Bitcoin Forum

According to the latest report by bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/bitcoin-s-use-in-commerce-keeps-falling-even-as-volatility-eases

Bitpay is a way of converting crypto into dollars before then passing it onto the vendor.  In theory that vendor is accepting the dollars and its Bitpay who handles the crypto itself, not exactly a crypto transaction.  Hopefully they are also monitoring other methods of exchanging value not just ones that register in FIAT because that'd be quite ironic to skip transactions purely done in crypto

Bitpay was (is?) the largest payment processor for Bitcoin. They are seriously hurting Bitcoins usage as a means of payment though. They started mandating that BIP70 is used for payments. This put a bad taste in many peoples mouth and caused many users to stop using Bitpay altogether. I'm unsure why they mandated BIP70 for payments, but it just overcomplicated things. I am certain that this has to do with the drop in commerce, and is what skewed the results of this "study". Maybe it's also in part to the fact that Bitcoin has been in a slump since 2017. A lot of people are likely hodling because of the general perception that we will be entering another bull market shortly, and buying something would result in a net loss in the short term.

people have been complaining about it ever since they mandated BIP70 so there are posts on their blogs about it which you can read https://blog.bitpay.com/bitpay-and-payment-protocol/ it may not make complete sense though. and i have heard once before that someone said it is done in order to make it near impossible for those using TOR to be able to use Bitpay! don't know how true this is though!

the article is based on Chainanalysis not the stat reports by the payment processors or merchants themselves so there is a good chance it is off the mark. it is also the fact that it is comparing bitcoin now (at the bottom) with bitcoin before (on the rise). people tend to spend their bitcoins when they have risen not when it is going to rise. it is the same as selling, you don't want to sell at the bottom, you sell on top.

Very informative posts, thanks to both of you. 

I've spent bitcoin dozens of times, but the number of merchants I used it at is only like a handful.  I think Bitpay was the payment processor for all of them, and it does baffle me that they'd throw a wrench in the works like that.

However, it doesn't surprise me at all that bitcoin commerce is dropping.  I thought this from day one:  Why would anyone go out of their way to buy bitcoin just so they could spend it on something they could probably buy just as easily (or more easily) with fiat?  When I spent bitcoin, it was usually proceeds from a signature campaign, but I don't think most bitcoin holders get paid in bitcoin--they buy it as an investment, and to them it makes zero sense to spend it on goods & services.

Also, even though it looks bleak right now, things could change.  And I'd also add that bitcoin is still very much worth owning, even if it doesn't get spent.  A lot of people have made money with it, and it is still a great way to transfer money outside the view of the prying eyes of governments and banks.

Talk for themselves.
I get paid on crypto all the time, means people are paying me to do my job in crypto for two years now. I doubt that could ever change and I doubt it will ever change.

Maybe "less" people are paying with crypto but that doesn't really mean "nobody" does it, there are still a lot of people in the world that uses crypto for many purposes and we just lost a lot of our dollar value on this bear market that people are holding their crypto currencies until they go back before they use it because if they use it it will not worth a lot and they will have "realized loss" and instead they keep it until it goes up so they currently have "unrealized loss".

But, but, but... nobody is using crypto because people consider it an "investment", so they just HODL or trade. They are not interested to use it with merchants no, they are not interested in decentralization or privacy no,  they just want to make a profit and receive it in their fiat account. Sure not everyone behaves like this, but let's be honest, the majority does. Why do you want to see more merchants accepting crypto if nobody is using, would you?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4756504.msg42963723#msg42963723

Yes people feel that it would not make sense to spend bitcoins for anything which could be easily done with the existing fiat currency.They try to hold bitcoins and aim to build a bright future.But its very unfortunate that bitcoin as well as cryptos are created at first to provide a platform for people to send money via P2P transactions independently.Now everything has turned upside down and it could not be changed.

There is only one thing i can use bitcoin to buy some goods.
And its Weed! So Silkroad was the biggest place for bitcoin shopping.
After silkroad nobody try it.

It is a bit like "the chicken and egg" scenario.
If nobody is spending bitcoin merchants as less likely to accept it.
Its a bit frustrating for those of us who earn crypto and want to spend it on goods.

The run up to $20,000 didnt help in this regard, a lot of people are indeed realising
a loss in their "investment" and are not going to spend it now if they havent already
liquidated back to FIAT

I used bitcoin to pay cloud services and I regret it, it was the most expensive cloud I ever paid.

People are not using it to pay anymore, because bitcoin became the best store of value in the market.

Best to hold it and use it to buy only big things, like a house, for example.

But there will come a time when we will use bitcoin to buy smaller things as well. This will happen when it reaches 20% global adoption, as a store of value.

Some users might see a paradox here, since if people dont spend it, there will be no adoption, but to use it as a store of value is considered adoption as well.

Well I think I know, it made things simpler for the processing of the payment.    I'm not sure its a massive discouragement compared to the scenario last year of such high fees, I really didnt want to spend 30 dollars just to move some BTC.  I thought that was so bad and now really BTC improved overall even while the price is lower.

I'm pretty sure Bitpay just return the payment back if its not within their demands, its not a massive deal.  Even years ago, 2014 say I can remember payments being returned if outside the payment time window

I'd rather nobody held BTC as if its a investment, really it should be called a betting slip because its relying on the price change.  Investment implies a yield or business interest which is not at all the case, POS coins maybe do this as the wallet holders get the transaction fees but obviously not with POW.

If everyone just spends their BTC its fine by me, its the cirulation which raises monetary velocity and is the magic which helps raise overall BTC worth as far as I can tell.  The more its used the better for all of us.
PEople who fear selling BTC because its price fell should swap some over to gold which also fell this year.  Gold historically has a link to the dollar and is very likely to appreciate under the unwinding of 20 trillion US treasury debt and QE programs.
  The Dollar isnt getting stronger under this regime transition, its come due to pay its bills and will depreciate which both helps BTC in theory and also gold like I say that was a fixed link to dollar previously so is a reasonable hedge to those who 'over-invested' on this wave.     No reason to doubt BTC can be used for transactions, it just needs to be flexible to handle the smallest of all

The majority of people that can have access to common goods and services through fiat are going to continue using fiat for obvious reasons that if the people doing these studies thought about it would realize.

Fiat is known to only go down in value long term. People get paid in fiat. These 2 premises already make it obvious: Spend the fiat on common things and use Bitcoin as a store of value and to buy things that aren't easily purchased with fiat, to move wealth across borders in an easy way etc etc.

Until physical cash is removed, economic activity on Bitcoin will be rather low. And when that happens, everyone using cash will start using Bitcoin as an alternative, you will see more jobs being offered in exchange of Bitcoin etc, that is how an economy starts, out of necessity, and the average Joe couldn't care less to pay with fiat or Bitcoin for now. But when all these people doing jobs under the table out of necessity (because if they paid 100% of taxes they would basically not be able to sustain their basic necessities) are forced to declare everything, they will obviously look for alternatives and Bitcoin is it.

When you have buyers and sellers it creates an ecosystem hence you have related solutions because there is a market. That's where we see somethings news (for merchants for example)
If people keep to hold or trade then the crypto ecosystem won't be developed, the only things we will see developed are the regulations and the trading market. And you're right about the run up to $20,000 I didn't even think about that.

Thanks for the shares. I feel quite confused about this. My personal Bitcoin spending is increasing as the months go by, but yes, I'm the first to say that merchants using 3rd parties like Bitpay aren't REALLY using Bitcoin - they don't see a single satoshi in their accounts, everything is settled with fiat by Bitpay.

I read recently that Bitpay's transaction figures are climbing though, even if other reports seem to suggest their popularity is dwindling.

My earliest Bitcoins were from faucets and signature campaigns, including my current one but my majority continues to be actual income paid in Bitcoin and other crypto (which I usually convert to Bitcoin anyway). So what you're saying makes sense. Anyone who BUYS Bitcoin isn't likely doing so to spend it... but like you said, there could still be a change of tides. Broken economies and sanctions, people getting restricted from using fiat... these will be the first to turn to Bitcoin. The world's just priming to do that.

That graph shows that bitcoin merchants services went to a volume from pre 2017. That looks so strange to me, because there is so much more interest for Bitcoin then it was in 2016.

It all comes down to the type of interest. It's clear that the majority of the people that came in last year only care about their gains and don't even think about crypto currencies as in them being money. It's nothing more than a speculative toy for them, which is unfortunate but we can't do anything about it. 2017 has been the year of the ICO's and they brainwashed people to such degree that there is nothing useful that they contribute to. They hop from token to token in an attempt to catch the next 10x increase. Good thing is that the ICO hype is slowly fading and with some luck we'll get rid of these idiots within a year or two....

I agree that payments in crypto has declined and that is mainly because of 2 reasons, one is obviously the high volatility and second is the regulatory issues, im positive that once countries around the world start legalizing and regulating crypto or in simple terms start accepting crypro we will soon move towards mass adootion and then everywhere crypto payments will be accepted.

interesting, thanks for that. i've never been able to figure out why mandating BIP70 would be a good move for them (unless it's true that people screw up the address/amount and so they want to avoid dealing with that).


what makes you think that's what most people do? on the contrary, i think most people sell the bottom and/or buy the top. they get greedy when price is rising and don't want to sell. that's why the old warren buffet saying always applies. :)

that is the logical move for anyone who is not a hardcore trader who cares only about making money. of course there is the buy high sell low situation but that doesn't mean people aren't going to spend 0.001-0.01BTC of what they have.

also and mostly i am talking based on BitPay stats. for example this chart from 2 years ago was the best thing i can show you. it maps number of processed transactions by BitPay (the bars) versus the price (the line). it shows an increase number of them during the ATH of 2013 and a big drop after price came down and then slow growth afterwards
https://blog.bitpay.com/content/images/2016/01/BitPayChart-1.png

this is the latest stats which is describing the same thing with 328% rise but it doesn't have the same pretty chart!

I suppose another "strategy" by hardcore holders who don't really want to get into the speculation game yet also want to take advantage of high prices, is to spend some Bitcoin when they feel is high, and then save the fiat for buying/replacing that Bitcoin at a lower price. Would help to explain the increased Bitpay transactions (I assume). Or is this also because merchants tend to try Bitpay when price is high, when they know more people are willing to release a finger or two on their Bitcoin holdings?

that's true. i remember first getting into bitcoin to play poker on sealswithclubs back in 2012. i forgot about it, then when i saw the april 2013 bubble, i immediately bought amazon gcs with all my coins. then the price kept going up and i got hooked to the markets....


good point. however, we should also note that total network transactions were strongly trending upwards through the april 2013 bubble, then sharply dropped from may-june 2013. we see an even more pronounced increase in total network activity from august-december 2017, during the last bubble: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all&daysAverageString=7

this tells me there is a correlation between price bubbles and network activity---it's not just that more people are spending via bitpay. if there is an increase an network activity, we should expect some ~proportionate increase in bitpay activity as well.

Maybe the first reason why people bought Bitcoin was never meant to use it to buy things and services, they bought it because they have believed they could double their money from it and the best case is make them rich in an instant. Imagine buying traditional stocks, wait for too long to get your investments back or you could gamble in crypto and make a fortune if you are lucky.

This is true atleast for the people I know in my country that is using bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. We get bitcoin trade them when it's high and buy more when it's low. Convert them to fiat and go on and spend it everywhere. The problem is even if we want to use cryptocurrency to pay for stuffs, there is not much merchant that is currently accepting them.

I myself would be willing to just use bitcoin to pay almost anywhere.

Well even i stop using Bitcoin as payment option not because i will quit Crypto but just in case the bullish market will rise up once again in which I believed that we are almost at the tip of waiting that our long waiting will be over that its about time to keep much bitcoin to join the ride when the bullish run will start. If the bullish market will start anytime now then i will be glad because i have kept lot of Cryptos for my future disposal.

We all saw these huge transaction fees when the price skyrocketed at the end of 2017. Bitcoin lightning is supposed to solve the problem at least partially, however, and $20 is still a very good fee for expensive purchases. As of July 2018, one can find online shops selling tech goods, gift cards and book hotels. You can also transfer btc to your Microsoft account or buy airplane tickets on Cheapair.com. It is only a matter of time when major companies accept bitcoin (and perhaps other cryptos) as payment for any goods.

there are alternatives for btc that is fast and more acceptable by vendors. some altcoins maybe but btc is not a very good way of payment. that altoins should be more famous within vendors and people so they think to use it. Cryptopayment needs alot of time for acceptance. I think it is related with generation, people dont change their payment habits till they die, their children may use crypto but a lot of people dont need dont want. Just wait thats all.   

This is yet another example of a clickbait headline by Bloomberg that misrepresents Bitcoin to make it look like we're all heading for a crash and it's not worth investing in. Bitpay, like mentioned above, is just a service, not the coin itself. So there was a shitty service that charged too much money for its transactions that people aren't using anymore and... no one is using Bitcoin anymore! Great conclusion Bloomberg!

These people are so blind in their biases they don't even recognize that their headlines don't match their article content anymore. What happened to the days of honest and objective reporting?

This is absolutely lie and fud. More and more big organization accepting crypto now. Just news from yestarday: Starbucks will accept crypto as payment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/starbucks-partners-with-microsoft-ice-on-new-cryptocurrency.html

Very interesting thread, unlike most threads on this board.

I personally don’t spend bitcoin now for two main reasons:

1)   I can’t make most of my everyday expenses with it.
2)   The current price. If I spend now I fell I’m losing money.

The unstable of value is the one reason bitcoin and other crypto cannot be used as a payment, for some big businesses it is okay to do so but realizing how much you earn but they will understand how much they can lose to since if you look at the price ranged from October 2017 to 2018 price goes down over $10k and for a business that accepts bitcoin that event is a disaster.

The other reason is they need to adjust the value of a certain product for its respective SRP and for that reason accepting bitcoin will cause too much work.

interesting points here! they became difficult to use for some (bip70), and expensive to use for others. i'd love to see a survey among those who've used bitpay and their feelings about the "network fees" and mandated bip70 usage. if less and less people are using bitpay, there could be other reasons for it too.

i've recently used a couple large merchants who didn't use bitpay (they used coingate and coinpayments). so bitpay is the biggest game in town by far, but i'm not convinced they own the market either. i think maybe their market share is even falling.

But to me I think that the the use bitcoin for payment method is increasing from time to time. As in my country now I can see that the bitcoin users are increasing they are now using bitcoin for online shopping and for so many other purposes in real life.

BitPay is a US company and it is processing a lot of transactions, it basically owns a big database of bitcoin transactions, where they came from, where they went and how much each person owned and it is associated with a lot of additional data such as IP addresses and personal information possibly gained from the merchants they are processing these transactions for....
they may not care enough about losing a little bit of market share to competition if they are getting paid by some agency for this database... wink wink.