Bitcoin Forum

Just recently SQUAWK newsmaker interview with the CEO of UBER.
At first, the CEO said, they are likely don't want to buy some Bitcoin using their company's money and told, "We're going to keep our cash safe. - Tweet (https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1359864081184874497?s=20)"

But after that, the CEO said:
"Just like we accept all kinds of local currency we are going to look at cryptocurrency and or #bitcoin in terms of currency to transact. That's good for business, that's good for our riders and our eaters" - Tweet (https://twitter.com/SquawkCNBC/status/1359864577878609922?s=20).


So, what are your thoughts guys? For me, it's likely they don't want to do what Tesla did, adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet, but considering accepting Bitcoin as payments for their services. Seems still bullish for me.

The option of paying with Bitcoin is always welcome, but with such services there is always one small drawback when it comes to classic BTC transactions - waiting for the first confirmation. Unlike online shopping where the waiting time can still be extended - imagine waiting more than 30 minutes or 3 hours for the driver to confirm your transaction - and somehow it doesn’t seem to me that a service like this would work on trust - because some would certainly use it for a double-spend transactions. Of course there is a solution in the form of Lightning Network, which solves not only the speed of the transaction, but also the problem of high fees.

As for Uber, I’ve never used it because it’s only available in some parts of my country - but what I know for sure is that they are constantly in some sort of conflict with other taxi services because they accuse them of being unfair competition.

If uber start using bitcoin as a payment option so bitcoin will start taking attention more because every person in every corner of world use uber. If it happens, it will massive move toward innovation.

Considering how slowl the bitcoin confirmations could get sometimes, I'm imagining a perfect scenario either to pay before boarding their vehicle, at the transit or immediately after dropping off the taxi. Incorporating bitcoin and crypto payment is a great idea,  though from the two tweets the CEO isn't very certain whether it is happening soon or not.

To me every company have different aversion to risk and different investment philosophies too. While Tesla may be very eager and ready in investment in volatile asset like btc, others may not have that gut to do that. You know Elon Musk is always associated with big things.

If Uber should accept btc as a means of payment it does have great impact. The impact is that a publicly traded company is accepting btc as a means of payment, others that are yet public like the SMEs will follow in smarm. It is a sure great news for the btc community.

If Uber takes Bitcoin into consideration as a payment option, so they will also have to consider other cryptocurrency because their a lot of project that are more fast and innovative than bitcoin and also charge less gas fee.

That is through, this is because Uber is more like a utility company as we have our water board and electricity companies, we use them always. If this plan work, i also see that other aggregating digital companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Google will follow suit. You follow what the consumers deem good for them.

This can be bullish after Tesla, Mastercard and Visa news, but problem with Bitcoin now being accepted by UBER and other similar business is high transaction fees, and without some usable second layer solution I can just imagine pissed people complaining why UBER charged them so much more or why waiting so much for confirmation.
Lightning Network is not even near expected adoption and it is still complicated for average UBER customer, so they should be ready for premium fees.

If UBER really does this, I don't think it's 100% going to be pure Bitcoin transaction because that's really expensive to do and the negative part is the speed of the transaction. I can imagine that they are going to implement or partner themselves with a third-party mediator to convert Bitcoin to USD immediately. They might even implement a wallet inside UBER app to store Bitcoin just in case you want to use it. Though it's just my speculation.

I think UBER wanted to play itself.  They believe that they cannot ignore the trend of Bitcoin and if they do they are missing good sales in their platform but they do not want to invest money because they know how volatile BTC is.  So instead of directly investing in Bitcoin, they decided to just accept it on their platform and let their customer use it while raking fees from the transactions.  Neverheless, this  is still a very good promotion that can hype investors into joining the Bitcoin wagon.

Yeah absolutely becasue this will help opening more rooms for more investors or companies to flow their income into Bitcoin. Am sure with the help of lightning networks the transaction of Bitcoin will be more faster than what we have seen before now, hope the company welcome this development into their system.

Aside the delay in Bitcoin transactions when it price soar higher, it is a good means of payment method as per new technology that these big companies imbibe into their payment methods.

That would be the last thing they would want to do. Tesla has costly cars and hence they can accept bitcoin payments since the transaction fees wouldn't that big a deal when buying so costly cars.
On the other hand, if Uber accepts bitcoin, that won't be good for them since the transaction fees will be more than the charges of the rides and the food.
It won't be a cost effective deal unless they are planning to launch their own cryptocurrency or planning to accept some other cryptocurrency with lesser transaction fees.

It's good news on the Bitcoin side again, probably the reason Bitcoin price now pumped again because of this news right after Visa and Mastercard announced that they opened a new form of payment with cryptocurrencies.

Technically, I don't understand yet what is the best solution for them about the high fees of Bitcoin and it will take time to be confirmed.  In this case, it might be abused who knows how to send a small fee that might drop on the Bitcoin network, probably there is a form of currency that you can purchase using Bitcoin and then use as a payment in UBER, IMO, I have been speculating because ain't know the best solution for this.

Knowing the fact that when someone using Bitcoin will become popular like Elon Musk and his Tesla company, but he is depending on his self.
Source: (https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-to-consider-accepting-bitcoin-payments-cryptocurrency-ceo-says-2021-2)

Maybe it's just hype and chatter... I don't think paying by bitcoin for cab services is a good idea! It's not economically beneficial to anyone... And what to do, for example, if a trip is cancelled? And in some countries, the cost of the trip equals the transaction fee! ;D

If we talk about paying right away your fare with BTC the time is one thing the second one is the fee, imagine paying 10$ just as a fee for a ride, nobody is going to use it and even UBER won't be happy about it as they do have to collect all those transactions again paying a fee, smaller as it will be batching hundreds of payments but still another fee.

More likely, even more, than using LN is implementing a wallet that you can fund with BTC and from which payments will be automatically deduced, if you don't have enough balance as BTC price has just crashed your credit card will be charged or some sort of credits system where you can buy x worth of $ for your account with BTC, just as gift cards. Direct payment is simply a no at this stage.

Bitcoin and Ether - big nope. Imagine paying a $20 ride with Bitcoin or Ether and paying $60 in taxes :D

Maybe UBER can accept coins like TRON where the transaction fee is close to none, or even better, a TRC-20/Waves/Solana stable coin?

I think this idea is not so bad as it seems. Moreover, it's pretty possible to implement. All we need is to expect the proper cryptocurrency regulation system which will allow global companies and banks to enable Bitcoin payments. Imagine you have a credit card with some Bitcoins in your bank account and you can use it to pay for the taxi either buy some food in the supermarket.

I think this is good, but Uber has to provide only via LN so that transactions can be processed quickly and cheaply...
We know that the fees for ordinary transactions are very high because the value of Bitcoin continues to increase and LN is able to reduce the fees charged. it will be great in the future.

If you are taking a ride your personal details are with the company and you cannot fool them and if they are accepting bitcoin payments it would be great if you do mandatory KYC so that you do not double spend the transaction and you do not need an instant confirmation and considering the high volatility in price they can charge a higher valuation or the other option is to input a higher fees and make an instant confirmation.

I think it's a cool feature. It's time for companies to introduce the implamente of paying with bitcoin. The first was pornhub, now is uber. The world doesn't stand still and it's nice to know :)

In my opinion their aim is to get more clients via such step and that is all. They do not want to become involved into this trend to invest in Bitcoin and the CEO answered directly - they prefer cash, because it will be more safe, he consider Bitcoin risky. But they want to make the potential area of users wider and get those clients that are not covered yet. That is why via wider spectre of company's propositions they are going to attract wider auditory among potential clients. That is all. It is his choice. Everything is simple

So what uber is doing is exactly the opposite of what Tesla did. While on one side a company like Tesla is hoarding bitcoins like anything and a company like Uber expects people to spend them for their daily rides. Moreover, adding bitcoin would be sheer stupidity because often I would have to pay such hefty transaction fees for a quick transaction that even my taxi fare won't be that high. Yes creating another UBERCOIN does make sense for them but then it would be centralized and more or less like a digital payment wallet and nothing special. They can think of any other crypto with a lesser transaction fee.

From the interview with Uber's CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, his refusal to join the speculative market and purchase some bitcoin with the company's money highlights that he is not a 100% believer in bitcoin. His statement that crypto will be considered as a way to receive payment for services rendered to customers is because they do not want to loose their customers.

The CEO has taken the risk but it was a good decision by then. he should consider the current situation where most of us now wanting to have a cashless mode of payment which is Bitcoin meant for this. Their services are spreading and accepting Bitcoin for payment has securely given them assurance for additional market gains and uses their services instead.

From what I see, I guess UBER followed TESLA plus I saw  on one of the posts on Twitter quoting TESLA's Tweet saying “Other firms on the S&P 500 would follow your lead & in time it would grow to become a $1 trillion favor,” to be exact (I have searched for that exact phrase)

from this tweet, other companies have accepted or billionaires accepted bitcoin, and that only shows this tweet by Mr. Saylor really guessed that others would really follow up to Elon Musk he accepted bitcoin.

To see he when a big company invest in a small business or invest in something others would follow an investment in them to as if this big company POSSIBLE withdraw their investment others before this company would withdraw as well. PS: I am not an expert in such but this what I have learned from watching television shows.

For me, there are two types of people

1. The curious one studying why..........

Still, following someone or a big company doing this and that is up to them at the end because for me if I didn't know bitcoin it would be really confusing and fascinating why they did it as I needed to study how bitcoin works, this and that. As a person who wants to know why a big company did this big investment

2. A person who just want to earn without knowing anything.

a lot of merchants or shops are now looking for alternative payment methods to go cashless. so even these ride-sharing apps are now going cashless to avoid using fiat. so their move is actually smart. if bitcoin payment is available, there will always be consumers that will use it at one point.
and if that customer discovered the convenience of using crypto, he will for sure share it to his friends, family and colleagues. and so adoption begins from their end.

I'm not surprised at all that Uber has introduced a new Bitcoin payment method. This's the age of new technologies and someone has to introduce such things at last. How long will we still pay in cash? We need to look to the future and try new features!!!

I like this news. Because when Uber entered the market it was on a mission to innovate and satisfy a great demand from users.

In the same way it is happening now with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies offer us the solution where banks have been limited.

If Uber needs a reform this is the time. Michael Saylor's call to corporations has taken effect. Elon Musk, Tesla, Visa and others are definitely driving businesses to invest their capital in bitcoin. It is the right way because there is a new awakening in the economy and technology deserves a true transformation.

They aren't going to make a lot of money from these payments with fees being as high as they are but it doesn't mean they won't be accepting it and making money some other way ;)

Bitcoin is so popular now that a rumor of a company accepting it is going to put that company in the news for free. If they do it they're going to be in the news all over again. It's profit even if nobody really pays in Bitcoin for rides.

That is a convenient way of transactions but still needs to lessen the fees or maybe use segwit address in sending and receiving of payments. Confirmation of transaction is also one of the minor issues here. Though giving it a try for UBER to accept Bitcoin payment makes things better for Bitcoiners.

UBER is a large company and has many users, so if Bitcoin catches their attention and plans to accept Bitcoin as a payment option. It means that
Bitcoin is starting to be trusted by UBER as a currency, so it doesn't matter that UBER doesn't buy Bitcoin like TESLA did, accepting Bitcoin as
payment alone is good enough for Bitcoin. And this news will make Bitcoin even more bullish.

I don't think that it would be a good idea because paying using bitcoin would take some time before the transaction has completed, it also has transaction fees so I don't think that someone will prefer that thing than using fiat currency wherein you don't need to pay transaction fees and you don't need to wait before the transaction has completed. Paying bitcoin is good for reservation and not for paying in a quick transaction.

Just as Bitcoin is not yet a coffee money, it is also not yet a fare money, at least for now pending polished development and adoption of the Lightning Network and other possible solutions to problems pertaining to confirmation time and transaction fee.  

However, be that as it may, Uber could still offer that to its clients and see how it pans out. If it makes a significant difference to the number of its users or its revenue, then it's good for business. If it doesn't, then perhaps the right time has not yet come. Or perhaps more innovation could still be integrated with its services so as to still accommodate cryptocurrency payments.

It is not yet at that stage but putting it there to be a choice for passengers to pay and for drivers to get paid, I think that we should we happy about it and I think we do agree on the part of putting it there so passengers can have a choice, I would go as to predict that more people will be curious about bitcoin when this integration happens. I know that it is still volatile but we have to give chance, there is a big difference with coffee money and fare money, not to mention that riding Uber is not as frequent as buying coffee.

That's great, but how is it going to work? Unless they are willing to accept zero confirmation transaction (and take a huge risk of double spending), this is going to be a tough one. Imagine how long you will have to wait for a confirmation when the network is underloaded! But, I guess maybe they will come up with some better ideas.
Probably they will allow people to preload uber credits into their account using bitcoin or maybe hold users coin in their app? Let see what happens and how they handle the complexities and issues.

Adding bitcoin as payment for their service is also good. this means bitcoin is increasingly accepted and increasingly adopted by the public as a function. not only as a store of wealth. I hope other companies will follow Uber's steps too.

I think that it's time for Uber to lower the amount of refunding scams exploiting their services,by adopting non-refundable cryptocurrency payments. ;D
I found some Uber refund methods on other forums and even some people are reselling Uber rides at affordable prices.
Don't get me wrong.I will NEVER use Uber,since I don't even use taxis,but it was really strange to see that people are exploiting their service and getting Uber rides for free.
The Uber CEO seems quite "fiat friendly".
"We're going to keep our cash safe" is a weird statement. ;D
Your cash is never safe enough...

Now imagine that in the age of new technology, the commission on a cab ride could be more expensive than the ride! Or if you cancel the trip you will also lose some amount, with the fact that the refund will take a long time!
In my opinion without some network upgrades bitcoin cannot be a convenient means of payment!

Additional, what do you think lads if UBER will start to accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies for their payments and after a period of time, they will back out or stop accepting Bitcoin as the mode of payment because of some issues, like stability or price volatility.
One of the examples of this before was Steam, they started to accept Bitcoin using Bitpay, but I think after weeks or months, they stopped accepting Bitcoin.

Relate to his tweet to give more support to bitcoin as a big company as UBER wants to try to accept bitcoin as one of the payment methods besides the other payment methods. If that is a success, more transportation companies will follow their step to add bitcoin as the payment methods, which can trigger the other business to accept bitcoin. If their employee (riders) can accept payment in bitcoin, that can help them have a new investment besides just accepting bitcoin and converting it into their fiat.

For bitcoin, that can help the price increase as people will see more companies start investing or using bitcoin and integrating with their systems. So hopefully, in the near months, we will see the bullish will still at the market.

Highly unlikely, especially considering transaction fees. It is not feasible to make $5-10 payments without being burnt because of high fees. There is a solution for it though. Maybe they can either join hands with some exchange or have their own wallet through which bitcoin would be deducted without any further tx fees.

an progress made by UBER to be able to accept payments with bitcoin, I also seem to agree with you that of course bitcoiners will benefit greatly from the progress that has been made with uber.
every convenience that is given by anyone to be able to use bitcoin is certainly very beneficial for the givers and those of us who use bitcoin.

there may be a problem if the transaction is delayed (if the traffic is heavy) whether this can be hung and will be resolved at a later time, but if there is pending what is the next solution. it is clear that the recipient will be disadvantaged by the pending transaction and is there a solution to be made.

This is what mass adoption looks like. It's not that companies need to have Bitcoin on the balance sheet but more the utilization of it. Agreed that bitcoin on its base layer might not work due to scalability but that is totally fine.

In the case of UBER, I think a good move will be to have custodial wallets in their app and have lightning channels opened with both drivers and clients. They should also provide the driver with an option to receive bitcoins or fiat (instant swap).

As for the whole experience, I don't think it will be affected. Furthermore, the majority of people UBER for at least 10 mins which gives enough time for confirmation (not even needed for lightning).

I do not accept people saying that bitcoin is either store of value or a medium of exchange. Why can't it be both and thus a superior form of money? Every technology has multiple layers for scalability and it's just a matter of improving the UX.

I agree with you on this. It seems to me that UBER is still not convinced yet that BTC is where they should put their money in, and from their financial point of view you can understand why that it. Unlike, Tesla, UBER has suffered financially due to the pandemic, this must of cut deep into their pockets and now they're being cautious not to miss out on crypto, hence why there's talk about them accepting BTC for transactions.

Overall, this gives a positive outlook to the crypto industry that more and more giants are thinking about the crypto industry. Before there was not much of these talks but. now these are intensifying which is great!

I think that would be a good idea because imagine if it works out other big companies will follow and do the same thing, by that way crypto adaptation will drastically increase. However, there will also be some problems in using it like it few transactions might become slower due to congestion in the network plus fee could also be a factor as it unlike using fiat all you need to pay is the exact amount. Anyway, using Bitcoin as another mode of payment will bring some benefits as well because if you travel across other countries you don't even need to bother to convert your money to their local currency as Bitcoin can use globally.

Due to the congestion and spike in transactions on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, the timing is pretty bad. If I order an Uber for a 20-minutes ride from point A to point B, will they require that my transaction confirms in that 20-minutes time frame. If that is the case, I would have to use a pretty high transaction fee. So I am looking at unnecessary high costs. I am paying Uber for the transportation services + I am tipping the driver + on top of that, I am forced to pay $5-10 in fees for a quick transaction confirmation.

If they don't know about double-spending and accept zero-confirmation transactions, it's an entirely different thing. In that case they could suffer from abuse and double-spend transactions, which would force them to give up on the idea of accepting crypto or they'll introduce mandatory KYC. if they kept records of of their users who paid with crypto, they could find those who performed double-spend attacks and go after them.

Than we have problem #2. Do I really want to give out my personal details to a taxy company to get a ride?

I see this only working with the lightning network or via crypto assets with extremely low network fees. Tron or Tether via the Tron network for example. That's when problem #3 appears. Lightning network isn't that popular yet, it doesn't have many users, and has still not been molded into a final service. And, coins like tron or tether are not nearly as popular as bitcoin or ether.       

If uber starts accepting bitcoin as payment that would be great but since still alot of people need to know about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, it will take sometime before it could be properly implemented

You make good points especially about the timing but I don't think they will do it right away. If they hire a half-decent consultant who knows about bitcoin txs, the things you say are the most obvious ones.

And like you say lighting layer is an option and I think it will soon be easy enough to onboard. The UX is improving.

As for using other coins... no thank you. I mean none of the other ones are as popular and if people are willing to use these other ones which are so centralized then why switch from fiat in the first place.

It's pretty long way from "we are going tp look into cryptocurrencies" to " we are going to accept cryptocurrencies". Naturally, no CEO (at least the one with some brain) will automatically say that he will never accept crypto so I see those more like going on with the current hype than seriously considering this. And even of they do, once they see the fees and transactions time they will probably give up on this idea. At lasted for now.

We can expect more similar rumours and speculations involving popular companies, like the one with Apple the other day.

It's a good help to the growing value of the bitcoin, the more companies will support the bitcoin the price rise. Like in the last few days ago Elon musk invest 1.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoin that can cause for the price to up.

They need to consider the bitcoin now or maybe being supported because it will have a big effects to their companies too if they do that because the user of the bitcoin probably will going to try their service too. Both will get benefits they earn money and the user and investors of the bitcoin will get profit too. In the next coming weeks more business will try to accept bitcoin because it is very trending worldwide.

Now, the adoption comes from the transportation company, and that is good news for crypto because that can attract their customer to know and learn about crypto. If their customer can learn about crypto, the mass adoption will have more chances to grow, and we will see that the crypto will grow faster than what we can expect. Maybe that will not happen quickly, but the progress is good, so we will see that the crypto can have a better situation. If the government can also accept the crypto, the crypto position will be stronger than before.

This is the advantage of biggest comunity. Our comunity is getting bigger from time to time, it seems that we are very big market in their eyes. This is a positive sentiment for bitcoin market, actually there are some business like uber in my country but they create their own digital currency. I personally prefer like to use that digital money rather than cash because it's more practical and save time and healthy of course as I didn't touch the money physically. I think when Uber let people use bitcoin to pay their service then we not only get the increasing price of bitcoin but also more mass adoption.

The problem with Uber accepting bitcoin is that they will need to wait for one confirmation before the payment is confirmed. Or if the driver doesn't want to go that route, they can open a LN channel but even that is painful to do. There are a lot of possible implementations that Uber can do in order for them to start accepting crypto. Right now, the main hurdle is the confirmation times. Once that's cleared, we will begin to see more and more services starting to accept bitcoin and crypto.

Some of the companies on different countries starts to appreciate and adopt bitcoin as a digital currency, nevertheless, it can truly help users and the company to be more productive using bitcoins' feature. With these advertisements came from big names all over the world and traffics from Crypto Enthusiast, bitcoin's progress will be more quickly as we've expecting.

Is this a test? They don't promise to make this feature permanent ?

I don't think this would be possible for a fast ride because bitcoin transactions are taking longer time to confirm nowadays., what if a customer has an urgent appointment move, and the transaction is unconfirmed and not everyone knows about RBF broadcasting. I think it would be possible if Uber company set up two method of payments, crypto and Fiat, this would be the easiest ways to tackle this incidence.
If for crypto, then the address barcode will be placed at the front side of the car for easy and faster transaction.

As a Bitcoin supporter, I am very happy that UBER accepts Bitcoin as a payment option in their application. But the problem is that Bitcoin transactions
take quite a long time, not compatible with UBER which requires fast transactions. With these constraints, I am sure that UBER will not be using Bitcoin
for long as a payment option. Within a few months UBER will likely stop accepting Bitcoin being one of the payment options on their application.
Unless UBER switches to altcoins which do have a much faster transaction speed.

According to the respond of the UBER CEO which I believe his stance on crypto currency his clear that he's not against crypto and he's ready to integrate as payment once the customers ask for it but he will not invest the company fund into crypto just like Tesla did which is fair because he definitely dont know how to invest in cryptocurrency but I don't see any reason for UBER to stop as payment if the issues that arise in future have nothing to do with the government.

The reason isn't about the government but rather the volatility of the price of bitcoin, Imagine riding an uber an paying the service of 10$ with bitcoin but after leaving the vehicle, the price suddenly drop, what will happen to the uber driver as the fee should be 10$.
They should also implement a wallet on their site where the can real time convert the amount of bitcoin being paid to a fiat based wallet just like "coins" wallet does. They have a separate wallet for fiat such as PHP or USD wallet and a separate wallet for BTC.

Not only with how slow the transaction time takes place but also on how volatile the price of Bitcoin can be, even if UBER takes Bitcoin transactions, the downside would be the price when it spikes high, then you have to pay for a lower price (in terms of bitcoin) and when the price goes down, you'll have to sacrifice more of your bitcoins than what you usually pay for, not the best way of use with Bitcoin, majority of the people would still go for fiat payments.

Any adoption news would be considered as good or on the positive side.It might not really heavily affect bitcoins price movement but what we do aim here is that
the level of recognition that we must able to attain so that bitcoin will really becoming more a mainstream in lots of services on where people do most commonly
been using on daily basis. UBER? We know on how useful this service and having some crypto or bitcoin integration would really be a big convenience for those
people who had already the idea about crypto and would also increase awareness too.

Tge best thing about this news is the free media. I don't believe that using bitcoin for paying transportation for Uber services is too functional. Because fees are now getting higher fir bitcoin and I recommend we use other cryptocurrency that will do the job faster and lower fees. Gir the time being I only see Bitcoin as a mesn to invest and save not to use fir daily things.
So other cryptis surely will give better clients experience other 5hen bitcoin.

This will be huge. UBER is something being used on a daily basis especially to those people who are into this industry. UBER is already a large company and it will help boosting the popularity of cryptos, if this will be true. I would say it is a domino effect that we are seeing right now starting from what PayPal did last year which was followed by other big companies. And I bet more businesses will also do the same thing once the advantages of doing so continues to spread in the future. Again, a huge milestone for this industry, this year.

That could be a good news if UBER will accept bitcoin and yes fees is too high, I hope they can find another coin that offers not too much in terms of fees and has a high transaction speed like XRP and TRON but then since UBER announces that it will be good I hope GRAB ( I don't know if this is internation but this one is only available in here) can accept crypto as payment as well, I would be more happy to use it.

What I am seeing on that context was the UBER company will accept bitcoin or cryptocurrency as a payment method for their consumers or customers when riding behind their service and also including here was the delivery of food and etc. UBER doesn't have any chances of buying bitcoin as stated on the announcement of the ceo but what they just want to do is to add this cryptocurrency and bitcoin as a payment to their services.

While I don't use Uber because it's not available in my country but it is good to see more and more companies starting to accept bitcoin as a payment method. I don't know how Uber will implement it, but maybe they will make you deposit your bitcoin in your Uber account first and they will deduct the balance when you use the service otherwise the customer have to pay the transaction fee everytime they use the service which will be quite expensive compared to the ride fare.

Yes, both options you mentioned are possible. I see Uber is going to study the possibility of accepting bitcoin as payment, what means it's on an early stage of adoption yet and it can take some time until become reality. I believe they are studying meticulously the best way to introduce bitcoin on their services in a convenient way for their customers.
If the issue with high fees won't be solved by there, something like a bitcoin balance in each user's account will be an interesting alternative. Or will they adopt a third party service which converts btc to fiat in real time?

If I'm an Uber customer that do hold bitcoin, I don't think it's a good time to spend it. I understand that we have to spend bitcoin for use cases like this but the timing for me isn't good. I'd rather pay them with cash or any other accepted payment system/processor just to keep my bitcoin.

But basically, news like this is very much good for the adoption and publicity of bitcoin. If they want to accept bitcoin, they can do that as much as they want but it's better if they've done it before.

There's no such thing about being late when it comes to recognition or a integration of bitcoin into their business since they arent the ones who do go after with profits but rather
on just seeing to include something when it comes to payment system.

Just like on what Paypal did, we are already 10 years and try to count on how long did paypal on giving out that consideration? On what you had said about saving up your coins
then this is really just the same into those places like restaurants, stores etc. that do accept bitcoin, I wont really tend to make use of my precious coins.
Yes, it does need to circulate but we cant really just deny that earning opportunity is really there.

this is going to be good move still but i dont think uber will want to engage its customers with high fees and delayed transaction confirmation. its definitely not good for business. once this problem is solved then many companies will integrated bitcoin payment into their system.

After Tesla's announcement, a lot of companies as well are interested in bitcoin and for sure holding for a long term to make a profit for the company.

Again it's good news because if big companies invested in bitcoin, the bitcoin market price would pump but as they hold a big volume of bitcoin it was risky as well to hold your bitcoin as the price increases.

Potentially if the market price was so high maybe like 500k$ one of these companies could dump or sell their bitcoin getting all the profit.

Am still waiting for the use case by most of the acquisition by top institutions like square, twitter, Tesla, UBER etc It is more of a FOMO by this institutions because of the response of competitive companies in the market, whereby creating a massive scarcity. If they hold for long the bear market may not come as soon as we expect.

Well, I am wondering if how this UBER works the very high fees on bitcoin and it will perhaps take time for the transaction to be confirmed, it will wait perhaps an hour for at least 3 confirmations in a transaction since considered as safe between the parties. Technically, this will become a headache to the users and I hope UBER has an alternative solution for this. Indeed, --this is good news to everyone, it is surely a pump price once there are too many of them who will start using bitcoin as payment and not only by that, it also brings awareness to those who did not know bitcoin.

After Elon pronounced Tesla to accept BTC, many companies today are also thinking of the same way. I would probably hope to see local stores accepting BTC too. It will become a trend sooner and then comes altcoins like ETH as well. Uber will be good addition to the list of companies.


It's yet not final but the chances that it will happen could be 60%. Like any other company, some of them prefer to create their own coin than using BTC or ETH.

The price nowadays is already pumping great, and it's really showing more progress as time ticks every second. Good news influenced many individuals, particular with how comfortable this payment method will be applied on our daily living. Profit also is the biggest reason why someone would love to choose bitcoin instead of other type of crypto.

I believe as well that it's not late for them but I'm only stating that if they've decided earlier then they have probably have received a lot of bitcoin payments before. And that will make them one of the companies that have received a lot of bitcoin for their known service.

What's the earning opportunity with that? Just as usual when a company accepts bitcoin as payment, they're really the same as the others with those establishments that you have mentioned because bitcoin is a medium of exchange.

If cryptocurrency keep on growing at this pace it's just inevitable for company like Uber to accept cryptocurrency as alternative payment method. After all, they always trying to expand their user base and keep on increasing their profit and there's definitely no harm in adding cryptocurrencies into their payment method selection. It's like how when Internet appear and some company trying to digitalize their service, it's how a company more specifically that's on tech like Uber adapt to the development of our society otherwise they gonna be considered obsolete.

I'm a regular Uber User and this will favor me for sure , actually i have been talking to some Uber driver that i have used .
and (while Promoting Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies) i was able to encourage them to at least look at this option sooner (though it is the company must decide about this matter)
This might be the big problem but if UBER will use our local wallet to be accepting the payments ? then it won't be the issue in my country as it requires ZERO FEE if using same wallet to wallet.

There should have a working system for that. And if that option isn't working, then they'll have to pay in fiat.
This is why I'm thinking that we can't totally eliminate fiat, as we are still be needing this at any time and especially when we encounter delays in confirmation. I was expecting heavy network traffic once the number of Bitcoin users really growing and if you are in the look to have the fastest confirmation, fiat will be the best solution for this. And this is also a reason why some express companies are not adopting Bitcoin for this will sometimes paralyze their operation. 

This is surely an influence from Tesla. UBER drivers drive some Tesla cars and it would only be normal to integrate their system with Cryptocurrencies since it would be another way for their drivers to learn about Cryptocurrencies and this will be another surge of new learners and users that will surely promote the use of payment transactions that involves cryptocurrency.

Maybe another thing that they should do is really learn on how they can improve their versatility in terms of payment but should like place a threshold that would not make the drivers suffer from the volatility of Bitcoin unexpectedly.

Why would they adopt Bitcoin as a payment? It could only happen using a layer two network like LN but even that will take a lot of consideration. Fees currently make it impossible for Bitcoin to be used for small purchaces and payments. It won't be possible without a third party or a network like those that are still in development.

I'm sure they won't use the direct payment from your BTC wallet. Maybe they will use some 3rd party exchanges which suit their customers because if they receive it from wallets, it may take some time to confirm their transactions. maybe the driver and the passenger will use the same wallet depends on what country they living in. They can use their local exchanges to get the payment easily.  

Uber CEO Dara Kosrovshahi said the company would accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a method of payment if there is a benefit and need for it.

In an interview with CNBC, however, Kosrovshahi also said that Uber is not considering investing in Bitcoin as part of its treasury.

In my opinion, he is not very optimistic about cryptocurrencies and said: “It was a conversation that happened, which was quickly rejected. We will keep our money safe. We are not dealing with speculation. "

that would still be good news for bitcoin. Some time ago PayPal mastercard received payments with bitcoin, it encouraged bitcoin to continue to be bullish.

Has anyone already tried paying with Bitcoin at Uber? Did you manage to do this?

Seriously, I think Uber has a hard time expanding its base and market with crypto or bitcoin when the government has always had a special interest in bitcoin, it is forcing the government to come up with new policies because many people are laundering money and evading personal income taxes from national scrutiny. Besides, bitcoin is still not stable and too popular, the connection between Uber and bitcoin will sometimes appear quite a lot of errors, very dangerous for Uber and users when bitcoin is a huge asset right now.

It is a good news for bitcoin holder, that we cannot have to carry  cash for paying to UBER driver. We just need a bitcoin wallet so that we easily send it to the driver. The adoption of Bitcoin is growing day by day.
But making transaction in Bitcoin is very difficult now a days. Because of its high transaction fees. And due to big community connected to the Bitcoin, that why it takes some time for transaction.

From what i understand all the exchanges enforce strict KYC and we are expecting a regulation from major countries and if that happens you cannot come up with excuses about money laundering as if bitcoin is the only coin that is used for laundering. If anyone is holding a coin that is valuable he does not need to pay the tax unless he profits from it and that is the case with stock exchange and other investments.


You cannot expect a stable bitcoin market but you cannot tell that it is not popular, the entire world knows about bitcoin even if they never invested in it.

It looks like a lot of companies are getting interested in bitcoin after Tesla invested in bitcoin. This is a great payment option to add in Uber makes it easier to pay.  I think its a good news because companies will continue to adapt in cryptocurrency and mostly in bitcoin and the more the companies invested in bitcoin the higher the market price of bitcoin will go also in the future if more big companies invested in bitcoin we can realistically see bitcoin around 100k$ up to 500k$ maybe after just a few years. We just have a big concern for big companies holding a big volume of bitcoin and even the government.

Bitcoin is good for everything.
If bought, holders can wait for profits and sell it later at their targeted price.
If taken as a form of payment, there is no risk because the company is not buying it out of their pockets but are accepting it and will probably change it for fiat. This will be a different experience than holding and trading btc.
These companies are at advantage because they have a business for which they can charge in btc, but it is good only when what they are charging is higher compared to the fee paid per transaction. Though, if CEO of Uber showed interest in accepting crypto, he must be having some vision in his mind.

What I guess is a promotion on the UBER itself, isn't it?

It should be like that, there's no actual transaction of bitcoin like what Paypal did. I guess they had a system to shown a bitcoin balance in your account but the fact, it was not yet broadcasted to the network since the problem here is the high fees and the transaction speed. Something like, they had a cold wallet.

However, whatever it is but my insight is good for everyone and for the bitcoin to be more well-known to the public, and also a stepping stone that other companies will do the same to them.

It will be great if they do, Bitcoin needs all the adoption it can get from big companies.
However, I feel there might be a major setback or disadvantage especially for Uber riders. There might be cases when the rider or even the driver might be unlucky to met criminals. Imagine been held on a gun point inside an Uber car and the criminal demanding for ALL your Bitcoin.

for me bitcoin trasaction with UBER is great, bitcoin slowly gaining more popularity and hype. after paypal announces that they are engaging in bitcoin many company also like UBER is trying also to connected to crypto currencies. Tesla has great impact in bitcoin after 1 billion worth of bitcoin had invest in and that effect more company to do business and payment via bitcoin.

I think that once companies like PayPal, Visa, Tesla are involved in this cryptocurrency business, other companies may not want to stay away from it any longer. If there is a demand from people in this direction, UBER can add a few bitcoins to the balance sheet before it is too late.

This certainly going to be big if they start accepting crypto.
Bigger than Tesla accepting Bitcoin because you need to be whale to buy Tesla for btc.
But if UBER start accepting crypto, even common man can pay it.
It will also encourage more individuals to buy crypto and use it.

There is nothing bad about it, although like you said that it is bullish, I don’t really think it is because they are not going to be putting any money in the market, rather they are just accepting payment in Bitcoin from those that already owns it. It’s not like Tesla investing their own money in Bitcoin which is up to 1.5 billion dollars, that’s the real bull, such amount will be pushing up the market.

Though this move by UBER isn’t bad since this is going to motivate a lot of people to start owning Bitcoin since it’s being provided as an option when they open the UBER mobile app to make food order or go for a ride. This is still a good news, and good that a lot of companies, not just small ones but the giants, are now considering Bitcoin in one way or the other.