Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

cryptojunky.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 78 posts

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#31

Post by collyw »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #16
DannoHung wrote: post #5

When can I actually use Bitcoin as a currency rather than a speculative investment asset? That's when I want to buy Bitcoin.

What is "currency" for you? People refer to "currency" all the time as if it was one thing. Cash is one kind of currency, plastic is another, bank account - yet another, savings - yet another. Converting between those is not instant and not free. Bitcoin works OK as a bank account. That is "currency".

I always thought that Dollars / Euros / Pounds were currencies. The card / cash /bank account are mediums tro represent those currencies.

(Now that I have tried putting this into words, I see the whole concept of money / currency is more ambiguous than I originally thought. )

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#33

Post by collyw »

pyalot2 wrote: post #14
onebaddude wrote: post #10

History is littered with the corpses of "investors" in various assets who bought all the way down because "this is a great opportunity!" The exponential rise is price is always accepted as "rational", but the equally exponential fall is always explained as temporary or manipulation, or something. A lot of people made money in 2009 when the stock market was incredibly cheap. But it was cheap because there was tangible…

There's been no "investor" in the history of investment that made money by buying high and selling low.

From my limited understanding of finance, is that not what short selling is? (Followed by buying back at a reduced price).

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#34

Post by corford »

pron wrote: post #12

I have a question that may sound stupid to Bitcoin aficionados, and yet is the first question that comes to my mind whenever I read something like this, and I'm asking it in all seriousness: why would I want to buy Bitcoin (given that I don't wish to profit from Bitcoin speculation)? I get that there is some novelty to using an online crypto-currency. But other than the possible fun factor (which I don't expect to ex…

Buying domains (namecheap.com), vpn services (privateinternetaccess.com), hosting (bitvps.com), donating to the EFF, buying a ticket on Virgin Galactic, sending money to someone else where doing an international bank transfer would be too expensive for the amount involved, receiving micro donations from other people (maybe you run a popular blog or forum).

Admittedly, that's not an enormous list of things but it's a start.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#35

Post by louthy »

rthomas6 wrote: post #28
pron wrote: post #12

I have a question that may sound stupid to Bitcoin aficionados, and yet is the first question that comes to my mind whenever I read something like this, and I'm asking it in all seriousness: why would I want to buy Bitcoin (given that I don't wish to profit from Bitcoin speculation)? I get that there is some novelty to using an online crypto-currency. But other than the possible fun factor (which I don't expect to ex…

It's easier to transfer online than dollars. You can send your bitcoins directly to another person for free or close to free. IF the use becomes widespread, I think the utility of this is obvious... it replaces Dwolla entirely and most of the function of online payment systems. The problem is the volatility. I'm not sure how that could be fixed.

> The problem is the volatility. I'm not sure how that could be fixed.

Liquidity.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#36

Post by danoprey »

macspoofing wrote: post #22

You can't have 20-40% weekly swings in an asset and still expect to use it as currency. Neither merchants, nor consumer can trust it, and speculators just sit on it and distort the entire market. I hate that Bitcoin as a currency is almost worthless.

Every new currency has to go through that. That's unavoidable for a small, relatively new currency. With every boom and smaller bust it grows larger and more stable.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#37

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gexla wrote: post #19

I'm not convinced. Like gold, Bitcoin isn't an investment. Warren Buffet will tell you that investing is putting your money into something which creates real value, like a business. He would also tell you that you should stick to what you know, otherwise its just gambling. For me, that's investing my time and money into building my own income streams. I don't really care that I could possibly get a return of 10x or m…

>Warren Buffet will tell you that investing is putting your money into something which creates real value, like a business.

Warren Buffet is an investor, i.e. someone seeking returns from interest, dividends, or capital gains from the reasonable expectation of future interest or dividends. Healthy markets have three other fundamental actors: hedgers, who trade to offset a preëxisting risk, arbitrageurs, who trade to profit from establishing the Law of One Price, and speculators, who absorb excess risk and illiquidity other participants do not want.

Speculators absorb the error term. Healthy markets don't function without a proper amount of speculation. So if you believe Bitcoin has fundamental value as an asset and think the upside at least fairly compensates you for the risk, go ahead and absorb that risk. By boosting the asset's value you make it more attractive to others to hold and possibly transact with, thereby giving you a return on your risk.

Point is, you may want to speculate or not. I do not. But that doesn't mean we need to moralise investing over speculating any more than an arbitrageur need find himself intellectually superior to investors.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#38

Post by rthomas6 »

louthy wrote: post #35
rthomas6 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easier to transfer online than dollars. You can send your bitcoins directly to another person for free or close to free. IF the use becomes widespread, I think the utility of this is obvious... it replaces Dwolla entirely and most of the function of online payment systems. The problem is the volatility. I'm not sure how that could be fixed.

> The problem is the volatility. I'm not sure how that could be fixed. Liquidity.

Say what? How is Bitcoin not liquid?

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#39

Post by rglullis »

gexla wrote: post #19

I'm not convinced. Like gold, Bitcoin isn't an investment. Warren Buffet will tell you that investing is putting your money into something which creates real value, like a business. He would also tell you that you should stick to what you know, otherwise its just gambling. For me, that's investing my time and money into building my own income streams. I don't really care that I could possibly get a return of 10x or m…

> The more mainstream and the larger the Bitcoin market, the more stable it should become. But I'm not interested in risking a large amount of assets to be a revolutionary or financial martyr.

So don't risk a large amount of assets. Risk a small amount. I too want to see BTC succeed as a currency and global payment system, so I've been buying $25 every month worth of BTC and just putting aside. It can go to zero tomorrow and I wouldn't care. It can go to $10000 and I wouldn't sell. But every new opportunity that I get to use BTC as a currency, I use them - namecheap domains come to mind.

I think in this way you are not risking much, but you are contributing to reduce the volatility and turn this into an actual currency, without ruining yourself if this experiment fails.

Re: You Asked When To Buy Bitcoin...Well Now's Your Chance

#40

Post by vidarh »

CryptoJunky wrote: post #27
macspoofing wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A new approach some merchants have taken is to accept only Bitcoin and thus eliminate payment processing fees. Don't count on it. Processing services will rise up to automate various aspects of bitcoin transactions, and you'll still pay those fees.

There are already several such services, the most major being Bitpay. However, with their software as a service model they don't charge a percentage of every transaction, but rather a small recurring fee for using the service. Thus as transaction volume increases costs per transaction decrease. The major cost for current payment processors (i.e. mastercard, paypal, etc) is that they end up third party mediators in di…

> but rather a small recurring fee for using the service. Thus as transaction volume increases costs per transaction decrease.

That's not scalable. There are plenty of merchants out there where bandwidth and server costs alone would exceed the $30 for their "Professional" package. They're going to need to raise their prices.

> not a traditional payment processor that ends up mediating disputes.

Someone is going to have to deal with disputes, and if that is you rather than a payment processor.... Well, I wouldn't want to be in that position. The reason someone will have to, is that otherwise you will be hit with (and lose) lawsuits - most countries have some degree of consumer protection for distance sales, many countries have very extensive protection.

It is in no way clear that this will end up being any cheaper than a card processor.

I'm all for Bitcoin, but I don't see (lack of) fees as a very compelling feature.

Post reply on HN