Creating a Bitcoin Ecosystem - Earn & Spend

[aoluain]

Everyone knows that holding or HODLING your coins is a key part of
getting involved in Bitcoin and Crypto, the idea is not to get rid of them
in case you miss the next big pump, which could happen at any time for
example.

There have been arguments previously around the idea or necessity of
"spending" your Bitcoin and Crypto to create an ecosystem of earn and
spend and promoting the idea that Bitcoin is a currency and can be used
to actually purchase goods and services and also to earn coins for goods
and services supplied.

The most famous purchase of goods with bitcoin was by Laszlo Hanyecz
Back in 2010 when he bought 2 Pizzas for 10,000 coins.

To aid Bitcoin in its future I propose that some Bitcoin needs to be spent
To create and promote an earn/spend ecosystem.
From a personal experience I have earned, bought, traded, sold and held
bitcoin since 2017 but the majority I have on HOLD.

The biggest personal example I can give of this earn/spend idea is from a
security point of view and something which I am actively working on, personal
online security and anonymity.

I started with Email and web browsing to reduce my dependency on google
and currently looking at the services from Proton, protonmail and protonvpn
both of these services are paid services and can be purchased with Bitcoin:
https://protonvpn.com/support/vpn-bitcoin-payments/
https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/paying-with-bitcoin/
I have been earning Bitcoin since 2017 on the forum with signature campaigns
and with graphic design. With this purchase I can retain a degree of anonymity
by paying with Bitcoin while proving to Proton that people do spend Bitcoin
and that it is a useful payment option to provide.

The biggest proponents of spending Bitcoin are “The Bitcoin Family” who
Have been traveling the world since 2017 on the proceeds to going all in
On Bitcoin > https://yolofamilytravel.com/

If you want to EARN Bitcoin you can head over to the “How to earn Bitcoins - Part 1”
thread here > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1629118.0

If you want to SPEND Bitcoin you can check out this list grabbed from a quick
[ahem] google search > https://cryptomaniaks.com/latest-cryptocurrency-news/where-can-i-spend-bitcoin

There are many ways to earn and spend, are you adding to the ecosystem?

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[aoluain]

Had some time on my hands this evening to create a basic graphic,
sometimes its nice to SEE an idea rather than reading it . . .

[CryptoBry]

Bitcoin is first and foremost a currency and therefore should have been viewed like the digitalized money that people can use in buying and selling of products and services. Unfortunately, speculations came in because of the rise of value of Bitcoin as magnified in the year 2017. Right now, people who are into Bitcoin are more into holding in preparation for a big bull run which many expect can happen within this year or maybe in 2021. I read somewhere that only a small part of Bitcoin in circulation are spent on the usual commerce and this is telling us that Bitcoin has been treated more like a store of value rather than as currency for everyday use. Otherwise, there would be no need to promote its spending power. I am not so sure if we should be sad on this reality or what, or maybe it does not concern me at all.

[aoluain]

yes of course Bitcoin is by far being HODLED, there are a small percentage
of people who are still holding after buying at the top of the 2017 wave and
feel they cannot use Bitcoin. There are also those who dont care for the
technology Bitcoin offers they are just after the profit.

This goes against the spendability factor that Bitcoin offers

[anoufal]

It sounds good, but what about the safety and "survivability" of such ecosystems?

[Ucy]

Earn and spend is actually a good idea, especially if done within a decentralized Bitcoin ecosystem . I guess Lightening Network is best suited for this. A serious earn and spend initiative(if ran like an independent society) could seriously conjest the network.  

[joinfree]

Trust me most crypto enthusiasts would have preferred to spending their Bitcoin in one way or another but we still face the problem of slow network transaction on Bitcoin. In addition not all online marketplacesbdo accept Bitcoin as payments as most are afraid of its volatility. I believe it's best if we use it as a store of value.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

Pretty good topic. Though I am not completely against the HODL or the trading strategy which majority of the so called fake bitcoin enthusiasts are doing as of now, I firmly believe that bitcoin should be used as a global currency for payments rather than considering them as a store of value. satoshi created bitcoin to help with the online transactions taking place in a highly decentralized way and this was the one which was specified in the whitepaper. I do trade bitcoin for USDT or other alts, but would never go by the HODL strategy way which majority of us (the people) have been following. For most part of the time, I have been using bitcoin for global transactions instead of a reversible system like PayPal and I would always go by the way.

Some are concerned about the high volatility which is always prevailing in the crypto market, but these would come to an end when there is a stoppage in the inflow of mined bitcoins. If there is a stoppage or minimization, bitcoin would reach the true value through trades and would never be subjected to major volatility factors. Some would consider them as 'Digital Gold' but they weren't invented for the purpose of using them as a store of value. I would go by the quote of 'One World - One Currency' instead of 'Bitcoin, the Digital Gold'.

Right now, people who are into Bitcoin are more into holding in preparation for a big bull run which many expect can happen within this year or maybe in 2021.

The 2016 halving had a steep halving of the total coins per block from 25 -> 12.5 but rather the current halving has 12.5 -> 6.25 which would be quite less inflow of mined coins and I don't think there would be quite high volatility like the 2017 bull run. If we are considering bitcoin as a currency, volatilies are quite bad to make them a currency in the real world.

...snip...

There were legacy transactions in the beginning of the network and they were overtaken by segwit introduction (thanks to bitcoin devs who have been working so hard to make them scalable in a longer run). I firmly believe there would be newer innovations in bitcoin to make them more scalable. Extreme volatility would come to an end only when majority of bitcoins have been mined.

[TryNinja]

I agree with you. Hodling is great and all but if there is no usage, BTC becomes useless.

Instead of just Earn & Spend, I suggest: Earn, Spend & Rebuy. Want to pay your VPN? Do not use your credit card. Instead, get your BTC (or buy some if you don’t have), spend them and then rebuy! Spend $10 in BTC, buy $10 in BTC. You not only show the companies that you want to use BTC (many stopped accepting it due to no interest) but you also give the market more liquidity, and even help BTC’s price to increase (countering the many companies that accept BTC but will sell them immediately for USD).

Win-win for all of us. Higher price, public interest and bigger ecossystem.

[kryptqnick]

I agree that it's good to spend as well as earn. I'm earning BTC, but I'm spending it only when selling for fiat the vast majority of time... The reason if that there aren't many places where I can spend it on something I actually buy, and I don't want to but anything useless just to spend BTC. Moreover, it seems to me that sometimes when one can pay with bitcoin or fiat, the price in BTC is higher, and in that case it doesn't make sense to me to overpay.

[fiulpro]

Ofcourse if you are earning something in first place that means you are looking forward to be financially independent and with independence comes that part where you won't wanna ask your parents for money , then you understand that as you are earning you have to make a separate wallet for the monthly expenses .
I think I will for sure sell in low instead of asking someone about the money , that's why am doing this , yes this ecosystem exists and not in one way but in many.

[aoluain]

Pretty good topic. -snip-

Thanks, good to know some of us are thinking alike!

I agree with you. Hodling is great and all but if there is no usage, BTC becomes useless.

Instead of just Earn & Spend, I suggest: Earn, Spend & Rebuy. Want to pay your VPN? Do not use your credit card. Instead, get your BTC (or buy some if you don’t have), spend them and then rebuy! Spend $10 in BTC, buy $10 in BTC. You not only show the companies that you want to use BTC (many stopped accepting it due to no interest) but you also give the market more liquidity, and even help BTC’s price to increase (countering the many companies that accept BTC but will sell them immediately for USD).

Win-win for all of us. Higher price, public interest and bigger ecossystem.

Earn, Spend and Rebuy - is good, that will also work!

I agree that it's good to spend as well as earn. I'm earning BTC, but I'm spending it only when selling for fiat the vast majority of time... The reason if that there aren't many places where I can spend it on something I actually buy, and I don't want to but anything useless just to spend BTC. Moreover, it seems to me that sometimes when one can pay with bitcoin or fiat, the price in BTC is higher, and in that case it doesn't make sense to me to overpay.

Ofcourse if you are earning something in first place that means you are looking forward to be financially independent and with independence comes that part where you won't wanna ask your parents for money , then you understand that as you are earning you have to make a separate wallet for the monthly expenses .
I think I will for sure sell in low instead of asking someone about the money , that's why am doing this , yes this ecosystem exists and not in one way but in many.

Of course, just like with basic economics the idea is to earn more than you spend.
Like I posted we dont have to spend everything we earn [or buy] but the idea of
creating an ecosystem where there are coins being spent will support those
merchants offering the option to pay with BTC and crypto.

[th3nolo]

I agree with you. Hodling is great and all but if there is no usage, BTC becomes useless.

Instead of just Earn & Spend, I suggest: Earn, Spend & Rebuy. Want to pay your VPN? Do not use your credit card. Instead, get your BTC (or buy some if you don’t have), spend them and then rebuy! Spend $10 in BTC, buy $10 in BTC. You not only show the companies that you want to use BTC (many stopped accepting it due to no interest) but you also give the market more liquidity, and even help BTC’s price to increase (countering the many companies that accept BTC but will sell them immediately for USD).

Win-win for all of us. Higher price, public interest and bigger ecossystem.

An interesting strategy to earn more bitcoins at the same time you are using Bitcoin to spend is to use reward programs like lolly app

[romero121]

From the beginning bitcoin isn't much used as a means of payment. It got used as a transaction token that carries value, and its usage was much on illegal needs. This increased usage of bitcoin on darkweb marked bitcoin to be an asset particularly developed for darkweb. It took years and years for people to understand the reality of bitcoin, and further slowly realtime services and businesses started to accept bitcoin. This way spending of bitcoin isn't much advised in the beginning, as the value keeps pumping it got a transition from valuable token to investment asset. This has made people to hold than spend.

[akirasendo17]

the first thing to build an ecosystem, is to educate everyone, how bitcoin will revolutionize the community, from that if everyone learns and share it we will slowly create an ecosystem
everyone will be able to adapt and use bitcoin currency the more people use digital currency more and more people will adjust, since as we know the mentality of the human race
everyone don't want to be left behind in technology and everything around us

[CryptoBry]

I agree with you. Hodling is great and all but if there is no usage, BTC becomes useless. Instead of just Earn & Spend, I suggest: Earn, Spend & Rebuy. Want to pay your VPN? Do not use your credit card. Instead, get your BTC (or buy some if you don’t have), spend them and then rebuy! Spend $10 in BTC, buy $10 in BTC. You not only show the companies that you want to use BTC (many stopped accepting it due to no interest) but you also give the market more liquidity, and even help BTC’s price to increase (countering the many companies that accept BTC but will sell them immediately for USD). Win-win for all of us. Higher price, public interest and bigger ecossystem.

This can be a very good idea and it would be doing many wonderful thigns to Bitcoin if a good number of people will be doing the "Earn, Spend & Rebuy" you are suggesting. However, we know human nature. As long as one is not getting some benefits of doing something then it will not be adopted by the many. I think that there must be a carrot or a cake at the end of the line for someone to do something voluntarily. Maybe merchants should be providing some good discounts for buyers to use their Bitcoin in the usual buying process. That way any inconvenience or hassle and that possible risk of losing a pump opportunity can be substituted.

[bitvalak]

Of course, people who instinctively hold bitcoin will do HOLD because of the possibility of an increase in price.
Until now there has been no price balance so the ecosystem has not been able to run properly.
When prices are balanced, surely the ecosystem will form by itself. After all, before bitcoin is mined, everyone will try to collect bitcoin in preparation for the future when the ecosystem begins.

[Steamtyme]

This is refreshing and the discussion I wish more people were having, or at least a passing thought. I have spent the last year or so actively looking for ways to spend my BTC. Not all of it as I still believe savings are an important part of life. With BTC especially as it's more an investment in the future whatever you put aside. I've just never understood how some are unwilling to spend or use their holdings large or small to try and create the economy that is needed. Without utility there is no value imo.

Instead of just Earn & Spend, I suggest: Earn, Spend & Rebuy.

I really like this idea for people that have BTC to spend and the option of refilling their bag with whatever goes out. It's pretty much cost neutral to the individual to do so. Lately I've been using my BTC as much as possible to avoid currency exchange fees, hence my trades for USD  on forum.

I would say maybe add teach to the overall philosophy. We essentially have to be ambassadors to new users as well.  My focus is on smaller contractors or shops, that may be willing to go this route in exchange for my business. I have an electrician who has come by a few times to work alongside me for installs, and we got to talking, last time he seemed fairly interested. He's young and has disposable income, with this all being work on the side. Pretty much the best case scenario for him to maybe think about accepting BTC, I'll likely even toss him 5% extra if he bites. I'm more than willing to get him a wallet setup, and explain the basics for safety. If I can bring one person into the space especially as a merchant so to speak I'll feel pretty good about my crypto journey this year.

[Asmonist]

Yes. We really need to earn it first and as soon as we have more funds or the feel of needing to spend it then its the right time to do it. Mostly we always wait for the best price to spend it. Holding it for a long period is the safest strategy to have the right timing to spend it.

[Wind_FURY]

Everyone knows that holding or HODLING your coins is a key part of
getting involved in Bitcoin and Crypto, the idea is not to get rid of them
in case you miss the next big pump, which could happen at any time for
example.

NO, the idea is to HODL, until fiat currencies are valued in Bitcoin, until the time comes that "you don't have to sell for millions" one day, until hyper-BITCOINIZATION.