Bitcoin Forum

Hi folks.
Just curious to know, and start this discussion. I believe this is an interesting subject.
The community that started Bitcoin was made of "geeks". Today, more and more "average Joe" are buying Bitcoin. And I believe a big part of it do it to speculate and profit from it, in the short term, middle term or long term.

But do you actually use Bitcoin, to pay for services, or make deposits/withdrawals on sports betting websites, casino/poker, or other things?

To answer my own question, I use it moderately, mainly to bet on sports (for now) but I am extra careful with the bets I place, I don't want to lose any of my investment (and luckily I have not so far).

Do you actually use your Bitcoins to buy anything, or simply hold and speculate like you would do with stocks?

Any comment welcome.

I don't have any bitcoin yet, not even 1 satoshi.

If I have any I will not use it for betting, pay the bitches, etc other sinful activity.

Nobody can give you exact information about the percentage of people never used btc here.
I`ve used bitcoin to buy a money making guide from a seller here and i still regret about this.
With the current transaction fees and confirmation time issues,i won`t use btc to buy any goods or services.

Interesting question pal! I see bitcoin more of a financial instrument (like stock, gold, oil), but your question provokes me to use it as a utility

Using bitcoin for every activities I do at the moment , Some time I have to convert my BTC for another coin/token for fast payment when I buy things from one of my friends . I plan to use my BTC as my main payment method on amazon ( Yes you can do that by buying gift cards from localbitcoin ) . I can say at the moment I totally stopped using traditional online banks like ( neteller ,  paypal , perfectmoney , webmoney ) I can not even remember when was the last time I used one of them :D . But this is totally depends on people and places you deal with , If you want product or service from a place that not accepting cryptos then you will have to deal with other options .

Yeah, though it's not possible to give an exact percentage or accurate information based on the usage of bitcoin as payment. I assume that most of the users do use bitcoin often. Payments can be in different forms here. Trading, gambling, loans etc are definitely in payment forms.
Not to mention the fees that you encounter when doing such activities. Also I do not think that there is someone here that never transacted since he or she started having bitcoin. I doubt it. Any holder would have spend some of their coins.

yes, many people just take advantage of bitcoin and do not use it directly in life. most people (including me perhaps) try to grow our bitcoin in various ways like trading, investing, and so on.

Back then I am using bitcoin as payments for bills, buying things that needed or go shopping with it and even buy loads after I earn some bitcoin, and right after the value had turn to $5000 and more it hit me to not use my bitcoin and instead just hodl it and just use my fiat money to pay for all the expenses and what needed in my everyday life, i surely regret not hodling and treating bitcoin as an asset but a currency back them.

Thanks for the replies so far. I am a bit upset lately. I want to make a deposit before the Australian Open of tennis and now I am hesitant because of these ridiculous fees.
That's my fear, I am concerned many think the same way I do right now, when it comes to actually use Bitcoin to buy services or make deposits somewhere...  :-\
any other comment welcome.

The Percentage of people who use Bitcoin to purchase anything is not the right question for now as most of us don't aware of it as Bitcoin is just growing its popularity.

Reply of the day!!
OP , are you happy of the feedback you got?

So this guys says that most of the people on this forum are not aware of Bitcoin!!!!!
Now for my feedback:

a) If you want to do a real research, open a self moderated thread. Spammers and shit posters are running scared when seeing that alert bar.

b) either way the question is almost impossible to answer because

- we don't know the number of people on bitcointalk (accounts =/= persons)
- you say purchase, then pay, and then use. 3 different things as I use can mean sending coins to a friend. and paying for a bill is not a "purchase".

In the end...god knows. If he does not you might have a second chance with the devil.

Well most people here don't use bitcoins to pay because the percentage of facilities available for paying in the whole world through bitcoins is genuinely very low.. not everyone can live in Japan .. there are countries that doesn't even recognize bitcoins as a method of investment.. so it's a hard deal even finding places that accepts bitcoins as payment and how... The Trent is going right now it would just make everything worse.. because it's changing every second... And that instability will make someone to pay through fiat not bitcoins.

I mostly see Bitcoin as a form of alternative investment, but when fees were still reasonable enough I also used it a lot for buying digital goods and services such as domain names and games. Most of the time I immediately bought back on one of the exchanges where I had some leftover fiat, basically using Bitcoin like a form of prepaid payment.

It also prove itself as an extraordinary alternative to PayPal when receiving money, especially since I didn't care about converting back to fiat all that much.

However ever since the fee market increased the way it did, I barely use Bitcoin for payment any more. Which is a shame, since I really love using crypto. Lightning Network can't come soon enough.



FTFY :P

There's one more important think that you've missed - some people are using Bitcoin to get paid. I was first introduced to Bitcoin when I was looking how to receive payments while working online, since there are problems with systems like PayPal in my country. Because today everyone is focused on fees, people don't appreciate the fact that Bitcoin is the first global currency that has the same fees and rules regardless the distance or jurisdictions of its users. So, even with current $5 fees it is way cheaper to use BTC than any wire transfer between many countries.

And as for spending, I was always selling it for fiat when I had to do some purchases, the only time I used it directly was on Steam, although even that doesn't really count, because Bitpay is just a proxy.

Not everyone in this forum will speak out about what they do with their Bitcoins and with recent price surges, the number of holders has overtaken the ones that actually it to buy stuff. 1BTC spent at the beginning of this year would've been around $1k and try spending the same amount today, it's around $15k. It is evident from these developments that Bitcoin is being looked upon as a high yielding investment rather than a digital currency.

I accept Bitcoin in payment for domain names, and I would accept it for other products as well if somebody offered it. So far I haven't spent any Bitcoin at all, as I have enough fiat money to pay for all my needs. I've just transferred my US dollars to my domain registrar, and I'm in the process of picking up more names with the money. Hopefully I'll sell more next year to increase my Bitcoin balance. I can't see any point in spending Bitcoin, as I'd prefer to save Crypto money and domain names rather than fiat currencies.

I agree with you have an practical decision, betting are very risky for your coins
hodling are the best strategy interest if bitcoin pump the price in the marketcap

But disagrre about peopele earning bitcoin in the forum are not spending their rewards from the ico project i do not believe on the information because every people have needs to spent bitcoin as extra income.

I admit i have never paid for anything with BTC.

I pay for my Satellite TV service with Dish TV with bitcoin every month.

Additionally, I've made purchases at overstock.com, newegg.com, and my local pizza restaurant while paying with bitcoin.

I generally use bitcoin to pay whenever and wherever I can.

i've bought a bunch of things in the past. if bitpay wasn't launching an all out assault on people paying with bitcoin i'd pay for more stuff with it.

i don't think people are gonna use it as a currency cold, but existing bitcoin holders from a while back certainly have enough free money that they'd like to spend.

Bitcoin has been very important in my life especially this year since I am using this one for our daily needs, I am as well using this to pay my credit card bills, electricity, water and remitting money to my love ones, actually bitcoin made my life easier since we can transact anytime at less hassle.

*for geeks
Yes most of the average Joe's are buying bitcoins to become rich in one day.I mean that is what the definition of a crypto has become.

Yes obviously.Lot of people do atleast on this forum.You will see entire gambling community here using bitcoins to play for the mentioned games.

- You can play on a trusted website and never store a lot of bitcoins on an exchange.
- I bought a Pizza with it,twice. (Not a million dollar though)

This question honestly hits home pretty hard for me, because this is something that I think about daily and honestly am unsure whether or not i regret my flippant bitcoin usage. I used to have 100's of coins when they were almost worthless and as they became more and more valuable I would use them more frequently for increasingly "regular" purchases and bills. For 2016 I paid my rent all year in bitcoin by selling it on an exchange, while I went through a really tough time financially. 

I always admired the HODLers, because they were able to pull-off something I was unable to. I've used my bitcoins to buy myself dinner, to pay for rent and other bills, I've used it to buy steam games.. I've even wasted some bitcoin on gambling and binary options.

I've been using my bitcoin as a regular currency since I have had the capability to do so, and it has made it so my bitcoin stash is incredibly depleted. I'd say most bitcoin users from the beginning are HODLers though, and i'd expect a very large (silent) percentage of users around here to be those people. A lot of them keep these things quiet though, security reasons; you'd hate to hang onto coins for 5+ years and then have a hacker swipe them away because of a stupid forum post you made.