Advantages of Bitcoin over traditional payment systems

[Teraboy]

I think this is so simple but a lot of perception is make this issues be a big problem, just back to the purpose of op "Are this for make the another people is interesting or not?" So we are no need to be a honest for telling them the disadvantages of bitcoin. For my personally made him be a curious person is better.

[Lauda]

1. It is anonymous

No. Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous.

2. Faster and cheaper

Correct.

3. It is deflatory

It's called "deflationary", and listing this as an advantage may result in heavy debate from some.

4. No/Low transaction cost

Zero free transactions are mostly a thing of the past, so that "no" isn't correct anymore.

5. It is divisible to 1billionth part

Not sure how this is an advantage. You could just as easily introduce smaller units for any currency if they're needed.

[eternalgloom]

You also should include the disadvantages, it doesn't seem honest just to show the good stuff, you should give a complete picture.

Yes there are several disadvantages as well and as well all know comparison = similarity + dissimilarity. On this note I would like to point out some relevant points regarding this matter:

1. Volatility of price of bitcoin is there which makes it a prime target for traders. Bad news for stores/shops
2. Payment Gateways integration is low for bitcoin with respect to fiat currency.
3. Payment Availability in bitcoin is also low. Not many people get paid in bitcoin for offering their service (I am talking in general which means outside this forum)
4. Acceptance and Popularity - bitcoin needs more acceptance throughout the world, that does not mean the US/UK - the rest of the world is also there.
5. Irreversibility of transaction - though I consider it as the least because it is a fault of the user to mis-click and not system. However we are all human and we tend to make mistakes.

Edit: I did remove one about which I am also not very confident as a disadvatage but is rather a misconception.

Lack of consumer protection, network congestion leading to huge confirmation times, and lack of scalability are the main disadvantages.

Also, I don't think it's fair to compare Bitcoin with a payment system as bitcoin is not suited to be used for shopping, specially online shopping.

Care to elaborate on that? I'd say it's perfectly suitable for online shopping, especially recently with relative low volatility.
Also, many retailers would disagree with you, since there are quite a few that have implemented Bitcoin payments and they've not removed it for years now.

The list of businesses accepting Bitcoin is growing, maybe not as fast as everybody would like, but slowly it's winning over even large corporations.

And for OP, having a list of places that accept Bitcoin, especially large retailers or service providers is always good to mention when you talk about the benefits of using Bitcoin. No point in talking about benefits to a regular person if you don't provide him with practical use cases.

[croutonhexagon]

Yes there is always advantage of using bitcoin for transaction because it doesn't have transaction charge. It's faster , secure and anonymous then traditional payment system. And yes we can do the transaction with ourself we don't need to cross those net banking system, no need to enter account number, ifc code and all those boring old system. So bitcoin transaction is best.

[pedrog]

Care to elaborate on that? I'd say it's perfectly suitable for online shopping, especially recently with relative low volatility.
Also, many retailers would disagree with you, since there are quite a few that have implemented Bitcoin payments and they've not removed it for years now.

The list of businesses accepting Bitcoin is growing, maybe not as fast as everybody would like, but slowly it's winning over even large corporations.

And for OP, having a list of places that accept Bitcoin, especially large retailers or service providers is always good to mention when you talk about the benefits of using Bitcoin. No point in talking about benefits to a regular person if you don't provide him with practical use cases.

Merchants will add bitcoin as a payment method because of the publicity it brings to their business, and to capitalize when bitcoin increases a lot in value and bitcoiners want to spend their new riches.

Bitcoin was not designed for online shopping like, for example, Paypal, bitcoin is slow and has no consumer protection, if you want to be scammed by strangers over the Internet you should shop with bitcoin.

Paypal was designed for ecommerce, it has buyer and seller protection, it's fast, and very easy to use.


By the way, it doesn't matter the merits of bitcoin as a currency, the same way it doesn't matter the merits of euro or dollar being used in Paypal, I'm speaking about payment systems to be used in online shopping.

[tyz]

Three advantages which are important to me.

1) It is global (as you stated in your opening post). There is no border or regulation limitation. You can send Bitcoins to every corner in the world within minutes. There is no other payment system that could deliver this.

2) It is cheap. Very less fees compared with other payment options. Especially to such ones like Western Union.

3) Every service could implement Bitcoin API within minutes. You do not need to ask anyone.

[mishra1994u]

Nice work and yes bitcoin has many advantages over a traditional payment system as already mentioned by you not only one but many advantages.
Having to pay low transaction fee is the best feature for me for using bitcoins.

[danielW]

lets address the elephants in the room

1 ) It is not controlled by anyone. Its a decentralised peer-to-peer network.

2 ) Based on open source software.

3 ) This means it can not be manipulated, Bitcoin supply is fixed modelling it after gold.

4 ) Nobody can stop or prevent transactions.

5 ) It has low fees compared to other online payment methods like paypal, credit cards etc.

6 ) It is truly global.

7 ) It is programmable money that allows for smart contracts.

8 ) Anybody including kids from their basement, can create financial applications without permission. This is because its open source technology and the network is not controlled by anybody. Nobody needs to ask permission to use it and nobody can restrict access. If you have access to the internet you can access it.

1 ) although the core fanboy leaders are using a softfork to slide in a change without the network nodes needing to upgrade/vote/consent.. the fanboys have faith that their leaders are doing it with honour. but they forget that even having the ability to slide in changes without consensus, can be used for bad too.
thus bitcoin is not indestructible as it relies on the TRUST that a group of devs are going to be honourable.
.. now imagine that it was used for bad..

Well thats not true because for the soft fork to work miners have to run their code so ultimately devs have no real power. Furthermore thats only for soft forks and soft forks can only be a subset of what is already allowed my nodes.

[danielW]

You also should include the disadvantages, it doesn't seem honest just to show the good stuff, you should give a complete picture.

I agree there are disadvantages and I certainly mention them. For the proposes of this post I just want to focus on advantages.

TBH most people are already sceptical so they have plenty of disadvantages in their heads. I want to provide them some real reasons why they might consider Bitcoin interesting.

[susila_bai]

Their are many advantages like, bitcoin gives you oppurtunity to earn online through lot of option in this forum, like doing signature campaign, giving your skill work for bitcoin and altcoin trading and investing on new coins and earning through trading with them.

Through bitcoin you can do gambling without revealing your identity.

[danielW]

it looks good to me.

although i would add security to it.
when using any other payment systems online you are risking your information being stolen like your credit card information, and there is always risks of malware, keylogger, and other things that can steel your information and abuse it.

however with bitcoin since you can do everything offline all the said risks reach zero. you can have a air lock system using a Live linux offline for example, and make the transactions (use your sensitive information like private keys) there and then only broadcast the public data (non-sensitive) online.

also there is no charge back. it means the trust is shifted from users trusting the merchant with their personal information into merchants trusting their users not to double spend. also users trusting merchants (based on the merchant history) to send the product.

I agree with you.

I did mention security but I think more can be said as I believe ultimately Bitcoins model is less prone to hacking the the current financial system.

For example there were the recent hacks   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Bangladesh_Bank_heist

Bitcoin is less prone to these kind of heists since the money is distributed and held by individuals (mostly apart from exchanges). Banks get hacked all the time any one way or other consumers must bear the cost.

Not sure how to succinctly phrase that.

[darklus123]

I just love the decentralization of a digital currency which  really proves that our systems is innovating, all things will not stay at it is for the period of time because just like the saying that goes " the only constant in this world is change" and bitcoin system really is the start

[goinmerry]

The low fees are the one who are inviting to the eyes of many. I got hooked with this because of that. I can do a lot of my transaction at low cost. The bad thing that did happen was when it got so slow before it was sent unlike before.

[Carlsen]

1. It is anonymous
2. Faster and cheaper
3. It is deflatory
4. No/Low transaction cost
5. It is divisible to 1billionth part

I am really a fan of number one on your list.
Of cours people have to be careful not to make any connection from their names to the wallets they posess, but that's the responsebility of the users and has nothing to do with bitcoin.
Another advantage is the transparancy. Every transaction ever made is recorded in the blockchain.
Nobody can say he did not get the money to a certain wallet when he actually did. Everybody can look at the blockchain and find out if the transaction in question was made.

[Dudeperfect]

Great list OP. I love bitcoin mostly because it’s free from any control and thus has no limits of time and quantity so one can make any amount of transaction at any time during a day. Bitcoin transactions are cheaper than fiat transactions on international level and fast too so I prefer bitcoins over traditional methods of payment. Thanks for the list though, I would use it to share with my friends who don’t use bitcoins yet.

[pedrog]

it looks good to me.

although i would add security to it.
when using any other payment systems online you are risking your information being stolen like your credit card information, and there is always risks of malware, keylogger, and other things that can steel your information and abuse it.

however with bitcoin since you can do everything offline all the said risks reach zero. you can have a air lock system using a Live linux offline for example, and make the transactions (use your sensitive information like private keys) there and then only broadcast the public data (non-sensitive) online.

also there is no charge back. it means the trust is shifted from users trusting the merchant with their personal information into merchants trusting their users not to double spend. also users trusting merchants (based on the merchant history) to send the product.

I agree with you.

I did mention security but I think more can be said as I believe ultimately Bitcoins model is less prone to hacking the the current financial system.

For example there were the recent hacks   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Bangladesh_Bank_heist

Bitcoin is less prone to these kind of heists since the money is distributed and held by individuals (mostly apart from exchanges). Banks get hacked all the time any one way or other consumers must bear the cost.

Not sure how to succinctly phrase that.

Ever heard of MtGox, Bitfinex?

Or a shit load of other thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337.0

[danielW]

it looks good to me.

although i would add security to it.
when using any other payment systems online you are risking your information being stolen like your credit card information, and there is always risks of malware, keylogger, and other things that can steel your information and abuse it.

however with bitcoin since you can do everything offline all the said risks reach zero. you can have a air lock system using a Live linux offline for example, and make the transactions (use your sensitive information like private keys) there and then only broadcast the public data (non-sensitive) online.

also there is no charge back. it means the trust is shifted from users trusting the merchant with their personal information into merchants trusting their users not to double spend. also users trusting merchants (based on the merchant history) to send the product.

I agree with you.

I did mention security but I think more can be said as I believe ultimately Bitcoins model is less prone to hacking the the current financial system.

For example there were the recent hacks   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Bangladesh_Bank_heist

Bitcoin is less prone to these kind of heists since the money is distributed and held by individuals (mostly apart from exchanges). Banks get hacked all the time any one way or other consumers must bear the cost.

Not sure how to succinctly phrase that.

Ever heard of MtGox, Bitfinex?

Or a shit load of other thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337.0

Yes I know but thefts happen in traditional system also. I feel that fundamentally Bitcoin is more secure against thefts then legacy systems. Not sure how to explain why I have that feeling. Some people might disagree with me.

[QuestionAuthority]

Thefts don't matter. Difficulty of use doesn't matter. Transaction time doesn't matter. Bitcoin has one redeeming feature that each successive altcoin derivative improves upon. If you use it correctly you can use it to make money more difficult for law enforcement to track. Bitcoin and many of the derivatives help hide illegal purchases. If that's the only thing Bitcoin does that's good enough reason to use it.

You want to buy a loaf of bread go dig some change out of the ashtray of your car and buy one. You want to buy black tar heroin use cryptocurrency.

[pedrog]

it looks good to me.

although i would add security to it.
when using any other payment systems online you are risking your information being stolen like your credit card information, and there is always risks of malware, keylogger, and other things that can steel your information and abuse it.

however with bitcoin since you can do everything offline all the said risks reach zero. you can have a air lock system using a Live linux offline for example, and make the transactions (use your sensitive information like private keys) there and then only broadcast the public data (non-sensitive) online.

also there is no charge back. it means the trust is shifted from users trusting the merchant with their personal information into merchants trusting their users not to double spend. also users trusting merchants (based on the merchant history) to send the product.

I agree with you.

I did mention security but I think more can be said as I believe ultimately Bitcoins model is less prone to hacking the the current financial system.

For example there were the recent hacks   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Bangladesh_Bank_heist

Bitcoin is less prone to these kind of heists since the money is distributed and held by individuals (mostly apart from exchanges). Banks get hacked all the time any one way or other consumers must bear the cost.

Not sure how to succinctly phrase that.

Ever heard of MtGox, Bitfinex?

Or a shit load of other thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337.0

Yes I know but thefts happen in traditional system also. I feel that fundamentally Bitcoin is more secure against thefts then legacy systems. Not sure how to explain why I have that feeling. Some people might disagree with me.

But in bitcoin you lose your money...

[ranochigo]

Bitcoin was not designed for online shopping like, for example, Paypal, bitcoin is slow and has no consumer protection, if you want to be scammed by strangers over the Internet you should shop with bitcoin.

Paypal was designed for ecommerce, it has buyer and seller protection, it's fast, and very easy to use.

Bitcoin can actually be used for online shopping. Bitcoin was at first, thought to be useful for online transactions due to its difficulty to reverse after the transaction has been confirmed for a number of times. Digital goods and credits can be quite hard to purchase with PayPal since merchants are reluctant to accept Paypal as a payment option as it would result in chargebacks. Not to mention the fees are quite steep.

Bitcoin can arguably become Paypal if there can be an escrow service which can allow 2-of-3 multisig where the seller and buyer each hold one and the escrow holds one of the keys too.

Ever heard of MtGox, Bitfinex?

Or a shit load of other thefts: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=576337.0

The thefts occurs mostly due to the user trusting the exchange/service too much and holds all their money in the exchanges/services. The thefts could easily be prevented if the user practice proper security measures and use their own desktop wallet for storage of their own BTC.