Unknown National Chain Restaurant to Accept Bitcoin This Weekend

[Phinnaeus Gage]

First guess:  Not real

Second guess:  Einstein Bros. Bagel

I'm pretty sure your guess was inspired by my other post that had this image, Love to Drink Bare. 

[1714782299]

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[norulezapply]

The real question is: How long until Bruce sets this imaginary restaurant chain up with a convienient online wallet service that he's apparently got 25,000 coins with, which then disappears a few months later...

Bruce and the online wallet service.. totally coincidental relationship there of course.

[Elwar]

While I would hope that this would be true, I do not believe that Bitcoin is yet ready for POS acceptance outside of mom and pop shops with current services.

A mom and pop place tends to have the owners running the shop or running all of the accounting and books. This means that they have full control over the Bitcoin wallet.

A more corporate environment will have accountants that cut checks to pay for various things, with reports etc on spending. But an accountant with the Bitcoin wallet can
just as easily copy the wallet and take it home, then at any point just transfer all of the money out of it with no trace. Then claim that it was hacked, or that some other
employee must have had access to it.

Not to say that Bitcoin could not survive in such an environment. I just do not believe that at this time the tools are available for such an environment.

We have gotten to the point where it is very feasible for all mom and pop shops to easily accept Bitcoins as a POS service through bit-pay. All they need is an iPhone or Android. That is big enough news and will move Bitcoin forward dramatically.

[deepceleron]

While I would hope that this would be true, I do not believe that Bitcoin is yet ready for POS acceptance outside of mom and pop shops with current services.

...

Having worked POS development and support for a 2000 location corporation, I can tell you that Bitcoin can be made simple and employee idiot proof (and theft-proof too, since it is the customer creating the transfer and not the retailer). Unless they are using old-fashioned phone line machines, the company headquarters will already have data lines up to locations for POS credit card transactions which are processed through their custom terminals and datacenters, and the datacenter has high speed links to the backend servers for credit card companies. It's not much to add another payment option to software-driven terminals. I'm sure people here have used credit cards at Starbucks for example - with a card swipe you are through in 10 seconds.

The company would begin a transaction by creating a unique address and expected BTC payment in it's database, and push that to the POS and customer (with a 2D barcode on receipt or a POS display for mobile phone, etc). The transaction would be closed or finalized when the payment address gets its bitcoins, and an "all clear"/processed signal can be returned to the register. The database backend can use heuristics to determine risk in taking a 0 confirmation transaction, such as the transaction being distributed to a majority of nodes, an adequate fee to ensure inclusion, and balance and sending history on that address that might indicate a double-spend attempt. Considering that retailers have to eat credit card fees, and losses from stolen and disputed payments, etc, a non-reversible free bitcoin payment is like a godsend. The only big hurdle for Bitcoin at the POS is you have to wait for some confirmations for 100% fraud-proof money.

One thing in a retail environment, customers need to know how much the purchase cost is in BTC before making the purchase. To that effect, we need not a more stable exchange price, but retailers that are willing to set a long-term BTC price instead of simply looking up the current exchange rate. If customers know that 1 BTC is always worth a hamburger, expanded retail presence can actually stabilize BTC exchange rates.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

While I would hope that this would be true, I do not believe that Bitcoin is yet ready for POS acceptance outside of mom and pop shops with current services.

...

Having worked POS development and support for a 2000 location corporation, I can tell you that Bitcoin can be made simple and employee idiot proof (and theft-proof too, since it is the customer creating the transfer and not the retailer). Unless they are using old-fashioned phone line machines, the company headquarters will already have data lines up to locations for POS credit card transactions which are processed through their custom terminals and datacenters, and the datacenter has high speed links to the backend servers for credit card companies. It's not much to add another payment option to software-driven terminals. I'm sure people here have used credit cards at Starbucks for example - with a card swipe you are through in 10 seconds.

The company would begin a transaction by creating a unique address and expected BTC payment in it's database, and push that to the POS and customer (with a 2D barcode on receipt or a POS display for mobile phone, etc). The transaction would be closed or finalized when the payment address gets its bitcoins, and an "all clear"/processed signal can be returned to the register. The database backend can use heuristics to determine risk in taking a 0 confirmation transaction, such as the transaction being distributed to a majority of nodes, an adequate fee to ensure inclusion, and balance and sending history on that address that might indicate a double-spend attempt. Considering that retailers have to eat credit card fees, and losses from stolen and disputed payments, etc, a non-reversible free bitcoin payment is like a godsend. The only big hurdle for Bitcoin at the POS is you have to wait for some confirmations for 100% fraud-proof money.

One thing in a retail environment, customers need to know how much the purchase cost is in BTC before making the purchase. To that effect, we need not a more stable exchange price, but retailers that are willing to set a long-term BTC price instead of simply looking up the current exchange rate. If customers know that 1 BTC is always worth a hamburger, expanded retail presence can actually stabilize BTC exchange rates.

I think this is the part that Bruce is going to help them with:

The company would begin a transaction by creating a unique address and expected BTC payment in it's database, and push that to the POS and customer...

Coupled with free advertising on his web show(s). Followed by, "Oops! You're not going to believe this, but..."

[Elwar]

While I would hope that this would be true, I do not believe that Bitcoin is yet ready for POS acceptance outside of mom and pop shops with current services.

...

Having worked POS development and support for a 2000 location corporation, I can tell you that Bitcoin can be made simple and employee idiot proof (and theft-proof too, since it is the customer creating the transfer and not the retailer). Unless they are using old-fashioned phone line machines, the company headquarters will already have data lines up to locations for POS credit card transactions which are processed through their custom terminals and datacenters, and the datacenter has high speed links to the backend servers for credit card companies. It's not much to add another payment option to software-driven terminals. I'm sure people here have used credit cards at Starbucks for example - with a card swipe you are through in 10 seconds.

The company would begin a transaction by creating a unique address and expected BTC payment in it's database, and push that to the POS and customer (with a 2D barcode on receipt or a POS display for mobile phone, etc). The transaction would be closed or finalized when the payment address gets its bitcoins, and an "all clear"/processed signal can be returned to the register. The database backend can use heuristics to determine risk in taking a 0 confirmation transaction, such as the transaction being distributed to a majority of nodes, an adequate fee to ensure inclusion, and balance and sending history on that address that might indicate a double-spend attempt. Considering that retailers have to eat credit card fees, and losses from stolen and disputed payments, etc, a non-reversible free bitcoin payment is like a godsend. The only big hurdle for Bitcoin at the POS is you have to wait for some confirmations for 100% fraud-proof money.

One thing in a retail environment, customers need to know how much the purchase cost is in BTC before making the purchase. To that effect, we need not a more stable exchange price, but retailers that are willing to set a long-term BTC price instead of simply looking up the current exchange rate. If customers know that 1 BTC is always worth a hamburger, expanded retail presence can actually stabilize BTC exchange rates.

All of this has been solved and is working with https://bit-pay.com/aboutMobile.html

What I am talking about is on the accounting end. When there is one person who controls the business account and checks and accounting then it is an easy transition to a Bitcoin wallet. But with a corporation with accounting staff or off-site accounting services with many people in charge of small bits of purchasing and making deposits/withdrawals it makes things more complicated. Not that Bitcoin cannot be adapted to such an environment, but that we do not currently right now today have tools that deal with this type of environment. We just are not at that point yet. In my opinion.

[CosicMiner]

Its Hooters! 468 locations..

[BlockHash]

So what happens when this all turns out to be another troll by Bruce? Will people finally get the message that the guy is a scammer and a disgrace to the community?

[greyhawk]

Is it just me or is Bruce Wagner becoming the Don Lapre of Bitcoin?

No, Bruce has not enough counts of Fraud running against him yet.

Time to step up the game, Brucie.

[coined]

put the noose down boys, you can't lynch him yet

let's wait a bit and see if this is true and not greatly exaggerated.

[niko]

put the noose down boys, you can't lynch him yet

let's wait a bit and see if this is true and not greatly exaggerated.

Again?!

[julz]

From the bitcoin show episode 47

I don't wanna publish who it is quite at this very moment.. because they're gonna get a flood of 150 people and since they contacted me I wanna give them the ah.. you know the honour of giving them my opinion first.

The honour!?  A revealing slip at the ego on this guy or just an innocent miswording?
ok.. so it's a cheap shot  - but I found this funny.

[the founder]

From the conference Bruce works with bit-pay (that is how we had to pay to get in and pay for the booth)... and I do like the guys at bit-pay...  they were honest when I spoke to them and I do like their web cart for taking payments.  Plus you can't forget they always had the good looking models at their booth  

With bit-pay technically it could work.   I was able to transfer bitcoins from the bank to bitpay in about 10 seconds.

But the technical part is not what bugs me.. it's actually if it happens in the first place that does.   Last thing we need is more hotair.

If freaking Hooters / whatever starts taking bitcoins then things will start moving fast... because they take them,  then the bar down the street takes them... next thing you know everyone is taking them....   but I don't envision that happening...  something smells wrong with this..

An announcement like that with the word "unknown" doesn't make it helpful.

Alas,  who am I to judge...    

[memvola]

What I am talking about is on the accounting end. When there is one person who controls the business account and checks and accounting then it is an easy transition to a Bitcoin wallet. But with a corporation with accounting staff or off-site accounting services with many people in charge of small bits of purchasing and making deposits/withdrawals it makes things more complicated. Not that Bitcoin cannot be adapted to such an environment, but that we do not currently right now today have tools that deal with this type of environment. We just are not at that point yet. In my opinion.

I don't think it's (say, using bit-pay) any different from paypal or credit cards. I don't think you need to implement anything on top of that to the accounting side. Do you match every single payment to every credit card transaction? I don't think so... If there is a deficit, there is enough information you can use to investigate. Otherwise, accept payments, transfer money to your accounts in regular intervals, etc. IMO, training staff to use the payment method is the bottleneck here.

[thefussydutchman]

Bruce Wagner is the man yo!!

[Steve]

What I am talking about is on the accounting end. When there is one person who controls the business account and checks and accounting then it is an easy transition to a Bitcoin wallet. But with a corporation with accounting staff or off-site accounting services with many people in charge of small bits of purchasing and making deposits/withdrawals it makes things more complicated. Not that Bitcoin cannot be adapted to such an environment, but that we do not currently right now today have tools that deal with this type of environment. We just are not at that point yet. In my opinion.

I don't think it's (say, using bit-pay) any different from paypal or credit cards. I don't think you need to implement anything on top of that to the accounting side. Do you match every single payment to every credit card transaction? I don't think so... If there is a deficit, there is enough information you can use to investigate. Otherwise, accept payments, transfer money to your accounts in regular intervals, etc. IMO, training staff to use the payment method is the bottleneck here.

Are you aware of the script capabilities in bitcoin?  They will enable transactions of the sort that require say 3 out of 5 signature to spend funds.  This is exactly what is needed in a corporate accounting context.  This same capability can also be used for multi-factor authentication to protect high value wallets.  I believe Gavin and other core developers are doing work to enable these capabilities as we speak.

[memvola]

I don't think it's (say, using bit-pay) any different from paypal or credit cards. I don't think you need to implement anything on top of that to the accounting side. Do you match every single payment to every credit card transaction? I don't think so... If there is a deficit, there is enough information you can use to investigate. Otherwise, accept payments, transfer money to your accounts in regular intervals, etc. IMO, training staff to use the payment method is the bottleneck here.

Are you aware of the script capabilities in bitcoin?  They will enable transactions of the sort that require say 3 out of 5 signature to spend funds.  This is exactly what is needed in a corporate accounting context.  This same capability can also be used for multi-factor authentication to protect high value wallets.  I believe Gavin and other core developers are doing work to enable these capabilities as we speak.

Wow, I hadn't thought of its potential usefulness in corporate accounting. Notary service without having to trust any single entity and without cost.

What I'm saying is though, you don't have to implement major accounting changes to start accepting payments with bit-pay.

[JohnDoe]

Um, this was the Bitcoin forum, not the sex workers forum. Guess with Bruce being in both worlds it was an easy mistake to make though.

lolwut

[Elwar]

Are you aware of the script capabilities in bitcoin?  They will enable transactions of the sort that require say 3 out of 5 signature to spend funds.  This is exactly what is needed in a corporate accounting context.  This same capability can also be used for multi-factor authentication to protect high value wallets.  I believe Gavin and other core developers are doing work to enable these capabilities as we speak.

I have not heard of this. I will definitely look into it. Sounds like just what is needed to bring Bitcoin to the big time.

[MemoryDealers]

Its Hooters! 468 locations..

Someone please photoshop bitcoins into the hooters logo!

This would be the perfect combination.
I hope it is true!