What do businesses and customers actually need from digital currency?

[EskimoBob]

What do businesses and customers actually need from digital currency?

Can you, as a business owner list at least one BTC feature, that helps you to start using it daily?

Can you, as a consumer (customer) write down a feature you must have, so you can actually use bitcoins in every day life?

Just write down your idea and short description. That is it.

LETS KEEP IT CIVIL, PLEASE!

Why I started this forum thread? I personally think that BTC needs some new  features that make it useful in the real world.
Those ideas must come from consumers and business owners like you.

Lets add some _real_ value to bitcoin!

Please, put your heads together and understand the *coins weaknesses. Not only from nerdy miners point of view but from the consumer/business point of view. Consumers do not give a flying fuck about your hash rates and difficulties divided buy N and what not

What do merchants want/need?  Has anyone read CC, DC, PayPal, Dwolla etc service/product descriptions? What can be copied successfully to BYC? 

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[d'aniel]

I would need Bitcoin to double as both a dessert topping and a floor wax for it to be anything other than useless to me.

[EskimoBob]

I like to have:
1) simple transaction export to csv - bookkeeping

2) multiple wallets (is it implemented in SCL?) support
(wallet1.dat, walle2.dat wallet.... )

3) multi-sign payment - 2 ore more must sign off to transfer coin out.  (I think this feature was actually planned for BTC)

4)  Bitcoin Escrow - for more, see: https://raw.github.com/sacarlson/MultiCoin/master/doc/README_escrow.txt

5) Fast transaction confirmation - future target: same speed (or better) as credit and debit card payments. I can not cave customers hanging around at the counter for 10+ minutes.  

[rainingbitcoins]

Chargebacks. Also, not being responsible for someone else's fraud. And it would be nice if 90% of businesses involved with Bitcoin in any capacity didn't have websites that look like they were set up in 10 minutes and are ready to disappear with your money at any moment.

I mean, it's not like I'm surprised that libertarian currency has numerous financial advantages for businesses and zero protection for consumers because it fits right into their egotistical sociopathic pseudo-intellectual crackpot philosophy, but still.

[d'aniel]

1) Medium of exchange
2) Store of value

PS: Fuck libertarians.

[EskimoBob]

6) rechargeable smart card (ICC) for bitcoins. Card can be read, charged and loaded with any ICC reader and your standard bitcoin client software.
(this is NOT a copy of your wallet on a USB stick)

[EskimoBob]

1) Medium of exchange
2) Store of value

Can you describe in more detail?

[aq]

5) Fast transaction confirmation - future target: same speed (or better) as credit and debit card payments. I can not cave customers hanging around at the counter for 10+ minutes.  

I don't know why this comes up on a regular basis.

0 confirmations are ok for your sandwich, takes 1 second, and a double spend attack is much more difficult than using a stolen credit card or just doing a chargeback.
6+ confirmations when you buy a car/house/airplane/whatever - the customer can wait in this case

[EskimoBob]

7) Stop hoarding and start spending

I know, this is not a new feature per se but it will get things moving.
So you do not misunderstand, "spending" is not "selling for fiat currency".
 

[Furyan]

7) Stop hoarding and start spending

I know, this is not a new feature per se but it will get things moving.
So you do not misunderstand, "spending" is not "selling for fiat currency".
 

Analysis of the block chain does support the accusation of hoarding, so I wouldn't argue that point, however - what do you think would encourage spending over hoarding?  What does the community need to be doing to make people open their wallets?

[EskimoBob]

8)  reserved *coin "tab"  -  N amount of funds reserved for merchant X by client Y

This is not my original idea but a simplified version of Dibbs idea he posted in another forum. For some reason no one could understand his idea :)
Example: If I frequent your website, shop, cafe etc, I can open a reserved *coin "tab" with you. Tab, where shop owner (you) can not spend funds unless I approve the transactions. Speeds up the checkout process. No need to wait for 6 confirmation. This is a bit like temporary joint account (see #3)

9) *coin "discount" or bonus  - You, as a shop owner can give me a "discount" on your products and services if I run a *coin "tab" in your shop by adding N amount of *coin to my "tab" -  I can not spend the "bonus" nowhere else but in your store.
Lets say I have a tab for 10, I buy something for 5 and you give me a discount on that purchase of 1. After the transaction for 5, my remaining tab with you is 6 (10-5+1)
You keep me coming back :)

10) built on  8 and 9  - virtua prepayd cift card for current or new customers (open a tab, get the discount)

11) *coin client support for open source plugins (look previous features) No need to build them all int to a client if it can support plugins.



  

 
 

[The_Duke]

Analysis of the block chain does support the accusation of hoarding, so I wouldn't argue that point, however - what do you think would encourage spending over hoarding?  What does the community need to be doing to make people open their wallets?

Not what you want to hear, I know, but: A new coin that is not deflationary and that does not need silly dot-shifting to stay alive in the long run.

[critmass]

Wholesalers

[Cryptoman]

Analysis of the block chain does support the accusation of hoarding, so I wouldn't argue that point, however - what do you think would encourage spending over hoarding?  What does the community need to be doing to make people open their wallets?

Not what you want to hear, I know, but: A new coin that is not deflationary and that does not need silly dot-shifting to stay alive in the long run.

This is the same as saying "stable value," something I also would like to see.  How do we judge value?  Perhaps we can compare it to a basket of commodities.  The more difficult problem is how to fix the value of a currency without intervention by a centralized intermediary.  Any ideas?

[Minsc]

My ideas here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=41905.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40029.0

[Elwar]

Easy Point of Sale transaction.

Merchant types price into a smartphone, customer easily scans the price and clicks "pay".

With a confirmation sent to the merchant when it goes through.

That would make Bitcoin easier to use than a credit card. And all you need is your phone.

[BitLucky]

Easy Point of Sale transaction.

Merchant types price into a smartphone, customer easily scans the price and clicks "pay".

With a confirmation sent to the merchant when it goes through.

That would make Bitcoin easier to use than a credit card. And all you need is your phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication

http://www.itproportal.com/2011/07/31/apple-paypal-partnership-nfc-iphone-5-on-cards/

"Speaking of a potential Apple-PayPal deal at an AIIA event in Sidney, Rod Farmer, co-founder of Mobile Experience, claimed the partnership would offer "the shortest path between two points for a consumer in terms of spending. You don't have to worry about merchant banks [and] you don't have to worry about the network ... there are fewer mouths to feed, there are fewer existing relationships that need to be altered,"

[wumpus]

1) simple transaction export to csv - bookkeeping

My GUI has had this for months... you can filter and export transactions, addresses, whatever you want

Easy Point of Sale transaction.

Merchant types price into a smartphone, customer easily scans the price and clicks "pay".

With a confirmation sent to the merchant when it goes through.

That would make Bitcoin easier to use than a credit card. And all you need is your phone.

This already exists, one of the Android wallets has NFC support. There are very few devices to test it with, though, so currently the preference seems to be QR codes.

[FreeMonies]

Reliability and Stability.

As a business owner I am considering taking bitcoin donations to help fund a space program I am currently under taking. However, with the wild fluctuations in pricing I'm concerned that donors will have a conceived value affixed to their generosity only to have it quashed in 3 hours when their donations net a fraction of the value they thought they were giving.

I'm also concerned about the reliability of transfers as I seem to see stories about people losing their coins, being hacked, or (potentially) being at the whims of the blockchain/miners.

Maybe we need a centralized oversight committee or board to help stabilize pricing?

[flaxceed]

There is a lot of theory on this thread and not much substance.  I sell drugs for bitcoins:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24196.0

I will tell you what the problem is NOW for people who are actually doing bitcoin transactions daily.  If this currency does not stabilize it will kill itself as a medium of exchange.  As a merchant, nothing else matters much.  If a customer buys BTC to pay me, and suddenly they don't have enough money to complete the transaction they get fucking pissed.  I get fucking pissed. 

Dwolla is probably the worst offender because of the time it takes to get money turned into coins.  Because the exchanges do not support a fast transfer (except exchangebitcoins.com) they are also part of the problem. 

Don't get me wrong, these things can be fixed.  Tradehill and MtGox should both take cash directly via local banks like exchangebitcoins.com does.  Dwolla should be discouraged for any transactions- it only exacerbates the problems with value fluctuations because it is so incredibly time-consuming and inefficient.

What kills a business is lack of CASH FLOW.  If you can't define this term, don't make any smart-ass comments on my post because you don't "get it".