Bitcoin Forum

The biggest fear that many will have is how do we use this currency in regular transactions, like for some fruit, veggies, plumbing or a beer.

So far this seems like an easy issue to resolve. The technology is there, the apps are coming along and there are a few sites that offer auction style sales. The wallets are there and all that is needed are localized people to help local businesses.

The last step is the education. Anyone have good ideas on the best path of education on applicable purchases using bitcoin?

Have you read about the Lightning Network? It provides a pretty good answer. http://lightning.network/

The biggest problem is what merchants want to accept a currency they can't reasonably predict the value of in a few days? In a few days, Bitcoin can - and regularly does - lose 20% of its value. That makes conducting business denominated in bitcoins impossible. Even the merchants currently accepting Bitcoin use a third party to immediately process the transaction to fiat. That's the only way they can be sure to retain the profit of the goods they sold.

I have a free market response but am still watching the video posted above before commenting more..

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Never had a transaction but after watching that video for a while I will have to almost agree with you except there is always an unknown factor..

Almost half an hour into the video and have not watched any actual transaction. And I mean human to human without powerpoint.

20% is a big number, i can't really remember bitcoin price falling that much in one day. you must be thinking in $ terms and saying it in % terms. for example $100 drop has happened but it was about 3% drop for example.

I really hope btc will be used extensively in many services but with a fee of nearly $ 3 per transaction it is really difficult to deal with dozens of transactions everyday of us. And more importantly, it is the government's acceptance of the btc deal and the fact that btc users know btc as a trading method or not.

I think bitcoin is almost good enough for regular transactions. We only need to resolve the scaling issues as soon as possible. No one would want to wait an hour and pay like $3 for a $4 coffee. Also, I don't see most stores/services wanting to accept bitcoin if the price hasn't stabilized. It's just too volatile as of now and it would be a gamble for them to accept bitcoin since the price can rise and crash as much as 20% within hours.

We start buy asking the places we go to regularly to buy fruit, veggies, plumbing, beer, gas, anything..."Do you accept Bitcoin?" Keep doing that, every where. The more that retailers hear of it the more they get curious, the more it becomes less foreign, the more likely they'll be willing to consider accepting bitcoin.

Next where retailers are already accepting bitcoin you need to pay with bitcoin. Use the system. Show the retailers that their faith in the system will be matched with your faith in the system.

And that's it. That's all it takes. Make it a part of your daily life and see how quickly we can build the adoption.

I really do support off chain transactions and I think that is the way to go for Bitcoin micro transactions. It is basically a transfer of bits between accounts and the transactions no need to be confirmed by miners in the blockchain, hence no fees required. An old example of such a service would be ChangeTip where you can donate satoshis to people for free. CoinBase still allows free transfers between accounts, which is a good thing. :)

I hope that a mobile app with this service can be made, and we can use Bitcoin as a currency for our daily transactions in the future. :D

Read more here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Off-Chain_Transactions

It all comes down to getting merchants to accept Bitcoin. Once that is done, regardless of which industry they are a part of, then there is a lot more ease of use when it comes to regular transactions. But it all comes down to having people actually using Bitcoin, and some of them may have never heard about it before, some of them may have but don't know how to get more involved with it, there's a ton of things that could be an issue.

When it comes to education, showing them videos is probably the best bet and then helping them along when they learn how to accept it.

The most problem here is most people around the world is still don't know what is bitcoin and how it works. We need to spread the information about this digital currency and when it happen, i'm sure people around the world will start accepting bitcoin as the payment for regular transactions in real life.

The difficulty with getting merchants on board to accept Bitcoin is that there are still very, very few people relatively speaking who even know what Bitcoin is.

Estimates are roughly 1-2 million people have actively engaged in Bitcoin. This is a super low figure. Consider there are 350 million people in the USA, it means only 1/10,000 people in the USA actively uses Bitcoin at all.

When this number becomes much greater, only then will the masses use it in real life. Until then, it will remain predominantly an internet-based method of transacting.

Actually, we can't use bitcoin in regular transactions like buying goods and services except in other countries that accept bitcoin in particular stores. The other countries allow their government to accept bitcoin in different stores but in my country bitcoin was not really popular. The government here wasn't don't care about bitcoin. We could be used bitcoin in different ways like online shopping that accepts bitcoin. If we want it to use it for buying our necessity, just convert it to fiat currency. Online wallets have its own converter.

Because education is important in all aspects I can say that bitcoin helps me a lot to support my financial.

not just education, we need approvals from each of government because so far government still control the economy and without their permission, we can use bitcoin to do regular transactions. but if bitcoin is approve in many country, i am sure that slowly there are many local store will accepting bitcoin as payment. and if we are see in japan, there are local store accepting bitcoin and people in japan can use bitcoin to buy something in that stores.

Bitcoin is very signifacant for overseas transaction. Unlike in fiat, we took to much fee, process and convertion so our recipients would be able to revieve it. This is what bitcoin wants us to avoid. Bitcoin's decentralization is really helpful since we don't need to convert the currency so our recipient can be able to get it. Another thing, the trasaction is instant and appears in just seconds and no investegations needed.

the biggest fear is about people who don't educate themselves and make assumptions like this. there is no fear about how to use bitcoin as a currency to pay for any of the things you listed. it is possible to do so now and will continue to be possible in the future also. and nothing is stopping you to do it and it is not even hard.

and with things such as lightning network coming it will become even easier.

That and also bitcoin can gain some with time and then merchants will be with greater profit. Yes, it's risky to accept Bitcoin, but you may also win doing that, it's not necessarily that you will lose.

If Bitcoin was losing 20% of its value in a few days regularly we wouldn't be at $2,500+ right now.

There are few country right now are accepting bitcoin locally like you said in japan bitcoin are use daily that i think it can grow more in the future..
Not only in japan that bitcoin acceptable locally i heard that paris and brazil are bitcoin are accepting bitcoin locally.. and i hope that our country will be also include to be accepting bitcoin as payment in my country..

It would not be bad, but please tell me who wants to pay bitcoins. Almost all people hold the bitcoin in reserve as deposits. They hope that he will grow in price and they'll suddenly be rich. It seems to me that now just not wanting to spend your coins even if the government be allowed to do so.

I don't think bitcoin will stay usable as a currency, but rather a store of wealth.

You don't go about trading gold at a local supermarket either.

There are coins out there that are better suited for this than bitcoin.

Bitcoin is not meant to be a regular payment currency so it will be better if you don't use it for buying your daily groceries and daily expenses. The current technology is not suitable for it and a single transaction can take up to 2 hours of time to get confirmed. So you can understand why it is not a good fit for a regular currency.

My recommendation is that you use bitcoin as an investment. Try earning bitcoin from various sources and try to save them in a secure location. The value of bitcoin will appreciate a lot for sure and sell the bitcoin when your goal price reaches.

So far none of the alt coins appear to have solved the scaling issue either? Please correct me if I'm mistaken.

So I have something in my mind that could happen:
- Developers do something that can decrease Bitcoin fees.
- Developers develop a wallet that everyone uses it and they can send Bitcoin instantly (like any other online wallet but more security)

Regular bitcoin transactions are digitally signed for high security and sent to other wallets. We can securely record each and every transaction of bitcoins. Using bitcoin address and individual private key, we can send bitcoins.

Bitcoin will only come to fruition when the scaling solutions are in place. The Lightning Network are supposed to enable much cheaper tx's

and this will make micro transactions more viable and/or practical. A lot of people seem to think this is a pipe dream and we should rather use

Bitcoin as a Store of Value, but I disagree with them. Bitcoin cannot survive with only limited tx's and no growth. {miners fees will have to replace

the Block reward in the future and a decline in tx's will not sustain mining.}  :(

Bitcoin has always been behaving as an asset, an investment or as a "store of wealth" rather than a currency. And due to its volatility, Bitcoin is far from being a practical currency to be used on a regular basis.

I also believe that alts are better than Bitcoin in the sense that they behave like a currency. Low fees, almost instant transactions, stable prices. These characteristics is a must for an ideal currency.

Many unpredictable situations, Bitcoin currency that is not regulated by any government policy. Great risk if one day there will be restrictions on the use of Bitcoin or Bitcoin considered harmful.
This is very scary, Bitcoin lost the trust of its users.
Hope this does not happen.

Bitcoin transactions are divisible. A satoshi is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin, and it is possible to send a transaction of a smallest value of satoshi on the bitcoin network. so we can use bitcoins for regular transactions form any country irrespective of the currency value of that particular country.

Bitcoin does have a proper system in transaction. The thing is you actually need to find a suitable wallet for your chosen transaction thought this you might balance and regulated you transaction within your needs and wants. In a part that you might handle it with ease in the part of transaction through local wallet.

Good discussions. Some of the takeaways I have is that if someone has a clos relationship to the merchant than this can work easily. An example is that my friend owns a produce company. I could preorder merchandise from him and pickup anytime after the transaction is successful. A contract could be used or the trust of the merchant.

Another example would be at our local farmers market they already have a card that you can use to store value in to make purchases with the vendors. If we were able to preorder the card with a certain agreed upon exchange rate of bitcoin to credits then that would be a way to not fully depend on bitcoins but to adapt it to a localized agreed upon currency.

The last point is about how the government will regulate bitcoins. Bitcoin transactions can be easily made outside of government interference but the business can be leaned upon and regulated to avoid taking such transactions. So I guess there is a political need in allowing businesses to transact in bitcoins without negative government interference.

I don't see what the problem is, The mechanism could be simplified as much as possible, For example, using a hardware wallet, Coins are automatically sent to a new generated address from checkout, This can even be automated, confirmation isn't that critical IMO considering how everyone accept CC payment that MIGHT be stolen and get reversed.

Nope it is not possible due to send the satoshi level amount using any btc network. However, I noticed that transaction fees has been reduced somehow from past a week onwards. Still don't which wallet's fees is low in all the online btc wallet. If anyone knows you can please share it.

1. The proposed 2MB block size increase is a way of reducing the current transaction fee. Having a bigger block means that more transaction will be handled at a time, thus halving the current transaction fee will not affect the profit of the miners.

2. If ever a single type of wallet is to be used by everyone worldwide, the developers need to have the wallet patented so that no more wallet will exist. Also, the wallets  out there should be destroyed, all of them, whatever type of wallet they are. This type of scenario is not going to happen. Instead of having a uniform wallet, why not reduce the time in mining a block? that way there will be more blocks mined at a short period of time and will result to faster transactions.

Bitcoin is a store of wealth ,no doubt about it, but there are new projects yet to be launched which would drastically change the front end of things,we need more innovation in that aspect,we could use them with the help of bitcoin based debit cards,we need to have more innovative and competitive products with lower fees and if someone could do that then we could change the scope of things,the cards we now have are charging more fees and it is not feasible for daily transactions,i really hope there will be a day when things changes.

For now, bitcoin isn't suitable for regular transactions I guess, because people should pay high fees and wait for the transaction be confirmed. It is not make sense when you want to buy fruits and veggies but have to pay another $2, people will prefer use cash obviously. Micro transactions can be done (mainstream) if there is no fees and it confirmed instantly which seems impossible for bitcoin.

I think this will be a gradual development. A few stores will start to accept bitcoins as payment and eventually some larger stores will. Then it will catch on like credit cards and it will become a mainstream payment method.

Slowly but surely more and more people are accepting Bitcoin, many daily shop already starting to accept Bitcoin, to asked more people to accepting Bitcoin is not that easy, we need to clean Bitcoin name and explained the positive side of Bitcoin, it surely takes time for everyone to accepting Bitcoin, but once they know the Bitcoin usage then more people will join

Well it is clear to most people that Bitcoin isn't suited for day to day transactions, and won't be for a while. The main problem is that the transaction fees are just too high and so are the transaction times. And no one in their right mind would be sending daily transactions, you would just be losing so much more money that you would if you were using a regular credit card. For example if you buy a coffee and it is like 3 dollars, and you pay with Bitcoin, you are gonna pay 3 dollars in fees so you are pretty much spending double the money than you would if you were using a credit card. However, I think that this will change a lot when the hard fork comes and Bitcoin improves. It should then be able to scale a lot better and just generally make it easier for people to make daily transactions. But this will only happen after a couple of months, after the hard fork, once the price has settled and people aren't so frantic about the whole thing.

Why you need bitcoin to use it in regular activities when you can exchange it into fiat and use it more proficient? I think that is too impractical because the use of the bitcoin will be limited however, if you will exchange first with fiat the money will became more productive.

That is easy, always introduce bitcoin to the community and clarify its purpose ;)

I have seen some restuarant accepting bitcoin as payment mode even after year not even single transaction done. And also some apps and games were giving payout using bitcoin they also stopped because of recent transaction charge.

It will take a very long time before this thing happen. The Government should approve bitcoin first as a global currency that we could all use in any transaction that we are going to have in our everyday lives, if we want to buy something then we could pay it using bitcoin or either fiat, depends on us. But first, let us wish first that the Bitcoin ETF would be approved by the SEC the second time we are going to propose it to them.

In this way, we could make a stepping stone for the bitcoin to be declared as a global currency for us to be able to use it on any thing in this world.

Sad, but true. Many places which were accepting Bitcoin turned it down recently because of the high transaction fees or very slow transaction if the fee is low.

But it looks like the situation is improving. Right now you have to pay around  61k satoshis for a fast transaction instead of 80k+ in the recent past.

what I think one have to do is, convert your bitcoin into Fiat and spend it on daily needs.

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The direct usage of bitcoin through transaction is quite a hard thing to do if you don't have a suitable wallet that you trust in regards on transaction. Yes there is always fees in every transaction directly made with bitcoin but I suggest why not have a converter where you are the one who will manage the output bitcoin you will going to used in a specific transaction. Then make every transaction at ones or the same time to lessen the fees or having much bigger fees. Through that you can avoid the Fera of using your bitcoin in a transaction.

bitcoin can be used in regular transaction but the biggest problem is acceptance of bitcoin in localities because most of the people(like plumbers,barber etc) don't have knowledge about bitcoin or have a less knowledge. The greatest idea which i have discovered that at first tell them about  bitcoin and then just tell them growth of bitcoin in near future . If you are telling to a cafe owner  just tell to him that price of a coffee is just 3 - 4$ and it will remain 3-4 $ every time, the value of 3 - 4 $ will not increase but if they accept bitcoin (like 3 $ =  0.00118 BTC ) then there will be a chance to to get more (if bitcoin price increases). we know it very clearly that bitcoin's future is very much bright in near future .. so i have applied this in localities people  . I think it will also help you to understand them.
          
      thank you.

Fiat is definitely the established easy way to make purchases but I believe there will be future disruptions in the monetary systems that will not allow credit cards, debit cards and bank accounts transactions. The check process centers, clearing houses and other 3rd parties that are involved with fiat currencies are more vulnerable than Bitcoin. As long as the internet works it would be difficult for bitcoin transactions to ever be stopped.

In my opinion, the finest way to solve this problem is that developers make a wallet that is used by everyone and can send Bitcoin directly without fees, that would be awesome :D

My idea is, one will have to convert one's bitcoin into fiat to allow it for daily and petty transaction.

lol you can already do that, you can already send bitcoin without fee, i don't think you know how bitcoin work after reading your post, by sending without fee now you get your confirmation on christmas if never, fee ensure that your transaction is confirmed faster, learn how bitcoin work please

Just look at bitcoin as money and you will know how to use bitcoin in regular transactions. Send money to people is the same as send bitcoin to someone. And we still need some advance technology like internet, computer and smartphone to make a transaction.

The situation has improved, because the spam attack was stopped, not because of some updates. Although this attack is used by some people to push their agenda, it's a good model of what will happen when more people will start using Bitcoin. This means that Bitcoins future depends on whether developers will succeed in solving the scaling problem, or if Bitcoin will be forced to be just a digital asset, which is not the end of the world for Bitcoin, because it will still be very useful.

we can use bitcoin for regular transactions,but some shops may not accept the bitcoins,and for small things we cant buy with bitcoins.bitcoin value is very high.in future it will surely  small shops accept the bitcoins .

Hopefully the developers will solve those problems and Bitcoin will become even more useful for people in general than it is now. But I agree that even with existing "problems" Bitcoin is better than fiat in many regards.

Yes I do agree with you that bitcoin has become the most accepted currency of the world and the value of this coin is increasing day by day now a lot of merchants and schools are taking their payments through bitcoin online payment.

In my personal experience here in my country, I used bitcoin transaction for electric bill, water bill and cell phone load and nothing else.
I also want that they also extend there bitcoin payment transaction for online store like lazada.

maybe someday after bitcoin is gets approved by your government and there is many store local and online accepting bitcoin as payment, we can used our bitcoin to buy product in the store. meanwhile, we can still use our bitcoin to buy something in other store online like purse.io to buy what we want. but for now, i think its better to increase our bitcoin first so when the time is come for us to used bitcoin to buy something, we can have much of bitcoin so we don't have to worried if we want to buy with bitcoin.

It depends of the user, if the user bitcoin counting of course how a transaction will also change. In addition also affects the Government's regulation can make faster bitcoin use regular.

A silly question, the OP is talking about using bitcoin in everyday transactions, and that's something that bitcoin can not do at present, look at bitcoin, the speed and the current transaction fee can not be met the needs of life.

It also depend on which country you belong or that country has establishment that offer bitcoin exchange service or accept payment on there regular transactions.