Topic: [2015-06-04] University Students Find Bitcoin Too Volatile To Use (Read 1331 times)

"Growing pains"

The arguments of volatility are something that will keep people in the United States away for a while.

However, if there was an easy way to spend stocks and bonds at the store, would you need cash?

We'll get there.

Yes... some of them received $100 per head as a part of the MIT Bitcoin Project, but it was not free. The students had to complete an online survey, in order to receive the coins. And I don't know how many of them immediately sold the coins and how many of them kept them. An alumni of the MIT, Alexander Morcos sponsored the project. Sadly, at that point of time, BTC was trading against the USD at almost $450. Now the exchange rate has fallen to $250.

I remember there beeing an experiment at MIT by giving out 100 dollars worth of bitcoin to each student. Recently I read similar comments, saying that I have not 70$ of bitcoins left due to the volatility. So I am sure this is true , as a lot of them saw the bad side of it, and gave up on it.

This covers the merchant not the person who holds the coins, but I guess that's the risk the bitcoiner takes, but I'm sure they wouldn't be displeased if the price goes the opposite way. I do agree with you on reasoning of why should people bother with bitcoin and sadly there isn't much reason for the average person to get on board yet but maybe at some point in the future the price will steady off and people can use it as more of a standard and real world currency.

Yeah, more recently it has been more stable. I wonder if they ask the same students again if they would give the same replies.

Exactly, volatility is fun and we can be glad when more finally comes around.

I enjoyed the above post, thank you for summing it up. Whoever wrote that pile of crap definitely couldn't keep themselves from showing their personal attitude in the piece that should be a report.
Students using Bitcoin won't be discouraged or alienated by volatility. On the contrary, I'm sure most of them are willing to bet some of their spare change on it.

I get the impression that none of the previous posters has actually read the piece, preferring instead to wax nostalgic about their own university days and then extrapolate from there.  Hey, we're all pattern-seeking creatures - don't be grumpy.

I have degrees from SFU so of course the item caught my eye and I did read it. It's a very brief (5 paragraph) opinion piece - unresearched and uninformed as far as I can tell, from a frequent blog-post-style contributor to newsbtc.

Five paragraphs - this is one of them:

"In its golden days a few years back, bitcoin prices have (sic) surged past the $1,200 level before gradually descending in 2014 until its current levels at $240 this year. Relevant industry updates continue to push prices around, along with overall market sentiment." (What just happened?)

A few more excerpts:

"Students at the Canadian university can be able to pay for their books with bitcoin at any of the book stores located on the university campuses and bitcoin ATMs were installed later on." (Parse that grammar, if you dare - I think the underlying facts are correct).

"However, some students found the cryptocurrency to (sic) volatile when it comes to everyday use." (No examples or quotations offered, just the author's assertion).

"While this could be an opportunity for the SFU Bitcoin Club to educate its peers, not all students might be receptive of this information and might choose to dismiss the idea entirely." (Um, and so what? What follows from that? Why would it matter, if true? Is "not all" a significant number? Is "might choose" a newsworthy find?)

"Students who don't understand how bitcoin works or those who find the price too volatile might be alienated by this development". (Um, why/how exactly? Why wouldn't they just ignore it? Would they be alienated if the bookstores started accepting Mastercard when they only had Visa?)

"However, constantly updating the prices can be confusing for the students and it could open up the possibility of using price changes in one’s favor. It could also cause suspicion between students if one student gets a good discount for making a purchase at the right time." The sole commenter at newsbtc (so far) demolishes that presumably straw man argument by pointing out: "To put a pricetag on a book in BTC would be ridiculous. You do realize that most businesses that accept BTC display their prices in dollars, and when the transaction is at the pay stage if the customer selects BTC it shows what the BTC amount would be based on the current exchange rate...."

My closing thoughts, after reading some earlier posts: One of the SFU campuses (downtown) caters mainly to the MBA wannabe crowd who work in the nearby office buildings - definitely not the young pub-dwelling KD and Raman (sic) type of student.
The main campus (on Burnaby mountain) has a large Asian-student population, some of whom fit the penniless student stereotype and some of whom drive Boxsters to school. On balance, they are probably BTC-savvy, imho. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the SFU bookstore-BTC gambit works out over time, btcnewsfluff notwithstanding.

This is the real reason. I find it hard to believe that university students would care about volatility. And it has been pretty stable for a while now.

The need for something like Bitcoin (regarding spending it to buy stuff) in well developed countries is low. Reason for that is as you describe, there are faster ways of paying etc.

The main advantage for me is buying stuff from other countries without using paypal or other nonsense services. That's when Bitcoin for me start to shine.

That's all well and good for the merchant but the headline is students find it too volatile and I guess it can be. Imagine if you bought $100 worth of bitcoin and by the time you go to spend it it could be worth $85 which wouldn't be any good. Of course the opposite is also true but bitcoin has been going down rather than up lately and a currency that losses money is still an issue.

Don't be so negative. It could also swing the other way and they would be able to buy lunch for themselves and for a friend, if it goes up. ^joking^ Depends on how you choose to look at it.
Students are normally cash strapped and small changes like these might just have a impact on their daily budget, if it was paid by the parents in Bitcoin. I was there and I know what they are saying.
If I get $200 a week spending money, and I spend 20% on food and 80% on booze, every percentage drop in the Bitcoin price will influence how much I can drink at the end of the day. ^Ha Ha Ha^

No you don't understand. They cant use it because if they hold it for more then 10 minutes they may lose their lunch money.

Hmm.. this means that they don't understand how Bitcoin works. Why should they bother about the exchange rate? If they are using Bitpay or coinbase to make their payment, then the Bitcoin exchange rate has nothing to do with the final purchase price of the product. The volatility issue arises only when they want to hold / stash their coins.

Bitcoin price is volatile, and will remain volatile for at least a few years. If the university wants to promote bitcoin, they can setup a small fiat fund which offers a monthly fixed rate of exchange between canadian dollars and bitcoin for shops within the university. This fund absorbs the exchange differences and hold some bitcoins for investment.

The shops faces less risk, prices remain stable for a month and fund will be profitable in long term.

Just wait until they get out in the real world where, for many months at a time, BTC prices are way too boring and stable. 

Of course its going to be too volatile for them, we are talking about university students here. Lets not forget all the KD and Raman we used to eat while at school, broke and hungry.

they should be able to get around the volatility by using BitPay or whatever service instantly converts BTC/CAD at point of sale. They can even do it manually using Preev or any of the other live BTC price monitors... the problem with BTC is; why bother? cash is still the easiest fastest way to purchase goods, why go through all the steps of buying BTC, converting price, spending btc?
this is basically what holds people back from getting on board with btc. Its simply too much bother.
shopping online with coins one has held since before 2013, or moving funds across international boarders is another story, but retail BTC usage has a loooooooooooong way to go.

Just recently, Simon Fraser University (SFU) made an initiative to start accepting bitcoin payments in its book stores. Students at the Canadian university can be able to pay for their books with bitcoin at any of the book stores located on the university campuses and bitcoin ATMs were installed later on.

http://www.newsbtc.com/2015/06/04/university-students-find-bitcoin-too-volatile-to-use/