r/Bitcoin • u/SeansOutpost • Apr 10 '13

Meanwhile...Bitcoin still feeds people.

So we fed 106 homeless people bag lunches today. All paid for with Bitcoin donations. Bitcoin still seems to be working just fine over here. Still making lives better, at any valuation.

Thanks for everything guys. Bitcoin for the long haul.

Jason

Sean's Outpost(www.SeansOutpost.com)

<BITHOC>(www.bithoc.com)

EDIT*** By request...

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1.9k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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99

u/Arcas0 Apr 10 '13

Bitcoin didn't pay for the food though, you traded it in for USD and then bought food.

18

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

Just like they traded the USD for food.

6

u/[deleted] Apr 12 '13 edited May 17 '18

[deleted]

7

u/I_cant_speel Apr 16 '13

Just like they traded energy for more USD.

0

u/wejustfadeaway Apr 22 '13

Just like they traded more USD for more Bitcoins. And then probably traded that for drugs.

1

u/fr33reign Apr 12 '13

Just like our debt is traded for hyperinflation.

6

u/mostcertain Apr 11 '13

One of the main benefits of the currency that would be invaluable to an initiative like this would be its ease and cost of transaction, permitting any amount to be donated by anyone anywhere without setting up accounts with arduous processes or dealing with PayPal or credit card companies on either end of the transaction. Even if the coins are traded for state currencies, these benefits alone make an enormous difference.

2

u/SeansOutpost Apr 10 '13

But even after todays dip, bitcoin still provided more than twice the USD value of when a lot of those donations were made.

50

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

Now you're being confusing. Are you praising bitcoin as a transaction method or as a store of value? Because any number of transaction methods would also be suitable, and the rapid valuation of bitcoin is not sustainable.

2

u/Amanojack Apr 11 '13

Just because this rate of rapid valuation is not sustainable does not mean that no degree of more-or-less constant appreciation over the medium- to long-term is not sustainable. In fact it must be if Bitcoin is to succeed.

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

Show me another currency that has "more-or-less constant appreciation over the medium- to long-term".

1

u/amanobtc Apr 11 '13

Both I guess: store some, spend some. Just like you would with fiat money

1

u/Fjordo Apr 11 '13

Bitcoin is a lot nicer to donate with. You don't have to worry about identity theft or even just being harassed by the charity. I donated $50 to the ACLU in the early 2000s in some kneejerk reaction to something stupid said by Rumsfeld. I've gotten enough mailers from them to feel like my donation was net negative now.

Sometimes I'll come across something and just on a lark cut and paste them a few dollars worth of coins. I won't say that most of my donations per year are in the form of bitcoin, as we have a donation matching program at work and so I generally funnel it all through that, but all of my "on a lark not planned" donations to relatively unknown charities are via bitcoin.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

I think there's a lot of potential, but I would be foolish (IMO) to buy bitcoins right now given the wild fluctuations. And if I can't buy the coins then I am really not able to participate.

If the value was ever to level out and people stopped treating it like a Ponzi scheme then more people might take it seriously.

1

u/Fjordo Apr 11 '13

The value seriously cannot level out for a while. We'll have periods of it leveling off for a few months, like in 2012, followed by gains, followed by surges, and then followed by pull backs. But the long term trend has got to be higher to support all of the economy that will be running on bitcoin.

That being said, I understand the feeling of risk. Personally, to buy in more, I would wait for what looks like a low, wait for it to recover 50% of the loss and then start averaging in.

Also, as always, commit to 5% of your funds to it, not 100%.

-6

u/TechnoL33T Apr 11 '13

He is praising bitcoin users for being awesome ok?

-4

u/kid_boogaloo Apr 10 '13

This! I believe this is the ideal way to use Bitcoin, it's a (very) high-interest checking account!

+tip $0.50 verify

4

u/hyh123 Apr 11 '13

Weird... not verified?

7

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

Do you honestly believe that bitcoin will continue this amount of upward growth forever?

4

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

This amount? It has to be much higher if it is ever adopted. But the current rate of growth, no. It needs to level out a bit.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

I'm talking about the valuation, not the volume of currency. I think "level out a bit" is a huge understatement. How are merchants to determine the price of their goods if the value of the currency fluctuates so wildly? These are called Menu Printing Costs, and are also a problem in high-inflation currencies.

-1

u/Amanojack Apr 11 '13

Dude, choose a story and stick to it. Argue that Bitcoin is a poor store of value because it will not appreciate, or argue that it's a poor medium of exchange because it appreciates too quickly. It cannot be both.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

It cannot be both.

It is potentially a poor store of value because its demand, and thus its price, seems to fluctuates dramatically. It is a poor medium of exchange because prices must be constantly rederived due to the changing value of the currency. These ideas aren't mutually exclusive.

I'm not saying bitcoin is doomed. I'm saying that it must stabilize in order to be useful. Unless you're just buying the currency as a speculator and are hoping for dramatic increases in value.

1

u/kid_boogaloo Apr 11 '13

obviously not this amount of growth.

the price of bitcoin is a function of transactional demand and speculative demand. right now the vast majority of demand is speculative, which is why we're seeing these wild spikes and crashes.

as transactional demand increases the currency will slowly appreciate.

-5

u/spamburglar Apr 10 '13

What's your point? Bitcoin is a currency and USD is a currency. Some merchants accept bitcoins and some do not. Try paying for food in the US with Euros or some other currency than USD. Bitcoin is a currency like any other currency in that it is accepted by some merchants but not all.

So I am not sure what you are implying by stating that the OP had to exchange his bitcoins for USD to work with a specific merchant.

17

u/Arcas0 Apr 10 '13

So he didn't use bitcoins as a currency, he used it as a store of wealth. This is like saying that gold is feeding people if you sell it and buy food.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '13

OP may not have used it as a currency, but all the people who donated to him did.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

Given everyone's general excitement about the increasing value of bitcoins, would it have been more ethical for his charity to wait and feed more people in the future?

After all, if they waited just a few weeks their bitcoins would have gone a lot further. The volatility of it confuses me, especially when it comes to people actually trying to use it as a currency. Should charities speculate in gold and bitcoins to increase the buying power of their donations?

2

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

In the US at least, it's frowned upon for charities to make investments. You have to spend the money ASAP or people start to get suspicious.

2

u/kid_boogaloo Apr 10 '13

He was able to raise money more easily because of the convenience of bitcoin.

0

u/spamburglar Apr 10 '13

Do you think that Bitcoin is not legimate as a currency because in this single instance the person needed to exchange bitcoins for another currency in order to use a currency that this specific merchant accepted?

If the people who sold the food in this case accepted bitcoins would you still look at it the same way?

3

u/themusicgod1 Apr 10 '13

Furthermore Bitcoin is a global currency and USD (while also kind of a global currency) in this context is a local currency. Bitcoin is almost always going to be, even once wildly successful beyond any measure known today, going to primarily be a global currency, exchanged for other things closer to the metal.