

Ask HN: When should someone pay with Bitcoin instead of cash or credit? - chatmasta

Bitcoin has clear advantages as a currency, but only in macro terms. Yes, it&#x27;s decentralized and represents a true &quot;gold standard.&quot; Many people agree with this. Society as a whole may benefit from adopting Bitcoin. Regardless of how many argue against this, the fact remains that Bitcoin has widely hypothesized advantages. Whether they represent actual  advantages or not, nobody can know... But at least there exists a set of apparent advantages.<p>But no advantages of Bitcoin represent a clear advantage to individuals. For example, most likely your neighbor sees no advantage to buying a pack of gum with Bitcoin instead of cash or credit. Ironically, he has less incentive, since most Bitcoin holders believe it will increase in value as a currency. So why spend it?<p>A currency cannot succeed without consumers transacting with it. Otherwise, the currency implodes.<p>So why should 90% of consumers choose to transact with Bitcoin? Imagine you are creating an ad for Bitcoin to show to an audience representing a wide cross section of the population. What argument has the highest probability of convincing them to buy Bitcoin with the intention of spending it?
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trevelyan
I recently tried to transfer funds to a bank in China, and had the Chinese
bank refuse to process the deposit because the middle name on the deposit
account was not provided, even though the account number and name otherwise
were perfect.

Their inability to deposit the funds requested did not prevent both banks from
charging around 80 USD to reverse the transaction. So in the future, I will be
sending funds to China via bitcoin.

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yen223
I've said it before - Bitcoin should not be an alternative to the USD, it
should be an alternative to Paypal. A simple, secure, fee-free way to perform
transactions online.

> "Ironically, he has less incentive, since most Bitcoin holders believe it
> will increase in value as a currency."

This is one of the dangers of a deflationary currency that economists keep
warning about. It's rarely a good idea to incentivize people to hoard cash.

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sjcsjc
Isn't the solution to that to make conversion as frictionless as possible?
Then hoarding and spending become two separate activities. For spending you
simply convert your local currency to BTC at the time you want to spend. And
vice versa for receiving.

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chewxy
When buying something illegal, like LSD, clearly. Tumble the coins for a bit
and use it. Bitcoin is metal, not currency.

