[hackerspaces] bitcoin

[Yves Quemener]

On 05/29/2011 07:07 PM, Koen Martens wrote:
> This all sounds nice, but for now I need euro's to pay my taxes, the rent, 
> food. I don't really have much left after that for luxuries such as munchies
> or gift items (picking randomly from the list at the bitcoin wiki). I'm all
> for it, but it seems that if I accept bitcoins I need to exchange them back
> to euro's to have any use of them. And that means someone is going to make
> money exchanging them back, and in absence of the banking system sharks some
> other sharks will enter the stage, right?

Yep, these "sharks" already exist, they currently trade 1 BTC for 8$ (which
seems exaggeratedly high)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade#Currency_exchange

Right now we can't avoid them, but the fierce competition (and the fact
that the real sharks haven't been attracted yet) makes them an acceptable
thing.

The real gain will appear when more goods and service will be available as
bitcoins. Right now I doubt I will spend more than 5% of the BTC I earn
directly, but that's all right, the size of the BTC economy stays what it
is, it will grow slowly.