Question concerning demand and BTC use

[Sophia1029]

I recently posted a thread, "why is the value dropping" in hopes to understand what is causing value of BTC to be currently dropping.
Well I have been thinking about this and now I have another question to propose as a seperate discussion slightly concerning this.

I could be wrong but it doesn't seem economical or like good money management to buy goods and services with bitcoins considering a lot of things I need to buy do not accept bitcoin. Keeping currency in BTC and exchanging it to USD to buy things seems like I would lose money from exchange rates and fees so it doesn't seem wise to keep my money in BTC. The reason I am saying this is because I feel like most people that own bitcoin are not using them for exchanging goods and services rather just collecting them in hopes that the value will rise. At least that is what I see from looking through forums and articles. Won't this cause the value to drop if there is no flow from "general" users, or in other words, no one using the currency in the fundamental way/reason that a currency exists. At least, not enough people are using BTC to exchange for goods and services and are most  likely just exchanging for centralized currency. There isn't a huge demand for coins in a sense of people want to generally use them. The demand for coins comes from those that are investing in it. Am I wrong?
As pretty much an outsider and someone looking into BTC becuase it is new to me, I personally feel like the only way BTC would be appealing/worthwhile for me and probably others is if it is accepted as a form of currency in exchange for goods and services in my community and everyday living expenses. I hope this makes sense, I am trying to explain it.

edit: for example it would be like someone investing in a company that produces a product that no one uses and the only reason the stock is rising in value is because a lot of other people are investing in the stock in hopes that it will eventually have a high demand from the general public but the demand and value is really only coming from the people that are investing in it and no one is using the product but the stock flow and trade rate is high because of the investors only. If btc does not become an accepted form of currency for exchanging goods and services then the value will continue to decrease. How confidence is this community that this will ever happen. It seems like A risky gamble.

Who is using their BTC for everyday use that is not just for investmenting to sit in your wallet forever without having to exchange for other currency? Is the demand coming from yourselves as long term investors?

Did I word this in a way that makes sense?

[RyNinDaCleM]

Bitcoin is heavily speculative and there aren't a lot of people actually spending them. There are two sides to this story, however. When you spend them, they are (nearly everywhere) instantly converted to fiat. This has a net down pressure to the price. Some argue that you must first buy in order to spend, which isn't completely false, but there are many people who have coins that were bought so long ago that it's irrelevant now regarding the buy pressure. I've spent about $20k between Overstock, Gyft, and Newegg since the beginning of the year, and have yet to repurchase those coins. Those coins are from 2011-12.
You are correct in the assumption that everyday spending would make Bitcoin utility rise in a huge way and in turn, desirability/demand. If I could pay my mortgage with BTC, I definitely would. That also goes for all my utilities and car... But then they will also likely just convert them to fiat of their choice and create more downward pressure. So, until we are all paid in BTC and we spend BTC so that those stores can buy their product with BTC and those suppliers pay their employees in BTC, BTC will have huge sell pressure if there isn't an equally huge amount of fiat coming in to create buy pressure to combat the selling.

[Fioraver]

No one needs to Bitcoin currently if it not associated with fiat, in fact. As far as I know, people are more willing to accept US dollars

[Sophia1029]

Bitcoin is heavily speculative and there aren't a lot of people actually spending them. There are two sides to this story, however. When you spend them, they are (nearly everywhere) instantly converted to fiat. This has a net down pressure to the price. Some argue that you must first buy in order to spend, which isn't completely false, but there are many people who have coins that were bought so long ago that it's irrelevant now regarding the buy pressure. I've spent about $20k between Overstock, Gyft, and Newegg since the beginning of the year, and have yet to repurchase those coins. Those coins are from 2011-12.
You are correct in the assumption that everyday spending would make Bitcoin utility rise in a huge way and in turn, desirability/demand. If I could pay my mortgage with BTC, I definitely would. That also goes for all my utilities and car... But then they will also likely just convert them to fiat of their choice and create more downward pressure. So, until we are all paid in BTC and we spend BTC so that those stores can buy their product with BTC and those suppliers pay their employees in BTC, BTC will have huge sell pressure if there isn't an equally huge amount of fiat coming in to create buy pressure to combat the selling.

The fact that they are converting them instantly and not all of them accept btc is why it is not beneficial currently to buy things with bitcoin. what would it take for everyone to start using them?

[devphp]

You got it mostly right, OP.

What a successful (generating more demand) crypto currency needs is unique use cases. It's a slow process to invent unique use cases, not all crypto currencies will survive because of that. However, if you dismiss the concept of crypto currencies altogether, you'll be wrong too. Whether it will be Bitcoin or something else, the concept of crypto will remain as long as the new use cases are discovered. But you need to frequent the alternative currencies section to be on the edge of what's brewing out there. Bitcoin only is too boring and non-innovative compared to what other cool cryptos there are out there.

[Sophia1029]

It would be amazing if everyone used them but idk how we can manage to convince the general public =P

[devphp]

It would be amazing if everyone used them but idk how we can manage to convince the general public =P

You don't have to convince. You need to discover and invent unique use cases, and the public will be interested automagically

[Sophia1029]

Automagically

[Jeremias]

The issue is customer adoption and not merchant adoption. An issue of simple demand n supply. People who say merchant adoption is driving price down, it is not so. What is the value of an exchange medium if its intended use is only speculation but not exchange? So merchant adoption has to be there, trust me more merchant adoption, better the price point. There will be an equillibrium , when people will start using them as an exchange, there has to be. Plain speculation cannot drive the price. Why suddenly the price went up? There were numerous factors.

If you look closely

1) Age of ASICs during 2013, drove a frenzy, orders were taken with BTC, suddenly people had a way to be rich quick, mine coins, and suddenly started the BTC demand .
2) Mt. GOX solvency, withdrawl issues and subsequent price manipulation and price appreciation.
3) All this suddenly drew attention from chinese, who considered BTC as a workaround from the currency control, as if, here we have a machine to create USD from the yuan. You pay for the miners in yuan and start creating bitcoins which to them were a mere barter for USD and money transfer outside the mainland. KNC Miners even had a separate china sales office for the miners where they accepted yuan, at one point in time and still now china have the largest nodes.

Now why we are down, ASIC companies have been busted, (people would have laughed and started screaming scam, if I would have announced 2 TH/s miners for $1250, in December 2013), more ASIC more BTC production than the demand. More BTC than the DNM requires. DNM and only DNM right now sustains the price. It is the only bitcoin ecosystem with cyclic effect. You won't be surprised to find major hodlers among top dealers. Its just not pizzas but there's a whole lot to it. Even though large enough but not enough to be able to sustain the the continuous dumping.

If the issue would have been merchant adoption, then my friend, no greater merchant adoption than the ever increasing number of DNMs, they only accept BTC and they also convert them btc to fiat. But, how do they sustain the BTC ecosystem, coz it is the cyclic effect which makes up an ecosystem. It is actually the uptake - the customer adoption. You cannot use Visa or Master for your high, you have to have BTC or no deal. It is this demand that drives BTC. Lest we do not forget, Silk Road was the first killer BTC app.

Using BTC for anything other than speculation should have its price benefit, either in real terms or abstract. Now, we can't just mine BTC and use them for the product purchase, we have to get them, getting them  means paying a premium, the stuff for which you would like to spend BTC is already premium compared to a using a card, then why would somebody use BTC. Either there has to be a BTC ecosystem, where in spending BTC will be better than Hodling them or your card has to become worthless. Trust me either one of them is very much possible.

There's Nothing to worry about the cycles. We are in the midst of one of the greatest man-made clusterfuck economic coverup. 2008 was nothing in comparison to what we will be witnessing.

[Erdogan]

The value comes from the demand to hold. If someone has 100 k BTC, uses one to buy something online, and the online merchant immediately converts to fiat, the demand is down 1 (at that price point).

If someone acquires a coin just for the trade, and the online merchant decides to hold it, demand is up 1 (at that price point).

Demand is urge to hold (since there is no destructive consumption), supply is the urge to hold less (since there is no creative production, only "finding" coins already existant in the protocol).

Also remember that demand and supply is a set of volume/price point pairs. The aggregate demand can not be expressed with a single number.

[piramida]

Won't this cause the value to drop if there is no flow from "general" users, or in other words, no one using the currency in the fundamental way/reason that a currency exists

No, it won't. Any other questions? Please research such subjects which you obviously missed as: gold.

Bitcoin has, apart from a currency aspect, a pretty solid store of value aspect, a distributed ledger for any type of commodity aspect and many others as well. So even if it totally fails as one of them it may well prosper as another. Because *NOBODY* yet knows what bitcoin will evolve into, we just know that it is a door to digital era that was not completely possible before. But at least as a store of value it is great, method of value transfer it is amazing, currency it's so-so (but again, as it is internet cash, it is amazing cash for the internet, doh; and bad cash for brick-n-mortar stores, even the ones with a website), securities ledger is brilliant but needs alot of UI work.

Try sending a stranger on the internet $5 without compromising his or your identity; was it really possible before bitcoin? No, it wasn't. Are you gathering money with some internet friends of yours on some large project fund, was it possible before without completely trusting one of the friends with all the money? No, it wasn't. Are you paying someone in Peru  sitting on your sofa on a Sunday night, was it possible before? No, it wasn't. Could you record a piece of data on the internet in such a manner that all of the world will be guaranteed to see it unmodified forever, no matter how many servers crash and OSes change? No, you could not. See, that's just some small things that are available *now*, in it's infancy.

Will it fail because it is not convenient enough for you to shop at Wallmart with it? No, it will not.

[Sophia1029]

Won't this cause the value to drop if there is no flow from "general" users, or in other words, no one using the currency in the fundamental way/reason that a currency exists

No, it won't. Any other questions? Please research such subjects which you obviously missed as: gold.

The reason I am asking is because I don't know asshole, I am knew to this. Asking people questions here about bitcoin and economics in the economics section is researching. The best way to learn is ask people that are experienced and already know ... When they are not jerks about it.

[desticy]

No one needs to Bitcoin currently if it not associated with fiat, in fact. As far as I know, people are more willing to accept US dollars

if the appearance of bitcoin is not code rather a number, so where is the difference with dollar?

[bl4kjaguar]

You can (easily) sell bitcoin for a premium on peer-to-peer exchanges like https://localbitcoins.com

Here is one easy way to do that; I am not affiliated with this trader:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133439.0