Nobody is using crypto's to pay anymore

[buwaytress]

that is the logical move for anyone who is not a hardcore trader who cares only about making money. of course there is the buy high sell low situation but that doesn't mean people aren't going to spend 0.001-0.01BTC of what they have.

also and mostly i am talking based on BitPay stats. for example this chart from 2 years ago was the best thing i can show you. it maps number of processed transactions by BitPay (the bars) versus the price (the line). it shows an increase number of them during the ATH of 2013 and a big drop after price came down and then slow growth afterwards

this is the latest stats which is describing the same thing with 328% rise but it doesn't have the same pretty chart!

I suppose another "strategy" by hardcore holders who don't really want to get into the speculation game yet also want to take advantage of high prices, is to spend some Bitcoin when they feel is high, and then save the fiat for buying/replacing that Bitcoin at a lower price. Would help to explain the increased Bitpay transactions (I assume). Or is this also because merchants tend to try Bitpay when price is high, when they know more people are willing to release a finger or two on their Bitcoin holdings?

[figmentofmyass]

what makes you think that's what most people do? on the contrary, i think most people sell the bottom and/or buy the top. they get greedy when price is rising and don't want to sell. that's why the old warren buffet saying always applies.

that is the logical move for anyone who is not a hardcore trader who cares only about making money. of course there is the buy high sell low situation but that doesn't mean people aren't going to spend 0.001-0.01BTC of what they have.

that's true. i remember first getting into bitcoin to play poker on sealswithclubs back in 2012. i forgot about it, then when i saw the april 2013 bubble, i immediately bought amazon gcs with all my coins. then the price kept going up and i got hooked to the markets....

also and mostly i am talking based on BitPay stats. for example this chart from 2 years ago was the best thing i can show you. it maps number of processed transactions by BitPay (the bars) versus the price (the line). it shows an increase number of them during the ATH of 2013 and a big drop after price came down and then slow growth afterwards

good point. however, we should also note that total network transactions were strongly trending upwards through the april 2013 bubble, then sharply dropped from may-june 2013. we see an even more pronounced increase in total network activity from august-december 2017, during the last bubble: https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all&daysAverageString=7

this tells me there is a correlation between price bubbles and network activity---it's not just that more people are spending via bitpay. if there is an increase an network activity, we should expect some ~proportionate increase in bitpay activity as well.

[kaya11]

Maybe the first reason why people bought Bitcoin was never meant to use it to buy things and services, they bought it because they have believed they could double their money from it and the best case is make them rich in an instant. Imagine buying traditional stocks, wait for too long to get your investments back or you could gamble in crypto and make a fortune if you are lucky.

[jacee]

what makes you think that's what most people do? on the contrary, i think most people sell the bottom and/or buy the top. they get greedy when price is rising and don't want to sell. that's why the old warren buffet saying always applies.

that is the logical move for anyone who is not a hardcore trader who cares only about making money. of course there is the buy high sell low situation but that doesn't mean people aren't going to spend 0.001-0.01BTC of what they have.

This is true atleast for the people I know in my country that is using bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency. We get bitcoin trade them when it's high and buy more when it's low. Convert them to fiat and go on and spend it everywhere. The problem is even if we want to use cryptocurrency to pay for stuffs, there is not much merchant that is currently accepting them.

I myself would be willing to just use bitcoin to pay almost anywhere.

[marcbitcoins]

According to the latest report by bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/bitcoin-s-use-in-commerce-keeps-falling-even-as-volatility-eases

Well even i stop using Bitcoin as payment option not because i will quit Crypto but just in case the bullish market will rise up once again in which I believed that we are almost at the tip of waiting that our long waiting will be over that its about time to keep much bitcoin to join the ride when the bullish run will start. If the bullish market will start anytime now then i will be glad because i have kept lot of Cryptos for my future disposal.

[kryptqnick]

According to the latest report by bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-01/bitcoin-s-use-in-commerce-keeps-falling-even-as-volatility-eases

We all saw these huge transaction fees when the price skyrocketed at the end of 2017. Bitcoin lightning is supposed to solve the problem at least partially, however, and $20 is still a very good fee for expensive purchases. As of July 2018, one can find online shops selling tech goods, gift cards and book hotels. You can also transfer btc to your Microsoft account or buy airplane tickets on Cheapair.com. It is only a matter of time when major companies accept bitcoin (and perhaps other cryptos) as payment for any goods.

[teramit]

there are alternatives for btc that is fast and more acceptable by vendors. some altcoins maybe but btc is not a very good way of payment. that altoins should be more famous within vendors and people so they think to use it. Cryptopayment needs alot of time for acceptance. I think it is related with generation, people dont change their payment habits till they die, their children may use crypto but a lot of people dont need dont want. Just wait thats all.   

[ablelester]

Bitpay is a way of converting crypto into dollars before then passing it onto the vendor.  In theory that vendor is accepting the dollars and its Bitpay who handles the crypto itself, not exactly a crypto transaction.  Hopefully they are also monitoring other methods of exchanging value not just ones that register in FIAT because that'd be quite ironic to skip transactions purely done in crypto

Bitpay was (is?) the largest payment processor for Bitcoin. They are seriously hurting Bitcoins usage as a means of payment though. They started mandating that BIP70 is used for payments. This put a bad taste in many peoples mouth and caused many users to stop using Bitpay altogether. I'm unsure why they mandated BIP70 for payments, but it just overcomplicated things. I am certain that this has to do with the drop in commerce, and is what skewed the results of this "study". Maybe it's also in part to the fact that Bitcoin has been in a slump since 2017. A lot of people are likely hodling because of the general perception that we will be entering another bull market shortly, and buying something would result in a net loss in the short term.

This is yet another example of a clickbait headline by Bloomberg that misrepresents Bitcoin to make it look like we're all heading for a crash and it's not worth investing in. Bitpay, like mentioned above, is just a service, not the coin itself. So there was a shitty service that charged too much money for its transactions that people aren't using anymore and... no one is using Bitcoin anymore! Great conclusion Bloomberg!

These people are so blind in their biases they don't even recognize that their headlines don't match their article content anymore. What happened to the days of honest and objective reporting?

[magisterr]

This is absolutely lie and fud. More and more big organization accepting crypto now. Just news from yestarday: Starbucks will accept crypto as payment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/starbucks-partners-with-microsoft-ice-on-new-cryptocurrency.html

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Very interesting thread, unlike most threads on this board.

I personally don’t spend bitcoin now for two main reasons:

1)   I can’t make most of my everyday expenses with it.
2)   The current price. If I spend now I fell I’m losing money.

[Gaaara]

The unstable of value is the one reason bitcoin and other crypto cannot be used as a payment, for some big businesses it is okay to do so but realizing how much you earn but they will understand how much they can lose to since if you look at the price ranged from October 2017 to 2018 price goes down over $10k and for a business that accepts bitcoin that event is a disaster.

The other reason is they need to adjust the value of a certain product for its respective SRP and for that reason accepting bitcoin will cause too much work.

[figmentofmyass]

Bitpay is a way of converting crypto into dollars before then passing it onto the vendor.  In theory that vendor is accepting the dollars and its Bitpay who handles the crypto itself, not exactly a crypto transaction.  Hopefully they are also monitoring other methods of exchanging value not just ones that register in FIAT because that'd be quite ironic to skip transactions purely done in crypto

Bitpay was (is?) the largest payment processor for Bitcoin. They are seriously hurting Bitcoins usage as a means of payment though. They started mandating that BIP70 is used for payments. This put a bad taste in many peoples mouth and caused many users to stop using Bitpay altogether. I'm unsure why they mandated BIP70 for payments, but it just overcomplicated things. I am certain that this has to do with the drop in commerce, and is what skewed the results of this "study". Maybe it's also in part to the fact that Bitcoin has been in a slump since 2017. A lot of people are likely hodling because of the general perception that we will be entering another bull market shortly, and buying something would result in a net loss in the short term.

This is yet another example of a clickbait headline by Bloomberg that misrepresents Bitcoin to make it look like we're all heading for a crash and it's not worth investing in. Bitpay, like mentioned above, is just a service, not the coin itself. So there was a shitty service that charged too much money for its transactions that people aren't using anymore and... no one is using Bitcoin anymore! Great conclusion Bloomberg!

interesting points here! they became difficult to use for some (bip70), and expensive to use for others. i'd love to see a survey among those who've used bitpay and their feelings about the "network fees" and mandated bip70 usage. if less and less people are using bitpay, there could be other reasons for it too.

i've recently used a couple large merchants who didn't use bitpay (they used coingate and coinpayments). so bitpay is the biggest game in town by far, but i'm not convinced they own the market either. i think maybe their market share is even falling.

[geberger]

I agree that payments in crypto has declined and that is mainly because of 2 reasons, one is obviously the high volatility and second is the regulatory issues, im positive that once countries around the world start legalizing and regulating crypto or in simple terms start accepting crypro we will soon move towards mass adootion and then everywhere crypto payments will be accepted.

But to me I think that the the use bitcoin for payment method is increasing from time to time. As in my country now I can see that the bitcoin users are increasing they are now using bitcoin for online shopping and for so many other purposes in real life.

[Pursuer]

Bitpay is a way of converting crypto into dollars before then passing it onto the vendor.  In theory that vendor is accepting the dollars and its Bitpay who handles the crypto itself, not exactly a crypto transaction.  Hopefully they are also monitoring other methods of exchanging value not just ones that register in FIAT because that'd be quite ironic to skip transactions purely done in crypto

Bitpay was (is?) the largest payment processor for Bitcoin. They are seriously hurting Bitcoins usage as a means of payment though. They started mandating that BIP70 is used for payments. This put a bad taste in many peoples mouth and caused many users to stop using Bitpay altogether. I'm unsure why they mandated BIP70 for payments, but it just overcomplicated things. I am certain that this has to do with the drop in commerce, and is what skewed the results of this "study". Maybe it's also in part to the fact that Bitcoin has been in a slump since 2017. A lot of people are likely hodling because of the general perception that we will be entering another bull market shortly, and buying something would result in a net loss in the short term.

This is yet another example of a clickbait headline by Bloomberg that misrepresents Bitcoin to make it look like we're all heading for a crash and it's not worth investing in. Bitpay, like mentioned above, is just a service, not the coin itself. So there was a shitty service that charged too much money for its transactions that people aren't using anymore and... no one is using Bitcoin anymore! Great conclusion Bloomberg!

interesting points here! they became difficult to use for some (bip70), and expensive to use for others. i'd love to see a survey among those who've used bitpay and their feelings about the "network fees" and mandated bip70 usage. if less and less people are using bitpay, there could be other reasons for it too.

i've recently used a couple large merchants who didn't use bitpay (they used coingate and coinpayments). so bitpay is the biggest game in town by far, but i'm not convinced they own the market either. i think maybe their market share is even falling.

BitPay is a US company and it is processing a lot of transactions, it basically owns a big database of bitcoin transactions, where they came from, where they went and how much each person owned and it is associated with a lot of additional data such as IP addresses and personal information possibly gained from the merchants they are processing these transactions for....
they may not care enough about losing a little bit of market share to competition if they are getting paid by some agency for this database... wink wink.