Actual Bitcoin commerce vs. speculation - page 3.

oda.krell

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Quote from: notme on August 05, 2013, 10:05:48 AM

Quote from: oda.krell on August 05, 2013, 07:15:32 AM

[...]

Note, I'm not saying that that is the case right now, or will forever be the case. Just that each (commercial) transaction represents a pair of agents that beliebe in bibcoins. Which is good.

I beliebe in bibcoins!

xpost to the altcoin board: Biebercoin ("bibcoin"), discerning feature: unlike other financial instruments, maturity is optional.

(*groan*)

notme

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Quote from: oda.krell on August 05, 2013, 07:15:32 AM

Quote from: ?? on ??

[...]

And, there should be no presumption that there should be a single, agreed upon exchange rate in order for Bitcoin to funciton. As we have seen, once the limits of arbitrage volume are reached, friction between markets will maintain a channel that refuses to close. Once this becomes the proverbial firehose-through-a-soda-straw we will likely see rather large arb channels. This, particularly if governments choose to impose capital controls. It is not entirely unprecedented to see de-facto, and even official currencies with bifurcated exchange rates under these circumstances.

Granted. But there is a fundamental difference between "restrictions in region 1 lead to price x, while in region 2 price is y, and arbitrage cannot fully resolve the gap between the two" and "9/10 of earth's population thinks bitcoin is silly make believe money".

Note, I'm not saying that that is the case right now, or will forever be the case. Just that each (commercial) transaction represents a pair of agents that beliebe in bibcoins. Which is good.

I beliebe in bibcoins!

ElectricMucus

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Quote from: oda.krell on August 05, 2013, 06:34:52 AM

Quote from: Wary on August 04, 2013, 10:16:04 PM

Quote from: oda.krell on August 04, 2013, 05:48:17 PM

for bitcoin to hold value, but each commercial transaction represents at least two people that agree that bitcoin actually *does* hold the value that mtgox says it does.

One, actually. The seller doesn't have to believe that the stuff he sells holds any value

*snort* Funny. But... not entirely true: he must have believed he at least could make the trade I described when he got that bitcoin. So at some point in time, he believed it held some value.

Not entirely true, if you get them only because you think somebody else holds them at valuable. Granted it's only a marginal difference between the two, but I do think it matters.
There were people who knew very well what they were doing when they got into the pirate ponzi early. I'm not saying that Bitcoin has to suffer the same fate, but it could. The risk of that happening is directly proportional to the spread between valuation due to economic activity and valuation due to speculative demand.

oda.krell

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Quote from: ?? on ??

[...]

And, there should be no presumption that there should be a single, agreed upon exchange rate in order for Bitcoin to funciton. As we have seen, once the limits of arbitrage volume are reached, friction between markets will maintain a channel that refuses to close. Once this becomes the proverbial firehose-through-a-soda-straw we will likely see rather large arb channels. This, particularly if governments choose to impose capital controls. It is not entirely unprecedented to see de-facto, and even official currencies with bifurcated exchange rates under these circumstances.

Granted. But there is a fundamental difference between "restrictions in region 1 lead to price x, while in region 2 price is y, and arbitrage cannot fully resolve the gap between the two" and "9/10 of earth's population thinks bitcoin is silly make believe money".

Note, I'm not saying that that is the case right now, or will forever be the case. Just that each (commercial) transaction represents a pair of agents that beliebe in bibcoins. Which is good.

oda.krell

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Quote from: Wary on August 04, 2013, 10:16:04 PM

Quote from: oda.krell on August 04, 2013, 05:48:17 PM

for bitcoin to hold value, but each commercial transaction represents at least two people that agree that bitcoin actually *does* hold the value that mtgox says it does.

One, actually. The seller doesn't have to believe that the stuff he sells holds any value

*snort* Funny. But... not entirely true: he must have believed he at least could make the trade I described when he got that bitcoin. So at some point in time, he believed it held some value.

glub0x

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here https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.2706332
they claim a 30% income boost
they are a physical computer store and are the first in france to accept bitcoin.

Wary

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Who's there?

Quote from: oda.krell on August 04, 2013, 05:48:17 PM

for bitcoin to hold value, but each commercial transaction represents at least two people that agree that bitcoin actually *does* hold the value that mtgox says it does.

One, actually. The seller doesn't have to believe that the stuff he sells holds any value

oda.krell

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I don't think the entire issue of speculation vs. commercial transactions vs. gold-like store of value is quite as black and white as many here seem to paint it.

One, those who, like a mantra, keep repeating: there's no real transaction volume, therefore the price is unsustainable, are ignoring the store of value function as motivation for current price levels. This has been pointed out above of course.

Two, on the other hand, those who fail to see any problem with the lackluster commercial adoption, seem to be ignorant of the fundamental trust problem bitcoin faces, and likely, will continue to face in the near future. Everyone on this forum will gladly trade 1 btc for the current market price, but with near certainty a majority of the world's population sees the value of a bitcoin substantially below that value, if not at zero.

Three, this is were two points above should be combined: commercial transactions are not per se necessary for bitcoin to hold value, but each commercial transaction represents at least two people that agree that bitcoin actually *does* hold the value that mtgox says it does. Which ultimately is necessary for bitcoin to fully unfold its 'store of value' function.

Melbustus

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Quote from: ?? on ??

First it becomes gold 2.0 and then it very naturally becomes a widely used payment mechanism? Who knows

Agreed that it's likely Gold 2.0 first. It's fairly weak-minded to look at current everyday consumer-oriented transaction volume and conclude that it's problematically low. That completely misses both the likely growth paths, and the various possible ultimate success domains.

Bitcoin has the same properties as gold, but minus gold's huge modern-day weakness: tangibility. As bitcoin therefore naturally eats into gold's use-cases, it gets spread to more hands, and transaction volume for greater variety of uses follows. In addition, layered non-strictly-monetary uses of the blockchain will develop, etc...

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: ?? on ??

Bitcoin's use in day-to-day commerce will generally trail its investment/speculative usage by at least an order of magnitude, until that market is fully saturated, allowing commerce usage time to catch up. At least, it makes sense to me.

It will never "catch up" and that is fine.

Gross World Product*: $71 trillion
Global Annual Forex Volume: $1,423 trillion
Ratio of currency speculation to actual goods/services: ~20:1

Non-speculators trade because they HAVE to. As an example, a compnay receives 100 BTC and needs USD to pay for materials, they aren't trading to make an exchange rate profit, they are trading because they need to. Likewise someone buying an Avalon (is/was? only sold for BTC) who only has USD is trading because they need BTC. If there are no speculators (or low speculative volume) the market is going to have huge spreads and low liquidity. In order for non-speculators to have deep liquid markets generally requires a multiple of speculative volume. This applies to currencies and commodities, Bitcoin will be no different.

In summary, all markets need speculators in order to be efficient and speculation will ALWAYS be a magnitude higher than "real economy".

* GWP is the the sum of all the gross national product for all nations. Gross national product excludes imports and exports, since all imports are another countries exports they aren't useful in looking at global production.

ElectricMucus

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Quote from: oda.krell on August 04, 2013, 10:39:43 AM

Quote from: ElectricMucus on August 04, 2013, 09:07:30 AM

[...]

It's probably worse. That 370Euro would come from a single regular who recently has become a Bitcoin zealot and the owner plays along to keep him.
So it's not an actual increase in turnover.

To abuse your own sig:

There's a tendency for every discussion about evidence of btc commerce to turn into a metaphysical investigation of what exactly constitutes "evidence" and "commerce".

Blitz originally asked about "meaningful transaction volume". Fair enough, the Munich situation is hardly evidence for this. But phelix' point was: "If you have a computer at the counter accepting Bitcoin comes at such a small effort it will always pay off." That's not challenged by the claim that it's only 1 guy paying in btc.

It is if the guy would have bought the same stuff anyway.

The whole thing is besides the point though. 3.7 Bitcoins hardly qualify as meaningful transaction value, by any measure, given the time period.

oda.krell

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Quote from: ElectricMucus on August 04, 2013, 09:07:30 AM

[...]

It's probably worse. That 370Euro would come from a single regular who recently has become a Bitcoin zealot and the owner plays along to keep him.
So it's not an actual increase in turnover.

To abuse your own sig:

There's a tendency for every discussion about evidence of btc commerce to turn into a metaphysical investigation of what exactly constitutes "evidence" and "commerce".

Blitz originally asked about "meaningful transaction volume". Fair enough, the Munich situation is hardly evidence for this. But phelix' point was: "If you have a computer at the counter accepting Bitcoin comes at such a small effort it will always pay off." That's not challenged by the claim that it's only 1 guy paying in btc.

ElectricMucus

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Quote from: niothor on August 04, 2013, 04:58:44 AM

Quote from: phelix on August 04, 2013, 03:38:30 AM

Quote from: N12 on August 03, 2013, 06:38:31 AM

Do you guys know of any other stats?

Today, is there anything Bitcoin is actually used for in meaningful transactional volumes besides drugs (SR), gambling (SD), speculation and mining equipment?

Buying drinks at bars.

In Munich/Germany/EU there is a bar called "Niederlassung" (http://niederlassung.org). In the last five month they have made approximately 3.7BTC, ~$370 in Bitcoin. I am sure, they made an additional turnover of at least $700 in € from Bitcoin regulars that payed in €. This does not yet include free advertising. So they made a turnover of more than $1000 at what cost? Virtually nothing. They are running a laptop for other purposes anyway and simply installed Multibit. They printed a QR code on a piece of paper and put it up on the wall.

If you have a computer at the counter accepting Bitcoin comes at such a small effort it will always pay off.

370$ in 5 months.How much is a beer there?
On their price list it comes at 3euros ... make that 4$.

So you're telling me that they sold 90 of the cheapest beers in 5 months via bitcoin ?
Just to cash out those bitcoins it will cost them more than giving a free beer a day

)))))

Ps. Bitcoin regulars that payed in euros are more like Euro Regulars.

It's probably worse. That 370Euro would come from a single regular who recently has become a Bitcoin zealot and the owner plays along to keep him.
So it's not an actual increase in turnover.

niothor

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in defi we trust

Quote from: phelix on August 04, 2013, 03:38:30 AM

Quote from: N12 on August 03, 2013, 06:38:31 AM

Do you guys know of any other stats?

Today, is there anything Bitcoin is actually used for in meaningful transactional volumes besides drugs (SR), gambling (SD), speculation and mining equipment?

Buying drinks at bars.

In Munich/Germany/EU there is a bar called "Niederlassung" (http://niederlassung.org). In the last five month they have made approximately 3.7BTC, ~$370 in Bitcoin. I am sure, they made an additional turnover of at least $700 in € from Bitcoin regulars that payed in €. This does not yet include free advertising. So they made a turnover of more than $1000 at what cost? Virtually nothing. They are running a laptop for other purposes anyway and simply installed Multibit. They printed a QR code on a piece of paper and put it up on the wall.

If you have a computer at the counter accepting Bitcoin comes at such a small effort it will always pay off.

370$ in 5 months.How much is a beer there?
On their price list it comes at 3euros ... make that 4$.

So you're telling me that they sold 90 of the cheapest beers in 5 months via bitcoin ?
Just to cash out those bitcoins it will cost them more than giving a free beer a day

)))))

Ps. Bitcoin regulars that payed in euros are more like Euro Regulars.

williamcoates

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I've been quite impressed with the bitcoin sales we get at www.digital-tunes.net, some months approaching 1% of sales. To be honest I didn't think there would be that much usage, so I'm happy. And best of all no fraud worries to deal with.

phelix

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Quote from: N12 on August 03, 2013, 06:38:31 AM

Do you guys know of any other stats?

Today, is there anything Bitcoin is actually used for in meaningful transactional volumes besides drugs (SR), gambling (SD), speculation and mining equipment?

Buying drinks at bars.

In Munich/Germany/EU there is a bar called "Niederlassung" (http://niederlassung.org). In the last five month they have made approximately 3.7BTC, ~$370 in Bitcoin. I am sure, they made an additional turnover of at least $700 in € from Bitcoin regulars that payed in €. This does not yet include free advertising. So they made a turnover of more than $1000 at what cost? Virtually nothing. They are running a laptop for other purposes anyway and simply installed Multibit. They printed a QR code on a piece of paper and put it up on the wall.

If you have a computer at the counter accepting Bitcoin comes at such a small effort it will always pay off.

vokain

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Quote from: notme on August 03, 2013, 06:55:57 PM

Quote from: randrace on August 03, 2013, 04:59:01 PM

About bitcoinstore.com failing: I checked them out with BTC to burn, but their prices did not bowl me over.

I thought the prices were good, but finding what I wanted was painful.

I gave up trying to find an SSD I wanted

notme

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Quote from: randrace on August 03, 2013, 04:59:01 PM

About bitcoinstore.com failing: I checked them out with BTC to burn, but their prices did not bowl me over.

I thought the prices were good, but finding what I wanted was painful.

randrace

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LTC -> BTC -> Silver!

I am one of those types that got into BTC as an investment but ended up enjoying spending them more than saving them. I've purchased a straight razor, sold some shaving soap to a guy in Poland, payed my hosting bill in BTC and LTC, and bought silver. I like the ease of use and lack of fees compared to PayPal.

Only about 10% of the money I spend online is in BTC, but I forsee that changing. I think cryptocurrencies will be the de facto way the world spends money on the internet within a few years.

About bitcoinstore.com failing: I checked them out with BTC to burn, but their prices did not bowl me over.

vokain

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It is my hope that at that point, as time progresses and the things you can do with each bitcoin increases, its value becomes inextricably mated to the ecosystem that underlies it. A year ago, I doubt I could've found an illustrator without having to convince him to take bitcoins. Now, I have a commission, and an illustrator seeked me out and offers to do my request for 0.5BTC. I think that's pretty cool. This goes back to the 2 pizzas, 10000BTC idea

Topic: Actual Bitcoin commerce vs. speculation - page 3. (Read 5468 times)