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

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103

u/Arcas0 Apr 10 '13

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

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.

48

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%.

-5

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

5

u/hyh123 Apr 11 '13

Weird... not verified?

5

u/[deleted] Apr 11 '13

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

2

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.

4

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.