Best way to pay with BTC in person

[Distribution]

I'm going to New York soon and plan on visiting Meze Grill. I was reading about how the writer of that article paid, and it just seems so complicated. Is there a better way? I considered Bitbills or something, but even that, I don't know how I would get change. So what's the best way to pay for something in person?

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[tanerlorn]

Call the place, talk to the owner, find out address, decide approximate order, send bitcoins, go eat for "free".

[Alex Beckenham]

Call the place, talk to the owner, find out address, decide approximate order, send bitcoins, go eat for "free".

Over the phone?

Better brush up on your phonetic alphabet...

alpha
bravo
charlie
delta
echo
foxtrot
golf
hotel
india
juliet
kilo
lima
mike
november
oscar
papa
quebec
romeo
sierra
tango
uniform
victor
whiskey (forgot this one, had to look it up!)
xray
yankee
zulu

[bitcon]

or you could just have them send you a text/SMS message.

[Alex Beckenham]

or you could just have them send you a text/SMS message.

Yes of course.

Or a pidgeon.

[w1R903]

Or you could just use your myb.tc ID when talking on the phone.  But clearly, an easier way for people to pay merchants face-to-face is needed.  I suspect smart people are working on this problem as we speak.

[tanerlorn]

Call the place, talk to the owner, find out address, decide approximate order, send bitcoins, go eat for "free".

Over the phone?

Better brush up on your phonetic alphabet...

alpha
bravo
charlie
delta
echo
foxtrot
golf
hotel
india
juliet
kilo
lima
mike
november
oscar
papa
quebec
romeo
sierra
tango
uniform
victor
whiskey (forgot this one, had to look it up!)
xray
yankee
zulu

http://firstbits.com/

[FreeMoney]

Beat me by a second. Get their firstbits.

[Distribution]

Or you could just use your myb.tc ID when talking on the phone.  But clearly, an easier way for people to pay merchants face-to-face is needed.  I suspect smart people are working on this problem as we speak.

I thought about using Bitbills and giving them my myb.tc ID for change. I'm thinking of some system where I could just walk into a place, spend money, and leave. Not carry a laptop, scan a QR code with my phone, send it to my computer, wait for the owner to check the exchange rate, and then send Bitcoins.

[BitcoinPorn]

I swear I seen FirstBits mentioned before, but I think this was my first time using the site.  Well done. 

Also, back to the thread, I think a text messaging format could be worked out to make things as 'automated' as possible.

[FreeMoney]

I swear I seen FirstBits mentioned before, but I think this was my first time using the site.  Well done. 

Also, back to the thread, I think a text messaging format could be worked out to make things as 'automated' as possible.

Thanks, glad you like it.

What we really need is an online wallet with firstbits integration. Right now the best way would be to put some money in an instawallet, get the merchant's firstbits, go to firstbits, copy the address,paste in instawallet and pay. But if installawet could translate on it's own then it would simply be: go to instawallet, start typing the address, it gets completed for you and you pay.

FirstBits.com is intended to show that it works and it is useful, but the real magic will happen when it's incorporated in all the appropriate places.

[muscles]

this is a pretty major barrier for its adoption

[dserrano5]

What we really need is an online wallet with firstbits integration. Right now the best way would be to put some money in an instawallet, get the merchant's firstbits, go to firstbits, copy the address,paste in instawallet and pay. But if installawet could translate on it's own then it would simply be: go to instawallet, start typing the address, it gets completed for you and you pay.

I was thinking about this too. It would be great.

[rasengan]

You can pay directly from your MtGox account with MtGox Live Bitcoin Trader which is on the Android Market to any http://btc.to address.  All they need to do is generate a shortened address, and then you can input and send them.  It's open source and a huge update is coming soon.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.mtgoxlive.trader
https://github.com/andysl/Bitcoin-Trader

[Rocketfella]

Since I don't live in the USA and won't have internet access or even a laptop with me when I visit Meze Grill, I came up with this plan to pay using bitcoins without any hassles:

You just need to bring a USB flashdrive that has two things on it:
- a wallet with a bit more money that you think you will spend there
- a .txt with the address of one of your private wallets

When you pay, you give him the flash drive, he takes out his payment and transfers the remaining bitcoins to your private wallet.

However, depending which OS he uses, plugging in other people's flash drives might come with the risk of infecting his computer, so maybe he won't accept this form of payments. For this case you could have a backup plan:

Put the small wallet and the .txt in an encrypted archive, upload it (e.g. in your public dropbox), create a shortened URL for the archive, write down the URL + password on a piece of paper and give it to him as payment.

[killer2021]

You use android app.

[cloud9]

A traditional merchant without a cash register is dead meat.

A bitcoin merchant without network connectivity is dead meat.

Options:
- You take your everyday spending wallet.dat to a bitcoin accepting merchant and they handle the transfer for you.
- You connect via the merchant's network connection to your mybitcoin.com spending account and verify the transfer with your password.
- You use your smartphone to connect to mybitcoin.com and spend from your spending account
- You use wap on your traditional cellphone for bitcoin to be send to a user email from a user email in the amount specified (if such a service exists)
- Use an sms request/verification system for bitcoin to be send to the user email sms'ed from the user email sms'ed in the amount sms'ed (if such a service exists)

[cypherdoc]

I swear I seen FirstBits mentioned before, but I think this was my first time using the site.  Well done. 

Also, back to the thread, I think a text messaging format could be worked out to make things as 'automated' as possible.

Thanks, glad you like it.

What we really need is an online wallet with firstbits integration. Right now the best way would be to put some money in an instawallet, get the merchant's firstbits, go to firstbits, copy the address,paste in instawallet and pay. But if installawet could translate on it's own then it would simply be: go to instawallet, start typing the address, it gets completed for you and you pay.

FirstBits.com is intended to show that it works and it is useful, but the real magic will happen when it's incorporated in all the appropriate places.

THAT is really good!

[Serge]

why not use some of online wallets? keep small amount there and signin from his laptop to send the payment; you can even send it from your mtgox account.

If MezeGrill gets more and more bitcoiners, they might as well integrate some online wallet's api for instantenious payment and have dedicated screen for customers to do their transactions this way

[BitcoinPorn]

why not use some of online wallets? keep small amount there and signin from his laptop to send the payment; you can even send it from your mtgox account.

That is how the transaction went down, and I think will continue to until Google or someone HUGE comes up with a free temporary wallet system.