Topic: Merchants that accept Bitcoin and settle in USD are driving the price down (Read 3917 times)

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most of us are in it for investment purposes. you act like you would still be here if the price was forever in decline.

investment purpose = store of value, currency use, or anything that has value.

being in bitcoin for investment purposes is not a bad thing. people shouldn't try to act like they aren't in it because of the exceptional ROI.

There is only a small percentage of people who aren't in it for investment purposes, and those are the miners who got coins at almost free. Everyone else invested.  So of course the price matters.

All the answers to you questions are already in my post you quoted

I don't expect you to understand it, cos juding by what you have said, you are obviously in bitcoin purely for investment purposes.

Calling names wouldn't get you anywhere, learn to read and think. Think forex, think devaluation, think inflation, think Euros and Yen.

I'm sorry but are you retarded? Glad to see you're such a humanitarian that you are willing to lose money out of your own pocket and decrease your overall buying power in exchange for adoption. Who the fuck would get into bitcoin if the value drops steadily every year

Everything you bought with bitcoin will just like that pizza, become the most expensive xxx in human history after a couple of years. So even all the merchants accept bitcoin payment, it won't be used at large scale today

We are still in the early days of adoption, so does the volatility. If bitcoin reached certain degree of market saturation, then price will be stabilized and more and more people will start to use it as a payment medium, and there will be less need to convert to local currency

The point is, Bitcoin wasn't designed for merchants to accept payment in BTC and then convert into USD to pay for employees. It is designed to completely replace the whole monetary system, and unless that happens, nothing will work.

Yes when someone buys something with BTC, it gets converted back to USD in many cases but how do you think they get the BTC in the first place?  They usually have to buy it, which drives the price up.

And the point is that they more people who are using BTC, the more people are holding it at any one time and that means less supply on the market and higher BTC prices.

OP is forgetting some really important stuff.

When large retailers open up for BTC, they will attract more people into BTC. All those new people will have to buy that BTC somewhere which will drive price up, and once they buy stuff, retailer will sell BTC and drive price back to where it was. So at worst, price will stay the same.
But there is one very important thing. Just like with everything, people wont buy EXACT ammout of BTC they need. They will in most cases buy round numbers and spend part by part, which will in turn drive price up more as some part of BTC will stay at private wallets for further shopping.

For BTC to be viable on world market, it needs to spread, and once it spreads, more retailers will use it as larger amount of shoppers will have it, and when larger amount of shoppers have it, price will definitly go UP.

Anyone who buys something on overstock/elswhere will see Bitcoin as an option when he/she checks out.

This could lead to:
- he/she checking out what the hack this Bitcoin thing is
- it may open a debate between colleagues that otherwise would never happen
- every-time solid merchant adopts it, it gains credibility
- etc.

I think it's a very good thing, especially long term.

The whole problem is that the governments are panicking about bitcoin, and they are labelling it as a "High Risk Investment Product", while it's actually a new type of currency that can substitute the current ones. That is why many don't accept Bitcoin, since its price can fluctuate a lot.

The fiat money, which overstock actually accepts, has to come from somewhere. This means someone has to go and buy those BTC used to purchase stuff from overstock. So you have an ongoing "circulation" and people buying BTC signifies a demand for it, which means a higher value for BTC, which means "cheaper" (relatively speaking) items on overstock, which means people might be motivated to buy more BTC,...etc

Which also means nothing happens without using fiat money.

And in case people do not buy BTC the price would ofc go down or in case large quantities of BTC are used to "play" with the market. But this second possibility is more of a problem when it comes to top 10 BTC holders.

Well said.

Bitcoin is not a get rich quick scheme, where everyone just buys and holds until no one is left to buy. If Bitcoin is used and this leads to higher liquidity on the BTC side on exchanges (or a constant inflow of coins that are sold), it's a very good thing and will make it harder for it to Bubble like crazy. If the price goes down due to that, that only means the current price was unsubstainable anyway.

So, according to OP and some of you guys, if BTC is massively adopted under this "accept BTC and sells it for USD" system, the price will collapse. Suppose more and more companies start accepting it, the price will go down more and more, lets say 10 USD each. Then, any company willing to do a 210 mln USD transaction would be able to buy all existing BTC (because in your guys logic the part where the buyer must buy the bitcoins so the company may dump it is simply forgotten
 Yeah, the part where most bitcoins anyone holds now were bought and not mined - they are not the "first owners", that is what I mean - is ignored.). Pratically all coins spent and later "dumped" will have to be bought for USD from someone who did the same. The amount of "first spenders" relatively to the rest will become less and less relevant in terms of volume to a point where all coins must be bought for USD before being "dumped", which will annulate this effect (when I say USD it can be any other currency), unless people start holding BTC (the amount that can be mined is limited, so at a certain point you either bought them or earned them by other means than mining), which will drive price UP, and not down. The conclusion that mass adoption followed by currency convertion leads to a collapse in its value leads to this absurd conclusion: if increasing adoption reduces price, then we will certainly arrive to a point where an individual or a group can buy all of them. But how can that happen in a mass adoption environment? Who would sell "the last BTC"?
 

OP has repeatedly said "driving the price down", I believe this is all he is concerned with

I would happily settle for a steady drop in value EVERY YEAR, in exchange for mass adoption. People using bitcoins to buy things is healthy for bitcoins. This would take all the speculation out, and generate real sustainable transactional demand for bitcoins.

It would spell disaster for large bitcoin holders in the short term, but eventually, I believe transactional demand will fuel bitcoins prices back to current levels anyway, and it will be a more robust environment than what we currently have now.

I would think the day Amazon starts accepting bitcoin is the day the price of bitcoin jumps through the freaking roof.

Better still, get Overstock employees to accept bitcoin instead of fiat.

Technically, wouldn't that mean they would pay taxes on that. Thus leading to higher paid employees and new talent =D

The op only mentions half the argument. He bypasses the fact that the consumer will have to buy the bitcoin which will cause the inverse effect(price going up). Additionally, the more people that use bitcoin, the more demand there will be which will also cause Btc to go up. Additionally, we must remember that Btc has a limited supply; 21mil. Looking at the big picture, I propose that the more people that actually start using Btc to make purchases, the higher the price will go due to the element of there being a limited supply of Btc.
That's my two sotashi.

Perhaps the negatives of the argument will only be short term but bear in mind at the moment people who buy with BTC with companies such as Overstock are in essence exchanging their BTC for USD. This can't be said in any other way.

I do not agree with this statement at all, when a big merchant starts to accept bitcoin payments, it opens up a new market for bitcoin, BTC becomes a stronger currency because it becomes more relevant as a currency, this should increase demand for bitcoin= more people gonna buy BTC with FIAT.

Every time a big merchant accepts BTC, BTC becomes a stronger currency in the long run, that is how BTC got strong ever since the first real life good, a pizza, was bought for bitcoin.

When the merchant immediately dumps all the bitcoin he made from the sales that can only have a short term negative effect on the price of BTC, in the long run it is positive. because it will lead to more people holding BTC.

Fully agree with the OP here. I made the same point a few weeks ago, if the companies accepting BTC then use this BTC to pay their overheads this will be a step in the right direction. What they're doing now could cause BTC to collapse.

Let's say 1000 BTC was spent everyday all of which was being dumped back on to the market there will be less buyers for BTC as it becomes a pointless exercise. Lots of people using BTC to buy going to one company who then sell the BTC for USD, where are the new buyers for this BTC coming from?