The thing is, I can find lots of things to do with bitcoins. But in virtually all cases, it is much faster, convenient and liquid to use dollars. None of the bitcoin revolutionists here have explained -- what can you do with bitcoin that you can't do more easily with fiat?
You can store value / invest. And you can buy overpriced drugs in mail.
What else?
You can store value / invest. And you can buy overpriced drugs in mail.
What else?
@desired username
let's pretend I am completely new to bitcoins, never even heard of them before you told me about them. I ask you how I can acquire said coins
What would be your response?
Obviously, without going into details here, I would point them towards:
-Several exchanges
-Localbitcoins
-Bitcointalk
-Local bitcoin forums
that's a lot of ground work to be doing to be simply buying groceries. If I were looking for a specific good I did not have access to in my area I could see why that would be worth the trouble, maybe something like hmmm drugs?
I always feel that people expect a complete / finished product when they first hear about bitcoin.
nobody expects that, which is why devs made new coins.
Silk Road's popularity was about the same when the value was $13 so are you saying all the rest of the increase of the market cap is from other black market activity only?
No I am saying Silk Road put Bitcoin into the public eye and brought in a large number of speculators who were banking on more people using said TOR services and willing to sell off massive amounts when the first sign of a downward trend made itself apparent. Yeah, those people are really down for your cause. The very group you think is going to help bitcoin is going to drive it into the ground.
When SR was down for over 48 hours (and no one knew if it was coming back) it hardly affected the price of BTC at all.
Because people who use Silk Road aren't buying coins for their fiat value, they are buying them to immediately spend on drugs which are pegged to automatically adjust to the USD value of bitcoins. Nobody was panic selling their coin stash out of fear of losing the ability to acquire the same amount of drugs as before the site went down.
I don't use the service at all but as I actually follow everything happening in the Bitcoin ecosystem I was aware of this.
you follow everything that happens in an anonymous ecosystem, must be nice being able to tell bold faced lies on the internet.
Have you done a google news search for Bitcoin yet?
EDIT: Here I'll help you: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=uk&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=bitcoin
I hope it helps you realize Bitcoin is far, far more than just a tool for the black market. It could be argued Silk Road was important in the evolution of Bitcoin - but now? Bitcoin as a whole has outgrown it and I would argue it is irrelevant as more and more investors and entrepreneurs are seeing the more revolutionary aspects which Bitcoin brings to the table.
EDIT: Here I'll help you: https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=uk&tbm=nws&authuser=0&q=bitcoin
I hope it helps you realize Bitcoin is far, far more than just a tool for the black market. It could be argued Silk Road was important in the evolution of Bitcoin - but now? Bitcoin as a whole has outgrown it and I would argue it is irrelevant as more and more investors and entrepreneurs are seeing the more revolutionary aspects which Bitcoin brings to the table.
No I have not, I base my opinions off my own logic and reasoning and that way if I am wrong it is my own damn fault.
Bitcoin hasn't outgrown shit, the size of your egos have you twat
keep welcoming increased regulation and mainstream support while turning your back on the very things that made it what it is today. See how it plays out, I'm sure those investors and entrepreneurs really give two fucks about the long-term future of Bitcoin