Topic: Bitcoin & Lightning - Would you pay for coffee instantly if it was possible? - page 2. (Read 773 times)

Lightning Network is built to help instantly send/receive Bitcoins so by that, transaction fees on transferring are reduced. So I don't think it would be burdensome to use Bitcoin for payment.

Yes, I'll use for sure
It's very convenient to use the smartphone for example, with cryptos and pay with you balance of BTC

I have BTC as investment, but I can use as a currency to, it's easy to have both, just like fiat

I would not mind to spend the funds at all. Where i now can spend pennies online on a fast manner i would do the same at a store.

Wiring over the lightning network takes a few seconds and doesnt has the long confirmation times Bitcoin has.

In principle I would be ready to spend it and now if all accepted it.But since in my country, many do not even know what a cryptocurrency is, it is very difficult to implement.But there is also a serious problem in the slow speed of transactions. Not every store will want to wait for payment too long.Therefore, most likely bitcoin is not suitable for micropayments.

I remember buying a beer in Berlin that cost 5 euros, during the 2017 peak. The tx fee on that was over 30 euros. I did it to make a statement, though, as not many places accept Bitcoin for payments.

I would since I have a lot of saved up coins and being able to spend freely would definitely move the price up by a LOT, which would be another incentive to spend. I had Bitcoins when they were worth less than 1/4 of their current price and I really could use some premium treatment. At the moment I'm spending just a little on Amazon but that's it. I'd prefer be able to go to a car dealership or eat at a restaurant and not worry about exchange rates and fees. When that happens I'll start spending for real, but until then it's HODL time

Simple for me. I use Bitcoin even without it being instant, but Bitpay lets me just process the payment even with 0 confirmation as long as the fee is enough. So the users don't care about instant or not, this is the merchant who has to answer the question, don't you think?

I have been using Bitcoin already for payments. All of them online payments and purchases. Admittedly, there are currently limited uses, but we are definitely moving forward one step at a time. For now, only few business establishments are accepting Bitcoin payments. Few people are also using Bitcoin to buy stuff. Nevertheless, it is existing already. So how much more if the fees are already low and the transactions very fast? Certainly, that would bring Bitcoin spending to a whole new level.

The masses want to save and preserve their buying power. That's the most likely job Bitcoin ends up with in its present form if it becomes big enough and relatively stable enough. Hundreds of millions have exposure to stock markets. You can't use stocks for payments either.

I will spend it. I have no doubt about Bitcoin designed primarily as a currency. If fees are going to reduced to a reasonable amount and transaction confirmation time is also increased to almost instantaneous, I am very much positive that Bitcoin will rise more as a currency rather than as an asset. As a matter of fact, that is the main concern of a lot of people why they choose not to spend their BTC. A fee for a cup of coffee is worth another cup. That is unreasonable.

This is a good post and asks a lot of the important questions that we need to consider if BTC was to truly become mainstream.

One of the main issues, why this will likely not happen, is the concept and premise bitcoin's blockchain was built on. Bitcoin was meant to replace the overnight wire transfers and be an easy way to send money overseas and this was combined with the purpose to be something to rival the centralized system of banks. Bitcoin was never made to be used to buy a coffee on your morning commute - there are other projects/coins that are purposely made to do this. Pundi X is a good example of a micropayments system and its blockchain is developed around the idea of using their tokens to pay for small items.

Its the difference of knowing and not knowing Austrian economics. Once you read how deflationary economy works, you will abandon your project and join Bitcoin.

Sorry to crash your illusions, but the world is full of inflationary currencies, precisely because of the dominant Chicago school dogma, there are even people scared of deflation simply because they don't know better.

The less we want is yet another inflationary coin, constant or not. That is one of the main fails of Ethereum.

You don't know this but I'm a constant user of bitcoin for small purchases, they are not done directly in bitcoin at the shops because its impossible in my country, but i exchange the bare minimum into fiat before going out. I know perfectly well in an ideal world this last step of exchanging into fiat would disappear completely, and i cannot be more happy for that day to come.

Why is that? Because my only source of income is in Bitcoin, no bitcoin no food. Why no change large amount into fiat? Because my country's fiat is the worst of the world, keep it one day and tomorrow has half its purchasing power, you want to get rid of it asap, and hold as little as possible. To me its in the way, but there is still a State and their impositions in the way (not to mention that same State ruined everyone's lives when going hyperinflation, because they can make coins out of thin air whenever they want. This is something Bitcoin erases, something your project doesn't do.

This is why Bitcoin has value, and your project doesn't. Please don't bother bringing more inflationary altcoins, the few that already exist are bad enough.

Bitcoin has already chose a path that enables small purchases, its an off the chain solution called Lightning Network. For me this is more convenient than hitting localbitcoins, so yes, I'd love to use it at shops that way. Not very sure how a light LN wallet would work, but I'm waiting for Electrum to add LN which they are actually doing.

No currency ever gets its true value without users or holders spending them. I have been living on bitcoin, I hardly go to my bookshop these days because of low patronage. So I have been relying on profit from bitcoin, majorly gotten through trading. I will be glad if I am able to spend my bitcoin in buying just anything.

That's the key question: If the Bitcoin evolves into a circular one, where spenders earn most Bitcoins they have (and do not buy them at exchanges), then - and only then - Bitcoin can also evolve into a currency.

LN can be a crucial element here: Lightning is a tool which is able to facilitate some purchases, and once it becomes established there could be a "domino effect", encouraging spending in a very similar way to what prepaid cards achieve. The coins you have locked one time on LN, are coins you'll be willing to spend eventually. Thus, businesses for the first time have a tool to measure the potential of the "Bitcoin as a currency"-economy. If this economy is growing, then there will be more businesses trying to enter that market, which means more people earn their money in BTC. And so on - the money could start to really circulate, instead of being mainly bought and sold at exchanges.

I would love to see more places where I can spend Bitcoin without having to deal with the main-chain. It's quite sad to see how far away we have moved from the payment aspect because of how small the blocks are.

Especially during a time where the price has gone up considerably, it would motivate me more to spend Bitcoin because it exempts me from paying tax in a legal manner. Much better than paying almost 30% in tax over your gains.

That being said, the motivation to spend coins quickly vanishes the moment we enter a bear market, which means that spending Bitcoin for most people is kinda a seasonal thing.

It doesn't matter what the original purpose was. What counts is what the collective decides it's going to be. At the moment it's not a currency. Maybe we'll move towards it but it's far from being in the bag. The most likely is still gold 2.0 but things could pivot again.

That is the very purpose of Bitcoin, to become the first digital currency accepted by the whole world. Wherein in every day of our lives, instead of using cash for buying stuff, we use Bitcoin. I cannot wait to see that to happen. Here in our country, many people prefer now to use a credit card or debit card instead of paying in cash because it's more convenient and safe to bring.

I convert most of my fiat into BTC regardless, and often times when I want to make a bigger purchase, I have to sell some BTC to get money. So, I can't buyback coins that I spend like many people advice, and it affects my spending habits. I still do spend Bitcoin, because all these years without buying anything for myself would suck, but I'm being very conservative with it.

In this situation, wouldn't you want to spend your current profits on a purchase and purchase BTC to cover up the amount you spent? Or are you more interested in HODL-ing?

It depends on the timing - spending during the bear market hurts, because soon afterwards you'll start regretting it, thinking "those coins are worth 4-5 times more now". Spending in the bull run can also hurt, when in one week the price is already 20% up. I currently want to buy a few things, but I wait for Bitcoin to go back to at least $14k.

Coffee is a small purchase, so the effects that I described would only amount of a couple of $$ of potential value lost, but it can quickly add up if we are talking about buying coffee every day. So, to me this perma-bullishness definitely makes Bitcoin less attractive as a currency to spend. Maybe in 5-10 years when the market will stabilize, I'll be buying coffees with no regrets via Lightning Network.