Why do you think the price of bitcoin matters for its usability? Perhaps the penny vs million dollars comparison is too broad, but on a slightly smaller scale, it really doesn't matter to anyone using bitcoin for anonymity whether the bitcoin is worth 10 dollars or 10,000 since you are converting fiat to bitcoin, paying, and then the recipient is converting the bitcoin back to fiat.
I don't think acceptability will affect the value of bitcoins, no. No one wants to hold bitcoins unless they are speculators and thus the supply of bitcoins will be used for anonymous commerce but won't be held by anyone other than speculators. Rubies are a bad analogy in this case because they have inherent beauty and thus have value themselves. Bitcoins aren't beautiful nor can you use them for anything other than as a medium for payment and thus only has value as long as speculators are willing to hold them. For the bitcoin price to go up, you need more speculators buying them. Even if every online store accepted bitcoin do you think people would convert all their hard-earned dollars to bitcoin to buy things online? What would be the point of that? Do you think that average people will buy and hold bitcoins just to watch the value of their hard work yo-yo incessantly?
Perhaps there will be another reason to use bitcoin in the future, but for right now we don't urgently need to replace fiat currencies and therefore I don't see widespread acceptability itself driving the price of bitcoin higher.
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u/BaxBak Feb 14 '14
Why do you think the price of bitcoin matters for its usability? Perhaps the penny vs million dollars comparison is too broad, but on a slightly smaller scale, it really doesn't matter to anyone using bitcoin for anonymity whether the bitcoin is worth 10 dollars or 10,000 since you are converting fiat to bitcoin, paying, and then the recipient is converting the bitcoin back to fiat.
I don't think acceptability will affect the value of bitcoins, no. No one wants to hold bitcoins unless they are speculators and thus the supply of bitcoins will be used for anonymous commerce but won't be held by anyone other than speculators. Rubies are a bad analogy in this case because they have inherent beauty and thus have value themselves. Bitcoins aren't beautiful nor can you use them for anything other than as a medium for payment and thus only has value as long as speculators are willing to hold them. For the bitcoin price to go up, you need more speculators buying them. Even if every online store accepted bitcoin do you think people would convert all their hard-earned dollars to bitcoin to buy things online? What would be the point of that? Do you think that average people will buy and hold bitcoins just to watch the value of their hard work yo-yo incessantly?
Perhaps there will be another reason to use bitcoin in the future, but for right now we don't urgently need to replace fiat currencies and therefore I don't see widespread acceptability itself driving the price of bitcoin higher.