Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general will only advance if people actually use it for more than speculation.

In the past we've seen lots of retailers enabling bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in their checkouts, and then been disappointed that hardly anyone has used the function. And we have had some orgs like Steam disabling bitcoin and giving up on it.

So how many people on here have actually used cryptocurrency in real life?

I'll start: I haven't used bitcoin (because I consider that savings), but I have used dogecoin to buy gift cards and bitcoincash (BCH) to deposit to a betting website via BitPay.

Anyone else want to share their experiences?

I spend bitcoin several times a week, both in person and online.

I've spoken about my in person spending on the forum before. I spend bitcoin predominantly at my local farmers' market, which runs every Sunday, and I usually visit 2-3 times per month. None of the stalls there accepted bitcoin when I first started going. I talked to my favorite stall repeatedly, stating I wanted to pay in bitcoin, and eventually they hopped on board. Now there are 4 or 5 different stalls there who all accept bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies, and I am definitely not the only one paying in bitcoin. If you want to spend bitcoin, then you have to create demand for retailers to accept it. Any small or independent merchants or retailers you frequent are easy to talk to and raise the idea of them accepting bitcoin. Large retailers are companies are much harder - I've sent emails to many a customer support asking for bitcoin integration, but no success on this front yet. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. The more people who starting putting pressure on retailers to accept bitcoin, the better.

Online I have spent bitcoin on Newegg to buy electronics, on Overstock to buy various home goods, and on Bitrefill to buy fiat vouchers for a number of other retailers I use online and in person who don't yet accept bitcoin themselves. I've also moved the small amount of sports betting I do from a fiat site over to a bitcoin site.

If you include methods like bitcoin credit cards which will convert to fiat on the fly, then you can literally spend bitcoin anywhere. Widespread adoption and people using bitcoin for what it was intended - a currency - is the only way we will see sustainable, long-term growth of both the price and of bitcoin itself. The wild price movements up and down are based on speculation only. I can sympathize with people who don't want to spend their bitcoin as they think the price will increase, but it won't increase unless people are using it. Replace it if you want, buy more, earn more, talk to your employer about switching some of your salary from fiat to bitcoin or accept it in your own business, but go out and spend it.

I've bought some nice stuff with bitcoin on Newegg, but the only other real thing I bought was some silver from Provident Metals.  Interesting to hear about that farmers' market you go to, and that's very cool that you got them to accept bitcoin.

I don't think that's necessarily true, and if it is then 99.99% of altcoins will never advance, whatever that means.  I'm not sure that bitcoin or any other crypto needs people to force adoption or anything else upon it.  It works as a currency when people want to use it as such--except that not all merchants accept it--and it works very well as an investment.  If it catches on as a form of money, that's fine with me but I don't think it needs that for its survival.  Just my opinion.

the way i see it, speculation and adoption go hand in hand. the bubbles drew me in as a speculator, and years later i spend bitcoin all the time.

it doesn't have to be an "either/or" situation. if no one ever spent bitcoins, they would be worthless---i'll concede that. but that doesn't mean bitcoin primarily needs to be used as a currency.  it can primarily be a store of value and speculative asset. speculators are part of the network too.

i spend bitcoins all the time but i don't have anything against the hodlers.

If you look back to 2009 when Satoshi launched bitcoin - it was when the bank bailouts were happening. And governments bailed out the banks primarily because they acted as payment processors. There was the nightmare scenario where banks collapsed and shut their doors and people's wages couldn't get to them and retailers couldn't pay their suppliers and so on. Because the payment system would have disappeared.

If cryptocurrency doesn't develop a payment network then we are no further. In the next crisis govts will be forced to bailout the banks AGAIN, because there is no alternative network up and running.

But that alternative network could be cryptocurrency - and if it is widely used, then banks can be allowed to collapse.

Some might find this interesting.

I've bought walmart and target gift cards via crypto. Printed the gift cards out on paper. Used them to buy frozen pizzas in stores. Then been spammed with frozen pizza advertisements identical to the brand/type of frozen pizza I bought, on social media.

Another story. I've bought items on amazon via crypto to gift card method. I picked up my amazon boxes from the post office with the original packaging tape broken and re-taped. Part of me wonders if the post office searches my packages to check if I'm purchasing drugs or contraband from a crypto dark web site like silkroad, alphabay or whatever exists now. Or if there is another motive for it.


I think one reason banks were bailed out was to prevent the american public from realizing banks $100k FDIC insurance wouldn't enable consumers to retrieve 100% of their account funds from banks that crashed.

They had to bailout banks to prevent the public from waking up & becoming aware of how fractured and broken banking institutions had become under the wholly deregulated environment created from Bill Clinton's admin onwards.

I used Bitcoin in a lot of commerce like buying games on steam , subscribe to my fav twitchers , buy gifts on our local online shop and then spending them in the shop , buy from my friends some goods with Bitcoin. This is why we use Bitcoin after all beside holding , to spend it, to make the receiver to trust even more Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as in time more and more will follow the example.

Me being a regular customer and on first name terms with the whole family who run that farm/stall definitely helped. But as I said, I would encourage others to try with any small, independent or family-run retailers or traders you regularly use. They want your business. If accepting bitcoin is going to help them get or keep your business, then most will at least consider/look in to it.

Is the email address you have used to sign up to the gift card selling site the same email you use across social media? I think this is a far more likely link than advertising companies linking your bitcoin address to an individual gift card. I have also bought many gift cards for various retailers, and have never once noticed an ad based on my purchases. But having said that, my bitcoin are always mixed/never linked to my real identity, I use different email addresses for everything, I don't use social media, and I use very aggressive ad blocking, so who knows. :P

I have spent enough over the years to make me blub probably.

My latest is paying my local mechanics in BTC. They fucking hate their boss and don't put any of my work through the company. I supply the parts and pay them directly.

Other than that I have an upcoming holiday rental in the US. In the past I had to create a USD cheque at my British bank and then post the fucking thing. Last time they lost it and so it had to be done again. In total it took over five weeks before they got any money in their account.

This time around I told them it's BTC or nothing and they agreed. Dunno if they'll use Bitpay or whatever. Not my problem. It'll be done in an hour.

i don't think that's to do with crypto. the marketing methods of today are just freaky as hell. i'm pretty sure they're listening through microphones in our devices among other nefarious things. the other day, my girlfriend was complaining to me about getting bad sleep. now she's getting spammed with sleeping pill ads. ::)


it's probably amazon. things have improved over the years but they're known for packing things really badly. before i ever got into crypto, i'd received packages from amazon prime that were busted wide open.

Spent a month in Japan where having BTC was amazing. Started pestering every store I went to about accepting BTC and was able to use it several times.

I've also used Bitcoin on Amazon with the purse.io add-on, very useful and bought most of my technology with crypto-currencies from newegg and other sites. It's actually very useful to pay with Bitcoin and avoids the hassle with your bank card - a lot sites have really good interegrations so you scan a qr code with your wallet and it puts everything in automatically.

I have been spending a small portion of my coins consistently for over a year now. I order fast-food through a subsidiary of takeaway with Bitcoin and frequently purchase a wide variety of gift cards.

The one aspect of spending Bitcoin I like less is when the price has gone down like 60-70% because I know the price will recover with some patience, so I choose to use fiat instead because it makes more sense for me in that situation. 

I know I can buy back the coins that I spend, but that's not convenient at all, where the better alternative is to just use fiat to begin with, which I do.

Yes. I was thinking it was the email address that was tracked. I used the same email on social media and on the site I bought the gift card from. Bad opsec on my part. I should be embarrassed/ashamed. Which isn't to say bitcoin transactions couldn't be tracked if authority figures were determined. Maybe it helps someone to know not to use the same email address the way I did.

I also applied for a bitpay debit card. Paid the $10 fee. Bitpay never send me a card. They claimed that they didn't receive the bitcoin I sent. Of course, they don't know my BTC would have been returned to me if they hadn't received it. That definitely never happened.




It 100% wasn't amazon. Boxes completely untouched. No dents, smashes, etc. Only visible signs of damage were tape seals being broken.

If you first think about it you'll think that Bitcoin is only accepted online through websites of big companies especially when you are living on a country where BTC is not known but basing it from my personal experience you'd be surprised to know that even people who just advertise their product online accepts Bitcoin and even some other crypto for payments. I won't go into too much detail but I am part of several sneaker groups on my country and one of sellers of the shoe I want happens to be accepting crypto, it was really the perfect timing since I was low in cash and BTC is the only payment I have that time so I contacted him before anyone else grab that shoe. They may not be a lot of them accepting crypto but this is a start and I was fortunate enough that this reputable seller is accepting other payments aside from cash.

I have bought some products in the local store but not online. I think some of the stores are disabling the acceptable of BTC was because of the bear market still. It always end to pointing to the bear market because when the stores receives 1BTC for hundred of products they have but after a month or two the quantity of products it can only BTC was less than 10. And so to prevent it from happening they are disabling BTC acceptance.

If it's something you want then why not ask them? No harm done and they might like the idea.

I've managed it a few times with different places but it tends to work better for services than things with supply chains. Most of them start crying or vomiting at the very thought of it but you get the occasional success.

In my case, I am using btc as payment for my prepaid phone as I am getting a little bit of cashback every time I load. Very convenient and you have a lil bonus at the same time. I also use btc as payment for my domain names but it is only once a year for every domain that I own. Other than that, I cash out btc to my fiat, if I badly needed it. To be honest, I want to store my btc as long as possible for the belief that it will continue to increase.  :D

I have used bitcoin to buy items in online games and currently I only use bitcoin for something online because for offline in my country there are not many people who accept payments using bitcoin and have not made it a legal exchange, so that is what makes I have never used bitcoin for transactions in my country.

currently there are many uses of bitcoin in online trading and many countries use bitcoin as well as official currency and transactions, but in my country, crypto currencies are not yet used as a direct transaction tool and are still prohibited by the government, but I am sure in the future it will be able to done in my country

I found my spending habits to have exploded the moment Lightning became easy to access and pretty stable in terms of successful payment attempts. For every on-chain transaction I conduct, there are probably a dozen or so transactions conducted through Lightning, and I absolutely love it. I just can't get enough of everything I purchase to be accepted instantly.

What I am waiting for is adoption of Lightning by exchanges, but I'm pretty sure that the Coinbase's of this space will not bother until the software has matured properly. It will open the door to a whole new set of use cases that people will like. I expect a lot to happen within the gaming and gambling industry once Lightning has made the necessary steps to onboard large entities without problems.

I've used crypto lots in the past but the strange thing its not always progressed like many would expect with the price.   So it was a thing in tech that retailers would offer BTC as an option but they stopped doing that at some point, due to volatility perhaps it was or the time scales to confirm payment ?   not sure

  I used to use the alt coins even but I think the bigger pay processors for crypto cut back on that and only offered Bitcoin and the cash fork also.    Then recently the place I used most dropped crypto altogether, I did stress to them I wouldnt be using them for a long time because of this and unfortunately it has made it far less likely.   I do still see BTC pop up places, like my 18650 batteries will done in Bitcoin next probably.

Never use btc to buy some stuffs but been using it to pay my bills and use it as a gift to my brother who seems to have a knowledge about cryptocurrencies. Though I am looking forward to spend it to some useful things that I need in the future maybe in some online shops. Like many others here, I considered btc as a store value and/or as a digital asset so I am more on pro holder.

I sometimes use crypto in paying bills, sending money, or paying my other crypto friends whenever I run out of cash. There is no sense of saving it if you are running out of cash to spend to. But, if you can buy something using fiat and if you can save your crypto, then it is better to use fiat since crypto has a chance to pump anytime and it has a great long term potential.

It seems the most common use of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency is on paying bills and using it for remittance. That is also how I use my Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. I also made use of Bitcoin and other altcoins in gambling or buying in online shops, although I admit that I very seldom use Bitcoin in shopping online. I admit that I only use it when there is no other option left but to use it. Mostly through BitPay. Other than that, I keep my Bitcoin in my safe wallet.

You'll be waiting several years, I would think. Lightning is still experimental, and the "Only use what you can afford to lose" saying still applies to it. Exchanges aren't even going to consider using it until the risk of loss to them is minimal. Even then, it will take years for them to get round to implementing it. Some exchanges still don't even support SegWit for goodness sake, which is over 2 years old and requires fairly minor changes on their end to support. Imagine how long it will take them to build the entire new infrastructure required to support Lightning.

Having said that, Bitstamp have been running their own Lightning node for some time: https://www.bitstamp.net/lightning-network-node/. Obviously no word about accepting deposits yet.

I also use crypto for paying bills, but mostly I used it in buying stuffs thru conversation. Sometimes I ask the seller if he/she have app accepting BTC or if they're willing to accept, sometimes I explain the ways it can be considered as investment then they are convinced too. I do it when price aren't moving much And when the price of BTC decline that's the time I deposit again.

I have used bitcoin for mobile recharge. But nothing that significant. Like anyone else, I will prefer using fiat for retail transactions than going for cryptos. Largely, cryptos are preferred as a store of value than a currency. Also, it is more convenient to use cash or debit cards for retail transactions as they are readily acceptable and easy to use as compared to cryptos. Plus, they are instant.

I used altcoins for casual gambling and buying stuff from friends. Crypto payment not yet a thing in my country. I've been trying to push commerce though by promising merits in the local marketplace section. Lol.

I'm not against hodling (or saving to be precise). People should be free to choose between spending and saving. However, in the current situation, people seem to be incentivized to hold and not to spend. This is not good IMO. People should be incentivized to spend (for productive activities) but have the freedom to hold.

I have been using it for my necessities. I used to pay our electric and internet bill with my Bitcoin. Though I want to save it instead of spending, I still find it more convenient and faster to transact using crypto. A few days ago, I also discovered that a local online shop in our country accepts Bitcoin so I tried purchasing their product using some of my BTC earning as well. They are even accepting Ethereum.

In the past when the value of bitcoin was still under $ 500 I often used bitcoin to pay for electricity and water bills, I also bought things with bitcoin and bought gift cards too. Since the value of bitcoin in late 2017, the fee is getting higher and I don't think this is suitable for me to use as an alternative payment at that time. The more here bitcoin turns into assets, many discuss bitcoin assets but not discussion where bitcoin can be used as an alternative payment.

Here in my country, it's still hard to find local shops that would accept bitcoin or any crypto as payments although there are quite a lot of local users here. Crypto is getting popular here but haven't seen merchants accepting bitcoin personally. There are some online but still not that much...
I've used bitcoin before to buy small things (not literally big in value). Is gambling also considered in your question? Cause I'm also gambling during free time.

But really, I would love to use in more as payments if only there are available businesses that accepts it

I dont remember the actual stores but yes, i have used cryptocurrencies few times in last years. One time, there was a discount when buying when crypto and other time I noticed the option and chose it, because i had little FIAT but had more in crypto. With that said, I also consider BTC more as investment then anything else.

Maybe I only use Bitcoins for investment means only because in my country there is no service that supports it.
If the service online, I've been shopping for games and original software on a site called Kinguin, I once bought using their coin KRS and bitcoin to buy a Steam Wallet and original Windows from them.

Bitcoiner so far only use bitcoin as investing and trading, there are still less bitcoiner using bitcoin for commerce because many country still not allowed using bitcoin as legal payment. When bitcoin have adopt by many country I think all bitcoiner will use bitcoin as commerce and use bitcoin for every transaction, they will buy or sell daily needed with using bitcoin and altcoin if have legal by country and government.

Nowadays, bitcoin is mainly for investment rather than a currency to use as a mode of payment because the fee of bitcoin is higher than before which is not that convincing and practical for the people who are buying with a minimal cost. It is better to just keep bitcoin at a safe place and use other cryptocurrency as a mode of payment because they are cheaper and faster, to be honest.

In past i top up my Steam Wallet with Bitcoin, if me not wrong via Bitpay right. And some VPN i subscribe accept bitcoin as payment too. If international product, i use bitcoin for that 2 things. If from my country there are a lot of services that can help us Indonesian people to pay Bills. But for now i think only a few commerce that still accept bitcoin.

Had a lot of fun experimenting with crypto-currency as my sole payment method for a week, most of my funds went into getting cheap gift cards and then using it around my local store, it was pretty limiting and I wouldn't recommend though.

As for my most spending, I've just been keeping crypto-currencies as an investment option, and I've been trading altcoins and BTC/fiat for a couple years now and have a plan to cash out everything during 2020.

I always used it in paying my bills because our wallet apps has a features on paying bills and to purchase something in which it will be a convenient than go to the payment centers just to settle my obligations and to go to some mechants just to buy some merchandise.

now I only use bitcoin to pay bills ,before that I often buy clothing accessories but since the trade shopping is closed so now I only exchange it for fiat or pay bills like everything else ,and the rest of the bitcoin I trade on altcoin ,I don't know about other shopping cryptocurrencies places in my country yet

I bought a phone credit several times but after recalculated it turned out to be a lot more expensive using BTC, and also several times buying a domain on namecheap, I more like to use BTC just for international online commerce.
Not many commerce in my place that accepts BTC as payment, because it collided with regulations that prohibit it, only allow BTC or crypto as an investment tool.

In 2017 I can still pay bills and also buy goods using bitcoin, in an already available market or online shop. but since 2018 All transactions are prohibited from using bitcoin as payment. but by exchanging bitcoin to Fiat first before shopping. a little complicated but indeed we have to do this process.I hope there will be freedom rules regarding this matter

whatever you say the same with you the government still prohibits direct transactions using bitcoin and through exchanging into fiat currencies how many people who use and use bitcoin no one can know can be used anywhere and anyone without anyone can prohibit

In my country, we have one popular and secure provider of an e-wallet that includes some of the top altcoins alongside with bitcoin and out local currency here. You can convert your local currency to either of these cryptocurrencies, and also use to send to other BTC address for payment. And this provider, has partnered up with other payment companies to power online shopping websites and be an option to pay for online-bought items. For example, I could pay for a product in an online reseller found in their website through BTC to an address they have provided, in exact amount that when converted to my local fiat is equal with the value of the product.

I bought a domain at namecheap and bought prepaid load using bitcoins. The only downside of using Bitcoin as payment is scalability, extreme volatility and  you can only access it with internet. However if It can be develop as fast as using fiat (not online transfer) we could see an influx of retailers accepting it gradually.

This is because some government regulations still prohibit using Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency in daily life. Limited access like this only makes Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency just being a digital asset. So I think we need time to look Bitcoin /Crypto can be used as a daily transaction tool.

In-person? Now that is cool! I have never paid bitcoin in person though I usually buy online so I wouldn't anyway. I love local markets and always support the local events and the hand made items. I like plants and nature and gardening so a farmers market sounds awesome. Those other 4 stores accepted bitcoin without being talked into it? I don't know why people here at the local stores accept bitcoin. Perhaps when I start my cannabis business we will be there first and offer 10% off on all crypto payments.

Do you know if those credit card things work in south africa? I have heard long ago about xapo but I think they were a scam? (not sure on that one) There must have been some reason I didn't use it. It must have to be connected to my bank? I don't even use credit cards.

I don't need to worry about spending your bitcoin. You'll spend fiat anyway so convert it to bitcoin first. I work online so at the 3 websites I work on 2 pay me in bitcoin. The other either bank deposit or paypal which I use my brothers paypal since I am not on a bank that supports it and don't want to change banks. (they all suck)

Try speaking to the vendors about bitcoin. Independent retailers are the easiest to get to adopt bitcoin, because there isn't all the red tape and paperwork which would be involved with a large corporation doing so. They can use a payment processor if they want, but it can be as simple as opening a wallet and providing a QR code of their address to scan. As I say, they want your business, and if something as simple as opening a bitcoin wallet will help them get it, then most will at least consider it.

Certainly not by me. But I know that once the stall I usually buy from started accepting bitcoin, a couple of other customers started paying in bitcoin, and I guess word spread from there.

Exactly. In addition to a modest amount of bitcoin earnings, whenever I'm buying or trading for some more bitcoin to add to my long-term holdings, I generally also acquire extra to be used in my day-to-day spending.

I use bitcoin for paying bill and electric cost with my friend because he accepted using bitcoin, but my bitcoin transaction still limited with my friend and not use for companies and transaction in daily with market. I want one day my country have legal bitcoin where almost transaction using bitcoin and altcoin, we can pay everything with bitcoin or altcoin. Transaction using bitcoin very easy than using cash money or fiat other currency.

For me, I never thought I would use bitcoin in my payments. because I don't want to hold it, because it's volatile and that usually makes the value always fluctuate.
I think bitcoin should only be a tool for trading in cryptocurrency, not a common currency for payment.

The first line of the bitcoin whitepaper states (emphasis mine):


If you only want to use bitcoin for trading, that's fine, but to say you don't think it should be a currency is to deny why it was even created in the first place. It is first and foremost a currency, and if it wasn't being used a currency at all, then there would be no trading because it would have no value and therefore there would be no demand and no associated fiat price.

I am strongly convinced that in the near future crypto currencies will be used everywhere and for paying any sort of bills. If there were websites helping people to pay bills in cryptos, this means it is not impossible or difficult at all to use crypto in daily life like we use fiat. We simply need to spread education related to benefits of dealing in bitcoin so that government make it legal.

The real and only nuisance with using crypto to make payment is that most retailers or the person that who may want to purchase from doesn't accept payment via cryptocurrency and that puts the whole thing to a grinding halt thus you will have to either you use cash or convert your crypto to cash before you can buy their products or pay for their services.

The dominating digital wallet here in our country not only stores top cryptos like bitcoin (xrp, eth and bch are also included) but also got extra feature like Bills and Payment (https://coins.ph/online-bills-payment/) and Buying Prepaid Load (https://coins.ph/buy-load/). I haven't experienced paying bills just yet but I already done it when buying prepaid load for my phone. Actually I always buy load every week. I no longer go to store for doing such thing because I can already do it anytime and anywhere using this wallet :D.

I stopped using Paypal and my only option to buy anything online is Bitcoin and I'm glad that Namecheap still using Bitcoin I bought 5 domains from Namecheap I just hope they will never disable Bitcoin, I used to hire freelancer on Fiverr but stopped after they dropped Bitcoin, I really like to use Bitcoin to buy online as I have horrible experiences using a credit card and Paypal, here locally it's easy to convert Cryptocurrency to fiat, I consider Cryptocurrency now as an investment tool more than a payment processor,
there's hardly any store here that accepts Bitcoin, maybe in the future things will change.

Do you really think that it helps when you buy gift cards or things of that sort? You know that they are going to instantly sell your coins on exchanges for fiat. Is that really the use of Bitcoin we've been waiting for?

I have used bitcoin to shop. I bought some steam games, ordered food online, bought a VPN subscription, bought amazon gift cards. I don't consider that real use of Bitcoin because they all use payment processors. The real use will begin when these people are able to pay their employees in Bitcoin and cover the bills and when exchanges lose on importance.

I bold one proposal from your post which I liked the most and also I repeat that to almost everyone who just blindly says HODL bitcoins for long term cause money has to be in circulation, both for our development, more researches and etc and also for bitcoin too in this situation. They want high price but do nothing for that.
Well, not let's turn on subject. To be fair that depends on country where you live too, in some countries people can't even accept credit cards, not because they can't, no, because they just don't care about that. And when you say bitcoin with such people, they'll call you silly and tell you to pay cash or go away. Somehow there is such situation in some countries while in some people do their best to promote business and attract new people, consider their advice like they did in your case.

I have used bitcoin for some things since I got into it, but I just like holding it rather than spending it. 

There aren't too many businesses that I'm interested in that accept it such that I would be enticed into spending bitcoin.  Overstock.com might be an exception to this, but why use bitcoin there when I can use my debit card?  The cash in my checking account isn't going to be appreciating in value, and just the opposite.  Inflation will eat it all up eventually, whereas that *probably* won't happen if I keep my bitcoin.

I still support people spending bitcoin, tho.  I get excited when I hear news like starbucks getting into crypto or even facebook.  When I hear announcements like that I get the strong sense that crypto is hurtling toward the mainstream. 

I have not used bitcoin or any cryptocurrency to pay anything because there is no much merchant in my country that have accepted the payment of these coins, but if I had the opportunity, I would definitely take advantage of it.

Most of the ecommerce sites that I have been seeing using this coins are not where I can actually buy something for, but I hope that one day, I will be able to make use of these cryptocurrency on some of these sites and even if I can , I may eventually be among the first people that will start introducing it on a platform that I am really working towards in the future, where people can make payment for my product using the most favorite cryptocurrency in the market, which will enable me to be among people that would create awareness for bitcoin.

I am using bitcoin for commerce for a very long time as majority of the merchants are accepting bitcoin here in my country and i am not sure about the rest of the world but i am using bitcoin to purchase products for a very long time and some of the retail outlets are also accepting bitcoin and Newegg is a major player that accepts bitcoin and i have purchased a lot of products from them with ease.

I think most of us have used bitcoins for online e-commerce. It wasn't a much viable option until there for no transaction gateways but with advent of gateways like Bitpay and coinpayments I think the e-commerce sector over cryptocurrencies is pretty much decentralized. I think there is someone who has made crypto transaction over a website easier that definitely is Bitpay. It's just fantastic, generates new gateway address for every payment. The fees is too nominal and any kid can set it up on their website. I think what Authorize.net & Paypal did around in the fiat world same has been done remarkably by Bitpay and coinpayments. I have made a lot of transactions using various cryptos. Domains & Hostings from Name cheap is just one among all the things on the list.

 When I had purchased my first Bitcoin, the price was about $600 at the time back in 2014. Then the price fell and continued to fall. I figured It's only going to get worse from here and decided to use the rest to buy pizzas and a few knick knacks off of Amazon. Then the price shot up  :-\

My grandpa had a tailor shop and I set him up with a Bitcoin accepted here signboard. He even got a few dozen customers to pay in Bitcoin and I believe one of them was introduced to Bitcoin like this, because he came and asked all sorts of questions to me.
If only more people introduced people to Bitcoin like this then by now Bitcoin would have become main player in world economics and not a fringe element.

That's a nice initiative from your side. If crypto users will have the same mindset as yours, the adoption will be easier. But of course, you should have a lot of patience to the newbies that ask a lot of questions. Sometimes they will ask silly questions and you should be more diplomatic with them. You have been in that situation also, so you know the feeling of being new to this technology.

And as for me, I haven't used my crypto for commerce yet. More on monthly bills, prepaid load.

I also respect the idea used by him either but people having mindset like him may not help cause the government stand still play a huge role on level of crypto adoption or use.
With that been said, I have used crypto for commerce several time to buy stuff oversea.

yeah . speculation alone is not enough  .what we need is the actual use ( ex, people buy and sell ) because this is the only way that bitcoin grow or developed .  it sad to see that ,some retailers dicontinue the use of btc but i think they discontinue it not because of lack of interest of others but because btc have some issues . i heard steam and other platform drop btc but they replaced it with other better alternatives in terms payment purposes only .

In my case I don’t normally use my bitcoin because I consider it a saving but sometimes I send some bitcoins to a friend as a form of payment but if it’s like a restaurant or other establishment then I haven’t used it. Besides, only a few establishment in our area who accepts bitcoin that is why we had to exchange it to the accepted currency for us to buy goods or services.

I use my bitcoin most of the time for online transactions because there is no company near my area that accepts bitcoin but when I travel and saw a restaurant or a stall that accepts bitcoin then that’s another time as well that I will be using my coins. I think the reason why only a few uses the feature is that maybe only a few knew that those retailers are accepting bitcoins or if the consumer prefers fiat rather than using their bitcoin most especially if the price is low then I wouldn’t use it too.

It is good to see that bitcoin is being used by people for daily stuff purchasing bit honestly, I am not in the favor of this. It does not mean I don't want bitcoin to go mainstream. Definitely, I do. However, I don't consider the present time as the right time for this. Bitcoin is the most beneficial and expensive asset. Moreover, it is also suffering a dip at the moment. It would be best to suspend the idea of utilizing it in commerce.

I haven't used bitcoin in real life because it is hard to find a local store that accepts bitcoin as the payment. I prefer to convert bitcoin into fiat so then I can use it to fill my daily needs. But as the OP says, I use dogecoin for a deposit on a gambling website, but I don't deposit in every day because I don't play gambling too often.

I realize that maybe it's only a few bitcoiners who use bitcoin/crypto for commerce because bitcoin/crypto itself is not yet growing faster, and right now, bitcoin still on progress to rise. Maybe we will see the change in the next year or more because to use bitcoin/crypto in our real-life will need approval from the government.

I have never used bitcoin to buy goods. because in my country it is forbidden to use bitcoin for payment. the government only allows the use of bitcoin for trade and investment and also in my country it is difficult to find stores that are willing to accept bitcoin as a means of payment. so far I only use bitcoin to trade and invest. I hope one day I can go abroad so I can use my bitcoin to shop. and hopefully my country will legalize bitcoin as a payment tool soon.

all government wil legalized soon.they still thinking the benefits and disadvantages from bitcoin legalization.even if we go abroad,not all of them starting accept bitcoin as payment system.only few of them really alllwed bitcoin usage in daily activity.main purpose of bitcoin at this moment was as investment portofolio only.we need more time to able spend bitcoin in our daily life.

I do used cryptocurrency in real life.  I used the service of Coins.ph to pay for bills.  I also buy game credits using Bitcoin and send remittance to my friends and relatives using Bitcoin.  I also pay items that I order to other coins.ph users with Bitcoin.  Third party aplications made it possible for us to use Bitcoin in our daily lives.  It maybe indirect but it is using Bitcoin as mode of payment nonetheless.

Although one day bitcoin have regulation in my country and allowed for using as transaction payment and commerce I will not use bitcoin for may daily transaction, I am happy using bitcoin only for investing and trading assets, I think very easy using cash money for every transaction to buy anything use cash money. Now I look many country want to adopt bitcoin and make bitcoin become legal transaction payment to change with cash money.

People hardly ever spend their bitcoin now a days because they consider it as asset than currency and also we can even see threads don't spend your bitcoin now which is actually really bad for bitcoin and other cryptos in long run.I had spend on few occasions now only for betting online and I am being a holder since 2017. :)

Coins.ph provides gateway on the usage of bitcoin. In my country we haven't got such service renders. From my experience most of my bitcoin spending were done after cashing out to fiat. Here it is possible to use bitcoin only on the end users interest which is mostly made after communication. Funds borrowed from friends were returned in terms of bitcoin. I used to request them explaining the innovative bitcoin. Some agrees while majority rejects without knowing it's value.

Yupp I think there's plenty platform like coins.ph that offerings you to pay Bills through bitcoin deposit start from the internet bill, Car payments
Credit card payments etc . I personally now is on my way building my own startup to offer this kind service *fingers crossed wish me luck.

The most easy to find and most transactions is buying giftcards , I used gyft .com for this and i believe so do with everyone else right? Can't see any better place for that.

I used to make bitcoin transaction since 2013/2014 , I find it interesting since my first impression about how fast and cheap the transaction through this awesome crypto currency, but now I think things a little bit different... I prefer to use other cryptocurrency with super low transaction fee... yeah unfortunately I recognize bitcoin now as a precious asset that shall not to spend too much too often.

after my firs trade on btc which i had sold 2 btc for 13usd long before, i had never traded on that before

i had focus on earning and using that for buying anything i need to keep my privacy even more safer
since 2011, i had used around 1.3btc in purchasing things and services i needed and i am very much happy about that, even though i had been scammed twice by paying crypto  :D :D :D

in last 3 years any servers i had paid for my sites and personal usages had been paid by crypto too  ;D

Here in the Philippines, we can use our bitcoin in online shopping, specifically "Shopee." Every time I use shopee, I am paying using bitcoin. It's supported by our local exchange/wallet, which is coins.ph. And also, I am using bitcoin for paying bills and buying prepaid load, It's supported by our government.

The bitcoin is widely used here because many Filipinos are using it and starting a business out of it. We have several local exchanges here in the Philippines. And also, we can transfer our bitcoin into our local banks, so regarding cash in and out, there will be no hassle.

Are you serious ? You traded 2 BTC for $13, I feel sad for you and this might be really a hard feeling to carry on and because I once lost my private and still regret even though there was less that one BTC. I tried using bitcoin on some ecommerce site but stopped myself as they seemed to be fake sites and post which I did not take risk of using bitcoin to buy something as the value just pumped and then it plummeted down again.

I have brought a product overseas with BTC as my mode of payment. Wayback when the fees are high when doing transactions in BTC, I convert it to another cryptocurrency to save and for the transaction to be processed faster. But most of my funds, I saved it as an investment as I think it is wiser that way.

Are you referring to sending Bitcoin to your bank account to have it show up as such there, or are you referring to cashing out Bitcoin on an exchange to have the fiat end up on your bank account? The latter makes more sense to me.

I'm pretty sure that if a bank (regardless of what country) would announce that they accept Bitcoin deposits directly, it would be huge news covered everywhere for weeks straight. Considering that this didn't happen, I assume it's not the case.

Well, I have used bitcoin for e commerce many a times. I own a website and I renew it by using bitcoins and also I pay my phone bills using bitcoins itself. This wasn't the case a couple years back as the websites that accept bitcoins were less as compared to today, now countries are also supporting blockchain in general which directly benefits bitcoin according to me. Back then people used to think that bitcoin is just another dark web currency.

I've spent bitcoin many times for paying my bills and even topping up a load for the ride sharing app that I usually use so that I have my balance to credit whenever I'm on the go and don't want to commute through public transportation.

It's also nice to experience buying online and paid it with bitcoin. What's good today is that there are too many 3rd party sites where we can convert our bitcoins to credit our accounts to avail services that we want.

For me, I have used my Bitcoin to pay for things online but its quite a few and not consistent.
I however, prefer to pay for stuffs with lesser amount of money with my bitcoin than commodity or products with higher prices. This is simply because i believe that the instant I spend my Bitcoin, buying back will be hard and I might not be able to buy as cheap as I did before.

I won't pretend to have a business that can accept bitcoin here but I imagine, adding bitcoin as a payment option is an additional benefit to my business that adds value with no drawback at all. It's quite simple to setup a bitcoin wallet and have a QR code ready for that rare customer who wants to pay in bitcoin.

I think the problem with companies using bitcoin is that they don't liquidate their bitcoin and are shocked by the volatility that they experience. If I accepted bitcoin as a payment method it think a good strategy would be to liquidate it immediately as if it were cash. I love bitcoin and will always hold but in a business that depends on non-bitcoin-payable operating expenses, I will have to do what is necessary.

The process of experience and payment with bitcoin is actually becoming relatively popular at the present time when many regions and countries accept bitcoin as an alternative method, big companies and services are also very competitive, even encouraging people to use this method. And this realistic figure informs us that bitcoin is having a good interaction with people, the opportunity to legalize and raise prices in the future will not be far away, and so we should limit the use of bitcoin for service cases like you said when the price of bitcoin will change a lot in the future.

by then, i was happy cuz i had sold over priced  :D
and i dont feel bad, cuz i used those funds for good. i had profited by that, of course not if i had kept bitcoins  ;D

also about losing private key, i had an experience with multibit classic which lost around half a btc x_X, even thought the multibit did their best and put all hands on deck to save my balance, but i had screwed things up so badly that it couldnt be recovered  :P :P

and there is a lesson in all these, NEVER LIVE IN PAST  just get experience to prevent this issues in your life

It's a sign that these companies are okay with bitcoin and they are also benefiting from this. Before, many of them can't intervene and accept bitcoin because they all thought that this cryptocurrency is only good for illegal transactions.

But as soon as they've realized that this can also be a good alternative payment option, you can see now on how it's going bigger and bigger. With those 3rd party service providers, they made bitcoin easy to accept as payment.

In our place, we have this Coins.PH app where we can use fiat, btc, eth and a couple of cryptocurrency to pay almost anything like utility bills, prepaid loads, and etc.

I oftenly use that app to buy prepaid load and pay utility bills because it was efficient. I used BTC for payments on 2017 but after the bull run, I stopped using BTC for payments. 

I don’t know. I wasn’t that knowledgeable to crypto  back then.

I just bought 2 domains and renew my domain on Namecheap, also continuously paying monthly my web host with Bitcoin, so I'm one the people who use Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrency on what they are intended for, I also used it to load my cell phone and to pay my internet bills, but what I'm really wishing and hoping is that there's a local grocery here that will accept Cryptocurrency.

crypto is not only intented for paying purposes alone  .  like you im also using my crypto for buying virtual items  . crypto is more suitable this way because its virtual but other virtual payments that are fiat based are also doing the same idea .  i dont know where you live but why you are not seeing a grocery store that accept crypto ?  that strange because if its trully accepted then you should find atleast one or maybe they are only located far away from your place  .

Actually in my area too, there is no specific store or known store that accept btc directly it is more of you'll pay in wallet but you'll need to convert it upon checkout in stores. In online shop too the payment the seller will receive is not BTC but actual fiat amount. It maybe depend in how advance the adoption of cryptocurrency is in your country as in mine you'll only be avail to pay btc if the contact online seller is accepting crypto or uses same wallet.

I have used it to sell some software before and in the end it wasn't really that successful. Not because it was crypto or bitcoin, because I couldn't handle the marketing of a website, I tried and I did adwords and so forth and I even got into some websites influencer style but in the end I couldn't get anyone to not only buy the software but I failed to even get decent traction of visitors so in the end it was for nothing.

However, looking back on it having a woocommerce website with coinpayments.net connection was so easy that I handled it in half an hour without any troubles, I would do it again if I ever find a reason to open a website, for now I am not working on something like that but I found it super easy to implement, definitely easier to implement than fiat.

I haven't been using to a direct transactions. More like a savings to me because malls, and other stuff I bought over the store or services haven't any option on accepting crypto currencies. Besides I usually do convert my cryptos on physical currencies right away I'd be saving a little but not all of that since market as of today might get any lower.

Me, considering that there are times that I have funds in my wallet even though that wallet isn't providing any private keys, they have a feature where I can buy prepaid loads, pay my bills and much more. So, in terms of using it to commerce, I am selling prepaid loads to my colleague whenever they need it. They can pay me using crypto (any) or in fiat where the fiat still has its own blockchain technology. In this regard, I can spread the goodness of crypto to increase market adoption as well.

For me, it is not that advisable for bitcoin to become a widely used currency for commerce, why? since the market price is not stable and the transaction fee is quite high, though we can consider products and services that are expensive, but imagine, if we are just ordering 2 bucks worth of food paying using bitcoin, it seems that we pay them double. So, in terms of using other cryptocurrency, the problem will be solved especially using XRP or LTC.

in my opinion the use of bitcoin for payment tools can only be used in countries that are friendly to bitcoin. like Japan, Switzerland and and Russia. and if we live in a country that has not yet legalized bitcoin as a means of payment. so I'm sure most of them have never used bitcoin for payment. they only use bitcoin to invest and trade. but I am optimistic now that bitcoin is headed for mass adoption soon countries will legalize bitcoin as a means of payment and make bitcoin a global currency.

its still limited used in many countries only.many government judge bitcoin as high risk investment and has low security.so they restric their citizen investing in market .but as you said ,mass adoption and legalization will happen soon,moreover if ETF accepted by SEC. I am sure another countries will follow US step to accept bitcoin as legal investment ,and adoption will  coming soon when it happen.

Bitcoiner only use bitcoin as trading and investing, not available using bitcoin as currency payment make many bitcoin can't use bitcoin payment purchase, maybe if bitcoiner live in country have support using bitcoin like Japan and South Korea. Other bitcoiner country only use bitcoin for investment assets and using for online transaction can support using bitcoin as payment system.

Well, bitcoin users really only focus their bitcoin on investing or in some cases of buying and selling between the two sides in the crypto field, bitcoin becomes an additional payment method but these cases are quite rare. In fact, the use of bitcoin is also considered but only with a small number of countries and some services but it does not seem to receive much positive response from bitcoiners because the currency of each nation is still occupied in life, Bitcoin is hard to compete, and bitcoiners also know that the use of bitcoin cannot stop at these pointless jobs

I'm not directly using crypto in real life, before I spend it I used to convert it into our local currency to buy some stuff because unfortunately, in my country we have no store yet that accept any cryptocurrency for mode of payment. However, yeah I've been using quite of my funds from before up to now. Perhaps, procurement of government  will be necessary or will be a signal for any store to accept this kind of payment system.

No accurate numbers for this kind of question since theres no way to track on how many people are actually using up their coins but i do hardly believe
that anyone wouldnt spend out their coins since they do know the value that it might have on upcoming years to come or in short they are saving it just
for making profits not totally spending it as it should be.Well we cant blame anybody since we do able to see its total potential for future growths.

I never shopped using Bitcoin as a payment method on commerce
I bought my cosmetics at an online store and still using payment via bank transfer
I really hope that the online shop that I use often, innovates by accepting payments via Bitcoin.

many stores currently are supporting crypto or even a payment processor which supports few crypto coins
believe it or not, world is moving forward to use crypto more specially with current news coming out from central banks of countries that they are trying to make their very own crypto

in (not near) future we wont have any banking and long waitings and huge fee for money transfers

But this can give us a good idea of how much bitcoin is appreciated by its holders and put the lid on the mouths of those who think that bitcoin can never go mainstream. Learning about others people experiences will also encourage newcomers to try bitcoin too. People do use bitcoin in daily purchases but the options available are limited. Moreover, holding at present is more wise than spending bitcoin.

yeah, we can use cryptocurrencies in countries where they not restricted by law, but the main reason why we don't use it as the main payment method is that a small number of shops can take cryptocurrencies. I used bitcoin in commerce but it only for selling/buying digital goods, because it's not simple to buy food or something similar via bitcoin.

And the number one reason too is because of the volatility of the coins, as some people prefer to hold it rather than spending it, most people nowadays would prefer investing as they know the potential value of Bitcoin in the future, especially that the number of users is increasing every day and the adoption is continuously increasing that even companies are adapting blockchain, even banks.

I have worked for lots of clients on various projects and collected bitcoin as payment. Though most of the times I would sell the bitcoin and convert to cash if it's a time that the price is falling. Sometimes, I am not the one to recommend cryptocurrency, my clients are the ones that sometimes say that they will pay with crypto.

But, before I accept crypto as payment for any work it has to be someone I trust or a big business that I'm sure they wouldn't like to mess with their name. I don't just see a random person and tell them to pay with cryptocurrencies because I know what people can do, there are lots of scammers out there that are looking for nothing but free work.

Apart from accepting bitcoin for work payment, I have not used it to buy anything online, because I don't really see it as a safe option and by the way I am not ready for the stress. I prefer other payment methods when I'm buying online.

Well for one I have been using it to pay-off some of my bills. Our local exchanges provided us that ability, so if I have bitcoins in my wallet, I would readily pay for my credit card bills just to hassle free.

I know that I should have been holding it, but hey, that's the only thing that I can participate to let bitcoins flow on the ecosystem again.

I reason out though that bitcoin is sound money then why not used it like that?

If any of the merchants is willing to accept bitcoin as a mode of transaction then you can spend them and for that you need to convince the store owners and explain them about bitcoin and make them understand about the new mode of transaction and that would be easier for you rather than looking for a radical change on your own  ;). If you are converting your bitcoin to local currency for your needs then what is the benefit of holding it.

I think that there are very few of them, no more than 1% of all who hold Bitcoin. Everyone goes to Bitcoin with the hope of increasing capital, although 90% lose it, as in 2018

Only bitcoiner have legal currency in their country use bitcoin for transaction payment, if country not allowed using bitcoin only for investing and trading, little country allow using bitcoin as legal currency and most country in the world not available bitcoin as legal currency, I use bitcoin for investing adn trading but some time make purchase with transaction payment to buy online shopping.

Sometimes I spend bitcoin to buy googleplay vouchers, of course, for topup games or buying useful apps for me. I bought it not through a reputable website that provides these services but bought it to individuals who accept bitcoin as payment. And I think it doesn't matter where bitcoin is going to be used. In the end, there is someone wants to have it and still use it as a payment method.

I am not using bitcoin as a currency as much as I would like but I do spend some of my bitcoin about 4 or 5 times in a year, I mostly use my bitcoin to buy some software and services I like and in fact the reason I got into bitcoin in the first place was because I needed to buy several services and bitcoin was the only way in which I could do it, so the currency aspect is what brought me to bitcoin and to speculate with the price was just an added bonus I did not discover until 2017.

That is so cool. Using bitcoin to buy something is an experience that most of the holders still need to taste and definitely it is a new thing. We need to be a bit patient for making use of bitcoin in daily commerce as this requires some time before bitcoin and altcoins go mainstreams. Besides, the major reason behind investing in these coins at present is earning profits, so they are performing well in this regard.

This is the real problem towards the spread of crypto: those who do not believe in it, do not want to use it.
Those who believe in it keep it because they hope it grows.
In this way, it is inevitable that the crypto be used only for speculation.
But just be patient.

Come to think that bitcoin isn't adopted globally yet which means theres always a limitation for someone who do tend to use it up but as said
majority would really keep this one since we do know that it would really have that value if we tend to hold on.

This isn't should how bitcoin should be used but we cant blame up everybody since the opportunity on profiting or making money
is much more better than rather spending it actively.We can simply make use of fiat instead.

Right, that is the fact that bitcoin and other crypto will only be more profitable to hold. Indeed, the use of cryptocurrency should be more global in real life so that it will trigger a greater adoption in the world until the spread and use and also transactions that can be carried out more broadly. I occasionally find online transactions that accept bitcoin as a means of payment but there are not a few of those who have closed their services for bitcoin and of course there is a reason behind the closure of the service.

They are not a problem anymore because sooner they will have no choice but to use it because one day certain merchandises will only accept Bitcoin or other altcoin as their mode of payment such as in online shopping. People in the future will prefer crypto for an irreversable and transparent transaction wherein they don't need to keep their receipt thus they have the proof that they made a transaction on that date.

yes some bitcoin users do not use bitcoin as a means of payment because they want to save their bitcoin. they don't want to spend their bitcoins to buy things they can buy with fiat money. actually this condition in my opinion is not very good. because if bitcoin is only used for investment, there won't be mass adoption that can push the value of bitcoin. therefore we should as a bitcoin community also have to use bitcoin for payment tools. like to top up games or to pay electricity or internet bills.

i just paid one of my servers with bitcoincash, guys i didn't knew it is so faster than other crypto coins

it was real instant. almost the moment i clicked on send the funds from my wallet, site shows my invoice was changed status to paid,
it was a great new experience, i think after now i wont use my cards for paying anything else, i will use only this coin (not advertising) on any site which supports that

actually i think i wont buy anything from any site that doesnt support crypto anymore  ;D

During the first 6 years of Bitcoin, it has been widely used as a means of payment, people are using this to transact, they are using this so people  can be attracted and the supply will circulate around the world, but during the bull run, almost all people don't like to spend even a single amount of Bitcoin, as much as possible, they would like to save it for the next bull run.

You can find holders here that have actually experience of using bitcoin as a medium of exchange. Crypto currencies were basically  created as digital medium of exchange but with the passage of time as they grabbed value, it became investments. Other than that, these still need to be legalized by governments. That requires some time too. So the best option is to treat them as assets not currency.

Actually I am using cryptocurrency right now in my real life, the one that I am getting from trading and bounty hunting I am using it into my real life. I am converting it first in to our local currency in order for me to use it as a former money to buy goods and products here in my country. There are many experiences that I've used cryptocurrency in my life I actually buy my phone through the help of cryptocurrency and bitcoin, as well as I already build some good computer because of my earnings in the cryptocurrency in which I am getting bitcoin and other coins just like ethereum and xrp's. This are my experience in real life which I used my bitcoin and cryptocurrency to help me for my daily life basis.

There has been speculation for some time that bitcoin is such a good store of value that it will never become the currency we want and another coin will have to take its place and in fact this is historically accurate as well, while gold was used as a currency for thousands of years the truth is that it was used the most not as a currency but as a store of value and silver was the precious metal that circulated the most, for some time many thought litecoin will perform that functions as it was even called the silver of cryptocurrencies but now I have my doubts.

The percentage of bitcoiners using bitcoin for commerce is very low. This is all because of its increased demand as an investment than a value based exchangeable asset. Over the years the acceptance level too is not that big. Now things have changed and people have begun to use it much on online stores. As days pass when there happens more direct acceptance eliminating intermediaries the usage percentage of bitcoiners on commerce increases.

We can use bitcoin/crypto for commerce because our country still not allowed using bitcoin as legal currency payment, we can use bitcoin and altcoin as commerce when we buying something with online payment transaction, many website have support using bitcoin as their payment way and we can use bitcoin for commerce and not only for investing and trading.

There may be the possibility that many people who have bitcoin do not want to spend it, prefer to spend FIAT money, because they know that Bitcoin is about to give a good bullish rally, sometimes Hodl is better, this applies to those who know the technology and The reachability of Bitcoin.

On the other hand, many people do not use Bitcoin because they do not know it, they may have many doubts about how digital money works, in countries like Italy they prefer to use Bitcoin as a payment method over credit cards and online purchases, since a Bitcoin culture is being created, adoption is still being considered worldwide, but there are people who do not take it yet because of fears unfounded by newscasts, analysts, economists and governments that instill in them that Bitcoin is very dangerous as an investment and not They recommend it, it is difficult to awaken minds so quickly, but compared to previous years there is a breakthrough.

In my case I pay everything with Bitcoin, as long as there is the ease of doing so, because it is very few satoshis, I live in a country with a lot of inflation, therefore bitcoin is oxygen.

it's hard to find ecommerce that uses bitcoin/crypto, since steam no longer supports payments with bitcoin anymore. even more worst is that in my country prohibits all transactions that use crypto for payment.
at the moment I can only use bitcoin to pay for VPS/RDP or cloud storage (such as awesomerdp, wushare). it is better to exchange bitcoin to FIAT if it is indeed want to make transactions on e-commerce.

It has just been a decade or so since crypto currencies got created. It is a way too early to pass such statements like bitcoin is just a store of value. If I am not wrong, bitcoin is already being accepted by few companies as payment. Before being used purely like a medium of exchange, it should have worldwide acceptance. That will take some time. Moreover, its current volatility makes it better an asset than currency.

As of now i haven't used bitcoin/cryptocurrency as my way of payment to buy some stuff besides cellphone loads because i have not yet encountered a store that accepts bitcoin/cryptocurrency as an alternative way of payment but if i do i will definitely use some of my cryptos as my payment. 


Exactly, i am having a hard time crossing paths with stores or ecommerce that accepts cryptocurrency as a payment so i mostly exchange it to fiat just to buy stuff.

most people believe that bitcoin in the future will be more valuable than it is today, therefore most of them choose to save bitcoin for the long term rather than having to be used as a payment tool that can buy whatever they need

Yes most if us have not used crypto for shopping and I am finding it difficult to find a reliable site to purchase goods as most of the sites which accepts crypto are either shady or Grey sites. But there are some e-commerce projects based on crypto which will give a push to crypto usage in terms of shopping.

The use of bitcoin for payment is still under used and this is why we are still lagging behind in the value off bitcoin, and we really need to be patient till that time, which I know that we will achieve, but we still have to try our possible best to make sure that we announce more of Bitcoin use for payment of ecommerce products than the use of it for digital assets.

One of the lapses that I see why the use of Bitcoin for payment is because most of the institution that are meant to make provision for this also are not helping matters because instead of them interrogating the payment processor of Bitcoin into their own website, they are just busy holding Bitcoin also and expecting it to grow. We need a whole lot of people to actually be encouraged to start using Bitcoin for us to be able to gain more power on the value of bitcoin.

That is why I said that it was speculation, I know it is too soon to tell since bitcoin has only existed for over a decade but we need to begin to think of all the possible scenarios, the lightning network could help bitcoin become the currency that we want since we could be able to use it for a very small fee and even better the confirmation of our transaction will be instantaneous but at the same time if bitcoin keeps growing in value not many people will want to use it to buy anything when they can earn money with it.

Before we even come down to the issue of having a reliable site that are accepting cryptocurrency or bitcoin, I don’t think that I have even seen up to 10 companies that are accepting bitcoin out of the millions of companies that we have.

I understand that adoption rate is still very low, but even with the low rate of adoption, there are so many companies that are holding cryptocurrency here today for the purpose of bull run, and I think that it is high time that many people start introducing bitcoin into their own platform for payment and not just buying bitcoin alone and expecting that it will rise without adoption. What will create adoption more is when there are places where we can spend our cryptocurrency. It is only in the gambling section that I can say that they are trying.

Not sure where you have been, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of businesses in Japan alone that accept Bitcoin. It's safe to say that there are triple the number of businesses accepting Bitcoin in the rest of the world.

Obviously, not every business is a super market locally, but that will come eventually. Another thing is that people need to be more willing to actually spend their coins, otherwise what's the point of accepting Bitcoin? There has to be an incentive.

Stability will play a role of importance too as the volatile nature of this market doesn't make Bitcoin or any other crypto currency a reliable form of money.

What's wrong with growing value? Bitcoin has decimal amount and even if Bitcoin is about to hit $10K mark it will still be fine to be used as a currency to pay for stuff anyway. Bitcoin was designed to be that way because the supply is limited. The growing of the price will definitely not holding back people from spending it to fulfill their needs, but instead encourage people to use Bitcoin just incase it will grow and then making it easier for their end meets. The only thing that still become a problem is the adoption which still quite low and hopefully will increase in the future.

Then you should again do some research. I can bank on this that only the number of gambling sites that allow playing with bitcoin is more than 10 in numbers. Bitcoin is a digital currency, belonging to the internet first. It is highly being consumed in other webs by users. Also, it is just a matter of time before bitcoin goes mainstream. Starting from ten companies, it will get accepted by millions of them. A bit of patience is required.

We cannot calculate the exact people who are using cryptocurrency for commerce, but in my own analyzation, most of them are using it for commerce we they are actually using their own crypto to support particular projects and ICO. We actually call it e-commerce because using cryptocurrency since it is digital money we are using it to electronic commerce to purchase goods or support a particular campaign by investing because we are purchasing also to them. In terms of using crypto, I can say that it is way faster than any transaction physically since the internet is being used.

Does accepting cryptocurrency as payment for work you do count as well? I discovered cryptocurrency and after playing around with faucets for a while I decided it was of no use. Then I dropped it. After some time I landed a project that required me to accept Bitcoin as a payment method, at first I never trusted them because I was afraid that there is no protection and I might be doing free work.

But, I still took the risk and luckily, I got paid for it. After that, I started coming across lots of companies that wanted to pay with bitcoin and the current job I'm doing now is a remote job and pays with Bitcoin.

I would not completely say that we have many people that are using cryptocurrency for ecommerce yet as if there was, the level of adoption in cryptocurrency would have increased for now.

What many people that you see here are using bitcoin or other cryptocurrency for now is just investment, they believe that investing in it will be more useful to them more as that will be what will generate them money, but they don’t want to realize that we need bitcoin to even be more used than to be held so that there will always be demand for bitcoin at all time, and as the value grown, the coin price will begin to appreciate in value.

We really need people who are into ecommerce to really embrace the use of bitcoin for their businesses as this is what could really make the cryptocurrency row back and beyond the previous all-time high.

This data is solely based on the fact about what a person thinks is the reason for the Bitcoins to exist.
For me I think I would label them to be on the side of a commodity that increase in value over the time , instead of money like Fiat , obviously it seems stupid to always pay this much fee when you have to actually send even a small amount because let's be serious even with the lightning network you still have to pay fee from lightning wallet to normal wallet which actually is profitable for the person who does a lot of trades a day not like individual traders and holders.
Therefore I have used it but on rare occasion , it's easier to just convert it into money and use since there are more options this way and it makes everything easier.

Bitcoin feature only investing and trading to get much profit, I live with country not allowed using bitcoin as transaction payment currency, I use bitcoin only get profit by investing or trading and can't use for transaction payment. I will try make bitcoin become currency payment after bitcoin allowing as legal currency in my country.

Still, we should not lose hope, you are not alone, there are plenty of countries out there that are restricted in doing crypto, still on the other part we should be thankful that we have known Bitcoin and that we know its advantage of it and we are able to earn thru it compare to some countries who can't even access at all, nor no idea what crypto is.

I know your feeling, to make currency in that country bitcoin seems to be difficult to accept, because the sentiment about bitcoin can kill FIAT already in government, in my country Bitcoin is not an instrument for payment, but an instrument of digital assets, that is good enough because has been recognized by the government, but do not worry there are some sales sites that already use bitcoin as a means of payment, such as Amazon

Even big countries like China or USA have not legalized the king of digital currencies yet. Give the fellows required time and everything will get settled. The need some time to grasp the concept but nevertheless, bitcoin is already being used and held by rich people of the world. The governments are resisting its legalization but most of them would already be holding bitcoin certainly. Indeed, big percentage of world population is still unaware of crypto assets.

many people want to use bitcoin for real life, it's just that until now its use is limited, and bitcoin is easier on the internet. in my country, there are regulations that prohibit using bitcoin as a transaction tool, so most people do not use bitcoin for commercial use, but for their own personal use.

Actually there are now online shopping platform that are now accepting bitcoin as payment. Bitcoin is now considering as an asset and the demand to it is continuing to grow. Actually, many more people are now prefer to use it than fiat money in terms of payment.

Don't worry if now not available using bitcoin for currency digital payment with offline and online shop transaction I think later when bitcoin have higher price many companies and governments want adopt and make bitcoin become legal transaction digital currency payment.

someday it will happen , when many companies and government recognized as product of technology  bitcoin adoption will happen soon. Bitcoin will bring more effectiveness and Investment value . today we see bitcoin already traded in  futures and it means giant companies already considered it as good portofolio  ,in near future when bitcoin bearish trend finished we will see price increase smoothly and many merchant will start accept bitcoin legally.

Maybe the time that you are saying is when the time where the price pf Bitcoin would be much more stable because for now since there are a lot of potential for price to shoot up then people had been treating as a form of investment seeing how valuable it is than using it on commerce. Though there are people, business who are using it for commerce but some people aren’t willing to spend it but rather they would prefer to hoard it or just trade it. I think is farther in the future for this would happen.

Most of the time, I often see only betting websites that accept payments in bitcoin or other top alts. In addition, services outside of normal life will not accept because they realize the risks of bitcoin fluctuations. for many people to want to use bitcoin or other types of stablecoins, it is better to be widely used for payment in many services and it must be stable.
Although I am a fan of cryptocurrency, I still don't see the utility (except for gambling) :D

I have used it a lot of times for business and I still use it for today. I don't only use it for business, I also use it as a means of transaction. I don't live with most of my family members , they are all living in different countries and I have taught them about Bitcoin and we have all been using it as a means to send and receive money from each other since we are not living in the same country.

I discovered Bitcoin in the year 2014, and before then I have always stressed myself whenever I want to send money to my family. I would usually go to the bank and fill the Western Union form and then pay in money and wait for when it will arrive to their side, same thing with them. With Bitcoin, I just send the money and they get it that same minute and exchange and withdraw the money through exchanges like Luno or Coinbase.

I used it to buy a computer part at NewEgg. It was pretty cool.

With people use bitcoin for currency digital payment maybe they will continue for start with bitcoin as currency but for every one have make bitcoin as investing and trading where buy bitcoin with higher price last 2017 and now they have gone and forget about bitcoin because ever lost much money with bitcoin and altcoin investing, they do not want to try for investing with bitcoin and altcoin again.

I am looking website accepted bitcoin as payment transaction, for using bitcoin with offline transaction on market still not support because my country not accepted bitcoin for currency payment but available for investing only. There are many website and companies have accepted bitcoin as legal payment and not worry when my country still illegal using bitcoin.

Maybe soon, your country will legalize bitcoin payment. There are still reasons why they keep away these cryptocurrency to their citizens. Maybe, the way they look at how frauds and anti money laundering might exist with it.
But for sure, they found out that bitcoin is good and make it as a means of payment. In my country, we have been neutralize about the regulation of bitcoin. But then, there are crypto lovers which they use to buy things in online. However, I do not yet use bitcoin directly as a payment rather i convert it to fiat just to buy goods.

I use bitcoin as a payment for utilities and there is nothing like this. I also use Bitcoin as a payment for everything that interests me in everyday life.

This is so exciting and relieving to see the practical applications of bitcoin in real life. We need more and more people to use bitcoin for paying the dues of their daily utilities and needs so that other people can get attracted to this currency as well. We need more and more people in this market to get it legalized all over the world. Legalization will further increase the value of bitcoin leaving all of us richer.

I would love to have the opportunity to use bitcoin in my everyday life but there are no businesses accepting bitcoin in my community, in fact I have even take the time to ask if those businesses focusing in technology have any desire to accept bitcoin as a form of payment and most of those owners have never heard of bitcoin and that is really disappointing because it means I will not be able to use my bitcoin to buy the stuff I want in a long time.

Everyone expects the same and the same as me to be able to use bitcoin as a payment in everyday life like fiat, but for now I can only use it to convert bitcoin to fiat to use any payment.
but with the growth of bitcoin that continues to grow well and sooner or later bitcoin will definitely function as a means of payment, it only takes time and patience to prove everything.

Adoption is still on the move and thats why we cant make use of our btc to use it on daily basis due to this pace where it isnt really accepted worldwide but at least
we do see that there were already merchants that do consider out on using or accepting btc or crypto as a payment and for a certain crypto user do live on that country
would really benefit out in terms of payment option.Theres no need for us to convert from time to time if we do tend to use it up when purchasing goods or services.

I am still a beginner here in crypto world but, I see the potential of bitcoin currency in many financial transactions althrought the globe, still, for now, I ought to learn more first about bitcoin before spending it in real life and some other things. I want to save and invest it so my bitcoin would grow more and have a high income.

there are still many pros and cons now that bitcoin can be used like a fiat currency. every country has its own reasons so it cannot be used as a currency. certainly at this time many countries have started to release the dollar as the main reference currency

i have never used any cryptocurrency for daily usage. i have always been thinking that crypto ecosystem is at the very beginning stage and it is still a little bit early for me to use it. moreover it does not sound nice for me to spend my cryptocurrencies to buy something. i invested in them to make profit, not to spend when they are cheap.

Right from the start, since bitcoin isn't really widely used yet before, I am using it only to sell prepaid loads to my friends online. So they can pay me in bitcoin even if we aren't close enough. With this, I thought of better ideas to sell some services such as computer troubleshooting techniques online so that I could earn bitcoin and help others even anonymously. Though, the hard part for me is to sell and buy goods and items in bitcoin to other people because I still have trust issues to spend bitcoin and to wait for the item to be delivered.

Keep doing that. You should look for the long term opportunity of having bitcoin compare to using it as a currency to pay services or things that you are buying online or offline. Even though there are stores here near to my place that accept bitcoin, I still keep it because I know that it will be worth more in the future.

Nothing wrong with that but it is also important to begin to use our cryptocurrencies as currencies otherwise no one is going to accept them as a form of payment because no one is using them and if that happens we are never going to get the adoption that we want and ironically you are not going to get the profits that you want either as your investment will begin to go down in value as it is only used by speculators, as you can see we are in a very interesting stage in the development of this market but if we overcome it I think this will be the last hurdle we need to get past so finally people begin to notice cryptocurrencies.

In my side, I use bitcoin as my main source of funds then convert it to fiat. but as bitcoin itself I haven't try it yet because there is no such establishments will accept bitcoin as payment as of now. if there is one that will accept soon then I will make bitcoin as my main option for my transaction everyday.

Honestly, i earn bitcoin by trading, investment, and joining signature campaigns. I been able to buy goods and pay bills using my bitcoin by converting it into fiat because there are only few stores who accepts bitcoin in our country. I can only buy things using my bitcoins through online stores.

Sure, I shop online with Bitcoin regularly. Purse.io gives great discounts on anything from Amazon I would have bought anyhow.  I've still yet to incorporate it into my business dealings. Something of a credibility issue at the moment that I'm not prepared to deal with. Later, I suspect it will be commonplace and much easier and more acceptable to incorporate. However, I'm about to explore internal payments via BTC in my business as a replacement to more expensive centralized solutions.
Bitcoin still needs massive education in the retail space and significant discounts are only partially working at the moment.
Volatile prices are what scares retail away right now.  Personally, I'm not convinced that Bitcoin will end up as a currency or that it needs to.

Yep, I have done a lot of times and I’m still doing it till now. Right from the start it has always been about using bitcoin for doing business and receiving payment. First I started with Bitcoin as time goes on I started to use Ethereum as well. So, I started with making use of it for a regular transaction before I got hooked with investment as well and it has been really good.

But, anyone making use of bitcoin really has to be careful and mind who they are sending the money to, to avoid sending to the wrong and losing their money.

Enabling bitcoin API is not the big deal for any business people. But the fact and the main problem is there by the government only. If the government allows to use the Bitcoin mode of payment.
We may find the investors and normal people to use the BTC but this world politics and Government is the biggest problem as of now.

When something gets big opposition, through the opposition itself we can determine the potential of the specific thing. Here we are about to discuss on the usage of bitcoin into commerce. For instance, right now most of the transactions were in the form of bitcoin were done. Normal people and investors to use bitcoin same as currency takes more time.

Have used crypto to spend, in my eyes no point in not using something that is meant to have transactional value.  Sites like anchor-x.io (used to be bitcoinsuperstore) you can literally buy anything you want there from goods to travel to food.  And an added bonus of being able to spend Viacoin there.  ;D

E commerce is becoming more popular all over the world, the customers are also increasing because it is very convenient to use. There are now many emerging e commerce allover the world but the problem is the payment system, there are only e commerce platform that are willing to accept bitcoin as payment. The bitcoin users are now increasing, e commerce platforms should now adopt cryptocurrencies to increase their sales and also awareness about bitcoin.

My total source of income is earning Tokens and Ether since two years ago. Naturally, I take my tokens to the exchange, I acquire Ether because the fees are lower to withdraw, then I make a quick exchange (swap) in another exchange platform to BTCitcoin.
As in my country, the merchants still do not accept cryptocurrencies. I sell my bitcoin in ATMs online. I always make a small reserve in my portfolio to save.
Seeing it between the lines "I make purchases with my BTCitcoin but the merchants don't know it yet  :)".
I think that adoption will come in countries where their currencies are unstable and with high inflation sooner rather than later.

More and more e-commerce companies are starting to allow bitcoin as a means of payment. they netted bitcoiners as new customers, besides that I think they calculated that bitcoin would be the future of payment tools. so in addition to marketing their products, large companies can invest, moreover the price is predicted to increase

To me bitcoin is just a long-term investment, there are very few services that use bitcoin to pay, so I often exchange them for fiat money, I think it's not like they don't want to use bitcoin to buy goods. but because there are very few payments using bitcoins, want many people use it, there are necessary to have many services that use bitcoin as payment methods.

I also oftenly exchange my bitcoin into fiats because i need to provide the the basic needs of family and pay the bills at home, and bitcoin is not yet accepted in our country, that is why i can't use my bitcoin as a payment method in real stores. I can only use my bitcoin in onlone shopping sites and buying prepaid loads because here in my country we use our wallets to make online transactions.

In my opinion the number of people who use cryptocurrency in real life is still very small, because indeed the number of countries
that legalize cryptocurrency is also still small. Including I also can not use cryptocurrency in real life because my country forbids
cryptocurrency as a payment, but even so I am still optimistic that in the future cryptocurrency can be used globally throughout
the world. Indeed we can only be patient until it really happens.

I know bitcoin from 2017 and never buy anything except marketing services via net for BTC.

I bought beer and fries a few years ago with coins that my GPU mined.

My most expensive beer so far.

Bitcoin is definitely on daily basis is experiencing great increase in the number of users and big companies always want to get hands on businesses or ideas that are appealing masses in order to make huge money. No company would like to stay out dated in the mode of payments so they are either already providing this option to people or sooner going to do so. It is the need of time.

I wouldn't trust half of the responses here to be honest. Except from the guys I know well, the familiar faces.

My bet is, if you can get the person to sign a bitcoin address, he's probably also used it for actual commerce (and for me anyway, even basic p2p sends count, that's commerce to me). But if the guy can't sign, then he probably doesn't own his pricate keys. Then he's probably never spent a satoshi to buy or pay for anything online.

Well that must sucks man but I wonder how you can buy those back then when bitcoin is sitll not a thing or atleast rarely considered as payment method?. Is it the same case as the legendary pizza guy?

I did make a quite transaction using crypto and using it for commercial purpose is like a habit for me as of now.

It was almost unimaginable for most people that bitcoin will make the progress that has made in such a short amount of time, I remember that when the bull market of 2017 was just beginning many people were predicting that bitcoin will reach 2000 dollars and then it will crash, and to be honest I had a similar prediction and then bitcoin grew up 10 times that amount, I remember that instance because I was part of the market back then but I'm pretty sure that happened several times in the past and most likely it will keep happening so there is no point in regretting such purchase.

Likewise, I have never used bitcoin and never held it to use it for payment. I only hold bitcoins for money and for money, and besides, there is no reason at all. but actually we can pay with bitcoin in our familiar crypto community. For example, my family has a television and I want to pay for it with 0.5 bitcoin, I post it on facebook and in the crypto community, there will definitely be people buying it. I have tried and I only see bitcoin capable of internal transactions, in addition, there is no store want to hold bitcoin.

When a store accept bitcoin as a mode of payment for their items then it means that they will automatically convert it into fiat once they received it because they want to make sure that they will get the exact value of bitcoin in terms of fiat and they do not want to lose some of their profit because of the volatility. That is the truth behind accepting bitcoin as a mode of payment and also the reason why most of the stores don't prefer bitcoin as a mode of payment because of its volatility.

I currently use Crypto for my day to day expenses as much as I possibly can and products like Taps  (https://www.tap.global) prepaid card and other crypto cards are making it more and more of a possibility. I think these cards are going to push crypto adoption in a good direction.

Same thin with me. The only thing that I am doing right now is to store all of the money that I have and use it for internet transactions like prepaid loads in our country and item payment online. Mostly, bitcoin is used to be able to pay internet, water, electricity bills in our country. Plus the fact that it has rebate so it is beneficial.

Mainly i use crypto for mobile top up and online payments,If compare with fiat it is costly but the benefit is that you get services efficiently.If you are at remote area and need for mobile top up and online top up with crypto is fast and easier way to connect again with friends circle and family.

ICO projects and investment platform also use third party to accept crypto payments like,coinpayments etc.It seems that people want use crypto in daily life but the main hurdle they face legality issue of crypto if it will resolved crypto users will increased.

Yes, that is how Bitcoin payments model is functioning but you have to admit that is only logical.
With accepting Bitcoin as a payment method merchants accept quite a big risk so they have to mitigate potential loss and coverting Bitcoin immediately into fiat is the only way.

Indeed. It is really convenient that they are already online wallets that can actually help us to pay all of our bills and make payments in online shopping, so that we don't have to withdraw our bitcoins just to do this kind of things. I hope that we can really use our bitcoins as a payment method in every retail stores for more convenience.

Based on my observation, there are only few people that are purchasing and spending their bitcoins in commerce. There is a misconception that created in the community where they prefer to hold than to spend. They keep saying "hodl" everytime and for them it is really a waste of opportu ity for those who spend. They do not understand that there are two types of bitcoin users, there are people who hold and there are people who spend because they are seeking convenience through payment system.

I have used bitcoin for electricity tokens and internet payments. in my country, some online stores have accepted payment through BTC. but only for digital products. even some accepted altcoins like dogecoin. yeah, bitcoin isn't widely used in my country yet. hope someday I can buy vegetables with Bitcoin / altcoin.

Experience in the past, there are many commerce who accept bitcoin for payment and even I asked the commerce, whether I can pay it in bitcoin and they provide a link where I can do it and that is a good alternative, Imo. But what is happening right now I feel has been greatly reduced and changed in terms of the real use of bitcoin because there might be a regulation that has changed as far as I know. That's what I experienced at least, for some reason the rules that were applied caused a narrowing for the real use of crypto.

It will be applicable soon, even small stores and shopping centers will accept it as a method of payment. I read few days back that coffee shops and grocery centers have started adopting it as a method of payment. In California a guy pay his coffee bill with this method. Similarly another one pay the peanut packet bill by using it. This is an indication of bright future where it will be adopted as a method of payment everywhere.

I am also getting the same positive news and this is a great sign for all of us. This means that the market is growing without the effect of haters, scammers or criticizers. Such news will give us more motivation. We should now focus more on the states where very few people know what crypto and Bitcoin is, especially the underdeveloped countries at it would also make their economy strong.

Underdeveloped countries and developing countries whose governments have not yet supported the existence of crypto, of course, only a few are found bitcoiner. but with the news and almost anyone can access the internet, the news will spread quickly and people will open their minds