or not. I do agree that at some point it will be less volatile, but commodity markets are still quite volatile given their enormous size, lengthy existence and relatively predictable demand/supply characteristics.

I think you're missing an important point.

Yes, a lot of the bitcoin believers as you call them are hoarding and saving now. But as those bitcoins gain in value people are going to want to start spending them. For instance when BTC hits $1000 or above you can bet people want to start spending and buying luxuries with their new-found wealth. And all that value is already in BTC. Also the spenders would prefer staying in BTC and transacting directly rather than having to convert to USD and then having to answer awkward questions from the IRS etc.

So as a merchant, why would you not try and establish a foothold now in what is surely going to be a very profitable newly wealthy class of consumers?

Gosh, is this so hard to understand?
Dollar doesn't fluctuate relatively to CPI??????????
OF COURSE, because CPI is calculated based on DOLLARS!
All volatility is the relative,if you measure in dollars, then bitcoin price will be fluctuating forever (as everything else).

The foreign exchange risk will be there until bitcoin succeed. (Then it is not a "foreign" thing anymore).

So to use this argument to say bitcoin is problem is redundant --This is what bitcoin need no "conquer"

And choose your side, stop blame bitcoin, since it has to be this way until it is not.

It really depends on the cost of the credit card transaction. At one extreme one has a customer with good credit that has a 1% cash back credit card doing a card present transaction with a large merchant. In this scenario the merchant may be paying 1.6% or less fee and with the customer getting 1% back the effective cost is under 0.6%. There is simply no way BitPay with Bitcoin can compete here.

In the other extreme we have customer with poor credit using a prepaid debit card (cost to the customer can be easily be 5-10% by the time load fees are factored in) doing a small online transaction with a "high risk" merchant who may end up paying 10% or more by the time all the fees are factored in. The effective cost here can easily be over 20%. BitPay with Bitcoin wins hands down here.

When either the customer or the merchant are "high risk" the cost can easily exceed 10% and again BitPay with Bitcoin wins hands down.
Now for in person transactions the "high risk" problem is eliminated by using cash, but online Bitcoin becomes the only cost effective option.

I have said it before and will say it again the low hanging fruit for Bitcoin has a FICO score in the US under 600 and more in the 350 range and this is a large market in the US alone that is growing fast. Guess what happens to your FICO score after a mortgage foreclosure?

Consumer price index measures changes in the price level of a market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households (inflation). The USD doesn't fluctuate much relative to the market basket of goods. The relative prices of goods fluctuates, which sometimes mimics inflation.

I'm simply pointing out a reason why people should not be cheering for Bitcoin to go to $1000 anytime soon, then bust, the go up again, etc etc.

It seems that anyone who doesn't cheer and pump Bitcoin to go straight to the moon is labeled a heretic. Everyone should be cheering for Bitcoin to remain fairly stable for awhile. This 'buy now while it's cheap because its going to $1000 in 3 months mentality' is nonsense. The more everyone speculates & hoards, the more damage will be done later. Strange that nobody realizes instability is an issue......it is a make or break issue.

So IMO that makes me more in favor of Bitcoin than most of the cheerleaders.

I wonder how tech savvy that demographic is, overall (those w/o bank accounts for Paypal but with prepaid debit cards).

One problem, the only traders allowed on Coinlab, Tradehill, etc, are accredited investors (net worth $1M or $200K per year). Perhaps this will change in the future to make it more easily accessible to different demographics. I really like where you're going with this.....interesting.

A few points and some personal experience:

You're cherry-picking the price spread: BTC is currently volatile but isn't ALWAYS on the pullback from a massive gain.

I'm a UK Bitpay merchant and one of the reasons I accept Bitcoin is because I know that generally, the price is going up.

Having had my business hampered by distrusting, greedy and inept merchant account providers I can safely say it is MUCH less hassle to accept BTC than credit cards. Funds can be held in reserve for up to 6 MONTHS. This is cashflow suicide.

I also accept PayPal. They charge 3% AND I get screwed again when I accept a PayPal payment in USD.

The simple concept that seems to escape people is that when the exchange rate is higher, each dollar (or whatever) has a smaller effect on the market than the same dollar (or whatever) when the rate is lower.

At an exchange rate of $1000 to 1 BTC, bitcoin will be 100 times harder to push around than it was at $10.  Stability comes from size.  Size comes from adoption.

You can wish for stability without size, but your unicorn will show up sooner.  If you really want stability, you should be trying to find ways to increase adoption, which will lead to bigger swings in the short term while the price rises to a level capable of supporting more users.

Fair assessment. I dislike Paypal. And I hate merchant accounts.

The problem isn't on the merchant side, it's on the customer side. The price will not go up forever and very few merchants can assume that risk.

And yes, but I didn't cherry-pick. I was writing the message while the price went from $166 to $153....then it went to $146.

I may sound negative but I am not bashing Bitcoin. I am involved in Bitcoin. I am very interested in Bitcoin and alt-coins.

I like playing the devil's advocate because everyone else (except for a select few) tends to cheerlead delusionally.

Yes, size has potential to help (to what extent, who knows and what size will be required?). The price increase has come from hyper-speculation and hoarding. If it came solely from adoption, we would be at much lower levels and likely much more stable. I can't really knock the media, though, as it has provided profound support.

I understand the spirit of what you're saying; we're on the same side.

But foreign currency risk is very real and, although it doesn't matter as much now, it will matter very much in the future. It will become the biggest issue because the sole reason to invest is for 'Bitcoin the currency'. Without the future hope of a stable currency, there is no 'Bitcoin the speculative investment'. It is THE issue.

Point taken regarding unicorn. I want this to go to $1000 when fundamentals support it, not because the director of Citigroup issues a press release regarding his ownership of 10 bitcoins. At any rate, I've been somewhat hyper-critical. This will be interesting to watch.

What "fundamentals" do you mean?  Bitcoin is either an interesting, but forgettable experiment (value ~=0) or the future of all settlement (value ~=millions or more).  Expanding option 2 from settlement to payment could very easily kick the value up to billions.

People saving their coins are making a bet on the higher future value.  In doing so, they are both stabilizing and increasing the present value.  They are working towards the goal you say you want, and they are putting their own personal wealth at great risk to do so.

I sell Paypal USD on bitmit so I have some experience with this. Going AUD->USD I seem to get hit with more than that. Nor are my transfers free. The fee depends on where the receiver is registered, but 1% is typical. I make the buyer pay.

Generally your arguments are sound. As a mechanism for doing a fiat transaction Bitcoin is only a winner if you need to stay out of the gaze of the evil eye or you want to transfer a small amount irreversibly. Otherwise Paypal, credit card or bank wire will probably be cheaper, faster and easier than fiat->BTC->fiat. Non-scene merchants who accept Bitcoin are probably inspired by its price rise and don't convert back to fiat.

Fundamentals = adoption rate among merchants & consumers, for one, which are currently limited mainly to speculators (due to volatility).

Increase in size is not the magic bullet. Commodities account for about 10%+ of global GDP yet most markets are quite volatile. Commodity (which is probably what Bitcoin will one day be categorized) prices tend to be more volatile than many other prices in the economy because short term supply and demand are relatively price inelastic.

Bitcoin is more like gold/silver, obviously. Like Bitcoin currently, Gold derives its value primarily from hoarding (sentiment) and has mostly elastic demand (except in India, perhaps) and inelastic supply (like Bitcoin). Silver is more volatile because, aside from lower liquidity, its value oscillates from being derived as a store of value (hoarded; elastic demand) to that of its industrial use (or transactional use, in case of Bitcoin; inelastic demand). The oscillation between these two demands may be more pronounced for Bitcoin in the future, causing similar volatility. This effect is debatable, though, as most of the transactional demand produces an off-setting transaction through BitPay.

Hoarding, while needed to get to these price levels, makes it much less likely that it'll be stable at $1K per because the higher it goes, the more is hoarded, and the cycle continues until it doesn't, then restarts, etc. At $1K we will likely attract investors that are also 10 to 100 times larger, so I think it's extremely difficult to pinpoint the price level where volatility vanishes (and with mBTC, expect vol to continue due to psychology?). The kind of size needed to make Bitcoin less volatile is probably very large......like forex markets large......if it is to be a global transactional and speculative asset.

I have skin in the game on many different levels as well and am focused on adoption. The question is 'can Bitcoin get to forex markets size' before usability (foreign exchange risk) becomes a major issue and before speculators lose the belief that Bitcoin can become a stable currency?

Saving gives it value, not transacting.  This is true of all money, despite the nonsense that you hear about oil propping up dollars.

Bitcoin has value because people want to hold it.

Consider a random guy that hears about bitcoin, doesn't know anything about it, but decides to accept them as payment at his store.  He picks a service that accepts bitcoins for him and converts them into dollars to be deposited into his normal bank account.  This guy isn't directly propping up the value of bitcoins, because he isn't holding them.  The bitcoins that come to him are ferried off to an exchange, where they are sold to someone that wants to be holding bitcoins at that moment.  That guy with dollars (or whatever) on the exchange is directly propping up the value, because he is putting his actual wealth on the line to hold bitcoins.

Now, the guy with the store is helping indirectly, because the guy holding bitcoins is holding them because he expects that people transacting with them will be around in the future, and every vendor that accepts them increases the expectation of future value.

The exact same thing is true about the dollar.  FOREX markets are huge, liquid, and efficient, at least for big players.  No one is holding a currency against their will.  No one is holding dollars because they "need them to buy oil".  When they need to buy oil, it takes a couple of milliseconds to purchase the dollars they need, and has essentially zero transaction cost.  And the seller isn't stuck holding dollars either, because they can dump them in less time than it takes for your monitor to refresh.

Currency value comes from, and only from, the desire to hold that currency relative to other assets.

I'm gonna cutnpaste your quote around a little because you just said in better words what I was trying to convey all allong but somehow couldn't phrase:

That's where Bitcoin needs to go.
Highly effiicient, very liquid exchanges with very very low fees.



This is ONLY the case with Bitcoin.
What other currencies get their value from is being the only means by which to pay taxes.
I don't wanna hold €, but I need some to pay my taxes with.

If Bitcoins value is based upon trust, what is that trust based upon? The hope that it will be useful sometime one day?

It is! It is used for transacting.

Me accepting BTC, BitPay-ing them for € on my bankaccount is exactly what Bitcoin is made for.
BitPay (et al.) providing liquidity on all exchanges is exactly how this should work.

Granted - overall cost of acquiring BTC should probably be lower, but we're on the right track.


One perfect example of this misunderstanding are the dolts demanding "bitcoin refunds" from BFL, Coinabul etc etc. They view Bitcoin as a store of value. It really isn't. As soon as you SPEND it, it becomes a means of transaction, of MOVING value.

False dichotomy. There are other possible futures for Bitcoin, e.g. as an underground currency serving the needs of those whose transactions do not meet the states' requirements.

At http://soccershirtsonline.com we accept bitcoin directly (not through Bitpay)...looks like we are in the 0.1% then?

No, you don't exist.  Bitcoin is all speculators and drug dealers.

a service like bitpay is another point of where bitcoins can be changed to goods/fiat. there more connecting points like this (or for example the exchanges) where the btc world and the fiat world are in touch with each other, there more stable bitcoin will be.

a service like bitpay is as valuable as an exchange. it creates thousands of "small exchanges". a service like bitpay is essential for the existance of bitcoin.

a service like bitpay is the oxygen of the bitcoin habitat.