Topic: Why use bitcoins when my dollars are working just fine for me? - page 2. (Read 4033 times)

So you don't have to deal with having money stolen from paypal.

the instant paid ones are still cheaper than paypal
paypal tends to freeze your funds because the weather changed too fast
are you seriosly comparing those 2 things actually? Just that makes the conversation with you pointless

Long term project usually factor in inflation and deflation. And smart market participants usually do deal which favor them.

Bitcoin supports free transactions if you wanna wait 3 days.. paypal is instant
Paypal has 0 fees if you send as a gift.. it cost nothing you dont always pay a fee.


I love the deflation bias around here.. inflation robs currency savers, deflation robs currency borrowers.   

Dollar is still a preferable medium of exchange for many people.

I think it can not be both because a currency and a commodity serve different purposes in which each of them is better then the other. A currency is good at buying stuff. It's durable, exchangable and so forth (see theory of money for more information on the difference between sound money and currencies, btw).

But: With more and more (hopefully) shops and businesses accepting bitcoin, it will mature more and more into a currency and move further and further away of being used as a commodity. But this will take a few years, I would say. (it took gold and silver a few thousand years, then fiat currency came along ... ;( )

Why can't it be both a commodity and a currency? People are obviously using and spending bitcoin as the companies that are accepting it are reporting quite large sales in it. Granted I'm sure most people are saving their coins but there's plenty of people who are buying and selling using them and that will only grow.

Thanks so much for asking that question which adresses the major issue with bitcoin despite all its great advantages:

Hardly anybody uses BTC to buy stuff. Instead it is mostly used to trade ie. to make a profit. But that's not what a currency is good for, not to speak about real money.

People use BTC not like money, they use it as a commodity. As long as this behavior does not change, BTC won't mature into a proper currency.

Here are your points dissected one by one

• Bitcoin also supports free. Bitoins not moved recently get processed fast even with 0 fee. The fee is there to prevent spam (and initiative for the miners after the rewards run out
• chargebacks are coming with bitcoin too in the form of 2 of 3 multi-sig based escrow. You pay for arbitrate only if there is dispute. Now with paypal you pay fee always
• yes, because people don't use escrow, that will quickly change as more easy to use tools come, they are being developed as we speak
• Anonymity WILL become more important as governments become more intrusive
• With deflation you don't rob anyone, you simply get rewarded for choosing to postpone your consumption
• it has tons of other purpose other than drugs, and obviosly does great job at ordering drugs

You can use bitcoins to be a part of the elite and to be revolutonary. There's nothing more revolutionary than bitcoin right now.


I kinda agree with a lot of what you just said, but not that last bit. You're completely wrong on that.

Danny, I respect the hell out of honest traders like yourself, but this is bullshit.

Lower transaction cost my ass. Paypal lets me send for free if I want to take the risk in the transaction.. its hard to beat free.
No charge back might be good for merchants but sucks a big one for customers
Reduces fraud? have you looked over scam accusations on the forum? fraud is rampant
Anonymity is not important in 99.9 percent of transactions
deflation is as immoral as inflation... the only thing that changes is who is being robbed.
Far more convenient to simply spend it.. as long as you dont want food or gas.

The truth is there is no good reason to use bitcoin except for illicit purposes and it doesn't do a great job of that.
 

it doesn't have to be only offline

You think is working fine! ... Think about it.

well bitcoins is a internet currency, so trying to find non internet uses of bitcoin(for the non-tech savvy crowd).. WOW your right, that is a killer challenge and to raise the bar that you want it to not just be an advantage or a convenience of something that can be done with other FIAT methods. wow, nice challenge. now to make a coffee and get my grey cells in gear. im sure there is one example.. give me time.. im sure the amish, or african population that dont use banks (meaning no FIAT) might spring to mind. but first coffee

sip of coffee..
most non-tech savvy and unbanked population:
ok so the amish/native indian population do not believe in being part of the government world, they do not like touching fiat, and although they are getting forced into it for some supplies they cant make themselves. they do not want to touch it, because then they can become taxed by it. so with bitcoin they can send value between their settlements to cousins at large distance without touching a bank or a bank note. now for the problem.. not being tech savvy by choice or religion. how to get them to accept using a smartphone to do it.

slightly techsavvy but unbanked:
imagine a poor family being rejected for a bank account due to bad credit, or something else. (not important why). so its harder for them to get a job because most jobs require pay to be put into a bank account. they cant sell things online and then cash out as again paypal needs a bank account. so being an ebay seller to get an income is out of the question. so the only thing they can do is work cash in hand. but with bitcoin they can change all that. with hundreds of jobs being paid in bitcoins, multiple sites that are ebay-esq. and thy can buy groceries without having to find a way to convert to bank notes

Thank you for all those, some really good ones.

Now we need few KILLER ones, not just advantages or conveniences or savings but something that you actually can't do with dollars.
Something that would make even a non techsavy person do the switch?

Another area where bitcoin could have big advantages is in international transactions.  Right now to send money to friends and relatives overseas you have to (usually) buy USD, pay a fee to transmit USD, and then they pay a fee to convert USD to local currency.  With bitcoin, minimal fee to send and maybe even a premium when you convert to your local currency via local bitcoins!

The way you state it, it's a problem entirely unrelated to the one OP is trying to solve, so your comments on this are kind of irrelevant.

Thats why i said bitcoin solves fuck nothing when it comes to the real problen (inequality). If you get there first you get all the stuff, same with BTC.

and when you stock bitcoin ... after 2 years, you can buy a thing with less money.
dollar don't do this ... it's a (hyper) inflation system ! (even now in eurozone...)

-You don't pay the same huge fees with using CC/DC.
-You don't expose your private information online (to websites that get hacked and CC/DC data leaked) and also less risk for identity theft.
-less bacteria are found on each bitcoin compared to a physical dollar