Bitcoin Forum

It is a freakishly hot May afternoon when Cameron Winklevoss decides to quench his thirst with a tall cold-brewed coffee from Starbucks, and “just a little bit of cream, to round it off,” as he says.

The temperature has shot up 20 degrees since the day before and is 20 degrees hotter than it will be the day after, too. With his twin brother, Tyler, and a small entourage in tow, the 6-foot-5 Cameron abruptly stands up from a proportionately giant boardroom table at the swanky New York offices of Gemini, the brothers’ cryptocurrency exchange, and makes for the glass door in the glass wall that encloses the immaculately shiny room.

During a brisk two-minute walk through the hip Gramercy Park neighborhood, Cameron passes two gyms before entering a Starbucks on the corner of Park Avenue South and 23rd Street, in the same building as the IMG modeling agency that represents Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot and the SPIN Ping-Pong lounge owned by actress Susan Sarandon.

Moving quickly past the chilled glass case holding cookie dough cake pops dipped in melted milk chocolate and doughnut cake pops in strawberry frosting topped with giant rainbow sprinkles, he approaches a counter where an infrared Honeywell scanner sits sandwiched between bunches of ripe bananas and Starbucks-branded sugar-free chewing gum.

As the song “Work” by Rhianna blares through the coffee shop’s speakers, Cameron orders the small cold-brew coffee he’d been craving and takes out his phone. He brings up the beta version of a new app called Spedn, built by little-known payments startup Flexa and waives a QR code in front of the Honeywell scanner, paying for the drink with a cryptocurrency he and his brother invented that’s powered by the ethereum blockchain.

In some corners of the world, what has just happened would be considered historic. He turns around like a proud father and smiles. “We're finally realizing the promise of crypto in payments,” says Cameron. “It's taken a long time, but as you've seen for yourself, we're here. It's a total win for the merchants. That transaction was effectively free.”

The problem is, Starbucks, along with every single one of a huge group of giant enterprises now accepting cryptocurrency as payment, seems to be having trouble admitting what they’re doing. As a photograph of the receipt for the transaction was taken, one member of the Winklevoss entourage recommended that Cameron cover up the Starbucks logo with his thumb. “They’re not participating in the first announcement,” she reminded Cameron.

In the days that followed, neither Gemini, which is custodying the cryptocurrency, nor Flexa, the company that built the app and signed up the enterprises participating in today’s launch, were able to get any of their own clients to confirm via email, yet alone talk on the record. Nevertheless, all evidence points to the fact that as of today, some of the largest and best-known companies in the world are now accepting bitcoin, ether, litecoin, bitcoin cash, zcash and the Gemini Dollar (GUSD), a cryptocurrency backed by real U.S. dollars stored in a State Street account and built on top of the public ethereum blockchain.

Receipts provided to Forbes from a few of the hundreds of beta app testers confirmed that crypto purchases were made at Game Stop, Bed Bath & Beyond and Whole Foods. Emails from Barnes & Noble, Office Depot and Nordstrom were also provided by Flexa to confirm the stores' participation in the project. In total, 89% of the beta users spent cryptocurrency at at least one of the locations announced today, according to Flexa data, with 81% of those spending multiple times at more than one location.

Companies now officially accepting these cryptocurrencies, according to Flexa, are Barnes & Noble, Baskin Robbins, Bed Bath & Beyond, Caribou Coffee, Crate & Barrel, Express, GameStop, Jamba Juice, Lowe’s, Nordstrom, Office Depot & OfficeMax, Petco, Regal Cinemas, Ulta Beauty and Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market. And of course, there's Starbucks, in spite of not being part of the official launch. In total, nearly 100 stores are expected to start accepting bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies via the Spedn app by the end of this year.

“The crypto industry has historically overpromised and underdelivered,” says Gemini CEO Tyler Winklevoss, 37. “And this is one of the first times we're actually delivering on the spend use case of using your crypto.”

To be perfectly clear, this is a big, big deal. For an industry born in anonymity and mystery, grown by crypto-anarchists, and tested in the fires of black markets in the dark corners of the deep Web, this is the beginning of a new phase of mainstream acceptance. But also to be clear, none of the companies have independently confirmed they are accepting cryptocurrency.

In spite of Cameron’s purchase, Starbucks, the only company that responded to our requests, claimed they are not working with Gemini or Flexa. One possible reason is that in August 2018, Starbucks announced it was a founding partner of a competing cryptocurrency exchange, Bakkt, and would help the New York Stock Exchange spin off convert digital assets into U.S. dollars for acceptance as payment at their stores.

So how is Flexa already letting Cameron Winklevoss pay for that Starbucks coffee with crypto, and how are the 15 other enterprises also doing so? First, users need to download the app from Apple’s App store, then send it their asset of choice from any cryptocurrency wallet. While Gemini custodies the crypto funds, Spedn takes care of the payment itself by generating a one-time QR code on the phone’s screen, which is scanned by the participating store’s existing scanner, debiting the amount charged from the customer’s account. While the customer gets a receipt showing the purchase as a gift card, Spedn settles the payment with the merchant in the preferred currency at a later date.

There are two main reasons why these merchants might want to use a product like Flexa, according to its CEO, Tyler Spalding, or competitors such as BitPay, Coinbase, or Circle Pay, the last two of which also have their own stable coin, called USD Coin (USDC). The first is that because cryptocurrency transactions are permanent, they give Spedn the certainty it needs to decline requests that funds be returned, a process called chargebacks. Consulting firm Javelin Strategy estimates that chargebacks cost merchants $31 billion in 2017. “We have a verified, irreversible payment,” says Spalding, 39. “Which is not possible using any other current method.”

Spalding, a former NASA researcher and a director at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, says the second benefit to merchants is that it only costs his company about four cents to “process any payment of any size.” With average interchange fees in 2017 ranging between $0.22 and $0.52 depending on the transaction value and the percent fee, according to U.S. Federal Reserve bank data, there’s plenty of room to negotiate and still turn a profit. For larger transactions, the profit for Flexa could be massive, and so could the savings for merchants. “Whatever they're paying now, we want to go lower than that,” says Spalding. To give an idea of what’s at stake, $5.93 trillion in traditional credit card payments resulted in $88.39 billion in fees in the U.S. alone, according to a 2017 Nilson report.

Spalding was first inspired to bitcoin payments as a result of Game Seven of the 2016 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and his beloved Chicago Cubs. It had been 106 years since the Cubs had won a World Series, and as 40 million viewers tuned in to watch the game on television, tickets to the game were selling for as much as $50,000 a pair, with worries over fraud rampant. A lifelong Cubs fan who grew up in Chicago, Spalding and his wife flew, to Cleveland to watch the season-clinching historic game.

At the time, Spalding was the chief technical officer of gift card startup Raise, and was already familiar with alternative means of payment. So when he found a season ticket holder willing to sell him two tickets for $10,000 worth of bitcoin, he wasn’t surprised, and jumped at the chance. “This was a very high-value, very risky transaction, and this person is saying, ‘No. No. I want crypto,’” says Spalding. “It was perfect.” A Chicago Cubs victory and two years later, he co-founded Flexa.

Spedn is the first app powered by the Flexa Network, an ethereum-based payments network similar to Visa or Mastercard, but for spending cryptocurrency. To build on the network, Spedn and others are required to lock up its native flexacoin cryptocurrency as collateral. “The apps need to pledge within the network to allow their apps to spend,” says Spalding.

In addition to giving builders access to the network, the token was sold to Pantera Capital and others to raise $14.1 million in a private initial coin offering (ICO) to pay for development and compensate the founders, among other uses. About 15% of the total coins in existence were sold during an ICO, which valued the company at about $80 million at the time. Over the week before today’s announcement, the price of a flexacoin actually dropped 30% to $0.0053, according to price site CoinGecko, but over the past 30 days it increased 108%.

While today’s crop of giant, well-known companies accepting the Spedn app is certainly the largest, highest-profile group to ever accept cryptocurrency, they are not the first. In fact, this is really the latest in a second wave of companies to do so. Early in the history of bitcoin a number of high-profile companies including CheapAir, Microsoft, Overstock.com, Reddit, and Expedia started accepting cryptocurrency. Venture-backed OpenBazaar is an online market that lets its vendors accept a wide-range of cryptocurrencies as payment for goods.

But in 2018, as the price of bitcoin collapsed from $19,000 to $5,000 Expedia, Reddit and a flurry of other companies stopped accepting the cryptocurrency, citing lack of interest due to price volatility. The mantra of the time was "hodl," a misspelling of the word "hold," meaning not to sell or spend cryptocurrency. The app's name, Spedn, derived from "spend," is a play on this mantra.

One big difference between the first generation of companies accepting cryptocurrency and those announced today is the relatively recent invention of stable coins like the Gemini Dollar and USD Coin, which give users the benefits of crypto without the risk of fluctuating prices. “Our dream one day is to allow any coin to be spent at any merchant,” says Flexa cofounder Trevor Filter, 29. “Not just in the U.S. but across the entire world.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2019/05/13/starbucks-nordstrom-and-whole-foods-now-accept-bitcoin-just-dont-ask-them/

all evidence points to the fact that as of today, some of the largest and best-known companies in the world are now accepting bitcoin, ether, litecoin, bitcoin cash, zcash and the Gemini Dollar (GUSD), a cryptocurrency backed by real U.S. dollars stored in a State Street account and built on top of the public ethereum blockchain.

Companies now officially accepting these cryptocurrencies, according to Flexa, are Barnes & Noble, Baskin Robbins, Bed Bath & Beyond, Caribou Coffee, Crate & Barrel, Express, GameStop, Jamba Juice, Lowe’s, Nordstrom, Office Depot & OfficeMax, Petco, Regal Cinemas, Ulta Beauty and Amazon-owned Whole Foods Market. And of course, there's Starbucks, in spite of not being part of the official launch. In total, nearly 100 stores are expected to start accepting bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies via the Spedn app by the end of this year.

Summary:


This could explain bitcoin's recent price spike.

For anyone who remembers discussions from years ago about bitcoin going mainstream: bitcoin reaching a critical point of mass adoption to where you could literally purchase a cup of coffee with it. That day may finally have arrived. History is being made! This has to be one of the biggest and least covered events to ever occur in the history of crypto currencies.

One big question here is what the media and pro establishment response will be, if any. There have been numerous news reports of mcdonalds and other retail giants rolling out their own payment processor systems based around cell phone technology. In mcdonald's case, their implementation was reported to be significantly flawed with many having their money stolen and accounts breached. Crypto currency based payment systems associated with cell phones could be poised to provide a stable and functional merchant platform in an era where such technology is in desperate need.

It's just an indication that most establishments as adopting and accepting Bitcoin. Mass adoption is on its way and I guess it would bring a big impact on the price of bitcoin.

I can't imagine buying a coffee from Starbucks and pay it with bitcoin. Life is more convenient now because of cryptocurrency.

There are multiple reasons for bitcoin's price spike, and yes, more retailers accepting bitcoin is highly bullish. This is contingent on the infrastructure of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies continually being improved. It seems institutional buying and bear fatigue are underlying this bull market.

One big question here is what the media and pro establishment response will be, if any.

If it is true it is really a very good news because these are the big Industries accept Bitcoin normally payment then they will be definitely possible to get the future to the people get paid with Bitcoin easily.

Buying the Bucks
Through Gemini and Flexa users can essentially buy coffee with Bitcoin as easy as using any fiat currency by flashing their smartphone with an Apple Pay-like app.

The payment works via Flexa’s Spend mobile app. Once you install the app on your smartphone, you the proceed to send some crypto to your wallet. The app supports a number of cryptos including the obvious ones like, Bitcoin and Ethereum. It also supports Zcash, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and the exchange’s native dollar-pegged stablecoin, the Gemini Dollar.

Spedn is the first app powered by the Flexa Network, an ethereum-based payments network similar to Visa or Mastercard, but for spending cryptocurrency. To build on the network, Spedn and others are required to lock up its native flexacoin cryptocurrency as collateral. “The apps need to pledge within the network to allow their apps to spend,” says Spalding.

This could explain bitcoin's recent price spike.

For anyone who remembers discussions from years ago about bitcoin going mainstream: bitcoin reaching a critical point of mass adoption to where you could literally purchase a cup of coffee with it. That day may finally have arrived. History is being made! This has to be one of the biggest and least covered events to ever occur in the history of crypto currencies.

The problem is, Starbucks, along with every single one of a huge group of giant enterprises now accepting cryptocurrency as payment, seems to be having trouble admitting what they’re doing. As a photograph of the receipt for the transaction was taken, one member of the Winklevoss entourage recommended that Cameron cover up the Starbucks logo with his thumb. “They’re not participating in the first announcement,” she reminded Cameron.

In the days that followed, neither Gemini, which is custodying the cryptocurrency, nor Flexa, the company that built the app and signed up the enterprises participating in today’s launch, were able to get any of their own clients to confirm via email, yet alone talk on the record.

If there's a major btc price crash,all those big brands will start cancelling bitcoin payments with the speed of light.

Now we have the reason of the price spike on crypto ,
It is a great news for us who are waiting for crypto currency to be recognize and be able to use it as a regular currency.
This is why we have new investors in crypto because of this great news .

What i think is , the only reason it was successful was because of Lightning network.

It actually enabled payments to be made in an instant and also , it's like Making payments with a credit or a debit card therefore it is actually very convenient and at the same time more and more wallets are now integrating it with their software.

I just hope more security would be added in the network.

This can be the reason of the recent pump but a news like this deserve a more expensive bitcoin. Starbucks is a great company, i do love their coffee and I hope they will implement it on all their branches around the world. A new investors can influence the market, and we can see a more expensive bitcoin.

This can be the reason of the recent pump but a news like this deserve a more expensive bitcoin. Starbucks is a great company, i do love their coffee and I hope they will implement it on all their branches around the world. A new investors can influence the market, and we can see a more expensive bitcoin.

If there's a major btc price crash,all those big brands will start cancelling bitcoin payments with the speed of light.

Just went to the Starbucks just around the block and the store manager didn't know about such news just yet, and perhaps only the higher-ups of the said company know about this and the information is yet to be disseminated. This might help me with my caffeine addiction and to uae my bitcoins finally on something sensible for me. I just hope that they don't pull the silent takedown of crypto payments once bitcoin again find its way towards the 'dying' part of this pump.

What makes you think they care about the price? Has any company said they'll actually be holding onto coins, like Overstock? I assume most (or all) of them will be settling to fiat through Gemini.

I'm impressed Gemini can support this. These are huge retail chains. Gemini's books aren't very deep....but I guess they have access to OTC liquidity too.

more giant retailers accept bitcoin , mass adoption will happen.it will create new demand for bitcoin from these retailers consumer.for them using bitcoin as payment give 2 advantages.as investment platform and also give them effectiveness so they no need to bring money in huge amount.

If there's a major btc price crash,all those big brands will start cancelling bitcoin payments with the speed of light.Yeah,we all know that such news spread optimism across the crypto world,but I know how manipulative those compnanies are ,in terms of marketing and PR.

Well, I think it is the other way around because I still remember when Steam cancelled payments on btc because of the expensive fees when making a very small purchase of games. I know it was around $20k and they realized it was not feasible for their digital market. I wish those that are mentioned above hopefully don't do the same.

I think this has a lot to do with prices. they accept cryptocurrency payments, of course, considering price fluctuations. and I thought it happened because they believed that crypto would be used as a currency, on the other hand it was good for crypto development

With Flexa, merchants (i) get significantly less expensive and fraud-resistant transactions, (ii) can use the same payment hardware they currently use, and (iii) receive payment in fiat currency, not crypto. We believe that not only will this result in cost-savings to the merchant, but to the consumer in the long-term as well.

Good news, the adoption is getting better, we will surely hear more good news this year as giant company are starting to adopt in crypto.
This bullish trend will be well supported with big good news, it will not dump anymore.

I am not sure if this is the type of adoption we exactly want or we should not want at all. Now, according to the new app we can spend the crypto currency of our choosing wherever we want and the payment goes to them in fiat currency which means we basically purchased whatever we wanted for crypto but at the same time the shop we just purchased stuff from didn't realize that and has no consent over it at all since they are literally getting fiat like they want to. It means maybe this is the way all crypto adoption will go and everyone will be capable of getting that sort of payments available to them without asking permission from the shop owners or maybe shop owners will start to say this sort of payment is not allowed? Time will tell but it will be either huge or will be banned.

One big question here is what the media and pro establishment response will be, if any. There have been numerous news reports of mcdonalds and other retail giants rolling out their own payment processor systems based around cell phone technology. In mcdonald's case, their implementation was reported to be significantly flawed with many having their money stolen and accounts breached. Crypto currency based payment systems associated with cell phones could be poised to provide a stable and functional merchant platform in an era where such technology is in desperate need.

I wouldn't have tested out that McDonalds' system, sucks to lose money. I use an exchange to pay my bills right off my phone, never once did I had a problem.

I don't know if I missed it in the article but is Starbucks planning to accept bitcoin directly? Or are they making some sort of system where you can top up the account with bitcoin and then use that to pay for the purchase (sort of like what large exchanges do)?

maybe for the first time they will provide payment with bitcoin, and possibly after that it leads to a complex system. but at least with this news, it makes trust in bitcoin by big companies

A huge company like starbucks can result to a more companies to adopt bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, as the market is getting better they are also preparing to join the market so they can have other source of income. Accepting cryptocurrency is not that easy but they are doing their best to make this possible, kudos to those companies.

I am not sure if this is the type of adoption we exactly want or we should not want at all. Now, according to the new app we can spend the crypto currency of our choosing wherever we want and the payment goes to them in fiat currency which means we basically purchased whatever we wanted for crypto but at the same time the shop we just purchased stuff from didn't realize that and has no consent over it at all since they are literally getting fiat like they want to. It means maybe this is the way all crypto adoption will go and everyone will be capable of getting that sort of payments available to them without asking permission from the shop owners or maybe shop owners will start to say this sort of payment is not allowed? Time will tell but it will be either huge or will be banned.

Bitcoin Comes to Whole Foods, Major Retailers in Coup for Digital Currency

Since its arrival ten years ago, cryptocurrency has struggled to enter mainstream commerce. This could soon change thanks to a new initiative, announced on Monday, that will reportedly see big name retailers—including Crate and Barrel, Nordstrom, and Amazon-owned Whole Foods—now accept Bitcoin and three other types of digital money.

The retail initiative comes via a partnership between Flexa, a payments startup, and Gemini, the Winklevoss-owned digital currency company. It works by piggy-backing on the digital scanners that many big retailers use to accept phone-based payments from their apps and from digital wallets like Apple Pay.

What Flexa has done is persuade the retailers—which also include Regal Cinemas, Gamestop and Baskin Robbins—to configure their scanners to recognize payments from its cryptocurrency app, which is called Spedn. The customer simply holds up their app to pay. The store cashier will typically be unaware the customer is paying with crypto, while the merchant receives a real-time payment in the form of their choosing (crypto or dollars).

I was initially skeptical. While the Winklevoss twins enjoy credibility in the Bitcoin realm, merchants have by and large shunned cryptocurrency because of its volatility and its popularity with cybercriminals.

The app, however, appears to work as advertised. This weekend, I tried it by downloading a test version of Spedn, and transferring $10 worth of Bitcoin to it. Next, I went to a Baskin Robbins in my neighborhood and bought a small coffee by scanning the app. It worked. Next, I went to a Starbucks (another partner in the project but an unofficial one) and bought a banana. That worked too. In each case, the app adjusted the amount Bitcoin in my wallet.

The first widespread, low-friction opportunity for consumers to shop with cryptocurrency, this is potentially a big deal. The Spedn app lets users spend four types of crypto: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum and a so-called stablecoin called a Gemini Dollar, which is pegged to the value of one U.S. dollar and backed by banking giant State Street.

This Time It’s Different?
Over the years, some merchants have tried accepting Bitcoin, but many eventually abandoned it, in part because of slow processing times on cryptocurrency networks. Meanwhile, for consumers, using cryptocurrency as an everyday payment mechanism has proved impractical because of crypto’s volatility—a wallet with $100 worth of Bitcoin at the start of the week may only be worth $80 by week’s end.

But this time around, merchants may be more comfortable offering crypto payment because the scanner system provides an easy way to accept them, and because Flexa offers a real-time network to clear the transactions. (Gemini takes care of the backend operations, and the merchant typically receives the cash equivalent of whatever crypto amount the consumer paid).

According to Flexa CEO, Tyler Spalding, the appeal for merchants is a chance to lower the commission fees they pay to existing payment networks. Spalding, who is a veteran of the gift card exchange service Raise, added that crypto payments also offer stores a way to experiment with new types of blockchain-based customer rewards.

Fortune contacted six of the retailers participating in the Flexa service, including Whole Foods, and none of them provided a comment. According to a person familiar with the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the reason for the silence is because the crypto payments are still an experiment, and retailers don’t want to discuss them until they gain a better understanding of the technology and consumer demand.

On the consumer side, the Flexa system opens the door to an easy way to spend crypto at stores around town. This doesn’t mean, though, that more than a handful of people will actually do this—especially given that other payment methods work perfectly well.

But there is also the volatility issue. The value of the Bitcoin in my Spedn app has jumped around about 5% today alone, which is fine for an investment but not for a day-to-day payment tool.

According to the Winklevoss twins, the volatility problem can be mitigated by using the Gemini Dollar, which is pegged to keep its value very close to $1 U.S. In an interview with Fortune, they predicted Flexa’s ease-of-use combined with the stability of the Gemini Dollar will lead to more widespread use—especially among the growing number of people who appreciate the technology behind cryptocurrency.

“The idea of living on crypto is now a reality. You can now do it,” said Tyler Winklevoss. “For the consumer, it amounts to being crypto conscious. It’s like being green.”

Meanwhile, Flexa’s Spalding told Fortune the company will provide developer kits to other companies that want to incorporate the scanner payment technology into their own apps.

For now, it’s too soon to say if the big name merchants who signed on this week—other names include Petco, Lowe’s and Office Depot—will still be taking the payments this time next year. But, given the history of crypto payments, this week’s announcement feels like a breakthrough.

Update: Flexa has pulled Starbucks from its list of merchants in the demo app, notwithstanding this recent picture of the Winklevoss twins appearing to use it in store.

http://fortune.com/2019/05/13/bitcoin-comes-to-whole-foods-major-retailers-in-coup-for-digital-currency/

Meanwhile, for consumers, using cryptocurrency as an everyday payment mechanism has proved impractical because of crypto’s volatility—a wallet with $100 worth of Bitcoin at the start of the week may only be worth $80 by week’s end

I wouldn't have tested out that McDonalds' system, sucks to lose money. I use an exchange to pay my bills right off my phone, never once did I had a problem.

I don't know if I missed it in the article but is Starbucks planning to accept bitcoin directly? Or are they making some sort of system where you can top up the account with bitcoin and then use that to pay for the purchase (sort of like what large exchanges do)?

I am not sure if this is the type of adoption we exactly want or we should not want at all. Now, according to the new app we can spend the crypto currency of our choosing wherever we want and the payment goes to them in fiat currency which means we basically purchased whatever we wanted for crypto but at the same time the shop we just purchased stuff from didn't realize that and has no consent over it at all since they are literally getting fiat like they want to. It means maybe this is the way all crypto adoption will go and everyone will be capable of getting that sort of payments available to them without asking permission from the shop owners or maybe shop owners will start to say this sort of payment is not allowed? Time will tell but it will be either huge or will be banned.

It's really a good news because they are also trying to accept the Bitcoin for the future because they already know the value of Bitcoin in the future so if they are accepting it right now then they had the huge chance to get their profit mostly to be a good value in their future that's why it is acceptable.

The Flexa Network Protocol works as an intermediary for each payment. It pays the merchant in cash and then goes through the slower process of taking payment from your cryptocurrency wallet.

A huge company like starbucks can result to a more companies to adopt bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, as the market is getting better they are also preparing to join the market so they can have other source of income. Accepting cryptocurrency is not that easy but they are doing their best to make this possible, kudos to those companies.

I have long heard the news that Starbucks Accept Bitcoin is not new news and in my opinion this is not too much effect on the development of the price of bitcoin and other altcoins.

At least those big establishments or merchants are now accepting crypto,
Soon even the small business would follow them and it would only tale some time before every business or merchants accept it.
Now it is going to be used as a regular currency for payment.

One big question here is what the media and pro establishment response will be, if any. There have been numerous news reports of mcdonalds and other retail giants rolling out their own payment processor systems based around cell phone technology. In mcdonald's case, their implementation was reported to be significantly flawed with many having their money stolen and accounts breached. Crypto currency based payment systems associated with cell phones could be poised to provide a stable and functional merchant platform in an era where such technology is in desperate need.

I have long heard the news that Starbucks Accept Bitcoin is not new news and in my opinion this is not too much effect on the development of the price of bitcoin and other altcoins.

Those times when you have heard about starbucks accepting bitcoin, they have denied it and told to the media that they weren't accepting payments in bitcoin.

Like what's written on these articles:

Sorry, But Starbucks Will Not Be Accepting Bitcoin (https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43pq8p/starbucks-will-not-be-accepting-bitcoin)
Starbucks would like to clarify that it is not accepting bitcoin (https://qz.com/1348825/starbucks-is-not-accepting-bitcoin-but-it-is-getting-into-crypto/)

But now it's a reality that we can now spend bitcoin on Starbucks through Gemini and Flexa's help.

Yes, I saw some news regarding a Toronto man losing like $2k using Mcdonald's app. But the main point is that this technology is still very young. Lots of growing up pains, just like we witnessed in couple of days. So I would say give at least 2 years for some adjustments to be made here. On the bright side, if no one will take this steps, then we will not know what will be the effect, so there will be lots of "if's", at least we have the answers now.

very good news, the growing crypto growth we see the future of crypto, if all the big companies have received crypto, of course there will be lots of people investing and using crypto

Don't say this is good news if we don't know the truth, first make sure whether this news is really real or just bullshit. of course if that really happens surely the price of the coin will soar because this is good news and now coin coins are only up a few percent.

There are also rumors about Ebay considering accepting bitcoin, and as someone who uses it all the time i think that might be actual the spark that will ignite the bitcoin's rocket, and i think that these rumors have a part in the recent price increase and if gets confirmed i think we might actually see bitcoin go to very high values, if eBay accept it and it succeed bitcoin becoming a main stream will just be a matter of time until other major companies do as well.

Huge news for me, it`s good because BTC will gain more exposure and in a good way, these are trusted companies and tends to have BTC gain more trust of people in general
Great brands is a good way to gain publicity, and I hope people use coins to pay to make it worth

Not on our country yet, but once Starbucks here accepted Bitcoin people will notice cashless order and Bitcoin will become a talk of town until every news will cover how Bitcoin works.

Not on our country yet, but once Starbucks here accepted Bitcoin people will notice cashless order and Bitcoin will become a talk of town until every news will cover how Bitcoin works.

I don't think it is effective in my country. because there are not many bitcoiners in my country. there are still many who trade using cash, and the krypto currency is not widely known, unless the government immediately legalizes it

thanks for enlightenment, means to spend it we use escrow, third parties. and do not directly pay to Starbuck. even so at least more and more companies are familiar with bitcoin, even though I haven't used it yet

Can someone DL this app and try it? I'm not an iPhone user.

Does it allow spending bitcoin outside of their affiliated stores? It would suck if I HAD to spend my bitcoin on Starbucks.

How much are the fees, and how are they structured? Do I pay to deposit or withdraw or spend, etc. ?

Maybe this isn't what Bitcoin purists have wanted, because those apps are just intermediaries, similar to Bitpay, but this is the Bitcoin adoption that we have today, and if people will be using it, maybe eventually they'll switch to Lightning and direct Bitcoin transactions without any middlemen, just like Satoshi wanted.

Not on our country yet, but once Starbucks here accepted Bitcoin people will notice cashless order and Bitcoin will become a talk of town until every news will cover how Bitcoin works.

Not on our country yet, but once Starbucks here accepted Bitcoin people will notice cashless order and Bitcoin will become a talk of town until every news will cover how Bitcoin works.

This will make bitcoin price more stable but still tend to rise. I think people enthusiast to use bitcoin at starbucks will be big so it can be very big help to spread word about bitcoin. I personally want to feel the sensation to use btc at starbucks, it seems that it would be great. But this is the time to hold bitcoin, so it seems that I will not spend my bitcoin now.

This is one problem with some of you guys here, you're always looking for something to tag as reason for the spike. If you don't know anything about the spike, it's better for you not to talk about it and as long as I'm concerned, this has nothing to do with the recent spike. The price went up and no body knows why that happened! So anybody that is coming now to claim whatsoever is a big lie. And in case you don't know, these companies are not accepting crypto because they are interested in it, rather it's just a tactics to boost their business and make those who likes crypto to keep on patronizing them. Once they receive your payment they convert it to dollars with the hello of the app you have mentioned.

You can delay the inevitable, but you can't stop. Big companies like Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and Starbucks decided to join the revolution this year to adapt to the blockchain. In terms of use in daily life in the coming years, cryptocurrency will no longer be the difference

You can delay the inevitable, but you can't stop. Big companies like Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and Starbucks decided to join the revolution this year to adapt to the blockchain. In terms of use in daily life in the coming years, cryptocurrency will no longer be the difference

This is huge news, this year had been great due to development and mass adaptation news. A lot of big and well-known companies are starting to accept cryptocurrency as payment. This will further push mass adaptation and it's also a good start for other companies to start upgrading their payment system by adapting crypto as an alternative payment.

This is huge news, this year had been great due to development and mass adaptation news. A lot of big and well-known companies are starting to accept cryptocurrency as payment. This will further push mass adaptation and it's also a good start for other companies to start upgrading their payment system by adapting crypto as an alternative payment.

That is a great news, this news can attract to people to convincing invest in bitcoin. I think this a way that btc will become well-known and the popularity will spread to people. We just hoping that soon, mostly other businesses also are willing to accept bitcoin.

Yes, the greatest plus here is not the possibility to buy coffee in Starbucks for cryptocurrency now, but the confidence that such popular companies believe in the future of Bitcoin. Now, more people will invest in it.

They are giants in the business industry, therefore their effect is big, but I am not sure about amazon, do you have a source to verify that amazon is into crypto?

Maybe you guys should read the whole news first? Starbucks is not accepting bitcoin, people just found a way to pay starbucks with bitcoin while starbucks is getting fiat, the middleman there is making sure to take your bitcoin and pay starbucks fiat and keep the change that is it.

Yes, the greatest plus here is not the possibility to buy coffee in Starbucks for cryptocurrency now, but the confidence that such popular companies believe in the future of Bitcoin. Now, more people will invest in it.

This is huge news, this year had been great due to development and mass adaptation news. A lot of big and well-known companies are starting to accept cryptocurrency as payment. This will further push mass adaptation and it's also a good start for other companies to start upgrading their payment system by adapting crypto as an alternative payment.

This is a good news, when people starts to know that these companies are now accepting cryptocurrency for payment, they might be interested in trying it out. But the problem as that cryptocurrency is volatile so not everyone is really interested in it, no one can just get a crypto wallet and store their money in it cause they are going to lose it unless it's for the purpose of investment and they are sure that they are ready to take the risk involved in it, which is either losing your money or making profit. PayPal is another big competition, cause no one is going to use Bitcoin as long there is PayPal given there as an option

with the growing number of large companies who want to trust bitcoin, of course it will have an effect on other companies and the public, especially those who are starbuck consumers. so the spread of bitcoin will be faster

This is a good news, when people starts to know that these companies are now accepting cryptocurrency for payment, they might be interested in trying it out. But the problem as that cryptocurrency is volatile so not everyone is really interested in it, no one can just get a crypto wallet and store their money in it cause they are going to lose it unless it's for the purpose of investment and they are sure that they are ready to take the risk involved in it, which is either losing your money or making profit. PayPal is another big competition, cause no one is going to use Bitcoin as long there is PayPal given there as an option

You can see a list of stores here (https://dailyhodl.com/2019/05/14/crypto-milestone-30476-mainstream-stores-to-accept-bitcoin-btc-bitcoin-cash-bch-and-ethereum-eth/). No user fees. I believe Flexa is just integrating their payment network with existing POS machines, those that already enable you to use your phone to tap and pay. The problem is the Spedn app is iPhone only now, not Android and according to Flexa TOS (https://flexa.network/legal/terms) any user can only use the app to buy $100 of merchandise per week. That is better than nothing but pretty limited. Hopefully they will raise the limits once the program matures.

That's true it's really good to every one to know this kind of news because it means many companies are appreciate the cryptocurrency and also bitcoin, maybe they know the benefit of it and the out come to the people.

Thank you for your response! I had a friend download and install the app for a look. I didn't mess with it much, but I could not find a way to load the wallet with BTC. I assume it can send and receive? It would suck if I had to buy exclusively from them.

The way I understand it, it works with what you have sitting in your Gemini account. The POS terminal will present you a QR code to scan, where in the background the converting happens by Gemini according to the paid amount.

according to Flexa TOS (https://flexa.network/legal/terms) any user can only use the app to buy $100 of merchandise per week

From what I have read, there is no way to send or receive Bitcoin at all.

The way I understand it, it works with what you have sitting in your Gemini account. The POS terminal will present you a QR code to scan, where in the background the converting happens by Gemini according to the paid amount.

This means that you don't have to ask to pay in Bitcoin, and the merchant you are purchasing an item from won't ever find out that Gemini converted Bitcoin for you in the background. They receive fiat as with any other payment.