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Comment by qnr | Hacker News Reader

Recently, I've been noticing this kind of moving goalposts from bitcoin critics a lot. From outright rejection of Bitcoin a few years ago it went to "blockchain is a great technology but not the currency" or "yes, many places accept bitcoin but they immediately sell it so it doesn't count" or "bitcoin shows great promise but it will soon be superseded by a superior cryptocurrency"

Personally I see it as a gradual acceptance of a new technology by the public.

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>immediately sell it so it doesn't count

I don't think that's moving goalposts.

Lots of places take Paypal. Paypal will convert [insert currency] into dollars. That doesn't mean I can claim all those businesses in the US accept [insert currency] in a way that shows that [insert currency] is strong and useful. All I can really argue is that Paypal does so.

Very few companies want to possess bitcoins as a liquid store of value.

> Very few companies want to possess bitcoins as a liquid store of value.

I don't disagree, this is a valid criticism. What I meant by moving goalposts was that the argument changed from "you can't pay with bitcoin anywhere" to "you can pay with bitcoin at Newegg but this doesn't count because their merchant immediately converts them into dollars"

The argument, which you just agreed with, is that "You can't pay with bitcoin at Newegg" just like you can't pay a US company in euros.

The thing is I could always "pay with bitcoins" if I converted them at the point of sale (myself).

So you can technically use a bitcoin at Newegg but it's not Newegg taking the bitcoin. It's the payment processor.

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