Medium of Exchange vs Store of Value: Where is Bitcoin today?

[globalcitizen]

As a student of bitcoin and blockchain, I have learnt that the deployment of bitcoin as money was its flagship usage as proposed and implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto. I also do know that it has remained the most popular application of bitcoin in the industry today. But the question is, how well has bitcoin performed in its role as money, especially, as a medium of exchange, and as a store of value? I think bitcoin has not done well as a store of value and its usage as a medium of exchange is still yet to gain popularity among merchants and shoppers. What do you think?

[1714484344]

1714484344

[1714484344]

1714484344

[1714484344]

1714484344

[Sama517]

As a student of bitcoin and blockchain, I have learnt that the deployment of bitcoin as money was its flagship usage as proposed and implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto. I also do know that it has remained the most popular application of bitcoin in the industry today. But the question is, how well has bitcoin performed in its role as money, especially, as a medium of exchange, and as a store of value? I think bitcoin has not done well as a store of value and its usage as a medium of exchange is still yet to gain popularity among merchants and shoppers. What do you think?

Bitcoin has not yet achieved its full potentials. It was supposed to serve both purposes as a form of exchange and a store of value just as gold. The challenge it has faced remains the same talking point everywhere which is its volatility. Until this issue is addressed, bitcoin will continue to hit the rock, and may never achieve what Nakamoto originally planned for it.

[globalcitizen]

As a student of bitcoin and blockchain, I have learnt that the deployment of bitcoin as money was its flagship usage as proposed and implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto. I also do know that it has remained the most popular application of bitcoin in the industry today. But the question is, how well has bitcoin performed in its role as money, especially, as a medium of exchange, and as a store of value? I think bitcoin has not done well as a store of value and its usage as a medium of exchange is still yet to gain popularity among merchants and shoppers. What do you think?

Bitcoin has not yet achieved its full potentials. It was supposed to serve both purposes as a form of exchange and a store of value just as gold. The challenge it has faced remains the same talking point everywhere which is its volatility. Until this issue is addressed, bitcoin will continue to hit the rock, and may never achieve what Nakamoto originally planned for it.

Your view exactly captures the state of the bitcoin of today and the challenge that it is battling with, which is that of high volatility. With its current volatile nature, it will be very hard to play its role as a store of value and establish itself as a medium of exchange. Much still needs to be done in this space if the goal of bitcoin's founder must be achieved.

[boakyei]

Bitcoins is best describe as a medium of exchange rather than store of value. It is this simple understanding most people lack that they presume bitcoins is an investment and after they invest heavily it and price dip, they complain and whine about bitcoins been a scam.

[mk4]

Bitcoin currently functions decently as a store of value and as a medium of exchange, but what makes it quite bad in general is the price volatility. Currently, I personally think bitcoin is for speculating and for store-of-value for those 3rd world countries with economic crises(e.g. Venezuela) whereas their local fiat's inflation rate is through the roof. I'd take an 80% drop rather than a 200,000% drop due to hyperinflation.

Anyway, it's going to take time for bitcoin to be stable and find it's price. Though I don't have any proof, I'm quite sure currently stable precious metals like gold didn't find it's sort of "stable price" in 10 years. I'm pretty sure it took a lot longer than that. As with the transaction speed and fees, it's fine right now, but I don't think "fine" is good enough. Let's not focus on the present though, as technology moves forward anyway.

[1ncehost]

Bitcoin currently functions decently as a store of value and as a medium of exchange, but what makes it quite bad in general is the price volatility. Currently, I personally think bitcoin is for speculating and for store-of-value for those 3rd world countries with economic crises(e.g. Venezuela) whereas their local fiat's inflation rate is through the roof. I'd take an 80% drop rather than a 200,000% drop due to hyperinflation.

Anyway, it's going to take time for bitcoin to be stable and find it's price. Though I don't have any proof, I'm quite sure currently stable precious metals like gold didn't find it's sort of "stable price" in 10 years. I'm pretty sure it took a lot longer than that. As with the transaction speed and fees, it's fine right now, but I don't think "fine" is good enough. Let's not focus on the present though, as technology moves forward anyway.

I agree with you. Bitcoin is in the midst of its growth cycle. It took smart phones 10 years, the internet 20 years, and TV 50 years to reach saturation. When bitcoin reaches saturation, which will be in a number of years, the price will be more stable. For what its worth Gold still sees 100% price increases and 50% price drops and it has been in use for so many millennia. Bitcoin, having a set supply, is purely demand driven, and thus will always see more volitility than a fiat currency which has adjustable supply. However, Bitcoin's inflation will drop below USD's soon, so it will be a safer place to park money over the long term (in the same way as Gold).

[mk4]

I agree with you. Bitcoin is in the midst of its growth cycle. It took smart phones 10 years, the internet 20 years, and TV 50 years to reach saturation. When bitcoin reaches saturation, which will be in a number of years, the price will be more stable. For what its worth Gold still sees 100% price increases and 50% price drops and it has been in use for so many millennia. Bitcoin, having a set supply, is purely demand driven, and thus will always see more volitility than a fiat currency which has adjustable supply. However, Bitcoin's inflation will drop below USD's soon, so it will be a safer place to park money over the long term (in the same way as Gold).

While these successful technologies did take a lot of years to be successful and while I'm indeed extremely bullish on bitcoin long-term, I'd always like to take the realistic approach and say that bitcoin isn't really guaranteed to succeed.

Also, with bitcoin's scarcity and mining difficulty, these can only help to a certain extent. Bitcoin could be at 21 million mined right now but it would still be extremely volatile due to the buy and sell offers from people who panic and speculate.

[RonF]

To me bitcoin has workingly achieved both potentials.  I have used it as a store of value and a medium of exchange both very well.

[bitfocus]

Bitcoin was born as a currency - A medium of Exchange, but we juts made it an investment, a highly volatile one!

[fenican]

It works great as both, but just don't fool yourself into thinking the time to buy it as a store of value is after a 500% 2-month price run-up. That was the worst time to invest. Now is arguably one of the best times, particularly for anyone with 5-10 year horizon.

[Pursuer]

bitcoin is and has always been a medium of exchange or a currency. being volatile only means it is a bad currency at this point it doesn't mean it is not a currency anymore!
and the funny thing is that bitcoin has never been a "store of value". I personally have only started seeing the term become popular about 1.5 year ago. in fact if you read the bitcoin paper by Satoshi Nakamoto you can see that nowhere in there he uses this term but all over the paper bitcoin is called as a payment system or a currency.

the problem with bitcoin is not with bitcoin itself but with exchanges which are the only thing that deciding the price and these exchanges are extremely flawed. because they are risky, shady and untrusted. so people don't trust using them or if they do they never leave money on them. what happens is that there are less traders on exchanges and a small number of orders. so a small dump by a small whale can crash the market as we can see these days.
and THIS needs to change.

[sunsilk]

Bitcoin as both is doing good, I don't see that it will fail as a medium of exchange. We've been using it most of the time, to buy goods and mostly other alts which can easily say that its working well. Although its price is changing and we're seeing it going down suddenly.

As a store of value, this is the current trend for bitcoin. No one wants to spend their btc at a very cheap price now, everyone expects it will skyrocket before using it as medium of exchange (sell).

[Slow death]

What do you think?

how old is bitcoin of existence? bitcoin has been in existence for 9 years and in its 9 years of existence its price has reached $ 20,000 and managed to capture the attention of governments worldwide, more than 50% of these governments around the world do not accept bitcoin as a legal payment method. bitcoin attracted the attention of large investors and companies, is a matter of time for bitcoin to become a means of payments worldwide... as for the value reserve, I believe it could be a good value reserve, for now bitcoin is not regulated and accepted worldwide, so we have little demand and consequently we have a very high volatility so that this is something bad, but in time things will improve

I think bitcoin has not done well as a store of value and its usage as a medium of exchange is still yet to gain popularity among merchants and shoppers

let's assume that this news be true:

[New Crypto Rumor Report] Billionaires Are Quietly Buying Bitcoin During Prolonged Bear Market

be true, why are these guys doing things in hiding? they do so because of regulations, since bitcoin is not yet legalized in many countries, so the reason for bitcoin is still not widely accepted as a means of payments or a good store of value is because it still depends on proper regulation

[Stac]

           To my opinion that is for me Bitcoin has served as a medium of exchange and since it is volatile it serves as a store of value too  and Today Bitcoin has reached to a stagnant stage and there will be a change to this stagnant situation to revive soon by next year, At present condition Bitcoin is a store of value since no one may be interested to sell Bitcoin in a cheap price all might be waiting for the price to increase as in 2017 . When the creator introduced Bitcoin he expected Bitcoin to function as mode for payment that is electronic cash . Bitcoiners prefers Bitcoin as a medium of exchange since it was the first payment mode without a third party interference . Bitcoin has a store of value because of it's decentralized nature and its  transparency most of the people trust in the transactions of Bitcoin .Bitcoin is invented as a digital currency and are limited in supply .

[Zin-Zang]

A store of Value , Holds it Value Relative to Fiat.

Bitcoin is not a store of Value as over 80% can be lost at a moment's notice as the past year has proven.

Things that value is almost fixed are a store of value.

People need to learn the difference.

Bitcoin is a fluctuating medium of exchange, it has never been and never will be a store of value.

[franky1]

something wont be a store of value unless it has utility.

for instance. people think something just needs 'rarity' to have value
1. my dog does 1 bowel movement a day. and will live for ~15 years
thats ~5500 bags of dogs mess that will ever be made.
want some? only $1 a bag...........
...... no? i thought not

2. there are many coins that have no function/utility and so they have no value. even when their cap may be less than 21mill

3. bitcoin (not locked btc where unconfirmed unaudited transactions are played with on other networks) but real bitcoin network utility needs to keep utility to have value.

take gold. the VALUE of gold (how many loaves of bread it can buy) would be worth more now if it was not for banks fortknoxing it up and making people play with paper money.
golds value now is just playing against the cost of obtaining it. plus a bit of speculation due to the industry utility.
again gold would have had more utility as 'money' if the last century of bankers didnt stop that.
god would be worth more loaves of bread value WITH medium of exchange utility as 'money'

if bitcoin had no utility desire. then people wouldnt want it. thus no value

shouting store of value purely because store of value.. is a foolish mindset
shouting store of value purely because medium of exchange utility.. is a smart mindset

thus bitcoin needs to have medium of exchange to keep it having a store of value.

[Hivalley]

Bitcoin as a medium of exchange is still vague and not yet widespread as it should have simply because of its volatility,its somewhat not possible to get the required number of merchants to accept the bitcoin that'll make it an acceptable medium of exchange,considering how volatile and unpredictable the bitcoin is, and also putting into consideration that the major aim of a merchant is his or her profits and nothing more

Bitcoin being a store of value wasn't the perceived purpose for it's creation,but it definitely can act as such based on its value/price/unpredictability
I think this days the bitcoin is used more as a store of value as we've got less bitcoin enthusiast looking to spread the word about bitcoin or get a store near them to accept the bitcoin as a means of payment.
We're all cool with purchasing and storing for a pump in order to earn huge bucks

[Vigme86]

A store of Value , Holds it Value Relative to Fiat.

Bitcoin is not a store of Value as over 80% can be lost at a moment's notice as the past year has proven.

Things that value is almost fixed are a store of value.

People need to learn the difference.

Bitcoin is a fluctuating medium of exchange, it has never been and never will be a store of value.

It depends, how are you defining store of value ? In a free market, nothing has a fixed price.
If you see Gold/USD 50-years chart, it has highs and lows too.
Do you think gold is not a store of value ?

[Zin-Zang]

A store of Value , Holds it Value Relative to Fiat.

Bitcoin is not a store of Value as over 80% can be lost at a moment's notice as the past year has proven.

Things that value is almost fixed are a store of value.

People need to learn the difference.

Bitcoin is a fluctuating medium of exchange, it has never been and never will be a store of value.

It depends, how are you defining store of value ? In a free market, nothing has a fixed price.
If you see Gold/USD 50-years chart, it has highs and lows too.
Do you think gold is not a store of value ?

A store of value is an asset that maintains its value without depreciating.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/storeofvalue.asp

BTC has 80% losses every 2 or 3 years , a store of value it is not.

Gold remains relatively stable , and when it price decreases too much , their are alternative uses in industry for it that eventuality increase it's price.

BTC has no other usage except as a payment system, which the miners are now losing money to keep it running.

Gold can't die, because a group of miners stop mining , bitcoin can.

Find anyone that purchased Bitcoin above $6000 and tell them it is a store of value,
don't be surprised when they laugh in your face and ask for their thousands of dollars of value back that evaporated into thin air.
 

 

[siruiiuris]

Bitcoin's price is defining by perception of people, this is all the story.