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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

In the last 24 hours, Bitcoin has been worth between $232 and $238, so that could be called a 3% fee on top of the 0.5% fee, and that 3% is just from the last 24 hours. If you look at the last week, the fee could be considered even higher (more than double or quad that).

The problem with Bitcoin is that it is extreme volatile. So you may gain or lose money. So while a 2.9% free on dollars is fairly predictable, you really don't know what the final "fee" would be on Bitcoin.

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From the linked page:

> Fluctuation-resistant

> Avoid exchange rate hassles—specify amounts in USD and we’ll send you dollars.

He's probably more referring to the customers side.

Why should I buy bitcoins for let's say $300 and risk them being worth $200 in a few weeks (which would cost me 33%) instead of keeping my money and paying directly (maybe 3% fees for the seller)?

It's a much more nuanced question if you don't hold USD in the first place. Here I have a choice between holding BTC and holding CAD. Both fluctuate compared to the prices of stuff I want to buy from US retailers.

They both fluctuate, but not that much. If you saw that much fluctuation in CAD to USD conversion, no US based company would sell goods in Canada. Just look at what happened due to the ruble value fluctuations last month.

You would sell it for the same price just the equivalent in CAD.

If you are in Canada that isn't really true. It is extremely easy to open a USD denominated bank account and credit card. Couple banks have Euro accounts as well.

Yeah, but if you get paid in CAD, it's still a question of when you want to deal with the volatility—point of sale, or point of forex-exchange-during-account-transfer. You still have to deal with timing it right (possibly waiting months) if you want to avoid losing tens of cents on the dollar.

And if you're already thinking like that, Bitcoin isn't nearly as scary.

Bullshit. And this is not a matter of opinion or speculation. There is data and history. Take a look: http://imgur.com/FmpI0HY

That's the past year. The flat blue line around 0% is CAD vs USD. The crazy red line that's all over the place, swinging by as much as 100% in a matter of weeks, is CAD/BTC.

Unless you're planning on holding the currency, those graphs are irrelevant - what would matter would be short term changes (1-2 days, perhaps). And while USD might still come out better, your graph grossly distorts how this would affect someone wanting to use USD or BTC primarily purchases while holding their assets in CAD.

Did you bother to read what I was replying to? The point in question was the risks of holding BTC versus national currencies.

It works like Bitpay where you are guaranteed that amount in USD after user pays with Bitcoin. They assume all price fluctuation risk.

I think they were referring to the buyers view, where you are referring to the sellers

You could use a Coinbase USD account, that only converts to BTC at point of purchase. This eliminates all volatility risk.

If anonymity is important to you, then you can hold BTC, and pay the volatility cost.

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