2013-11-10 Business Insider If You Believe In Bitcoin, You Should Never Buy Anyt

[BTCtrader71]

Joe Weisenthal offers the following critique of bitcoin:

http://www.businessinsider.com/if-you-believe-in-bitcoin-you-should-never-buy-anything-in-bitcoin-2013-11

The point that he makes (which is that volatility is not good for currency) is a valid one; however, he overstates the case using a remarkably twisted line of reasoning.

I find myself paradoxically encouraged when I see outspoken detractors of bitcoin resort to flawed arguments like the one in this article. It means the detractors don't have the ammunition they think they need to convince people not to accept bitcoin.

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[p2pbucks]

use bitcoins then buy back , it's simple

[LiteCoinGuy]

just hold & safe some BTC and also use BTC on the internet. wheres the problem?

[Raoul Duke]

10000 BTC pizza, anyone?
I myself have a kindle fire that costed 40 BTC(back when they were worth ~ €3 each).
We will not listen to silly journalists and we'll just keep on spending our Bitcoins and earning more to spend again.

[grondilu]

So the guy is basically restating Gresham's law.

Nothing new under the Sun.

[proudhon]

LOL, Hi Joe, welcome to a discussion this community has been having since like July 2010.

[TTBit]

So frustrating that only half the story continues to be told.

So if I believe in the US dollar, I should never work for it? I do $1000 worth of work today and it is only worth $900 in a year. Take this to the logical conclusion and there should be few working and a whole bunch of debt as people fight to borrow to consume today and pay tomorrow.

It is true that you should not *SPEND* a deflationary currency as much as an inflating currency (btc and USD here), but you should want to *WORK/PRODUCE* for it. Wherever that market meets between employee and employer is up to them.

A $25 pizza went for 10,000 bitcoins a few years back. Today, that pizza is about 0.08 btc. This is hyper-deflation never seen before on the planet. And yet, is the bitcoin economy larger today or 3 years ago? A keynesian clown would have you believe the former. These boards are crawling with people wishing to work and sell goods for BTC. As a bonus, there is very little lending, very little debt denominated in BTC. This is the benefit of a strong currency.

[proudhon]

Take this to the logical conclusion and there should be few working and a whole bunch of debt as people fight to borrow to consume today and pay tomorrow.

Thankfully the worldwide debt based system hasn't ever resulted any significant problems due to people and businesses borrowing today to pay tomorrow.

[superduh]

i love it when people who write for "credible" outlets use 3rd grade logic. it's quite remarkable

[RoadToHell]

The red herring is the implication that people spending fiat currencies are not making silly choices when they choose to spend them and that people spending btc are making a silly choice.  But that masks the reality that people spending fiat are making a choice not to buy bitcoins.  The price of bitcoin is going to do whatever the price of bitcoin is going to do.  At any point in time, you have a specific amount of stored value in currencies.  Which currency they are in at that instant is irrelevant.  You make a choice on what to do with that stored value based on quite a few variables and then tomorrow you have a different specific amount of stored value.  If I buy a pizza today, does it matter if the currency is USD, EUROS, or BTC?

[Rygon]

So the guy is basically restating Gresham's law.

Nothing new under the Sun.

He's making a great argument for die-hard believers to borrow as much as possible fiat and purchasing bitcoins. And historically, that has been a very good bet, even when borrowing at 20% or 30% APR. And I'm sure there are serious believers who have done exacly that and are sitting on large profits.

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

Via Reddit wrt. Mr. Weisenthal:

submitted 15 minutes ago by 3itc0inEntrepreneur

You probably heard all the ruckus last week when Joe called Bitcoin a "Joke"... well I have a feeling we won't be hearing much from his corner anymore on the topic. http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-is-a-currency-for-clowns-2013-11

itBIT, the new Bitcoin exchange that has landed over 5.5 million in venture funding from 3 different parties- one of which is RRE Ventures. RRE Ventures is a venture funder of Business Insider (where Joe works). In addition to investing several million dollars in BI, RRE's cofounder sits on the Board of Directors for Business Insider. http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/rre-ventures

Knowing Henry Blodget background, it would not be good business to have your Editor-in-Chief dogging and attacking your shareholders other investments. Especially considering how much time BI spends glorifying Jeff Bezos, one of their other key shareholders.

Connect the dots, Joe will probably have to shut his mouth and Jim Edward will handle most of the BI stories on bitcoin for now on. Good riddance.

[Patel]

BusinessInsider are retards.

The point is not to spend from your savings.

Buy at market price --> Send at market price

You use the same amount of money as you would swiping your credit card + your savings increases in value.

[proudhon]

Via Reddit wrt. Mr. Weisenthal:

submitted 15 minutes ago by 3itc0inEntrepreneur

You probably heard all the ruckus last week when Joe called Bitcoin a "Joke"... well I have a feeling we won't be hearing much from his corner anymore on the topic. http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-is-a-currency-for-clowns-2013-11

itBIT, the new Bitcoin exchange that has landed over 5.5 million in venture funding from 3 different parties- one of which is RRE Ventures. RRE Ventures is a venture funder of Business Insider (where Joe works). In addition to investing several million dollars in BI, RRE's cofounder sits on the Board of Directors for Business Insider. http://www.crunchbase.com/financial-organization/rre-ventures

Knowing Henry Blodget background, it would not be good business to have your Editor-in-Chief dogging and attacking your shareholders other investments. Especially considering how much time BI spends glorifying Jeff Bezos, one of their other key shareholders.

Connect the dots, Joe will probably have to shut his mouth and Jim Edward will handle most of the BI stories on bitcoin for now on. Good riddance.

I hope they don't force him not to express his views about bitcoin, merely because he disagrees about its utility and value, and I'm skeptical that they would.  Granted, it'd be nice if he could post more thoughtfully about the topic (I know that may sound odd coming from me...).

[challen]

He's just trolling bitcoiners because he knows he will get more hits and comments if he writes about bitcoin compared to anything else.