Bitcoin Forum

I've done research on bitcoin and I know what it is and how it works, kinda. I've even built a small block chain app.

What I don't understand, and I haven't been able to find the answer to, is if I own some bitcoin, how does that help me buy groceries at the market, or gas for my car? The market I go to doesn't accept bitcoin and neither do the gas stations. If I can't do that, how is bitcoin worth anything to me?

Also, how are people supposedly myfedloan (https://myfedloan.us/) getting rich with bitcoin? I thought it was a currency, where we can buy things. Then I find that it's also a commodity where we can trade it.

The fact that a single bitcoin was approximately equal to a few cents when it first came out, but now is worth tens of thousands, is very troubling.

Let's say for example: You're from Japan, then you went to the US with your Japanese Yen. Now, can you use your JPY to buy groceries or gas? No. Does it mean that JPY worthless? Of course not. It's just that the JPY isn't being widely used in that country or area. Now, how do you use it? You convert the JPY to the USD. Same thing with BTC whereas it's mostly being used online. You convert it to USD if you want to use it for the brick and mortar stores while adoption is quite low.

Because bitcoin's supply is limited at 21 million. No more bitcoin can be generated if it reaches that hard cap, in contrast to all fiat currencies whereas the total supply can be increased at will.

You can also trade currencies through forex.

It's completely debatable if bitcoin is overpriced on it's current valuation or not. If it really is overpriced, it will correct over-time. Also, it increased exponentially, again, because of the high demand and limited supply. The limited supply factor is a huge factor.

Bitcoin will be worth of an investment for some and it could be for you as well.

Only few stores accepts BTC as payment for their good and services but in some countries  like Japan and Germany I've heard you as a bitcoin user can buy beers sing your BTC wallet in your phone. The adoption in some countries is going good but the rest has the resistance to use. But like mk4 said you can convert your BTC to real fiat currency to buy things you want.

I guess, the OP already got the answers that he wanted here. mk4 is right, like me or all of us, we convert our btc to our local fiat currency via local exchange or remittance centers to make this bitcoin useful in our day to day life. that's pretty much simple and straightforward to understand. so even if there are few merchants that are accepting btc at the moment, you can still use your bitcoin when you convert it to your local fiat.

In what state or country do you live? bitcoin is still young and you have to realize that it will take time until most of the grocery stores and gas stations will start adopting it. As explained, you need to convert it to your local cash and that's what everyone does.

If that troubles you to see the price of bitcoin coming from cents, you should study how does law of supply and demand works and other stuffs like halving which affects the price.

we all know that bitcoin is a useful currency yet only a few people are accepting it and pulled a few countries and government are legalizing this cryptocurrency arbitral this may be because they are afraid that bitcoin is the centralized and the value of it is fluctuating and which it may pump and dump anytime so the government are afraid of it and the people are afraid to use it but in terms of topic of usefulness it is currently useful to use because cryptocurrency is already established

If you cannot find any business accepting Bitcoin in your area, you might want to start it, assuming it is legally accepted in your country. That would attract Bitcoin supporters in your locality and might be imitated by other businesses. Other than that, Bitcoin is actually more acceptable online. Business in the outside world are normally attached to the usual fiat-based payments. You might also be able to use Bitcoin in peer-to-peer transactions.  


This currency is just like the rest of the fiat currencies whose value is rising and falling. Moreover, you can also trade fiat currencies just like Bitcoin. The huge difference is that Bitcoin's value is generally appreciating while fiat's value is depreciating. Thus, the very observable rise in Bitcoin's value over time.

That, to me, is not troubling at all. It is much much better than fiat's system.

rome wasn't built in a day. imagine a world where workers receive wages in BTC, and merchants can pay their vendors in BTC. that is a world where grocery stores and gas stations would accept it.

plus, LN and other means of instant settlement aren't consumer grade yet, so bitcoin is still primarily useful for online purchases and not brick and mortar stores. we are still in the speculative early adoption phase where most people are buying BTC because they are speculating on future adoption and value.


it's a currency and a commodity. really, it's a whole new type of asset. why are the gains troubling?

Right now bitcoin can't shoulder the abilities of the traditional money because it's still in the early adoption stage. If large amount of people, also businesses uses it then maybe you could see some significance.

Bitcoin forte is in the lack of requirements to send money not unlike payment services such as paypal that takes 3-5 days and requires personal info, if you're sending a large amount.

Bitcoin still has a long way to go to become a staple in economy. What we can do right now is to pave reputation for bitcoin so that it will create more milestones. Though there are few services, you may want to check stories about the growing popularity of cryptocurrency around the world.

I guess this is the time for bitcoin to shine!

Just earlier my neighbor told me that he cannot get the remittance money from his parents because of the calamity we have now, all the remittances center are closed due to the corona virus and banks are limiting the number of clients. So I told him then use bitcoin or any other digital payment processor on which case he does not know how to use any of those. This is where the problem starts, the ignorance of most to technology becomes a problem in such situation like this. Now that fiat is vulnerable to the virus to inhabit and has a high chance of getting passed I think this is the perfect time for bitcoin.

It's very early and a lot of people have no idea what bitcoin is. In my local, it's not even legal. The revolution doesn't come within one day. It takes time. Moreover, bitcoin is a challenge for govt backed fiat currency and that's why they don't like it.
Another reason of not being accepted in many shops is the high fee. When LN will be ready to boom, the fee will reduce too and the acceptance rate will also increase.

You can send bitcoins to other users and you can pay for their products and services.It's a peer-to-peer system.It wasn't created by Satoshi Nakamoto with merchants and corporations in mind.
You and everybody else is free to use Bitcoin.If don't wanna use Bitcoin,just don't.That's not the case with fiat money.You are obligated to use them,in order to buy anything you need.Merchants are obligated to accept them as well,that's why fiat money are so accessible,because the government is legally forcing you to use fiat.The fact that the bitcoin price skyrocketed is not "troubling",it's just how market economy works.You have an asset with a limited supply and a very volatile demand.

There are few merchants now that accept Bitcoin as payment but it doesn't mean everyone was accepted Bitcoin, there are also didn't adopt this technology as a payment. We had a different perspective on how to use Bitcoin but for me, I treated this as a valuable asset and convert when I saw my profit was there.

As I said above I treated this as a valuable asset but not hoping to get rich. From a small profit that what I have got when there is a bullish trend happen will be fine at me. It's up to you if you want to use Bitcoin as a currency or keep as an asset.

In this case, you should know that Bitcoin is very volatile and it will fluctuate always either downtrend or bullish trend. We are now currently in a downtrend, just keep it hold until your profit was there.

Firstly, few stores and business accepts Bitcoin as a payment and it depends on the place or country whether it is widely used or accepted by the government.

Being 'rich' doesn't also mean that it is guaranteed the very first day you entered Bitcoin. As you can see, users or members have many activities and merits that help them gain position in campaign where you can earn tokens which later can be converted into coins. It will just be a matter of choices of when and where is the right time and place respectively, to sell it.

It has value, and that's a fact. You just have to have an in depth research and inquiries among people who are experts in this field. You can find it as an asset, investment, and currency of course as how you will handle it. That's how flexible it is.

It is a misconception that Bitcoin is a digital cryptocurrency that is accepted everywhere in the world, but rather an alternative currency that anyone can accept or not. It's a matter of choice, as someone can only accept cash payments and someone else only accepts cards.

If you want to spend BTC, then best choice for that is to check some stores online, and I'm sure you'll find them, maybe even in your own country. There are multiple pages that collect such links and sort them by category, and this one is show's more than a thousand such sites, so it's not a problem to spend crypto.

https://spending-bitcoin.com/

Since you just new to bitcoin I recommend to you to see the chart from bitcoin price. Bitcoin was created at 2009 ago and at that time bitcoin didn't have value. But as you can see right now how value bitcoin price is, you can imagine by yourself against it. Also, bitcoin price is so volatile. If you have good analyst about chart and you are a trader before maybe you will gain profit that you want. These thing has been considered by most people who say bitcoin can make you get rich but there is no an instant way you may need more time to reach it.

Apart from what you have said. I think the convenience that comes with bitcoin is one big plus. You don't need to visit a third party or bank to transact with your finance. What you need to do is through your wallet and you are good.
The progress aspect of it too will be felt more as the corona virus epidemic goes off because more people are going to start using it as means of financial transaction since it seems safer for contact free unlike the burning of fiat note for the fear of contact with affected currency.

There are several ways to make use of your bitcoin. See below,

1. Visit Bitpay website and order a visa prepaid card. Use that card to any merchats worldwide.
2. Visit localbitcoins or paxful and convert your bitcoins to your local currency. Use it anywhere within your country.

Hope this helps!

If I am not wrong, people are still exchange bitcoin to cash in order to buy things they need. But people who really love and understand the value of bitcoin will buy these kind of things through bitcoin directly. Because merely exchanging our bitcoin to cash will not do us any progress since we're just going back to traditional. Meaning to say that what we need to make bitcoin more valuable is to make people accept it. And that is where the problem exists, it is really to hard to attract and convince people to use crypto in their daily lives.


So one thing I made it possible is to implement a POS  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5207887.0)I made before, to a small store where people could pay using bitcoin and at the same time, imparting concept that this is the new way of transaction in the future.

That's why we need to help bitcoin to achieve and improve its mass adoption just by promoting it in our own country. As the government see its advantages and disadvantages, we will not have a hard time accessing our bitcoin and it will increase the sectors that accepts it. The only reason that the bitcoin has a fewer service is that it is not that popular to some other countries. They don't adapt and seek knowledge about it, they are used to utilize only fiat currency because less hassle and easy to transact. But they don't know that in some circumstances during times like this that Covid-19 is spreading faster, they can use digital currency to have online transactions using bitcoin.

Bitcoin became useful as an investment, more than being a digital currency I guess. It is true, that the services wherein Bitcoin and other cryptos are being used, are still limited at this moment. But as what I have observed, Bitcoin is mostly used as a form of investment due to its value volatility. Especially at this moment, its market value is low, many people are investing into it because they know, doing so would result to profit in the future once recovery take place. It is a bit confusing at first because Bitcoin and other cryptos are mainly digital currencies meant to be used in online transactions with further convenience compared to other digital currencies due to blockchain technology. But just observe the function of it and other cryptos right now since not all countries are rexognizing it as an official digital currency for online transactions.
In short, if Bitcoin would be compared to other digital currencies, it would have many disadvantages, so people made use of the disadvantage in order to come up with something that would benefit them, profit.

This is one of the advantages of bitcoin, multifunction. Although there are many pros and cons, this is a potential that should not be underestimated. Moreover, it's only been a decade, I see this as an evolution in the world of finance, economy, and technology, there will be times when this adoption will be more widespread and beneficial.

Convert BTC to your local currency instead?
Bitcoin has yet to have it's global adaption in terms of payment system (primarily, because of it's high volatility nature) . So, the easiest way to use it as an option to pay for something is to convert it to your fiat currency. If that's the only thing that concerns you, then I can say, there's no big deal when you can't use it to your area, at least not from the other countries.

The value of Bitcoin can be found in cryptocurrency market cap and looking at the historical data can definitely makes you realize why Bitcoin can make you rich.

We've been in that stage for a long time now, it's been more than 10 years. We are not in that early adoption, we are in that stage where we need to stand for it. There are a lot of countries that banned bitcoin and now they are legalizing it for a reason. Volatility is one of the main reasons why people don't want to use it so we just use local exchanges to convert our btcs and use it.

Bitcoin is more likely not a currency that could be paid in enough places, but a way of transferring money from one person to another anywhere in the world. With payment in the role of ordinary money, like fiat, so far everything is pretty bad.

In medium to long terms, it's an imaginary idea of crypto replacing fiat difinitly. Just think if we just think to replace just the dollar or the rubble from the global market in its actual condition.
Volatility is the most attractive part that leads people to invest in crypto, however the currency would get more stable by the large adoption. Although, most of people around the globe are satisfied using fiat and don't have any need to use cryptocurrencies .

Well, for now, they are. In this time of the pandemic, more and more transactions will be happening online and people would realize that they also need these kinds of methods to pay online. For now, they will stick to popular mobile payments and there are also applications like Paypal and Paymaya and in the future, it would be crypto currencies.

True, but it's mostly because they have no idea how fragile the fiat system is to corruption or mismanagement. Of all the people I know personally, and I'm saying this as a fairly social person, I could guarantee that only a very very small minority knows about Venezuela and Zimbabwe's hyperinflation.

 Look, you have to understand that it is hard to fully accept nee technology, new way of payments. There are few supermarkets, gasoline stations that accept bitcoin as a payment but it isn't widely used as the value of bitcoin tends to flactuate. You couldnt convinced all to spend their bitcoin because they regard it as a store value than spending it as a payment.
 
 
 Actually, bitcoin is also considered as a digital investment because of it's volatile characteristics. And to make it clear, it is "cryptocurrency", where you can use it to pay through online payments. We can also trade it. So in an overall, there are so many things we can do with bitcoin. And that's it's advantage.

Most of Bitcoin payments are executed online. Some few offline stores accept Bitcoin payment but nobody really want to use it because of low speed transaction and high cost. Nobody want to buy a coffee and pay double its price ( sometime each Bitcoin transaction fee costs  equal a coffee). In my country most of online and offline stores accept payment apps and also bank cards with zero fee, and it takes just seconds to execute a transaction.
I like Bitcoin because i can trade and earn on its price movement. It sounds like forex trading but i think it's is exactly like that.

Well, there are only some countries that accept using of bitcoin to purchase something on the store, there are countries that accept bitcoin for payment to the tuition, but if your country do not accept bitcoin, then the only thing that you may do to use it is to convert it in your fiat currency, that is the first thing that you may do in your bitcoin, you may use your wallet or any other converting  websites, you may have.

The second thing that you may do to your bitcoin is to invest it, hold it for a while because of what we are facing right now, where COVID-19 is still spreading around the world, it is possible that your country will acknowledge the use of bitcoin, it is good to use different cryptocurrency as of this moment to prevent ourselves interacting with other people.

I think it's a matter of regulation. maybe many of us who want to open service like that, but stuck by regulations. In addition, some companies such as Steam have also accepted bitcoin, but for reasons of very fast fluctuation, they have delisted on bitcoin. at this time, I know that many open this service personally. that is, they do service using bitcoin personally.

Spending crypto directly is real hard right now but it would depend on your location there are some country that already have so many local seller that accepts crypto.
And how could the price of BTC be troubling?
The price depends on the demand but it is true that adaptation have a huge part of it.
If I am not mistaken there is only few big merchant or company that accepts crypto.

You should understand that Bitcoin is still a new currency, for now there are not much stores that are accepting Bitcoin as a payment method and there are also not much people that are making use of it.

You should just wait and moreover it is called a peer-to-peer payment method, so you should only just use it with those of your friends that are making use of it and other people you see that are accepting, if it’s not being accepted at some places you go, that’s not enough reason to dislike it, you should just make use of other payment methods that are being accepted and use Bitcoin where it’s accepted.

Actually, the 'few' part is debatable. There is a survey that whos a third of small B2B companies accept Bitcoin in Europe[1]. Not to mention there are a lot of major companies that accept Bitcoin as well[2]. On top of that, you can browse from this[3] too. Spending-bitcoin is also a great list (has been mentioned above).

We can list more if you count bitcoin debit/credit card or something similar.

[1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200115005482/en/HSB-Survey-Finds-One-Third-Small-Businesses-Accept
[2] https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin/who-accepts/
[3] https://coinmap.org/

what you are struggling with understanding is the adoption of bitcoin not the nature of bitcoin being a currency. due to bitcoin being new and having a volatile price its adoption as a currency has been small which is why you can't find that many places to spend bitcoin at. and it is also mostly because people who buy bitcoin aren't so willing to spend it, they prefer holding it since its price keeps going up in the long run.

Bitcoin is also illegal to use in some countries. Check online to get list and if your country is among those then you are having no option at hand but to wait for th government to work out something.

Bitcoin is earned or gifted or minted. So someone had to buy that coin for being able to own that. Since it was sent to you, that moneytary value is your now.

If you mined that coin then the work done by your device to mine it is worth that coin.

By trading it and speculating its prices. Stop putting in third party links in between words.

Gold can be used as a currency and as a commodity. You can compare with bitcoin.

In what sense? Compare this to any other asset which has grown in value over time and suddenly it is no longer troubling.

We appreciate Bitcoin as an idea more than as a currency. And I think Bitcoin is still in its infancy to be well-accepted.

There are a few shops that accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment, but the number is not that huge. There are multiple reasons why Bitcoin is not widely being used as a currency. A few of them are as follows:

1. Legal status of Bitcoin is still not clearly defined in many of the countries
2. Bitcoin is not a legal tender in the majority of nations
3. If shops accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment, then they will face complications when they file tax returns
4. The Bitcoin prices are very volatile and this makes accepting BTC payments risky for the merchants
5. Confirmation time can be anywhere from 5 minutes to 50 minutes, and this can cause some difficulty

You should exchange your bitcoin before you go to other places or local market so you can buy something you want. You can use bitcoin easily in the country which has many stores that accepting bitcoin as the payment but if you cannot found the store, you'd better exchange it into fiat. Maybe you can save bitcoin from now on, and if someday, many local stores accept bitcoin in your country, you can use bitcoin to buy or pay something.

Precisely at a time where the banks are shut down and the workers are not able to come to work , the online banking is having a hard time dealing with the huge demands , you cannot go out with a risk if infection .
Bitcoins on the other hand is independent , one can transfer it over seas in matter of seconds and dependable.
There are other options too but at the same time there is no option as good as the Bitcoins.
Services are not accepting it because they all are very conservative when it comes to money , they will need a lot of time to get accustomed to the fact that the world is changing and it does need something that is not controlled by anyone.

Although Bitcoin is a virtual currency, meaning it does not exist, it is a digital currency that is traded and invested online, but in its first appearance it did not exceed a few years, and now it is one of the most important electronic currencies that exceed the value of five thousand dollars, and this does not cause concern to the contrary, this is It is very good for those who are looking for additional income for them through trading and investment in any case can resort to a broker so that you can transfer your money from Bitcoin to real money on the ground by dealing with one of the sites that provide you with that where there are many options and solutions At the moment to switch the currency Mer to the local currency so that you can receive your money and use it in a way easy and affordable.

Bullshit.

Saying that Bitcoin does nor exist is just like saying that your rights to software of rights to a domain do not exist.

What if I take all yor emails and your files in google cloud and it won't be theft because they do not exist? How about that?

Bitcoin is still young and it's still lacking services and businesses who accepts it, so we wont see some significant changes in our daily lives if we use Bitcoin. On other hand Bitcoin is slowly finding it's way as an investment opportunity and a source of income. With the stock markets continues fluctuations we might see massive adoption soon.

You can do that by Converting to Fiat of what country you are staying,just like your  own currency there is no chance that you can use than when you are visiting another country right?but that doesn't mean your fiat is worthless?
We are still in progress of adopting and that is what Hinder us from using our crypto directly to the service or product we need to pay but trust me sooner it will happen just don't rush mate,you have already said that you Know bitcoin so understand more because sooner or later you will thank this currency for giving you a chance to have financial freedom .

so few services??)))

look our project - cryptwerk.com (http://cryptwerk.com)

we have 4000+ merchants accepting Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies

and mass adoption map as well)

https://cryptwerk.com/coinmap/

The issue of legality and adoption is indeed not maximized so that the use of cryptocurrency as a means of payment is still limited. After all, payments using fiat are still effective, right? and it's easy to find an exchanger service if you visit another country. One time, if the adoption of more widespread, especially cryptocurrency and blockchain began to be glimpsed by travel companies, and began to try it as an alternative payment, this is a positive signal.

Bitcoin starts at $1 and then after so many years, we reach $20k. This is also how we build a reputation in the market and it for sure it takes many years also that big companies will reconsider and look at Bitcoin as another form of currency. There is no magic around and that is we supposedly have to think.
Be patient buddy, once the majority of the people know and use crypto instead of fiat, it probably many establishments will accept by then. We are going in that way.

This is a continuing adoption, before when we are still out of the radar by the government, it's already use as a currency for online transaction but now it's been use everywhere especially in gambling transactions, of course Bitcoin will not be like the fiat that we are using, but it's a good alternative.

Today online transaction is one of the best options because there is still an outbreak spreading right now in the world and one of the rules they release is having a lockdown to their places and the result is the people makes a panic buying and not getting at their houses because they are prone to be infected also it is good too if we are trying to adopt the use of the cryptocurrency or online transaction because it is more efficient, safe and secure than going outside and risk our health to the virus spreading.

Calling Bitcoin a currency isn't absolutely correct. Bitcoin is an asset which can be view not only as a currency, but also as commodity and security. Bitcoin isn't good as a medium of exchange yet, it need more time for becoming useful currency.

Bitcoin is useful for a fact that we can use it efficiently anywhere in online. Bitcoin is the main currency in all online gambling casino since it is the most known and very basic coin on which almost everyone are able to access. There are just issue with the government to bitcoin since it is decentralized and the government is a highly regulated organization so any thing that gets out of their hand may cause destruction to their group, but every one already admitted it that bitcoin is a good alternative for fiat.

Bitcoin isn't a commodity, commodities have some sort of utility, and Bitcoin's only utility is that you can send it over the Internet without middlemen - meaning it's a decentralized currency. Currencies are traded on the markets too, so there's nothing wrong here.

No one is guaranteed to get rich with Bitcoin, people make money with trading, but it's a zero sum game - meaning that some people have to lose money. Bitcoin wasn't great to make people rich quick, it's merely a side effect of a free market.

That is true but if you can see, Bitcoin is just starting the awareness of the ecommerce and other store. Give it time and you will see why its called the currency of the future.


Its value from cents to tens of thousand is the proof that many are using it in their daily lives.

It’s not a must that it will be accepted everywhere. PayPal is a very popular system of payment, but there are still places where it’s not being accepted and majority accept card payment. So, you shouldn’t be worried about that. You’re the one who’s going to places where it’s not being accepted and still complaining. Why not check out places where it’s accepted instead?

If you’re looking for a way to buy something online and pay with Bitcoin you should check out purse.io, and BitPay is another means as you can get gift cards easily with BTC.

Even bitcoin is so powerful and very helpful, there are still some countries that don't accept it, I don't really know the reason why they don't like it in their land, but I guess it is only because of their trust issues about it, there are some people who don't believe about it, they are think that bitcoin and other cryptocurrency is lie, they are not open about it, they are not open of adaptation, but in fact having cryptocurrency in the country is really a good one, this can be a great alternative for fiat currency especially when crisis happens, where most of the people are afraid of going outside because of the virus, then they can use the cryptocurrency to buy some stuffs online.

For my daily needs, I have seen the utility of BTCitcoin in the following way.
I do remote jobs and receive payments in Bitcoin and cryptos.
After receiving my payment, only a small amount is used for my grocery shopping and bill payment. I exchange this small amount on PeertoPeer platforms (Cryptoway and others) for my local currency and receive a bank transfer.
I have recently discovered another platform where I can recharge my phone and internet service (Bitrefill). I am going to try it. And with that, I am already waiting for the massive adoption.