Bitcoin Forum

I honestly do not understand this. What is wrong with spending bitcoins on something? Unless you are 100% btc, spending fiat instead of bitcoins to buy something does not mean anything.

I spend 10USD on a subway or btc equivalent. If I am saying spending BTC is dumb because in a few years that btc will be worth more, should I not have all my money in BTC then? Why would you even have fiat if you believe that? You realise you can replace the btc you spend with more btc right? Any fiat is potential btc! So spending fiat is really spending btc.

Do I even make sense? Ugh

what the hell r u saying ???

I go and buy a *something* from  subway with btc , then I want my btc back and i'm.....making a wire to japan?
You see the problem here?

If you've got some other currency that is more inflationary (value goes down instead of up), it makes sense to use that for spending so you're not holding too much of it.

Depends on the price. You have to make a decision based on what's being offered.
If the merchant wants bitcoins as much as you want to keep them he will offer a price that makes it attractive.
It's a free market.
No reason that the bitcoin price has to be the same as the ruble price.


http://media.coindesk.com/2013/11/Subway-Moscow-bitcoin.jpg

There's nothing wrong with spending Bitcoins. Completely up to that individual. I've personally chosen to save my BTC and don't care to risk spending £7 worth of Bitcoin in Subway when a few months later I'll've probably ended up essentially paying £50 or whatever for a sandwich. Maybe if you're already made money from investing early you can spend your Bitcoins on a Subway and feel like you're eating for free, but I'd rather wait and see what I can buy with that £7 worth of BTC in the near future.

People can believe in something without wanting to invest all their money in it; a good idea is to invest what you can afford to lose. BTC is also a hell of a lot higher in price than it was a few months ago so the risk of return is even higher.

I've only really spent my bitcoin on stuff that gives me more bitcoin... like I have bought a few graphics cards with bitcoin.

Seems like a stupid idea now that the price has gone up so much, but at least I got a mining rig to occupy my time and give me .01-.02btc a day while heating my garage :D

Somone has to spend btc, otherwise how can the economy progress?

People clearly are spending it. Just some people are choosing to hold onto it and save it as an investment, just like cash or shares or any other investment.

I think the main issue here is that for most people the process of converting their fiat to btc it's still very difficult, time consuming and expensive, since fees are often added to fiat transactions, so they chose to just buy the btc and hold on to it for as long as they can. 

Haha! I dont wanna spend my bitcoin either :P

There is no difference between spending BTC on Subway and spending fiat on Subway.

Either way you are forgoing the potential increase in value of the bitcoins, either those that you already have or that you could have bought with the fiat instead of a sandwich.

Some people are "spending" it, but I would argue more people are "trading" it. Most of the current spending is mainly on gambling and drugs, so I would agree with the original post that the economy cannot progress if that continues to be the case. Any illegal sites will be more heavily targeted in the future, and you're already starting to see that now as cryptocurrency becomes more popular. BTC won't die off since you'll still have trading, but it will hit a price ceiling at some point where the vast majority of people simply won't be able to afford to buy and trade it anymore. 99% of us are speculators, and that's only fun when we're all making money. We all know a fall in demand will lead to a fall in prices. If there's minimal spending and less trading, that could be a long fall.

I know people are going to argue that it will always be affordable and speculators won't go away since you can buy .01 BTC or .000001 BTC or whatever, but that doesn't seem as appealing as buying 1 or 10 or 100 of something, especially to potential new users/"investors." I think we as a community need to start doing a better job of thinking of ways to maintain and grow BTC long-term instead of focusing solely on short-term profits.   



     

The problem Bitcoin is facing right now is that too many people have the opposite mindset of the OP - they treat it as an investment rather than a currency in its own right. For BTC to flourish, everyone needs to go out and spend it!

If I were an early investor with a lot of BTC to spare, I'd be ordering 0.002 BTC pizzas all day every day!

What if 0.002 BTC will buy you ten pizzas a day in a few years' time? Or instead of wasting money getting fat on pizzas save it or invest it in something else?

I haven't spent any of my BTC yet and it's flourished nicely. What's great about any investment or currency is people can do what they want with it; buy, trade, sell, save, gamble etc.

theres no logic with bitcoin

Some people hold dollars for more than the time they need it to make a purchase.

In that time they could have gained value as bitcoins.

i just want to save up!

So is your point this will continue until people are forced to spend BTC because fiat currency will have no value?

Bitcoin is only worth exponentially more tomorrow as long as people believe it is. Most currencies are mainly backed by trust, and that is not something that is earned over a market rally. Let's not forget what happened last April.

you are correct, just buy more and spend some as you wish.

When I can start spending bitcoins locally, I will convert all of my fiat paycheck into bitcoin and spend bitcoin at those local places. For now though, I only convert about 25% of my paycheck into bitcoin each month and just save it.

nothing is wrong with it. you can have 2 wallets. one for saving and one for spending, its easy. you support what you love: BTC

take a look here:

http://www.bitcoinblackfriday.com/

Awesome! Whenever you want to buy something, which you also can buy with BTC, and you have fiat, take your fiat and buy BTC and pay in BTC instead. ;)