Bitcoin Forum

So, guys the thing is, do you use bitcoins as an investment or ever bought anything with bitcoins? Maybe a different approach? Do share experience with us

Purchased a VPN for 20$ back in 2013. It is worth now 700$

Both,

I mostly spent my money to Bitcoin as a investment and I use Bitcoin to buy mostly about VPN subscription or gift card/digital goods. I don't want to bought a physical goods using Bitcoin due to my privacy concern, that's all. If people already view Bitcoin as a currency where they didn't think anyone who have Bitcoin is rich, I would consider to use Bitcoin for buy physical goods.

most often both. nowadays bitcoin is very valuable, as a medium of exchange, or even as an investment tool. people often use both. they hold back when they feel that the price of bitcoin will be high, and make it an investment, and sell it when they need money, or exchange it for a product when they need that product. the great thing about bitcoin is that its use is very flexible. even by having a large amount of it, it can already be considered an investment. Personally, I use bitcoin in both ways depending on the circumstances.

Yes I bought a GPU and a phone a few days ago with Bitcoin. And I think there is nothing Different Approach, A friend of mine has business of importing and exporting technical devices. And he has a good idea about crypto currency - so I paid him with bitcoin directly without carrying my fiat currencies anymore.

It's not one or the other — it can be both. I hold, and I spend bitcoin from time to time for servers and such.

Topic: Do you spend your Bitcoin? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5366232.0
Topic: How often do you transact in the real world with your bitcoin or digital money https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400673.0
Topic: BTC Holding or Using ? https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5398674.0

I only hold Bitcoin because I was not oportuned to purchase a good or pay for some services with BTC which I am aiming of doing anytime soon. Whenever I hear or see people make payments with BTC, it gives me some joy and I will be willing take part in such act too.

I think the question has already been asked countless times on the forum. Use the search function instead.

Let me ask you a different question. Have you ever bought anything with fiat money or saved any of it?
See now how pointless the question is?

Does your friend sell technical devices for bitcoin to everyone, or did he make an exception for you as a friend? Can you elaborate if he accepts payment at bitcoin on a regular basis?

In general, it is high time for some technology companies to sell their products (the same PC components) for bitcoin. But it seems that we will be able to see this if bitcoin legalization is implemented and it becomes possible to pay in BTC officially.
 
 

It depends on your location and the country you are living.

In my country, I wish people around me should accept bitcoin payment and use lightning network but they are not. I do not have option than to convert bitcoin to fiat and buy with fiat.

I use use bitcoin for investment, that is why I am holding it.

I would say I am doing both

On the part of spending Bitcoin, yet I have spent Bitcoins on gift cards, Airtime Top-ups and subscriptions for the services that accept BTC. I fancy the Idea of buying physical Items using Bitcoin but problem is some of the websites that accept Bitcoin tend to hike their item prices... or maybe I am still looking at the wrong place.

I'm done spending my Bitcoin during the peak. Right now I'm accumulating as much as possible by buying using part of my job salary and the extra income here in forum.

During the bullish market, I don't hesitate to cashout and use my Bitcoin investment profit for renovating my house. Until now, my decision to take profit is still worth it since I'm enjoying my home now even though I sell a little early at 60k while price still pump to 67K.

I think a better question is, in general how much of your BTC do you save for long term vs short term vs spend.
There is always the cost of money, be it BTC, fiat, gold coins, whatever. You should be figuring out what is the best to spend vs save in any given situation.
Obviously, I am not going to do that on each and every transaction. But in the large view everyone should be doing that if possible.


Example, on bitcoin pizza day bitrefill was giving back 50% of giftcard purchases to certain pizza places. NOT spending BTC and getting some gift cards to places I eat anyway would be a bad financial idea. Yesterday I picked up dinner at Chipolte due to this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401107 it was only $20 and I wanted to test the app anyway BUT at 10% off I would have had to weigh that vs potential short and medium term BTC gains. And so on....

-Dave

I'm happy to see that some people treat it as both. I wish I could buy things with Bitcoin directly more often, but it's just not an option because of how rarely it's accepted as payment. It's also possibly an obstacle that Bitcoin is in a gray area or treated as an asset or property in many places, which means it's not exactly legally recognized as money, and that can be discouraging for merchants to start accepting it. At the same time, given how well-performing Bitcoin is in terms of gaining value in the long run, it would be unqise to not hodl it and spend all of it.

I had used Bitcoin for online purchases in the past, mainly for digital accounts, such as Minecraft or other similar stuff, back in 2014 or 2015, not exactly sure. Since then, I haven't used Bitcoin for any purchase and solely use it for investment. That account was one of the most expensive ones ever sold, the equivalent amount of Bitcoin was valued at $1.500 when I had checked it, many months ago.

As time goes on, the less I spend with Bitcoin. A few years ago, I pretty much wanted to use my Bitcoin for everything that I could. Actually, actively seeking out companies/services that accepted it. These days, I'd much rather save it, I guess as a reserve currency rather than something I'd spend regularly. I probably haven't spent my Bitcoin over a year. The last time I remember was to join a competition here on the forum, and then before that was buying some things in the collectible section, which you couldn't get with fiat. Otherwise, I wouldn't have spent my Bitcoin for a few years now.

I imagine this is the case for a lot of users here, especially those that have witnessed the price change over time. It becomes hard to justify spending it, when you could spend fiat, and not be at risk of losing out over time.

In my own experience i have bought my I phone 13 pro max and it around 3 month ago. And i have Shared my experience And the story of buying in this forum. After that I didn't buy anything with bitcoin.  I have now decided to save Bitcoin.  And already I'm doing it. It will be a great gift to my next generation.

so far I only keep BTC as an investment. for trading transactions, I have not used BTC.
but I've used crypto for P2P transactions before. happened last week, because I know the seller, of course, I'm happy to make a wallet purchase transaction with a BUSD payment.

I use bitcoin as an investment only and reduce the use of bitcoin to buy things because nowadays, bitcoin has become very expensive and it is better to sell bitcoin when the price is high. Maybe other friends use bitcoins for both because they have a lot of bitcoins so they can use bitcoins for various things they want. You can also choose what you will use your bitcoins with to know which one suits you better.

My answer is yes I did buy stuff with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies but also suing these assets as an investment option. A few years ago I spend my bitcoins for the first time to buy a VPS for myself and it was a great experience because could use my bitcoins directly and without exchange for the first time in my life, however, the bitcoins I paid that day were worth much more right now but I don't feel regret.

I use bitcoin to invest and also use it to transact individually if needed and needed by other bitcoin users, and this can happen accidentally because anonymously we never know who is involved with bitcoin even the people around.
and one of them is my example which happened unexpectedly https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401052.0

and for other reasons in the country where i live bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not allowed to be used as a means of any transaction and only allowed as an investment so only individually i can use them and although purpose to invest for some reason but someday will use them and happen unexpectedly.
And it's all because of continuous development and growth and there will come a time when we use it and I believe that's because that's what it's for.

There are bitcoin users who have them because yes, it is not even an investment, it is fashionable, others because they hold, etc. and there is a group of users who debate daily between a daily planning of how much bitcoin they spend and how many they hold, at some point as users we may go through some of those phases.

I buy stuff with bitcoin all of the time.  No the majority of stuff that I buy with bitcoin is when buying stuff from friends all over the world.  Mostly used when I'm buying stuff like coins or other types of collectibles.  I do buy some things online such as medicines from pharmacies.  There are a decent amount of other things available out there that you can use bitcoin to purchase, for example Chipotle ( a very popular mexican fast food place here in the United States).

To buy things with Bitcoin is still complex, some countries have the right platforms for it, but other countries are still far away from finding products to buy online with cryptos.

Users have the option to change the bitcoins to fiat and then buy any product with that cash, but this is different than the concept of buying something using a Bitcoin transaction.

Personally, I use it as an investment tool and a capitalization tool.

Majorly as an investment here, more adoption will come as more awareness is being created for bitcoin, alot of merchants and online sales store are yet to be accepting bitcoin as means of payment. In few years time I believe that this your question will have a lot of positive feedback as regarding what bitcoin can be use to purchase in real world

Both actually. But I feel like we should look at BTC as a form of investing only... Just my personal opinion.

I use Bitcoin to pay my bills.  Aside from that I also buy altcoins with it.  Whenever I order an item online and there is an option to pay with BTC, I choose to pay with BTC.


Looking it that way beats the purpose of why Bitcoin is created but then you are entitled to your personal opinion.

I have purchased amazon gift cards from local vendors by exchanging the bitcoins for little extra margin. Then spent those gift cards over amazon to by stuff. Basically that's the best way available in my region to spend the bitcoins. However, there are many website which allow bitcoin payments for direct shopping purchases. Its getting very open market these days and hopefully it will continue to emerge so as to we see "bitcoin accepted here" tag everywhere.

I am happy with the bitcoin the way it is right now. I am using it for both the operations, storing for long term investment and spending only whenever I need to do so.

I haven't tried to buy material things but I already tried to use or bought a service via Bitcoin.
There are already a lot of ways to do it now, it's not only physical things, you can also use it by paying for some services especially online.
I'm just glad we can do this now, I'm treating Bitcoin just like a normal currency that we are using in our daily lives.

The most expensive thing I've bought for bitcoin was a laptop.
Now it's old enough for Win11 not installing on it and I could now buy a new car for those bitcoins.
But yeah, life goes on and money come and go...

Talk about silver linings...
I think that's the main reason why Bitcoin is being used as a reserve currency rather than a traditional currency these days. It has no doubt effected me, and how I treat Bitcoin. Like I said, I hardly spend my Bitcoin these days, and in the next few years that isn't likely to change. The potential of Bitcoin's price, is probably our undoing.

I find that extreme too and I don't want to do that.
I prefer the "keep some, sell some" approach. This way my family's budget gets a most welcome boost now and then and I'm fine too, if I die tomorrow at least I've also spent some of my coins.

Almost forgot, but what I often do is buy something from the trading results generated from Bitcoin. Since there is no official payment method in our country to buy anything with Bitcoin, of course most of us just convert it to fiat. Going forward, we certainly hope that Bitcoin purchases will be allowed.

Yeah, I can understand that. At the moment, like I said I'm only using my Bitcoin for things that I couldn't get with fiat. Then using Bitcoin to boost my wealth if/when it actually increases. Although, I haven't sold any for a while now.

I use to want to use it as a currency, and I was probably within the mindset of you should use it for everything, but that has changed over the years for me. I do think it's vital that people are using it for both though.

I guess it entirely depends on the situation of the person. Where I live there aren't too many places accepting Bitcoin. Those in cities will likely have much more options. The services I use to get my stuff don't currently use it. I could use a payment processor, but that's just going around the fence, when I could just jump over it using fiat.

I prefer Bitcoin as an investment but when I hit a good profit last year, I purchased a mobile phone as a treat and a peace of remembrance for the last bull run. It's a good thing that there are already lots of local stores in our country that accepts Bitcoin. As a part of my journey with Bitcoin, I would personally do this every time I gain a good profit from it. Of course, I will save most of it for reinvestment but I would love to hold and see the fruits of my profit.

So far my country still prohibits the use of bitcoin as a means of payment, so it would be a violation of the law if we use it as an alternative payment for goods or services, so like it or not we can only use bitcoin as an investment asets and get profit from trading in the market, maybe not only my country has no legality regarding the use of bitcoin as a means of payment, but I am sure that most of the members here are also stay in countries that prohibit the use of bitcoin as a means of payment.

It's getting more and more difficult to spend BTC these days.  Trying to spend some BTC today and the payment provider wanted me to KYC...  Crazy.  I've never been asked to KYC to spend my own money before.  As I see the way Bitcoin is being assimilated into existing finance, it seems like it will be used as one hell of a financial surveillance tool.  I see now why they're spiking inflation to accelerate the removal of cash from society.  Thankful that some projects like btcpayserver are trying to offer the option for making private payments but I wonder how long they'll be allowed to operate.  After spending 2 decades thinking cash was for fools to hold, I'm now starting to see how cash will again become King.  I suspect in another 18 months there will be others who see the value of having cash on hand.

Most user members use bitcoin both ways, it is an investment but they also use their bitcoin to buy whatever they want or need since the number of people and businesses accepting bitcoin as a payment keeps increasing so it is not rare this is becoming more and more common.

Now I have mostly used my bitcoin to buy digital goods, however there are also many members which have used their bitcoin to buy physical goods as well, and while this is not as common as we may like we are slowly approaching the time in which this will be easier and convenient to do.

Yea, me too. I have spent some, donated some, lost some and gambled some but
predominantly saved/invested it. I think this is what is happening the most,
the vast majority of people who have been into Bitcoin for at least a few years are
in the HODL camp.


I have an interesting take on this, If you had spent FIAT to buy the VPN then, It would
be worth $700 in Bitcoin too. Bottom line is you needed the VPN, how did you get
the Bitcoin?

As I said before, Bitcoin is just money, so I am doing a little bit of both. It’s money that can be used to buy anything at any time. I also bought some and sold some. But I also bought some coins as an investment, for sure, because I know that they have future value.

Well from my perspective I doubt if Bitcoin is an investment opportunity for average earners, am just saying, too me I rather see Bitcoin as a better payment option than me using Fiat, I readily jump at the opportunity if someone offers to pay me in bitcoin or if I want to purchase something and those rendering the services chooses to accept Bitcoin. Technically it make transactions less of a worry. So I can’t recall all I have bought with Bitcoin but I sure do use it a lot.

Bitcoin is what I hold for a long time. Bitcoin may have grown a lot earlier, but I didn't sell bitcoin.Everyone then said that Bitcoin would soon be worth a million dollars. But after various news, Bitcoin did the opposite.Now the bitcoin market has come down a lot.In a market where I'm holding my bitcoin, I'm not spending anything.

Most of the time or usual the case im accumulating bitcoin as much as i could since we know the potential profits that you could get in the future but of course it isnt really that bad on spending some of it for the sake of interest

and some contribution on circulation.Back in the past i was actively spending my coins on buying Steam code wallets which it was easy and fast i could say on real experience.

It is really depending on someone if they could afford on spending up their precious coins or would simply stick with their fiat on buying something.

If you really bought earlier you have nothing to worry about your investment. Early adopters really occupied the safe slots and which I know bitcoin cannot reverse to worth less than $10,000 again. People that join from 2021 till date are people that are supposed to be panicking when there is bear.

But regarding Op's question, until we begin to see bitcoin as a currency to be spent and recieved, there will always be breach in circulation. It is not really a disadvantage though, because it is the nature of bitcoin.

Using it as an investment but I also bought a ciple of things online with it. Not much, just to see how it works. I would be inclined to buy more if there were more options where I live, but alas there are not. The only thing I haven't tried is buying groceries at a local shop that accepts it, I might try that out.

In my own opinion, I rather use bitcoin as an investment and fiat to buy goods. Don't get me wrong but I might give higher amount to store owners than what is actually needed, I mean what if bitcoin price gets higher so it means that the amount of bitcoin I pay before is not the same anymore so it will be a disadvantage to me, maybe I could use other crypto coin such as usdc, usdt, but if bitcoin? I will only use that for investments.

I have used bitcoin for buying some collectibles.
I have spento Bitcoin converting in cash and pay close to everything ... Likewise taxi, food in a market,pizza, drink, ticket for a stadium, likewise everything .... But not pay directly ...

This question has been discussed many times in this forum. Have you tried to look for the answers or checked a similar thread?

I never bought anything with BTC, I only used it for investment. Here, in my country, it is forbidden to use as a payment tool. So, simply I avoid using it for paying for any goods or services. You must know there are many countries that limit the use of BTC, even some still treat BTC as an illegal thing. This question probably fits with people in a country that legalize BTC for both investment and payment purposes.

I was able to buy more products from my income with bitcoin but was able to convert it into cash not directly paying the products thru bitcoin. But you can  do btc payments as long as the seller permits to pay your purchases with bitcoin.

Answered this multiple times on this forum, nothing changed in our country. The only thing I bought was a digital wallet code for a game  Bitcoin is still not that accepted by people so you can only buy digital goods with it. There is one merchant here that accepts bitcoin to pay your electricity bill but I feel a little bit guilty once when I use it to pay our bill as I treat it to be more of my investment. But during hard times, it's really hard to not touch it.

^ Sad to say, BTC did not meet its goal as an alternative payment system based on the Whitepaper that wrote by the BTC creator.
People much prefer to use BTC as an asset not as a mode of the payment system, because BTC is really hard to accumulate, every single sats are very important because of its value that time to time it will become expensive. I have BTC but I hoarded this because I know the value will keep increasing and waiting for the next ATH. However, you can buy anything using BTC if you wanted to spend it as a currency, it also depends on your country's jurisdiction.

I have bought tons of stuff using BTC- one of the notable one was back in the years of 2017-2019 where I used majority of my BTCs (converted them to cash thru our local exchange) were spent and allocated in order to purchase additional educational materials (e.g. books, pens, etc.) to partially fund my college experience.

Like what I usually comment on similar posts like these, this forum is truly a blessing not only for me but also to my family as they indirectly benefitted from it. Without the convenience of working online, I would probably be working beyond normal work hours just to make ends meet.

Currently, majority of my BTCs are kept in my local exchange and separate wallet for security. While keeping them here may be relatively safe, it is still highly advisable to transfer them to a hardware wallet in the future.

it dont remember. My regret is that i should have bought it and HODL when i  had known about bitcoin back in 2011.
Started it this year only.

lately I've become quite often using crypto as a means of payment when transacting with people I know and they are also crypto users. don't miss bitcoin, I've also used it. recently I bought a cabinet and SSD kit for a laptop.

---

Before you make this thread i also created a thread whose content is almost the same as the one you created. maybe you can see other experiences in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400673.msg60251920#msg60251920 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5400673.msg60251920#msg60251920)

Bought a few domains years ago from namecheap and I don't remember I used my coins to purchase anything else really. Maybe there were a few other occasions but I forgot. Bitcoin as a store of value makes more sense than using it as a medium of exchange anyway. Why would anybody spend their coins today if he/she can buy more of the same stuff for the same amount of coins tomorrow? Deflationary assets should be saved, not spent. If you are going to spend, spend your FIAT because it is losing value in the long term.

I would recommend spending Bitcoin on Amazon. because better then your investment

I stopped thinking like that long time ago, how much would BTC be worth now if I didn't spend it long time ago because chances are that  if you didn't buy VPN back the, you would sell your BTC year or two later, for a fraction of a current price.

This reminds me of a friend who tried to tease me year ago, asking me whether I feel stupid that $100 worth of BTC that I spent on VPN now worth like $600, not knowing that I bought that Bitcoin when price was ~1k and used to it buy VPN when it was around ~10k. So yeah, that was really stupid move from me, according to him. :D

I bought a BTC physical wallet with bitcoin once, lol. Great purchase!

If it were possible, I would go shopping with bitcoin much more frequently. Maybe someday it will be possible, but right now investment is the main application for btc.

Futurely I hope to purchase a house or apartment with bitcoin, although it must be a good deal. I'm not going to pay more than the necessary, just for the pleasure of dealing with bitcoin.

What will be the different approach in your opinion? There's no other thing that it can be used because it's used as almost everything. Like as a money, as an investment, an asset. I guess most of us have used bitcoin for buying something, maybe some hardware, some domains, digital products like gift codes and other stuff that's being adopted and accepted for payments in bitcoin. On my experience, mostly digital products like codes for games that I've purchased and other physical products too.

I buy food at local food vendors every day with Bitcoin (BTC) ...because I made a decision to use a 80/20 strategy to support Bitcoin as a currency. So for those that does not know what a 80/20 strategy is... here is a short explanation ==> When you buy any bitcoins... split it into 2 wallets... one for spending (20%) and one for hoarding (80%)  ;)

If all of us do that .... retailers / merchants / shops will continue accepting Bitcoin (BTC) as a payment option (Currency) and that will give Bitcoin some utility. (I just use my food budget for this.. but I change it to BTC)  ;)

You are doing the right thing when it comes to you still HODLing your Bitcoin, the market will come back around but as for spending Bitcoin, I haven't really spent my Bitcoin on purchasing anything but I hope someday I would love to do this but also, unfortunately, not many retailers/merchants accepts this mode of payments in my location.

Of course, it's great when you can buy food for bitcoin. In my country, as in many others, this is officially impossible. But what prevents us from interacting peer to peer, right? Tell us briefly what products do you buy with bitcoin and do you buy it from individual persons?

In general, I like your strategy of behavior, because I also believe that bitcoin should be used as a currency and circulate between people. After all, that's what it was made for. If everyone spends at least 20% of bitcoin like you and looks for ways to pay / accept payment in bitcoin, this will undoubtedly push the process of mass adoption very much.

Leaning more towards the investment side I have also spent bitcoin whenever I have got the opportunity.
Last year I bought a website domain with bitcoin and the year before that I bought a bitcoin magazine with bitcoin.
I remember making a post about it (link below). But for the most part, I prefer using bitcoin as an investment option.

post link : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5302282

actually i can't buy anything with bitcoin because payment using bitcoin is prohibited. But for some services like Domain I have bought it using Bitcoin, it was my first transaction using bitcoin.
There are no other transactions that use bitcoin, Bitcoin is only used as an investment tool or as a commodity asset.

On some countries they also allow crypto but only for investment purposes and not as a currency, but how come? Till now I am still puzzled about this law. It was actually risky if people use cryptos as a means of asset because it's too volatile. If they hate crypto then why can't they just ban it totally? But anyway that was still better, at least people can still use it the other way. You can still use your crypto online right? But nice story on your other thread.

Congrats for that safe delivery of your wife. For me, the only thing that I bought with my btc is internet data. It was bitrefill, the site that I use. I am also willing to use my btc offline but so far no stores accept btc here.