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Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

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Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#51

Post by MBCook »

booleandilemma wrote: post #23
tunetine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably when it is used mainly as actual currency, not for speculation or black market exchanges and laundering.

I was skeptical of Bitcoin for a long time, but the other day I was on a (legal) website and they had it listed as a payment method, right next to Visa. Seeing it there really showed me how far it's come.

It's not that hard to add to a real website, but what percentage of transactions are conducted in it?

I mean if some big retailer like Amazon or BestBuy or Walmart to accept it, but only 0.02% of their daily transactions involved bitcoin would that be a success? It's a lot of money in absolute numbers, but it's minuscule as a percentage.

If it were 5% that would certainly be something to look at.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#52

Post by btown »

cabaalis wrote: post #22

Would it be correct to say that there is a threshold where the value of a bitcoin makes it reasonable for retailers/small business/etc to invest in using them as an actual currency at the register? If that's the case, then it would make good business sense for someone nefarious to pump up the price as much as possible to reach that threshold, wait for the use to become common, then cash out. Effectively manipulating…

Volatility is the important measure here more than price. If a merchant cannot have certainty that the USD value of their hot bitcoin won't fall between the time they accept it and the time they convert it, they'll be loath to make that any substantial portion of revenues.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#53

Post by [deleted] »

tgtweak wrote: post #32
gigatexal wrote: post #18

I think I had a coin once in a wallet long since deleted. What I could do with 5k now.

I got one better... I traded 30 bitcoins for Diablo 3 gold when Diablo 3 launched, 1m gold was about $5 and bitcoins were about $7. Was just after linode wallets got hacked. I'll let you do the over/under on that one.

[deleted]

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#54

Post by moronicalox »

joelrunyon wrote: post #44

I'm curious what the naming conventions are going to be to transact bitcoin on a regular (offline) basis. Are you going to say 1/10 bitcoin or will that have a name? One thing I haven't seen anyone talk about is the language to make bitcoin more accessible. No other currency (that I know of) has 1 unit as the MAX unit to transact (at such a high value) with no smaller denominations. If Bitcoin really DOES end up at 1…

It does have a name. You're talking about mBTC and bits https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Units

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#55

Post by solotronics »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #35
cabaalis wrote: post #22

Would it be correct to say that there is a threshold where the value of a bitcoin makes it reasonable for retailers/small business/etc to invest in using them as an actual currency at the register? If that's the case, then it would make good business sense for someone nefarious to pump up the price as much as possible to reach that threshold, wait for the use to become common, then cash out. Effectively manipulating…

I don’t see why this would be the case. The utility in currency is not value, but stability; there’s little incentive to use Bitcoin if the value is not stable.

yeah who would ever want something that appreciated in value /s

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#56

Post by johnwheeler »

It's 100% bubble.

It could go up to $6,000, $50,000, or even $1M. It's not localized like tulips, and it's connected to the internet, so the universe of people available to fuel the speculation is enormous. That the Chinese are highly speculative is what's mainly driving the current price.

It has no intrinsic value. It's like gold in that it's not a productive asset. It doesn't yield anything like stocks or bonds. The only thing a bitcoin holder can hope for is that someone will buy their coins in the future at a higher price.

The interesting part is watching human nature unfold. People who hold bitcoin mistakenly believing they're investors because the price action is reinforcing that belief. They're 100% speculators by definition. It's OK to speculate. It's neither illegal or immoral, but you should know when you're speculating and when you're investing.

You can't make this stuff up. Look at the people coming out of the woodwork: The Winklevoss Twins, Dan Bilzerian, professional wrestlers, and such. All the community leaders are either fighting with each other or in jail.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#57

Post by harryh »

solotronics wrote: post #50
MBCook wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't make them wrong. I find the idea of crypto currency, especially bitcoin, very interesting. I just have a very hard time seeing how it's actually useful. It can't handle very many transactions per minute. And the thing that supposed to make it so great is that no one controls it. But if bitcoin becomes really important then people will want to control a lot of the mining power. Pretty soon you end up with a gr…

why is it useful? you can store and instantly send any arbitrary amount of money anywhere on the planet and it is the hardest (impossible?) for a government to steal it from you

https://xkcd.com/538/

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#58

Post by tunetine »

notsofastbuddy wrote: post #24
tunetine wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably when it is used mainly as actual currency, not for speculation or black market exchanges and laundering.

How is DNM usage not an actual currency?

DNM is something I had to look up. I don't have to explain why going to the store and being able to purchase something with Bitcoin is not the same as buying drugs on the black market.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#59

Post by solotronics »

tgtweak wrote: post #32
gigatexal wrote: post #18

I think I had a coin once in a wallet long since deleted. What I could do with 5k now.

I got one better... I traded 30 bitcoins for Diablo 3 gold when Diablo 3 launched, 1m gold was about $5 and bitcoins were about $7. Was just after linode wallets got hacked. I'll let you do the over/under on that one.

I threw away hundreds of Bitcoin on formatting a drive many years ago. never thought they would be worth more than a few cents. I revisited in 2014 and have been accumulating ever since.

Re: Bitcoin Gets Close to $5,000

#60

Post by brownbat »

cabaalis wrote: post #22

Would it be correct to say that there is a threshold where the value of a bitcoin makes it reasonable for retailers/small business/etc to invest in using them as an actual currency at the register? If that's the case, then it would make good business sense for someone nefarious to pump up the price as much as possible to reach that threshold, wait for the use to become common, then cash out. Effectively manipulating…

It's almost the reverse... high BTC/USD ratios mean high real transaction fees and long confirmations, even for small purchases. The fork made it better, but I don't think this is a solved problem for BTC.

Litecoin evangelists will point out that the usability of litecoin is currently far and away better. Part of that is certainly attributable to design, but part of it is attributable to LTC/USD being a better ratio than BTC/USD, meaning a 0.001 tx fee is a few pennies in one and a few dollars in the other.

The popularity of a coin increases adoption (and so network effects), but increases hurdles to usability at the same time, it's a really fascinating game theory situation...

We might end up with a suite of coins that users bounce between, or maybe some clever altcoin designer will find a clever fix for some of these issues. Not sure.

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