Could supermarkets use local servers to accept Bitcoin in a banking failure?

[Jet Cash]

It seems that the central servers for Sainsbury's, Tesco and McDonalds ( amongst others) are down at the moment. Not so long ago, Visa failed across the whole of the UK. Now I carry some cash to cover me when this happens. However, it occured to me that, assuming that the Internet is still live, then shops could use Bitcoin to accept payments, and link to the mempool via a local server, or perhaps they could use lightning. The main accounts could be updated when the system is live again.

I suspect this scenario is unlikely, but is it technically feasible?

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[Mia Chloe]

Yes it is but the major setback is transaction fees.
Bitcoin currently has a high value and the things people frequently shop individually from the supermarket is usually just a few $100 and it would seem uneconomical to send $100 with $2.6 for a normal fee that would be confirmed on time.
Plus even if you were to setup a lightning network only very few people know how to make use of it compared to people that could easily carry out a Blockchain transaction.
Using Bitcoin as payment option is gradually declining because it is now seen as a form of investment instead of P2P currency. It would only be economical to use Bitcoin in cases where the amount is huge.

[Charles-Tim]

Do not mind me, I do not really understand what you are expressing. There is nothing like local servers. If you have a bitcoin wallet, there are many servers that you can connect to automatically which are available, all the servers can not all go down or stop working at ones.

[DaveF]

Sure why not, but in the event of a banking failure your BTC is going to be just as worthless as dirt.
Unless the power company accepts BTC the servers will be off.
Unless their employees accept BTC there will be no staff.
Unless their suppliers accept BTC the shelves will be empty.

And so on.

You need the ecosystem 1st.

Same way you really can't bring gold & silver into the store to pay for things the way you used to. That ecosystem is gone.

-Dave

[Dunamisx]

I don't know if this network of a thing is a global challenge or not, but currently in my location here, its been almost three days we have been having a network issue.

This is possible as long as the organization in consideration is willing to make an inventory on that, they can generate data of every payment made in bitcoin since once can have a statement of account in bitcoin, also they can make bitcoin serve as an alternative payment mode whether the network is working perfectly or not.

[Jet Cash]

Do not mind me, I do not really understand what you are expressing. There is nothing like local servers. If you have a bitcoin wallet, there are many servers that you can connect to automatically which are available, all the servers can not all go down or stop working at ones.

A supermarket chain has a central server to monitor loads of things such as stock levels, payments and customer traffic. If that server goes down, then it can cause problems for the supermarkets. My thought was that each supermarket could have ( may have) a local server to monitor the tills, cameras, stock levels and other stuff. Each of these servers could be used to facilitate payments and bypass the banking system. Bitcoin transaction fees could be a problem, hence the reference to lightning. Another option would be to use Bitcoin to fund an account or a gift card, and this could be used to make payments, although this may require connectiion to the main server. I'm really thinking of short term work arounds, rather than long term payment methods.

[Apocollapse]

Probably a different context, but someone in this forum claimed he did pay using Bitcoin in clinic even though the clinic wasn't accepting Bitcoin Paid the birth fee using bitcoin at the clinic, by accident.

Since supermarket is a big company, where people who work in there is just an employee, not the owner, I think you can't because the company wasn't explicitly accepting Bitcoin payment. Paying with Bitcoin when the store wasn't accept accept Bitcoin is lead to private deal, the cashier would refuse anything outside of the SOP.

[dkbit98]

It seems that the central servers for Sainsbury's, Tesco and McDonalds ( amongst others) are down at the moment. Not so long ago, Visa failed across the whole of the UK. Now I carry some cash to cover me when this happens.

I think cash payments should always be available to everyone, even without internet connection.
In scenarios when internet is not working (especially in third world countries) the entire payment system could stop, so I think it would be good to have some paper bitcoin bills as a standard.
I remember one guy from Africa was very popular for developing bitcoin payments using dumb phones.

I suspect this scenario is unlikely, but is it technically feasible?

Sure it's possible but supermarket chains won't accept it unless it becomes very popular and people demand it, but I doubt that.
However, I am all for using off-chain offline payments with bitcoin.

[Cryptomultiplier]

If the supermarkets has set up a receiving another allet as well as they have been equipped intellectually about BTC, I can see them accepting BTC if there's a banking failure.
Also, if the government of the country in which the Super market operates has placed a ban on cryptocurrencies, it could b accepted.

Besides this I don't see why a blooming business of any sort should refuse to accept BTC as a means of payment when it is in that direction the world is veering.
If there's a banking failure not occasioned by network providers lapses, the not just only supermarkets but any business at all can accept BTC as mode of payment for transactions.

[hatshepsut93]

Everyone knows that Bitcoin lacks on-chain capacity to cover the transaction volumes of even a small country. And Lightning doesn't have unlimited scaling either. And for people to start using Bitcoin in an emergence, they need to already own it, and how many people in the world are currently holding Bitcoin just in case banks fail? Probably almost zero.

[Bureau]

If a super market wants to accept payment in Bitcoin or LN they would need to have a wallet supporting both. I don't think there would be a need for a server here. The question is that can Bitcoin handle so many payments at a time as it will only make the network more congested resulting in increase of fee. The next question is that those buying stuff in those supermarket will adopt Bitcoin or LN? Whereas they can go for cash like you are doing now in case the servers are down.

[adaseb]

As long as there is internet access then it would work. But you need to understand that a busy super market can’t accept Bitcoin because for 1 the fees at the moment might be high for the sender and the second reason is the confirmation times.

Even if the fees are low and network is not congested it might take over 30-60 minutes to get the confirmation. If they don’t wait for confirmation it would lead to double spends.

So I would say l2 solutions would be perfect for this. As they are cheaper and faster.

[Natsuu]

Yep. It's technically doable for shops to accept Bitcoin during server outages. They could use Lightning Network or connect to the Bitcoin mempool locally. But it depends on businesses and customers being on board. Plus there are regulatory and logistical hurdles. While it's an intriguing idea, making it mainstream might take some time and effort

[Reatim]

Usually in times of banking failure, the stores just inform the customers
right away that they would not be accepting any payment that involves the bank.
And if the customer does not have cash on him, that is his problem and not the
management.

I don’t see this happening unless the supermarket have an actual wallet that solely
Accepts bitcoin. Of course this is in context with a banking failure. Mass adaptation is a different story altogether.

[0t3p0t]

What if internet isn't an option in a worst case scenario? What if some lawless groups cut off the submarine cable that carries internet around the globe? Fiat is still an option for this. But let us just say only servers are out of service then unless company owners or businesses accept Bitcoin as payment method though there are ways they can do that through lightning network wallets just like what is being used in the Bitcoin Island here in my country it is all good but not majority of people are having Bitcoins so most of them will still prefer the traditional way of paying something.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I suspect this scenario is unlikely, but is it technically feasible?

It is technically feasible with lightning. However, that's under the assumption that you have a custodial mobile wallet with a few thousand sat in it. Non-custodially, this can't work practically. Nobody carries a lightning node in their phone, neither a mobile wallet connected to their lightning node running at home. And there is always the possibility that the payment will fail in the cash register.

On-chain is a no-go. You would pay a Big Mac for transaction fees alone. Also, customers can't be expected to wait 10 minutes (in the best case scenario!) for their order to finish. (The merchant can't accept 0-conf, because the client could just do RBF and double-spend it)

[cryptosize]

What if internet isn't an option in a worst case scenario? What if some lawless groups cut off the submarine cable that carries internet around the globe?

Internet is called a decentralized network for a reason:

https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

Good luck cutting ALL those cables/routes...

Bonus: optical fibers can withstand a solar storm (unlike copper ones).

[kryptqnick]

I read a bit about the news, and it seems that the most seriously affected thing was the online purchases and subsequent delivery orders. At least, Sainsbury's allegedly fixed the contactless payments pretty fast. With online orders, I think that even accepting payments straight onto a Bitcoin address would be fine. People can pay less than a dollar for a transaction, which isn't that much. But I suppose the legal implications of it in the UK (considering that cryptos are treated as assets, not currencies there) are just not worth it for the supermarket chains to try something like that.
I wonder why Tesco and Sainsbury's were both down at the same time. Does it mean that they use the same providers of some services, or was it a coordinated cyberattack?

[davis196]

It seems that the central servers for Sainsbury's, Tesco and McDonalds ( amongst others) are down at the moment. Not so long ago, Visa failed across the whole of the UK. Now I carry some cash to cover me when this happens. However, it occured to me that, assuming that the Internet is still live, then shops could use Bitcoin to accept payments, and link to the mempool via a local server, or perhaps they could use lightning. The main accounts could be updated when the system is live again.

I suspect this scenario is unlikely, but is it technically feasible?

Retail businesses accepting the Lightning Network? You have got to be kidding me. Who is going to use the Lightning Network to pay for groceries? I'm sorry to say it, but nothing beats cash in terms of convenience. When cashless debit/credit card payments are down, everyone will simply return to cash and no supermarket is going to bother implementing Bitcoin/altcoin payments.
Bitcoin is "digital gold" and it will never become a normal currency. Could you imagine buying groceries for 100USD, after a day the BTC price doubles and you realize that you should have kept the BTC, instead of spending it.

[Danydee]

Yes, for Bitcoin the price volatility would be a major brake for the company management to adopt it !

Maybe relaying on many crypto coins at once, so they can get a partnership with some exchanges to manage smoothly the thing! Especially that there is many blockchains now that are especially developed to handle big amount of transactions.

Bonus: optical fibers can withstand a solar storm (unlike copper ones).

But they need electricity etc. etc.

All what they can serve to in case of a very big solar storm is to transfer light beam though single segments to communicate by morse for example !