Quote from: pening on August 23, 2014, 04:14:27 PM

Quote from: itsAj on August 21, 2014, 10:51:59 PM

Quote from: pening on August 20, 2014, 09:26:58 PM

Quote from: counter on August 19, 2014, 06:45:48 PM

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I think your both missing the point. People say the issue with Bitcoin is they don't have much use for it other then speculating on the future price. That issue is being addressed when they have the option to use Bitcoin for their everyday purchases. Now if someone needs something and can use a Bitcoin that is one less reason to deny Bitcoin's value. ...

Yes, it does give Bitcoin more purpose and credibility, its one less reason to deny Bitcoin's use. Not necessarily its value. Here's the deeper economic point: its depleting its value, as you valued the purchased item more than you did the Bitcoin. With normal currency this isn't an issue as the vendor values the currency. However here they don't, and promptly offload immediately. This is not a good thing long term, its a constant selling pressure on the currency.

This would assume that anyone who would buy something with bitcoin already had bitcoin and would not have otherwise spent/sold it. I would argue that most of the time this is not the case, I think that most people that spend bitcoin have semi recently purchased bitcoin with the intention of spending it.

I find this notion that people are aquiring Bitcoins in the market to then spend at a normal retail establishment to be quite odd. Its daft to purchase something only to use it to purchase something else, where that interim step is unnecessary. I'm sure there some cases, some for the novelty or to see how it works, or edge case financial situations. But it doesn't make much sense to risk the loses in exchange or the transaction costs to do so regularly. I expect the vast majority of Bitcoin sales through regular retailers are from self-mined stockpiles.

I'm not sure your looking at this with an open mind. People are likely going to want to try and use their Bitcoins and I think you're underestimating the amount of reasons they would have to do so. The intuition of the merchants that accept Bitcoins shows the aren't dumb. Once they use it and have a better understanding they'd likely realize the real value of Bitcoin goes far beyond the need to exchange it for fiat. This is not going to happen exactly the same for everyone but that is to be expected with many new people adopting Bitcoin that they won't be the strongest of hands.