Bitcoin Forum

So, we all know that with merchant acceptance and people using bitcoin more, the price goes down because most of the merchants convert (sell) the bitcoin to fiat at the moment of the purchase.

However, there's a way to avoid a sell-order when using your bitcoin to purchase things: using services like PurseIO or Brawker!

Therefore, ironically enough, the best way (for the bitcoin ecosystem) to spend your bitcoin, is using it with merchants that still don't support it... :(

I wonder if there could be a way to convince BitPay to implement the best of both worlds here? Whenever a purchase is made, don't put an immediate-sell order on the market, but just place a bid (offering the customer a small discount in exchange for a small delay to confirm the transaction maybe?).

Wrong. The middlemen will still have to convert BTC to fiat in order to make purchase for you.

So the effect is the same.

The best way is to chose the merchant that keeps some % of bitcoins, or better yet, buy your bitcoins back after you paid with them.

Wrong, when you post an order-proposal in PurseIO or Broker, you're putting a sale proposal, not a sell order, I mean, it's not a sell order in an exchange. When the buyer orders your items, it's basically an immediate-buy-order. So the last step is the one that matters, the person that confirms the transaction is in this case the buyer, as opposed with BitPay-based merchants (that convert immediately to fiat).

Purse.io is a good way to do it, you're right; but they should spread their service around the world. As I know they're just serving in the USA, is that right?

My bad!

I wasn't aware how actually Brawker worked. I thought someone will buy on your behalf in exchange for a small fee (if that was the case, he will need to sell BTC for fiat to be able to make another purchases).

But apparently it works the other way, it matches people who want to buy BTC with those who want to spend BTC.

Here's a short video explaining the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0-aZit2oI8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0-aZit2oI8)

Exactly. I'm not really buying this logic that people spending bitcoin has a negative effect. We can't be discouraging people top not spend their coins because of this either. I think a good option is to spend your bitcoins but then buy some more to replace them.

Read my post above yours.


Spending bitcoin (at merchants that convert instantly to fiat) has a negative effect on the price of bitcoin, not on bitcoin itself. It's simply equivalent of selling your coins for fiat.

I agree that it shouldn't discourage people from spending BTC. If anyone is concerned of the price - just buy back the amount of BTC you've spent, and there's no negative effect on the price. Simple

I think the best way to spend our Bitcoins isn't with conventional merchants, but it's in the marketplace section of this forum ( or in another Bitcoin-related forum ). I guess, if we send something with Bitcoin, the most of us don't convert in fiat immediately like merchant do, but we are more inclined to hold Bitcoin or to spend/invest on Bitcoin sites like Casinos, ect.

I wish I could bear to trawl the marketplace section more often when I'm looking for stuff, it's just a mess in there with so few subcategories. You've got about as much chance of finding what you want as on the first 10 pages of results if you google "for sale".

Nope, I'm in Europe and I got yesterday a package from PurseIO.

I think what Bitpay should be doing is selling payroll solutions to merchants that integrate BTC at POS side. This would allow merchants to funnel bitcoins from sales into payroll rather than dumping them on the market. For bitcoin to survive it must become more than a token purchase system.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but for the people that just hold onto their BitCoin in the hopes that the market value will increase, are they actually benefiting the ecosystem anyway? Or are they relying on other people that ARE spending and utilizing their funds to benefit the system

Just imagine what would happen if everyone just holds and no one uses it. All the bitcoin businesses will die out pretty quickly. No merchant adoption, no tx fees etc.

The only 'benefit' is that if you hold (and don't sell cheap) you don't drive the price down, but lack of activity will do it anyway.

Sadly, there are still many people around here that just hold and advise others to do the same.

Bitcoin, like fiat currency, is just a vessel of value. How high a value that it'll encapsulate will depend on its utility and rarity. The more it's accepted, used and cycled, the higher users would place value in it. Hence the demand. Holding on to it may increase rarity and maybe push the price up a bit, but the moment somebody decided to unload, the price will plummet. So the best is increase its utility. The value will follow.

Just my 0.000000000002btc...

good words to define and promote the usage of btc.

To give them away. You will fell good. And others will fell good also and bitcoin adoption will spread.

The best thing for bitcoin price may not necessarily be the best thing for Bitcoin.
Merchants who accept bitcoin may negatively impact bitcoins' price in the short term (if they convert it to fiat), but they are good for Bitcoin in the long term.

That's what I thought. People shouldn't hold it then, right? If anything, they should sell some, and then their remaining funds will be worth more, rather than hoarding it and waiting for others to affect it

I believe this can change if everything were to be priced in btc. If you provide service or work and earn with btc paid to your account, and you can use the btc to purchase all the necessity daily items, why would you want to convert to fiat in order to make that purchase? Similarly, if a business entity earns from a sale of product in btc, and they can use the btc to purchase insurance coverage, pay for office rentals, then it would simply break the "sell back to fiat" chain. I hope I make my point here.

Essentially, raising awareness. This is what the goal is, currently. In order to maximize the value of BitCoin, it has to become globally recognized. It's getting there, but it's still a while's away.

I would disagree. You need to get the bitcoin that you spend on goods/services with a merchant from somewhere. As you spend more and more bitcoin you will eventually need to buy bitcoin on an exchange which would result in buying pressure

Ironically, the best way (for the bitcoin ecosystem) to spend your bitcoins is.......

give it to me.  I think I can make it work for us!

spend != donate

That's a good point. However, one of the best ways to raise bitcoin awareness is, unfortunately, btc value being higher.

That's like the "need experience for job" && "need job for experience" conundrum...

I'm really interested in seeing how it'll change in the coming years.