$600 Bitcoin

[Unarmed Gunman]

You're right that gold does have some minor intrinsic uses

Dude seriously?

Gold: Uses of Gold in Industry, Medicine, Computers, Electronics, Jewelry
Silver: Uses of Silver in Electronics, Coins, Jewelry, Medicine

You can like Bitcoin all you want but if you're going to get into intrinsic value at least read up a little on the subject.

 

[JakeStratham]

I was wrong. Also, you didn't say any of those things I posted. I am trying to have an intelligent conversation and I have made some mistakes. Let's start over."

The last time I witnessed that sort of mea culpa on WickedFire was in early 2009.

Or maybe 2008. My memory fails me.

 

[jacky8]

Remember the golden rules of success on WF:

Take your SEO advice from those who never ranked a site in the last 3 years.

Take your bitcoin advice from those who never purchased or mined any cryptocoin yet.

 

[jacky8]

Dude seriously?

Gold: Uses of Gold in Industry, Medicine, Computers, Electronics, Jewelry

The major use of gold is simply for its shine and historical use as money.

Jewelry and Dentistry still make up for around 80% of gold applications. The rest is industrial, medical, etc.

I'd say it is not dumb to say that gold's major (80%) use is for it being a shiny metal with historical use as money.

 

[o hai guyz]

I've made dozens of substantive posts you haven't addressed, and then you post a bunch of nonsensical strawmen and try to call me out for being intellectually lazy?

A strawman is where you completely twist an argument into appearing illogical and no longer representing the original argument. Simply paraphrasing isn't the same thing. Your points are:

Gold has secondary uses in manufacturing and jewelry (you need Gold in order to have Bitcoins, but you don't need Bitcoins in order to have Gold).

Dollars can be used to pay taxes (must be used).

Bitcoin doesn't have a secondary purpose.

Yes, all of these are true, but I addressed them in my first post.

Gold has secondary uses - sure it does. But are you stipulating that these uses are the reason its price is high? You completely dismissed my premise that its price is primarily (or at least in part) determined by the belief held my most people that "gold = value."

Dollars can be used to pay taxes - this is true, but it doesn't mean that any non-dollar instrument is useless.

Bitcoin doesn't have a secondary purpose - same as your first argument just reworded slightly differently.

You seem to be under the impression that all bitcoin investors are crazed libertarians who expect the exchange rate to reach millions of dollars and who want nothing more than to overthrow the gov in favor of complete anarchy. This couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm simply stating that bitcoin is a useful tool that is functionally superior to fiat, and that it has the potential to continue increasing in value (up to a point, obviously) as more people choose to adopt it. Nowhere am I implying that bitcoin will rule the world and dollars and gold will become worthless, and that seems to be the thesis against which you're basing your arguments.

 

[guerilla]

Remember the golden rules of success on WF:

Take your SEO advice from those who never ranked a site in the last 3 years.

Take your bitcoin advice from those who never purchased or mined any cryptocoin yet.

I love the presumption by people who have no idea what other people are doing, that they know exactly what those other people are doing.

Like anyone who was anyone here ever posted everything they did for public consumption...

 

[guerilla]

A strawman is where you completely twist an argument into appearing illogical and no longer representing the original argument. Simply paraphrasing isn't the same thing.

No. It's attributing a false argument or position to another party. It's lazy and sloppy. You should feel bad for doing it.

Gold has secondary uses - sure it does. But are you stipulating that these uses are the reason its price is high?

Did I write that?

Dollars can be used to pay taxes - this is true, but it doesn't mean that any non-dollar instrument is useless.

Did I write that?

You seem to be under the impression that all bitcoin investors are crazed libertarians who expect the exchange rate to reach millions of dollars and who want nothing more than to overthrow the gov in favor of complete anarchy.

I don't recall ever saying that.

I'm simply stating that bitcoin is a useful tool that is functionally superior to fiat

Except for paying taxes or buying any legal goods or services.

and that it has the potential to continue increasing in value (up to a point, obviously) as more people choose to adopt it.

How many things have you bought with your Bitcoin? Who is adopting it?

All people do is turn USD into BTC and BTC back into USD. It's PRICED IN USD FFS.

Bitcoin is a speculative instrument right now. When Bitcoin is stable at $50 a coin for 2 years, and you're buying and using it regularly, then tell me about adoption.

Nowhere am I implying that bitcoin will rule the world and dollars and gold will become worthless, and that seems to be the thesis against which you're basing your arguments.

Where did I write that?

A suggestion. Reply to what I write, not what you think I meant.

 

[mattseh]

If you are typing in caps lock that people should kill themselves, it's time to take a break from the computer. Regardless of whether you are being serious.

 

[guerilla]

Can we get a show of hands to see who has used Bitcoin for commercial transactions more than 2x?

Spending Bitcoin, not receiving it.

 

[guerilla]

If you are typing in caps lock that people should kill themselves, it's time to take a break from the computer. Regardless of whether you are being serious.

The worst part of you becoming a libertarian is your loss of a sense of humor (happens to all of us).

I'm not sure it's a good trade.

 

[mattseh]

When you're lashing out at everyone, maybe it's time to look inwards - ignoring people's posts won't change that.

 

[teatree]

Can we get a show of hands to see who has used Bitcoin for commercial transactions more than 2x?

Spending Bitcoin, not receiving it.

I have. I've used it to renew domains on Namecheap. It's cheaper to use bitcoin than to use my debit card. I'm in the UK, and for a $10 renewal, my bank charges me £1.25 ($2) on top for processing plus 5% exchange commission for conversion from pounds to dollars. If you've got a lot of domains to renew, the processing fees start to get seriously annoying (unless you host with a UK hosting company, but that's problematic if you are trying to rank sites in the US).

I don't think people outside of the USA realise what a hassle it is dealing with several currencies and having to use banks and their fees to "process" them.

The bitcoin price on namecheap is whatever it is on the exchange at the time of transaction, and a tiny transaction fee that is equivalent to about 5 cents. That's it.

I think you are seriously underestimating the value of bitcoin in processing international transactions.

 

[guerilla]

I have. I've used it to renew domains on Namecheap. It's cheaper to use bitcoin than to use my debit card. I'm in the UK, and for a $10 renewal, my bank charges me £1.25 ($2) on top for processing plus 5% exchange rate for conversion from dollars to pounds. If you've got a lot of domains to renew, the processing fees start to get seriously annoying (unless you host with a UK hosting company, but that's problematic if you are trying to rank sites in the US).

I don't think people outside of the USA realise what a hassle it is dealing with several currencies and having to use banks and their fees to "process" them.

I am not in the US. I use Paypal. The seller eats all of the fees.

I think you are seriously underestimating the value of bitcoin in processing international transactions.

That's possible. I just see it as a problem Paypal already solved. Plus you get dispute resolution, tracking, access to a legal system and so on.

 

[teatree]

That's possible. I just see it as a problem Paypal already solved. Plus you get dispute resolution, tracking, access to a legal system and so on.

Shrugs. You use paypal, I use bitcoin - surely the important thing is that the more choices the better. Because if you ever get a monopoly marketed as an entity that has "already solved" a process and therefore no other processor is needed, they have a licence to jack up charges. (All sorts, not just processing fees but exchange commissions too).

 

[guerilla]

Shrugs. You use paypal, I use bitcoin - surely the important thing is that the more choices the better. Because if you ever get a monopoly marketed as an entity that has "already solved" a process and therefore no other processor is needed, they have a licence to jack up charges. (All sorts, not just processing fees but exchange commissions too).

I agree with that. As a seller, I would probably like Bitcoin more because there is pretty much zero legal accountability, but if I am a consumer, then Paypal offers a lot more to me.

I have no doubt Bitcoin will put pressure on everyone to improve. But it's not going to take over without legal support and once it is part of the legal system, then it will lose its "outside government influence" effects.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

I have. I've used it to renew domains on Namecheap. It's cheaper to use bitcoin than to use my debit card.

No, it's not. I don't know how many domains you own or when you renew them but let's just assume for easy math that you renewed 10 domains @ $10/ea about 3 months ago when the price of bitcoin was $200 USD. You would have paid half a bitcoin for that renewal.

That half a Bitcoin is now worth almost $500. Unless your debit card has $400 in fees attached to it on a $100 transaction then I would say no it's not cheaper to use Bitcoins is it?

 

[teatree]

P.S. How old are you guerilla? Were you around for the 1990's dot-com boom?

As a Generation X-er, I've seen this movie before.

I used to work for HSBC in the 90's and they were flatly anti internet. They believed it was a fad and ploughed a stack of money in association with SkyTV to allow people to do banking through their TV and their Sky digibox (I kid you not) instead of just setting up a website (the cheaper option) because they were so convinced that the internet would die and people would prefer the comfort of banking through their tellys.

As the same time you got people who thought the internet was the future and ploughed their money into companies like Boo.com, which was a fashion retailer so overloaded with flash on their website that it would take 30 minutes for the home to load up on dial-up. And that was before you got to browse the site and load up the shopping cart and try to do a transaction. They went through £80 million of venture capital before they declared bankruptcy. For those interested in net history, you can read their story here.

Both sides lost money (HSBC and it's anti-net ventures and the venture people backing the new dot-coms). But the technology of the net itself has gone from strength to strength.

I think bitcoin is a bit like that. The technology is really promising. Will it give you riches a la the promise of boo.com, I don't know (hence the reason I'm willing to spend some of my coins on namecheap and other business stuff instead of hoarding!). It might be that another alt takes over, or a government issues a coin that changes 1-1 with it's fiat so that people can effectively spend fiat online without dealing with the middlemen.

I don't know - but the point is that neither does anyone else, including naysayers like you. Just keep an open mind, acquire some coins and alts just in case and watch how it plays out.

I feel lucky I'm in the process of watching my second great techonological adventure play out, (after the net). This must have been how people felt in the 1920's and 30's when in rapid succession all sorts of things were invented, cars, planes and so on.

 

[teatree]

No, it's not. I don't know how many domains you own or when you renew them but let's just assume for easy math that you renewed 10 domains @ $10/ea about 3 months ago when the price of bitcoin was $200 USD. You would have paid half a bitcoin for that renewal.

That half a Bitcoin is now worth almost $500. Unless your debit card has $400 in fees attached to it on a $100 transaction then I would say no it's not cheaper to use Bitcoins is it?

Actually when I last did a bulk renewal the price of bitcoin was $100, so I've theoretically lost a lot more! But the price might go down to $100 and then I've lost nothing. Shrugs. This is the volatility of a new currency.

One of the comforts of being a statist, is that I psychologically prize my sterling above all things and would rather pay for things in token money. I bought the bitcoins for considerably less than $100, so unless it dips down below that I'm fine with it all.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

Actually when I last did a bulk renewal the price of bitcoin was $100, so I've theoretically lost a lot more! But the price might go down to $100 and then I've lost nothing. Shrugs. This is the volatility of a new currency.

One of the comforts of being a statist, is that I psychologically prize my sterling above all things and would rather pay for things in token money. I bought the bitcoins for considerably less than $100, so unless it dips down below that I'm fine with it all.

That's nice and all, but you paid $90/each to renew your $10 domains and to me that's just silly. Or if they were to drop to $0 then that means Namecheap will have lost $100 by accepting it as payment. And that's why Bitcoin doesn't work as a currency.

 

[teatree]

That's nice and all, but you paid $90/each to renew your $10 domains and to me that's just silly. Or if they were to drop to $0 then that means Namecheap will have lost $100 by accepting it as payment. And that's why Bitcoin doesn't work as a currency.

At the time I paid for the renewals, I paid the going rate - $10.

People outside the dollar zone continually have to deal with currency fluctuations. In 2008 the pound bought $2, now it buys $1.6. But it could be worse - in the mid 80's my parents tell me that it bought just $1. And that's in absolute terms rather than inflation adjusted.

From a business point of view, if there was a single global currency it would make things so much easier because you wouldn't have to do these constant calculations about whether you are winning or losing just because of foreign exchanges. But it's never going to happen so we all live with the imperfect system we're in. Bitcoin is just another foreign currency.