Topic: Bitcoin usage is flat (Read 3000 times)

This is because the BTC users total quantity is more or less constant and BTC price is stable  If BTC price will start to change, market will either start to buy or sale, like with any currency, when it go up or down     

Don't you think that the relative stability of the price of bitcoin is actually good for the wider adoption ?

I think most of people would rather hold bitcoin if its price was steady, than if it was swinging up and down 30% each month or even each week.
Stability of price is likely to drive the usage of bitcoins for payments and remittances.

Why is this happening to bitcoin?

Yes price of bitcoin is almost stable these days as i am looking at the price daily for 2 months now. I know the floor price it hit was 226 but eventually within 2 days it get back again to 232 range. I think price will keep on swinging between 225 to 240 mark for few more months.

We are in October now. So seven months after the open of this thread. The transaction volume has continue the trend mentioned bu the main post. In other words continue to be flat. But the price in those months was and is almost stable (with movements up and down but not only down as it must be following the logic of the OP). Is anybody able to explain this phenomenon?

Everything has his flat periods. Also you would need to take into account every single fiat ever, transactions in between cryptos are important too. Everything adds up. But in general, what matters is if the project is good, the adoption will come eventually. We are still on the primitive days of Bitcoin.

Whats with the spike in transactions? You'd think this would correlate to a possible price spike? Can anyone determine where it's coming from?

https://www.coinbase.com/charts

I've heard suggestions much of this volume is faked.

And this is why I think bitcoin may still be going down. I don't think the floor has been hit yet.

retailers are crazy not to accept bitcoin as payment option. the lack of knowledge is an important reason for why they still not accept it. if more know how it works and what the benefits are, then they will show support.

It costs them nothing extra, no charge backs or fraud, gets a wee boost in publicity and milks the occasional early adopter. There are also people who are committed to using it for ideological reasons.

It's a piddly market no doubt, but there's no risk for them. They also get the money a whole load faster from Bitpay than from a credit card company.

Part of the problem is that it's absolutely wonderful for merchants but there's no incentive for their customers. They'll have to address that if they want it to grow.
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Thank you, sir, for the thoughtful reply. 

Yes, just looking at the scam accusations and the currency exchange subsections here, folks are having trouble even obtaining BTC without getting scammed.  And with exchanges there are fees and of course BTC price fluctuations.  Should be interesting to see where all this is in a few years.

Noone know this, but my bet is more "simple usage" applications for smartphone's. Bitcoin is still quite complicated for common user.

The businesses also save money accepting bitcoin versus a credit card, because credit cards charge the business fees whenever someone makes a purchase with their card.

It costs them nothing extra, no charge backs or fraud, gets a wee boost in publicity and milks the occasional early adopter. There are also people who are committed to using it for ideological reasons.

It's a piddly market no doubt, but there's no risk for them. They also get the money a whole load faster from Bitpay than from a credit card company.

Part of the problem is that it's absolutely wonderful for merchants but there's no incentive for their customers. They'll have to address that if they want it to grow.

And this has me wondering why any retailer would want to accept bitcoin.  It's harder for the consumer and it's an extra, unnecessary step for the retailer.  The only real reason I like the idea of bitcoin is that it's a worldwide currency that transcends political borders.  On the other hand, I never buy anything from overseas anyway, nor would I trust an individual in another US state, much less another country, with my money!

Most of the fiat volume is built from coin payment processors like bitpay,coinbase etc. The services like microsoft, dell or overstock auto dump the bitcoin for fiat.

All stores of wealth go through bubble-burst cycles, including BTC. Right now is a perfect time to store and amount, it's a waiting game until the next bubble happens, and then sets at a higher floor.

Sad, but true.

Yes, Bitcoin is still heavily overpriced. I think the real value is around $50 or so.

Newegg tried that and gave it up. See http://www.newegg.com/bitcoin.

Most places are recovering from the economic turbulence of recent years by inflating their currencies.  Bitcoin (or $USD) are therefore attractive in those countries as an inflation hedge.  $USD are lower risk, Bitcoin have a higher upside and also hedge against some particular disaster scenarios better - but have a much higher risk. But that's not transaction volume, that's investors.  And speculators looking for a massive price increase later too, but not people looking to use it for transactions. 

The US and its relatively anti-inflationary policies make the inflation-hedge argument less attractive for American investors, and as already noted using Bitcoin (and finding places where you can use it) is an inconvenient hassle if what you want to do is day-to-day transactions.  So Americans are not hedging inflation, they're investing mostly on the basis of speculation about a raised value in case of widespread adoption.

It is the third-world (undeveloped) and fourth-world (kleptocratic) countries I'm looking to as places where Bitcoin will gain traction for daily use.   These are places where the local currency cannot be stabilized, the laws make any use of it beyond spending it hand-to-hand just as much of a hassle as bitcoin, and there is no protection (in fact sometimes active risk) provided by local financial institutions.  In short, Bitcoin can flourish where the competition from the localized fiat economy is particularly weak.