Bitcoin Usage Falls to Its Lowest in Months

[Cordillerabit]

There’s never a bad time to be sending and receiving bitcoin, but right now is especially good. Fees are at the lowest in 18 months, with the average transaction value now under a dollar. This contrasts starkly with the latter quarter of last year, when rising fees peaked at $34. There’s a primary reason why fees have been dropping since then: with bitcoin too expensive to send, people simply stopped using it as currency.

High transaction fees arguably helped push the “store of value” meme that was popularized on r/bitcoin last year. Saddled with a cryptocurrency that was too expensive to send in small amounts, there was little choice but to hodl and wait for BTC to appreciate in value. Soaring fees were one of the triggers for a number of businesses to stop accepting bitcoin including Stripe and, ironically, the North American Bitcoin Conference. Steam also stopped accepting bitcoin in December, citing “high fees and volatility”. Frustrating as fees have been for users of the bitcoin network, some good has come of this predicament.

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[dragononcrypto]

Once it starts a convincing recovery then vendors will flock back to it. There has been many problems for vendors on the darkweb for example, due to the combination of escrow service with a market correction means vendor losses can be upto 50% over sales due to shipping times.
The point here is darkweb vendors have to use crypto despite the market correction, they don't have realistic/secure fiat options, but any legal vendor wouldn't be bothering with similar risks until the prices are stable, or at least going back into green.
I find it ridiculous really, the drug dealers never complain about the volatility when it's in their favour  They should just learn to HODL/trade a bit more.

[Cordillerabit]

Once it starts a convincing recovery then vendors will flock back to it. There has been many problems for vendors on the darkweb for example, due to the combination of escrow service with a market correction means vendor losses can be upto 50% over sales due to shipping times.
The point here is darkweb vendors have to use crypto despite the market correction, they don't have realistic/secure fiat options, but any legal vendor wouldn't be bothering with similar risks until the prices are stable, or at least going back into green.
I find it ridiculous really, the drug dealers never complain about the volatility when it's in their favour  They should just learn to HODL/trade a bit more.

you have a good point maybe you're right

[dragononcrypto]

Another issue is the 14-28 day refunds... does this happen at BTC value or fiat? Does the vendor lose money or the customer?
This is why with current volatility it won't be a popular payment method during considerable corrections.

[tetrisdancho]

However, the exchange fee for Japanese exchanges remains high ...
It would be nice to be a realistic means of payment. (Although it may be changed to ripple)

[cryptothief]

In my humble opinion, Bitcoin will never reach mass adoption as a currency, simply because people see the value in holding, and don't want to lose the potential gains. Where it will probably be used more is in cryptocurrency backed lending as an asset. There are plenty of other more versatile currencies that I can see getting much further in terms of actual spending use.