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Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

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Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#111

Post by gammateam »

First, use in commerce peaked when transaction fees went too high in 2017, and consumers didn't try the shitty user experience again

okay, temporary problem

the payment processor's user experience kind of sucks and the network didn't help that

better UX and lightning network will help with that. There are also some BIPs regarding signing transactions differently, as well as smaller transactions coming. This year, 2018, more people already use another form of smaller transactions and also combine them. Bitcoin would handle a lot more load this year.

Secondly, M1 is a tiny fraction of the supply used for goods and services, M2 and M3 are illiquid stores of value. Bitcoin isn't functioning differently to currencies in this regard so its a weird standard to put it at to proclaim it isn't a good value transfer mechanism.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#112

Post by bobthepanda »

deevolution wrote: post #90
bobthepanda wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what advantage does it have over gold? Advantages of gold vs. Bitcoin: - gold is pretty easy to find, not that hard to buy for the average consumer; BTC is anything but - gold is physical in form and securing it is not hard; BTC is not physical, exchanges get hacked with losses to accounts, in the event of a natural disaster or some event where power generation and internet is lost you lose access to BTC. (So…

Maybe its a generational thing, but i have no clue how i would go about buying/trading gold and i dont think anyone in my friend group does either. Bitcoin is far more accessible.

You can literally go to a gold dealer shop; it's like forex for gold. Even in my moderately sized American city there are twenty that show up in Google Maps within a twenty minute drive. And you buy gold and it's physically in your possession; verifying it is easy, and the best part is you can verify it at some other gold dealer if you're super paranoid.

With BTC, you have to find a trusted exchange and a trusted wallet. The average consumer doesn't really know anything beyond a google search and the first two results.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#113

Post by GW150914 »

comboy wrote: post #104
bobthepanda wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what advantage does it have over gold? Advantages of gold vs. Bitcoin: - gold is pretty easy to find, not that hard to buy for the average consumer; BTC is anything but - gold is physical in form and securing it is not hard; BTC is not physical, exchanges get hacked with losses to accounts, in the event of a natural disaster or some event where power generation and internet is lost you lose access to BTC. (So…

In this context, it's much harder to protect gold from the government (if it decides it wants to take it away). Plus buying stuff online is more tricky. I could envision alternative reality though, where there are companies specializing in providing tokens that have 100% coverage in gold. You would need to trust them and their software, but some trust is always involved. The problem is those would be an easy target w…

If the government wants your gold or private key, they’re going to get it. How long are you going to hold out against their proverbial $5 rubber hose? Solitary confinement? Mundane legal threats?

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#114

Post by rrdharan »

bscphil wrote: post #91
chrismorgan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of your points is of dubious validity: fees may not be higher. Fees went very high when the network became congested; but when it’s not congested, they’re much lower than credit card systems are for normal businesses. https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ suggests that right now, what equates to about nine US cents is sufficient for a basic transaction. And if you’re happy to wait an hour, then two cents ought to do you…

I agree. It's almost hilariously counterintuitive. I recently needed to send a moderate sum of money (4 figures) to someone who lives across the country. There's no obvious reason why this should cost me anything or not happen in the same day. However, * Checks / ACH takes days to close, plus in many situations you might have to actually mail the person a check * EFT seems reliable, but takes days and requires having…

Last week I needed to make a highly time-sensitive transfer of ~20k that had to clear the same day. Chase charged me a flat fee of $25 for the wire (and Ally Bank would have been happy to do it for $20). Chase temporarily froze my account since the payment was so large it was immediately flagged, but I spoke to someone on the phone within a few minutes, verified it was all legitimate, and the transfer was then processed without issue.

I fail to see how Bitcoin could have helped any of this.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#115

Post by Nursie »

gammateam wrote: post #111

First, use in commerce peaked when transaction fees went too high in 2017, and consumers didn't try the shitty user experience again okay, temporary problem the payment processor's user experience kind of sucks and the network didn't help that better UX and lightning network will help with that. There are also some BIPs regarding signing transactions differently, as well as smaller transactions coming. This year, 201…

> better UX and lightning network will help with that.

Lightning appears to be a bit of a joke - routing payments is almost impossible, lots of attempts seem to fail, and there also appear to be requirements like keeping a node up constantly.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#116

Post by kenneth »

deevolution wrote: post #90
bobthepanda wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what advantage does it have over gold? Advantages of gold vs. Bitcoin: - gold is pretty easy to find, not that hard to buy for the average consumer; BTC is anything but - gold is physical in form and securing it is not hard; BTC is not physical, exchanges get hacked with losses to accounts, in the event of a natural disaster or some event where power generation and internet is lost you lose access to BTC. (So…

Maybe its a generational thing, but i have no clue how i would go about buying/trading gold and i dont think anyone in my friend group does either. Bitcoin is far more accessible.

You can buy bullion at close to spot prices on eBay from trusted sellers (APMEX or Kitco or JM Bullion)

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#117

Post by droidist2 »

shawnz wrote: post #58
jeromegv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto space doesn't necessarily mean Bitcoin, could be another better technology that eventually becomes mainstream.

And when someone claims that they support Bitcoin or see a future for Bitcoin, chances are they too are talking about cryptocurrencies in general and not specifically Bitcoin.

True, it's just often easier to say Bitcoin because many people have heard of it.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#118

Post by mathattack »

sorokod wrote: post #106
socrates1998 wrote: post #70

It sounds weird, but I think a big part of Bitcoin's, and other crypto's value, isn't in the day to day ability to use it to buy and sell things, it's the inability of the government to devalue it. This isn't as big a problem in many richer countries with relatively stable currencies, but I sure as hell would prefer Bitcoin to anything the Venezuelan government or the Argentinian government would issue. The kinks are…

It is weird, if you can't buy and sell with bitcoin daily(whatever that means) what value does it have for you?

Illiquid investments can still have value if they’re out of the reach of governments. (Governments can’t decide the exchange rate, or tax/confiscate them)

This is a stretch in the US, but less so elsewhere.

I’m not a holder because it’s too speculative an investment for me.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#119

Post by agorabinary »

It's pretty remarkable that the transaction layer (Lightning network) on top of Bitcoin hasn't garnered any discussion in this comment section - I would expect this to be the primary topic when talking Bitcoin commerce! It's not possible to have an intelligent discussion on Bitcoin commerce without discussing its most relevant tech.

From my experience, I see that most apolitical or politically averse techies (a lot of HN) are drawn heavily to Ethereum, which has been falling relative to Bitcoin ever since the January highs. Pretty sure there is a strong correlation between this and HN crypto frustration in general.

Re: Bitcoin's Use in Commerce Keeps Falling

#120

Post by bobthepanda »

comboy wrote: post #104
bobthepanda wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, what advantage does it have over gold? Advantages of gold vs. Bitcoin: - gold is pretty easy to find, not that hard to buy for the average consumer; BTC is anything but - gold is physical in form and securing it is not hard; BTC is not physical, exchanges get hacked with losses to accounts, in the event of a natural disaster or some event where power generation and internet is lost you lose access to BTC. (So…

In this context, it's much harder to protect gold from the government (if it decides it wants to take it away). Plus buying stuff online is more tricky. I could envision alternative reality though, where there are companies specializing in providing tokens that have 100% coverage in gold. You would need to trust them and their software, but some trust is always involved. The problem is those would be an easy target w…

I mean, if the government is trying to take gold away, they're probably not that far from trying to take BTC away. And governments are more than willing to do things like cut off external internet access, power, and all the other necessary infrastructure for BTC. Gold has less infrastructure requirement than BTC; and if your government is willing to beat you bloody for your gold, they're probably also willing to beat you bloody for your BTC wallet credentials.
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