"knowing that someone is spending is not as important"

Perhaps but there is a chicken and egg problem. Merchants and entrepreneurs will not push the bitcoin economy forward if everyone is holding onto their bitcoins for dear life. I'm trying to guage the willingness of people to spend their coins instead of saving them. This might not be as important, but it is an important consideration.

Thanks for your honest answer. I imagine that many feel like that and that's what I want to discover.

That's exactly the point in my opinion!

But I mumble and mumble on this: in order to have people widely spending their bitcoins we need a sort of "stability" in the value, otherwise they will tend to keep them in their wallets (or not using them from the beginning) rather than using them. A slow fluctuation is ok, a slow increase in their value is probably what we need to stop people buying them just for "trading" rather than for using them as a currency. This would and probably will force pretty any merchant to accept them, to stay in business and also because in turn they can use them to buy the products their selling. The problem is that a quick adoption obviously lead to a sudden increase in value and we are again at the starting point, people will keep them rather than spending them..

It's a strange concept: it's my opinion that bitcoins need a "slow" success. A huge and suddend adoption and we will have again what happened in April. 

Ok, now the reply to OP's question: I have coins and I've also spent some (not more than 10 though) in IT stuff.

Incidentally franky1, how on earth do you replenish your hoard? Thats a good trick. It can't be day trading because if you've got rid of your hoard then you've got nothing to day trade with!

That is partially but not entirely true. Pure speculative forces can make the price skyrocket. Already they have done so. The increase in the price of bitcoin from $0.25 to $100 had nothing to do with the expansion of the real bitcoin economy but only concerned speculation. Because bitcoin exists in parallel to a dramatically over monetized fiat based economy it is entirely possible for money to pour into bitcoins as a novel asset class. In an over monetised world, bubbles are the norm.

I didn't say that I had the attitude of never using bitcoins I said I partially share it. I'm tight with fiat money so I'm in no hurry to spend bitcoins I don't have to.

some say bitcoin will spread on bubble, not from those who just got in though, but from whom got rich from it. If I have 10k+ of btc as of now, I pry won't mind spending it. Every new high that we reach will leak coins from the old hoarders to others. It's just not yet my time. And this coin spreading is exponential phenomenal, at price of 1000, there will be a good amount of coin millionaires willing to spend coins on banana and bread, even they know that it could reach 10000, since it becomes less relevant to their wealth.

Arklan: cool

romerun: I'm quite tired so I though you said "I have 10K+ bitcoins as of now". Woke me up rather.

good idea ... I talked to some shop owners in germany accepting btc, and they said, very few people did pay by now with btc. As long it goes like this, we'll never see mass adaption.

I bought a amazon-giftcard (50Euro) on bitmit for 0,12 btc. like the deal. I try to spend btc as much as possible, cause it's the best way to spread them. Also I love to do a transcation with my wallet instead of online-bankink

I agree with your conclusion, but not your reasoning.  "Over monetized fiat-based economy" has nothing to do with Bitcoin value (not sure what you mean by "over-monetised", but my guess is "too much paper money"?  What would "the right amount" be?)

For your interpretation to be valid, Bitcoin value would have to be (# of dollars in circulation) (# of coins in circulation) * (fudge factor).  This is obviously not, and has never been, the case.

Bitcoin's value is speculative -- traders *bet* on how much *other traders* will be willing to pay for 1 BTC in the future.  Understanding this is essential to investing in Bitcoin.  
This doesn't mean that SD & SR aren't factors in Bitcoin's price -- they are.  But exchanges -- where people trade Bitcoin -- are way more important.


I don't blame you.  It costs me money to by bitcoins, i take risks using them to buy (no chargeback), there's no immediate incentive to buy with Bitcoin (most merchants accepting Bitcoin accept fiat, the prices are meh & selection is worse), while "buy back the bitcoins you spent is ... patently absurd -- it costs me time, markups, transaction fees etc., etc. -- just to get back to having the bitcoins i started with.  All pain, all loss, 0 gain.  The trick also has dubious value to Bitcoin velocity if my bitcoins are instantly converted to fiat anyway (BitPay).