Pros and cons of bitcoins for consumers and businessmen

[Coins and Hardwork]

Both are smply to call for anyone familiar with Bitcoin:

Pros: low fees and definitive transactions
Cons: volatile price

I don't see volatility as a con for bitcoin because it is the common reason why people get or attracted to bitcoin. Also, it is a good currency for investors if the price move quickly and you can see a result in a matter of time. The cons for me is that the confirmation and transaction is so slow and the fees are so high.

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[bitcoinmaniac52]

The pros of Bitcoins for consumers are low transaction fees and we control our own money as opposed to the bank.
The cons for consumers are transactions take longer to process than traditional payment methods (with fiat).

The pros for businessmen - Bitcoin is an amazing investment and accepting allows a business to use this Bitcoin as an investment.
The cons are similar to consumers - transactions are slow and tedious and also could be subject to double-spend.

[Whosdaddy]

There is no payment system that is faster, cheaper, or more secure.

If you only pay with credit cards then you may not know this, but it takes a card 2-60 days to clear. The business will factor in the 3% or so that they pay for your "free" transaction. And you will have to risk sending your personal banking information to the seller, the payment processor, and whoever else.

When I buy with bitcoin (it is all I use online) I expect to pay less for items. I do not give out my identity, unless buying firearms or something. And I know that my end of the deal is completed in an hour, so I expect immediate shipping. I can shop most anywhere in the world and choose from over a hundred thousand locations. I travel a lot and love that whatever city I show up in I can use the money on my phone without exchange fees for local fiat or getting stuck with a bunch of foreign cash. 

Then there is the part about how my money grows the whole time. My $0.74 bitcoins go a long way these days.

You have a point. This is what is making bitcoins much popular than any other currency system. The high level anonymity and security provided by bitcoins is playing significant role in making bitcoins popular in all countries. The most amazing feature of bitcoins is that they help you to keep your identity in dark. This factor is going to help businessmen and customers a lot.

[kolesozw]

I keep seeing "slow confirmation". There is NO FASTER SYSTEM than bitcoin. Cards take days, weeks, sometimes months to confirm. 

Nope. It takes weeks and month to calculate your end costs as a businessman, including charge-backs and so on.

But when you are at the cashier desk, as a client, it took just a few second to pay with CC and GO. Now imagine paying the same with 1 BTC confirmation. If you want wide adoption, you should look at the technology point of client side.

[rohn]

Pros
- fast transaction and reliable
- secure
- does not leak information about the user
- low fees

Cons
- not all people uses it
- slow when transaction involves high amount
- volatile price

[Kevin77]

Cons
- not all people uses it
- slow when transaction involves high amount
- volatile price

Slow with high amount ? How ?
You need to understand how size of a transaction is being determined and size of transaction will be influencing only the network fess not the confirmation time hence no one will bother how big a transaction amount will be.

A bitcoin transactions will be finalized based on number of confirmations. We can expect one confirmation for every 10 minutes approximately. Still, it has nothing to do with how many bitcoins are being transacted.

[RodeoX]

I keep seeing "slow confirmation". There is NO FASTER SYSTEM than bitcoin. Cards take days, weeks, sometimes months to confirm. 

Nope. It takes weeks and month to calculate your end costs as a businessman, including charge-backs and so on.

But when you are at the cashier desk, as a client, it took just a few second to pay with CC and GO. Now imagine paying the same with 1 BTC confirmation. If you want wide adoption, you should look at the technology point of client side.

I use it all the time and have not found a problem with that. In fact credit cards DO NOT WORK on small charges. When you pay for something like fast food with your CC the processor incurs a risk of fraud because they can not confirm the transaction cost effectively. In the past that meant CCs could only be used for larger purchases. Some years ago MasterCard wised up by realizing that committing credit card fraud for a hamburger is not cost effective. Now they simply do no security and completely take the risk.

The same can and is being done with bitcoin. If I pick up my morning coffee and pay with bitcoin they are not going to make me wait for confirmation. The coffee shop knows that it would be a big hassle and legal risk for me to just steal coffee. It makes no sense to wait for confirmation for a small amount. If I were buying a car or something then I would expect to wait for 5-6 confirmations. But what's an hour or so when buying a car?

On the consumer side there is a huge advantage in security because you maintain your privacy. Say you are at the store buying an expensive camera. If you pay with a CC you are really paying with your identity and demonstrated ability to pay.  Since the seller does not know you, he/she will need your identity to follow up should you not pay. With bitcoin the seller can wait for some confirmation and then has the money. Not a promise of money like a CC, THE ACTUAL MONEY.  No need to know who you are or store your financial info. The sale is over.

[PhucS]

Bitcoin has many benefits for consumers as well as businessmen. Bitcoin is considered the currency of the future, bitcoin is traded directly between buyers and sellers, thereby reducing costs and time, we do not need to know each other but can still trade one quick way. Bitcoin is one of the most liquid assets in the financial market and is not under the control of any organization, which attracts many investors. But besides, the biggest disadvantage of Bitcoin is its high transaction costs and speed transaction, it's not good yet

[sana54210]

As worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system is on the rise, i just want to ask about the pros and cons of bitcoins for consumers and businessmen.

On the side of consumers, what is also the difference of using bitcoins than credit cards?

Everything with advantages will always have disadvantages, and same thing applies to things with disadvantages. Something that is of disadvantage to an object, is likely to be of advantage to a different object. But somethings has disadvantages that are less likely to occur. So for Bitcoin, I would say the bad side of it is less likely to occur.

For example, reduction in price due to volatility is unlikely to happen in the Bitcoin platform, and I will say that is a big advantage to both businessmen and consumers. Pros of Bitcoin is that it helps to reduce poverty, and makes sending and receiving of money between two different parties very easy.

It doesn’t just end there, because there are lots and lots of advantages in it. For the cons, bitcoin is likely to promote scam/fraud, money laundering etc. But I believe all these disadvantages can always be avoided.

[audaciousbeing]

I will only be examining the cons at this time and I cannot but look at it intuitively for businesses and consumers which I feel will include but not limited to the following:

1. The volatility at this time could mean positive for the business but it might not be for long as it could come crashing any time which might result on excess amount of loss just by holding.

2. Another is the record keeping since most software have not put in place taking care of bitcoin, then the accounting function of the business might suffer in knowing the right amount and the account to be posted.

3. The issue of legality, the moment the records are not complete in relation to 2 above then I see tons of liability from the tax authorities which is something that might run down the business.

[Granxis]

I am honest, I have never used a credit card. But after I got to know Bitcoin I used both to transact. Everything is safe and in my opinion there is nothing better. Mistakes always happen anytime, as long as we can use them well then both are very safe.

I was glad for you, but I was a little behind, but you did not make up for it, I did not want to take it for the first time for the e mail, but then I realized that I had to take what could not be without e mail.

[aardvark15]

As worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system is on the rise, i just want to ask about the pros and cons of bitcoins for consumers and businessmen.

On the side of consumers, what is also the difference of using bitcoins than credit cards?

For consumers, having a credit card means that a third party has my social security number, salary, address, etc.  But with Bitcoin, there is no third party at all.

For the business, accepting credit cards makes the business pay a fee to the credit card company. Bitcoin does have a fee but it should be less. The fee is the one variable with Bitcoin because it could keep increasing.

[cafucafucafu]

As worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system is on the rise, i just want to ask about the pros and cons of bitcoins for consumers and businessmen.

On the side of consumers, what is also the difference of using bitcoins than credit cards?

Pros for consumers:
- Unable to be tracked, anonymous and safe.
- Decentralised, which means the goverment can't seize your bitcoin or do other stuff.
- Fast (For bigger transactions of 1k+, they only take 20 minutes to confim)

Cons for consumers
- Not accepted everywhere, while credit cards are
- Slow for micro transactions

Still think bitcoin would come out on top if more places accepted it, but thats just me.

[seraph_the_wise]

The way I see it:

Pros
- Anonymous to consumers (up to a point, but on par with cash)
- Convenient and frictionless for consumers (a phone is all I need to pay or receive)
- Drastically lower fees for merchant vs VISA/Mastercard/Amex
- No extra FX fees for consumers (try paying in a diff currency in PayPal and compare their rate with the market rate)
- Fast release of payments to merchant (yeah, other platforms can pay in 30/90/180 days and chargeback, which is a real pain)
- Decentralized and resilient (not subject to the whims of a single government)

Cons
- High volatility, which sometimes can be good, but due to the unpredictability of markets is a double-edged sword. Most business either are not able to cope with variable prices or would be awry of playing with exchange rates
- Lack of consumer protection in a low-trust environment (bcs transactions are final by design and we interact directly with the network, there is no mediator to contact if things go wrong. It would be awesome to have something akin to paypal protection but in crypto)
- Slow confirmation of payments during transaction moment (again, since we are interacting directly with the network, and not a trusted provider, it depends only on the protocol)
- Low acceptance in “mainstream” markets

[romecheo]

For consumers:

1: Hassle Free transaction
2: Total anonymity transaction
3: Weightless, no paper at all, unless you want to write something


Difference with credit card,:

1: Your identity was in every transaction with credit card.

2: There's a lot of ways the Credit card can be use unauthorized.

[celested]

As worldwide cryptocurrency and digital payment system is on the rise, i just want to ask about the pros and cons of bitcoins for consumers and businessmen.

On the side of consumers, what is also the difference of using bitcoins than credit cards?

The advantages of bitcoin are a lot, you can talk about the convenience, speed, usability and cost of what you pay. And the only downside of bitcoin is its value, which carries too much value while it is a virtual currency. It is very dangerous to store it.

[Dart18]

Pros are there is no pulling back for the transaction. So both parties should be sure of what they are trading or the buyer should have decided firmly about the transaction unlike Paypal that is why they are having problems.

Cons are the slow transaction confirmation and the fees that could lead to a loss of costumers once it was experienced. One more is consumers dont see any bitcoin accepting merchants now, so how will it be used?

[gabmen]

For me, pros considerably outweighs the cons for btc. Security as well as anonymity is the best feature both for regular consumers and businesses. With bitcoin being exclusively for users that has access to internet connection, i think that's the biggest con due to is accessibility for everybody.

[Sled]

The pros that i know about bitcoin is, it's volatility, security and cheaper rates. Why volatility, I said volatility because it is moving fast and its price can change anytime soon so it is an advantage for the active traders like me to make profit, why security? because we don't need to expose a lot of personal information to just fully use bitcoin, cheaper rates because it is fast and also cheaper rates in fees rather than the traditional ways that we know.

The cons that i know is, its volatility also, i said that it is a pros but also a cons because it depends on the person on how he can manage to face that volatility and for the businessmen, it will be a cons because they are accepting bitcoin as a payment and if in this day the rate of bitcoin is high and in the next day, it drops then that is already a loss for them which prove that volatility is a disadvantage for businessmen.

[ObscurePen]

The difference between using Bitcoins that credit cards while being a customer:


Pros:

• Peer to peer: Transactions don’t go through a third party such as a bank or a clearing house.
• You can actually pay the exact price: For example, if a product is worth $1.99, you can actually pay $1.99, not round it off to $2. (I know, small point, but a point nevertheless)

Cons:

• Larger transaction fee: Bitcoin transaction fees are usually higher than credit cards.
• Longer confirmation times: Most merchants would require at the least 1 confirmation before the product can be bought.
• Price variance: Say if you have 250 Bitcoin and want to buy a house, the price may jump or fall according to circumstances. One day you may have $1000000 or on other days you may have $750000.
• Not many merchants accept Bitcoin: Bitcoin has not reached that level of mainstream adoption. Vendors are still deciding whether to accept Bitcoin as payment of not.