Originally Posted by Eleazar:
Bitcoin's Rally Masks Uncomfortable Fact: Almost Nobody Uses It
By Olga Kharif | Bloomberg
May 30, 2019, 7:00 PM CDT
Bitcoin has a lingering problem that few people are talking about amid the renewed exuberance of the recent price surge. Hardly anyone is using the world’s largest cryptocurrency for anything beyond speculation.
Data from New York-based blockchain researcher Chainalysis Inc. show that only 1.3% of economic transactions came from merchants in the first four months of 2019, little changed over the boom and bust cycles of the prior two years.
Even though marque companies such as AT&T Inc. now let customers pay with cryptocurrencies, the problem is that few speculators want to use the digital coins to pay for wireless services when the digital asset’s price might surge another 50% in a matter of weeks.
That’s become the main dilemma with the cryptocurrency: Bitcoin needs the hype to attract mass appeal to be considered a viable electronic alternative to money but it has developed a culture of “holders” who advocate accumulation rather than spending.
"Bitcoin economic activity continues to be dominated by exchange trading," Kim Grauer, senior economist at Chainalysis, said in an email.
Well yeah, Bitcoin is a store of value. And there is a great, great reason why people use it. That I'm not going to get into here, but I bet you can just figure it out on your own. People with money like decentralization and (pseudo) anonymity. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
Well yeah, Bitcoin is a store of value. And there is a great, great reason why people use it. That I'm not going to get into here, but I bet you can just figure it out on your own. People with money like decentralization and (pseudo) anonymity.
A store of value has to be able to hold value, or only fools will store value in it. That's the point of the article. It has no use other than speculation. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BWillie:
Well yeah, Bitcoin is a store of value. And there is a great, great reason why people use it. That I'm not going to get into here, but I bet you can just figure it out on your own. People with money like decentralization and (pseudo) anonymity.
If Paul Solotshi Calder Le Roux is the real Satoshi Nakamoto, it goes a long way in explaining the "great, great reason" why people "use it." [Reply]
Originally Posted by Eleazar:
A store of value has to be able to hold value, or only fools will store value in it. That's the point of the article. It has no use other than speculation.
You're right, why would anyone want to store value in this asset :-) [Reply]
"Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries."
Originally Posted by -King-:
"Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a form of electronic cash. It is a decentralized digital currency without a central bank or single administrator that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries."
Coulda fooled me.
Looking like Bitcoin will prove to be a high value settlement network in its current implementation. Should consensus determine an increase in blocksize and some viable layer 2 solutions then sure, maybe someday it can serve as a daily currency but not today or the foreseeable future. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Fat Elvis:
You must have thousands of Bitcoin.
Maybe...and maybe not. Considering a single Bitcoin is worth about $7500 right now, it wouldn't take many to buy a house. Maybe he has a few Bitcoin. [Reply]
Originally Posted by loochy:
Maybe...and maybe not. Considering a single Bitcoin is worth about $7500 right now, it wouldn't take many to buy a house. Maybe he has a few Bitcoin.
Probably a cool idea until you get to your closing or go to pay off your lender and find out BTC dropped 5% that morning and you need to cough up another $30,000 [Reply]
