If Nobody Spends Bitcoin, Has It Still Succeeded?

[PX-Z]

If people expect Bitcoin to become more valuable, spending it on coffee, rent, or a car feels irrational. But this creates an interesting contradiction:

As if you spend it, it will vanish, it won't and will just literally transfer to another address and ownership.

The more desirable Bitcoin becomes as a store of value, the less people may want to use it as money.

...
If Bitcoin is widely owned but rarely spent, has it fulfilled its purpose—or evolved into something greater than originally intended?

Do you personally spend Bitcoin, or only hold it? What would need to change for you to use it regularly?

As time goes and its value grow larger, price increases, and people consider it as store of value, where holding could benefit more in long term. So yes, people perspective just change. Because if price is just the same as $1k per BTC you will see more millions of transaction per day. Although we have an average of 600k txs per day, but it could be grow if bitcoin price is just an average crypto price.

[hd49728]

As time goes and its value grow larger, price increases, and people consider it as store of value, where holding could benefit more in long term. So yes, people perspective just change. Because if price is just the same as $1k per BTC you will see more millions of transaction per day. Although we have an average of 600k txs per day, but it could be grow if bitcoin price is just an average crypto price.

With time, Bitcoin has some considerable growth and changes.

It has had better adoption that makes its higher value.
It has bigger market cap that makes its harder for manipulation than in the past. Please read it right, there are still manipulations in Bitcoin market.
It has bigger network hashrate, so that its blockchain is more secure.

With investors, these things mean some things like
It's safer to invest money in Bitcoin since 2026 than in the past.
Their investment portfolios will have smaller ROIs compare to portfolios' ROIs of people invested in past years and previous market cycles.

Risk and profit are opposite with each other: In the past, higher risk, bigger ROIs. Now towards future, less risk but smaller ROIs.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

If nobody ever spends Bitcoin it hasn’t fully succeeded as money because money needs to be used for buying, selling, and exchanging value.

It would still succeed as a store of value, like digital gold but if it’s only held and never used it falls short of its original purpose as a peer to peer electronic cash system.

[Catenaccio]

If nobody ever spends Bitcoin it hasn’t fully succeeded as money because money needs to be used for buying, selling, and exchanging value.

Satoshi had very good vision and Bitcoin has grown with bigger transaction during the last nearly 20 years.

In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes.  I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.

It would still succeed as a store of value, like digital gold but if it’s only held and never used it falls short of its original purpose as a peer to peer electronic cash system.

If it becomes like that, there will be possible problems for Bitcoin miners that play very important role for Bitcoin blockchain operations and transaction confirmations. Their mining income and revenue will be affected and Bitcoin mempools will become overload with less miners to confirm transactions. There will certainly appearance of problems from miners and their confirmations but with Bitcoin difficulty retarget every 2016 blocks, it will reduce negative effects on mempools and users' waiting transactions.

[Bluedrem]

If nobody ever spends Bitcoin it hasn’t fully succeeded as money because money needs to be used for buying, selling, and exchanging value.

It would still succeed as a store of value, like digital gold but if it’s only held and never used it falls short of its original purpose as a peer to peer electronic cash system.

Yes, you are right, people store gold as a reserve asset so that the value of their assets is maintained.
But if gold was only tied up in holdings, I think it would not have any acceptance and value. Since gold is constantly being used and it is changing hands through buying and selling, gold is an ongoing asset without any interruption.
Since Bitcoin is also currently considered gold and currently governments of different countries and various individuals hold Bitcoin as a strategic reserve asset, it can be said that it is still a valuable asset for people. If Bitcoin were only a reserve asset by stopping buying and selling, then Bitcoin would have no basis.
Since it has to go through an ongoing process to maintain the value of assets, I would say that it would be better to consider it as a means of constant purchase to maintain the value of Bitcoin.

[Tiaramane]

For the past 5 years I have only been holding BTC, using it as a daily means of transaction isnt visible.

[Ahli38]

It’s impossible for Bitcoin to be held indefinitely without anyone ever spending the Bitcoin they own. There will always be times when people sell their Bitcoin to fund whatever their goals or even what they need to do. And we can see that even gold, where it has the potential for long-term appreciation is still always spent on various needs. So I personally think that Bitcoin will always be spent because it is a highly liquid asset. Transfers or even the movement of Bitcoin from wallet to wallet will continue to occur. There are various trading platforms that allow Bitcoin to be traded through various brokers for a wide range of trading pairs. These platforms are available 24 hours a day with no time restrictions making it possible for anyone to spend their Bitcoin at any time. And Bitcoin can also be exchanged between individuals at any time so the situations, where Bitcoin is spent will continue to occur everywhere. These factors prove that Bitcoin will continue to succeed as money.

[tread93]

Seeing bitcoin as a good store of value these days, I can tell that it has already succeeded. Even if people won't spend but will keep on buying and storing bitcoin, bitcoin will surely make its own way towards success.

However, its also impossible that we won't be spending bitcoin. We buy and sell our bitcoin, and repeat the process. And we use bitcoin to buy more bitcoin especially when the price is in dips, so its really impossible not to spend bitcoin along the way most especially if you prefer to have p2p transactions.

Yes I agree, it is not possible to not spend any bitcoin unless you are already rich or you are dead and nobody has access to your keys. At some point maybe in the future, I believe that everyone will at some point cash in or spend some of their coins either P2P or through some sort of website or app in order to use or gain some product or service. It might be a rainy day fund, or simply passed on to their heirs. That would be the best thing I believe if done successfully, passing it on to your heirs for the next generation. Or at least a portion of that.

[ZAINmalik75]

For the past 5 years I have only been holding BTC, using it as a daily means of transaction isnt visible.

For a lot of people, spending or using Bitcoin for daily transactions is not an available option because it is not accepted anywhere around where they live. In my country, you can't find a single place where you can pay using cryptocurrencies, not only Bitcoin but any cryptocurrency, and it is because we currently don't have any laws or legality of cryptocurrencies is not yet done, maybe once they are legal in the country, merchants might start accepting cryptocurrencies as payment, and then we will be able to spend our cryptocurrencies directly without having to convert them to fiat first and then spending them.

So I think we can't blame people for not using Bitcoin but only buying and holding, because people will only use it on a daily basis if it becomes easy for them to do so, but as I mentioned, if people don't even have the option to use cryptocurrencies as payment, they will surely not do it, and since they know they grow in value over time, they buy and hold them and use them as an investment asset which can benefit them over time.

[HelliumZ]

If Nobody Spends Bitcoin, Has It Still Succeeded?

The more desirable Bitcoin becomes as a store of value, the less people may want to use it as money.

If Bitcoin is widely owned but rarely spent, has it fulfilled its purpose—or evolved into something greater than originally intended?

Do you personally spend Bitcoin, or only hold it? What would need to change for you to use it regularly?

If everyone in the world only holds Bitcoin but no one sells Bitcoin, then Bitcoin has not created any kind of utility. We know from common sense that if a product cannot create utility, then that product gradually becomes worthless in the market. If everyone in the world holds Bitcoin and no one sells Bitcoin, then Bitcoin will gradually become worthless.

Perhaps if Bitcoin is only stored as a luxury item by some people and not exchanged for money, then it will gradually lose its popularity due to a lack of utility.

The real purpose of Bitcoin is to create transparency of transactions, privacy of transactions, and a free trade in the world where there will be a currency and any person in the world will create borderless trade based on that currency. But if no one in the world uses Bitcoin as a means of transaction, then Bitcoin will deviate from its real purpose.

In my case, I am doing both, especially when I need it, I am converting Bitcoin into my local currency and using it for my needs. And for future security and so that Bitcoin can give me big profits in the future, I am holding what is not needed.

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

If everyone in the world only holds Bitcoin but no one sells Bitcoin, then Bitcoin has not created any kind of utility. We know from common sense that if a product cannot create utility, then that product gradually becomes worthless in the market. If everyone in the world holds Bitcoin and no one sells Bitcoin, then Bitcoin will gradually become worthless.

Let's clearly differentiate between two holding cases and scenarios.

First, holding for profit while the market has very high and good trading volume, big buying demands so that you as a holder can sell your bitcoin anytime you want in either bear market or bull market. Surely you aim at selling for profit that likely is more possible during a bull market but at least there are good chances for selling anytime.

Second, holding for dear life when you can not sell your coins even if you really want do to that, not only for profit but also for cut loss and save a little bit money at the end. This scenario is very popular with shitcoins, and it's reminder for anyone who love shitcoins. It's fortunate if they hold bitcoins because they will have a better future with a first scenario, being able to sell bitcoins anytime.