> me he wanted 0.52 Bitcoins for my lunch
With the Bitcoin currently valued at about $0.02 (down from $17.00), I suspect the restaurant won't be accepting to many more Bitcoin orders.
I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
121–130 of 139 posts
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#122> me he wanted 0.52 Bitcoins for my lunch With the Bitcoin currently valued at about $0.02 (down from $17.00), I suspect the restaurant won't be accepting to many more Bitcoin orders.
Where are you seeing bitcoins for $0.02? They're about $16 on TradeHill and Mt. Gox.
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#123I really wander what if a country legalizes bitcoins. A small/poor country with less than 1 million inhabitants. Bitcoin supporters will found a great base where to make transactions legally and build bitcoin related start-ups without fear. All transactions take place in that country banks and then forward to the bank of choice of the company/person/start-up. Think of that country as a legal bridge to using/trading b…
Everything is legal until it is made illegal. Bartering for goods and services is not illegal, at least in the US, and Bitcoin falls under that legal realm. There is no law hindering any company's ability to accept Bitcoin as payment besides the requirement to pay taxes on the fair market value of the Bitcoins.
Just out of curiosity, are you a tax lawyer/whatever-lawyer-is-entitled-to-make-this-claim?
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, plenty of people do not save in BitCoin, for values of plenty and save that most people would understand. You might more accurately have put 'a few people hold bitcoins for reasons of speculation'. This is not the same as saving. [Disclosure - I hold no bitcoins] PS - it's probably about time that people disclose whether or not they hold bitcoins when commenting.
Holding == saving. Sounds like you are trying to emphasize the difference between investment and speculation, instead.
No, they are not equal, because that difference he is emphasizing is the definitions "that most people would understand."
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then they aren't accepting euros as currency. At the end of the day they will immediately convert the euros to GBP. They are willing to use euros as a medium of exchange, but only because they know they can exchange them for (to them) real currency. (Currency is relative, obviously. And just as obviously it helps that somewhere in the world there are people who use that type of money, which gives you comfort that eve…
> * They are willing to use euros as a medium of exchange, but only because they know they can exchange them for (to them) real currency.* Any person or business is only willing to use a currency as a medium of exchange because they know they can exchange them for other goods. "Currency" and "medium of exchange" aren't mutually exclusive, the former is a special form of the latter that is recognized widely (and in mo…
> You would claim that the fast food wages of a teenager who always spends it immediately is not money.
Just because he doesn't save it doesn't mean he's wouldn't be willing to if he had a lot of it. He isn't spending it because he thinks it doesn't keep value, he's spending it because he wants to buy things.
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is it different from ordinary coins? (Obviously, in a hypothetical gold-coin economy credit cards would be in gold, too). Btw, practicality was not the reason the world abandoned the gold standard, political and economical needs obviated it. P.s. obviously, paperclips are not a good figurative example. The central banks might just give you a list of banknote numbers to exchange (and an API to verify their uniquen…
We abandoned the gold standard because governments wanted to spend money (usually on war) that they didn't have.
But even before the gold standard was officially abandoned, devaluation was a regular feature of gold- and silver-based currencies.
I once saw an exhibit in the Israel Museum showing a sequence of ancient coins, all stamped from the same die over a period of some decades, where the gold content gradually declined from about 99% to about 1%.
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quick question for you. Who was the second astronaut to set foot on the moon?
What's the analogy you're trying to make?
There's an old cliché, nobody remembers the second man to walk on the moon.
So my point was, there is value in being the first restaurant in the world to accept bitcoins. And to be the first coffee shop. or the first plumber to do so, etc.
But, of course, I got schooled by lwat who poked a hole in my argument ... Buzz Aldrin is very well known.
Incidentally, the second restaurant to announce that they accept bitcoins also is in NYC ... http://twitter.com/ocrepes
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#128There's a lot to like about BitCoin. They "just" need to solve the following: 1. Technical issues (make it more secure) 2. Economic issues (deflation) 3. "Competitor" issues (governments, banks, the powerful status quo)
> Economic issues (deflation) This is actually a pretty serious problem. The value of bitcoins always settles such that the cost of the electricity to make them is approximately their value. But because the difficulty is adjusted such that a fixed number of bitcoins are generated per time (meaning faster or more efficient computers don't help), and that the number generated per unit time is constantly shrinking, it w…
In theory it's the difficulty that should settle such that the cost of the electricity to make them is approximately equal to their value.
So, for example, when generation switches from 50 per block to 25 per block, the value will remain the same and it will simply become uneconomic to mine. As miners leave the network, the difficulty will automatically reduce until equilibrium is reached again. (In theory. In practice, the time lag until the difficulty changes could make this an unstable feedback loop rather than stable).
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
We abandoned the gold standard because governments wanted to spend money (usually on war) that they didn't have.
But even before the gold standard was officially abandoned, devaluation was a regular feature of gold- and silver-based currencies. I once saw an exhibit in the Israel Museum showing a sequence of ancient coins, all stamped from the same die over a period of some decades, where the gold content gradually declined from about 99% to about 1%.
Yes, because it was possible and practical for the gov't to do so. Governments have always devalued their currencies, and citizens are rarely happy about. Just because it happens doesn't mean "we" chose it.
Re: I Spent A Coin (And I Liked It) — How I Bought Lunch in Manhattan with Bitcoins
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would be much more impressed if people who raised this point also suggested a fairer way of distributing the coins. It is difficult to tell if they think the fundamental concept of bitcoin is bad or if they just have sour grapes because they aren't an early adopter. But while we are at it, why shouldn't early adopters profit?, they took a risk early on. And actually if you ask me I think the minting system is prett…
If bitcoins came from a central authority and were available at fixed exchange rates, relative either to an existing currency (dollars, euros) or commodity (gold, oil) that would be a lot more fair. But then they wouldn't be bitcoins. Ideally early adopters should not need to be rewarded for taking a risk because there would be negligible risk.
If early adopters were not rewarded then there wouldn't be any.