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Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

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Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#41

Post by niggler »

PassTheAmmo wrote: post #36
Atropos wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole "Cyprus people are getting into Bitcoin" narrative is a total lie as well. But I guess Bitcoin is a great learning opportunity for spotting Scams etc., as long as people don't lose too much money, it might even be beneficial.

Actually for me bitcoin proves just how few people can ACTUALLY spot a pyramid scheme or a pump and dump - instead resorting to calling everything that seems too good to be true a scam. It may work 99.9% of the time, but BTC is the false positive IMO. I totally agree that the Cyprus thing is totally bogus though, journalists are uninformed and lazy as usual. The real reason is that it seems more and more likely that…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKC7iaBKvs#t=768s

A pretty brilliant scam if you ask me

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#42

Post by grovulent »

spartango wrote: post #28

I worry that as Bitcoin's value rises, people are buying in not to use it as payment for services or goods, but simply as an investment vehicle. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this; currency trading is common and well-explored. The problem is that the value of a currency is supposed to also be somehow related to its utility in acquiring goods and services. When it is rarely used to that effect, people may r…

I'm not a bitcoin fanboy - but I see this sentiment around a lot and I'm not sure I agree with it. The claim is that the value of a currency is supposed to also be somehow related to its utility in acquiring goods and services. And if this isn't the case - then people will go off it.

When was the last time someone acquired a good or service with an ounce of gold? Perhaps we shouldn't consider gold a currency? Well I'm fine with that. Bitcoin probably isn't a proper currency yet either (in the sense that people aren't exchanging much with it yet). But not being directly relatable to utility in exchange certainly hasn't hurt gold in recent history. So I don't see why necessarily it will be a problem for bitcoins.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#43

Post by dragontamer »

oleganza wrote: post #35
spartango wrote: post #28

I worry that as Bitcoin's value rises, people are buying in not to use it as payment for services or goods, but simply as an investment vehicle. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this; currency trading is common and well-explored. The problem is that the value of a currency is supposed to also be somehow related to its utility in acquiring goods and services. When it is rarely used to that effect, people may r…

"The problem is that the value of a currency is supposed to also be somehow related to its utility in acquiring goods and services." Well, it is. As more people hold some BTC "for the future", they are more than willing to accept them as payment for their services. Imagine you are surrounded by people who have "hoarded" some BTC. Suddenly they can just trade in BTC without going to a bank (unless they have some spare…

But that is only one side of the coin. If people are hoarding BTC, then they aren't spending them on goods / services.

IE: Deflationary Spiral. It becomes hard to be a merchant who accepts bitcoins, because everyone expects BTC to keep rising in prices.

People who bought a domain name for 1 BTC a few weeks ago from Namecheap lost a lot of money. They should have instead "saved" that BTC. Therefore, people are discouraged from using BTC as a transaction vehicle.

Currently, hoarders are the ones benefiting from BTC, but no one else is. No merchant knows how to value their services in BTC, not when there is this much volatility around.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#45

Post by oleganza »

bonzoesc wrote: post #34
oleganza wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless these people have invested extra money they can afford to lose for the reasons to save them from inflation and confiscation. Then they still have enough cash to pay the bills, so why should they get back to fiat? E.g. I myself and many of people I know are not going to sell a single Bitcoin unless any sort of personal or global disaster. And many of them are going to spend their BTC over time to avoid interact…

Fiat you can spend is more useful than fiat you can't. > I myself and many of people I know are not going to sell a single Bitcoin unless any sort of personal or global disaster. In the case of global disaster, who's going to be buying a fringe currency?

If no one, then it's a total disaster. If it's recoverable, some will buy it.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#46

Post by niggler »

quasque wrote: post #40
oleganza wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless these people have invested extra money they can afford to lose for the reasons to save them from inflation and confiscation. Then they still have enough cash to pay the bills, so why should they get back to fiat? E.g. I myself and many of people I know are not going to sell a single Bitcoin unless any sort of personal or global disaster. And many of them are going to spend their BTC over time to avoid interact…

"And many of them are going to spend their BTC over time to avoid interaction with banking system as much as possible." What is the purpose of avoiding the banking system?

99% of the people who ultimately argue about avoiding the banking system engage in behavior that is either morally questionable or explicitly illegal. I'd say about 1% are true "what i do with my money is my business and my business only" libertarians

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#48

Post by phormula »

spartango wrote: post #28

I worry that as Bitcoin's value rises, people are buying in not to use it as payment for services or goods, but simply as an investment vehicle. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this; currency trading is common and well-explored. The problem is that the value of a currency is supposed to also be somehow related to its utility in acquiring goods and services. When it is rarely used to that effect, people may r…

$450k of electronics were purchased at bitcoinstore.com in march alone

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#49

Post by jwallaceparker »

james4k wrote: post #5
Hermel wrote: post #2

I.e. the USD has fallen below 10 mBTC.

That's like saying the USD has fallen 80% in the last 30 days.

Currencies rise or fall relative to other currencies or commodities or goods.

So when you say "USD has fallen 80%" it always has to be qualified with something like "against BTC."

But yeah, it sounds ridiculous.

Re: Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC

#50

Post by bcoates »

spartango wrote: post #28

I worry that as Bitcoin's value rises, people are buying in not to use it as payment for services or goods, but simply as an investment vehicle. In principle, there's nothing wrong with this; currency trading is common and well-explored. The problem is that the value of a currency is supposed to also be somehow related to its utility in acquiring goods and services. When it is rarely used to that effect, people may r…

I can't help but think these prices represent people confusing a currency being useful with a unit of the currency being worth more. Obviously this is true at the extreme case that a useless currency is worthless in any quantity. But it doesn't really follow that more trading of goods and services in Bitcoin would cause the price to increase. This wouldn't need to happen until some substantial fraction of them are in the hands of people spending them instead of holding them speculatively. Currently the amount of Bitcoins that need to exist to satisfy all the commerce is tiny.
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