Because that's almost overwhelmingly likely to happen.

There is a very simple question anyone should be asking themselves, why isn't there one single established and properly legit business offering any type of investment with Bitcoin? There's no return possible.

And I don't mean places with a bearable track record so far, I mean your Coinbases and Geminis. Y'know, places that might actually be answerable to the law.

There are hundreds of thousands of BTC holders with coins doing nothing. If there was a safe way to invest them you'd most certainly know about it.

Don't forget the hoarders. There are a few people who have over 100,000. Chuck in lost coins too and realistically you might only need 3-5 BTC to be one in a million. A totally pointless stat but a bit of fun all the same.

https://bitflyer.jp/Commission?top_link&footer and click the British flag for the comprehensible version. There's a handful of charges but not many. I suppose they'll ramp up the margin and so on where some proper money lies.

Yup. Zero fees. And if that 400,000 figure is true then 399,000 of them will be foreigners looking for action. Japan really doesn't seem to have taken to Bitcoin in any way whatsoever.

That's just a tad confirmation bias heavy. Bitcoin is nowhere in the UK because of the banks and it's always been nowhere. The most successful UK exchange maintained its bank account by lying to the bank about what they were dealing in.

I doubt they regard it as a threat, just a monumental pain up the arse to deal with and zero upside for them.

That phrase was thrown around a great deal in 2014/15. It was usually a good signal for another few weeks of absolute nothing. However this time around there are many more interesting factors brewing.

Bored at $1000 is pretty darned cool when you think about it. Imagine predicting that a couple of years ago.

Most users don't treat it as a currency and never have. Only an honourable few use it as perhaps the original intention. It may well start being used as a currency once it's reached saturation. Something has to be store of value first before the currency aspect kicks in for most.

The very nature of its design discourages a high velocity. Deflation and spending don't go together especially if people believe it's going to keep on rising. I spend it occasionally but if I have crappy fiat to hand then that's going first.

Whatever banks feel about Bitcoin, they feel an awful lot more about the regulations they have to abide by. For a piddling amount of business they get an awful lot more head aches by being involved with BTC because they can't be sure where the money's coming from. Even if they loved it, they'd probably still say no for the sake of a quiet life.

Is there anyone here who's a habitual buyer of flights with Bitcoin?

I fancy getting around Europe a bit so need somewhere that isn't US centric like Cheapair as they don't have the most common carriers.

The most regular one that pops up in searches is abitsky from Lithuania and its multiples aliases like flysiesta but I can barely find any feedback about them.

Are there any experiences out there?

No. The more history it has the better as far as I'm concerned, even if it a lot of it is a bit negative. That makes its success all the more impressive to people who might come to it in the future. By now everyone's heard the word. If it brushes their lives in an interesting way then they'll already have had a whiff of what it is.  

Nothing can be sweetness and light all the time and Bitcoin's battered reputation should inspire a little more trust than some of the snake oil bollocks offered up elsewhere. It was the first and always will be. That's a lot of baggage. That's also a lot of trust earned.

Bitcoin would be nowhere near its current position without them. It has of course horrifically distorted Bitcoin's original purpose but you can't code out greed. I'd guess that only a small percentage of people here are using it purely as a means of transaction. Everyone else is speculating their arses off.

Personally I favour the simplest explanation which is - the Bitcoin ecosystem was largely the domain of fuckups, chancers and thieves for rather longer than it should have been. On top of that the price has been controlled by small numbers of people preying on a much larger number of scared kiddies who'll sell if there's a bum tweet.

Mining is a fluid thing that fluctuates constantly. It's quite possible the Chinese government may start sniffing around miners too. They must be doing some enormous OTC deals somewhere along the line.

Perhaps it'll come back to the rest of the world sooner than we realise. That would be a welcome development.

Where on Earth do you live? The last time I went any distance on a bus I got a nice smile from the driver and a Twix.

The leader that America, and indeed the entire world, deserves whatever that may entail.

Probably no customers and what few customers there were probably caused more trouble than it was worth. As someone else has mentioned, refunds and customers complaints would be a pain up the arse.

I really can't believe a large operation like that would expose themselves to volatility by not using a payment processor.

They may not like their profit statements if they fork into oblivion or find themselves subjected to a PoW change.

The hints people who've met the big players seem to be dropping is that a fair few are either uninterested or uneducated in the matters at hand. I cannae believe that people who've muscled their way into being the backbone of an experimental and speculative project don't have the foresight to look beyond their next electricity bill.

If you're not using BTC to spend, then the only other thing is parking value/speculating on the future. If enough people do want to spend and start using XMR or LTC then their values will be firmly on the rise too. Most people here are speculators and they'll stay in the coin that gives them the rise they're looking for.

If Bitcoin does become a lumbering beast there's enough bright sparks looking to pick up the slack with other projects. Most of them are shit of course but there are a few solid ones.

There aren't enough people with a sentimental attachment to BTC to completely guarantee its ascendance. If something else offers utility and sexy rises then the balance might tip faster than anyone would expect.

It's an unlikely outcome but it becomes ever more possible the more stagnant and fractious Bitcoinland becomes.

They'll all be nailed eventually. They're all run by identifiable people who aren't going to tell their government where to stick it. I've read elsewhere that Chinese Localbitcoins volume has exploded so that's another on their list to block.

Let's see if there's any Chinese market left once the smoke has cleared. If not then it'll be stuff like Bitsquare only. I can't say I'll be too sad.