Bitcoin Forum

(mods I know you will want to move this to 'marketplace' but I believe it has some significance and should stay out here at least for a little while ;))

Hello community!

We would like to announce the rollout of what we call 'the Bitcoin-Kiez' ('Kiez' being Berliner slang for 'neighbourhood').

While we were celebrating Bitcoin Friday and partying away with a lot of Bitcoiners at ROOM77, our enabler-team (Yossarian, Goonie, Ente and me, aka the Crypto Economics Consultig Group) went out to enable three other places in our neighbourhood to accept Bitcoin. Well, I was merely standing by and smiling :).

So these are the first 4 shops (meaning brick-and-mortar bussinesses) on the Graefekiez in Berlin where you can pay in Bitcoin now. We will add more places to this list as / if they join in.

Here are the first participants:

Primo Maggio
http://www.primomaggio.de/ (http://www.primomaggio.de/)
Graefestraße 10
10967 Berlin

https://i.imgur.com/LhMEvh.jpg
Original Italian food at it's best. Gotta love the homemade antipasti, pasta, deserts and a great selection of original Italian drinks. The owner, Paolo, will allways make sure that no customer leaves without a smile on their face.

Fabelhaft Bar
Schönleinstraße 6
10967 Berlin

https://i.imgur.com/JEruWh.jpg
Floor and Bram are making some of the best cocktails you can find in Berlin. You will allways and instantly feel welcomed there and meet an international audience.

Vinyl Living Room Longplayer
Graefestraße 80
10967 Berlin

https://i.imgur.com/fCJneh.jpg
Nadim has an unbelievable selection of rare and hard-to-find vinyl records to offer. Concentrating on oldschool to hiphop, his record store is a meeting-point and hangout for well known DJs not only from Berlin.

ROOM77
http://room77.de/ (http://room77.de/)
Graefestrasse 77
10967 Berlin

https://i.imgur.com/9hc3Kh.jpg
Picture shows part of the Bitcoin crowd last friday at ROOM77, which has lost it's exclusivity being the only Bitcoin-bar in the neighbourhood that night. But as I have pointed out on friday: I never in my life had that much fun and was so happy about loosing something ;).

Stay tuned and as we say over here:

'To Blockchain Eternity!'

Joe

This is really awesome to hear.

This is epic! I'm coming to Berlin in a few months and this is exactly what I needed to hear.

Wow, just wow!

12 hour ride for me (by train) to get to Berlin, but it really seems it's getting to be worth it.

Your are awesome. That's the best news I have heard in a while here!

Congratulations.

Please contact me before you book your hotel, there is one on the list to join, they just don't wanna make it official yet to be able to learn some more about bitcoin before they start.

Joe

Cool! Keep it up!

it will be interesting to see what Primo Maggio does with his bitcoins

will he go buy a beer at the bar?

if he does, will Fabelhaft use that bitcoin to get some Vinyl records?


 ;D

I know I will! :D

Thumbs up. May the Kiez grow big.

This is great, bitcoin is really spreading!

I had the honour of making the first BTC payment at Fabelhaft / Wunderbar with the beautiful hostess, a primo hug and high-fiving all around.

If any of you have plans to visit, make it the first thursday of the month for the BERLINERBITCOINER meetup.

Love this!

Keep on, i think a few conversion like that is the way to go ,even if they convert 100% to fiat. any team to do it in Paris?
Those "respectales shops" are the only ( and the best) protection we'll have when states will put their fat noises in bitcoin.

This its really, really cool. You guys rock.

Now I need to find an excuse to go to Berlin!

Now imagine how I felt: even though I have been _selling_ beers for bitcoin for almost 2 years now, this was the first tme I could actually _buy_ one :).

Joe

Awesome!  :D

I miss Germany. Hopefully next time I live there I'll be able to do so exclusively with Bitcoin. Fuck the Euro!

Get in touch with me, I wish to add you guys to http://bitcoinnavigator.com

This is awesome. Next time I get to Berlin I will make sure to buy something.

Now we need the same in Munich.

Could you explain how it is done?

How it is done:
Joe runs the ROOM77, and accepts Bitcoin for two years now. So he knows his stuff. He is in touch with his fellow shops, bars, restaurants and neighbors. Being enthusiastic about Bitcoin, it was inevitable to turn them to Bitcoin - one after one! :-)

Yes, I think this is the way - Talk to the people. This is much better "advertising" than large billboard ads!

Yes, exiting stuff happens here, Berlin Bitcoin Kiez.
..and this is just the beginning!

Ente

I added all three new locations.

Ente

fyi: http://bitcoinmagazine.net/bitcoin-kiez-rollout-3-new-btc-accepting-stores-and-restaurants-in-berlin-more-to-come/

+1  :) keep up the good work guys

Can you describe a little more information as to Counts BTC to Financial Statement,and is it legal in Germany? thx

:)  I meant how does the system work. Just a smartphone or is there more to it?

10 GOTO BAR
20 DRINK IF DRUNK GOTO TOILET THEN GOTO 40
30 GOTO 2O
40 POINT PHONE AT QR
50 PAY
60 GOTO NEXT BAR

The new merchants all installed the Satoshi client on their laptops. We simply printed one of their public keys to a plain sheet of paper, including a QR-code and and btc.to-link to that address, which was put up on the wall.

Customers can now copy that address and send the required amount in BTC. We assume that most customers will use the Schildbach/blockchain.info client for Android or easywallet for iPhone to pay. Both offer automated currency conversion, so you can simply type in the required amount in EUR.

The merchant can check if the payment got in by opening up blockchain.info with his public address (which we bookmarked on their laptops).

Not sure if that's the most convenient option, but it seems to work. We'll most likely smoothen out the process soon, but need some feedback from the merchants or their customers first. We also had a discussion what client we should use for the merchants, and we decided to stick to the Satoshi client for the time being, combined with the additional features provided by blockchain.info.

so you can only link a customer to a payment via the paid amount?

Yes.

Only the EUR value of the purchase goes into the books.

Alternatively one can book the BTC onto one account and declare the value of that ballance according to the exchange rate at the time of the tax declaration. This makes more sense when one starts to also pay for business expenses in BTC.

We will upgrade the wallets of the bars / restaurants with nfc chips so the waiters can just walk up to a table, tell the amount to be paid, transmit the address and once they walked back behind the bar they can already check if the payment is on the way. Unconfirmed transaction on the blockchain is enough.

Works fine.

Joe

Make sure the clients are configured for outgoing communications only ( -nolisten ).  This is because knowing the IP address of the node, it becomes not terribly hard to perform a race attack to double spend.  And the way the Bitcioin.org client functions, the merchant might not even notice ... the transaction would just disappear as if it had never been made.

It might even be seen as a challenge by someone to be the first to pull off a race attack double spend against a bricks and mortar merchant.  If configured with -nolisten (and optionally, an outgoing connection made explicitly to a well-connected node), then the chance of a race attack succeeding is much much lower, to where the profit on the sale is likely orders of magnitude greater than any losses due to a race attack double spend.

simple is good. You might consider using Multibit, though, as it is much faster and more lightweight.


why not stick to qr codes for now?


@2weix: It's been so long I wrote any BASIC that today I only understand Python.

you know what would be awesome:


a smallish device that can be used to tally totals and print out a human readable total plus a BTC QR code.
the receiving end should be a paper wallet, the waiter could have a tablet with blockchain.info app and the paper wallet added as a "to watch" adress, incoming trx will show up within seconds.

The merchants will use blockchain.info to check their balances and not always wait for their client to update, so this shouldn't be an issue. Or am I missing something?

Maybe it would make sense to automatically save the used conversion rate when receiving a Bitcoin payment? The schildbach client obviously knows the rate, so it could write it into a simple text file too.
I just imagined the horror when a tax guy sees your bitcoins in your tax declaration, and wants to know every single conversion rate for every of those 749 Bitcoin payments.. It probably wouldn't even be possible to find out the "24h mean exchange rate" from a month ago?

Ente

another option:

convert the btc to eur once a day / week / month via mtgox.
generate a report for each month:

xxxx BTC
converted to
YYYY €

and put that on your tax report, provable by bank account statement (mtgox sepa wire)

That's probably works as well as any other approach.    Some people might recommend avoiding a third-party source for blockchain and transaction data, but for amounts in the burgers and beers range, I would trust Blockchain.info's data for that.

Wonderful!

Joe, I tried to visit Room77 when I was last in Berlin a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately it was closed (this was around 2pm). I would have gone later but some of my friends are vegetarian. It'd be nice if there was a website or some other place where we can see what's on the menu.

Satoshi client is (for now) a good choice for them, as long as they keep it running all the time. I hope that soon you can migrate them to something lighter-weight, like a new 0.8 release of the Satoshi client or MultiBit. Otherwise they may find that they cannot keep up and want to stop running the software.

Good luck!

some more coverage: http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/35733263353/bitcoin-clusters

Room77 opens at 3pm normally.
Also: I eat the cheese nachos for more than a year now - every fkn time! :-)
No, people have no clue what awesomeness they will receive if they haven't been in the Room before!

Let us know when you are around next time, there'll be some of us around!

Ente

here is a nice solution to:
http://acceptbit.com/ (http://acceptbit.com/)

Gnah, race attacks. I don't want to say they are not an issue at all but in this case I would say: "Please don't spread fud."

If people do this in a burgers place, they are known to the waiter and highly risk to get caught. If it actually happens in the wild, this will be good for the burger place, too as it's news and news is worth more than a burger's worth lost.

The map of Real World Shops is filling in nicely in America and Europe.  Great job guys.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops

Unfortunately it's also being spammed by non-real-world shops aka every shop is a real world shop. Guess somebody will have to play wiki-nazi at some point. For now I will suggest some rules.

I don't see much of that happening except for a couple in south america where there are only four listings anyway.  If a marker for an internet shop is actually blocking a marker for a real world shop, then remove it.

This week, tour guide Heidi Leyton (http://heidileyton.com) started to accept Bitcoin.

Heidi offers a wide variety of ways to explore Berlin. Whether it's a tour to the remains of the wall, an insight to the Jewish Berlin or a walk through Kreuzberg, where the Bitcoin Kiez is located: Heidi will make it interesting and worthwile. :D

More info on her website, http://heidileyton.com

If you want to make arrangements for YOUR tour, you can contact Heidi through her website, http://heidileyton.com/?page_id=21 or reach her via info@HeidiLeyton.com

from how I understood they are booking via their normal system anyway and will handle all taxes there (receive bitcoin is like receive fiat cash).

Though I am sure this system works just fine and makes paying with bitcoin possible at almost no cost and effort:

What would be even nicer was to be able to do an integrated bitcoin order/buy. Maybe for the most often ordered items like beer, water, coke you could just put a print with a couple of (design) qr codes on each table such that the system knows what to bring to what table right after ordering/paying via the blockchain.

The question is how to smoothly insert this knowledge into the regular workflow? A little printer?

You could also put a qr code for tips and one to broadcast that the current order for the table is finished by sending a satoshi.

Here's some more picture from Bitcoin Friday @ Bitcoin-Kiez in Berlin: http://imgur.com/a/6fzE3

Hey!

@Berliners : )

I intend to visit Kreuzberg, is there any hostel or hotel or something that accepts Bitcoin?

Thanks!

try http://www.9flats.com/

..und natürlich auch http://www.lekkerurlaub.de/ direkt im Graefe/Bitcoinkiez! :-)

Ente

Love to see this. Very cool :)

do transactions go through fast enough to make this viable....?

Again someone confusing transactions with confirmations?

A transaction takes usually 1-2 Seconds.

Yes, this go trough fast enough.

Despite what you may read about the forum, unconfirmed transactions work plenty well enough for this sort of thing.

Exactly. Trying to make a double spend in bar or a brick and mortar Shop is by far riskier than to just grab you item and make a run for it.

Awesome guys.

I know this has been posted in different threads already, but I have a feeling it belongs in here as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/26/bitcoins-gain-currency-in-berlin?INTCMP=SRCH

Thanks herzmeister & Ente, excellent stuff!

Didn't see if someone already posted this in the thread, but here's a link to the video about bitcoin in Kreuzberg: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/apr/26/bitcoin-currency-moves-offline-berlin-video (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/apr/26/bitcoin-currency-moves-offline-berlin-video)

I'll be over for a long weekend this summer--I'll try to make that bitcoin night.

What if you send a 0-fee TX that doesn't exceed the priority threshold, so it will sit unconfirmed for days, but then you are able to double spend it back to another address of yours with a fee when you get back home?

Of course there are risks.

But how often would this happen?

1. If you do a double spend in a shop or a bar, you will never shop there again or drink a beer there again
2. We are not talking about values of 1000nds of $ here, but a normal Bill at a bar or shop
3. If that's you reasoning as a shop owner, you should also not accept Credit Cards, because the person could always do a charge back later or the Credit doesn't have any backing
4. The normal user isn't even able to do a double spend and it will get less and less the more Bitcoin goes mainstream, but everyone can do a CC charge back or pay without having enough backing on his account.

In addition there is always the "risk" that your transaction actually confirms.

If your transaction doesn't contain the minimum fee, it will not be relayed to the shop owner neither.

Unless blockchain.info is involved (not a peep about zero fee, insufficient priority pushtx; it pops up on the /address/ page irregardless)...

Vive la Revolution!

Does anyone know where I can get the window stickers for "Bitcoin taken here"? See below:

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67235000/jpg/_67235597_bitcoinlabel624_getty.jpg

I'm trying to create packs for retailers all round the world and want to do a push to all the small shops in Brighton, UK:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=188918.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=188918.0)

Bitmit seems like a good start:

https://www.bitmit.net/de/item/29675-10-bitcoin-sticker-9-8-x-9-8-cm and https://www.bitmit.net/de/item/20068-bitcoin-accepted-here-vinyl-window-cling-sticker are the most popular ones.

Thanks! I've just signed up and bought 100 stickers to give out.

What tablet application/website was ROOM77 using to accept customer payments in the Guardian video? I'm trying to write up an info sheet of methods to take customer payemtn so a list of different methods of how to do this would be useful:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=188918.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=188918.0)

Indeed. We all here accept payments as soon as they are on the blockhain without waiting for confirmations. Takes no more than a few seconds in the absolute majority of cases. Only blockchain.info webwalletstuff is a problem as it takes unneccessarily longer.

We will keep on doing so untill we suffer the first double-spend attack, which I expect some time soon actually, carried out by some nerds as proof of concept who will come back after an hour and smile and pay their bill anyway :).

Joe

We are using an android tablett with a Bitcoin Wallet (from Andreas Schildbach) installed. Alternatively, people can scan an address from a printed qr-code, call up an address from btc.to in a webbrowser or - pretty cool - just put their nfc-enabled device on our actual physical wallet (the one made of leather containing paper- and metall-tokens) and and the wallet on the device opens and has our payment address already read in via the rfid-sticker-magic developed by sodoku.

Other places use other stuff, depending on their likes and existing infrastructure if they don't want to spend the money on a tablett. But in all cases the payment process nowadays is just faster than any other digital payment and about as fast as receiving cash in many cases.

Joe

Thanks for this. I'm first going to try this out with mainly technical high-street businesses as they'll be most receptive and can provide feedback on what suits them best.

This is SOOOO cool. I'm in Berlin right now and I have to check it out!
My name is Eliran Zach and I started an Israeli Bitcoin exchange website called Bitgo.
You can find it at https://www.bitgo.co.il but currently it's only in hebrew so...
I would love to meet some of the Berlin Bitcoin community at one of this bars. I think it will be awesome meeting other enthusiasts to discuss Bitcoin, life and the universe.
pm me if your in the area and would like to meet for a pint.

come by on thursday, many forumers will attend, it's always a full house!

Over time we'll probably chip away at the issues that can sometimes result in double spending of 0-conf transactions (miner node restarts, etc). Finney Attacks are the obvious one that has no real solution, but they're also very hard to pull off with the system as it is today because no-one is selling such services.

Currently I'm planning on being in Hamburg on thursday but if it will get cancelled I'll defiantly come to 77.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?note=12184

Could you report to the owner that their website currently doesn't work?

http://www.fabelhaftberlin.de/

Thank you!

I just came from Berlin trip yesterday.

Well, all is not as smooth as expected regarding bitcoin.

Several places are not open at the beginning of the week, some of them are open only afternoon or on just specific days, Floors cafe was closed all the time (although there was an open sign from Tuesday at 11h).

I was unable to find certain places that are stated in OP, for example Primo Maggio was like some imaginary place...

Also some places marked at http://bitcoinkiez.de are incorrect.

Guys, I don't wanna be a "Spielverderber", but better prepare in advance like crazy if you'd like to check most of the bitcoin places.

But the bottom line is: it was SOOO COOL to sit down at Room77, take rollberg beer, enjoy the tasty burger and pay with coins! Very nice experience!

WARNING: next day's Room77 farts are "tasty" too!  : )))))

@minimalB: do you know CoinMap?

http://coinmap.org/

I'm also preparing a Berlin trip to check out Bitcoin Kiez. Could you share any more practical details? I don't really have any information to make preparations from...

Didn't know about it, thanks for the info. Looks great!


Just make sure that you check opening days and opening hours of every place you want to visit, so you'll know in advance how to plan your trip. Also, as a side note, Kiez can look quite spooky at nights (if you are a visitor and not used to this place).

And don't forget to report here : )

Cheers!

The trouble is, not many places have updated web pages. I can only find two or three places that accept bitcoin there on the Internet, and there's got to be a few places more, right?

Check out https://bitcoinhood.wordpress.com/ Places in the map are up to date. Most places are open during the afternoon/night.

A good starting point is always room77. It opens around 5 pm and if you ask for the owner (Jörg), you have a high chance of meeting him. You can always ask him for further recommendations in the area (bitcoin-wise).

Looking good, Berlin.

Map looks good, but most of the websites of the companies are either crappy or non-existent :(

I think it would be much better better if they had at least a clean page with the companies name, address, photo and the bitcoin logo.
That can be done with free tools in less than an hour would look much more professional.

Just my 2 cents

Thanks! I don't know who manages the site, but it would be good it they could include some sorts of "last changed" timestamp. As it stands, I have no idea if the information is outdated or not.

Given that "events" is empty and the generic tone of the information, I would have guessed that it was in fact quite some time old and that none of the places was in business anymore...

But it's great to know that it's current! Thanks!

It would be better if they contributed to OpenStreetMap. In this way data could be updated by the users and errors could be reported simply by adding a note (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Notes).

Ciao!

probably the best way to voice all this is to hit up @sudoku on twitter, he manages the site.

Unfortunately I don't use twitter...