Bitcoin Forum

As a student of bitcoin and blockchain, I have learnt that the deployment of bitcoin as money was its flagship usage as proposed and implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto. I also do know that it has remained the most popular application of bitcoin in the industry today. But the question is, how well has bitcoin performed in its role as money, especially, as a medium of exchange, and as a store of value? I think bitcoin has not done well as a store of value and its usage as a medium of exchange is still yet to gain popularity among merchants and shoppers. What do you think?

Bitcoin has not yet achieved its full potentials. It was supposed to serve both purposes as a form of exchange and a store of value just as gold. The challenge it has faced remains the same talking point everywhere which is its volatility. Until this issue is addressed, bitcoin will continue to hit the rock, and may never achieve what Nakamoto originally planned for it.

Your view exactly captures the state of the bitcoin of today and the challenge that it is battling with, which is that of high volatility. With its current volatile nature, it will be very hard to play its role as a store of value and establish itself as a medium of exchange. Much still needs to be done in this space if the goal of bitcoin's founder must be achieved.

Bitcoins is best describe as a medium of exchange rather than store of value. It is this simple understanding most people lack that they presume bitcoins is an investment and after they invest heavily it and price dip, they complain and whine about bitcoins been a scam.

Bitcoin currently functions decently as a store of value and as a medium of exchange, but what makes it quite bad in general is the price volatility. Currently, I personally think bitcoin is for speculating and for store-of-value for those 3rd world countries with economic crises(e.g. Venezuela) whereas their local fiat's inflation rate is through the roof. I'd take an 80% drop rather than a 200,000% drop due to hyperinflation.

Anyway, it's going to take time for bitcoin to be stable and find it's price. Though I don't have any proof, I'm quite sure currently stable precious metals like gold didn't find it's sort of "stable price" in 10 years. I'm pretty sure it took a lot longer than that. As with the transaction speed and fees, it's fine right now, but I don't think "fine" is good enough. Let's not focus on the present though, as technology moves forward anyway.

I agree with you. Bitcoin is in the midst of its growth cycle. It took smart phones 10 years, the internet 20 years, and TV 50 years to reach saturation. When bitcoin reaches saturation, which will be in a number of years, the price will be more stable. For what its worth Gold still sees 100% price increases and 50% price drops and it has been in use for so many millennia. Bitcoin, having a set supply, is purely demand driven, and thus will always see more volitility than a fiat currency which has adjustable supply. However, Bitcoin's inflation will drop below USD's soon, so it will be a safer place to park money over the long term (in the same way as Gold).

While these successful technologies did take a lot of years to be successful and while I'm indeed extremely bullish on bitcoin long-term, I'd always like to take the realistic approach and say that bitcoin isn't really guaranteed to succeed.

Also, with bitcoin's scarcity and mining difficulty, these can only help to a certain extent. Bitcoin could be at 21 million mined right now but it would still be extremely volatile due to the buy and sell offers from people who panic and speculate.

To me bitcoin has workingly achieved both potentials.  I have used it as a store of value and a medium of exchange both very well.

Bitcoin was born as a currency - A medium of Exchange, but we juts made it an investment, a highly volatile one!

It works great as both, but just don't fool yourself into thinking the time to buy it as a store of value is after a 500% 2-month price run-up. That was the worst time to invest. Now is arguably one of the best times, particularly for anyone with 5-10 year horizon.

bitcoin is and has always been a medium of exchange or a currency. being volatile only means it is a bad currency at this point it doesn't mean it is not a currency anymore!
and the funny thing is that bitcoin has never been a "store of value". I personally have only started seeing the term become popular about 1.5 year ago. in fact if you read the bitcoin paper by Satoshi Nakamoto you can see that nowhere in there he uses this term but all over the paper bitcoin is called as a payment system or a currency.

the problem with bitcoin is not with bitcoin itself but with exchanges which are the only thing that deciding the price and these exchanges are extremely flawed. because they are risky, shady and untrusted. so people don't trust using them or if they do they never leave money on them. what happens is that there are less traders on exchanges and a small number of orders. so a small dump by a small whale can crash the market as we can see these days.
and THIS needs to change.

Bitcoin as both is doing good, I don't see that it will fail as a medium of exchange. We've been using it most of the time, to buy goods and mostly other alts which can easily say that its working well. Although its price is changing and we're seeing it going down suddenly.

As a store of value, this is the current trend for bitcoin. No one wants to spend their btc at a very cheap price now, everyone expects it will skyrocket before using it as medium of exchange (sell).

how old is bitcoin of existence? bitcoin has been in existence for 9 years and in its 9 years of existence its price has reached $ 20,000 and managed to capture the attention of governments worldwide, more than 50% of these governments around the world do not accept bitcoin as a legal payment method. bitcoin attracted the attention of large investors and companies, is a matter of time for bitcoin to become a means of payments worldwide... as for the value reserve, I believe it could be a good value reserve, for now bitcoin is not regulated and accepted worldwide, so we have little demand and consequently we have a very high volatility so that this is something bad, but in time things will improve



let's assume that this news be true:

[New Crypto Rumor Report] Billionaires Are Quietly Buying Bitcoin During Prolonged Bear Market (https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/new-crypto-rumor-report-billionaires-are-quietly-buying-bitcoin-during-prolonged-bear-market/)

be true, why are these guys doing things in hiding? they do so because of regulations, since bitcoin is not yet legalized in many countries, so the reason for bitcoin is still not widely accepted as a means of payments or a good store of value is because it still depends on proper regulation

           To my opinion that is for me Bitcoin has served as a medium of exchange and since it is volatile it serves as a store of value too  and Today Bitcoin has reached to a stagnant stage and there will be a change to this stagnant situation to revive soon by next year, At present condition Bitcoin is a store of value since no one may be interested to sell Bitcoin in a cheap price all might be waiting for the price to increase as in 2017 . When the creator introduced Bitcoin he expected Bitcoin to function as mode for payment that is electronic cash . Bitcoiners prefers Bitcoin as a medium of exchange since it was the first payment mode without a third party interference . Bitcoin has a store of value because of it's decentralized nature and its  transparency most of the people trust in the transactions of Bitcoin .Bitcoin is invented as a digital currency and are limited in supply .

A store of Value , Holds it Value Relative to Fiat.

Bitcoin is not a store of Value as over 80% can be lost at a moment's notice as the past year has proven.

Things that value is almost fixed are a store of value.

People need to learn the difference.

Bitcoin is a fluctuating medium of exchange, it has never been and never will be a store of value.

something wont be a store of value unless it has utility.

for instance. people think something just needs 'rarity' to have value
1. my dog does 1 bowel movement a day. and will live for ~15 years
thats ~5500 bags of dogs mess that will ever be made.
want some? only $1 a bag...........
...... no? i thought not

2. there are many coins that have no function/utility and so they have no value. even when their cap may be less than 21mill

3. bitcoin (not locked btc where unconfirmed unaudited transactions are played with on other networks) but real bitcoin network utility needs to keep utility to have value.

take gold. the VALUE of gold (how many loaves of bread it can buy) would be worth more now if it was not for banks fortknoxing it up and making people play with paper money.
golds value now is just playing against the cost of obtaining it. plus a bit of speculation due to the industry utility.
again gold would have had more utility as 'money' if the last century of bankers didnt stop that.
god would be worth more loaves of bread value WITH medium of exchange utility as 'money'

if bitcoin had no utility desire. then people wouldnt want it. thus no value

shouting store of value purely because store of value.. is a foolish mindset
shouting store of value purely because medium of exchange utility.. is a smart mindset

thus bitcoin needs to have medium of exchange to keep it having a store of value.

Bitcoin as a medium of exchange is still vague and not yet widespread as it should have simply because of its volatility,its somewhat not possible to get the required number of merchants to accept the bitcoin that'll make it an acceptable medium of exchange,considering how volatile and unpredictable the bitcoin is, and also putting into consideration that the major aim of a merchant is his or her profits and nothing more

Bitcoin being a store of value wasn't the perceived purpose for it's creation,but it definitely can act as such based on its value/price/unpredictability
I think this days the bitcoin is used more as a store of value as we've got less bitcoin enthusiast looking to spread the word about bitcoin or get a store near them to accept the bitcoin as a means of payment.
We're all cool with purchasing and storing for a pump in order to earn huge bucks

It depends, how are you defining store of value ? In a free market, nothing has a fixed price.
If you see Gold/USD 50-years chart, it has highs and lows too.
Do you think gold is not a store of value ?

A store of value is an asset that maintains its value without depreciating.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/storeofvalue.asp

BTC has 80% losses every 2 or 3 years , a store of value it is not.

Gold remains relatively stable , and when it price decreases too much , their are alternative uses in industry for it that eventuality increase it's price.

BTC has no other usage except as a payment system, which the miners are now losing money to keep it running.

Gold can't die, because a group of miners stop mining , bitcoin can.

Find anyone that purchased Bitcoin above $6000 and tell them it is a store of value,
don't be surprised when they laugh in your face and ask for their thousands of dollars of value back that evaporated into thin air.
 

 

Bitcoin's price is defining by perception of people, this is all the story.

I think ass long as there is an intrinsic value of the coin, it still can be both medium of exchange and store of value. Value after all are presumed by traders which makes its value. The whole point for satoshi is to make it available for everyone and thus Bitcoin can be sent to anywhere in the world and this had been achieved long time ago as long as it has a value no matter how low it is.

Your view is likely a valid one. However, according to Wikipedia, a store of value is the function of an asset that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a later time, and be predictably useful when retrieved. In other words, a store of value is anything that retains purchasing power into the future. For instance, the most common store of value in modern times has been money, currency, stock or a commodity like a precious metal or financial capital. Do you agree that Bitcoin is money, currency or an asset? If yes, then, it could likely serve as a store of value.

bitcoin is in a transition stage in between mass adoption and government regulators green signal bitcoin already proved both the features like the medium of exchange and store of value. when trillions of dollars are processed in blockchain it proves it is exchange and store of value

Bitcoin still in medium exchange phase and need to be on that phase to survive in the future, but for now Bitcoin is more popular due to the store of value, most of the fluctuating value is coming from the trade action, to become currency,Bitcoin still need to face many obstacles

I totally identify with your point. I do believe that bitcoin's main goal is financial inclusion and decentralized digital economy. And this can only be achieved if bitcoin can effectively play the role of money as a medium of exchange. But this is not going to happen if it cannot be used as a good store of value. Its ability to serve as a store of value will inspire confidence in its use as a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin is the BEST currency that exist in the world now. It is better than the Euro and the USD, because it give the possibility sending money everywhere in the world, and have the PROOF that you have done that.
 When we talk about sending money everywhere in the world Paypal is the best, Bitcoin having the disadvantage of some time delay (usually 30 minutes) necessary for 3 confrmations of the transaction) until the money arrives. Bitcoin is good because of these confimations of a transaction, when a transaction is done, then these confirmations are the proof that it has been done.
 This is why bitcoin is good, better than the Euro and the USD.

Bitcoin has been invented as a medium of exchange, because it is very good, it has become a Store of Value.
Alt-coins are being used now as a medium of exchange, their confirmation time is faster and they are more convenient (as example the number of the dogecoins in this world is not limited, when compared to the number of bitcoins: 21 Millions of bitcoins in this world).
 

Store of Values don't depreciate 80% and still be called a store of value.

So while you could make the argument Bitcoin functions as a crypto asset, it would be like milk with a short expiration where the value is completely Lost!

Sorry, no good store of value analogy works at all for bitcoin, it depreciates too much to have any true usage as such.

While Bitcoin has proven to be in the last Year is a Collapse/Loss of Value nothing more.
It is a Gamblers Dream , but too unstable for real financial security.

Want to based your kid's college fund, your mom's retirement on something that loses 80% before you can cash out.

No Bitcoin is Risk, and should be considered Pure Gambling as it has proven , it will make some rich and others poor,
much like a black jack table or roulette wheel.
Has anyone ever called betting on the horse races a store of value.
The Crypto races are the same, make your bets on your favorite crypto.
Just as race horses can die so too can Bitcoin.


 8)

You do have a point, but BTC is a store of value not in the mid term (2-3 years) but in the long one (at least 5 years).

Gold has lost 50%+ of its value against USD in the past within two years (Jan 1980 - Jun 1982), but in the long term has always kept its value.

https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart (https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart)

BTC is really too young to be judged on a long term view, but it has always shown a steady growth since its foundation, we'll see in 2021 who's right.
If someone invested a sum at 6,000 USD/BTC that he cannot afford to lose I'm sorry for him, but that's a misinvestment.

By the way BTC can't die if current miners stop mining, this just means difficulty will be lowered, medium hashrate will decrease, new miners will come.

Your position that Bitcoin is the best currency that exists in the world today is very debatable. This is because you got to consider its other weak points such as high volatility, underdeveloped and narrow adoption, as well as weaning confidence in the market by the ecosystem players. The ability to confirm transactions in the public ledger using cryptography is not enough to give it that status as the best currency in the world. After all, transactions done using other currencies such as USD and Euro can as well be confirmed, although in a private ledger. Bitcoin needs to do more if it must earn that status.

Well it has not been accepted and legally adapted to all countries around the world. The bitcoin system is still on the process and the big disappointment that bitcoin will not going to survive and it will going to end as the system has been accused as scam due to the ICO projects that uses the concept of bitcoin.

Although Bitcoin is facing a very hard time in its survival journey I still strongly believe that it is not going to be its end - not with the highly acclaimed valuable nature of blockchain, the technology that powers it. Bitcoin isn't going to die. It will survive as blockchain continues to gain more popularity and adoption across borders.

There are few countries which is not allowed the use of bitcoin hence there are few intermediaters or brokers who help the people in exchanging btc to other coins in terms of storing btc there are few hardware tokens available and software available to store coins.  Bitcoin is fighting back to get its value and gaining confidence from investors.

It's a very good store of value, despite what newbies and people from outside of the space are saying. There are only 2 things that you have to understand.
1. Bitcoin has a steady gains of around 10% a year, which means that it's slowly gaining value if you buy only at the lowest yearly prices. If you bought at the low of 2016, it will retain value and bring you some profit in 2017 and so on, if you buy at the low of 2017, it will be worth more in 2018.
2. You should avoid buying hypes and pumps, and it's easy to spot these events. If Bitcoin is going up more than 50% in a single month, it's in a hype phase. It's known to gain over 300% a month, which is exactly the time when you should never buy if you want to treat it as a store of value, and not as a "get rich quick and forget about it" scheme.

I bought my coins in 2015 and don't believe that I'll ever see sub $500 Bitcoin, which means that it is going to work as a store of value for me.

Currently, I think, it still acts as a store of value. However, this might change slowly as soon as lightning network opens up to the public. Right now, the lightning network is used by merchants in a closed environment.

Till date I still standing my ground of my opinion that bitcoin is better to be use as a store of value instead of fiat which loses value as the years goes by. Check the value of $1 dollar 10 years ago and the value of 1 bitcoin 10 years ago. You will understand what I am saying.

We are in the time of change and chaos
Chaos is change
Crypto industry is in change
If we read news than we can see that something new and real is going to born
We have biggest companies coming to crypto and blochchain
We are just before introducing 5G what will bring us AI VR AR
Soon all that technology will be our daily life
Blockchain will be one of them
It is enough to say that blockchain is priced on over 2 trillions dollars what is twice more than current internet value
But old has to die before new will born

Bitcoin will always be a medium of exchange, ir payment system or currency
regardless of its FIAT value. We can send payment and exchange this coin
worldwide in a matter of minutes.

It is looked on as a store of value because of what it can potentially become
a rare commodity with a lot of adoption and a real world usage as above.

At the moment in one perspective it doesnt look like a good store of value
especially for those people who are showing FIAT losses but again i point
to bitcoins potential.

One of the major issues with bitcoin is the emphasis put on its FIAT value
and its difficult not to because so many of us exchange our FIAT into bitcoin
so we are looking to see a gain. We really need to forget about that FIAT
and think in terms of bitcoin.

I never thought it this way. You got a good defence for the price movement. The challenge is just that most people whose sole aim isvto make quick cash enter the market when almost everybody is entering only to find their fingers burnt by the prevailing hype at that time. If everybody can understand the market the way you do I don't think they will have any reason to lament.

I feel that people look at the fiat value of it because most people get to own it by exchange fiat to get it. So it is normal that its prevailing value is compared to the amount of fiat that it can equate to. That's why too much volatility is not good for the coin.

I think right now bitcoin is store of value. Not many merchant accepting bitcoin as medium of exchange because many government not allow it. But as store of value, bitcoin in grey area and i think its like digital gold

I agree with you. Bitcoin as known today better serves as a store of value to crypto players. But the challenge has been the high volatility of it market value which has made it less attractive as a store of value to many people.

I think that as a means of transaction it has fulfilled its role fully, at first was quite complicated because nobody really expected it to be so popular, but as time went by and the parameters were adjusting, everything was normalized, and now is quite stable, the secondary market store value with luck dies this year.

People right now is using it more like for a store of value
 They are investing their money with a hope that the price will rise in the future and will give them good profit. More people are using it as a long term investment rather than a medium of exchange. Unfortunately this is denying the proper use/adoption of crypto currencies. People will need to use it as a form of medium of exchange to see the true potential of crypto currencies.

It's because of the sad truth that most bitcoin users are speculators of it. I don't think it is widely used as a currency already, though there are many outlets where it is accepted. People still don't want to use it yet. They are maybe like me who prefer to hold for a larger price.

Bitcoin is now very poorly performing the function of a means of payment and this has its own objective reasons. First of all, this is a low level of legalization of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency by the states, and without this, it is impossible to develop the infrastructure to successfully create the conditions for using cryptocurrency as a means of payment. Bad bitcoin technical support also has a negative effect in this regard, as a result of which it still has a low throughput of seven transactions per second. Big, in comparison with other coins, are also its commission costs. Who will use Bitcoin with such inconvenient functionality as a means of payment, if there are already many coins with much better qualities.

Bitcoin has originally started out as a medium of exchange <tx was fast & cheap back then> but as Bitcoin became more popular, the scaling could not keep up with the demand and transactions became slower and more expensive. Some people saw the sudden price increase and they figured that Bitcoin would be a better store of value and that is when the speculators entered the market.

Now, scaling is not that much of an issue anymore with off-chain second layer solutions, but it is still in the early days of adoption. The speculators that entered the scene inflated the price too fast and the Bitcoin price skyrocketed in 2017, so we now see a correction phase, where the price dropped aggressively and this is making Bitcoin less attractive as a store of value. <This will change soon>  ;)

of course bitcoin can not be use as means through valuable things are being stored. this is because it very volatile and unstable. I will rather buy fixed asset such as land in order to store my fiat than converting it to crypto except there is stable in price. properties such as land can not depreciate but only appreciate. people are also known to buy diamond and precious stone as store of value

I agree with you buddy. Bitcoin's original purpose of serving as a means financial transactions between parties was actually threatened the moment people started looking at it as a get-rich-quick tool, which it is not. It was the pressure by such people that caused high volatility in the value of Bitcoin. Crypto players should change their mindset.

bitcoin as the currency i think its not a good things right now, we can see that the price of bitcoin is not stable, but we should know for be the main currency like the money bitcoin need have the stable price. is its not stable there are no people that will use bitcoin as the currency

It doesn't act as storage of value because the prices changing continuously so its like speculative thing not like gold which have very stable value for long time.ANd also medium of exchange (currency) not possible yet because of low acceptance so people using it as an investment like stock by buying and selling to make profits.

Bitcoin had been recognized already all over the world. Not just as a form of investment but also as a form of payment online and in physical stores. Well known companies, online shopping websites, remitances and airlines are now accepting bitcoin as a payment. Medium of exchange? These facts I mentioned can be considered as a medium of exchange where bitcoin can be traded to grab their products. Store of value? Thousands of investors are hungry to grab bitcoin and willing to keep it for long term because the value multiplies from time to time.

It seems like it still takes time, for bitcoin to really become a medium of exchange. Because as most people say here, the main problem is volatility. But I believe, in time. Bitcoin will be better than the current payment system

Bitcoin, to its fullest, had been used as the medium of exchanging fiat at super-reasonable costs and in my views, it actually helped a lot in saving very high fees that we used to pay to banks and intermediaries in order to transact worldwide, but Bitcoin killed all such barriers by making it possible (though centrally) for everyone to easily send/receive money without any borders and limitations, and most importantly, without the need and/or involvement of a third party. I know there had been challenges and problems while the mempool used to get stuck and fees got way too higher, but then came SegWit to at least help scaling the issues for a certain period of time - that 608k BTC transaction and thousands of transactions sending millions of USD from their country to anywhere in the world at the cost of less than a buck is just - fantastic!


As most people are used to trade this as an asset and others selling due to price crash or other reasons like real life needs, emergency, etc., I don't think most people would use it as a store of value currently due to the fear of not getting the value they purchased it for. Still, if it's a long term hold for them, then the privkey security is one of its kind in terms of technology and has given a lot of freedom for anyone to choose crypto over other types of store of value in order to keep their money safe in something that's untouchable, but still as useful as Gold.

Bitcoin's position up to now is arguably in a safe stage, usage is still unclear, there are platforms that accept bitcoin and some are not so that it becomes something lame. Bitcoin's performance of the joints to date is very good, except that in certain circumstances when the network is in trouble, it also causes a wide range of crypto problems