curiousone (OP)
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April 11, 2012, 03:54:08 AM |
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Let me start off by saying this post is not bashing Bitcoin, I love the stuff.
What legitimate purchases are currently being made with Bitcoin? My cynical outlook predicts the huge majority are only being used for purchasing illegal products/services on underground websites such as silkroad.
I am aware there is a huge list of websites which accept Bitcoin, but I am guessing they make up a small fraction of bitcoins being used? I'm also sure a lot of donations made to controversial causes like Wikileaks could be considered.
Thoughts? Again I am not bashing, just want to hear your opinions.
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Kluge
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April 11, 2012, 04:02:07 AM |
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No way to measure for comparison. If you've looked at the website of various people/organizations accepting BTC for goods/services, then decided to believe BTC is mostly used "illegitimately," there's not much of a way to disagree.
The forum's marketplace certainly shows many legitimate ways to spend Bitcoins, and surely you'll find many successful transactions, but again, that'd be like throwing the Wikipedia page at you with the many goods & services you can spend BTC on.
Steam games (and TF2 items) are popular, home-made goods (food, knitted goods, lasers), FPGAs, fantastic coffee beans, lots of computer components, BTC's an exceptionally easy way to convert between various currencies/"exchanges" (for instance, AmazonUSD to DwollaUSD), houses (someone buy mine, please!), VPS services, game consoles. Those are off the top of my head.
What kind of evidence would convince you?
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PatrickHarnett
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April 11, 2012, 04:04:01 AM |
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Again with this topic? There are several threads around, but I use BTC for real stuff. Examples:
- Recently purchased 80,000 yen for 200 coins, saving transaction fees that would have taken 4% of value. - Recently arrange shipping of a small value item ($50) from the USA via intermediary. Postage was $9.72 and I paid 3 coins to help compensate for his time. Useful, but unexciting item, just not available locally, and the company didn't ship outside US. - Transferred funds to AUD account to fund legal action to recover a loan (well, part of the legal cost).
And yesterday I purchased - a magazine subscription. - purchased some GPU power for another non-BTC project.
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Littleshop
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April 11, 2012, 04:16:49 AM |
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I have bought and sold a bunch of products from iPhones, candy, computer gear, store credit cards. I regularly sell products on my website for bitcoin with an automated checkout system.
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curiousone (OP)
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April 11, 2012, 04:17:39 AM |
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thanks for replies. don't need convincing, to be honest my personal view on the legality of drugs makes me fully support websites such as silkroad, I was just interested to see what would be thrown up in discussion.. apologies for same old thread, please link me if you can remember any.
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Foxpup
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April 11, 2012, 04:25:44 AM |
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I thought the vast majority of bitcoins were used to buy dollars. Which were then used to buy bitcoins again. Sometimes at a profit (and sometimes not). Hopefully this situation will change as bitcoins become more widely accepted.
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Will pretend to do unspeakable things (while actually eating a taco) for bitcoins: 1K6d1EviQKX3SVKjPYmJGyWBb1avbmCFM4I am not on the scammers' paradise known as Telegram! Do not believe anyone claiming to be me off-forum without a signed message from the above address! Accept no excuses and make no exceptions!
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PatrickHarnett
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April 11, 2012, 04:27:29 AM |
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thanks for replies. don't need convincing, to be honest my personal view on the legality of drugs makes me fully support websites such as silkroad, I was just interested to see what would be thrown up in discussion.. apologies for same old thread, please link me if you can remember any.
No matter, it possibly doesn't hurt to remind people that there are real uses for coins, and as the economy grows, it gets more diverse. In response to a question I got about the yen, it was a physical delivery. I travelled 9000 km to a hotel in Tokyo and it had been delivered and was waiting as promised. As for buying dollars with coins, I do that as well, it pays my daughter's university costs.
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drakahn
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April 11, 2012, 04:30:14 AM |
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I've bought steam games, pci-e risers, a few months of vps squared, i play poker and i bet on sports
These are the things i have done with bitcoin, and i have no intention of spending my bitcoins yet, lol
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14ga8dJ6NGpiwQkNTXg7KzwozasfaXNfEU
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finway
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April 11, 2012, 05:03:18 AM |
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I've bought a vps and pay month fee using bitcoins.
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Red Emerald
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April 11, 2012, 05:32:09 AM Last edit: April 11, 2012, 06:07:25 AM by Red Emerald |
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I've bought maple syrup, LoL referrals, a couple domain names and even invested in a few Bitcoin in companies around the world. I've also sold a steam game on www.bitmit.net
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SgtSpike
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April 11, 2012, 06:04:00 AM |
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www.coindl.com started selling digital goods, and I've made a few sales on it myself.
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logansryche
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April 11, 2012, 06:11:04 AM |
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Second Life relate items mostly. Haven't bought physical items in a while.
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MoonShadow
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April 11, 2012, 06:23:45 AM |
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What legitimate purchases are currently being made with Bitcoin? My cynical outlook predicts the huge majority are only being used for purchasing illegal products/services on underground websites such as silkroad.
Contraband is, beyond doubt, a not insignificant portion of any economy. However, I seriously doubt that such business is anything near a majority of the Bitcoin economy. I've personally made dozens of purchases; from a handmade necklace on Etsy, to pretty quartz rocks, to Steam game licenses, to Internet services, to cell phone service (via a Virgin Mobile Top-up card #) to (most recently) candy. I've never bought anything that could be considered contraband where I live.
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"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
- Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'
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MoonShadow
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April 11, 2012, 06:34:55 AM |
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I thought the vast majority of bitcoins were used to buy dollars. Which were then used to buy bitcoins again. Sometimes at a profit (and sometimes not). Hopefully this situation will change as bitcoins become more widely accepted.
On quick look at bitcoinwatch.com tells me that the total volume of bitcoin in motion in the past 24 hours was 904,380.25 BTC while the volume on the exchanges presented on that same page total under 73,000. Granted, there could be a great deal of cash trading off of those markets and some of that first number is users moving BTC from one address to another. But it seems a bit silly to think that with a daily volume over 10% of the entire monetary base in current circulation, cash/bitcoin trades could make up anything near a majority of real economic trade volume.
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"The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world."
- Carroll Quigley, CFR member, mentor to Bill Clinton, from 'Tragedy And Hope'
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hongus
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April 11, 2012, 06:37:16 AM |
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USD -(exchanger)-> Bitcoin -(investments)-> More Bitcoins -(exchanger)-> More USD
My current purpose for bitcoins.
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Bees Brothers
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April 11, 2012, 06:46:45 AM |
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Our little family business is growing, in a small part thanks to the bitcoin community, and will need to expand the number of honeybee hives. I am hoping in the next couple of weeks to buy bees with Bitcoin (I'm guessing that might be a first?) ![Roll Eyes](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif) I will have to demonstrate how he could then use bitcoins to buy silver. I'm guessing that he will want me to buy the silver and pay him that instead. ![Cry](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/cry.gif) But I think this person will be open to it and will think it is cool. Just a little too technical and won't have the time to learn the ropes. We shall see...
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Foxpup
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April 11, 2012, 07:11:54 AM |
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On quick look at bitcoinwatch.com tells me that the total volume of bitcoin in motion in the past 24 hours was 904,380.25 BTC while the volume on the exchanges presented on that same page total under 73,000. Granted, there could be a great deal of cash trading off of those markets and some of that first number is users moving BTC from one address to another. But it seems a bit silly to think that with a daily volume over 10% of the entire monetary base in current circulation, cash/bitcoin trades could make up anything near a majority of real economic trade volume.
But just how much of that 904,380.25 BTC is simply people sending coins to themselves for legitimate (change) or illegitimate (laundering) purposes? You don't know. Nobody knows. In any case, 10% of the entire economy is more than a significant fraction, and unless you can show evidence that some other use of bitcoins accounts for more than that, then I stand by what I said.
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Will pretend to do unspeakable things (while actually eating a taco) for bitcoins: 1K6d1EviQKX3SVKjPYmJGyWBb1avbmCFM4I am not on the scammers' paradise known as Telegram! Do not believe anyone claiming to be me off-forum without a signed message from the above address! Accept no excuses and make no exceptions!
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Bees Brothers
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April 11, 2012, 07:12:14 AM |
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Your Salted Honey Caramels are soooooo good! You should set up the site to accept bitcoins on the order page instead of emailing first.
The kids are trying to figure out how to do that right now. We only expand as they are ready to learn new things, and a bitcoin online store for our web page is a priority. To bring this back on subject, bitcoin is useful in homeschooling to learn about developing technologies and learn and be part of international communities, investing, scamming awareness...plus you can buy books and software with bitcoins. Haven't shown the kids the gambling and porn side of bitcoin yet.. ![Shocked](https://bitcointalk.org/Smileys/default/shocked.gif)
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BurtW
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April 11, 2012, 07:16:41 AM |
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The other day I bought a case of Girl Scout cookies for BTC. Yum.
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Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!
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MemoryDealers
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April 11, 2012, 07:45:51 AM |
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I've personally sold about $20,000 USD worth of Cisco gear in the last week for bitcoins.
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