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Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

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Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#61

Post by AJ007 »

maxerickson wrote: post #38
olalonde wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not as small as you think. This is what Overstock's CEO had to say about it on Twitter: "#Bitcoin's first full day on @overstock.com was a huge success: 840 orders, $130,000 in sales. Almost all new customers. #stunned". https://twitter.com/OverstockCEO/statuses/421754592427139072 130 BTC is 0.001% (130/12.5M) of all Bitcoin spent in one day at Overstock. Does Overstock typically receive 0.001% of all the USD mo…

From a comment below, they do about $3 million in a day. But there has never been a day where excited dollar enthusiasts spent easy money on Overstock to help the dollar look better. Yes, I'm insinuating that at least some of that volume is bitcoin millionaires having a laugh.

There are also a lot of holders who want to convert their BTC in to something else without paying taxes. (some of whom will be billed, or jailed, for many years in to the future as tax authorities reverse the transactions paths.)

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#62

Post by eridius »

w1ntermute wrote: post #15
rgbrenner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing relatively large sales For comparison, overstock sold 1.1B in 2012.. which is 2.6M in 21 hours vs 124K in 21 hours

So what you're saying is that on the first day of availability, Bitcoin made up 5% of their sales by volume. I'd consider that a pretty big success.

Check back in a few days. It's almost certainly going to go down, not up.

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#63

Post by ryanyeah »

kolev wrote: post #55

I feel sorry for those buying bitcoins at prices $900+, seriously! China has two more weeks until the shut down - so far Huobi and a couple of other exchanges still allow bank transfers into the exchanges and the Chinese are making their last profits. When Yuan stops flowing into the exchanges (or becomes much harder), the only Yuans you can get to buy is when you sell. I'm sure people will figure out to buy via frie…

Have you got a link to reference this as happening?

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#64

Post by samsnelling »

selectodude wrote: post #8
samsnelling wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it inflated, but it has more volatility. I no longer own any bitcoins, but if I were going to invest or purchase from an exchange, it would not by MtGox because of all the HFT that happens there.

High frequency trading minimizes volatility. And MtGox is notorious for not taking weeks to pay out. So I'm not entirely sure what you're on about.

selectodude, Can you explain how HFT minimizes volatility? I was always under the impression HFT made the swing wider as when the price drops, naive algorithms sell anticipating a wider drop.

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#65

Post by intelliot »

bwilliams18 wrote: post #37
kysol wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even bigger would be for Paypal to add BTC as a payment method . Stores wouldn't have to "accept BTC", Paypal would do the dirty work and send on the amount in fiat to the store. What would be better (from a branding point of view), Paypal to use PPC as "Paypal Coin". The masses wouldn't have a clue that it was actually named something else.

Thats effectively whats going on here though–Coinbase is handling the bitcoin and sending USD to Overstock. So on the retailer side of things the only difference is Coinbase doesn't have the cache that PayPal does(or the baggage). They are backed by some solid VC though–so a worry about them disappearing is probably unwarranted.

Perhaps you mean "cachet" instead of "cache"

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#66

Post by socillion »

kolev wrote: post #58
kolev wrote: post #55

I feel sorry for those buying bitcoins at prices $900+, seriously! China has two more weeks until the shut down - so far Huobi and a couple of other exchanges still allow bank transfers into the exchanges and the Chinese are making their last profits. When Yuan stops flowing into the exchanges (or becomes much harder), the only Yuans you can get to buy is when you sell. I'm sure people will figure out to buy via frie…

Thanks for downvoting without giving a reason why!

How does the ban on 3rd party payment processors affect direct bank transfers?

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#67

Post by quasque »

jds375 wrote: post #3

I think this really helps justify Bitcoin as a viable currency to the public. Seeing relatively large sales being done with Bitcoin at a well-known retailer is a big confidence booster.

I don't see how it's anywhere near a viable currency for general use. The wildly fluctuating exchange rate, the fact that it's run on a public ledger (and the privacy loss implications of this), the relative difficulty of use compared to cash or debit/credit cards, and its uncertain legal status are all still problems in that regard.

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#68

Post by XorNot »

1qaz2wsx3edc wrote: post #32
jval wrote: post #13

This is just ridiculous. If Overstock is the biggest retailer in the world accepting Bitcoin, and on their opening day they only manage $130,000 in sales (130 BTC), what does that tell you about the volume of Bitcoin actually being used in trade and commerce rather than speculation? There are 12.5 Million BTC in circulation. I don't doubt that Bitcoin will become a revolutionary system of payments and money storage d…

On the value of bitcoins: There was another discussion on hacker news, where I commented on the fact that bitcoins should have a higher value due to lost coins: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6859991 In that thread, @nl provides the most interesting look at bitcoins from the perspective of bitcoins as a part of GDP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6860024 Anywho, the value is largely speculative, but most…

What happens when the mining difficulty exceeds the cost of electricity to run the ASIC miners?

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#69

Post by XorNot »

eridius wrote: post #62
w1ntermute wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you're saying is that on the first day of availability, Bitcoin made up 5% of their sales by volume. I'd consider that a pretty big success.

Check back in a few days. It's almost certainly going to go down, not up.

Has anyone been following what BTC price Overstock is allowing?

Because I seriously doubt you get market top or even average price in BTC for something.

Re: Bitcoin Price Touches $1,000 Again as Overstock Sales Hit $130,000

#70

Post by wmf »

XorNot wrote: post #68
1qaz2wsx3edc wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the value of bitcoins: There was another discussion on hacker news, where I commented on the fact that bitcoins should have a higher value due to lost coins: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6859991 In that thread, @nl provides the most interesting look at bitcoins from the perspective of bitcoins as a part of GDP: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6860024 Anywho, the value is largely speculative, but most…

What happens when the mining difficulty exceeds the cost of electricity to run the ASIC miners?

In theory, people will turn off miners and difficulty will reduce.
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