Announcing the Bitcoin Kiez rollout

[giszmo]

The new merchants all installed the Satoshi client on their laptops.

Make sure the clients are configured for outgoing communications only ( -nolisten ).  This is because knowing the IP address of the node, it becomes not terribly hard to perform a race attack to double spend.  And the way the Bitcioin.org client functions, the merchant might not even notice ... the transaction would just disappear as if it had never been made.

It might even be seen as a challenge by someone to be the first to pull off a race attack double spend against a bricks and mortar merchant.  If configured with -nolisten (and optionally, an outgoing connection made explicitly to a well-connected node), then the chance of a race attack succeeding is much much lower, to where the profit on the sale is likely orders of magnitude greater than any losses due to a race attack double spend.

Gnah, race attacks. I don't want to say they are not an issue at all but in this case I would say: "Please don't spread fud."

If people do this in a burgers place, they are known to the waiter and highly risk to get caught. If it actually happens in the wild, this will be good for the burger place, too as it's news and news is worth more than a burger's worth lost.

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[sethsethseth]

The map of Real World Shops is filling in nicely in America and Europe.  Great job guys.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops

[giszmo]

The map of Real World Shops is filling in nicely in America and Europe.  Great job guys.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops

Unfortunately it's also being spammed by non-real-world shops aka every shop is a real world shop. Guess somebody will have to play wiki-nazi at some point. For now I will suggest some rules.

[sethsethseth]

The map of Real World Shops is filling in nicely in America and Europe.  Great job guys.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Real_world_shops

Unfortunately it's also being spammed by non-real-world shops aka every shop is a real world shop. Guess somebody will have to play wiki-nazi at some point. For now I will suggest some rules.

I don't see much of that happening except for a couple in south america where there are only four listings anyway.  If a marker for an internet shop is actually blocking a marker for a real world shop, then remove it.

[yossarian]

This week, tour guide Heidi Leyton started to accept Bitcoin.

Heidi offers a wide variety of ways to explore Berlin. Whether it's a tour to the remains of the wall, an insight to the Jewish Berlin or a walk through Kreuzberg, where the Bitcoin Kiez is located: Heidi will make it interesting and worthwile.

More info on her website, http://heidileyton.com

If you want to make arrangements for YOUR tour, you can contact Heidi through her website, http://heidileyton.com/?page_id=21 or reach her via info@HeidiLeyton.com

[phelix]

so you can only link a customer to a payment via the paid amount?

Yes.

Only the EUR value of the purchase goes into the books.

Alternatively one can book the BTC onto one account and declare the value of that ballance according to the exchange rate at the time of the tax declaration. This makes more sense when one starts to also pay for business expenses in BTC.

We will upgrade the wallets of the bars / restaurants with nfc chips so the waiters can just walk up to a table, tell the amount to be paid, transmit the address and once they walked back behind the bar they can already check if the payment is on the way. Unconfirmed transaction on the blockchain is enough.

Works fine.

Joe

Maybe it would make sense to automatically save the used conversion rate when receiving a Bitcoin payment? The schildbach client obviously knows the rate, so it could write it into a simple text file too.
I just imagined the horror when a tax guy sees your bitcoins in your tax declaration, and wants to know every single conversion rate for every of those 749 Bitcoin payments.. It probably wouldn't even be possible to find out the "24h mean exchange rate" from a month ago?

Ente

from how I understood they are booking via their normal system anyway and will handle all taxes there (receive bitcoin is like receive fiat cash).

Though I am sure this system works just fine and makes paying with bitcoin possible at almost no cost and effort:

What would be even nicer was to be able to do an integrated bitcoin order/buy. Maybe for the most often ordered items like beer, water, coke you could just put a print with a couple of (design) qr codes on each table such that the system knows what to bring to what table right after ordering/paying via the blockchain.

The question is how to smoothly insert this knowledge into the regular workflow? A little printer?

You could also put a qr code for tips and one to broadcast that the current order for the table is finished by sending a satoshi.

[yossarian]

Here's some more picture from Bitcoin Friday @ Bitcoin-Kiez in Berlin: http://imgur.com/a/6fzE3

[minimalB]

Hey!

@Berliners : )

I intend to visit Kreuzberg, is there any hostel or hotel or something that accepts Bitcoin?

Thanks!

[herzmeister]

Hey!

@Berliners : )

I intend to visit Kreuzberg, is there any hostel or hotel or something that accepts Bitcoin?

Thanks!

try http://www.9flats.com/

[Ente]

Hey!

@Berliners : )

I intend to visit Kreuzberg, is there any hostel or hotel or something that accepts Bitcoin?

Thanks!

..und natürlich auch http://www.lekkerurlaub.de/ direkt im Graefe/Bitcoinkiez! :-)

Ente

[wumpus]

Love to see this. Very cool

[jubalix]

do transactions go through fast enough to make this viable....?

[Akka]

do transactions go through fast enough to make this viable....?

Again someone confusing transactions with confirmations?

A transaction takes usually 1-2 Seconds.

Yes, this go trough fast enough.

[Mike Hearn]

Despite what you may read about the forum, unconfirmed transactions work plenty well enough for this sort of thing.

[Akka]

Despite what you may read about the forum, unconfirmed transactions work plenty well enough for this sort of thing.

Exactly. Trying to make a double spend in bar or a brick and mortar Shop is by far riskier than to just grab you item and make a run for it.

[bassclef]

Awesome guys.

[yossarian]

I know this has been posted in different threads already, but I have a feeling it belongs in here as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/26/bitcoins-gain-currency-in-berlin?INTCMP=SRCH

[minimalB]

Thanks herzmeister & Ente, excellent stuff!

[LiteBurner]

Didn't see if someone already posted this in the thread, but here's a link to the video about bitcoin in Kreuzberg: 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/video/2013/apr/26/bitcoin-currency-moves-offline-berlin-video

I'll be over for a long weekend this summer--I'll try to make that bitcoin night.

[TheButterZone]

Despite what you may read about the forum, unconfirmed transactions work plenty well enough for this sort of thing.

What if you send a 0-fee TX that doesn't exceed the priority threshold, so it will sit unconfirmed for days, but then you are able to double spend it back to another address of yours with a fee when you get back home?