The future of Bitcoin. Why would a consumer pay with Bitcoin?

[BTCisthefuture]

For me the big reason is MICROTRANSACTIONS

I can make very small charges/purchases/transfers  with bitcoin that I simply couldn't do with credit/debit cards or at least not without getting hit with heavier fees.

I'll give you an example. Most small stores (think liqour stores or gas stations) will charge you a fee if you use credit/debit on anything under x amount of dollars. There are plenty of times where people might stop by a store to grab a soda or a bag of chips and they end up paying fees that sometimes can equal more than the item itself they bought.  Bitcoin helps eliminate that.  No more having to worry about stopping in a store and buying a bottle of gatorade for 99cents only to get hit with a .75cent charge.

That's just one example , im sure there's plenty others. For example, I like to bet on sports, one thing I really like about these bitcoin sportsbook sites (here's my refferal if you're interested,  https://bitbook.biz/?referer=Galaxys3 )  is that you can bet insanely small amounts. It's great for the person who likes to gamble on sports for the excitement but doesnt want to lose much money.  Most sportsbooks dealing with fiat that i've ever seen the min deposit is $50 and the min bet is $5 , with something like bitbook the mean depoist is 0.69cents (at current prices as of this posting) and i don't even know if there is a min bet you have to make, the other day just fooling around i bet less than half a penny.   I know this is more of a niche thing maybe but considering how large gambling is in the world bitcoin has the potential to really change the game so to speak.

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[seanneko]

I really can't see Bitcoin becoming an actual currency that people use to buy food or whatever else. I think it's purely just a store of wealth like gold, but it's easier to buy/sell/trade than gold is for obvious reasons.

BItcoin cannot become a currency while the price is still going up. There is a small minority of people who buy things with Bitcoin now, but personally I think they're insane. Why pay BTC50 for a car when a year from now that BTC50 might be worth a house? They would argue that they're supporting Bitcoin by spending them, but I disagree.

My opinion on the future of Bitcoin:

- Average people like us use it as an investment (gold 2.0)
- Companies/banks/etc use it for transferring LARGE amounts of money around the world rather than doing slow and expensive wire transfers

The only way it can become a currency that all of us use is if Bitcoin banks start up. The same as how a bank controls your $$ now. They give you a debit card which you scan at a shop. The bank says to the shop "I promise I'll give you this money at some stage in the future". Then, if you've done something dodgy, the bank chases you to get their money back. The shop is generally not out of pocket as long as they've followed the rules.

The notion that people will be scanning QR codes at the supermarket checkout and waiting for transactions to propagate throughout the Bitcoin network is preposterous.

[saddambitcoin]

I really can't see Bitcoin becoming an actual currency that people use to buy food or whatever else. I think it's purely just a store of wealth like gold, but it's easier to buy/sell/trade than gold is for obvious reasons.

BItcoin cannot become a currency while the price is still going up. There is a small minority of people who buy things with Bitcoin now, but personally I think they're insane. Why pay BTC50 for a car when a year from now that BTC50 might be worth a house? They would argue that they're supporting Bitcoin by spending them, but I disagree.

My opinion on the future of Bitcoin:

- Average people like us use it as an investment (gold 2.0)
- Companies/banks/etc use it for transferring LARGE amounts of money around the world rather than doing slow and expensive wire transfers

The only way it can become a currency that all of us use is if Bitcoin banks start up. The same as how a bank controls your $$ now. They give you a debit card which you scan at a shop. The bank says to the shop "I promise I'll give you this money at some stage in the future". Then, if you've done something dodgy, the bank chases you to get their money back. The shop is generally not out of pocket as long as they've followed the rules.

The notion that people will be scanning QR codes at the supermarket checkout and waiting for transactions to propagate throughout the Bitcoin network is preposterous.

the way it can "become" a currency is by merchants accepting it as a currency, simple as that.  

we can already see many major stores, dealers, businesses, etc accepting bitcoin.  that makes it a currency.  only your disbelief makes this an argument

edit to add:  anyone spending bitcoin on a car is actually an idiot unless they have the BTC to waste, in that case...

[seanneko]

the way it can "become" a currency is by merchants accepting it as a currency, simple as that.  

we can already see many major stores, dealers, businesses, etc accepting bitcoin.  that makes it a currency.  only your disbelief makes this an argument

edit to add:  anyone spending bitcoin on a car is actually an idiot unless they have the BTC to waste, in that case...

I can buy a shop and accept turnips as payment for my products, but that doesn't make turnips a currency.

There are not "many major stores" accepting Bitcoin as payment. There is an extremely small number of shops accepting it, many of whom did it just to get free advertising. It's ridiculous seeing a post on Reddit with 1000 upvotes which says "my mum's home business which sells figurines of cats made out of mouldy pasta and recycled string now accepts Bitcoin!" Who fucking cares, seriously? Who upvotes something like that?

I can only think of one place in my entire country (Australia) which accepts Bitcoin, and it's a pub in another state. So it means nothing to me.

Go look at the wallets for any of these shops. I bet most of them have had a negligible number of sales paid with Bitcoin. I believe the Baidu wallet only received donations from Westerners.

If I owned a shop I would accept Bitcoin, but ONLY because I know they're going to go up in value. So the money from someone who buys a $5 sandwich today may be worth $50 next year.

[BTCisthefuture]

the way it can "become" a currency is by merchants accepting it as a currency, simple as that.  

we can already see many major stores, dealers, businesses, etc accepting bitcoin.  that makes it a currency.  only your disbelief makes this an argument

edit to add:  anyone spending bitcoin on a car is actually an idiot unless they have the BTC to waste, in that case...

I can buy a shop and accept turnips as payment for my products, but that doesn't make turnips a currency.

There are not "many major stores" accepting Bitcoin as payment. There is an extremely small number of shops accepting it, many of whom did it just to get free advertising. It's ridiculous seeing a post on Reddit with 1000 upvotes which says "my mum's home business which sells figurines of cats made out of mouldy pasta and recycled string now accepts Bitcoin!" Who fucking cares, seriously? Who upvotes something like that?

I can only think of one place in my entire country (Australia) which accepts Bitcoin, and it's a pub in another state. So it means nothing to me.

Go look at the wallets for any of these shops. I bet most of them have had a negligible number of sales paid with Bitcoin. I believe the Baidu wallet only received donations from Westerners.

If I owned a shop I would accept Bitcoin, but ONLY because I know they're going to go up in value. So the money from someone who buys a $5 sandwich today may be worth $50 next year.

You have to remember Bitcoin is still in it's infancy though. While it's true that most places don't accept bitcoin, the number of places that do (both big and small) is growing rapidly. It's becoming easier for businesses to do such a thing, it's becoming easier for consumers to get and use bitcoin, and it's spreading.

If the world was to come to an end today, then yes Bitcoin isn't much of a currency. The world isn't coming to an end today though (I hope) , and the rate of places accepting bitcoin is growing pretty rapidly.

It wasn't that long ago though IT workers would have a hard time convinencing the company they work for that they should have a website. The common thing was "oh comon who uses websites, only a few people".  Or remember back when online shopping first came about, it received a lot of backlash and as well and took nearly 20 years to reach the point it has today.  So trying to remember bitcoin has only been around a few years and things like these don't happen over night.

I think it's very short sighted to think "well RIGHT NOW there's still not many places that accept it" and to come to the conclusion that that's always going to be the case. The trend says otherwise. It's not that far stretched to think more and more businesses will start to accept bitcoin and it will become more widespread, especially for online shopping/payments. Much crazier things have happened.

[seanneko]

You're completely right. I work in IT and I've been using the Internet since before it even had graphics (I used to dial up to a BBS and use Lynx through a remote Unix shell), so I've seen first hand how the Internet changed. I remember when I was in school, people would make fun of you if you liked, or even just used, computers. And I'm only 27 so I don't think I'm THAT old.

It's just my personal opinion that Bitcoin in its current state will never be used by average people to buy things in shops. Perhaps somebody will build a system over the top (like the banks I mentioned in my first post) that becomes widely used. You could reasonably argue that people don't even use cash anymore - it's all debit/credit cards now. So even though you still pay dollars, or whatever your local currency is, you're isolated from how it works. The currency behind your debit card could be dollars, or Bitcoin, or carrots. It would appear the same to you as the user.

[oxxymoronn]

I believe that within a few years, the majority of all purchases will be made with cell phones and digital devices. Digital currencies will play a key role during this transition.

The days of rolling up to a drive through or gas station and paying with crypto are not far away.

[Ecurb123]

Privacy, not having to share your personal information is a good reason. However, the vast majority of people don't care about sharing their personal information while making most of their transactions.

You don't want to share your personal info with a merchant that you don't trust. But would you want to make an irreversible payment to that merchant that you can't trust?

How will the average consumer deal with the complexities of keeping a wallet safe, transaction fees, confirmations, change addresses? We certainly need abstraction layers such as e-wallets.

How will anyone trust their money with an e-wallet that can't guarantee the safety of people's money? That is the most bountiful target for hackers and criminals?

The volatility is making people steer away from holding the bitcoins even if they receive bitcoin for the services/products they provide. Hence the success of Bitpay. So the idea that you are more likely to spend Bitcoin if you get paid in Bitcoin is not happening.

How will we make Bitcoin the future if we can't solve these and get mom and dad to pay with Bitcoin?

Simple answer is that it will take time, right now most people aren't ready and neither is the software / services.

[zimmah]

for me it's several reasons.

1) it's fast
2) it's fun
3) i don't like paper money (i hate getting change, and having to walk around with coins)
4) i don't trust banks with my money (in fact when you deposit money at the banks it's no longer your money, even legally).
5) even if i would trust banks with my money, i don't trust money itself because the government can just print unlimited amounts.

[TakashiMakat]

The idea that people do not spend something that always increases in value has been challenged.

1) People actually save to spend. Meaning that they spend their savings either in small pieces regularly or in large chunks. So the good store of value property does not contradict its payments network property.

2) When Bitcoin prices stabilize, it's fiat value will still increase. But that does not necessarily mean your bitcoins are worth more each year, it means fiat is worth less each year.

So in theory, there is no reason why Bitcoin cannot be used to make everyday payments.

The overall idea I get from the answers is that everyone agrees that it's inconvenient to pay with Bitcoin at the moment. But we also think that the inconveniences will eventually be resolved by services that will be built on top of the network.

Asking you what those services will be might be stupid. If you knew one, you'd either be building it or planning it and would not post it on the forum :=)

[David M]

Gresham's Law...
Bad money drives out good money.


Why spend something valuable when people accept worthless things just as or more readily?

That's why I pay my taxes in fiat and not Bitcoins. :-)

[TakashiMakat]

Gresham's Law...
Bad money drives out good money.


Why spend something valuable when people accept worthless things just as or more readily?

That's why I pay my taxes in fiat and not Bitcoins. :-)

Also because you have to

[nmtrader100]

Ask any Cypriot what he thinks about keeping money in the bank an paying with his check card.  

Coming to a bank near you.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-26/cyprus-style-wealth-confiscation-starting-all-over-world

[PenAndPaper]

Solve what? Since you said yourself that the bitpay model works then the real problem here is volatility. I don't expect volatility to go away for years to come but things will become only better over time.

[GigaCoin]

Privacy, not having to share your personal information is a good reason. However, the vast majority of people don't care about sharing their personal information while making most of their transactions.

You don't want to share your personal info with a merchant that you don't trust. But would you want to make an irreversible payment to that merchant that you can't trust?

How will the average consumer deal with the complexities of keeping a wallet safe, transaction fees, confirmations, change addresses? We certainly need abstraction layers such as e-wallets.

How will anyone trust their money with an e-wallet that can't guarantee the safety of people's money? That is the most bountiful target for hackers and criminals?

The volatility is making people steer away from holding the bitcoins even if they receive bitcoin for the services/products they provide. Hence the success of Bitpay. So the idea that you are more likely to spend Bitcoin if you get paid in Bitcoin is not happening.

How will we make Bitcoin the future if we can't solve these and get mom and dad to pay with Bitcoin?

customer will save in bitcoin and spend in quarks

[TakashiMakat]

Solve what? Since you said yourself that the bitpay model works then the real problem here is volatility. I don't expect volatility to go away for years to come but things will become only better over time.

I said Bitpay is successful but I believe the driver of this model's success is Bitcoin enthusiasts and supporters like us. Not mass adoption.

I don't think volatility is the only obstacle standing in the way of mass adoption as I described in the OP.

[zimmah]

Privacy, not having to share your personal information is a good reason. However, the vast majority of people don't care about sharing their personal information while making most of their transactions.

You don't want to share your personal info with a merchant that you don't trust. But would you want to make an irreversible payment to that merchant that you can't trust?

How will the average consumer deal with the complexities of keeping a wallet safe, transaction fees, confirmations, change addresses? We certainly need abstraction layers such as e-wallets.

How will anyone trust their money with an e-wallet that can't guarantee the safety of people's money? That is the most bountiful target for hackers and criminals?

The volatility is making people steer away from holding the bitcoins even if they receive bitcoin for the services/products they provide. Hence the success of Bitpay. So the idea that you are more likely to spend Bitcoin if you get paid in Bitcoin is not happening.

How will we make Bitcoin the future if we can't solve these and get mom and dad to pay with Bitcoin?

customer will save in bitcoin and spend in quarks

what makes quarks better than bitcoins?

[PenAndPaper]

Solve what? Since you said yourself that the bitpay model works then the real problem here is volatility. I don't expect volatility to go away for years to come but things will become only better over time.

I said Bitpay is successful but I believe the driver of this model's success is Bitcoin enthusiasts and supporters like us. Not mass adoption.

I don't think volatility is the only obstacle standing in the way of mass adoption as I described in the OP.

Isn't it obvious that any good model around bitcoin would be initially supported from the bitcoin community? What do you expect someone that has no clue about what bitcoin is to include bitpay as payment option in their businesses?

[AnonyMint]

The big paradigm shift that Bitcoin enables is the case where customer is the merchant and the merchant is the customer.

Now imagine how we can use that to outcompete facebook and destroy the plans of the bastards who want to track everything.