Real world use of BTC

[ronaldo40]

I have never seen, but if it's there I was quite happy, just bring Android to conduct transactions via QR code haha

[picolo]

i think bitcoin really has potential in countries where there is hyper inflation & high transactional costs
but lets fix the wallet, lets make a wallet that is easy for even a child to use
fix that and bitcoin will have more widespread usage

What needs fixing about the wallet? I don't think beginners should use the QT wallet but the lite clients or blockchain.info seems pretty simple to grasp. Blockchain.info isn't really that much different from PayPal really.

Bitcoin qt is not great for not tech savy users and blockchain.info is so easy to use.

[687_2]

i think bitcoin really has potential in countries where there is hyper inflation & high transactional costs
but lets fix the wallet, lets make a wallet that is easy for even a child to use
fix that and bitcoin will have more widespread usage

What needs fixing about the wallet? I don't think beginners should use the QT wallet but the lite clients or blockchain.info seems pretty simple to grasp. Blockchain.info isn't really that much different from PayPal really.

Bitcoin qt is not great for not tech savy users and blockchain.info is so easy to use.

This is not a barrier. Coinbase, Circle, etc. are all as easy to use and understand as PayPal. Electrum/Breadwallet/Mycellium/Trezor are simple and easy to use too.

The only real reason BTC hasn't taken off is because we all do a really shitty job marketing it (which is to be expected, anybody on this forum is a nerd and not socially influential). The scarcity of the thing needs to be promoted, and it isn't. I don't hear about BTC in rap music; I hear about USD.

I think if the BTC community started privately crowd-funding a series of professionally made Vines or other short videos strategically promoting BTC on social networks this process would be sped up.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/social-network-structure-helps-trends-emerge-from-simple-interactions/

 

[ajareselde]

i think bitcoin really has potential in countries where there is hyper inflation & high transactional costs
but lets fix the wallet, lets make a wallet that is easy for even a child to use
fix that and bitcoin will have more widespread usage

What needs fixing about the wallet? I don't think beginners should use the QT wallet but the lite clients or blockchain.info seems pretty simple to grasp. Blockchain.info isn't really that much different from PayPal really.

Bitcoin qt is not great for not tech savy users and blockchain.info is so easy to use.

What is so complicated about bitcoin-qt?
@op making a living only from bitcoin requires alot of them to be profitable only by trading.
There are people tho who are working jobs that are strictly bitcoin related, but i doubt they're paid in bitcoins, if that is what u meant to ask.

cheers

[Shattered]

i think bitcoin really has potential in countries where there is hyper inflation & high transactional costs
but lets fix the wallet, lets make a wallet that is easy for even a child to use
fix that and bitcoin will have more widespread usage

What needs fixing about the wallet? I don't think beginners should use the QT wallet but the lite clients or blockchain.info seems pretty simple to grasp. Blockchain.info isn't really that much different from PayPal really.

Bitcoin qt is not great for not tech savy users and blockchain.info is so easy to use.

This is not a barrier. Coinbase, Circle, etc. are all as easy to use and understand as PayPal. Electrum/Breadwallet/Mycellium/Trezor are simple and easy to use too.

The only real reason BTC hasn't taken off is because we all do a really shitty job marketing it (which is to be expected, anybody on this forum is a nerd and not socially influential). The scarcity of the thing needs to be promoted, and it isn't. I don't hear about BTC in rap music; I hear about USD.

I think if the BTC community started privately crowd-funding a series of professionally made Vines or other short videos strategically promoting BTC on social networks this process would be sped up.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/02/social-network-structure-helps-trends-emerge-from-simple-interactions/

 

Im not trying to devalue any of your points, but you do know there was a major college bowl game sponsored by Bitcoin this year right?

I think if Taylor Swift was wearing a BTC shirt in her next video it would certainly help promote the movement.
Any national publicity by celebrities or athletes would be positive.
It would be really awesome if an up and coming athlete requests his team owner pay a portion of his salary in BTC.

Once this happens, ESPN will be talking about crypto and then the flood gates open...

[687_2]

Im not trying to devalue any of your points, but you do know there was a major college bowl game sponsored by Bitcoin this year right?

I think if Taylor Swift was wearing a BTC shirt in her next video it would certainly help promote the movement.
Any national publicity by celebrities or athletes would be positive.
It would be really awesome if an up and coming athlete requests his team owner pay a portion of his salary in BTC.

Once this happens, ESPN will be talking about crypto and then the flood gates open...

>major college bowl game sponsored by Bitcoin
>Taylor Swift
>up and coming athlete requests his team owner pay a portion of his salary in BTC
>dogecoin NASCAR

Certainly all great examples of wasted marketing dollars.

Bitcoin is completely unrelated and unrelatable to these audiences as it is. Just saying "here's this thing, it's better than the thing you currently have and here's why blahblahblah" does nothing to grow your market and is a perfect example of how engineer-centric business fail at basic marketing tasks and languish in the marketplace. Generally speaking, people are fucking stupid and are driven by emotions, not reason.

The public needs to understand Bitcoin:

1. is almost unattainable (scarcity)
2. is desirable (because socially important people use it)

And:
3. we don't care about them and they can go fuck themselves (time constraint - they need to join now to be cool, not later)

Nothing else matters. The economics, technology, all the things we talk about in here - meaningless to the general public. Again I think in general people will start using BTC organically in time. But the question is do you want to wait 5-10 years for that to happen, or give it a strong marketing push and make it happen in 2 years?

[TheDreadPirateDickstein]

Does anyone make a living using bitcoin as their main transactional currency for normal trading in services/goods? (Not exchanges and not gambling.) I find the the fact it is naturally international very attractive as a means of exchange, but find some of the claims a bit wild which puts me off.

I got to an early prototyping/alpha stage last year with a project and it failed to go anywhere. (I learned a lot, and got a new job in development, so not a waste of time).

I was wondering whether to put any more time into it.

I made my money hoarding it...and it's real use for me was to basically circumvent ebay via the darkmarket....paypal and I don't get along.

Everybody else is mistaken about
A Great
Many
Things

[theskillzdatklls]

purse.io is amazing. first great real world use case for btc, one that i actually recommend to others.

[wadili89]

there are already people making living even more then living with bitcoins there are alot of bitcoins related businesses like i am selling webhosting for bitcoins and making living

[12345mm]

in 2ish years of knowing about and possessing btc i have never once, not one time ever, bought a single item in the real world using bitcoin ... why ? ... because it's a fucking joke that it's easier than the current monetary system of bank transfers plastic and hard cash ... it isn't ... duh ... obvious duh ... i have only ever used btc as a trading mechanism for increasing my *actual* net worth in dollars ... as do the vast majority of btc users ...

[Evil Steve]

in 2ish years of knowing about and possessing btc i have never once, not one time ever, bought a single item in the real world using bitcoin ... why ? ... because it's a fucking joke that it's easier than the current monetary system of bank transfers plastic and hard cash ... it isn't ... duh ... obvious duh ... i have only ever used btc as a trading mechanism for increasing my *actual* net worth in dollars ... as do the vast majority of btc users ...

It may be difficult to spend btc in the real world right now, but the goal of bitcoin is to be adopted by the mainstream and to be a viable alternative currency and payment method which I believe it can be, it'll just take time.

[Mewtwo]

I've used btc a lot to buy steam games in the past. Not have had too much to do with them here in europe yet. Wish more stores would start accepting them here.

[Daniel91]

there are already people making living even more then living with bitcoins there are alot of bitcoins related businesses like i am selling webhosting for bitcoins and making living

I can confirm that through bitcoin we can earn something.
Through different signatures campaigns on this forum I'm earning some money each month.
Already a few times I cash out this earnings to my paypal account.
Right now, I'm looking in other possibilities to earn some bitcoin online.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

I've used btc a lot to buy steam games in the past. Not have had too much to do with them here in europe yet. Wish more stores would start accepting them here.

I've spent a lot recently in steam keys myself, its a nice way of getting cheaper games from 3rd party websites.

[HarmonLi]

I can't really use Bitcoin to pay for goods I buy on an everyday basis. I also think Bitcoin isn't really made for being used as a way to pay for your grocery shopping or trips to the drugstore. I actually believe this notion or idea will more or less fade into obscurity. I see Bitcoin's value elsewhere!

[thejaytiesto]

If I had a solid stack of Bitcoins (100+) I would use it daily for everyday purposes, but when I think about spending Bitcoin for some irrelevant daily good, i feel like im using gold to pay for groceries.

[coinz19]

I agree. It seems like a tremendous waste to use Bitcoin for everyday expenses.

[Shattered]

I agree. It seems like a tremendous waste to use Bitcoin for everyday expenses.

My friend, dont you see how your way of thinking is completely incorrect?
The more mainstream BTC becomes, the more its value will increase.

What do you think would happen to the value of the US dollar tomorrow if it was not the world currency to trade crude oil globally?
The Value of anything is directly tied to its usefulness and desirability.
 
The day that BTC is used as a common form of payment for daily consumables, i assure you a single coin will be worth much much more than $220 (price of this post)

I think many people have a long term goal to make fiat by hording BTC, but this approach is fundamentally flawed.

[Brewins]

I agree. It seems like a tremendous waste to use Bitcoin for everyday expenses.

if you receive bitcoin as payment in some way(u work for BTC, u own a BTC business or are a miner, etc), you would be more than happy to pay things with BTC, instead of using exchanges to convert it for cash

[cakir]

I'm planning an e-commerce c2c business.
When I'm done I'll post details.