A brief report on my Bitcoin Friday experienceI shy away from unbridled consumerism, but I took Bitcoin Black Friday as an opportunity to purchase things I would buy anyways, help spread the word about this innovative new money, and stress-test the bitcoin network on this busy shopping day.
(Interestingly enough, someone at the rec-center yesterday brought up Black Friday and asked if I bought anything--I mentioned the bitcoin promotions and it was a perfect segue into a deeper discussion about Bitcoin--turns out he had thought about getting involved during the summer. He asked what the price was now, I said around $1000 and....man....you should have seen the look on his face.)Back to my report: scanning a bitcoin-QR code with your phone, pressing "send," and then watching the BitPay invoice turn green a fraction of a second later is slick and futuristic--no typing in my credit card information! With bitlisten.com playing in the background, you can hear the music made as transactions like yours and others from around the world flood the network--the future of money indeed.
My GF and I purchased loose-leaf tea from
www.tealet.com, unique flavoured lollypops from
www.lollyphile.com, honey and caramels from
www.beesbros.com/bitcoin-store.html, soap from
www.shiresoaps.com, bitcoin T-shirts from
www.shirtoshi.com and
www.pirateprintingcompany.com, nail polish from
www.superblacklacquers.com, and a few Gyft cards from
www.gyft.com.
Most of these vendors used BitPay, so the payment and ordering process was fast and efficient. The time between transmitting my payment and the BitPay invoice showing "paid" was consistently less than a second. And perhaps 2 seconds later I would receive a confirmation email from the vendor. My biggest complaint was the amount of unnecessary data most the vendors still required on the order forms. I do not like to give out my phone number since I detest telemarketers--I was disappointed that many vendors would not even process the order if I left this line blank. Unlike Visa that needs to match you phone number, ZIP code, etc, when I pay with Bitcoin the vendor shouldn't care about my personal details: all I want to give is a shipping address and a name to ship it too. Why does anything else matter?
I had planned on purchasing coffee form
www.bitbrew.net, but had two problems: the first is that the coupon code "BTCFRIDAY" for 15% off didn't work; the second problem was that I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to send my bitcoins to (in the 3 seconds that I tried to solve this problem). Consumers want a simple QR-code based experience like the one BitPay provides!
The purchase that went badLastly, I tried to order a 1/10 oz gold eagle from Amagi Metals. The BitPay invoice came up, I sent the payment, but then the BitPay screen suddenly disappeared without ever saying "payment received." I noticed my shopping cart at Amagi still had the gold coin in it, and later I received an email from Amagi asking if I needed help completing my order. I verified on the blockchain.info that my payment was in fact received and confirmed. The funds are still sitting in the address I sent them to.
Was this a problem at Amagi's end? A BitPay problem? A man-in-the-middle attack? I don't know, but I will next send emails to both BitPay and Amagi to try and get to the bottom of this issue.
I have made about 25 BitPay payments in total and this is the only one I've had a problem with (and of course it may not even be a BitPay issue).
Overall, online shopping with bitcoin on Black Friday made me very excited for the bright future in store for this technology!
