So I have two questions...

[Whocaresanyway]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

[unamis76]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

Bitcoin transactions are instant. Super fast would be a downgrade to what we currently have.

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

There are already apps for this. You should look at the Alternative clients section of the forums.

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

It is possible to use Bitcoin daily for payments. Many of us do here. Confirmation time is by design and altering it would make Bitcoin cease to be Bitcoin. You can read about confirmation times in threads such as this

[Whocaresanyway]

When I mentioned the speed of transactions I meant confirmation speed.  How can you pay for a coffee with BTC if it can take like 15 minutes to get one confirmation?  To do this do you have to pay more for the transaction to get confirmed quicker and how does one do this -on blockchain.info, for example?

Thanks btw, I'll check out the alternative clients section...turns out I have more questions lol

[Tanic]

1. Bitcoin transactions are the same fast as paying with a card.  I use YoBit for my coins and I never had any delays with operations that I did.
2. Apps soon will be created after bitcoin will be admited as payment by governments. While it's not there is place only for one kind of app - bitcoin exchanger.

[Whocaresanyway]

1. Bitcoin transactions are the same fast as paying with a card.  I use YoBit for my coins and I never had any delays with operations that I did.
2. Apps soon will be created after bitcoin will be admited as payment by governments. While it's not there is place only for one kind of app - bitcoin exchanger.

Links please?  Are they in the apple app store?

[Patatas]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

Maybe people are too busy finding who real satoshi is and writing articles about how gmaxwell's reddit account was banned.Btw please stop comparing bitcoins with credit cards,not on the same pages.

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

You can pretty much do that with any bitcoin app..as long as the coffee shop,a grocery store are cool with accepting bitcoins.

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

You're trying to be technical and economical at the same time.Let's just say it's all a matter of "time".

P.S. I do use bitcoins on daily basis.

[RealBitcoin]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

Bitcoin payment is instant, or let's just say a few seconds fast, depending on how much time it takes for the TX to propagate through all nodes. This depends on your ISP speed.

Bitcoin's settlement is 10 minutes, which is the confirmation time that finalizes the transaction and makes it, likely unreversable. Of course the final settlement is like 6 confirmations where the probability is ultra low, but you get the idea.


An unconfirmed TX is a transaction as well, it's just that merchants dont approve it because it can be reversed, so they all agree on minimum 1 confirmation, to minimize scam risk.

[calkob]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

1:  this is about to happen this year with Lightning networks

2: there are loads of apps that allow you to use bitcoin as simple as you want.

For the average user buying a coffee, it is unlikely that you are going to perform a double spend attack, so a no confirmation transaction is fine. (it will eventually confirm, with the right fee)  its abit like tesco checkouts, most people are honest would not want to steal from you.

and for bigger items a 1 or 2 confirmation is more than enough to ensure payment.  so 10-20 minutes to buy a TV, hardly that bad

now if its a multi million dollar transfer of funds then maybe you would want to wait the 6 confirmations (1 hour)  which with this amount of money i dont think you could do it in less than an hour now with the traditional banking system any way.
 

[BitcoinBarrel]

Boy oh boy, another newbie SegWit troll?

[RealBitcoin]

Boy oh boy, another newbie SegWit troll?

Luckily I have spearheaded the discussion and replied very fast to this conversation. I doubt the next 10-20 pages will be that friendly, once guys like franky1 join.

Or he might just be a genuine newbie who didnt took 10 minutes to research how bitcoin works.

People always confuse transaction initiation and transaction settlement. Transactions are always instant, it's just that the settlement takes 10 minutes.

The same way a bank transfer has instant transfer, but the settlement takes 4 working days.

[royalfestus]

All your question are already work in progress. The speed will be in faster 3x soon. research proved that and work is in progress on that. The app for online sale is a concept, programmers can work on that soon and it work, more it will require a lot of procedure more than app making, contacting a large sellers, custom service,tracking, bitcoin to fiat valuation etc there are still some online store using bitcoin, the app will just be a development

[odolvlobo]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

Bitcoin transactions are faster than credit card transactions. While it takes 10 minutes on average to confirm a Bitcoin transactions, it takes months to confirm a credit card transaction. If a merchant is willing to accept a credit card transaction immediately, even though there is a risk of a charge-back, they should be willing to accept a Bitcoin transaction immediately even though there is a risk of a double-spend.

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

There are several apps. For example, Airbitz and Mycellium.

[thepo1m]

Bitcoin has come a long way in this short life span, the transaction is being worked on and I believed we will have a way out of the scaling issue this year.

There are some apps you can use to buy somethings in some Groceries stores, the problem is that not many stores for now is accepting BTC.

We now have many BTC ATM and the number is on the increase

[shield132]

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

I'll answer your second question. There are already that type apps but in reality you can't pay simply with any bitcoin wallet you want. For example there is option for foldapp users to pay for starbucks with bitcoins but for this you need to have foldapp bitcoin wallet and transactions are instantly as I know.

[DOGE12321]

To answer your first question, Bitcoin transactions are basically instant. It is just the confirmation time that takes long. The 'minimum 1 confirmation' is a security measure that merchants use to reduce the risk of scamming.

[shinratensei_]

When I mentioned the speed of transactions I meant confirmation speed.  How can you pay for a coffee with BTC if it can take like 15 minutes to get one confirmation?  To do this do you have to pay more for the transaction to get confirmed quicker and how does one do this -on blockchain.info, for example?

In this thing, 15 minutes confirmations were including in the fastest confirmation. Usually, the standard fees will take at least 20 minutes or more.

You're right I can't buy a coffee within 15 - 20 minutes range of confirmation. my coffee will be cold.

You must pay more on fees to get the fastest confirmation If you wanna make a transaction and you must put the fees and just type them with high value or number.

This site is good for you.

https://bitcoinfees.21.co/

[deadsilent]

Bitcoin confirmation is too slow to compete with credit card speed. You cant buy coffee or food because its too long to be confirmed. Also the price of btc is very volatile. Every minute the value goes up and down. Its not applicable for business because you might loss profit when its price goes down. Thats why we only see few companies that really into bitcoin.

[odolvlobo]

Bitcoin confirmation is too slow to compete with credit card speed. You cant buy coffee or food because its too long to be confirmed. Also the price of btc is very volatile. Every minute the value goes up and down. Its not applicable for business because you might loss profit when its price goes down. Thats why we only see few companies that really into bitcoin.

A merchant doesn't have to wait for a bitcoin confirmation. As I wrote previously, credit card transactions are much slower than bitcoin. They take months to confirm.

The volatility is a problem, but it has been going down, and it will continue to go down.

[ipanks]

1.  Why has bitcoin not been scaled yet so that transactions are super fast? And can compete with credit card speeds

2. Why has nobody designed an app that lets you pay for groceries or a coffee, or any good in any store, with bitcoin, right there and then?

What I'm getting at is: What use is it as a method of payment if people can't use it on a daily basis and the transactions are so slow to get confirmed?

my answer is :

1. as far as i know, bitcoin is super fast maybe more faster than credit cards, as long as there is an internet connection that connected into blockchain, then it will work.

2. i think there is online store that accepted bitcoin as their payment, for the coffee, i know that starbucks is receive bitcoin too, i remember there is a thread in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1735935.0, its an app that lets us to pay for starbucks coffee and other starbucks offerings.

i am sure that in future, the answer will be completed so bitcoin user can used their bitcoin for buying product in online store and offline store. soon the transactions will be fast to get confirmed and before that, all we can do is use the normal or higher fee for each of transactions we make.