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Title: Very expensive to live off of bitcoin? Post by: ulhaq on June 15, 2017, 06:37:02 PM The below article looks at living off of bitcoin for one week in NYC, and found that prices were 40% higher! The reason given is volatility, but that would mean that she bought the bitcoin in advance and the price dropped. I am wondering, how much of these prices are due to that, as it seems like the main factors would be the cost of purchasing it (fees) from whatever site she is using, and transaction fees.
Can anyone estimate what the cost would be for these 2, especially given everyday purchases (eg, restaurants)? Eg, for a $9 meal, how much would that be increased due to transaction costs? http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000627081 Title: Re: Very expensive to live off of bitcoin? Post by: Nagadota on June 15, 2017, 07:25:15 PM The below article looks at living off of bitcoin for one week in NYC, and found that prices were 40% higher! The reason given is volatility, but that would mean that she bought the bitcoin in advance and the price dropped. I am wondering, how much of these prices are due to that, as it seems like the main factors would be the cost of purchasing it (fees) from whatever site she is using, and transaction fees. Recommended fees (https://bitcoinfees.21.co/) are currently about 360 satoshi/byte, or 81,360 satoshi.Can anyone estimate what the cost would be for these 2, especially given everyday purchases (eg, restaurants)? Eg, for a $9 meal, how much would that be increased due to transaction costs? If you were paying at a restaurant or for something else minor, you'd want to pay the recommended fee because you need the transaction to be confirmed in the next block. Zero confirmation transactions wouldn't be accepted in anywhere but the most amateurish places. If they bought it on an exchange just before starting the week (which I assume they did since they pointed out the loss that volatility caused), they would have only had one input to their transactions so it would have been the median size of 226 satoshi. So the transaction cost (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=0.0008136+bitcoin+to+usd&oq=0.0008136+bitcoin+to+usd&aqs=chrome..69i57.4750j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) would typically be $1.84 as of this post. Title: Re: Very expensive to live off of bitcoin? Post by: pixie85 on June 15, 2017, 08:16:09 PM I have no idea how the US prices look, but in Europe, with the fees included, it would be expensive to buy every daily product with Bitcoin.
Usually you wake up, eat something and go to work. Let's assume the fees are $1/€1. Bus/underground ticket €1, lunch €3, another ticket to get home €1, groceries €20, evening beer with friends €5. Normally you'd pay €30 on that day, but using Bitcoin would cost you €35. That's not unbearable, but if you multiply it by 7, you'll get €35 in fees alone every week and that is if the fees were €1, which they are not! |