It'll continue to grow, but I wonder how many will treat bitcoin as a store of value in the meantime increasing the price to crazy levels???
The more they are valued, the more merchants will be interested in getting them.
Topic: 2013-04-21 Bitcoin’s Last Mile Problem (Read 1611 times)
The more they are valued, the more merchants will be interested in getting them.
Bitpay takes on the risk of double spends... last I heard they haven't had one yet.
Chicken & the egg. Merchants will accept them when people want to spend them. People will want to spend them when they have them or when merchants accept them.
It'll continue to grow, but I wonder how many will treat bitcoin as a store of value in the meantime increasing the price to crazy levels???
Chicken & the egg. Merchants will accept them when people want to spend them. People will want to spend them when they have them or when merchants accept them.
It'll continue to grow, but I wonder how many will treat bitcoin as a store of value in the meantime increasing the price to crazy levels???
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But then we have the last mile problem. Where can you shop with bitcoins besides a few places that are accepting the currency as a marketing gimmick?
I doubt Cups and Cakes in San Francisco regrets their "marketing gimmick" whatsoever. If accepting bitcoin payment as a way to increase revenues is a gimmick, it certainly pays off!
Or perhaps the author is referring to BitcoinStore's offer to NewEgg and Amazon ... "accept bitcoin and we'll shut down", ... ok, that's a gimmick.
But the pace of organic merchant adoption is increasing. My next domain name registration or renewal will be through Namecheap, paid for using bitcoins. For my next travel, I'm going to try to stay at a place listed on 9Flats, paid for using bitcoins. And where I can't pay using bitcoins online I can proxy pay I'll try using BitSpend.net (which places the order and pays for me).
Bitcoin probably isn't ready for bricks and mortar commerce though. Though a "race attack" against a merchant isn't something all that common, bricks and mortar merchants who accept bitcoin payment don't have much defense against those. And there isn't a point-of-sale provider specifically to help retail merchants (e.g., with advice or insurance against double spending).
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Where is my BTC ATM?
Technically, such a device exists today -- and existed was a prototype way more than a year ago. Thanks to regulations, that never made it out of the lab. It looks like one is coming, however.
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Will they take Bitcoin at the exchange desk in the airport?
Travelex should. This could be offered by anyone (e.g., buy bitcoins by sending payment of the foreign currency through the mail) except again, if this is considered being a money transmitter regulations make it so only the entrenched retail foreign currency exchangers are set up to handle this.
hmm, me thinks someone read my post about scrooge and his swimming pool of gold that I made earlier today 
You still owe me a royalty for that, btw... 
hmm, me thinks someone read my post about scrooge and his swimming pool of gold that I made earlier today
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/21/bitcoin-last-mile
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Joey DeVilla was (and still is) one of my favorite bloggers. Calling himself the Accordian Guy, Joey has been writing cool stuff for most of this decade, and he recently hopped on the bitcoin train by posting a long how-to in the vein of my own guide to mining. His is quite thorough in his process, but it sets an old HP all-in-one to the task, which resulting in very slow mining speeds and, as a result, a tangible waste of resources, including time, energy and computer wear.
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