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How could anyone actually use bitcoins to buy anything? With this volatility, how can you settle on a price for actual merchandise or services?
by e1l1 13y ago
How could anyone actually use bitcoins to buy anything? With this volatility, how can you settle on a price for actual merchandise or services?
- aosmith 13y agoReal time exchangers [sic: merchants] will settle on slightly less than normal exchange rates. This will ultimately help to close spreads and decrease volatility.
- the_cat_kittles 13y agowhat is this use of sic, i thought sic was for when you are knowingly mispelling / misusing something?
- aosmith 13y ago"Sic" generally means thus or therefore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic If wikipedia is wrong here please correct me!
- maxerickson 13y agoThe meaning in modern English is not the same as the Latin. It is well explained at your link! To be clear, it does not simply mean 'thus' when it is used in English text.
- aosmith 13y agoIt's fixed, thanks for pointing this out.
- Jtsummers 13y agoAs maxerickson said, the common English use is not the literal Latin translation. "The man came crauling [sic] down the hallway." The [sic] means that the misspelling or error has been left in for some reason. Other ways to express what you intended: Original: Real time exchangers [sic: merchants] will settle on slightly less than normal exchange rates. Alternative: Real time exchangers (e.g., merchants) will settle on slightly less than normal exchange rates. Alternative: Real time exchangers, such as merchants, will settle on slightly less than normal exchange rates.
- aosmith 13y agoThis was bugging me too, so now it's fixed. Thanks!
- Aqueous 13y agoIt's not going to be useful as a currency for a while. Nor would it be if its market cap was only $10 billion. For it to be a currency it has to stabilize sufficiently. In that case the boom-bust cycles will have to stop, which means speculation will have to slow down. As soon as BitCoin becomes old news - that's when the rate of appreciation will slow down. But since in the long run, potential growth is the market cap of all the existing currency in the world - meaning, (unlikely) we could potentially get to the point where all currency is replaced by BitCoin - then who knows? We might have to wait until BitCoin units have saturated every corner of the Earth before it becomes rational to spend even a little BitCoin. In which case a satoshi will be worth a dollar and those of us with one or more BitCoins will be multi-millionaires. If only...
- aosmith 13y agoI don't ever see bitcoin replacing first world currencies. In places like Sudan and Iran however it presents a seemingly more viable alternative.
- gnerd 13y ago> The assumption is that bitcoins must be sold immediately to cover operating expenses. If the shopkeeper's back-end expenses were transacted in bitcoins as well, then the exchange rate would be irrelevant. Larger adoption of Bitcoin would make prices sticky. Future volatility is expected to decrease, as the size and depth of the market grows. > In the meantime, many merchants simply regularly pull the latest market rates from the exchanges and automatically update the prices on their websites. Also you might be able to buy a put option in order to sell at a fixed rate for a given amount of time. This would protect you from drops in price and simplify your operations for that time period. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Shopkeepers_can.27t_seriously_set_prices_in_bitcoins_because_of_the_volatile_exchange_rate https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Shopkeepers_can.27t_serious...
- aosmith 13y agoCouldn't agree more. Mass adoption would absolutely stabilize prices. Even without mass adoption merchants can exchange similar to foreign atm transactions.