Quote from: An amorous cow-herder on July 24, 2014, 06:14:24 PM

Quote from: BTCtrader71 on July 24, 2014, 03:28:04 PM

Many early adopters intend to use bitcoin as a currency, and to hold it as a long term investment. Doing both at the same time means replenishing what you use as you go along. When I buy something online, I use bitcoin if I have the chance, but I prefer to deplete my USD savings rather than my bitcoin savings, so I do a quick USD -> btc -> purchase. If it's a miniscule amount then I might not bother with the USD -> bitcoin step, but if a bunch of miniscule purchases added up, then I would still eventually replete my bitcoin holdings.

Ok, here´s the thing i dont get. Why would anyone want to do that?
So you loose money on the exchange (fees), pay the transaction fee and dont get any fancy things like cash back you would get using a credit card. So, basicly you are paying a premium for being able to use bitcoin?

When you buy an amazon gift card through Gyft.com, you get 3% rewards points. I lose 1 or 1.5% on the spread (difference between the buy price at coin base including fees and the rate on gift.com; I've tried this on multiple occasions, executing both transactions simultaneously) and I lose 1% cash back that I would otherwise get using my Discover card on Amazon. So the net is that I come out 0.5 to 1% ahead.