How much of a bubble is this?

[sgbett]

As a few smart people have wisely pointed out, people are not buying Bitcoins to spend them.  I mean, how stupid do you have to be to believe that.  Let's look at it:

Scenario A:

Mary wants to buy a new TV.  That TV costs $500.  She goes to her favorite online store, types in her debit card number and her debit card is charged. TV arrives in about a week.

Total Cost:  $500
Total Time:  ~ 1 week

Scenario B:

Mary wants to buy a new TV.  That TV costs $500.  Mary also heard the hype on a new technology called Bitcoin and figured this is the best payment method for her.  So, Mary goes on Coinbase and purchases $500 worth of Bitcoin and pays 1%.  Then she waits a week.  When the Bitcoin's finally arrive, she goes to her favorite online store, only to find that they don't accept Bitcoin.  

Scenario C:

But lets assume her favorite store does take Bitcoin.    Mary wants to buy a new TV.  That TV costs $500.  Mary also heard the hype on a new technology called Bitcoin and figured this is the best payment method for her.  So, Mary goes on Coinbase and purchases $500 worth of Bitcoin and pays 1%.  Then she waits a week to get her Bitcoins.  And it's a good thing because it will take Mary at least that to figure out how to safely store her new Bitcoins and download the blockchain.  Or, maybe she just stores them on Coinbase, which is the ideal way to store Bitcoins anyway.    When the Bitcoin's finally arrive, she goes to her favorite online store, pays for the TV with her $500 worth of Bitcoins and the TV arrives in about a week.

Total Cost:  $505
Total Time:  ~ 2 weeks

Moral of the story.  GET REAL!  There is no Bitcoin "adoption" because there is almost nothing to adopt.  You can barely use them.  Cash and debit cards are FAR superior to Bitcoin's, as it relates to making everyday transactions. The day may come where this is no longer true, but that day is not today, nor any day during this bubble inflation.  The is pure speculative buying.  People are simply looking to get a high ROI.  If you believe anything contrary to that, you are delusional and I would NEVER take advice from you because you simply do not live in reality.

The main reason this is a terrible argument, is that you just assume mary has $500.

Either she has both BTC and Dollars. Or she has none. Either way all your scenarios become a lot less polar.

[ScrapOfCat]

It's weird that everyone keeps saying you can't buy anything with bitcoins.  As of now, you can buy most of the major currencies in the world with bitcoins.  The only people for whom that would be a problem is people like me that didn't mine them, but instead got btc by selling some of their USD.  But if I can't spend btc directly when the time comes, I'll just buy some local currency and use that instead.

[ex-trader]

It's weird that everyone keeps saying you can't buy anything with bitcoins.  As of now, you can buy most of the major currencies in the world with bitcoins.  The only people for whom that would be a problem is people like me that didn't mine them, but instead got btc by selling some of their USD.  But if I can't spend btc directly when the time comes, I'll just buy some local currency and use that instead.

You miss the point, why would people buy BTC as a currency, just so they can sell it again when they need to spend it.....and face two transaction costs and also the risk of it going down while they hold it.

[piramida]

You miss the point, why would people buy BTC as a currency, just so they can sell it again when they need to spend it.....and face two transaction costs and also the risk of it going down while they hold it.

otherwise you face the certainty of your USD depreciating every day you hold it by a constant %. I'd rather take a risk of (temporary) price dive.

[ScrapOfCat]

It's weird that everyone keeps saying you can't buy anything with bitcoins.  As of now, you can buy most of the major currencies in the world with bitcoins.  The only people for whom that would be a problem is people like me that didn't mine them, but instead got btc by selling some of their USD.  But if I can't spend btc directly when the time comes, I'll just buy some local currency and use that instead.

You miss the point, why would people buy BTC as a currency, just so they can sell it again when they need to spend it.....and face two transaction costs and also the risk of it going down while they hold it.

I think you may have missed my point.  People who mine btc can buy all kinds of things with it.  At the moment they have to do so by buying local currency first, but this probably won't always be the case. 

I had some US dollars that I wasn't planning to buy anything with in the near future, and since I was getting very little interest on them I decided to sell them.  When I need to buy something, I'll either buy it directly with btc or buy some of whatever local currency is desired by the seller.