

Living On Bitcoin For A Week - selamattidur
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/05/01/living-on-bitcoin-for-a-week-the-journey-begins/

======
ollybee
I remember seeing articles about people trying to live for a week without
leaving the house but instead using "the internet" for all shopping and
communications. Thinking back to that time there seem to be so many parallels
with how the internet was perceived then to how bitcoin is perceived now.

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rheide
This is stupid and it proves nothing. It's the equivalent of living on Rupees
for a week. Sure, you might find some Indian people who will take your money,
but nobody's trying to replace the USD with either the Rupee or the Bitcoin.
Pure sitespam, this.

~~~
niggler
"Pure sitespam, this."

Forbes.com as a whole is spam. I'm genuinely amazed by how many articles get
upvoted. I guess whatever anti-voting-ring measures in place here can't
compete with forbes employees :/

~~~
nikster
Honestly this is the first Forbes article I ve read in months that had actual,
real content in it. Reporters in the ground and not just trolls making
polarizing statements to generate web traffic.

I thought it was pretty good. By Forbes usual standards, stellar.

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lucb1e
This is like trying the first Android beta there ever was and then saying that
there aren't a lot of apps for it yet.

Nearly all current users could have told him that living on Bitcoin for a week
is hard to do right now because there is simply no support. This is why we are
_early adopters_ , we use something before it's mainstream. You can't actually
walk up to anyone and expect to be able to pay them in any currency you can
think of.

~~~
Steko
Walking up to people and paying people for goods and services is a good
measure of how useful something is as a currency.

Right now, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that bitcoin is fairly useless to
most people as a currency, a hard truth for some.

What is it not useless for? Well mainly as an investment/get rich quick scheme
as well as money laundering, drug deals and soothing the paranoia of hard
money cranks.

~~~
lucb1e
If it was so easy to get rich with bitcoin, everyone would have it already.
Besides that, what are Dollars useful for besides drug deals and tax evasion?
I can't pay a taxi in Dollars here (a very good measurement for how useful a
currency is) but I can use dollars to buy stuff from some Chinese seller that
doesn't make me pay tax over the bought goods. It's a hard truth for some.

This reply is total bullshit, I know. I'm trying to connect with him on his
level.

~~~
Steko
"I can't pay a taxi in Dollars here"

Who is trying to push the dollar as a viable currency for Chinese people to
buy things with in China?

OTOH Bitcoin hypers _are_ trying to push it as a global currency. Well,
spoilers: it sucks for that.

~~~
lucb1e
> _OTOH Bitcoin hypers are trying to push it as a global currency. Well,
> spoilers: it sucks for that._

We're pushing for it, but we're not saying it's there yet. The person I
replied to said _"Walking up to people and paying people for goods and
services is a good measure of how useful something is as a currency."_ while
clearly that's not the case yet, and we never said it was. In the future,
hopefully, it will be though.

Why do you think it sucks as a global currency?

~~~
Steko
I'll be honest Bitcoin is a lot more accepted than I ever expected it would be
and looks to have a lot of growth in terms of the things you will be able to
purchase with it. That said the bar to be a successful working currency is
really high and the investment angle works against it's use as a currency.

Bitcoin detractors read this article and think people like the author are
suckers for buying Bitcoins to begin with. Then there's a lot of Bitcoin
enthusiasts that probably think people using Bitcoins to buy stuff are suckers
for not holding on to them. You can't draw any strong conclusions from that
but it's a bad sign when people on both sides of an issue think you're a
sucker.

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asah
SF retail chain accepts now bitcoin (artisan food & gift, 3 locations: Ferry
Building, Haight-Ashbury, North Beach):

<http://yelp.com/biz/buyers-best-friend-san-francisco>
<http://yelp.com/biz/buyers-best-friend-mercato-san-francisco>
[http://yelp.com/biz/buyers-best-friend-wholesale-and-
market-...](http://yelp.com/biz/buyers-best-friend-wholesale-and-market-san-
francisco)

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evo_9
Is there any concern with keeping the price of an individual bitcoin down so
that they can be used more like a proper currency? Meaning, at around $140 per
coin currently that's not exactly an ideal 'base' value of a currency.

Is there an equivalent to a stock split that could be applied?

Just seems like Bitcoin can never really fulfill its dream of being a true
global currency if the lowest value of an individual 'coin' is so expensive.

~~~
mrb
One Bitcoin can be divided down to 0.00000001 BTC.

~~~
evo_9
Yes, I'm aware of this. My comment was about wide-spread adoption.

I have a hard time imaging my parents working with fractions just to buy a
coffee.

~~~
meric
Your ancestors did just fine with salaries of a few dollars a year, once upon
a time.

~~~
wmf
It's just a terminology problem because people aren't used to "bitcents" or
"mBTC" yet.

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pyalot2
"after a failed attempt to do so via Mt. Gox, the value-setting Bitcoin
exchange based in Japan; my bank refused to send funds to Mt. Gox’s account
saying it was suspended"

Funny how this journalist is the only one having gotten that. Seeing as MtGox
is the biggest exchange, that would've been quite the news otherwise, but it
isn't, because it's so far working for everybody.

~~~
makomk
To be honest, everyone else is probably used to problems like this now, to the
point that it's not really news.

~~~
pyalot2
Well, difficulty transfering money, why sure. But MtGoxes account being shut
down, that would be news.

Perhaps the nice lady should've stated which bank is telling her bullshit.
Name and shame.

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sukuriant
Given the price of BTC, can we start talking about bitcoins in a more readable
unit? Like... an iPhone costs 300cBTC? centibitcoins? or 30dBTC 30
decibitcoins?

~~~
sp332
How is 300 cBTC more readable than 3 BTC?

Edit: anyway, more common units are mBTC for 1/1000, uBTC for 1/1,000,000 and
"satoshi" which is the smallest division the protocol currently supports,
1/100,000,000. (Satoshi Nakamoto is the pseudonym used by the creator of
bitcoin.)

~~~
obviouslygreen
The point may have been that if BTC is the only unit, then most every-day
things will cost something like .05 BTC, which doesn't seem all that intuitive
(at least coming from a USD area).

~~~
nick2021
Also remember that things started costing 5 cents until inflation ran those
same items up to dollars.

~~~
sp332
If bitcoin ever takes off, its built-in deflation will run the problem in the
other direction (making it even worse than it is now).

