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what can one buy with it?
Drugs, guns, ITAR-restricted components...but mostly fiat currency balances in conventional banks.
struggling to make the leap that it really has any worth
Nothing has any worth until two parties to a bargain agree that it has.
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this is not me doubting that statement, but who would have bought all of that Bitcoin off you, using £ ?
The mug who thinks that if they hold it'll also make them a multimillionaire
And why?
See above
Because if I can't ... put food on the table
People early on bought pizzas for multiple bitcoin which would make them the most expensive pizza ever at current "value"
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People are buying bitcoin all the time on the open market. Most exchanges have a pretty big order book so there is a significant market depth.
https://www.coinglass.com/merge/BTC-USD
Taking a snap shot of that right now there's about 900 BTC either side of the midpoint. At $70k/BTC that's a crude estimation of a market depth of $63million.
You can buy some things with Bitcoin (that's how The Silk Road used to accept payments) but a lot of people treat it just like any other form of investments. If you buy shares in Apple you can't buy a house with them, or a car, or put food on the table with them. But you can trade them in for real cash at any point. Regardless of the price there will always usually be someone looking to buy and hope the upward trend will continue.
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Some stuff you can buy directly, but most stuff you'd transfer the bitcoin into cash and use that to buy a car or house or whatever. Same as you would with gold or property or shares or whatever.
At the simplest, the people buying it off you are more people who think it is going to go up in value. Some of that is individuals, some is instititional investors, some of that is companies. There's a company out there called Microstrategy that has bought up something like $15bn of bitcoin, Tesla owned something like $1bn at one point.
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Staying on Bitcoin for a minute... what can one buy with it?
The Emperor's New Clothes are definitely available with Bitcoin.
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@Ben689908
Staying on Bitcoin for a minute... what can one buy with it?
I think this is where I am struggling to make the leap that it really has any worth. @Greenbank you say if you'd bought £5 worth in 2009 you'd now be a multimillionaire... this is not me doubting that statement, but who would have bought all of that Bitcoin off you, using £ ? And why?
Because if I can't buy a house, a car, or put food on the table - using Bitcoin - why do I want or need it?
This is slightly Devil's advocate, but also me admitting that I still don't really understand it fully!