Bitcoin Forum

May I suggest to those of you who want to buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin to purchase damn coffee shop instead... This way you can enjoy your own coffee all day long, and stop chasing fantasies of making this world more fair and better place to live. Buying a few pizzas with Bitcoin proven to be very expensive proposition back in 2010, and it looks like we just refusing to let this idea go.

Bitcoin is prohibitive for a reason: it's valuable (according to free and heavily manipulated markets), it rides vast and expensive to maintain blockchain (Go BitFury and Bitmain!), it has high fees not only to prevent spam, but to reward miners in exchange for diminishing block rewards moving forward (Greedy Bastards!). Looks perfect to me, but then again - I'm an idiot so do not take this personally.       

Bitcoin was always supposed to be digital cash.  It even says so in the original white paper title.

Where did this myth start that we need to 'let this go'?

I'm with you. In this time the reliable fees for to make a transaction is $0.6.
There is no fast transaction, cheap transaction and anything like that.

No one uses cash at starbucks. It's all phones, credit cards and debit cards. Try and buy a beer on a plane. They don't take cash. So saying it's like digital cash is a little outdated at this point. We're dealing with digital gold.

3 years ago if you asked "isnt 10 minute confirmations and double spends a problem", you'd have 10 people explaining that credit cards don't confirm for days, that double spends are difficult and risky.  There are solutions to detect double spending by querying the mempool.  Unfortunately these are not effective if there's heavy network congestion since a doublespend can be attempted much later with a higher fee. 

It is really sad that we still have a 1mb block in 2017 but it won't last much longer.

1. Yes if Google wallet is truly free (which I'm not sure it is) it makes more sense in the short term.  It may not always be free, and wouldnt you want a currency of the people for the people, not big brother google and the banking system

2. I have serious doubts that Bitcoin can survive as a store of value without the high usability/utility and widespread adoption.  You agree the amount of users is small -- why would anyone think it will retain its store of value if the user base can't grow.  Sounds like a tulip bulb.
 

LOL.  I definitely use cash at Starbucks,  but I realize I'm in the minority here.  I do agree with OP that it is better to use fiat, because I *think* bitcoin is going up.  We're not exactly in the 10,000 btc/pizza era anymore,  but we're still going up.   Why spend digital gold?

Edit: hey, you're a hero member now, congrats!

No coin can scale at worldwide levels while allowing coffee-tier fast and cheap transactions onchain without massive node centralization.

Gold-tier transactions and long term storage = on-chain
Coffee-tier fast velocity big volume transactions = off-chain

Those are the objective facts. If there was a coin that could offer fast, cheap, massive volume onchain transactions while maintaining a small block size so people can run nodes to guarantee a decentralized network then whoever creates that becomes the next bill gates overnight and I retire in some island with a couple billion dollars from a small 10 buck investment. Unfortunately that is sci-fi today, so best we got is Core + segwit + LN.
You can't call something cash if the nodes are so big that the network becomes centralized, and you would need huge blocks to cater for coffee-tier mainstream level transactions.

Those are the facts that delusional big blockers fail to realize.

funny, Bitcoin seemed to be working just fine for both big and small transactions, right before blocks got congested at the artificial 1mb limit.

How about you let Bitcoin try to scale and let the free market decide if it wants to be on chain or off chain... instead of trying to force your
will on the people with these block limits?

so which coffee shop in global could accept bitcoin? 

Well I think if you are going to use Bitcoin as payment for a cup of coffee or something,
I think it will only need to have at least 1 confirmation,
And for the price since the bitcoin price keeps on fluctuating I think it needs to be convertered in to the currency that they are using in their country.

nobody wants to buy a cup of coffee with bitcoin, or maybe there are some people who wish they could and if you let them, they will.

but everyone wants to be able to use bitcoin as a currency. for example i want to be able to purchace a game online (worth from $5 to $50) or be able to pay for my subscription etc. and a lot more.

1. This goal has been achieved in my opinion. I actually fear for Bitcoin when her threat is fully realized by the establishment.

2. I'm not sure micro transactions played an important part of Bitcoin growth these past few years. If anything Bitcoin organically becoming store of value (still highly speculative asset I admit) where every transaction striving to be financially justifiable. Is it worth to risk stability, high value and scarcity of Bitcoin in exchange for micro payments for the masses (at least at the moment)? Can we think of any other crypto currency offering seconds of confirmation time, much higher throughput and flexibility?

That said I understand your point, and sympathize with bitcoiners who adopt different philosophy, shining their bright light ahead of an uneasy path for the rest of us to see (lol... how poetic)

Well they actually use Starbucks' Star tokens to buy the coffee, if you really want to be technical. I have always said, if you want to use Bitcoin to buy coffee, just implement a token system at your place and let people buy these tokens in advance.

Whilst these miners are screwing us with high fees, we should find other alternatives to bypass these high fees and use Bitcoin as it was meant to be used. ^grrrrrrr^

what is up with all the Coffee topics in this board and generally these days?

i am not supporting the idea of "we need to be able to buy coffee with bitcoin" but i remember the days where people were dreaming about that day and were more acceptant towards spending bitcoin for buying stuff in general and nobody were calling bitcoin "store of value only" or "bitcoin for the rich and high value transactions"

https://www.google.com/search?q=use+bitcoin+to+buy+groceries

the days when people were happy to buy groceries (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=716258.0;all) or when they bought a $25 pizza with bitcoin (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Category:History#2010) without saying all the things you only hear today!!!

even more: https://www.google.com/search?q=use+bitcoin+to+buy+groceries+site%3Abitcointalk.org

You have a point there. When we are going to buy a cup of coffee using bitcoin the mining fee is much of worth than the coffee itself. So I also suggest that we should use fiat currency or paper money in purchasing things that have small value then we can use bitcoin to buy things that has a higher value. There are no solutions to the problems in bitcoin yet and so at this moment let us just stay away from miniscule transactions.

well you can already do that , steam is accepting bitcoin since a year already did you miss this?, or mayeb your point was that for very cheap game would be like buyign the coffe

because the fee would kill the cost of the game, for example on steam there are some game that are worth less than $1, and paying $1 to purchase one would be paying it 2x

Well buy a cup of coffee use bitcoin as payment method is bad ideas because
the fees transaction will be more expensive than price of coffee it self,
 it is because of block size bitcoin and become the problem without solution right now,
bitcoin is not suitable for small amount of transaction like buy coffee use bitcoin.

Realism.  If I write a paper that starts with "airplanes are made to go to the moon", it turns out that you can fly with an airplane, but that airplane tech is never going to get you to the moon.

The way bitcoin was constructed makes it impossible to use as digital cash (note that DASH won't be digital cash either, it is bitcoin with extras: tumblers and mem pool certification - I say this because of the name).
A block chain having each and every transaction ever to be had by the users and proof of work that must be more expensive than the value of what is secured by it, can never be "digital cash".  Moreover, there are monetary parameters (block reward halving shocks, block size limits....) that make that this is not going to be a high-liquidity asset but a speculative asset.

In other words, bitcoin's DESIGN, from the start, made that this was not going to be digital cash.

Now, whether the designers (Satoshi) didn't realize the power of immutability and thought that one could change things on the fly in the sense "let us already start with this test version, and move on", or whether they were more sophisticated and somewhat less honest in their sayings, is an open question - my idea is rather the former, but I don't exclude the latter.

In a sense, they were right, new systems have been developed, but they weren't bitcoin evolutions, but alt coins, because *changing* a coin is essentially impossible, but making a new one, is.

That said, as of today, there is not yet a solution for "digital cash" apart things like the LN, which re-introduce normal banking.

so this is only on the issue one confirmation of payment bitcoin if you want to buy a cup of coffee, and what it will make you look like a big problem, then how do you think when you find coffee shops accept payment bitcoin with zero confirmation, because the owner of the coffee shop do not want to make buyers wait to get the first payment confirmation and coffee warm you be cool :)

I know zero confirmation is something heavy like we buy a cup of coffee with paper money which was torn, but what the transaction will not be confirmed although it should take more than 10 minutes, if the problem only because the price of bitcoin rise and fall quickly, I think you and I also know that the risk of merchants sometimes it is not always advantageous :)

Buying a cup of coffee with bitcoin is really interesting but these days coffee is much expensive and when we pay with bitcoin it too becomes more expensive. Also now here no such availability in several countries, only limited stores accepting bitcoin for coffee and other digital goods.

Yeah a cup of coffee costs like what $2 if you pay in bitcoin you'll ending up paying $0.6 more because of the recommended miners fee. It's really not advisable to buy things less than $1 using bitcoin.

I think there's none.

No, you are wrong! here in my country you can pay to Starbucks using cash, credit card or bitcoin as payment but maybe in your place only digital payment is accepted in the outlet but not here in my place. And moreover, we don't need gold just to use it for spending.

some people ever talk about this,buying something with bitcoin,like a coffee,and its really happen in several country,but until now,i think asian country have bad development about bitcoin payment,my country indonesia also not familiar with this case.

I don't know where you live, but in the UK cash is still common, even with tap and go on cards. Also what planes have you been getting on? They usually take cash in a ton of different currencies.

If the fee keeps increasing and so is transaction time, bitcoin will become a storing commodity like gold instead of a digital money.
People will switch to other Altcoins for using as digital cash.

It is not true that no one uses cash in starbucks, in fact there are people who are using cash on starbucks, because not all people that go to Starbucks do have this credit card or debit card, here in our country, most of the people still prefer fiat to use in this kind of transaction rather than credit cards or debit cards. We are just using credits cards if it is really necessary like if we run out of fiat, and we don't have a choice but to use credit cards.

"A War started by Coffee"
A nice title for a movie. Saw the war at first page.  ;D
Coffee, pizza and small things. Can't we go higher than that. We talk about foods that are poisonous.  ;D
Oh and one said they don't use cash at coffee shop anymore. I do. Because I got a coupon of a 100 peso off at Starbucks so I would just pay 25 pesos which is 50 cents in USD. Should I still pay that in bitcoin?  ;D

You can actually do anything you want with the right amount of bitcoin at hand can make a business that fits you and that would not stop right there, you can actually promote it with the service of transaction over to bitcoin, and I think making something worth while and doing your earnings with bitcoin is a thing for most people now!

You have a point, bitcoin has a high price, even if we use satoshis to buy coffees and foods that is really not that worth it. I think, car can be worth it, 10 bitclins is enough to buy a good car nowadays.

You can still easily pay with cash on planes in Europe, I've taken around 4 flights last year and I was always able to buy some drinks and snacks with cash.

Now on topic, I'm personally still using Bitcoin to buy food through takeaway.com, even with the higher fees it's cheaper than using Paypal or debit card, as they charge a 1 euro fee for that.

Pizza is simple the best for me, so if there would be some Pizza parlor that would accept bitcoin, why not I would gladly order from it, and a coffee shop would really be interesting these days, if you want to achieved something with bitcoin you can surely can and a hefty sum can make you a difference in your life!

Correct, I don't know why do people want to use bitcoin as long as they can spend it on buying or other stuffs that doesn't need for bitcoin to be used, like buying coffee? don't you think that buying coffee using bitcoin means you are throwing away your profit, and I am sure that you are trying to impress everybody that Hey, I'm a bitcoin users, I could buy anything I want with bitcoin something like this?

NO, as long as we can use fiat then there is no reason for us to use our bitcoin, unless just like what I've said, you are trying to impress everybody, because for me, it is such a waste of money if we are going to spend our bitcoin in this common things that could be bought by fiat.

Thats right, bitcoin was fast and cheap when nobody cared.

Satoshi talked about payment channels so he had the idea of lightning network in mind and this is where we are going, since onchain scaling at massive levels means centralized of the network which means bitcoin can be easily controlled by governments so you might as well use fiat.

Exactly.  The key distinction here is that Bitcoin is a digital currency, and is by far best used and most convenient for digital items.  People like convenient payments for small everyday transactions, and that's why we have situations where you either pay with cash, which is instant, or by credit card, which for most conventional purposes is instant.  For the really small transactions, the $1-10 transactions which we go through every day, it's also much, much cheaper (in the case of Visa cards, about 0.2%).  

Bitcoin is best used for large digital transactions as fees are based on the byte which tend to result in it being a lot cheaper for large transactions, and best suited to digital transactions as it is very convenient when dealing with others online, especially people you don't trust with personal information.

Actually, I don't see what's wrong with credit cards, or other FIAT payments, like paypal.  Crypto has only a specific niche, namely when fiat cannot do it.

Well there's everything wrong with the fiats because it's being controlled by the central bank and government unlike the cryptocurrencies which gives you tgat financial freedom and accessibility. Imagine your credit card gets declined or hacked . All these cannot happen to cryptocurrencies.

paypal is scamming you with 3.5% fee this is higher than bitcoin man, and this is what wrong with their system, with debit or credit card is the same many credit or debit card want a high fee per year for their usage, only few of them i think are totally free but they can close your bank account for some random reason, just read soem story on reddit about this, no one can close my bitcoin wallet

 Agree. Although there is only one coffee shop which accepts Bitcoin in my country, I usually spend Bitcoin to buy something there and it is good to taste the coffee which is purchased by Bitcoin, it is much better and more delicious than buying it with traditional currencies

i think all that kaos started after recent blockhalving, because officially it effected a huge step on the miners and now the miner can not able to bear the heavy block difficulty load. We know that these days mining fees is very high but is it sutable of buying a cup of coffee?

Funny  ;D
He is mad with pizza and yet he supports the coffee thing.
Maybe this guy is a coffee person.
What is the problem with pizza? Both of them are served hot.  ;D
If I have the right amount of bitcoin then why not. I would really love to buy that coffee shop and make an option for bitcoin payment.
But still, the problem would be the long time waiting of bitcoin transaction. You could sit at my shop for hours just by waiting.  ;D

Here I completely agree with you. Indeed, in retail trade, not expensive goods, very big difficulties will be with the use of bitcoin. Fiat in these transactions can not replace anything. Of course, if it is a question of wholesale purchases, then this is another matter.

I'm going to launch an alt called Cupofcoffeecoin which will be the world's finest way to buy cups of coffee without censorship, because there's nothing worse than having your morning coffee censored.

It'll even make them taste better. It will either completely destroy Bitcoin or leave it to get on with the important stuff. I'll let you know when I've premined enough of them.

Why do you humble yourselves ??
not good belittle themselves
all people just the same, and certainly has shortcomings