As a third world citizen, Bitocin is godsent to me, never have I been able to purchase stuff online and pay for books and services like a normal 21st century human being. the feeling of being connected in that way to the rest of the world is priceless and I owe it all to Bitcoin.

Does the fluctuating value change how you spend or keep your Bitcoin at all? Do you convert and cash out quickly after every transaction? Haven't come across many on HN who actually use Bitcoin as tokens of exchange.

It does! I tend to use Bitcoin directly when its value is high but I use USD when the value is low, I know it might seem counter-intuitive but that way I get to save on Bitcoin whose value has been increasing. For Bitoin to USD I use online banks like Neteller or AdvCash.

What bookstores do you buy from that accept bitcoin?

You can buy gift cards for lots of major retailers with bitcoin. You can even buy from amazon via purse.io.

Everything I have ever read about purse.io indicates that the gift cards there are purchased with stolen credit card details.

A lot of people use cash to buy giftcards, in order to pay for bitcoin anonymously. So now it's cash -> giftcard -> bitcoin -> giftcard -> physical thing. The future is odd.

purse.io is a money laundering operation for stolen credit card numbers. If it hasn't been shut down yet and its operators arrested, it will be soon.

I haven't come across any so far. I convert BTC to USD and use that.

Okay. I'm curious about how you use BTC and why it means so much to you?

It means so much to me because I live in a country with no Paypal or easy access to credit cards that can be used online. Bitcoin is the only way I can pay for servers and books.

That's right. In fact that has been happening with just about every cryptocurrency that trades on crypto-exchanges (and even those that don't).