UBER will start to transact with Bitcoin?

[vennali]

Highly unlikely, especially considering transaction fees. It is not feasible to make $5-10 payments without being burnt because of high fees. There is a solution for it though. Maybe they can either join hands with some exchange or have their own wallet through which bitcoin would be deducted without any further tx fees.

[yohananaomi]

That is a convenient way of transactions but still needs to lessen the fees or maybe use segwit address in sending and receiving of payments. Confirmation of transaction is also one of the minor issues here. Though giving it a try for UBER to accept Bitcoin payment makes things better for Bitcoiners.

an progress made by UBER to be able to accept payments with bitcoin, I also seem to agree with you that of course bitcoiners will benefit greatly from the progress that has been made with uber.
every convenience that is given by anyone to be able to use bitcoin is certainly very beneficial for the givers and those of us who use bitcoin.

there may be a problem if the transaction is delayed (if the traffic is heavy) whether this can be hung and will be resolved at a later time, but if there is pending what is the next solution. it is clear that the recipient will be disadvantaged by the pending transaction and is there a solution to be made.

[aizzaku]

This is what mass adoption looks like. It's not that companies need to have Bitcoin on the balance sheet but more the utilization of it. Agreed that bitcoin on its base layer might not work due to scalability but that is totally fine.

In the case of UBER, I think a good move will be to have custodial wallets in their app and have lightning channels opened with both drivers and clients. They should also provide the driver with an option to receive bitcoins or fiat (instant swap).

As for the whole experience, I don't think it will be affected. Furthermore, the majority of people UBER for at least 10 mins which gives enough time for confirmation (not even needed for lightning).

I do not accept people saying that bitcoin is either store of value or a medium of exchange. Why can't it be both and thus a superior form of money? Every technology has multiple layers for scalability and it's just a matter of improving the UX.

[DarkDays]

Just recently SQUAWK newsmaker interview with the CEO of UBER.
At first, the CEO said, they are likely don't want to buy some Bitcoin using their company's money and told, "We're going to keep our cash safe. - Tweet"

But after that, the CEO said:
"Just like we accept all kinds of local currency we are going to look at cryptocurrency and or #bitcoin in terms of currency to transact. That's good for business, that's good for our riders and our eaters" - Tweet.


So, what are your thoughts guys? For me, it's likely they don't want to do what Tesla did, adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet, but considering accepting Bitcoin as payments for their services. Seems still bullish for me.

I agree with you on this. It seems to me that UBER is still not convinced yet that BTC is where they should put their money in, and from their financial point of view you can understand why that it. Unlike, Tesla, UBER has suffered financially due to the pandemic, this must of cut deep into their pockets and now they're being cautious not to miss out on crypto, hence why there's talk about them accepting BTC for transactions.

Overall, this gives a positive outlook to the crypto industry that more and more giants are thinking about the crypto industry. Before there was not much of these talks but. now these are intensifying which is great!

[blckhawk]

Just recently SQUAWK newsmaker interview with the CEO of UBER.
At first, the CEO said, they are likely don't want to buy some Bitcoin using their company's money and told, "We're going to keep our cash safe. - Tweet"

But after that, the CEO said:
"Just like we accept all kinds of local currency we are going to look at cryptocurrency and or #bitcoin in terms of currency to transact. That's good for business, that's good for our riders and our eaters" - Tweet.


So, what are your thoughts guys? For me, it's likely they don't want to do what Tesla did, adding Bitcoin to their balance sheet, but considering accepting Bitcoin as payments for their services. Seems still bullish for me.

I think that would be a good idea because imagine if it works out other big companies will follow and do the same thing, by that way crypto adaptation will drastically increase. However, there will also be some problems in using it like it few transactions might become slower due to congestion in the network plus fee could also be a factor as it unlike using fiat all you need to pay is the exact amount. Anyway, using Bitcoin as another mode of payment will bring some benefits as well because if you travel across other countries you don't even need to bother to convert your money to their local currency as Bitcoin can use globally.

[Pmalek]

Due to the congestion and spike in transactions on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, the timing is pretty bad. If I order an Uber for a 20-minutes ride from point A to point B, will they require that my transaction confirms in that 20-minutes time frame. If that is the case, I would have to use a pretty high transaction fee. So I am looking at unnecessary high costs. I am paying Uber for the transportation services + I am tipping the driver + on top of that, I am forced to pay $5-10 in fees for a quick transaction confirmation.

If they don't know about double-spending and accept zero-confirmation transactions, it's an entirely different thing. In that case they could suffer from abuse and double-spend transactions, which would force them to give up on the idea of accepting crypto or they'll introduce mandatory KYC. if they kept records of of their users who paid with crypto, they could find those who performed double-spend attacks and go after them.

Than we have problem #2. Do I really want to give out my personal details to a taxy company to get a ride?

I see this only working with the lightning network or via crypto assets with extremely low network fees. Tron or Tether via the Tron network for example. That's when problem #3 appears. Lightning network isn't that popular yet, it doesn't have many users, and has still not been molded into a final service. And, coins like tron or tether are not nearly as popular as bitcoin or ether.       

[mariayaz]

If uber starts accepting bitcoin as payment that would be great but since still alot of people need to know about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, it will take sometime before it could be properly implemented

[aizzaku]

Due to the congestion and spike in transactions on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, the timing is pretty bad. If I order an Uber for a 20-minutes ride from point A to point B, will they require that my transaction confirms in that 20-minutes time frame. If that is the case, I would have to use a pretty high transaction fee. So I am looking at unnecessary high costs. I am paying Uber for the transportation services + I am tipping the driver + on top of that, I am forced to pay $5-10 in fees for a quick transaction confirmation.

If they don't know about double-spending and accept zero-confirmation transactions, it's an entirely different thing. In that case they could suffer from abuse and double-spend transactions, which would force them to give up on the idea of accepting crypto or they'll introduce mandatory KYC. if they kept records of of their users who paid with crypto, they could find those who performed double-spend attacks and go after them.

Than we have problem #2. Do I really want to give out my personal details to a taxy company to get a ride?

I see this only working with the lightning network or via crypto assets with extremely low network fees. Tron or Tether via the Tron network for example. That's when problem #3 appears. Lightning network isn't that popular yet, it doesn't have many users, and has still not been molded into a final service. And, coins like tron or tether are not nearly as popular as bitcoin or ether.       

You make good points especially about the timing but I don't think they will do it right away. If they hire a half-decent consultant who knows about bitcoin txs, the things you say are the most obvious ones.

And like you say lighting layer is an option and I think it will soon be easy enough to onboard. The UX is improving.

As for using other coins... no thank you. I mean none of the other ones are as popular and if people are willing to use these other ones which are so centralized then why switch from fiat in the first place.

[Rikafip]

It's pretty long way from "we are going tp look into cryptocurrencies" to " we are going to accept cryptocurrencies". Naturally, no CEO (at least the one with some brain) will automatically say that he will never accept crypto so I see those more like going on with the current hype than seriously considering this. And even of they do, once they see the fees and transactions time they will probably give up on this idea. At lasted for now.

We can expect more similar rumours and speculations involving popular companies, like the one with Apple the other day.

[Question123]

It's a good help to the growing value of the bitcoin, the more companies will support the bitcoin the price rise. Like in the last few days ago Elon musk invest 1.5 billion dollars worth of bitcoin that can cause for the price to up.

They need to consider the bitcoin now or maybe being supported because it will have a big effects to their companies too if they do that because the user of the bitcoin probably will going to try their service too. Both will get benefits they earn money and the user and investors of the bitcoin will get profit too. In the next coming weeks more business will try to accept bitcoin because it is very trending worldwide.

[ethereumhunter]

Now, the adoption comes from the transportation company, and that is good news for crypto because that can attract their customer to know and learn about crypto. If their customer can learn about crypto, the mass adoption will have more chances to grow, and we will see that the crypto will grow faster than what we can expect. Maybe that will not happen quickly, but the progress is good, so we will see that the crypto can have a better situation. If the government can also accept the crypto, the crypto position will be stronger than before.

[Nunoluck]

This is the advantage of biggest comunity. Our comunity is getting bigger from time to time, it seems that we are very big market in their eyes. This is a positive sentiment for bitcoin market, actually there are some business like uber in my country but they create their own digital currency. I personally prefer like to use that digital money rather than cash because it's more practical and save time and healthy of course as I didn't touch the money physically. I think when Uber let people use bitcoin to pay their service then we not only get the increasing price of bitcoin but also more mass adoption.

[dothebeats]

The problem with Uber accepting bitcoin is that they will need to wait for one confirmation before the payment is confirmed. Or if the driver doesn't want to go that route, they can open a LN channel but even that is painful to do. There are a lot of possible implementations that Uber can do in order for them to start accepting crypto. Right now, the main hurdle is the confirmation times. Once that's cleared, we will begin to see more and more services starting to accept bitcoin and crypto.

[In the silence]

Now, the adoption comes from the transportation company, and that is good news for crypto because that can attract their customer to know and learn about crypto. If their customer can learn about crypto, the mass adoption will have more chances to grow, and we will see that the crypto will grow faster than what we can expect. Maybe that will not happen quickly, but the progress is good, so we will see that the crypto can have a better situation. If the government can also accept the crypto, the crypto position will be stronger than before.

Some of the companies on different countries starts to appreciate and adopt bitcoin as a digital currency, nevertheless, it can truly help users and the company to be more productive using bitcoins' feature. With these advertisements came from big names all over the world and traffics from Crypto Enthusiast, bitcoin's progress will be more quickly as we've expecting.

[lifeforcepools]

Is this a test? They don't promise to make this feature permanent ?

[Lordhermes]

I don't think this would be possible for a fast ride because bitcoin transactions are taking longer time to confirm nowadays., what if a customer has an urgent appointment move, and the transaction is unconfirmed and not everyone knows about RBF broadcasting. I think it would be possible if Uber company set up two method of payments, crypto and Fiat, this would be the easiest ways to tackle this incidence.
If for crypto, then the address barcode will be placed at the front side of the car for easy and faster transaction.

[MCobian]

As a Bitcoin supporter, I am very happy that UBER accepts Bitcoin as a payment option in their application. But the problem is that Bitcoin transactions
take quite a long time, not compatible with UBER which requires fast transactions. With these constraints, I am sure that UBER will not be using Bitcoin
for long as a payment option. Within a few months UBER will likely stop accepting Bitcoin being one of the payment options on their application.
Unless UBER switches to altcoins which do have a much faster transaction speed.

[posi]

Additional, what do you think lads if UBER will start to accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies for their payments and after a period of time, they will back out or stop accepting Bitcoin as the mode of payment because of some issues, like stability or price volatility.
One of the examples of this before was Steam, they started to accept Bitcoin using Bitpay, but I think after weeks or months, they stopped accepting Bitcoin.

According to the respond of the UBER CEO which I believe his stance on crypto currency his clear that he's not against crypto and he's ready to integrate as payment once the customers ask for it but he will not invest the company fund into crypto just like Tesla did which is fair because he definitely dont know how to invest in cryptocurrency but I don't see any reason for UBER to stop as payment if the issues that arise in future have nothing to do with the government.

[Jemzx00]

Additional, what do you think lads if UBER will start to accept Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies for their payments and after a period of time, they will back out or stop accepting Bitcoin as the mode of payment because of some issues, like stability or price volatility.
One of the examples of this before was Steam, they started to accept Bitcoin using Bitpay, but I think after weeks or months, they stopped accepting Bitcoin.

According to the respond of the UBER CEO which I believe his stance on crypto currency his clear that he's not against crypto and he's ready to integrate as payment once the customers ask for it but he will not invest the company fund into crypto just like Tesla did which is fair because he definitely dont know how to invest in cryptocurrency but I don't see any reason for UBER to stop as payment if the issues that arise in future have nothing to do with the government.

The reason isn't about the government but rather the volatility of the price of bitcoin, Imagine riding an uber an paying the service of 10$ with bitcoin but after leaving the vehicle, the price suddenly drop, what will happen to the uber driver as the fee should be 10$.
They should also implement a wallet on their site where the can real time convert the amount of bitcoin being paid to a fiat based wallet just like "coins" wallet does. They have a separate wallet for fiat such as PHP or USD wallet and a separate wallet for BTC.

[dupee419]

Not only with how slow the transaction time takes place but also on how volatile the price of Bitcoin can be, even if UBER takes Bitcoin transactions, the downside would be the price when it spikes high, then you have to pay for a lower price (in terms of bitcoin) and when the price goes down, you'll have to sacrifice more of your bitcoins than what you usually pay for, not the best way of use with Bitcoin, majority of the people would still go for fiat payments.