I'm not missing shit. The argument on the other side is that you can't use them for anything besides drugs or gambling funds. It's wrong. Yall seem to be missing the distinction between there being a real world application for a currency and choosing to use a different currency in lieu of one that's rapidly appreciating
Again, 99% of the people buying them are doing so as an investment, not to use them. That's the issue. The price is inflated by investors, not users.
so out of all the bitcoin fanboys we've had one dude buy a flight and everyone else be like oh i could buy a flight but i just dont' want to. sounds like a legit currency to me. can't wait to buy some soon so i can not buy things with it.
I agree. I got in a month ago and yeah I was disappointed I didn't get in back in 2010 when I first found out about this but I'm pretty sure 7 years later at $3,500 this is still REALLY early. Unless the world ends computers and the internet aren't going anywhere. So yeah I'll put $1,000 out there and spread it around on btc, xrp, iota, ltc, and etherum and check back in on it in a couple of years. HODL baby!
You're literally making up an argument that nobody has said. There's a difference in what users can use it for and what users do use it for.
This is worse than when someone enters the EmRata thread to tell everyone they don't think she's that hot.
so that 1% are using them for a real life application that you said does not exist. Gotcha. Nobody is gonna argue that it's smarter to use them as an investment right now. That's common sense. Your argument that they need to develop a use for them in everyday life is what I have been arguing against because it's already there.
interesting you say that because i actually bought gold and silver a few years ago and it was the dumbest fucking thing i ever did. similar to btc imo.
Gallant Knight dblplay1212 watson and tmbrules as noted detractors makes me want to buy even more. That's like the dream team of shit posting.
No one is missing this. You're just confirming DBL's argument that it's more of an investment tool than a currency at the moment. You're missing the question of when does its primary use become a method of payment?
My argument is that they need people to start using them. Again, right now it's more of a stock than a currency. That's the point. Very few people are using them, and most of them that are only doing it to hide illegal activity.
so you admit that your statement of them not having a real life application is wrong, and it's simply people waiting until their currency stops appreciating to use them for the real life applications already in place?
Are you arguing that people will spend their bitcoin faster if the currency was depreciating? Like its down today, so obviously people spent more bitcoin today? Not a very compelling argument.
I've never said they don't have a real life application. I said they don't have a real life application that people actually use.
People didn't spend bitcoin today. That's not why it's down. A few investors cashed out of their stock. Right now it's most stock/pyramid scheme than it is an actual currency.
Oh, i totally agree. I think you missed me on that last post. I wasn't saying that bitcoin was down because people were spending today. Its just the opposite of his argument that people don't spend their bitcoin because its appreciating i value. Neither side makes much sense to me.
https://www.recode.net/2014/3/4/11624156/overstock-com-tops-1-million-in-sales-made-in-bitcoin Overstock hit $1M in sales paid for by bitcoins in the first 2 months the payment method was available
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5gq3ga/bitcoin-testimonials-black-market-dispatches Here's How People Are Actually Using Bitcoin Drugs (and Tesco vouchers) Sex worker advertisements Gambling Fake IDs
When a stock has a very high P/E ratio - i.e. Tesla, Amazon, Netflix, ect.. - the investors are speculating that someday the earnings will "catch up" to the price of the stock, thus normalizing the P/E ratio to something more ordinary. The same thing happens with Bitcoin - people are speculating about the future of how currency will operate, not the present. Thus, asking questions like "how many of the 5 bitcoin investors in this thread actually use it for transactional purposes" misses the point. It is estimated that if Bitcoin ever becomes even 10% of the FOREX market, the price would be hundreds of thousands per Bitcoin. Just my
It accounts for less than 1% of their annual revenue. And they are keeping 50% of each one as an investment. What does that do? Inflate the price more. Again, pyramid scheme.
http://lsvp.com/2013/08/15/about-half-a-percent-of-bitcoin-transactions-are-to-buy-drugs/ Curious what the estimated number is now.
So ~4 anonymous people. Got it. That doesn't come close to substantiating what you spout off as fact "Very few people are using them, and most of them that are only doing it to hide illegal activity." Carry on with what you think is true but lacks any evidence.
You should have read the first reply. Most of the Bitcoin transactions are between investors so counting those transactions is just dumb. Jeremy, love your writing and BitCoins, but I think you are comparing apples and oranges. For BitCoins, you are comparing drug transaction volume against currency trading volume. For non BitCoin transactions, you are comparing against GDP. Seems a fairer comparison would be keeping the denominator the same, in other words, the volume of currency transactions.
Lol. I'm not the one asserting facts. "Most (ie a majority) of BTC is being used to buy purple elephants. SHOW ME WHERE I'M WRONG." That's not how this works. You assert it, you show it.
Tesla, Amazon, Netflix all have a business product and operate a business and record a profit. They "earn" money. Bitcoin is based on a mathematical formula (easily reproduced we should add), a brand, and lots of speculation.
Assume that Silk Road $50M annual revenue via bitcoin was still pretty accurate for 2014. Overstock had $1M revenue in the first 2 months of 2014. And that's just one of what 6 major companies that started accepting them that year. It's probably correct that a small percentage of users utilizes them for legal purchases. How many of those percentage of users buy bitcoin once to deposit in their gambling account, or buy $100 of bitcoin every once in a while to order some drugs online??? It's very likely that the amount of bitcoin spent on legal consumer goods and services is close to if not more than is used to buy illegal drugs. I have no idea about gambling bitcoin statistics but Visa, Mastercard, Amex and Western Union are overwhelmingly more popular to use for making deposits on the major gambling sites than bitcoin. ***Payouts are a different story because the sites can't apply your 5dimes balances towards your CC Bill for you and there are no fees for withdrawals like there are for WU/MG payouts. Again not arguing that it's seen as more of an investment right now but the idea that it's not used to buy legal goods and services is flat wrong
Looks like overstock had sales of ~$2 billion. Bitcoin would represent about .003% of the dollar amount of those transactions.
As soon as people stop acting like the only thing people spend BTCs on is drugs and gambling. How the fuck did you focus on that one stat and not the actual point of the post?
What's incredibly stupid about it? I'll dumb it down for you since you can't comprehend. Estimated illegal drug sales in 2014 using BTC: $50M Legal consumer goods sales in 2014 using BTC for JUST ONE OF SEVERAL MAJOR RETAILERS: $3M So not even counting sales by NewEgg, Expedia, or Dish, Dell, Microsoft (didn't start until late in the year) or anyone else that were accepting BTC in 2014 - One single retailer had 6% of the sales or Legal & Illegal BTC revenue. Point: Saying Bitcoins are only used for drugs and gambling is wrong. http://www.ebay.com/gds/100-Companies-That-Accept-Bitcoins-As-Payment-/10000000206483242/g.html
Silk Road accounted for $1 BILLION in illegal drugs being sold. Please show me the legal market places that have offset those sales. Overstock.com has a couple million. Who's next?
The FBI laughs at your numbers. The complaint published when Ulbricht was arrested included information the FBI gained from a system image of the Silk Road server collected on 23 July 2013. It noted that, "From February 6, 2011 to July 23, 2013 there were approximately 1,229,465 transactions completed on the site. The total revenue generated from these sales was 9,519,664 Bitcoins, and the total commissions collected by Silk Road from the sales amounted to 614,305 Bitcoins. These figures are equivalent to roughly $1.2 billion in revenue and $79.8 million in commissions, at current Bitcoin exchange rates...", according to the September 2013 complaint, and involved 146,946 buyers and 3,877 vendors.[12]According to information users provided upon registering, 30 percent were from the United States, 27 percent chose to be "undeclared", and beyond that, in descending order of prevalence: the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Canada, Sweden, France, Russia, Italy, and the Netherlands. During the 60-day period from 24 May to 23 July, there were 1,217,218 messages sent over Silk Road's private messaging system
This is called moving the goal posts to something I never said. Focus. It's your position that most people are using btc to hide illegal activity. Either you have evidence to support that information or you don't. So far your response has been telling me to prove a negative and raising a topic unrelated to your original assertion.
The FBI has stated that one website moved $1.2 BILLION in illegal drugs. In all of my research, I have not seen a legal marketplace that can put a dent in offsetting that amount. Please provide with me with marketplaces that I missed.
so the FBI's number is almost 10X higher than any other number out there. Cool http://www.businessinsider.com/online-black-market-generate-big-revenue-2015-8 https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...markets-rake-in-up-to-500000-a-day-study-says https://www.wired.com/2015/08/crackdowns-havent-stopped-dark-webs-100m-yearly-drug-sales/ Does your response mean you're still not acknowledging people do in fact spend bitcoins on legal goods and services? The post you quoted had a link showing 100 retailers to that accept bitcoin as payment. If one single retailer received $3M 3 years ago, I'd imagine 100 in 2017 probably get a good amount
I think now is probably when I point out that Silk Road is no longer operating and hasn't been for nearly 4 years. Your constant need to state shit as fact, have nothing to support it, and then argue it for no apparent reason is incredible.