Bitcoin Forum

I just realized speculators add some value to all of us, when they cause spikes in the price. I am a hoarder through and through, but I like to support Bitcoin merchants by buying and paying with bitcoin for some food and drinks on a daily basis. This is the only way to make sure that there would be a continuous demand for coins, if we "feed" the merchants that supports us.

So my strategy has always been to use +/- 20% of all the coins I buy... and most of these coins are spend daily on food and drinks. I buy the odd hamburger and chips or Taco and drinks at a local street food merchant that accepts Bitcoin.

This gets me to the point of my topic and that is that speculators can have a positive influence on my spending habits and the amount of coins that I spend. If they push up the price, I get to spend less coins. A Taco and Cooldrink cost about say 0.0004 BTC today and when they drive up the price, I can spend less coins the next day, when that same food costs say 0.0003 BTC  ::)

Some people stop spending coins, when the price is too low and that is bad for the whole Bitcoin ecosystem.

Some people hate these speculators, but I love it when they push up the price and I can spend less coins. ;D

Some questions if you don't mind:

• What country are you in? You're lucky that you're in a place that merchants actually accepts bitcoin payments. <--- I completely understand if you don't want to answer this due to privacy reasons.
• Do they require tx confirmations? Assuming these merchants use BitPay or something similar.

Ultimately though, speculators create buy and sell offers on exchanges, which increases the market liquidity. Probably might not be that much liquidity they're adding when talking about individual speculators, but in the end, everything counts.

Every users have a contribution, mostly mooning gayboys

I would prefer to keep my location private for my own security, but it is safe to say that I frequently work on contract for my work in several countries and I have arranged with a lot of food merchants to accept Bitcoin as a payment option as soon as I arrive in a new location. They tend to agree very quickly if you promise to spend "money" daily at their "shop"  ::)

Some of my colleagues are also into Bitcoin, so we target one or two shops or restaurants or street food vendor in the area and then we support them daily. <They do not care how they get the money, as long as they get paid daily> We get food allowances, so spending it in Fiat or with Bitcoin is the same thing for us... we prefer spending it in Bitcoin, when the price is going up>  ;D

Some shops prefer to use Payment processors, because they do not want to deal with the price volatility.  ::)  

If you live in the country where btc is accepted as a payment, you're lucky.

It's hard to think of BTC as a currency for everyday use, especially for small things like buying hamburgers or some drinks, but it's great to use in countries that do not support traditional payments.
There are some products and metals in Africa that you can buy with cryptocurrency and at a much cheaper price than local stores. This is the essence of cryptos, used in areas where there are no international banking services.
In my country, there are some shops that accept Bitcoin through a third party (Bitpay) but the fees are much higher than regular payment methods, which makes the use of it "One Time Payment" rather than daily payments.

Interesting is the thinking of the author of this topic. I, too, am of the opinion that speculators can help to earn. But more I liked the story that somewhere you can pay for food in bitcoins. Such places are becoming more and more every day. Where are you living?

I wish I could say I bought a "Taco" with Bitcoin  ::)

There is literally no-body that uses Bitcoin near where I live, If I were to buy a taco it would have to be exchanged to fiat first.
Would be cool to use actual BTC

Do you get a receipt showing the bitcoin total? <- I can feel a Collectors Item right there.

Anyway, cool story.

And what happens when these speculators push the price down and you have to pay more for your taco? Do you wait for the prices to stabilize or spend some anyway?
This is the well known dilemma we are facing every day. By we I mean the people who count their money and actually plan their savings and expenses. I know a few guys who regretted spending their bitcoins. Once one of my friends borrowed cash from me and promised to pay me back in bitcoin. By the time that happened bitcoin was worth at least 20% more and you can imagine that he had wasn't too happy.

The strategy you apply to buy daily goods is the same strategy, I apply when I wish to pay for any services I use. I often tend to delay my payments if prices are falling, and then pay once prices peak. Also this strategy is commonly used by small gamblers like me who tend to avoid betting when prices crash, and when prices rise we tend to play more because we’re saving more coins. Hence I’ll conclude that I too like speculators, and thanks to you I realised now that they’re a blessing for the crypto community.

I agree with you. Speculators make help us to earn. Because whatever they say the result to us is to invest.  Even they say that bitcoin is going to rise we invest more and when they say that bitcoin will fall we also invest because we are thinking to invest and hold then wait to the right price value before to sell it. So thanks a lot to all speculators.

I cannot deny that some of the speculators has the influence to convince others to make believe on their statements.
And I think you are lucky or blessed if you are in the country were bitcoin is being accepted, that's maybe because you are capable to earn
daily. But I think for me speculators are only giving a story it can be true or not.

I agree that speculators are pretty cool. When they panic, it's a warning of a potential panic selling/opportunity to buy more coins, whereas when they are hyped, it might be a sign of the price growing, which is pleasant to see. It's great that the op is able to actually use Bitcoin like that! In my country, the most common stores that accept Bitcoin are tech stores. Then there are just a couple of cafes, clothing shops and something else. I barely go out, I am the kind of person that buys food in the supermarket and cooks, so spending Bitcoin on daily or even somewhat regular basis seems unrealistic. Not to mention that current fees are rather discouraging.

With this thinking you can just as easily reach the opposite conclusion that speculators are bad, because they can Bitcoin to go down and you have to spend more of it to buy hamburgers. The real truth is that speculators aren't the one's who cause volatility, they simply participate in it. The reason of volatility is in fact lack of speculators (low volume) and overall uncertainty due to Bitcoin still being new and not massively adopted technology. Communist countries tried to remove speculators and look what happened to their economy without free markets and its price discovery.

I think low acceptance of Bitcoin as a payment. is still the problem for all Bitcoin users, all around the world. Also, there is still no big variety of goods and services that you can buy with Bitcoin and not much merchants are willing to accept crypto as a payment because of the risk, lack of regulation and similar.
That is why I love crypto debit cards, you can use your coins where you want for whatever you want. Yes, they are converted to some fiat currency but still you can use them in your everyday life.

You are totally correct, It would be harder for the coin to known when it is just kept hidden when the main purpose of it is to be used anyway. It is just like becoming an old coin that collectors could buy in later times, but I guess not because there are no marks on each of the coin. Some how people who are Bitcoin enthusiasts resiliently drive the ones that are sad when bitcoin price is down, post some posivitive vibes about how would BTC is going to moon again, and so far I kinda like those guys, there tons of social media groups that I joined with positive thinking and never had been wavered whatever comes and they just kept buying Bitcoin. They somehow drag us to buy even more and also been encourage, so we are reluctant somehow to accept defeat in bad times.

This use to be my case, because I just thought I will be losing some money, I will then resort to spending fiat, which cost me more because of bank charges. But these days, I have outgrown that.

another way of looking at this is most people start spending their coins when price goes up. in other words for these people "spending" on merchants is the alternative to "selling" on exchanges.
with that view i don't think we can say it is "bad" for bitcoin ecosystem, it is kind of a good thing actually that they decide to spend their coins to enjoy the profit instead of just dumping them on the market to get their profit out.

Well, you live with it. Volatility is a double-edged sword. Also, it's not like Bitcoin would be stable without speculators. It could even be more volatile if they exit, considering lower market cap = higher volatility.

Right now, I'd say more users of Bitcoin is better, regardless of what they bring to the table.

Well you seems to be concerned about the positive part of the speculators alone, offcourse well all want prices to go up so we make some few bucks. But what if these same speculators causes price to go down? what will become of you then?????

Agreed, but you need to manage the influence they have, to your advantage. We will for example convert our "food allowance" when the price is low and then cash out for a profit and use the profit to buy some food. Alternatively, we would buy BTC and just skip the conversion and just wait for the price to increase, before we start spending.

So, you might get a lot more out of your "food allowance" than simply the amount that was paid to you in Fiat. We had some instances where the price dropped after we bought some BTC, but we always keep some Fiat on the side, to prevent a situation where you do not have enough money to buy the food. <Only convert after you made arrangements with a food vendor>  ;D

what country do you live in buddy? i am pretty jealous about that ,anyways who would not want to spend less on any item or service you pay for.
i get your point plus the possibility of encouraging some people to do the same thing makes the scene much better

Congrats on having the opportunity to buy food and drinks directly with bitcoin.I can't do that in my country. :D Perhaps the merchants,from whom you are buying the food and drinks gets angry every time the bitcoin price goes down.
Anyway,the crypto market exists because of the speculators.Without them,the market would have been dead by now.

Well done explanation!

I also think of that practice to support our fellow Crypto friends. There are merchants who really support Bitcoin and I love the way they value customers and the Crypto market. If we support them then I think they will grow and will be a living testimony that Crypto can work effectively.

I think we can encourage our local merchants to do that also because they can easily convert it to fiat using an application in our country.

It makes sense. This is true, if bitcoin is expensive, people will be more willing to spend it. It is good that in your country many sellers accept bitcoin, this is certainly very good news.

The number of merchants will grow in the next coming years because they will realize the benefits derived from using this technology. Maybe for now, their main reason why they are still hesitant is volatility. But sooner or later, this bottleneck will be addressed.

The speculators are not always right. At times following them is very difficult and can be misleading. Make every investment decision yourself so you won't blame anyone if things turn out wrongly.

I believe in Bitcoin very much. Now that the price has fallen below $9,500, I believe the price will rise up to about $12,000 before the year ends. I want to keep holding the coin till it rises.

In my personal opinion, speculators in the Bitcoin ecosystem are the major contributors for either a raise or drop in the market value of Bitcoin. They cause people to either sell all their Bitcoin or more than half of their total bitcoin they have as a risk precaution to minimize the amount of income lost.

Supporting bitcoin like that, I admire you for doing that. Not all may use their coins to buy some foods and drinks because of the fees and other concerns though. But in your case, your thinking is different and spending your coins with merchants as a support is a good step. I also love a speculators as they may contribute to the price hike of bitcoin but sadly, I do not have much coins to spend as yours.

I get to regularly spend my Bitcoins in paying regular bills mostly. I do that regardless of whether Bitcoin's price is high or not. In a way that is my contribution as to the actual use of BTC and therefore the encouragement also to business owners, virtual or physical, to continue accepting BTC payments because there are certain people who conveniently use it. But the prices, constantly moving up and down, is really a concern. It does not matter if the movement is upward. As you said, you get to spend lesser amount. But if it goes down low, you may also get to spend double.

the problem with bitcoin price volatility stems from the small size of the market not the existence of speculators. and when i say "market" it is basically the handful centralized exchanges such as Coinbase, Kraken, Gemeni, Bitstamp and bitfinex where the price is decided. since these exchanges still have moderately small orderbooks with not enough bids and asks in them, whenever there is a surge in trades the price moves fast in one direction hence creating the volatility.
the solution would be to increase the size of these markets. it can be done with more adoption but also if these exchanges become more secure so that people feel safer trading and leaving open orders.

Well, a lot of exchanges has not been hacked and Coinbase is showing a massive increase in account creation over the last few months. So, there are some exchanges with a good reputation and also some very good cold storage practices to protect users coins.

Speculation is part of any market, no matter what platform is used, so let's just hug some of the price movers and appreciate the fact that they too have a small contribution to how we spend our coins and how we support our merchant networks.  :P

With increased demand and adoption -- and yes, more confidence in exchanges -- we would see more liquidity on the buy side. I'm not convinced the selling side would thicken up that much, though. For Bitcoin's whole life, very little of the total supply has traded on exchanges. It might just be like that forever. For that reason, in terms of price, I wonder if we'll see more flat plateaus in the future rather than deep bear markets like 2014.

Some may think that merchants not accepting bitcoin is a hurdle in spending their coins. But you actually showed us that it can be done. Merchants can be persuaded to actually accept bitcoin. Kudos.

The merchants are the one following the blueprint of bitcoin whitepaper! Bitcoin must be seen as money especially cash in other for us to really utilize it potential. We should be able to used bitcoin The way we used cash in buying foods, clothing and drinks. We may not have see this in full force now but in future that is how it is going to be. We used bitcoin now as a speculative assets and most of us just want its price to keep increasing because they want to keep making profits and that reduces bitcoin to commodities and not currencies.

It's been a year since I first tasted the digital currency. First, Cryptocurrency is looking for "fair value". All products, whether property, gold, stocks, bonds, and others always have fair value, and investors have a different approach to determine that point. At present, almost all investors in the world judge that the price of Bitcoin is too high compared to the benefits received. to buy bitcoin and other digital currencies at the lowest possible price. Thus the profit they get will be higher. tcoin and other digital currencies have made dozens of rich people suddenly.

Incredibly increasing trends are authentic proof of the past. How in the future?
Even magicians will not be able to predict correctly, but learning from existing patterns, the potential increase in the value of bitcoin in the future is not an impossibility. the majority of other crypto currencies use blockchain technology without involving third parties, namely banking. Thus, there are no rules that have the potential to hinder the payment process.

Cryptocurrency is a speculation driven market. Whether it is long term or short term price pumping, however we make the research it is impossible to determine the key reason for the price pumping. It is obvious to see the speculations making wild changes upward and downwards.

In the Op it is stated he stated his wish to spend on needs with bitcoin and happy when the same is got for less bitcoin when the price is pushed by the speculators upward. By this time everyone won't get interested, because very few consider it on spending while majority of the users prioritize it as investment and for trading needs.

As the saying goes buy the rumors sell the news. This is a normal spectacle not only in bitcoin trading but also to stockmarket, forex and the whole cryptocurrency market as well. In bitcoin there are two groups the bullish and the bearish groups. These two groups love to speculate, the bullish sees bitcoins hits a million dollars while the extreme bearish will say that another bubble will pop out. But in the end the strongest influencer will really win the tug of war since speculation plays a major role in how the traders buy and sell bitcoin. But I hope bitcoin goes up more and really hits 20k$ this year.

There is a major difference between stock market and the crypto market, the stocks have a performance oriented base to look up to and the general market situation and that is how the market moves, but when it comes to bitcoin, it is basically the buyers and sellers and then the moral thought that bitcoin will be used as a major transaction medium in the future or used as a store of value and that is the reason people are investing in bitcoin, basically the speculation market is driving the bitcoin market and there is nothing to complaint about that .

Maybe I’d give the wrong answer, but it seems to me that it is speculators who support Bitcoin’s volatility, which also makes it possible for us, ordinary users of cryptocurrency, who bought a little bit of Bitcoin or decided to make some money on daily trading.  I have always believed that not only the quality of the project and the professionalism of the team affects the pricing of the coin, but also speculation.

I don't think that is the work of speculators.  Those are shillers IMO.  Speculators are those who are buying with an expectation of a profit one day.  So basically these people are hoarders at one point and dumpers at another point.  Regardless, this is just a normal phenomena in trading (uptrend and downtrend).    Anyway, I do like speculators too since they give a positive vibes on the market.

Btc is affected by a number of factors of which one include speculations. Well, if the speculations works well for you then you smile and if it goes bad, you cry.

I do love speculators as well. But not just because they give positive vibes on the market. I also love they way they affect the value of Bitcoin on a negative way. They could very well be instruments for those of us who would want to enter the market with a low price. And I believe the speculators' hands are all over every pump and dump in Bitcoin's price history.

i dont think that speculators are responsible for the pump and dump of the price , not even shillers because these people are mainly speculating and not doing the real job which was buying or selling  but if ever they did ,  i still dont think that they can move the price depending on thier preference because most of these guys are only small or dont have much resources as when compare to a real crypto whale or an institutions that has alot of capital to manipulate the entire crypto market  .

Inspecting the price with market analysis and pushing it ahead in the price spectrum will always help in changing the market mood.

But not really, sometimes speculators really lead us to FOMO currents which only cause losses. There are many types of speculators, there are speculators who speculate only for their own interests to influence the market and there are also speculators who share their own analysis. I myself prefer speculators who have basic facts about what they speculate and don't talk nonsense to bring people to the FOMO stream.

Actually, market speculators are not these: "people are mainly speculating and not doing the real job which was buying or selling." I think you are wrong about this. Speculators do not just idly speculate and do nothing about their speculation, not even gaining from it. The people you might be referring to are those mere shills who just release statements after statements trying to affect the market. Market speculators are actually traders and investors who are sophisticated and brilliant enough to compute and take huge risks and earn profit from it. And so they affect the prices.

Shills are pure nuisance most of the time, if not all the time. Speculators, on the contrary, are very much needed in the market.

Yes, I think you highlighted a very specific thing about a lot of hard-core speculators in Crypto currencies and that is the risk that they are taking. It takes a huge pair of balls to dump a lot of money into a highly speculative and unregulated commodity like Bitcoin. A lot of these people are doing this on platforms that does not give them the traditional protection that regulated platforms gives to their traders.

It is also important to make a clear distinction between a true speculator/trader and those shills that are just spreading FUD to make a quick buck.  ::)

I don't really think speculators add any value to Bitcoin but rather scare new investors or people from joining the crypto ecosystem. Speculators introduce doubt and fear into newbies in the crypto space, which somehow prevents them from understanding the true nature and purpose of the use and creation of cryptocurrency or Bitcoin to be specific. Speculators are just bad nuts in the crypto ecosystem.