Since my $1,000 worth of bitcoins dropped in value to $150 over a period of weeks, I've become significantly less interested in using it as a currency.
You mean less interested in using it as a way to profit from speculation. As a currency it is not as critical that the value only goes up.
A person or merchant receiving bitcoins can easily convert them out to USDs and still lose less in fees than the same transaction would cost compared to accepting a credit card or debit card payment. For example, BTC -> USD at most exchanges is around half a percent.
Well, no. Currencies as we know them are not only for exchange, but also are supposed to be reasonable stores of value. If a currency loses 85% of its worth in a period of weeks, it has failed at this fundamental task.
Now, for merchants this might not seem to matter, as they might be able to always convert bitcoins to a real currency immediately and never hold them long enough for depreciation to matter, but if the currency is excessively volatile there will never be a buyer at the exchange besides speculators, which prevents the currency from ever being really useful.
"As a currency it is not as critical that the value only goes up."
True, but to be a practical currency it is critical that the value remains relatively stable. A currency capable of dropping from $1000 USD to $150 USD in a very short time is clearly not stable.
Which is not saying much, because if you try to avoid volatility by doing a USD->BTC->USD transaction you get hit with fees that are almost as much as credit cards, not to mention the complexity.
You were gullible and invested at the peak of the bubble at $30/BTC (now worth $5/BTC). Any bubble would have crushed you, eg the dotcom stock market frenzy. Your fault.
Bitcoin is up 400% over the last year (from $1 to $5/BTC), which has made it an excellent investment for other (smarter) investors not swayed by a bubble.
Has anyone solved the liquidity mess? Say I want to buy a car and have to unload $20k of bitcoins. Can I do that? With a latency of less than 24 hours? Without getting my PayPal account frozen?
Yes you can, but not in 24h. (Hopefully buying a $20k car is not an impulse buy you make in a day, ahem...)
Sell the BTC on MtGox and withdraw the USD via Dwolla directly to your bank account. No need to use Paypal!
MtGox's withdrawal limit can be raised to $10k per day if you provide a notarized government ID copy (IIRC). Dwolla's limit is $5k per transfer with as many txfer per day. So it would take 2 days for completing the withdrawal, plus a few days for your bank to actually post the transaction (thank the legacy financial system for these unexplainable delays).
Of course the very best way to do it is to actually buy a car in bitcoins... see the Bitcoin Market subforum and find a seller. I remember last year someone was happy to announce he was the first person ever to buy a used car with bitcoins.
thank the legacy financial system for these unexplainable delays
I understand your feelings on this. But the fact remains that the using the "legacy financial system" I can move my money between investments on my etrade account with a latency of minutes. I can buy that car on a credit card or with a personal check with zero latency. Bitcoins aren't remotely there yet.
There may be some privacy or social justice reasons behind pushing bitcoins. They may be fun (I'm sure they're more fun for a hacker to play with than mutual funds). But they're not a serious option for someone looking to "invest" their money, and claiming they are is doing the people you're trying to sell on the idea a disservice.
This latency is not a pb inherent to Bitcoin. It happens whenever you hold currency X and need currency Y, for any value of X != Y. You are going to waste time exchanging one for the other. This is one of the reason why I expect Bitcoin's adoption to take off for international trade where the 2 parties of a transaction use different currencies to begin with.
Also I doubt you can sell stocks on Etrade and withdraw dollars to your bank in minutes. When I do this with my stockbroker (TD ameritrade) it takes at least 2-3 days because the transfer is made by ACH which takes a while to clear.
This latency is perfectly acceptable for stock market investors, therefore I see no reason why it would not be acceptable for Bitcoin investors...
My understanding of when they move money around in minutes is that they're basically giving you a short-term, interest-free loan in exchange for using their service. In reality, it still takes a day or two for things to clear.
Right. Because it's a robust system with clear properties and sufficient risk tolerance to make that practical. The bitcoin economy lacks those properties, which is my whole point. And people who plus bitcoins as "investments" without awareness of these issues are hurting, not helping.
Right. So no liquidity solution then. It's foolish, obviously, because it doesn't work: it looks like fraud. As it does to all the other banks out there. So bitcoins are illiquid. They're like oddball collections. "Valuable" to a few, but basically useless as an "investment" to people with liquidity requirements.
One corrolary you'll note is that because they are both illiquid and volatile, they even suck as a speculative investment: if you make a bad bet you can't get out of it.
A person or merchant receiving bitcoins can easily convert them out to USDs and still lose less in fees than the same transaction would cost compared to accepting a credit card or debit card payment. For example, BTC -> USD at most exchanges is around half a percent.