Bitcoin Forum

While it is maybe "feels cool" when an offline restaurant chain, or a gas station or some other store starts accepting bitcoins, I think we should not forget that bitcoin is an *online* currency. I even think of it as "liberty reserve, but much better".

Basically, there are these reasons:
1. Bitcoin is not meant to be used offline, in stores, not even so much on mobile devices (which would work, but not as good as on PCs). It *is* however, a great and unique online currency, with some great qualities, like speed, low transaction fees, anonymity (sort of). This is what it should be used as. And instead of putting our time on trying to make it something it's not, and trying to get offline retailers to use it, we should spend more time on promoting it online, where it is at its best. Are there any stores that use Liberty Reserve offline? No, because it wasn't meant for that!

2. Using bitcoin in offline locations is very problematic technically. If you go to buy lunch, they don't want to wait for 10 minutes until your transaction confirms. They don't either want to check the market price all the time and adjust their prices, which, as opposed to online shops can be printed on papers and boards. Do you reprint them all the time then?
Most of "normal" shops don't have secure enough setups anyway, and wallet stealings and such things would be a great problem if you could pay by bitcoin in every restaurant.
The only thing we will achieve by accepting bitcoins offline is people starting to believe that bitcoin is slow, unsecure and plain pain in the ass. Which it is, when used offline!

3. There is no inherent *reason* to use bitcoin offline. Are you trying to achieve anonymity when paying for your lunch? Pay with cash, much easier. Transaction fees? Pay with cash. Or maybe are you trying to eat lunch in a restaurant that's on the other side of the globe? Well then you've got bigger problems :P
So while by promoting bitcoin online we are actually making the world better and simpler, by promoting it in offline stores, we are just doing so because "bitcoin is cool".

So I say, stick to online businesses, and put all the effort into promoting it there! Like discounts for bitcoin payments, bitcoins for charity, and such and such!

The expression is "we shouldn't care less". As in we already care as little as possible and hence should not be able to care even less. I don't know why people get this backwards.

As for your post, well, Bitcoin can and will be used wherever people want to use it.
I don't see any reason to limit it. With the right mobile front end it can work just as well as online. Why not? It sounds totally workable to me. Your idea of what Bitcoin is meant to be is just, well,  limited when it need not be.

no, he has this the right way around. he's saying we should care less, because we currently care too much.

he's saying "please lower your level of caring about offline stores".

no, i'm trying to eat my lunch without my bank balance dropping in value by way of reserve bank theft (quantitative easing).

the more people use bitcoin offline, and the less people use government money, the better.

Waiting for 1 confirmation is safe enough for the real world. If you're caught double spending, there's no way to pass it off as an accident, mistake or anything but premediated fraud, and it's so hard to pull off it's less risky to just shoplift. And aside from that you got MtGox codes and the Instawallet green address.


Modern (as in a few weeks old and newer) Bitcoin offline merchant solutions adjust prices automatically. There are people working on this - see bit-pay.com (http://bit-pay.com)

As for cash, I hate coins. If people were decent enough to include sales tax in the price of the product and make all the prices end in multiples of .25 (even .49 and .99 are acceptable) it would be different, but most stores don't do that. That's reason enough to use Bitcoin for me.

That's right, payb.tc :)

Also, let me clarify about the use of bitcoin on mobile devices, the problems:
- Downloading the block chain. Now it's what, 500 megs? Do you download that with 3g and pay all charges? Also, just keeping a 500 meg file on your mobile device is not very good, they have limited memory which must also be used for other things. And in *near* future this file seems to be growing exponentially.0
- Processing power. First there is the checking of the whole block chain upon initialization of a new installation. Right now it takes hours even on a PC! imagine battery usage and time it would take on a phone! Also, even to run the client takes a lot of power, because it constantly checks transactions and blocks.
- Internet access all the time. Not everybody has free traffic on their phones, and bitcoin uses a lot. Also, not everybody is always in the coverage zone...
- How do you keep the wallet file secure on a phone? I mean, phones could even be stolen pretty easily. You would have to have another wallet on your phone, and transfer money to that in small amounts to minimize risks. Like I said, a PITA :)

Some of these problems could be battled with some technological advancements in the client, but only to a certain extent. I mean, the block chain size is going to be even a problem on PCs soon, and nobody really has any solution yet.
And none of the advancements have been implemented yet, not sure even if somebody works on them, let alone the mobile client problems.

have you personally tried one? i use an awesome bitcoin client on android and it doesn't use a 500mb block chain. it's perfectly fine using it's own ~16mb version.

I think we should care a lot about offline stores/restaurants accepting Bitcoin. I wouldn't call them offline though because they are connected to the Internet, the right word is physical.

Seems the OP doesn't know anything regarding the current state of mobile payments. The security concern has merit, but it's no less secure than your physical wallet. This means that as a rule don't have more coins in the digital wallet than you can afford to lose, which is a rule people should follow for their physical wallets as well.

In the future I think the security of mobile wallets will be better, but for now it's a good idea to limit the risk by smart usage. The mobile wallets and the numerous possibilities, lately shown by the Bit-Pay mobile payment system for example (which enables instantaneous transactions), are some of the most promising and important things for Bitcoin.

So to summarize, the physical stores/restaurants are very important. They will also bring credibility to Bitcoin, which is good.

Well sounds like it's not a full fledged client, that is able to fully participate in the network activity. Still, makes sense to use the lite version on the mobile phones, it's probably also the only way.
However, the rest of my points still stand.

well, it sends and receives okay, doesn't do any mining though :P

Mobile usually involves a server.  The blockchain is shared (checkout webcoin.ch)  and the wallet is on a server.  Access to the Internet to pay; yes that's an issue but the same issue exists for credit cards.  They don't do the manual credit card impressions much at stores when the access from the card reader goes down.

as long as the block chain stays secure, Bitcoin could simply act as a store of wealth, much like gold.  in that sense, does it really need an economy built around it?

clearly it would be better if it did as it would stimulate more awareness and demand for the coins.  Bit-pay is a great way to do this.

Steve and Tony; have you tried to take this to Kenya?  if Bitcoin and Bit-Pay could take away market share from M Pesa it would be great.

You are too late. Easy POS payments are here and are being used.


Too bad, because it is set up for mobile devices. And it does work.


A couple of seconds is not a long wait. I can do a Bitcoin transaction at my wife's shop faster than running a credit card. And get confirmation by the time I put the clothes in the bag.


The *reason* is that it is easier than cash. Everyone carries their phone. No running to the ATM, no counting out your cash, no worry about getting robbed (most smart phones have code security for accessing the phone)


POS transactions are here, they are easy and simple for merchants to set up and use. No changing of prices, the price is calculated in Bitcoins simply through the bit-pay.com app. My wife's shop accepts them and I will be helping other stores in her strip get set up (a convenience/sandwich store and a tire shop) They can even get paid in cash and never need to know anything about Bitcoins.

I don't understand this fixation with confirmations in an IRL payment situation. You need to wait, at most 10 seconds to listen for a race attack, and only 2-3 if you have a well connected client. Who in their right mind would spend millions of dollars on making a 51% attack and then use it to get out of paying for dinner? Its much easier, cheaper, and simpler to just dine and dash then it its to create a race attack, must less a 51% attack. Confirmations are only needed for transactions large enough to warrant a 51% attack. Otherwise you can accept an unconfirmed transaction as a-ok if you have a well connected client designed to listen and warn of a race attack.     

That may make sense to you, but the recent trend has been that bitcoin has been losing buying power much faster than most government-issued currencies do.

I disagree with the OP's argument that because Bitcoin resides online it should he treated as such. First and foremost, before it is an ONLINE currency it is an ALTERNATIVE currency. As a currency it shouod represent an economy and most of what you can buy, or what people currently buy, is offline. However current electronc payment methods are adopted so we don't have to carry coins and notes with us.

As for using it as a store of value, this is true theoretically, but who determines what the value of a Bitcoin is? The truth is we all do in some huge inknowing collaboration, but rather than a value democraticaoly agreed by people, it is agreed by every single unit of wealth, and who it's master is.

BTC price is on a current trend downward it seems and fluctuates alot, making it hardly the ideal vehicle for an investment. There needs to be a transitional phase first from various worldwide currencies to Bitcoin. Before, they managed to transition from gold to paper money, by pegging the value of tge paper to x amount of gold. But since everybody is the issuer, pegging is far more difficult. Hence the jumpstart will also be difficult. Bitcoin should be used as a payment processor where prices are set in particular local currencies but the BTC taken off is in terms of current market price. I think bit pay already does this, but I wonder if it's done the other way round? Ie. where somebody pays for something in local currency, it gets swapped over to BTC sent to the merchant and converted back to local currency. A bit complicated, true, but surely cheaper than Mastercard VISA fees?

Currently the price comes up as dollars just like any other transaction. You put the price into the bit-pay app on your phone and it converts it to Bitcoin with a QR code for the consumer to scan. The consumer scans the code and pays the Bitcoin amount.

The Bitcoin is then sent to the merchant's bit-pay account where it can either be sent to your BTC wallet or sent to your bank account in dollars. It is your choice as a merchant.

You are charged .99% to get paid in Bitcoins and 2.99% to get it out as cash.

I have a very low rate on my credit card transactions because I set up my laptop to swipe cards so the per swipe fee is under 2% for VISA/MASTERCARD. American Express fees are usually 3-5%. Plus you usually have a monthly fee of around $25 for the service plus a minimum of $25 in transaction fees.

Then there is the equipment. A cheap system will run about $250. A receipt printer can run from $250 to $600.

With bit-pay, I set up an app for my smart phone (which I already have, otherwise it cost me $150 plus a monthly cost of $50).

When someone tells you that you're wrong, it's good etiquette to educate yourself before posting again. The Bitcoin Wallet several of us are using on Android is indeed a network participating client. It's based on BitcoinJ, an Android Bitcoin library.

https://market.android.com/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet

http://code.google.com/p/bitcoinj/

To the actual point of your post, I would agree. For the short term Bitcoin proponents should focus on the usecases where Bitcoin really shines, like international wire transfers (competing with Western Union etc), while building an infrastructure (which Bit-Pay is doing in a wonderful way) where it later can create the same consumer easy of use as credit card payments but with lower merchant fees.

Paying in Bitcoin is easier than using a credit card. Scanning a QR code and clicking "Pay" is easier than paying with your credit card then having them print out a receipt for you to then sign, or a debit card where you swipe it and enter your PIN.

And why wait? Like there are people out there with stores that need to hold off on implementing an easier payment method so that other people can work on the online aspect of Bitcoin? Do we only have 2 people working on Bitcoin that efforts cannot be spread out?

Should I stop accepting Bitcoins in person and tell people that they can only pay on my website? Or do both?

You have to get the bitcoins first. Until there's a (much) simpler way for the consumers to, as hassle-free as possible, pay using Bitcoin without actually having to have two wallets (their regular currency as well as bitcoins) credit cards will be much easier to use.

Paying using your mobile with NFC is going to become huge during next year. Mobile Bitcoin payments will be no easier than mobile VISA/Mastercard payments.

http://www.google.com/wallet/
http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/paywave/index.html
http://www.paypass.com/

sure, but it's not the speed of the devaluation that bugs me.

it's the cause.

Tony,

i think the 2 biggest issues facing Bitcoin are scalability and security.  the latter will be greatly improved with the pending 0.4 but the former is what is holding back large investors.  it seems to me Steve knows the coding as well as anyone and you guys need to make this  priority number one.  from the wiki it seems this shouldn't be too difficult but until general consensus agrees, it will be difficult to get widespread adoption of Bitcoin as an offline payment method.  resolution of this will be critical for BitPays success.

The value of the currency does not matter when it is used as a medium of exchange.

Go to the store, buy a bag of chips for $2.50, it currently costs about .5 BTC. If you are worried about price fluctuations keep your money in dollars on MtGox. When you want to buy something in BTC, trade the amount you want. So now you have .5 BTC that you paid $2.50 for.

The merchant plugs $2.50 into his bit-pay app and it pops up saying you owe .5 BTC with a QR code. You scan the code and click "pay". You send .5 BTC and you are done.

The merchant then gets the $2.50 sent to him in dollars through bit-pay.


Like I said in another thread. We need a BTC debit account which makes that first part easy. Keep cash in your account and it converts it to BTC when needed.

Nothing will help money fluctuations other than wide use. Until then, other currencies will be more stable.

    1. Open a free account at ExchangeBitcoins.com
    2. Go to the deposit page, make a reservation, and print the instructions.
    3. Make a cash deposit at any of thousands of bank locations nationwide.
    4. Purchase some Bitcoins.

A wallet stored on your phone is easy to carry.

just brainstorming here:  perhaps Casascius's physical btc concept shouldn't be so easily dismissed as a novelty.  thinking of my own customers many of whom do not have smartphones, handling phys-btc would be much more user friendly.  

the merchant problem i see is not accepting btc's, since its a no brainer b/c of the low fees and fairly easy setup use, but is getting btc's into the hands of its customers.

what about getting your merchants to invest in a moderate supply of phys-btc's and getting repeat customers to "trade" them for their USD's so that in the future they can return to make payments with their phys-btc's?  certainly the exchange value could be problematic but i think we're close to the bottom in the btc price and the volatility should decrease from here and perhaps will even go up.  the main point is to get btc's into the hands of consumers.  once they have phys-btc's they may then make the transition to digital btc's which is what we want.

whether you realize it or not, people are regaining significant confidence in mtgox's ability to safeguard USD's and BTC.  this is important.

You call that easy compared to what people already have?

(Oh, and while I know it comes as a surprise to most americans, there's actually like three or four other countries not included in "nationwide")

Ok, but it's not likely to be a winning sales pitch to most people at this point in time.

0 confirmations is safe enough for real world purchases involving less-than-substantial sums of money. The only way someone could double spend the money they sent you is to find a block, include in it a transaction from one of their addresses to another address of theirs, not broadcast the block, run to your store and buy a good, run out, and broadcast their block to get back the bitcoins they sent you.

They have to run the risk of someone else finding and broadcasting a block in between the time they found theirs and they ran out of your store, and the risk that you will track them down and report them for shop-lifting/fraud once their payment to you becomes invalidated.


Very true.

Well I still think the biggest effort should be put on getting bitcoins widely used online, but you guys have certainly convinced me that there is a great (although probably several years distant) future for using bitcoin in physical locations!

I think services like bit-pay.com are game changers. They really make it very easy for merchants to accept bitcoin. For example, prices can still be printed in dollars, and along with that you could easily print a barcode to be read by mobile apps, in this way you don't have to reprint your stickers every time bitcoin price changes. This still only makes bitcoin a dollar-proxy, which is far, far from the original concept of a world-wide *currency*, but still, there is great potential.

But considering all the remaining problems, like getting bitcoins, security and scalability problems (which are not limited to mobile usage, they exist everywhere of course), it still seems like we should first get bitcoin as big as we can, in online world, because that's where it's best, and get enough people to actually use it, to make the price stable. Eventually, physical locations will follow and in the future, I believe in the situation where you could go to any developed country and instead of exchanging money or worrying abouot your credit card being stolen, just use you phone!

Note that I am not saying anybody already doing something in this direction should *stop*.


I don't wanna sound like a jerk and it's not like this is so important , but it sounds like it's you who should educate yourself, in basics of bitcoin functionality. Without access to a full block chain, no *full* operation of a client which includes checking transactions, checking for orphan blocks and such is possible. It's not needed for signing your own transactions though, ie, for *some* participation.

@Jordan

everyone here sees your point even if they might not agree.  thanks for putting up a good thread and welcome to the community.