If you're valuing everything in dollars, setting your price in dollars, and converting to and from dollars, why not just use dollars. I think this is the leap BitCoin is yet to make. When we no longer have to convert it and compare it to dollars.
It has loads of benefits over using the dollar, but a lot of those benefits are lost the second you're having it exchanged.
For instance, if I wanted to use bitcoin for contracting, my clients would have to convert their dollars into bitcoins, then I'd accept the bitcoins smoothly and easily, and then I'd have to exchange them (sell them) back for dollars to buy groceries and pay for the bus. Whereas right now, I get an Interac e-transfer and in less than 30 seconds I have money I can go to the store with, and it cost the sender only a dollar in fees. Sure, it's taxable, but the second I convert it from bit coins it's trackable anyway.
I definitely think this is a model we're going to see a lot more of in the future, but Bitcoin with it's thousand dollar and rising valuation and constant fluctuations is very difficult to get behind and actively use. And with the number of people, just of the people I know, who bought in hoping to cash out, there might be quite the tumble on the way. Who knows though, it will be interesting to watch, that's for sure.
I read a great comment at a local forum earlier along the lines of: No one wants bitcoin, everyone wants ... to exchange their bitcoins for as many dollars as possible.
Because bitcoin acts as a proxy between the buyer's local currency and the seller's local currency, regardless of what those are. Particularly in the case of digital goods, this opens a buyer up to accepting business from anywhere in the world.
It has loads of benefits over using the dollar, but a lot of those benefits are lost the second you're having it exchanged.
For instance, if I wanted to use bitcoin for contracting, my clients would have to convert their dollars into bitcoins, then I'd accept the bitcoins smoothly and easily, and then I'd have to exchange them (sell them) back for dollars to buy groceries and pay for the bus. Whereas right now, I get an Interac e-transfer and in less than 30 seconds I have money I can go to the store with, and it cost the sender only a dollar in fees. Sure, it's taxable, but the second I convert it from bit coins it's trackable anyway.
I definitely think this is a model we're going to see a lot more of in the future, but Bitcoin with it's thousand dollar and rising valuation and constant fluctuations is very difficult to get behind and actively use. And with the number of people, just of the people I know, who bought in hoping to cash out, there might be quite the tumble on the way. Who knows though, it will be interesting to watch, that's for sure.