Topic: [2017-07-02] The Guardian: Can you buy anything real with Bitcoin? (Read 2139 times)

Hypocritical Guardian, oh how typical


The Guardian are always the first in line to talk up "compassion for the disaffected in society", and "laws that do more harm than good", but when people in society actually do something by themselves to break the cycle of bullshit, y'know Guardian, something that isn't just words on a page or people holding up signs saying "please daddy government, we want something you don't want to give us", then what does The blessed Guardian do?

Smear it, as subtly as possible. This insidious establishment mouthpiece is disgusting, they should be ashamed of their middle-class po-faced smug febrile selves. They've done nothing but launch the most subtle attacks they can muster on Bitcoin since the beginning, they're a disgrace to the human race

I don't get this article, I read it and it seemed at the end to just stop with no summary or purpose behind the article beyond the obvious oh it must be for illegal activity.  I think the article would have been a lot better if it was an impartial one and had some type of summing up at the end.

The actual content of the article is fair enough, bitcoin is hard to spend in physical shops depending on where you are situated, that particular store of CEX is different to the one where I have been to, the one I went to was up to speed with bitcoin and it was a straight forward payment but I suppose the exposure in the Guardian is something useful.

A customer buys £20 worth of Bitcoin at one of the new ATMs. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

My journey into the dark economy starts much as expected: in front of a computer screen, late at night. It ends somewhere quite unexpected, in a humdrum setting a world away from the stereotype of modernity, equality and sticking it to the man promised by digital currencies such as Bitcoin: it ends in a used DVD store, my purchase refused.

The dark economy is moving into the light. In a few scattered places, 40 or so in London, one in Manchester, another in Birmingham, Bitcoin ATM machines have appeared, issuing the cryptocurrency from an unlikely array of convenience stores, vaping outlets and barbershops. Does this mean that the virtual has become real? Can anyone join the Bitcoin challenge? Can you buy stuff with Bitcoin? And what the heck is a cryptocurrency anyway?

I find the future of digital trading in the scuzzy hipster oasis of Stokes Croft in Bristol. Standing forlorn among the artisan bakers and cocktail bars is the Best Supermarket. A mainstay of local life, it dispenses all the essentials that an artisan bakery cannot provide. Amid the sweets and quarter bottles of spirits is the Satoshi Point, one of several Bitcoin ATMs run by the company that takes its name from the mythical founder of the online currency, Satoshi Nakamoto.

“It’s crazy, people come in here all the time,” says Majid Khan from his vantage point behind the counter. “We get all sorts, they travel from all over, from Bath, Bristol.”

The small grey terminal was installed in the shop a year ago, one of two in the city, and has attracted a growing stream of users ever since, providing the shop’s owner with a steady commission. What they buy with the currency is obvious, at least to Khan.

“It’s underground, illegal stuff,” he says with a grin. “I ask people what they are going to do with it and they just shrug and say, you know… They like the fact that it’s anonymous, that it’s not controlled by the government. One day a guy came in and I saw him put £2,000 cash into the machine.”

Khan even succumbed to the charm of the grey box containing the mystery of Bitcoin, buying £20 of the currency. Did he spend it on something illegal? Did he stick it to the man? “I checked the value every day and it went up to £22. Then a guy came in wanting to buy some Bitcoin and I sold him mine for £20, so I didn’t lose anything.”

Seduced by Khan’s tale of high-wire financial derring-do, I decide to pitch in with the geeks, the rebels, the tyros, the wolves of this virtual Wall Street and buy £20 of Bitcoin. Armed with the Bitcoin wallet app I had downloaded to my phone in the early hours, I press the start button on the terminal. It tells me to scan my phone and records the QR code I had been assigned. I take £20 and insert it into the slot. It disappears and my phone emits a polite “k-ching!”

Continue reading: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/01/bitcoins-underground-economy-proves-a-hard-sell#img-1