If, for some reason, you missed it, Forbes blogger Kashmir Hill spent a week using nothing but bitcoins as cash in what I can only assume was an experiment to prove that it can be done and to demonstrate the viability of Bitcoin as a currency.
The true believers will inevitably point to this experience as an example of Bitcoin working in the real world, but their bias blinds them to the truth: Someone eventually pointed her to a service which acts as a middleman, ordering things from local restaurants and then delivering them, adding a service fee living on bitcoin for a week the bitcoin diet the convenience.
For some reason, they accept bitcoins. This brings up a point that few have acknowledged: Throughout this entire adventure, Kash makes terrible budgetary decisions. This will be a recurring theme and ultimately leads to the failure of this experiment.
Before we move on, I must bring up the next salient point: The alleged value of bitcoins is driven entirely by speculation and is prone to wild oscillations. Any business with an ounce of sense and a desire to make reliable profits will price their products in dollars or whatever other national currency their location requires and then adjust the Bitcoin price for the goods based on the current exchange rate.
To do anything else would be astoundingly foolish and an invitation to financial losses. On day three, nothing terribly notable happens. Kash goes to an odd production in which people are locked in a room, but had purchased the tickets months beforehand with filthy fiat money.
Feeling guilty over this, she works out a way to justify using them, letting her date living on bitcoin for a week the bitcoin diet them from her through a convoluted process involving a Bitcoin ATM of sorts, hosted by The Internet Archive in their offices. This gives her an additional 0. She pays for a partially-comped meal and then walks two miles to the show.
The day closes out with 1. She pays him and he immediately spends it on something else rather living on bitcoin for a week the bitcoin diet risk losing value during the price fluctuations.
She spends the rest of the party evangelizing about bitcoins and people there allegedly want some of their own. Someone else drives her home. Aside from the 0. Sunday arrives and Kashmir must move out of her condo and into somewhere that accepts bitcoins for rent payments.
In lieu of an earnest search, she posts on reddit insteadinviting the worst of the worst of the Bitcoin community to meet her in person and eat sushi, then buys more expensive groceries from Buyer. Bitcoin is unstable, unregulated, unreliable, not backed by anything…. As long as there exists a venue to convert bitcoin into goods or real cash, it has value.
My relatives in China tell me most people see it as a casino to play at, and perhaps that is the future of digital currencies. Now that the idea of digital currency is out in the open, there will undoubtedly be more attempts, more competition, more failures etc.
But the concept itself will only grow, mushrooming all over like internet piracy. Should there ever emerge a dominant currency or one approved by any government, it will be useful for more legitimate purchases. Is there an American political narrative behind all this? Joe Hill June 3, 2: Yes of course, it must be an American government conspiracy behind this.
Only the American government has a problem with bitcoin. Ivan Sorensen June 21, Then it was never intended to. Meet the Living on bitcoin for a week the bitcoin diet What are Buttcoins? Why should I invest in bitcoins? Buttcoin Living on Bitcoin for a week: What we should have learned killhamster bitcoinbuttcoincurrencyfail 3 Comments May 9, On a typical Friday night…. Is it meant to replace or emulate fiat currency?
People do dumb things for bitcoins, sure. But then again the same can be living on bitcoin for a week the bitcoin diet of real money.
There is no point trading a currency pair with a volume of just few BTC, the market is not deep enough. If you can draw a line along a series of highs or lows, it will indicate the level of resistance and support, respectively. Online calculator to convert money from Vietnamese ng (VND) to Bitcoin (BTC) using up to date exchange rates.