Does any of you spend bitcoin in physical shops?

[Don Pedro Dinero]

There are some shops where you can spend bitcoin online, but there are very few places where you can go physically and spend your bitcoins. I was wondering if people from the forum spend their bitcoins physically, regularly or occasionally, it doesn’t matter, as we know bitcoin is not that much widespread.

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[The Sceptical Chymist]

A couple weeks ago, I was prepared to make a thread about a local pizza place that accepts bitcoin--it's about 0.2 miles from my house, and while looking at their menu cover, I was shocked that it listed bitcoin among their payment methods.  Now I'm not crazy about using bitcoin for something as disposable as pizza when I could very easily use cash, but I thought it was a great sign of progress in my little area of the world.

Then I spoke to two guys who work there, and they basically said they had no way of taking a bitcoin payment and that the owner put the bitcoin payment method on the menu "just because".  Made no sense to me at all, and I was disappointed.  One of those guys knew a lot about crypto, and we chatted for about 10-15 minutes about it.  He asked me if I owned any alts and he knew all about payment processors like Bitpay and exchanges like Coinbase.

Anyway, this was the only time I'd seen anything like "BTC accepted here" in real life.  I probably would have spent some bitcoin there just for the hell of it, but it would not have become a habit.  I think spending crypto for items like drugs and illegal things online actually makes sense, as there's no bank that's going to let you use your debit card to do so.  If you try to buy kratom--which is not illegal--some vendors can't even accept credit cards because of the nature of what's being sold.  Visa & MC apparently want nothing to do with that sort of thing.

I have bought precious metals with bitcoin, but never again.  You'll notice on Provident Metals that there's a bitcoin "discount", but you'll also notice that there's an even bigger discount if you pay in cash.  And places like Veldt Gold have even higher prices and just aren't worth it, IMO.  True, these places aren't in physical shops but I'm just saying.

I look on it as a store of wealth

I do too, but I don't have a lot of wealth to store.  As a consequence I've had to sell a lot of the bitcoin I've owned and I've spent a lot, too.  Lately I've been saving it, though.  I keep thinking back on the bitcoin I'd bought at $300-$500 and how much better off I'd have been if I'd kept it.  I also think BTC is going to start a new bull run at some point and I really don't want to miss it.

[Jet Cash]

I still haven't been able to bring myself to spend any Bitcoin. I look on it as a store of wealth, and I believe that it is due a major price increase in a few months time. I am happy to accept Bitcoin in payment, but any receipts go straight into savings.

I justify my action by telling myself that Bitcoin needs savers and receivers as well as spenders and miners.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I justify my action by telling myself that Bitcoin needs savers and receivers as well as spenders and miners.

I totally agree. That’s what I was trying to say in another thread.

[friends1980]

Honestly, uptil today I have not seen a single (physically existing) store or shop accepting crypto.

I was in Turkey recently. Even though they are claimed to have the highest number of crypto owners, I have not seen any real-life use of it either.

Probably some hipster shops in Amsterdam, London or Berlin are using it (just like the pizza shop from OP) but only to look cool.

And as long as people are converting the current value to USD or EUR - and not the opposite - it's completely useless. Why the hell would you risk paying with a crypto that might be worth the double tomorrow, if you've got dollars or euros.

[Jet Cash]

Virtual purchases seem to be the best use for Bitcoin. I pay for domain names with fiat, and I try to obtain Bitcoin for any sales that i make.

I can see that other virtual assets will be introduced into the Bitcoin economy. For example, in the future you may be able to buy a Walmart gift card with Bitcoin, and spend that on groceries in a store. The card credit could be a prepayment made online in advance of the store visit.

[mdayonliner]

I paid around 1.34 BTC (early 2017: $1200 that time) to buy a website script from an online software company. We had contract that they will do some customization for the website. It was a not much work but they were working on the script for few months... eventually they ran away without giving me any update leaving me the unfinished script.

I still have the website but not functioning as I expected but I was blamed several times on this forum that I had the business up and I was promoting it... Here is the link by the way: http://followbitcoin.today

I have spent my bitcoin online for various other stuffs but never spent to any physical shop.

PS: I bought bitcoin using ATM though.

[qumeijia]

In my country Bitcoin can not be use for any payment or transaction because there is no legalization of using bitcoin or other Crypto. It has low spreadwide because it is only known by small amount community of people. However, I am expecting that someday it can be used for going tho shops. It offers simplicity than virtual currency whereas people can easily access their account and use it. I think it is simpler even than mastercard or creditcard.

[yatsey87]

I've bought a few things online with bitcoin, but never used it in an actual physical shop, simply for the fact that there's not really any places I know that accept it and I'm certainly not going to go out of my way just to spend some bitcoin just for the sake of it. As others have also said, I'd also much rather keep the coins I have right now as an investment. Bitcoin is almost certainly going to be worth more at some point in the future than it is today, and this is already true for this week alone. Bitcoin has gone up quite a bit already the past few days and I hate spending it then a couple of days later I could have got far more bang for my buck and if you think bitcoin is going to go up by thousands at some point then it's pretty silly to spend any of it now. I guess that's just bitcoin for you and you can't have it both ways and sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I enjoy the ride either way.

[vladimirhf]

never.. as I don't know any physical shop accepting btc. I used bitrefill a few times, nothing else.

[hildacitra]

There are some shops where you can spend bitcoin online, but there are very few places where you can go physically and spend your bitcoins. I was wondering if people from the forum spend their bitcoins physically, regularly or occasionally, it doesn’t matter, as we know bitcoin is not that much widespread.

In my country, there is no even one shop receives or uses Bitcoin for the payment. It still uses physical and virtual currency for purchasing and other transactions. The digital currency are only used by a few community, there are many people think that it is danger thing. It is only use for resource of income and investment. This the limitation of bitcoin doesn't has widespread.

[friends1980]

It's the big question, I guess. Once people start accepting crypto in real life, how will it influence its value? And will it still be the usual suspects, BTC, LTC etc. which will be used?

[rhomelmabini]

If there are physical shops accepting bitcoin in my town I will probably spent it for physical items but somehow just a few only know how bitcoin operates or what is its usage.

Maybe I could be the pioneer if I open up my own business.

[beej]

That privilege sadly is not yet available to where I live, in my country bitcoins
and altcoins are only accessible online. Hopefully that feature would be made
available in shops and malls, since there are plenty of people who have numerous
altcoins here.  

[Initscri]

A couple weeks ago, I was prepared to make a thread about a local pizza place that accepts bitcoin--it's about 0.2 miles from my house, and while looking at their menu cover, I was shocked that it listed bitcoin among their payment methods.  Now I'm not crazy about using bitcoin for something as disposable as pizza when I could very easily use cash, but I thought it was a great sign of progress in my little area of the world.

Then I spoke to two guys who work there, and they basically said they had no way of taking a bitcoin payment and that the owner put the bitcoin payment method on the menu "just because".  Made no sense to me at all, and I was disappointed.  One of those guys knew a lot about crypto, and we chatted for about 10-15 minutes about it.  He asked me if I owned any alts and he knew all about payment processors like Bitpay and exchanges like Coinbase.

Anyway, this was the only time I'd seen anything like "BTC accepted here" in real life.  I probably would have spent some bitcoin there just for the hell of it, but it would not have become a habit.  I think spending crypto for items like drugs and illegal things online actually makes sense, as there's no bank that's going to let you use your debit card to do so.  If you try to buy kratom--which is not illegal--some vendors can't even accept credit cards because of the nature of what's being sold.  Visa & MC apparently want nothing to do with that sort of thing.

I have bought precious metals with bitcoin, but never again.  You'll notice on Provident Metals that there's a bitcoin "discount", but you'll also notice that there's an even bigger discount if you pay in cash.  And places like Veldt Gold have even higher prices and just aren't worth it, IMO.  True, these places aren't in physical shops but I'm just saying.

I look on it as a store of wealth

I do too, but I don't have a lot of wealth to store.  As a consequence I've had to sell a lot of the bitcoin I've owned and I've spent a lot, too.  Lately I've been saving it, though.  I keep thinking back on the bitcoin I'd bought at $300-$500 and how much better off I'd have been if I'd kept it.  I also think BTC is going to start a new bull run at some point and I really don't want to miss it.

I was going to say this, it seems like a lot of local shops just jumped into Bitcoin solely because of hype, with no actual intention of implementing it as a payment method. I've had a few situations myself where "their payment method for Bitcoin wasn't working at the time"

In the past, I think I went to a coffee shop and used Bitcoin. This is back in like 2014. But since then, it's mostly been a payment method for online services for myself (domains, hosting, etc)

I used to use https://coinmap.org/ all the time to find places to spend. It's actually cool to find small little businesses you normally wouldn't have found, even if some of them are abusing the hype.

[beatzcoin123]

talking about spending bitcoin physical, one shouldnt forget bitcoin is still dgital and cannot be held as fiat currency, i have made transactions using bitcoin but it was strictly online, i would be glad if there is such shops accepting bitcoin in my neighbourhood, this will increase the use case of bitcoin thereby enhancing it value.

[budrabut]

I can't spend and use Bitcoin for any payments in my country due to the existence of Bitcoin. It is not well known by society, it is only known by small flocks of people. Moreover, the government is not regulate or legalize it. I use Bitcoin for trading and obtain income only, in fact even though it can nit be use for any payment, it helps me much. I think it is better like this.

[LTU_btc]

No. In my city there are no physical shops accepting Bitcoin currently. There are some physical shops accepting Bitcoin in my country, but it's located only in bigger cities.
Month ago I had chance to purchase new smartphone using Bitcoins, but I choose to pay in EUR then. I decided not to spend Bitcoin for this purchase because it's price was very unstable in these days and there was risk to spend to much money on that phone.
So, I'm spending Bitcoins in online stores only. And I can say that I already made quite many purchases using Bitcoin as payment method.

[akosipepot]

There aren't shops around which take BTC and keep it as BTC but convert it back to fiat currency. Simple answer, no.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

If you look at coinmap, many places accept bitcoin. If you live in a big city in a developed country, I’m sure there are some. But I bet no actual bitcoin payments are happening, because nobody requests to pay with bitcoin.