Bitcoin Forum

I noticed that the shops that accept Bitcoin are mainly in europe and north america, why bitcoin can not go out and conquer other continents? the stability of the country plays a role in all this? how?

Bitcoin is slowly but surely getting into other countries, like countries on South America. You can check that on the marketplace section here, as an example.

And yes, stability takes part. Less stable countries tend to search for alternative currencies...

But I also noticed that the Bitcoin is primarily in capitals or large cities.
So, the cryptocurrencies are known in countries that have less stability as in Africa or in Asia?

there are some factors in my opinion that play a role in adoption of bitcoin in different countries.

one of them which is also important is the regulations, the fact that some countries don't look at bitcoin kindly

the other one is the difference between the development of the country.
bitcoin is more known and accepted in developed countries rather than developing countries.

to be honest there are some bitcoin shops in european countries such as germany or france as i have been there and i was able to use bitcoins in some places though only in few

there are a few bitcoin shops at the moment online that accept only bitcoins and nothing else though there are only a very small amount, with adoption there should be way more

How are things in stores?
When you pay, you wait at least a confirmation to exit?

It isn't just a problem with specific countries (even though some have much more adoption than others). Local merchant adoption is lacking pretty much everywhere. Even though you can buy almost anything that you desire with Bitcoin (online), you can't do that locally (in most places).

It isn't also easy to find them. The only source that I know would be coinmap (https://coinmap.org).

It comes down to the merchant and the way that they're accepting Bitcoin. A zero-confirmation TX is acceptable for small purchases.

But how is the payment.
The merchant gives you his Bitcoin address or it is with QR Codes?

Again, you're asking questions that do not have a general answer. Obviously, the preferred method is using QR codes. Here's an example video (https://youtu.be/NOQpajnupf8).

Thank you for your answers.
I'll try to watch the video to get an idea about this.

^ risky advice but here is some to reduce risk
it only takes less than one second with the right tools to:
check the transaction is not RBF
check the transaction has a fee(if there is no/low fee then there is a higher chance someone will re-use the funds with a fee to spend elsewhere before first tx confirms)
check the taint of the inputs for signs of previous abuse.

this would help reduce the chances of someone trying to double spend.
some payment services have these taint analysis and transaction checking algo's added to their code to help mitigate the risks of accepting zero confirms

^^^ Franky1, Anti-Bitcoin par excellence speaks out of his asshole once again



No, Franky, First-Seen rules protects against someone using RBF to steal 0-confs away, you've been told 1000's of times and yet you still repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat this BS propaganda


That won't always be true even today, zero-fee transactions still get processed. To be fair, this is the only piece of advice that has a semblance of truth (and I think we all know Franky relies on making his BS more palatable by mixing it in with some obvious facts)




And here Franky reveals exactly the kind of boot-licking corporate shill he really is: one of the fundamentals of Bitcoin is to transact fungible money without censorship, and here's Franky, telling us to censor transactions (the irony shouldn't be lost on anyone who knows Franky for what he is: he goes on and on and on about non-existent censorship on this forum to disparage genuine supporters of Bitcoin)

One reason why it hasn't reached other countries' real world merchants is because there isn't much of a popularity and
demand just yet.

Like here in our country, the number of people that uses bitcoin is roughly 1/100 (that's a bad estimate, I know) however, there are third party payment centers that accept bitcoins to pay our bills and stuff.

Also demand is a must.

But you know here in my country, I doubt there are lots of demands for our local wallet exchange to give services here but they take the risk. Now our local wallet exchange really established a good name in bitcoin industry also somehow it helps us gained number of users here to be engaged in bitcoin world.

At least in my country, Mexico, I can't easily find reliable stores to exchange my coins,  but in any case most of the available options are only willing to accept bitcoin, but not to accept fiat and return coins in exchange.

Well, to be fair, there is Opt In RBF. If a transaction is non-final (sequence of any input is not 0xffffffff), it is either timelocked or uses opt in RBF which means that the transaction could be replaced.

I would also like to add that the transaction has to have a high enough fee, not just a fee in general. Low fee transactions still take a while to get confirmed.

That ,I agree, is complete BS.

Additionally, when accepting unconfirmed transactions, you should also check whether the inputs of the transaction are also unconfirmed.

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I think one of the biggest factors of not having Bitcoin in accepted in physical stores is that employees need to understand how to use Bitcoin too before it can be accepted.

Indeed. Using a Child Pays for Parent transaction (as I know you're abundantly aware of (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1506632.0)) can mitigate for that kind of problem, but I can imagine there may exist circumstance where even CPFP can't help (and it's arguably not such a great practice/culture to encourage, unscrupulous users may try to use the mechanism to push some/all of the fee onto the sender).


Also in agreement, but you imply that education is the answer, whereas I would posit that better protocols (i.e. simpler to use for the layperson) would be more effective. I say this not out of cynicism/derision, but simply as an observation of the trends for the average abilities of the average shop assistant: the required abilities for shop work has been declining steadily over the years, to the extent that all they really need is to press a few buttons on the register in the correct sequence, smile and be faintly personable.

I think it's more about connectivity to the Internet then anything else. Here in the USA it wasn't until 5 to 7 years ago that every physical store accepted credit cards, and this is because ISPs finally reached out to more rural areas and mobile internet services like 3G and now 4G LTE became cheap and available almost anywhere. Now it's a death sentence to your business to only accept cash, because a majority of people do not carry large amounts of cash on them anymore like they did only a decade ago.

How is Joe the Farm Stand owner going to accept bitcoin when he can't even get cellphone service in the majority of the area he lives and works in?

I'm under the impression that Bitcoin is increasingly accepted all over the world, not just in the U.S. or in Europe. Of course it is still far from mainstream acceptance, but the constant trend of increases in the number of transactions is very encouraging. As we could observe during the last bubble, Bitcoin adoption tends to get a boost during rising prices. Not all of the companies joining then will stay in a subsequent depression, but even considering a significant drop out rate there will still be a significant increase.

Personally I think that especially businesses in South American countries are hot aspirants for Bitcoin adoption: Overall, many of these countries have a well educated and tech-savvy population that is interested in progress and business opportunities. Heightened inflationary tendencies of national currencies in these countries will add to the attractiveness of Bitcoin.

ya.ya.yo!

CPFP isn't supported by most miners anyways, so it doesn't help that much. Bitcoin Core doesn't even support it yet.

True, we could use some hardware that makes accepting Bitcoin in stores much easier. This is another project that I'm working on as well, but I don't think I will finish it any time soon.

This all depends on the information and fame since bitcoin is famous in the recent modern world where as it is not very commonly known in asia and africa so only that's the reason bitcoins are not accepted on shops there.

I think brazil is one of the most country that 150 store are accepting bitcoin as payment.. and i think more shops too will accept bitcoin as payment in the future.. just like brazil..

carlton its time you re-read what RBF can do..
if the transaction is RBF people can change the transaction amounts.. its literaly even telling you with the first letter R=replace.

so if your going to do zero confirms acceptance. do not blindly trust a transactions that have either of these
has no fee
is RBF
whos taint shows that there have been other attempts of double spends before.

this is because
1. has no fee
https://bitcoincore.org/en/faq/optin_rbf/
people can know which IP to send which transaction. EG send a PayYourself tx directly to the pools with a fee. send a PayRetailer without fee to a node known to be what the retailer uses to check. thus the retailer sees the PayRetailer transaction first and the PayYourself gets rejected by the retailers node.. but the important part is that the miners see PayYourself first and rejects the PayRetailer tx(especially because it has no fee anyway).. an guess which one gets confirmed!!

2. is RBF
https://bitcoincore.org/en/faq/optin_rbf/
even though RBF does include a fee(so point 1 wont raise a red flag). RBF can do something different..by messing with the amounts of the output and increase the fee it can cheange the transaction.. its literally in the name Replace By Fee. so if someone is paying you a TX you have to logically ask.. if they have no reason to mess/replace the transaction why would they opt for RBF. the answer is because there is a risk the transaction can change.(hint: red flag)

3. that there is a chance the customer may try a double-spend if there are signs of double spends linked to the originators address from past transactions. EG they practiced it, before doing it for real. or this is not the first time they scammed a retailer.(hint: red flag)

no one is saying everyone will try it. but atleast knowing what to look out for allows you to spot some red flags to be a bit mindful about whether you hand over the goods instantly or to keep the customer in conversation or delay the goods if the red flags appear..

that way if everyone just paid a fee and there was no sign of double spend taint. no reason to RBF. the goods can be released.
if however there was no fee.. or there was an RBF. or there was some taint.. you can delay handing over the goods for X seconds to see if any other similar transactions got relayed around the network incase the one you seen first was presented to you before you got to see the one presented to the mining pool first.. then you can see which one got accepted by the mining pools first to know if your going to get paid the right amount or not.

..
i seriously wonder about carlton. even trying to suggest bitcoin is perfect and people should remain blind and accept zero-confirms without even doing any basic risk analysis..
i love bitcoins (carlton loves monero). but atleast its best to be honest and tell people there are risks/issues. that way they can protect themselves and prepare themselves.
bitcoin is great but it is not perfect. atleast knowing the issues helps people to work around them.

..

this is how i think carlton thinks
blindly accept zero confirms because there is only 3% chance of being scammed so its an acceptable loss

this is how i think
add some analysis tools that look for red flags. instantly hand goods to the 97% that dont throw up flags and delay the goods handover of the 3% that are throwing up flags until certain its not a double spend

Except you. When you tried to stoke up MegaFUD over RBF. Because it supports your Anti-Bitcoin agenda. Remember?


But apparently the risk is tiny, and no walls of text are going to convince anyone that RBF represents a fungibility risk, whereas you were literally promoting Black-Listing BTC outputs, Mike Hearn style, on the previous page of this thread. Stop talking, it's a waste of everyone's time.

Africa has had M-pesa before Bitcoin existed and it's getting bigger and more widespread by the day. The only problem with that is, is that M-pesa is centralized and can be shut down, if a country

stops cellular providers from operating. You cannot do this with Bitcoin and this is why Bitcoin will always be the superior solution as a payment option. The challenge for Bitcoin will be connectivity in

rural areas... and this is why Bitcoin will always flourish in areas with developed internet infrastructure..  :(

Well i suppose the vendor would have to have a reliable internet connection so you might be right that the country makes a difference.    ;D

it is. cryptocurrency is known in Asia: Japan, China, India, Indonesia. but I'm not sure Indonesia and India have many shops accepting bitcoin.

The increase in shops that accept bitcoin will go hand in hand with the number of people using bitcoin to make their purchases. There were a few shops in my home town that accept bitcoin and even have bitcoin ATM. However, due to the low number of people using bitcoin, they stop doing that, which is rather sad.

Hopefully the new rise in price will stimulate more interest in the use of BTC!

Sure in south America there is some countries have many stores accepted bitcoin like Brazil and Argentina they have a maybe tens or even more,shops accept bitcoin. in Asia have a many shop's accept bitcoin.

I think bitcoin acceptable anywhere, in my view the countries of Europe as for own human Resources high and probably know the benefits bitcoin in advance so that they are faster using bitcoin for shops. I live in asia, and here are many online stores that accept bitcoin, but for offline stores like coffee shop not available. Thank you

I agree with you that bitcoins are mainly accepted in Europe and north america. I guess the reason why it is not present on other countries it is because of the availability of bitcoin, the market of bitcoin, the demands of bitcoin. In short i guess they are not ready for this innovation but maybe someday it will happen.

Yes Bitcoin is not legal in all country only n limited country allowed bitcoin as legal and there all shops accept this bitcoin. I think because of this price variation daily and people may use this bitcoin for illegal purpose that is why all country governments are not allowing this bitcoin as legal currency. It s easy to use bitcoin in online shopping and also outside shopping but we don't know particular region why all continent is not accepting.   

Bitcoins is already accepting in some shops in pther countries specially on australlia  if i where right,they have bitcoin atm machines now there.But pretty sure bitcoin will conquer and will be a part of online shops and physical shops in the future

i have heared that there are so many shops in Brazil where they accept bitcoin. any you can do trading in bitcoin. some other countries have also shops wher bitcoin is accepted. i think it will take some more time when there will be shops everywhere who will accept bitcoin.

Brazil has 150 stores that accepts bitcoin and that is really huge, but the fact is the scenario is not same in all other countries and it will take some more time for them to adopt it.

To get adopted in any country there should be one trusted local bitcoin exchanger where merchant can simply withdraw to their local bank account. Which, currently is not available in most of the asian and african countries that i think is the main reason behind merchant centralized only in europe and american territory.

This is normal, in countries where a lot of households don't have internet access, it'll take longer for people to find out about Bitcoin. And if people in these countries are not actively using Bitcoin, you also won't find any local businesses accepting it. Then there is the fact that there is still a lot of uncertainty with Bitcoin, if you live in poor country and every one of your hard earned cents counts, you're not going to store it in Bitcoin and risk losing your money. With time though, Bitcoin should reach everyone everywhere in the world.

The shops that accept bitcoin are increasing, the problem could be that most of them are on big cities but its where more bitcoin users use them. Some shops that didn't accepted visa payments changed their opinion when its buyers asked for this service. I think it will be the same with bitcoin, if more users ask on the shops they do its shopping every day, more sellers will start to accept bitcoins.

Well the only reason for this is that bitcoin isn't that famous enough to reach all continents and its industries. But maybe if one of the famous product in the world intruduce this to people like Apple, Samsung, etc,.

There are some shops that accept the Bitcoin and there more and more shops appearing that will allow you to use the Bitcoin at there web shops. I am sure that in the future even more shops are going to accept the Bitcoin.

We will find many offline stores and merchants accepting bitcoin in future, at a moment in my country I don't see a single shop that accepts bitcoin as a mode of payment.

there are a lot of shops that accept the bitcoin at the moment in my opinion though there are more that not accept it

it is possible to buy a lot of games on steam for bitcoins to be honest, i think its one of the biggest websites that accept it

Maybe if bitcoin became a legal currency, many offline stores will accept bitcoin. legalism can make bitcoin is familiar with our community and seller not to think again to use bitcoin become their payments.

Yeah and we will find many more sites that will start accepting bitcoin as a mode of payment, and that will attract many new users to start knowing about bitcoin.

here is not a single shop here in our area. i have hear that in brazil there are so many shops who are accepting bitcoin as a legal currency. they are also doing exchange in bitcoin.

Selling any amount of bitcoin for PayPal.

Scenario is same in majority of countries at a moment as there are not many shops that accepts bitcoin as a payment method and Brazil is an exceptional case.

Mainly because there is not quite a considerable amount of bitcoin users in other countries.
If the popularity of bitcoin rises even further, then bitcoin will publicly used by most of people and shop owners would accept bitcoin transactions.

Same issue in many countries, not have shops can accept bitcoin as payments method Because in brazil have a many stores,merchant accepted bitcoin as a payment method.

Well here in my country there's only one merchant that i can used Bitcoins as mode of payment which is coins.ph.
This merchant site is the only one here who accepted bitcoins where i can buy load in my mobile,  billings,  money transfer and the same time I can save money in my pocket. :D ;D

In my country Bitcoin isn't yet a legal currency so there is no shops supporting this powerful crypto currency in my area, though i think in some countries which legalize Bitcoin it's possible to find shops there accept Bitcoin

unfortunately there is no such shop in our area where i can buy any thing using bitcoin. actually the problem is that here people have no knowledge about bitcoin. but i hope that in future i will be able to buy stuff using bitcoins.

it is too good for bitcoin user that the shops accept Bitcoin in Europe and north america and i hope we will also get facility of accepting bitcoin soon, like Europe and north America .

There are very few businesses here in my country who accepting bitcoin anyway, most of the advertising in place are not totaly aware of bitcoins system. There is one merchant here who accepting bitcoin and few restaurant also accepted bitcoins aside from that no more or nothing else. :)

It depends on the merchant if they wanted to accept bitcoin or not.  It is mainly in europe and north america maybe because these countries are the pioneers in bitcoin and they trust it more than their current monetary system.  slowly there will be company to integrate bitcoin usage in your country too.  Just have patience.