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 <$1/btc, I'll be out like, a hundred bucks. So what?
How do merchants even price things to sell using bitcoin when it has volatility like this?
Do they dynamically change the price of goods based on the bitcoin/$ 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.
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?