Ah, except I'm not trading for cash. I'm trading for something that means more to me than cash (which I would have used cash to purchase anyway) :) What the merchant does with it afterwards, on the other hand.

And I'm not in it to make a fast buck. I'm just using it for occasional vanity purchases. I don't like treating a volatile commodity as a forex investment.. just doesn't seem wise. If it crashes to <$1/btc, I'll be out like, a hundred bucks. So what?

What's the difference between what you are doing and selling btc for cash and using that cash to buy stuff?

The only difference is that you are forced to buy things at a certain time rather than keeping it in cash.

The underlying transaction is the same.

> forced

No, not really. It just changes my strategy on which currency to use when I want to buy something.

How do merchants even price things to sell using bitcoin when it has volatility like this?

Do they dynamically change the price of goods based on the bitcoin/$ exchange rate? Or do they actually sell the same goods for 1$ one day, $3 the next and $2 the third?

If they use a service like coinbase, they price in USD and then payout almost immediately. It's a deferred sell, to be sure, but it adds more economic activity than just an exchange transaction.

new reply to reply to the edit :)

I don't think I've found a sure-fire way to beat the market, not one bit. I understand that it's risky-brisky. But I do think that non-investment activity will add more legitimacy to the btc economy itself, which is why I opt to spend instead of sell.

You'd be surprised how many people buy high when caught up in the euphoria, then capitulate and sell low...

when you think they buy high, they might think they buy low. Oh if wed only knew when low is low and high is high.