A fiver will be pretty much the easiest solution, let the bartender serve the next customer already!
Well, maybe we shouldn't bother.
Buying pints isn't really gonna work with bitcoin... at the moment.
A fiver is easier than paying with a €50 and waiting for the change.
Does that make €50 notes useless? Why bother with €50? Well, a €50 note can serve more purposes.
Same with a credit card, right? A fiver beats a credit card for paying for a pint!
At least until the banks innovated and made contactless payments.
Now, after some setup from the merchant and the customer, a contactless card is even easier than a fiver.
It required a lot of work from the banks and we had fivers already, why did the banks bother?
Because the initial work put into it doesn't matter to us using it, banks enjoy the increased volumes and we just enjoy the end product. (by the way I don't even use contactless, but it sounds like the fastest easiest way to pay exactly for a pint).
Now, we had to wait for the banks to innovate and improve credit cards.
With bitcoin we don't have to wait for anyone. Anyone can start creating an app that makes paying for pints easier.
And you can even use hardware technology that's already in place, like the current smartphones that are circulating. There might be no need to buy a new POS or order plastic cards.
Overly simple example.
Although the current high network fees make it all useless, lets assume network fees are like €0.05. The merchant will be happier to pay that 1% than the banking fees.
It is possible to make an app that does the following:
Merchant app
Customer app
- Tie the price to the unit of account of your choice, be it € or oz of gold or whatever
- Real time convert the equivalent in bitcoin ( or other cryptocurrency)
- Broadcast a payment request
Of course you need to add more functions, details, add limits, require prompts, different broadcast methods, like displaying QR code, or simply tapping a phone to one another (NFC?)
- Store money, arguably not very securely but your cash in your pocket isnt really secure either
- Display in your choice of unit of account (maybe I believe in 'North Korean won' and account my net worth there
) - Read a payment request, maybe convert it on display in your choice of currency, using live markets data.
- Pay it, or not.
Point is it will happen, because bitcoin is programmable money and people will be building apps for it non stop. Its all open source, people will build and others will build on top and improve.
And once someone makes it good enough, if its easier then the fiver or the contactless card, we can simply start using it.
Or not.
Bitcoin is voluntary, noone is forced to use it.
Thank you.That it an excellent post.
I think you have outlined how Bitcoin could be used in the future. I am probably looking at the current uses of Bitcoin without looking down the road. If the Bitcoin value does stabilise then what you have outlined could well work.
Firefly.
The size of a transaction is measured in bytes. Keeping it simple, it probably wont matter if you send €5 or €5k in bitcoin, you pay the same fee. Negligible fee to buy a house, yes.Current transaction costs for anything are over $20.
I don't get this line, currently in order to get fiat you have to make a BTC transaction to the entity willing to give you fiat for it. There is no practical solution at the moment to transfer ownership of a certain BTC amount without using the BTC network and paying for at least one transaction.Don't confuse transactions in BTC with transactions involving BTC to fiat to retailer.
I was preempting any folk saying some online retailers are accepting BTC. They are not. They are facilitating the conversion of BTC at spot into the currency they are pricing at. Is anybody (significant) quoting BTC prices?I don't get this line, currently in order to get fiat you have to make a BTC transaction to the entity willing to give you fiat for it.
No! and this is important, the high transaction fees are due to the transaction limit per block. Imagine the bus comes every 10 minutes and has a limited number of seats, those waiting at the bus stop willing to pay the most get the seats.And with $20 a transaction it has no hope of getting traction. But, the argument goes, these high transaction fees are because of the current price and the current cost of puzzle solving.
The market price of bitcoin going down won't necessarily affect the number of transactions people are making, except that it might signal that some users are leaving.Once the BTC stabilizes (i.e. falls to stable levels) the transaction fees will become manageable - this is only a temporary blip. Doesn’t that say that BTC will only be the success its fans predict when the price falls to levels that transaction fees are reasonable. That all looks contradictory to me.
No! and this is important, the high transaction fees are due to the transaction limit per block. Imagine the bus comes every 10 minutes and has a limited number of seats, those waiting at the bus stop willing to pay the most get the seats.
The miner probably can't convert it to real money!
Over 1 million houses sold in UK each year. One sold in Essex to a puzzle solver for BTC hits news. Wow this bitcoin is really catching on.
yesso if I had say 10 bitcoins could I be able to exchange them for $ at the rate of exchange on offer at the moment.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?