Quote from: lightfoot on August 10, 2018, 04:19:10 PM

Truth be told if he hadn't spent those bitcoins on a pizza, and if CNN hadn't picked it up as a "story" then Bitcoin would have gone the way of flooz and all the other weird payment methods. It was that event IMO that got bitcoin something more than "stupid idea" into "hey, someone will actually pay for this stuff".

Laszlo died for your sins....

Pretty much agree with that, its only the usage which will prove any value eventually and BTC is fast, global and cheap. If its not capable of those things, another product will beat it fairly sure. Not using it ever seems a fail and the super obvious thing is there is no reason after spending the BTC he cant get more. Using the BTC created demand

If he could use his GPU then great, why wouldn't he use it then or even if he had to rebuy the BTC it was still useful at that moment to be able to use them. Really it was just a demo anyway.
The guy who sold his house for BTC was probably a bigger deal and that thread was updated by that house seller over years but the thread got locked because too many people were commentating on the thread which is unfortunate.

The secure token for 'internet money' idea goes back 25 years at least and its a reality now, I just think its a shame if its only held not used. Before BTC alot of monetisation came in via advertising and before that I just remember alot of home built web pages made in notepad and not alot of organisation as it was not as business orientated or motivated. Low monetary velocity, the tech boom was stocks large companies perhaps not especially at ground level and I count the ground up as the most genuine long lasting economic growth.
If BTC moved like stocks inflating and deflating, its not as important as actual usage and some of tech boom stocks blew up and never came back which is how many view BTC just a name not a new use

BTC is useful for pushing useful exchange to areas of the world and population that otherwise are chaotic and not effectively monetised, stuck in bargaining maybe. There is a kind of elitism behind the Global reserve system of money, presently tied to Dollar it revolves around politics but I believe every human born has the capability to be a genius who changes the world but that wont happen if they are born into the wrong country or situation. Enabling those people is growth productive and more then justifies BTC existence and ongoing operation, I hope it can be something for the smallest people and the most growth

That exponential picture of the Turkish Lira decline back there, as well a set of numbers it represents paupers being created, whole sections of society who will struggle just to exist and very unlikely to be a productive situation. Ditto Venezuela and anywhere else, eventually I expect similar in the west even

BTC price is sideways out of a negative channel which could prove positive if it closed daily above 6400 or so