It will never replace Fiat, most people don't want to be resposible for the security of their money. That's why banks exist, for ease and simplicity. Blockchain payments may facilitate inter-bank and inter-processor transactions on the back-end where slow transactions are not a problem, but will never be widely accepted for mass person to person payments.

Bitcoin will never be that back-end blockchain, a large scale financial system would most likely require coins that are created by the banks, transacted on the network and destroyed by the banks when the funds are withdrawn. It would be an alterntave to crediting a bank account, you provide a pubkey and the bank creates a start transaction signed by them containing the amount requested. When it's time to withdraw, you send it back to a bank and the network then marks that chain of transactions as expired and can't be used anymore.

Of course, the old inter-bank payment system still needs to exist behind this, so really it's pointless until the entire banking system moves away from old, slow, monolithic back-end accounting systems.

The Bank of England, Barclays and a few others are working on implementing a blockchain based alternative to the current and rather aging BACS and inter-bank exchange system. How far into public use it will spread, we can only speculate at the moment.

Bitcoin ATM's are completely different to Visa/Mastercard networks. EMV cards don't "synchronize", but rather use a semi-central network to direct requests to the organization that issued the card. Amex is different as they are the processor, network and end provider.

Bitcoin ATM's are often standalone machines only connected to the Bitcoin network. Some are part of a "network" of machines with an operator that shares the fees with whoever "hosts" the ATM. My (year or 2 from being available) machines are a hybrid with more features than anything currently available.

It's more one particular person who's posts nearly gave me a hernia trying to read them.

I think I need a fucking drink after trying to read this thread, and I don't drink.

Unless you need to use a wallet in your testing (apart from Core), use Regtest or a private testnet.

Whilst it is treated as a speculative tool, it will never become stable. Whilst tens of thousands per day are made from a high price, it will never be a feasable currency for small purchases, or larger ones really.

There is a solution but 99% of this forum would reject it, it would clash with the view that Bitcoin is a perfect currency and everyone should just use it.

You can't buy gold at a machine and be untracable, then send the gold anywhere in the world instantly.

Well, because it is. I can sell heroin, shove 100k into Bitcoin ATM's and send it anywhere instantly. Can't do that with gold, or anything else really.

Makes perfect sense. Give this new user your business idea and if it is liked, it is taken.

I'll still be developing my ATM software and back-end, doubt many on here will be interested in it though.

If blocks are twice the size, then they can hold twice as many transactions, ish. It wouldn't double the blockchain size though.

I've already proposed a similar system in the past, I even developed it to the point of being to make card payments in Bitcoin. I almost had it ready for demo at Coinfest 2016 and the general concensus (on here at least at the time) was that Bitcoin is fine as it is and there's little need for a faster confirmation time. I'm still developing for Bitcoin but my focus has moved onto a new payment system based on Ethereum tokens (and not another coin with an ICO to raise funds)

It was just an example, most people want their money to be easy and simple, and free. Don't get me wrong I've been following Bitcoin since it first appeared and have put time and money into developing projects around it. The issue is that even as someone who knows how it works and develops applications for it, I have no real interest in using it as a financial instrument. I considered investing 3 years ago, and I'd have made about £100,000 if I had, but the volitility was the big decider. I could have lost everything I put into it just as easily as making enough to buy a farm. Bitcoin is it's own currency and until it's possible to "piggyback" fiat on the network, it will likely remain a development tool and investment platform.

Testnet wallet uses the same GBP/BTC conversion rates as the mainnet wallet. Most people can't be arsed to check what the cost of a transaction will be when its easier, faster and free just to use a bank. Seems most people these days don't have the time of day to use punctuation, so expecting them to faff about checking what fee they should pay to send money for that mcdonalds they owe for is a big ask

As said, Bitcoin will never be the payment system of the future, the blockchain will but nothing that exists today.

Also, it's the Bitcoin wallet developers app I meant. I can't be arsed keeping track of who develops what, I gave up on Bitcoin a few years back.

Its what I just paid on a testnet transaction using the core devleopers android app, I made nothing up, just used the recommended fee. Yes the fee can be less, but realistically a low or zero fee transaction is unlikely to be included in a block if the network is busy. This was my point, so far it is just about making money for the miners and investors. What about if the price hits 60k? TX fees will be 20X what they are now.

Also I said about crypto being a payment system for the masses, not Bitcoin. Bitcoin will never make it but the technology behind it will, eventually.

Oh, thought it happened when you installed the SIM. May have been a system update, phones come with all sorts of crap pre-installed now as they get paid for it.

Cryptocurrencies as they are won't work in the real world, especially with the focus on investment and earning rather than making a usable transaction system. A £1.50 transaction (on testnet at least) ends up over £2 with network fees. The fees are fine if it's thousands but even then, it's free with the banking system. I can send a penny or £50,000 and neither cost me anything. Where is the incentive to use bitcoin when it costs more, takes longer to confirm payments, and if I snap another phone in half I've lost everything? Obviously if I actually used bitcoin then I'd have backups and multiple devices, but for most people that's just extra work when the system they know and use has none of these issues.

If crypto is going to become a viable transaction system for the masses, it needs to change and not be it's own "currency" that needs exchanging with massive price volitility.

In the desktop space at least, Intel have the most powerful processors available for now. For the same price however, AMD will get you more performance.

AMD made a bad decision with the FX series, so whilst AMD were trying to improve a flawed design, Intel were improving a superior design CPU. AMD may manage to overtake Intel again, but it would take a while.

Sounds normal to me, SIM cards contain config data for connecting to the network, setting up APN's, passwords etc. Makes sense for the povider to send you to their website to create an account etc.