Why do people sell bitcoins and move the money back to their bank?

[dancupid]

It's something I don't understand.
So you buy some bitcoins, you then sell them at a good price (you've made a profit) and then bitcoin goes down inevitably at which point you can buy more and then the price goes up and you sell them again.
At what point do you decide to quit and cash out?
Is it fear of a Bitcoinica type situation?
Surely once you have Bitcoins/$ in the system you can play this game forever.

[1715562051]

1715562051

[bitdragon]

I have bills to pay and lemons to buy sometimes.

[Sitarow]

I have bills to pay and lemons to buy sometimes.

Basic life needs for most.

[MoonShadow]

I've never cashed out.  Never intend to.

[Sitarow]

I cant wait for the day when you can pay BTC for

Basic life needs.

[TheButterZone]

I convert them to Amazon gift credit with spendbitcoins.com if the rate is around $0.50 +/- deviation for a week. You can store up gift credit on Amazon and I trust their security more than my lack of an offline wallet (not that I've ever gotten a ton of BTC to justify making one). If I hadn't converted, I only would have gained around a couple bucks total, when the rate jumped from $5.xx to $6.xx.

[cbeast]

How do you know this is happening? Of course there are miners that sell BTC to pay expenses, but why do you think speculators cash out other than for arbitrage? I'm sure some do, but for the most part folks are in the game, win or lose.

[Piper67]

As a somewhat related aside, this sort of proves that the notion of a deflationary spiral for bitcoins is just a bunch of hot air. When people need to, they spend BTC, no matter what they think it might do a week, month or year from now.

[Sitarow]

Canada government last week adjusted the details associated with mortgages that will take effect July 9th thats two weeks from today. Therefore maybe they will be needing their own bailout. Here is an interesting article to read on one persons take of the situation.

http://www.greaterfool.ca/

[FlipPro]

I've never cashed out.  Never intend to.

+1 same here.

[N12]

Expenses
Debt
Diversification/Profit taking
Spending

[Stephen Gornick]

So you buy some bitcoins, you then sell them at a good price (you've made a profit) and then bitcoin goes down inevitably at which point you can buy more and then the price goes up and you sell them again.
At what point do you decide to quit and cash out?

When you misjudge the level of the rise.  For instance, let's say I sold after figuring $6.10 was about the top of this little run we just saw.  I'ld now hav to buy back at more than what I sold it for.

Predictions are hard, especially about the future.

[phorensic]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

[bitcoinBull]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

[CA Coins]

Keep the banks off my back.  Last I check, they still don't take bitcoins for the fiat I owe them.

[phorensic]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

I don't pay for power.  So 100% of my sold coins go to paying off the last GPU I bought.

[notme]

Counting only USD based assets, my net worth is -$50k (students loans, mortgage).
Counting only BTC based assets, my net worth is > $7k and rapidly growing.

That's why I sell BTC.

[FreeMoney]

I sell because I spent all my dollars on coins and now earn only coins.

[FlipPro]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

I don't pay for power.  So 100% of my sold coins go to paying off the last GPU I bought.

Yeah that's an option when you're 12 or a thief.

[TehZomB]

Yeah that's an option when you're 12 or a thief.

Not true. I own two houses that I rent out, in both lease agreements I cover the power bill.

[mufa23]

>Why do people sell bitcoins and move the money back to their bank?
Because as of right now, USD is more useful (to me) then BTC. Just a plain cold hard fact. The Bitcoin is better, but until the rest of the world catches on, the USD is the main currency in the US. Everything around here only accepts USD as payment. I am saving some BTC; but as a miner, I am selling my BTC right now. Livin' off ramen right now. Money is tight. Gotta stay alive. And the Bitcoin won't feed me.

[Maged]

Personally, I went all-in at $5.40 (which is not as bad of an idea as it sounds, since I don't use leverage and I diversify between the exchanges (for USD) and local and offline wallets as well), so now that I personally feel that we've reached a good top, I'm finally pulling back my USD and a good portion of my BTC (but nowhere close to all - I'm actually back to where I started before the big rally) to my bank account to pay the debts that I've accrued over the past month, as well as to finance my trip to Europe.

[Yuhfhrh]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

I don't pay for power.  So 100% of my sold coins go to paying off the last GPU I bought.

Yeah that's an option when you're 12 or a thief.

I've seen plenty of apartments with electricity built into the price.

[TheButterZone]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

I don't pay for power.  So 100% of my sold coins go to paying off the last GPU I bought.

Yeah that's an option when you're 12 or a thief.

I've seen plenty of apartments with electricity built into the price.

That's old school. I can see water (& water heating), shared trash dumpster, but single meter electricity for the building at probably the max supply? Eek!

[Yuhfhrh]

For bitcoin miners like myself we purchased video cards with 6 month+ payoff time frames so we have to sell constantly when the price is good just to get to a break even point before we start to make real profit.

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

I don't pay for power.  So 100% of my sold coins go to paying off the last GPU I bought.

Yeah that's an option when you're 12 or a thief.

I've seen plenty of apartments with electricity built into the price.

That's old school. I can see water (& water heating), shared trash dumpster, but single meter electricity for the building at probably the max supply? Eek!

We were looking at apartments a couple of weeks ago for my brother and two of them had electricity and water built in to the price. Out here in the suburbs of Kansas City. They were ~$600 1 room apartments

[TheButterZone]

Duplex, triplex, or many-unit buildings?

[Aseras]

I put my rigs in a datacenter co location. Power is included.. So is good ac and battery backup and Internet. BRing your own server is cheap. I can get boxes hard reset with a ip kvm and power managment. My biggest worry is a card going bad. Then I have to go in. I'm paying for the boxes anyways for web development so the coins are "free money".

[DeathAndTaxes]

Miners won't earn profits selling constantly at a price higher than cost. They have to hoard and speculate just like everyone else.

Um I never did get an MBA but I am pretty sure that is how anyone profits in any enterprise.

[BrightAnarchist]

I sell because I spent all my dollars on coins and now earn only coins.

Wow, so you took the full plunge!

I haven't yet, but I'm thinking about it.

[Bro]

I have bills to pay and lemons to buy sometimes.

if you're that broke you shouldn't have bought bitcoins in the first place, but that poor judgement could also explain why you're broke in the first place

[cbeast]

I start to feel guilty about how much money I make and all the starving children in Africa. It is a shame how we justify our lifestyles when so many are suffering. So to feel better, I cash out some Bitcoin to spend on strippers and massage parlors.

[ElectricMucus]

People sell them because other people sold them, like verse visa.
They stay away if they realized it isn't for them.

[Cluster2k]

People sell and move the cash back to a bank as they may believe the current price is as good as it gets for a while.  I sold a reasonable number of bitcoins last year between $15 and $25 each when the forums were jumping with speculation of $100 by the end of 2011.

Why move the money?  One word: Bitcoinica.  A business that manages to get hacked after a previous hack closed down the business and web site is quite possibly a world first.  I don't intend to leave my money sitting around anywhere, including MtGox.  My bank is backed by thousands of employees.  If someone screws up my account will be made whole, by the bank or government.  If someone screws up in a bitcoin institution it seems not even the police are troubled by a phone call.