Why aren't more people buying bitcoins?

[airdata]

When I got into bitcoin prices were where they are now, and difficulty level was 1,500,000 less than it is now.  So at that time, mining made sense.

Right now, mining and investing in mining hardware really doesnt make much sense.  Buying bitcoins right now is a much better investment, IMO. 

[Herodes]

Well, there's been many failures related to bitcoin over the last months.

- mtGox hacking
- MyBitCoin scandal
- Bitomat.pl failure (although mtGox generously bought them and reinstated the lost funds)
- Bruce Wagner revealed as a conman (now, recently).

This coupled with lack of major press (?), and a bit of a hard time to get started with bitcoins,
the forum turning into a trollplace, it's not that easy for a newbe to get into bitcoins. And now,
with a declining price, it may not look like the best investment to be buying at the moment.

Who knows where we would have been if everything went smooth, and there was no failures?

[N12]

Because the price is going down.

[Piper67]

Actually, people aren't buying bitcoins because they're not particularly easy to buy. If you're a regular Joe who just heard about Bitcoin and thinks it's an idea with some merit, think of what you have to do in order to just get your hands on 100 BTC.

That's one of the reasons I am so keen on the idea of a Bitcoin ATM. Now, if someone could just come up with one... 

[Piper67]

My question is why are all the trolls coming in saying sell sell sell!  instead of buy buy buy!!!   we have the wrong kind of trolls. 

I consider myself a noobie, but after the second "THE END IS HERE"  Or "SELL SELL SELL!" thread  its so obvious they are trolling.  That got me thinking why havent we had any "buy!" trolls ?

Heh, in a weird way, it's a vote of confidence in Bitcoin. The trolls yell SELL SELL SELL, because they want more BTC. If they wanted more dollars, they'd be yelling BUY BUY BUY.

[airdata]

Because the price is going down.

Best time to buy!

Actually, people aren't buying bitcoins because they're not particularly easy to buy. If you're a regular Joe who just heard about Bitcoin and thinks it's an idea with some merit, think of what you have to do in order to just get your hands on 100 BTC.

That's one of the reasons I am so keen on the idea of a Bitcoin ATM. Now, if someone could just come up with one...  

True...  There would be alot more buyers if people could just whip out their credit card or use their paypal account.  I've stressed in many other threads that the anonymity of bitcoin is horrible for its growth since it gives scammers all sorts of easy targets with no risk of punishment.

[N12]

Best time to buy!

Have you said the same thing at 25, 20, 15 and 10 USD?

[Blackout]

I agree that the main thing causing lack of growth of bitcoin is that it is just a geeky pain in the ass not geared towards the common person and the common person would not even understand a need / use for it except maybe for two things right now:

#1 silk road

College kids find out about silk road, which only takes bitcoin, which leads them to find out about bitcoin and want to buy stuff.  It is ridiculous but this is probably the number one thing holding the bitcoin to any real value right now because why in the hell would you go through all the hoops and hassles for anything else?  Wire money to some strange internet company you no nothing about to get a weird intermediate currency / commodity to buy what? Overpriced socks and bad dry and canned food? Why not just BUY the stuff with your currency.

2 - gambling sites

People love gambling and bitcoin is perfect for this - we haven't seen any major sites embrace it but little ones have popped up.  So you can actually play poker online for real money, but it's still a pain in the ass for the average joe.

All other bitcoin value right now (which I guess would be the #3 thing pegging it to any value) is based on speculation from miners and computer geeks and some investors / traders buying and selling - or a few people trying to move money around without being taxed / noticed. There are some exeptions with the very very few trendy places in NYC and a few other tech hubs in the world that actually have real places that accept bitcoins fpr tangible things like food and items without markups - but again the question begs - why would you use bitcoins there if you are a REGULAR person? You wouldn't, because you would just use your normal currency.  The people spending bitcoins at these places right now are miners who are feeling cool that they got lunch out of letting their gpus run.

I have tried to spread bitcoin and the idea of it to non tech friends and it's a hard sell - unless they are a stoner and you tell them about silk road, then they are motivated.

There needs to be the SAME level of motivation for the average joe and it needs to be easy and greatly improved - the client, the wallet issues, backing them up securely - this all needs to be in a nice friendly app / gui for dummies - otherwise this is going to remain a technotoy currency for hobbyists, despite its lofty ideas. Average people don't want to hear about keys and encryption, it makes them run away, this needs to be built in to the client with backup built in and "and idiots guide" book pdf with the client or app.

The easiest / fastest way to get bitcoins so far is exchB by far (for U.S,).  You deposit cash, you get your money on account very fast - BUT - this is STILL too complex for the average joe... he wants to go to a place like a bank and just hand  money over and get the bitcoins and buy his stuff on silk road or play his poker or send his money to friends in a third world country.  Average joe wants to buy some bitcoins right now and hand over the money and have the coins - average joe is not a stock market person and doesn't understand that now he has to put in a 'bid' order... "what's that?" says average joe? screw this and just uses his cash.


Bitcoin atms, and direct buy bitcoins at current price instantly needs to happen and sell in both directions easily and not on some IRC channel which is again, for geeks. Mom doesn't know what an IRC channel is. Mom knows what ebay is. If mom is really hip, mom might know what paypal is. That's as far as it goes.

The above two companies control the internet trading grid along with amazon, and for bitcoin to break through that grid it needs to be as easy, but of course, banks and ebay and paypal will see this as a threat - so it's hard to do anything direct credit card or paypal to bitcoin OFFICIALLY because it's a chargeback nightmare - but the deposit cash into an atm and get bitcoins might work.

Then there needs to be some more positive national TV coverage, and it just might work.. currently, it's geek hobby at best and only exists because of the above and miners spending and selling.

When the regular people want in, and have reason, and the massive layer of middlemen curs down, it could go through the roof. This is not currently happening though.

- Blackout

[tacotime]

Unrealistic ROI for miners

Basically at the current price miners are making a ton of cash, we will see some really crazy volumes (and investment) when the price hits 3-5$ USD.  No one at the moment wants to be giving their money to miners who are making 80% ROI, though, why pay $2 for a bunch of bananas that you by all calculations are only worth $1?  Investors aren't dumb and can tell when they are being ripped off.

BTC going down to 3-5$ USD/BTC will be the best thing to ever happen to bitcoin, I think

[da2ce7]

BTC going down to 3-5$ USD/BTC will be the best thing to ever happen to bitcoin, I think

Everyday that goes past and bitcoin doesn’t drop down so low; I'm getting more and more bullish.

Something's Gotta Give.

I don't believe that the big investors have withdrawn their funds from mogos and the other trading sites... I suspect that those funds are just sitting there waiting for the next rally.  However the market is much wiser now, I think that once the goods and services economy finally reaches a certain threshold we will see the next big massive rally.  (It is clear that the global investment interest in bitcoin is much more than $80M USD now)

It is all about picking the bottom and buying big.

Let’s see... I don't want to commit to a time-frame, but my gut is starting to get excited again.

[fcmatt]

I do not think anyone has mentioned the early adopter issue too.
All it takes is for one early adopter to decide, for example, that he would like to buy a really
nice car or a down payment on a second home. So he goes onto an exchange and sells 5000+
BTC at once or over a week period.

I know some people have done some tracking of the early coins and was not the conclusion that
quite a few were not moving around? Thus being held by these "early adopters".

So buying at 10-15 could be a mid term mistake when a few individuals can hammer the price
with a few clicks/taps of the mouse/keyboard. And eventually they will I bet.

But this is all speculation. I do not buy BTC. I mine them and feel more comfortable in my current position.

[S3052]

I agree that the main thing causing lack of growth of bitcoin is that it is just a geeky pain in the ass not geared towards the common person and the common person would not even understand a need / use for it except maybe for two things right now:

#1 silk road

College kids find out about silk road, which only takes bitcoin, which leads them to find out about bitcoin and want to buy stuff.  It is ridiculous but this is probably the number one thing holding the bitcoin to any real value right now because why in the hell would you go through all the hoops and hassles for anything else?  Wire money to some strange internet company you no nothing about to get a weird intermediate currency / commodity to buy what? Overpriced socks and bad dry and canned food? Why not just BUY the stuff with your currency.

2 - gambling sites

People love gambling and bitcoin is perfect for this - we haven't seen any major sites embrace it but little ones have popped up.  So you can actually play poker online for real money, but it's still a pain in the ass for the average joe.

All other bitcoin value right now (which I guess would be the #3 thing pegging it to any value) is based on speculation from miners and computer geeks and some investors / traders buying and selling - or a few people trying to move money around without being taxed / noticed. There are some exeptions with the very very few trendy places in NYC and a few other tech hubs in the world that actually have real places that accept bitcoins fpr tangible things like food and items without markups - but again the question begs - why would you use bitcoins there if you are a REGULAR person? You wouldn't, because you would just use your normal currency.  The people spending bitcoins at these places right now are miners who are feeling cool that they got lunch out of letting their gpus run.

I have tried to spread bitcoin and the idea of it to non tech friends and it's a hard sell - unless they are a stoner and you tell them about silk road, then they are motivated.

There needs to be the SAME level of motivation for the average joe and it needs to be easy and greatly improved - the client, the wallet issues, backing them up securely - this all needs to be in a nice friendly app / gui for dummies - otherwise this is going to remain a technotoy currency for hobbyists, despite its lofty ideas. Average people don't want to hear about keys and encryption, it makes them run away, this needs to be built in to the client with backup built in and "and idiots guide" book pdf with the client or app.

The easiest / fastest way to get bitcoins so far is exchB by far (for U.S,).  You deposit cash, you get your money on account very fast - BUT - this is STILL too complex for the average joe... he wants to go to a place like a bank and just hand  money over and get the bitcoins and buy his stuff on silk road or play his poker or send his money to friends in a third world country.  Average joe wants to buy some bitcoins right now and hand over the money and have the coins - average joe is not a stock market person and doesn't understand that now he has to put in a 'bid' order... "what's that?" says average joe? screw this and just uses his cash.


Bitcoin atms, and direct buy bitcoins at current price instantly needs to happen and sell in both directions easily and not on some IRC channel which is again, for geeks. Mom doesn't know what an IRC channel is. Mom knows what ebay is. If mom is really hip, mom might know what paypal is. That's as far as it goes.

The above two companies control the internet trading grid along with amazon, and for bitcoin to break through that grid it needs to be as easy, but of course, banks and ebay and paypal will see this as a threat - so it's hard to do anything direct credit card or paypal to bitcoin OFFICIALLY because it's a chargeback nightmare - but the deposit cash into an atm and get bitcoins might work.

Then there needs to be some more positive national TV coverage, and it just might work.. currently, it's geek hobby at best and only exists because of the above and miners spending and selling.

When the regular people want in, and have reason, and the massive layer of middlemen curs down, it could go through the roof. This is not currently happening though.

- Blackout

+1. Well written and so true.

By the way, to the point that we need more positive media coverage: We are starting a PR campaign soon (see thread from piper).

[GeniuSxBoY]

Not really any hope for bitcoin. New investors have enough data to see the continuous downward slide to $0.


We lost Bruce...
We lost Dwolla...
We lost Tradehill...
We lost Mybitcoin...
We lost investors...
We lost forum activity...


Only thing we've got is MtGox.




Silkkroad has nothing to do with ANYTHING. It was a fabricated website to get on the news.

[fcmatt]

Not really any hope for bitcoin. New investors have enough data to see the continuous downward slide to $0.


We lost Bruce...
We lost Dwolla...
We lost Tradehill...
We lost Mybitcoin...
We lost investors...
We lost forum activity...


Only thing we've got is MtGox.




Silkkroad has nothing to do with ANYTHING. It was a fabricated website to get on the news.

Bruce, Dwolla, Forum, etc... Are not Bitcoin. Investors come and go.
How do you figure we lost TradeHill?

When tradehill stopped using dwolla it was a pretty big hit for them. I moved to mtgox myself along with
many others. Mabye that is what he was thinking of?

[Blackout]

None of the things you mentioned are relevant except mybitcoin perhaps.

Silk road is fabricated? Really?  Then I suppose the stuff several people I know purchased and received and used is imaginary... just like bitcoin.

The issue, and I repeat, is getting bitcoin usable and adopted by regular people for convenient reasons for tangible things.  Do that, and it will skyrocket.

[Nagle]

Not really any hope for bitcoin. New investors have enough data to see the continuous downward slide to $0.


We lost Bruce...
We lost Dwolla...
We lost Tradehill...
We lost Mybitcoin...
We lost investors...
We lost forum activity...


Only thing we've got is MtGox.

Mt. Gox seems to have a major crisis about once a month. And we still don't know if 1) they have the financial strength to cover the losses they had in the break in, and 2) if they're trade on their own market. As the price goes down, and they have to pay out more cash than they take in, we'll find out about 1).

Remember, the trouble with Bitcoin "exchanges" is that they're also depository institutions, holding the funds of others.  Uninsured, unaudited depository institutions.  That didn't work out well for the customers of "online wallet" services.

Silkkroad has nothing to do with ANYTHING. It was a fabricated website to get on the news.

Silk Road appears to be real, but it's not clear how much Bitcoin traffic it generates.

[pekv2]

I will be buying some soon, it is such a great currency, I just like BTC so much. Easy transfers, everything is just easy with it. You are your own bank account without fees. I will definitely be sticking around for a long time.

[Blackout]

If it weren't for silk road I doubt anyone would even know about bitcoin.  That's what got all the major news coverage that got geeks mining. The wired article alone is like placing a million dollar ad out for bitcoin:

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/silkroad/

It is about a week after about that point that the price skyrocketed.  

http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#rg120zvztgSzm1g10zm2g25

Coincidence? I think not.

[fcmatt]

mtgox must be doing alright enough to buy that polish exchange for ?17000? BTC.

[coined]

he secretly started a fractional reserve system, users don't need to know