Buying food or groceries with Bitcoin

[plvbob0070]

For me, accepting Bitcoin in the market is always possible but not for everyone. Merchants can accept bitcoin as payment if they are willing to accept it, and that they trust bitcoin. I just think that adopting bitcoin payment is not for everyone, and it's not about the popularity or demand because sellers who do not have any idea about it won't find it effective since they can still earn with regular payment methods. But for those who know and trust bitcoin, they can accept bitcoin willingly.

We don't have to wait for years to see if people would be open to it as a payment method because it depends on the seller. It may be hard to find shops that are open to bitcoin but in my country, I have heard that some shops actually accept crypto payments before, I just don't know if they still do. But the point is if the shop owners are fond of bitcoin and crypto, they can accept it. It's just rare to find that kind of shops these days but for sure there are.

[Eugenar]

I don't think that it would be a great idea, the volatility of the bitcoin could be the reason why it is not too good to be true, there would be no store that would accept bitcoin for payment because on the bitcoin price goes down then their business would fall as well. It is really risky for them if they allow it to happen. I think they should have a fixed price for the product and can be paid by the bitcoin.

[Pumuckel21]

So crypto cards make it very easy to pay with bitcoin and other crypto currencies.  You pay with your BTC and the merhant will receive fiat. The only problem here is still the volatility of your cryptos.

[GDragon]

Bitcoin's popularity has been increasing ever since the bull market of 2017 took place. Even with the pandemic, prices have recovered to their original levels (near $10k) in just a matter of months. More people are accepting Bitcoin worldwide, albeit at a slow and steady pace. I've seen many sites out there in the online world which accepts Bitcoin for goods and services. But the number of businesses and merchants accepting it for food or groceries are quite limited. In the physical world, supermarkets and even fast foods haven't even adopted Bitcoin yet. Fiat is still the predominant type of currency in the mainstream world, for buying items that are required for one's survival.

Do you think that in the future it'll be possible to buy food or groceries with Bitcoin? I know that volatility is a huge issue for Bitcoin to be accepted as an alternative to traditional Fiat, but merchants and businesses could quickly convert Bitcoin to a stablecoin minimizing the risk of loss. What are your thoughts?

This will be possible as long as btc is already widely known by people in the future. As long as btc will be used as a currency already. If a lot of customers are using btc, then groceries, shops, and even other services will also accept it as payments because their customers are using it. However, I think there will still be a lot of problems because of fees, its volatiltiy just like you say, and etc. If it happens in the future I think others will still use btc as an investment.

[sheenshane]

This is the fact that most crypto enthusiasts didn't use Bitcoin as a payment method in any merchants or any e-commerce businesses. They saw the potential of holding on it as an investment than spending as a payment. But there are some small merchants who understand the volatility of Bitcoin, they accept crypto especially Bitcoin as a payment method in a convenient way, but the Bitcoin holders didn't like to use Bitcoin as a payment.

Based on this article, Popular Payment Methods Worldwide. Bitcoin or digital currency is the last option and the most popular is credit/debit cards.

• 1. Credit/Debit Cards
• 2. E-Wallets
• 3. Payment Gateways
• 4. P2P payment
• 5. Digital Cryptocurrencies

[CarnagexD]

I don't think that grocery markets accepting Bitcoin will be so popular in the future. It's a cool startup idea and can improve crypto adoption, but it isn't very convenient for retailers.

Yeah, that's very futuristic. I think that those markets will only accept fiat because that is a traditional currency that we are using for a long period of time. Bitcoin only existed since 2009 and that's pretty new for some people who are not that technologically inclined. They are not that knowledgeable in using bitcoin and they don't have idea how it works because it is a centralized currency. It is less hassle for some grocery market business to use fiat in any transactions that they are making. YES, this will be a good step on a bitcoin adoption soon but I don't see it feasible during this time. It is a great idea to use digital currency in that point of view, but it is not that necessary and useful right now due to some economic crisis that we are experiencing.

[CoinFoxs]

Bitcoin has gained popularity over the past few years especially in 2017 when price of 1 BTC was equal to $20k. Right now people are adopting bitcoin as an alternate method of making payments and buying goods and services but if I talk about my country many people are still not aware of cryptocurrency and those who know are not embracing it over other methods of making transactions. According to my point of view one of the reason why buying groceries by paying BTC is not a rational decision because when BTC will be transferred from buyer to seller there will be deduction of charges which can be avoided by paying flat money.

[kryptqnick]

Bitcoin's popularity has been increasing ever since the bull market of 2017 took place. Even with the pandemic, prices have recovered to their original levels (near $10k) in just a matter of months. More people are accepting Bitcoin worldwide, albeit at a slow and steady pace. I've seen many sites out there in the online world which accepts Bitcoin for goods and services. But the number of businesses and merchants accepting it for food or groceries are quite limited. In the physical world, supermarkets and even fast foods haven't even adopted Bitcoin yet. Fiat is still the predominant type of currency in the mainstream world, for buying items that are required for one's survival.

Do you think that in the future it'll be possible to buy food or groceries with Bitcoin? I know that volatility is a huge issue for Bitcoin to be accepted as an alternative to traditional Fiat, but merchants and businesses could quickly convert Bitcoin to a stablecoin minimizing the risk of loss. What are your thoughts?

I don't think volatility is the main issue here. Bitcoin has been more of less stable lately, and there can be a mechanism set up for automatic price adjustments and regular conversions of payments into stable coins or fiat. I think the fees are the main problem. When I transfer Bitcoin somewhere, it's usually 0.01-0.02 per transaction. It costs less than a dollar sometimes which is great, but it's a few dollars more usually. The problem is, when I go to a grocery store, I usually don't spend more than 30 dollars (that would be 0.003 BTC), and the transaction fee becomes more significant in comparison. Not to mention that those conversion fees would most likely fall on customers as well.

[Asuspawer09]

Price hike or price surge should not be a determine factor for btc acceptance, when people accept btc it should be because of the usefulness and effectiveness of it, the ability of btc to provide seemless services to people more than the traditional fiat currency, when you accept B over A it should be because B is better in every aspect and serve 100% purposes more than A,

Eventually ones people start seeing the difference between using btc and using fiat which is more convenient and less expensive to use the demand to use it will grow faster,  whether it is businesses or individuals, ones they understand this important aspect, then I believe popularity, acceptance, adoption etc will happen massively.

It could be the risk, Accepting bitcoin as a payment in business meaning you're also risking your business as you are investing the money you are getting in your business.

We know how important (cash) in a business, you might lose a big capital as it is risky to invest in bitcoin. But it would be great if your already an investor, and start accepting bitcoin. As long as you could sustain your business it would be good to go and accept bitcoin.

[Fredomago]

So crypto cards make it very easy to pay with bitcoin and other crypto currencies.  You pay with your BTC and the merhant will receive fiat. The only problem here is still the volatility of your cryptos.

That's is much easier if merchants are not afraid with volatilities, they can accept bitcoin with automatically exchange to their local fiat, though it's still a long journey for this cryptocurrency, as people who don't have any ideas about this type of currency will be hard to convinced switching from the original payment process that they all knew.

In the otherside, people who are living where technology is really growing chances that they'll be able to embrace this type of payment process.

[PhucS]

This is a long-discussed issue. I have seen that in fact, many places have accepted Bitcoin payments, even in my country, there are universities that have tested tuition payment method in Bitcoin. However, I think this method is not popular in grocery stores. Although Bitcoin is gradually gaining popularity, its volatile nature of prices is a barrier. Besides, fee per transaction is also an issue.

[kayvie]

Do you think that in the future it'll be possible to buy food or groceries with Bitcoin? I know that volatility is a huge issue for Bitcoin to be accepted as an alternative to traditional Fiat, but merchants and businesses could quickly convert Bitcoin to a stablecoin minimizing the risk of loss. What are your thoughts?

Yes, it is possible but maybe in the future.
That's it, volatility is the main issue of bitcoin, but converting that bitcoin to stablecoin will be another process for merchants. Maybe it might be better if you suggest to those merchants that they should accept stablecoins instead of bitcoin, right?

[o_e_l_e_o]

That's it, volatility is the main issue of bitcoin

its volatile nature of prices is a barrier.

That's is much easier if merchants are not afraid with volatilities

I do not agree with all this talk about volatility. There are plenty of ways in which merchants can protect themselves from volatility. There are third party payment processors, such as CoinPayments and CoinGate, who will handle everything for the merchant, give a USD-adjusted price in bitcoin to their customers, let the customers pay in bitcoin, and then immediately deposit a converted amount of USD (or other fiat) to their accounts. The merchant is literally never exposed to any volatility at all. If they don't want to trust a third party, then they can use BTCPay to set up their own payment server, auto-forward any payments to their own account at an exchange and sell for fiat. The benefit of the latter option is the merchant can choose to keep some of the bitcoin as bitcoin and not convert it all, which they can then use to keep as profit, pay their suppliers, pay their staff, etc.

The discussion above regarding fees does have some merit to it when the fees are high, but with the continued development of the Lightning Network, then hopefully this won't be as much of an issue in the future.

[sulendra12]

So crypto cards make it very easy to pay with bitcoin and other crypto currencies.  You pay with your BTC and the merhant will receive fiat. The only problem here is still the volatility of your cryptos.

It is easier to pay, but just imagine that you are planning to buy just small amount of goods to pay but the fees are overwhelming. Unless you do buy in bulk, I guess it's not worth it to pay more fees just for small stuff. Unless you are wealthy enough.

[LbtalkL]

In my country, I don't see any grocery store, etc. personally but I heard in the capital city there are one or two mini-stores that accepts bitcoin. Since 2017 I don't see any improvement in that I only see bitcoin ATM was added by one bank. Back to the topic, I have seen some videos before by some vloggers paying with bitcoin on japan on several stores which are really amazing. I don't know what system those stores are using on phone but it confirms very fast but not as fast like credit cards or bank's digital wallets which is pretty instant. I hope those stores are not using large fees to make it faster  

I found 1 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbNG66nQdqA

[RapTarX]

There are a lot of factors to be considered before bitcoin get such scenerio. Bitcoin don't have the easiness of using as of fiat. You can carry a card and pay with that while with bitcoin, there are barely any of such cards existed. Most of the people won't use it because of the volatility and so does the merchant themselves. It's one of the resistances toward real life adoption. I guess we need more times; more development, more of services which can settle the volatility, easiness of use etc.

[malekbaba]

I don't think that grocery markets accepting Bitcoin will be so popular in the future. It's a cool startup idea and can improve crypto adoption, but it isn't very convenient for retailers.

Volatile price is the factor here. Suppose retailer buy a pen with 0.0001btc, next day the price of btc may go up or down and price of the pen will fluctuate too. But in future, btc will be more stable. Undoubtedly btc is profitable digital currency in theory. In reality the way is not easy. But crypto is quite secure and reliable asset and In my opinion, crypto will cover all aspects of life, in future

[Swordsoffreedom]

If Bitcoin will more stable than running situation then all online shop and groceries will be wanted to accept it and we will could buy things at cheaper rate. I think all renowned online shop like AliExpress, amazon they will accept BTC very soon, because now the demand for bitcoin is increasing worldwide, and online stores will accept BTC for the sake of their business, because the "advantage of the buyers payment method" is more important to them. The day is not far when we will have the opportunity to use bitcoin everywhere.

[joinfree]

Sure, that can be possible but just as the OP suggested it will be best to have traders mostly become aware of the use of stable coins just to reduce any form of volatility should the market crash. But I am sure some traders would also want to experience some volatility should the market rise just to make profits whiles holding their bitcoins.

[Tahsin Kabir Kollol]

Buying food or groceries with Bitcoin is a good idea but there is some problem. The price of Bitcoin is very volatile so many people are not interested in buying and selling everyday items with it. Moreover, Bitcoin's transaction fee is a little high at present that many people are not interested to pay for small transactions due to high transaction costs. Yet most people collect bitcoin usually for trade and to earn income from it. Many top companies already accepted bitcoin but if it is possible to maintain the price stability of Bitcoin and make the cost of its transactions less, it will be possible to buy and sell food and groceries worldwide.