Bitcoin Forum

For me, the real use of bitcoin is hedging the risk of long term inflation

But, FED's mandate is both low unemployment and low inflation, if they start to tighten, USD might hold its value very well. Although bankers unfairly benefit from the QE process, as long as normal people's life is not heavily affected, no one cares

I just did an international purchase with my CC and it went so smooth, just like purchase an icecream at local shop, I don't think bitcoin will shine in this area

Sure, merchants will get more profit by accepting bitcoin, but currently the amount of people who are able to pay bitcoin is still very small, merchants still get more sale with CC

After all the hype, if bitcoin can't really provide something more practical and useful, it might just get ignored and stay as a geek's hobby, just like a computer game, played and forgotten

Any other thoughts?

How is that not a giant benefit?
Some merchants operate on very low margins and are happy about every cent they can gain.


Other usefulness:
- protection against crazy inflation (like in Argentia)
- ability to transfer money from/in every country of this world (or even to the moon once there is internet there :D)

If the margins are very thin then bitcoin is even more unsuitable, the exchange rate fluctuation can wipe out the profit

Maybe for some countries with unstable monetary system it will help, but for established big countries the benefit is not clearly visible

International transfer is a usage, but today you can make purchase abroad with a credit card, as long as you don't buy cars or more expensive stuffs, and there is seldom a occasion that you urgently want to buy a house/car abroad

If something sold exclusively for bitcoin, like Avalon mining rig, then bitcoin can be considered a real usage in this specific area. But currently this kind of pure bitcoin based economy activities only exists in mining equipment area, hope something will grow out of this

-protection from cartels eg Visa, AMEX
-protection from chargebacks so you can actually sell things on the internet and be assured of getting funds
-ability for merchant to buy android phone etc for $40 and start using the transaction network without fees and contracts
-goverment/regulators/criminals cant 'pull the rug' and steal everything from you (as long as precautions are taken)

I think Bitcoin will have to focus outside of the US, at least.  Small businesses in the US are completely coddled -- an extra 1-2% margin won't make a bit of difference to them.  And large businesses are at the mercy of the FED.

The guy at the smoke shop won't let me pay on credit card,  due to the fee he's charged. He won't take bitcoin either though, so..

This is a good point, if bitcoin is widely available, it is much better than joining the exiting transaction network, but the problem is bitcoin user base are still very small. People don't get their income in bitcoin's form, that's the biggest obstacle for them to spend bitcoin

When it comes to internet transaction, the trust is the core issue. And this typically require a trustworthy central authority that can act as a middle man, with a well-known and regulated entity to organize the trade, both buyer and seller have much less risk. It almost has nothing to do with the currency used, it's this regulated trustworthy entity make people comfortable to do the trades. Otherwise they will have to manage the risk by themselves, which might cost more than the fee they pay to the middle man

But they can accept Bitpay, which still has a way lower margin than credit cards.
Yes, that is not really using Bitcoins, but it will solve the problem that you need more merchants accepting Bitcoins in order to make it more attractive for consumers to buy Bitcoins in order to get more merchants to accept Bitcoins in order to...

this is a great thread, keep inputting more information.

for me the main advantage for someone living in the states where everything can easily be done by cc is that I can pay for products/services to someone in another country and do it fast and effortless, im in the web industry so most merchants abroad take paypal forcefully and do it knowing that there are huge fees and wait times but are forced to use it so those in different countries can buy their products or service. Bitcoin makes it an open market to everyone.

All you need are people with the balls to accept Bitcoin and people will find uses for it on their own, it will happen eventually, as someone who is setting up selling stuff for Bitcoin entirely I've done the maths and believe me the benefits of Bitcoin far outweigh the bad stuff ( if you can call anonymity and deflation and the like bad ) I would rather get 100 sales in Bitcoin than in paper. The amazing thing is because of how Bitcoin is still maintaining it's value if I make even less than 100 sales I will still be able to expand faster than I ever could in paper and that's because Bitcoin has more purchasing power.

Let's look at current pricing, if I managed to sell say, a game for 0.1 BTC and got 100 sales that would make 10 Bitcoins, selling the Bitcoins on the market even at lows would net me a lot more than paper and if I chose to trade with Bitcoin I have the added advantage of it keeping value after I trade it, at current prices I'd get about £848 going by MTGOX of course. If I sold the same at current paper money prices along with all the crap you have to deal with when it comes to paypal and the like I would only get around £700 and of course there's the problem of tons of regulation regarding the currency as well as the fact that paper money is all being hyper-inflated to nothing so by the time I get any of the money back it would have dropped in value massively. There's of course all the restrictions that are lifted in Bitcoin too, no one tells you what you can do with your money and so on, the only restrictions I can really see out in the open are the fact you need an internet connection and a computer of some sort but that's a small price to pay for having what is pretty much total freedom over your own finances, you can trade with anyone as well regardless of the country they're from.

Trust me, people are interested in Bitcoin, neo-keynesians and the government loyalists out there love to spread bullshit about Bitcoin and I've seen them do it even on these forums, we just have to be patient and wait for people to come to us and be helpful when they need it.

AMEN! this was a perfect response, I hope that everyone can reach this and realize the massive impact bitcoin is going to have in the worldwide economy. We all live in a digital age so why cant our currency be digital.

Freedom

I haven't even gotten started over the nice features like only needing one password and being able to clearly see all your transactions lol! :P

buying and selling other "real" currencies is not a "real" use?

For a normal consumer:

1. He pay the merchant directly use CC, pay a 4% higher price
2. He buy bitcoin through some local bitcoins exchange, pay 2% spread, and pay the merchant with bitcoin, pay a 1% higher price due to merchant don't want exchange risk and use Bitpay

He would still use CC because of much less exchange hassle. Using bitcoin is like using Euro in sweden, you first go to forex exchange to buy some Euro, and then spend it at some local shops that accept euro, and finally those merchant have to exchange received euro back to swedish kronor... In this process, many time and value is lost due to exchange between different currencies

So I think at retail level bitcoin does not really make people's life simpler. For pure online transaction, exchange might not be a problem, but people still need some powerful entity to provide escrow service and solve the dispute

Bitcoin still function like gold, it is not as convenient as fiat to do the trade with, but works as a reliable medium of saving, a ledger of credit

We all know that from a higher level bitcoin excels, but for most people who don't have so much knowledge in economics and computers, they can't see that benefit. And currently some of the country still have deflation, their fiat money even gained in purchase power, only China have high inflation rate now

My point is, they will see the benefit if we wait patiently, governments are already setting up their own destruction with hyperinflation, I for instance didn't see much point in studying economics and history until I experienced a financial recession for myself, now I know how to defend against it, it will be the same for a lot of people when it comes to Bitcoin, chances are if we have another Cyprus or Greece people are going to immediately start looking for alternatives.

Taking away the power and control over our money from banks and governments, and bringing it back to us, the users, who own the damn money in the first place, seems pretty useful to me.

Some real use?

What about freedom and monetary independence? How about having the opportunity to get rid of the bankers and financial mafia?

That's a pretty big, revolutionary and REAL use in my book. I would say its the definitive use.

Then, if you want a fast micropayment solution,  well... Use Paypal, Dwolla or the likes.

That's true, if the current monetary system run into a disaster, then bitcoin is ready to rescue, but there is also a possibility that nothing happened (Banks gain 1 billion while give you one million, as long as you are satisfied with one million, you might not care about their gain)

The site in my Sig cannot be done with government currency unless people willingly provide access to their bank account information. And even then it would be clunky.

what do you guys think about this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1feujr/for_the_bitcoin_economy_to_grow_anonymity_needs/

Specific to this point, I don't think the consciousness of Bitcoin decreases, and the analysis of this particular website's statistics contribute to that theory:

http://mojoimage.com/free-image-hosting-12/1482Bitcointalk.org-new-users-and-max-online.png

If we hadn't seen the second spike, I might be inclined to believe the possibility of Bitcoin being ignored - but those kinds of numbers and mostly growing numbers of Max Online suggest that the sphere of interest is bigger than "a geek's hobby" especially when they are tied together with some of the VC being introduced into the market.

Personally, once I took more than an hour to learn about BTC, I realized that it simply couldn't be ignored - and it would appear that I'm far from being alone in that thinking.

True words ;)

I mean something that can really push it to spread much more widely. Currently it is only limited to a small fraction of people, it does not help normal people to reach one specific goal that they can not achieve by other means

The most important character for a currency is universal equivalence, and this character typically established on a fact that everyone want it. I have not found a good reason that everyone want to have bitcoin (of course a fast price appreciation is an universal reason that everyone want it, but when price do not appreciate that fast, many of them will leave)

You don't need to "find" real uses for Bitcoin. Millions of dollars worth are being transacted every day. Apparently someone is using them. You could argue that speculation isn't the best use of it, but keep in mind that it is still incredibly young, and still very obscure (despite being trumpeted on major news media in this last year). Patience is a dying virtue. We need to breathe some life back into it. Don't worry about Bitcoin losing ways to be used. If that's your concern, then ask yourself what are you doing to strengthen this new economy? Are you hoarding coins in defense of inflation or are you using them as a medium for exchanging value (i.e. purchasing goods and services with them). Be the change you want to see.

Borrowing words better said than I could by Erik Vorhees at the Bitcoin conference:


It is easy to divide and recombine
It cannot be counterfeited
It is highly durable, so long as certain precautions are taken
It can be sent anywhere, instantly, at near-zero cost
If you were going to make a super hero currency, this is one of the traits you would give it
Can’t do that with gold due to physical constraints, or dollars due to legal constraints
It is scarce, with a known supply and a known inflation schedule
And it cannot be manipulated, restricted, or seized by any central party (shares this property with gold). Nobody has special privileges. In this way, it is very democratic, and very egalitarian.  (http://evoorhees.blogspot.com/2013/05/bitcoin-2013-role-of-bitcoin-as-money.html)

This reason alone has absurd potential: It can be sent anywhere, instantly, at near-zero cost

Ture, I'm accepting bitcoin payment for my sales. If there are enough people providing products/service around the world, then in principle you can live with bitcoin anywhere

But people must first have the motivation to get the coin, and they must be able to get coin easily, it is this step stop bitcoin from mass adopted

So far, that motivation is mostly coming from speculation. I've found only one practical use: Investors who want to diversify their portfolio and take bitcoin as a risk digital asset. Considering that more and more people are becoming financial and investment aware, there is demand from that direction, this is for sure

But since bitcoin has very strange fundamentals (What you can do with a bitcoin is not as clear as a house/gold/diamond), an investor might totally get shocked by its price development, still lots of uncertainty

People have been participated in central banks game for centuries, what is the motivation for them to switch to another game? That game must have much favorable terms for them in order for them to switch

For miners, the benefit is very clear, they have an extra income source and it is fun, but for rest of the people, why use bitcoin instead of USD is typically a political debate which is out of grasp of majority

This.

I'm constantly getting raped by bank fees and having to put up with delays of 3-6 days for transfers.

For this alone..BTC has enormous potential. For a global economy there is way too much friction in banking.

it's not about finding uses, it's about creating uses.

in history, pubs, shops were not found, they were created

Real use?

• Remittance
• Gambling
• Services in the grey area (for instance a seedbox)
• Freelancing (imagine if Elance, Odesk or Freelancer.com jumped on the wagon)

I run the site www.Coingig.com which is a bitcoin marketplace to buy real everyday products, these are one of the great uses i've done with bitcoin and it's growing fast.

Amazon's operating margin is 1.7%* if they can increase this by even .01% by using BTC they will jump all over it.

Allot of industries operate on very thin margins and will do everything they can for even the slightest of improvements.**

After looking at the data, most industries these days operate at under 10% margin. If we can give them a super easy way of accepting BTC then our market cap will go from 1.4 Billion to 10's or even 100's of billions per year, and each bitcoin may be worth 10's or even 100's of thousands of dollars each. (this is why I am betting on this btw)

*   http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Amazon.com_%28AMZN%29/Data/Operating_Margin
** http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/margin.html

Good point, I think freelancing is a potential area worth looking

Fiat money get widely adopted because people get paid in form of fiat. 160 million labor, each averagely earn 3000 USD per month, means that 480 billion USD were handed out monthly as salary, this huge amount of income ensure it get widely adopted, and they are typically coming from government spending and large bank loans from corporations

But if the economy structure changes and there are more and more small businesses, their product/service in principle can accept any form of payment, bitcoin might become very practical if the purchase power is stable or constantly rising

I am seriously thinking of starting an online business accepting bitcoins.  Never would have bothered if I had to accept credit cards.  Why?  There's a lot of overhead to accepting credit cards beyond just their 3% cut, there is the PCI compliance, hacking to worry about, all kinds of stuff.  If I were to setup a business accepting bitcoins, the only one of these concerns that it still valid is hacking, and I'd probably just put most of the funds in cold storage to minimize that threat.

Right now, bitcoin is probably still too complex for most people: it's the equivalent of where the internet was in 1991 or so.  But more services are coming up all the time, this will change in time.  This to me, selling things online, is the killer app for bitcoins.  I think I could single handedly manage an online business that's based on bitcoins.  There's probably no way I could do that if I had to accept credit cards.