Besides, I'm always amazed how Starbucks has $1.2 billion loaded on their gifts card, so it a proven successful way to get money that in a lot of cases will never be spent.
Gift cards are a great money maker for most companies, even small ones. Somewhere around 10-20% of all gift cards are never spent, due to being lost, forgotten about, expiring, not wanted, etc. Not only that, but all the money they take in from gift cards is essentially free money at the time for them, since they've not actually had to provide any goods or services yet in exchange for that money. That money can be invested for even more profits until it is needed to cover their operational costs. You are essentially purchasing future goods, and the money spent will earn interest for the company instead of for you in the meantime. 
Topic: [2019-03-06] Starbucks Unveils Key Detail about its Secretive Bitcoin Strategy (Read 211 times)
March 09, 2019, 03:27:51 PM
March 08, 2019, 07:30:10 PM
So, some type of gift card situation is what’s brewing at Starbucks.
I reckon it might be nothing but another Facebookcoin situation in Starbucks hehehe.
The big corporations are beginning to leverage their brand to issue cryptocoins. I predict that the lucky platform on which they will be issued in might hit the top prize as the highest coin in market capitalization in the cryptospace.
I reckon it might be nothing but another Facebookcoin situation in Starbucks hehehe.
The big corporations are beginning to leverage their brand to issue cryptocoins. I predict that the lucky platform on which they will be issued in might hit the top prize as the highest coin in market capitalization in the cryptospace.
No, the way I understand this is that they will offer facilities in the US that are linked to Bakkt services for people to buy and sell bitcoins with the future vision of people actually using those coins to pay for products in their Coffee shops.
So they have a long-term vision for Bitcoin and possibly other Crypto currencies and not just some in-house gift card implementation.
Let's be positive about this, it might just trigger the next Bull run.
Global corporations only have longterm visions for their own expansion and superiority. They are beginning to use bitcoin's success to let loose their own project tokens to secure their own market share in the cryptospace. JPMcoin, Facebookcoin, Starbuckscoin are only the beginning hehehe.
March 08, 2019, 01:07:04 PM
So, some type of gift card situation is what’s brewing at Starbucks.
My taught also, trying to deal with payments on the chain and with price fluctuations this early and on such scale would be far too troublesome to start directly with this.
Besides, I'm always amazed how Starbucks has $1.2 billion loaded on their gifts card, so it a proven successful way to get money that in a lot of cases will never be spent.
So, I'm betting on instant conversion to $ or Starbucks credits or some other name once you load your card with BTC
March 08, 2019, 01:54:23 AM
So, some type of gift card situation is what’s brewing at Starbucks.
I reckon it might be nothing but another Facebookcoin situation in Starbucks hehehe.
The big corporations are beginning to leverage their brand to issue cryptocoins. I predict that the lucky platform on which they will be issued in might hit the top prize as the highest coin in market capitalization in the cryptospace.
I reckon it might be nothing but another Facebookcoin situation in Starbucks hehehe.
The big corporations are beginning to leverage their brand to issue cryptocoins. I predict that the lucky platform on which they will be issued in might hit the top prize as the highest coin in market capitalization in the cryptospace.
No, the way I understand this is that they will offer facilities in the US that are linked to Bakkt services for people to buy and sell bitcoins with the future vision of people actually using those coins to pay for products in their Coffee shops.
So they have a long-term vision for Bitcoin and possibly other Crypto currencies and not just some in-house gift card implementation.
Let's be positive about this, it might just trigger the next Bull run.
March 07, 2019, 11:09:33 PM
So, some type of gift card situation is what’s brewing at Starbucks.
I reckon it might be nothing but another Facebookcoin situation in Starbucks hehehe.
The big corporations are beginning to leverage their brand to issue cryptocoins. I predict that the lucky platform on which they will be issued in might hit the top prize as the highest coin in market capitalization in the cryptospace.
I reckon it might be nothing but another Facebookcoin situation in Starbucks hehehe.
The big corporations are beginning to leverage their brand to issue cryptocoins. I predict that the lucky platform on which they will be issued in might hit the top prize as the highest coin in market capitalization in the cryptospace.
March 07, 2019, 07:17:00 PM
businesses accepting zero confirmations are straight up reckless!
I'm not sure I would agree with that statement. More or less every company in the world accepts credit card, which can have payments reversed for weeks or even months after they are made by me claiming my card was lost, stolen, cloned, I was defrauded, I was overcharged, etc.these are apples and oranges though. an unconfirmed bitcoin transaction literally has no security whatsoever. relying on them defeats the purpose of using bitcoin at all since there is no proof of work involved. like satoshi said, they shouldn't be counted as part of a wallet's balance at all:
As you figured out, the root problem is we shouldn't be counting or spending transactions until they have at least 1 confirmation. 0/unconfirmed transactions are very much second class citizens. At most, they are advice that something has been received, but counting them as balance or spending them is premature.
A company like Starbucks can quite easily eat the price of the odd coffee here or there from a double spend attack. Sure, if you are a small business, or transacting with significant amounts of money, wait for some confirmations, but $3 to Starbucks is completely negligible. Alternatively use LN. 
i dunno, just sounds like a reckless approach to me. there should at least be a security model of some sort. accepting unconfirmed txs is literally like accepting IOU notes from randoms off the street.
it sounds like we're just assuming that few people will steal, and the ones that do won't steal much. my experience with humans is slightly different than that.
March 07, 2019, 06:56:25 PM
Thank you for the explanation. Perhaps I wasn't entirely clear - I wasn't suggesting opting out of RBF made double spending impossible, just that the transaction couldn't be redirected to another address using RBF.
businesses accepting zero confirmations are straight up reckless!
I'm not sure I would agree with that statement. More or less every company in the world accepts credit card, which can have payments reversed for weeks or even months after they are made by me claiming my card was lost, stolen, cloned, I was defrauded, I was overcharged, etc. A company like Starbucks can quite easily eat the price of the odd coffee here or there from a double spend attack. Sure, if you are a small business, or transacting with significant amounts of money, wait for some confirmations, but $3 to Starbucks is completely negligible. Alternatively use LN. March 07, 2019, 06:40:23 PM
you don't need to double spend (in the mining sense) to screw them over if they accept zero confirmations. you just need to use a simple script to re-spend the same outputs with a higher fee before the first transaction gets confirmed.
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that to re-spend the same outputs with a higher fee, the transaction has to be opted in to RBF.nope, RBF has no effect on zero confirmation security as peter todd eloquently pointed out a few years ago: https://twitter.com/peterktodd/status/686365181241212928
it won't work 100% of the time because of how some miners process transactions on their side. some pools will perceive it as a double spend and refuse to mine it. but it's easy to do and is very possible to confirm the double spent transaction. businesses accepting zero confirmations are straight up reckless!
That is to say, the transaction must have an nSequence of less than MAX-1. Provided the transaction does not have an nSequence of less than MAX-1, the transaction cannot be replaced in the time between broadcasting and confirming. Any sender accepting zero confirmation transactions would include a stipulation that these transactions could not be opted in to RBF, which would prevent this vector of attack. This doesn't prevent other more complicated "double spend" mechanisms, of course.
this is just the nsequence signalling logic from bip125. not flagging RBF =/= the inputs can't be double spent. there is nothing at the consensus level that would prevent a double spend from being mined.
March 07, 2019, 01:35:16 PM
so what is Starbucks innovation bringing?
Well at least in western countries Starbucks has become a household name in the coffee industry so from a promotional side of view it could prove to be very beneficial. Lots of people will think that Starbucks will actually start accepting Bitcoin even though the bitcoin is turned into fiat first (which sort of defeats the purpose). But other than that I really don't get the hype around bakkt at all. Mainly because, or at least from what I have read about it (and I admit it isn't a lot), it sounds like it's going to be a washed-up version of BitPay. Again not really where we want to be, or rather, be stuck at for an extended period of time. But then again it is a start and the ability to (indirectly) pay your overly sugary coffee with Bitcoin probably won't hurt Bitcoin too much.
March 07, 2019, 01:34:32 PM
Anyone noticed when it's about a large company. They don't(want to) adopt directly Bitcoin to their business, but they develop something around. Like here, Rakuten adopted the same strategy not so long ago.
As folks said, during the gold rush, it was not the prospectors who won most of the money. It was the surrounding companies that sold products or services related to the mining industry
As folks said, during the gold rush, it was not the prospectors who won most of the money. It was the surrounding companies that sold products or services related to the mining industry
Quote
I wonder, what is the advantage of this news?
For us, nothing, for the company just a way to get free advertisement March 07, 2019, 09:14:50 AM
you don't need to double spend (in the mining sense) to screw them over if they accept zero confirmations. you just need to use a simple script to re-spend the same outputs with a higher fee before the first transaction gets confirmed.
My understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that to re-spend the same outputs with a higher fee, the transaction has to be opted in to RBF. That is to say, the transaction must have an nSequence of less than MAX-1. Provided the transaction does not have an nSequence of less than MAX-1, the transaction cannot be replaced in the time between broadcasting and confirming. Any sender accepting zero confirmation transactions would include a stipulation that these transactions could not be opted in to RBF, which would prevent this vector of attack. This doesn't prevent other more complicated "double spend" mechanisms, of course. 
March 07, 2019, 03:55:35 AM
[...]
I wonder, what is the advantage of this news? What good does this news bring to the crypto world? Reading this news, I believe people will continue to buy their coffee using Fiat. I initially thought that these guys were intending to accept bitcoin as a form of payments, but reading this news I do not see what will be the advantage of what they are creating
250+ Places That Accept Bitcoin Payment (Online and Physical Companies)
this number may have increased or may have decreased, so what is Starbucks innovation bringing?
March 07, 2019, 02:55:12 AM
I had assumed Bakkt would have to accept zero confirmation transactions anyway? Or do you have to "pre-load" your Bakkt account in advance before actually buying anything? If that's the case, this is a far less interesting development.
Still, I would have imagined Starbucks would be able to accept zero confirmation transactions, provided they had opted out of RBF. The chances of someone going to all the effort of setting up a double spend to save themselves 0.001 bitcoin on a coffee is tiny.
Still, I would have imagined Starbucks would be able to accept zero confirmation transactions, provided they had opted out of RBF. The chances of someone going to all the effort of setting up a double spend to save themselves 0.001 bitcoin on a coffee is tiny.
it reads like people will have to pre-load like a gift card but i'm not sure. it's all very vague.
you don't need to double spend (in the mining sense) to screw them over if they accept zero confirmations. you just need to use a simple script to re-spend the same outputs with a higher fee before the first transaction gets confirmed. at considerable volume or at higher values, that's probably a significant risk for any merchant. bitpay seems to have stopped accepting zero confirmation tx some time ago, probably because they got screwed over like this.
March 06, 2019, 08:36:26 PM
why don't Starbucks use existing payment processor like coinspayments. i know they want to convert to fiat but i think coinspayments can do the deal. bakkt is still not approved yet so this seems like a hopium without any actual product.
March 06, 2019, 05:50:55 PM
Accepting Bitcoin directly doesn't sound ideal for consumers anyway unless they'll be accepting 0-confirmation or using Lightning.
I had assumed Bakkt would have to accept zero confirmation transactions anyway? Or do you have to "pre-load" your Bakkt account in advance before actually buying anything? If that's the case, this is a far less interesting development.Still, I would have imagined Starbucks would be able to accept zero confirmation transactions, provided they had opted out of RBF. The chances of someone going to all the effort of setting up a double spend to save themselves 0.001 bitcoin on a coffee is tiny.
March 06, 2019, 05:50:32 PM
that would be surprising given who's trying to launch bakkt---the ICE. they run the NYSE and other major wall street financial markets.
it's all very strange tbh. i suppose we just had the longest government shutdown in history. maybe the CFTC is just swamped with delayed matters as a result and bakkt just isn't high on the priorities list.
it's all very strange tbh. i suppose we just had the longest government shutdown in history. maybe the CFTC is just swamped with delayed matters as a result and bakkt just isn't high on the priorities list.
Well, I seem to recall them constantly looking to recruit people which says plenty. And it has the feel of a grand experiment to me than something carefully thought through. I mean the Starbucks tie up feels plain weird to me. But what do I know?
March 06, 2019, 05:48:12 PM
Bakkt will do this, bakkt will do that. It's not going to do anything as long as they haven't been granted an approval by the CFTC. It's quite funny how they plan ahead while they don't even know if Bakkt will be approved in the first place.
Overall, payment forms that aren't Bitcoin to merchant or gateway isn't any different from spending fiat. I don't see anything special in how they set this up. It's like how people praise crypto debit cards, while it's still fiat that you are spending. Meh.
Overall, payment forms that aren't Bitcoin to merchant or gateway isn't any different from spending fiat. I don't see anything special in how they set this up. It's like how people praise crypto debit cards, while it's still fiat that you are spending. Meh.
I was under the impression that approval isn't that huge a deal though I may be wrong. The CTFC have already approved LedgerX for Bitcoin custody which is the sticky bit. It's not precedent setting like an ETF approval.
The delay is more likely to be about Bakkt not having their affairs in order.
that would be surprising given who's trying to launch bakkt---the ICE. they run the NYSE and other major wall street financial markets.
it's all very strange tbh. i suppose we just had the longest government shutdown in history. maybe the CFTC is just swamped with delayed matters as a result and bakkt just isn't high on the priorities list.
March 06, 2019, 04:46:01 PM
Bakkt will do this, bakkt will do that. It's not going to do anything as long as they haven't been granted an approval by the CFTC. It's quite funny how they plan ahead while they don't even know if Bakkt will be approved in the first place.
Overall, payment forms that aren't Bitcoin to merchant or gateway isn't any different from spending fiat. I don't see anything special in how they set this up. It's like how people praise crypto debit cards, while it's still fiat that you are spending. Meh.
Overall, payment forms that aren't Bitcoin to merchant or gateway isn't any different from spending fiat. I don't see anything special in how they set this up. It's like how people praise crypto debit cards, while it's still fiat that you are spending. Meh.
I was under the impression that approval isn't that huge a deal though I may be wrong. The CTFC have already approved LedgerX for Bitcoin custody which is the sticky bit. It's not precedent setting like an ETF approval.
The delay is more likely to be about Bakkt not having their affairs in order.
March 06, 2019, 04:42:04 PM
It raises a major question though, Bakkt converts people's coins to fiat, then uses that fiat to settle the Starbucks payment. Isn't that a taxable event within the US?
It sounds like people will be selling and storing in a fiat-denominated account at Bakkt. That's just straight forward capital gains taxation. Or if it's a Bitpay-style payment processing situation, it's still taxable under the current code.
There have been at least two bills proposed -- one is currently under consideration -- that would exempt capital gains taxes up to $600 yearly that are incurred through buying goods and services. No changes yet, though.
It's not the ideal situation yet (which would be paying Starbucks directly with bitcoin), but it's a step in the right direction. If nothing else, it's great advertising for bitcoin payments to be available at every Starbucks store in the US.
Accepting Bitcoin directly doesn't sound ideal for consumers anyway unless they'll be accepting 0-confirmation or using Lightning. Can you imagine waiting around for a confirmation so you can buy a cup of coffee?
March 06, 2019, 03:51:33 PM
Bakkt will do this, bakkt will do that. It's not going to do anything as long as they haven't been granted an approval by the CFTC. It's quite funny how they plan ahead while they don't even know if Bakkt will be approved in the first place.
Overall, payment forms that aren't Bitcoin to merchant or gateway isn't any different from spending fiat. I don't see anything special in how they set this up. It's like how people praise crypto debit cards, while it's still fiat that you are spending. Meh.
Overall, payment forms that aren't Bitcoin to merchant or gateway isn't any different from spending fiat. I don't see anything special in how they set this up. It's like how people praise crypto debit cards, while it's still fiat that you are spending. Meh.
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