How do I get some Bitcoin? I can't afford to mine it anymore. What if I want to buy some more? Or sell some of what I have? What can I spend Bitcoin on? What does Bitcoin solve for me?
There are bitcoin-only exchanges, e.g. Bitaroo. There are also P2P exchanges that don't hold user's funds, like LN2bot (this one is very handy because it supports Lightning, so fees are ridiculously low, and trades very fast for not being a SPOT exchange).
> I can't afford to mine it anymore.
Right, it's a professional industry now; hobbyists can still do it, but at a loss.
> What if I want to buy some more? Or sell some of what I have?
See the aforementioned exchanges above, in my first answer.
> What can I spend Bitcoin on?
Anything, really. For example you can buy flights & book hotels with travala.com. Or buy things in Amazon with a discount thanks to purse.io .
> What does Bitcoin solve for me?
Not being affected by events like SVB closures (or worse: smaller banks that may not be bailed out[1]); not being affected by QE in the medium-long term (e.g. put your savings in it and forget about for 4 years[2]).
[1] If you don't believe it, watch this: https://twitter.com/Stromens/status/1664977520750370816
[2] Try to find 2 points in the historic data of a BTCUSD chart, which differ by 4 years, the oldest point is never higher value than the newest point.
And Bitcoin absolutely tanked with rising interest rates, just like the equity markets. Can't say it's not responding to QE.
Did you miss the part where I recommended an exchange that doesn't hold user's funds?
> And Bitcoin absolutely tanked with rising interest rates, just like the equity markets.
Right, and where's the value of it 4 years after each value-tank event?
I tried to bring my bitcoin to the grocery store to buy some brownie mix and cheese slices but they wouldn't take any coins from my Trezor.
The only search result in Google for '"Ln2bot" crypto exchange' is this article.
It's peer to peer, but not trustless. There's a moment in the transaction at which one party can default. So they need a reputation and dispute resolution system.[1]
You'd think there would be trustless decentralized exchanges by now. Ones have been proposed.[2] Some even exist. It's possible to have a truly trustless exchange where orders are smart contracts on a blockchain, transactions are atomic swaps, and at no moment does a third party have custody of anything. This is called an "on-chain order book". It's rarely seen, because it's slow, lacks liquidity providers, and is subject to front-running. Also, nobody makes a billion dollars running one. Most so-called "decentralized exchanges" turn out not to be totally trustless inside.
[1] https://lnp2pbot.com/learn/common-problems-and-solutions.htm...
[2] https://www.smartcontractresearch.org/t/research-summary-tex...
This concept applies to custody, not to fiat-to-crypto exchanges. Because a fiat-to-crypto exchange is an on/off ramp into/outside crypto. And as fiat cannot be held in a trustless way, the most "trustless" way to make a swap without the exchange holding the fiat amount is by using an escrow system. If the escrow system can only be moved to party A or party B during a trade-dispute, then it's the most trustless thing you can get, my friend.
PS: Your 2nd link seems to suggest that you're saying "DEXes are better than p2p exchanges!", well, DEXes don't have fiat-to-crypto pairs, only crypto-to-crypto. Nice try.
Irrationality, Extortion, or Trusted Third-parties: Why it is Impossible to Buy and Sell Physical Goods Securely on the Blockchain
Sure, why care about the possibility that cashing out early might mean you lose half your money? Trust instead in the long long long history of BTC as a stable currency.
You perceive it as unstable because you're using USD as a unit-of-account. As a thought exercise, if you were using BTC as the unit of account, what you would perceive unstable is the US dollar. And what you would see is that the USD value would be trending down against BTC, especially if you choose a time-frame equal or higher than 4 years.
So yeah mate, nothing to see here, keep holding your cash.
No one ever suggests using some S&P500 ETF shares as money even though it also trends up vs the USD. Just like BTC it's also more volatile than money. Unlike BTC it represents something real though.
The point is that USD isn't for holding. It's for spending. BTC is more like a stock or asset than money. Money isn't supposed to be volatile and it's not supposed to appreciate in value.
And if I choose a time frame of, say, 25 months or 19 months instead of 4 years, my savings lost more than half their purchasing power, which is far worse than anything QE has done to cash over equivalent time frames (ironically over a timescale which has been exceptionally bad for cash and exceptionally favourable to a notional "safe asset" alternative)
No, you would literally have to negotiate prices every single day. The vast majority of currencies have less volatility than Bitcoin. People don't think the dollar is unstable in the euro area.
Like you would do with gold.