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Comment by dguaraglia | Hacker News Reader

This is the correct answer. People rave about how "cheap" it is to transfer bitcoin. What about actually buying anything with that 'money'? Sure, you might be able to buy some crap on the internet with bitcoin, but it won't put food in your table anytime soon without you having to pay a good % in fees to convert it to real currency.

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You're conflating liquidity with value.

The same is true of any foreign currency. I could send $150 million in Russian rubles to my sister, and she wouldn't be able to do jack with it until she finds someone willing to give her dollars for it. With the amount of money involved, getting it all converted at once would be extremely difficult.

That doesn't mean that what's transferred doesn't have real value. Just that the assets involved aren't terribly liquid.

That's exactly the point. If you had $150 million in rubles, you could transfer it for only a nominal fee ($20 for my bank, although you can get a lot cheaper if you regularly did transfers like that) to any account in the world that could hold rubles. Exactly the same with bitcoin.

The only real cost in transferring sums of money is either extreme convenience, transferring to a country with an extremely poor banking service or exchanging currencies. None of which bitcoin solves yet.

> If you had $150 million in rubles, you could transfer it for only a nominal fee ($20 for my bank, although you can get a lot cheaper if you regularly did transfers like that) to any account in the world that could hold rubles.

I have no counterproof, but I find this hard to believe.

I've only transferred / had transferred internationally sums around 50-100k, that was just a nominal fee.

http://www.stgeorge.com.au/online-services/business-banking/...

Telegraphic Transfer (TT) Request $20.00 per transaction or item

Pretty sure that would be fine up to ~$1 million. Anecdotally I know TT happen for sums in the range of $10-$100 million (there was a case where ~$150 million was stolen by a rogue TT in Australia to overseas bank accounts).

If you had $150 million in rubles, you'd almost certainly have an account with the private banking side of whichever bank you use. Private accounts generally come with perks like free wire transfers.

Source: Someone I trust who works in Private Client Services at JP Morgan (not sure if other banks offer free wires, but I'd be surprised if they don't).

"it won't put food in your table anytime soon without you having to pay a good % in fees to convert it to real currency"

False. Last summer, I ate at EVR, a bar/restaurant in New York City accepting Bitcoin. I paid in bitcoins and their processor (BitPay) only charged a 1% fee.

Fees from Bitcoin payment processors are actually quite good compared to credit card fees.

I hope their kitchen is well-staffed if we're all going to start eating there.

Actually you can here in the Netherlands. We have a website called thuisbezorgd.nl that allows you to order food from thousands of shops through the country with Bitcoins, and have the food delivered at your house.

Although I agree with the point you are making, saying "you might be able to buy some crap on the internet with bitcoin" is slightly short of the truth. While you might not be able to live off 100% bitcoin purchases (although some people are doing it), acceptance is growing every day.

A lot of people who are claiming that you will need to pay a large % in fees in order to spend your coins are missing the point.... as bitcoin gains traction, you wont need to convert it to USD first.

How about a Virgin Galactic space flight, which can be bought on the internet with bitcoins?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101220710

How about you provide a scenario an average person can use? Like, say, County Market accepting bitcoin?

I can't afford a sub-orbital tour in USD, let alone bitcoin. Is there any leading supermarket that accepts bitcoin? Literally allowing me to use bitcoin to put food on the table?

To chime in here, one of the largest sites for ordering out in Germany, lieferservice.de, accepts Bitcoin. They have hundreds of participating restaurants.

Here's a picture of the food on our table, paid with Bitcoin:

https://twitter.com/epaga/status/399221499749343232

My guess: Bitcoin is just facilitating the transaction. Restaurants are likely settled in Euros. I wonder how they hedge the volatility. There needs to be a BTC hedging market.

How about buying gold with BTC?

http://www.amagimetals.com/gold

http://www.coinabul.com/index.php/gold-bars-bitcoin.html?a=8...

Hmm. Buy an Amazon Gift Card via Gyft with bitcoins, use gift card to pay for Amazon Fresh. Mmmm, food on the table.

Assuming I can pay for Amazon Fresh with a gift card. :-)

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