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Topic: How a Restaurant can Implement BTC (Read 2183 times)

legendary
Activity: 1106
Merit: 1005
May 26, 2014, 03:06:12 AM
#49
Thanks, I was a little iffy about the confirmations. Basically.. if you required even 1 confirmation you need to wait 10 minutes right?

The average time between confirmations is 10 minutes. Sometimes they can happen in less than a second, or they can take over an hour.

If you require 0 confirmations, the merchant gets his money instantly, right?

It's not the sender that decides how many confirmations are required, the merchant decides how many confirmations they want to wait for.  The transaction will typically show up in the merchants wallet in less than 5 seconds (often less than a second). At that time it will have 0 confirmations.

But what is the risk? Can someone send a "fake" bitcoin and get away with it?

The risk is that someone can write a special wallet program that can send two transactions that spend the exact same bitcoins.  One transaction would be paying the merchant (which the merchant would see), and the other would send the bitcoins to a different address that you own (the merchant probably won't even see that transaction until it is confirmed). Only one of those transactions will become confirmed and added to the blockchain.  Once one of the transactions is confirmed, the other transaction will become invalid and all peers will discard it.  This is not an easy or reliable process, and it is obviously fraud (just like writing a bad check, or falsely claiming fraud on a credit card transaction).  It would be faster, easier, and more reliable for the customer to simply get up and walk out of the restaurant without paying than it is to try and successfully pull off this 0 confirmation fraud.

It's not as simple as that to doublespend. If you send two transactions simultaneously the network will see it, I believe. You'd have to give the real transaction a head start so the network does not have enough time to mark the transaction as a double spent, yet on the same time you should not wait too long, or else the fraudulent transaction will not be able to beat the original transaction. For this reason doublespend attempts often fail.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
May 26, 2014, 01:24:37 AM
#48
Quickbooks will be adding bit coin to its POS systems soon as well.
hero member
Activity: 765
Merit: 503
May 25, 2014, 05:37:29 PM
#47
Buy a coinkite terminal.  Works well.  Great support team.  Looks like other EFTPOS (Credit card) hardware, so staff dont require much training.  Auto forwarding at the back end too.
member
Activity: 108
Merit: 10
May 25, 2014, 03:37:46 PM
#46
Use BitPay. They will help. They have retailer solutions
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
May 25, 2014, 01:16:10 PM
#45
The risk with 0 is no more than the risk of charge backs and traditional fraud. There will always be a percentage of the population that seeks to defraud and steal. Bit coin is not immune to this. 
hero member
Activity: 924
Merit: 1001
May 25, 2014, 01:09:03 PM
#44
Latin House Grill in Miami (Kendall) does this.  No BitPay needed.

1)  Open up Blockchain app
2)  Type in the Bitcoin amount and the app tells you exactly how much USD it equals while you type.
3)  Fine tune it until correct
4)  Submit.

No merchant fees for Latin House Grill (even low ones via BitPay).
Fortunately for them, Bitcoin went up significantly since I paid $52 for our dinner.
I have now paid them $70 for dinner :-P
Fortunately I replenished *my* bitcoin immediately.

-B-
newbie
Activity: 29
Merit: 0
May 25, 2014, 09:43:23 AM
#43
I
newbie
Activity: 28
Merit: 0
April 23, 2014, 06:57:06 PM
#42
So how do u handle 0 confirmation tx's
The places I have eaten never wait for confirmation. It does require some trust on their part, but so does a check or even a cash. The cash may be found to be counterfeit later on. It is worth trusting in these cases because faking it would be a bigger hassle than just paying the bill.

Yes, I am sure were will see a low percentage of fraud here.
legendary
Activity: 1330
Merit: 1000
dafar consulting
April 23, 2014, 09:06:08 AM
#41
The risk is that someone can write a special wallet program that can send two transactions that spend the exact same bitcoins.  One transaction would be paying the merchant (which the merchant would see), and the other would send the bitcoins to a different address that you own (the merchant probably won't even see that transaction until it is confirmed). Only one of those transactions will become confirmed and added to the blockchain.  Once one of the transactions is confirmed, the other transaction will become invalid and all peers will discard it.  This is not an easy or reliable process, and it is obviously fraud (just like writing a bad check, or falsely claiming fraud on a credit card transaction).  It would be faster, easier, and more reliable for the customer to simply get up and walk out of the restaurant without paying than it is to try and successfully pull off this 0 confirmation fraud.

I see, thanks!
legendary
Activity: 3472
Merit: 4794
April 23, 2014, 08:50:25 AM
#40
Thanks, I was a little iffy about the confirmations. Basically.. if you required even 1 confirmation you need to wait 10 minutes right?

The average time between confirmations is 10 minutes. Sometimes they can happen in less than a second, or they can take over an hour.

If you require 0 confirmations, the merchant gets his money instantly, right?

It's not the sender that decides how many confirmations are required, the merchant decides how many confirmations they want to wait for.  The transaction will typically show up in the merchants wallet in less than 5 seconds (often less than a second). At that time it will have 0 confirmations.

But what is the risk? Can someone send a "fake" bitcoin and get away with it?

The risk is that someone can write a special wallet program that can send two transactions that spend the exact same bitcoins.  One transaction would be paying the merchant (which the merchant would see), and the other would send the bitcoins to a different address that you own (the merchant probably won't even see that transaction until it is confirmed). Only one of those transactions will become confirmed and added to the blockchain.  Once one of the transactions is confirmed, the other transaction will become invalid and all peers will discard it.  This is not an easy or reliable process, and it is obviously fraud (just like writing a bad check, or falsely claiming fraud on a credit card transaction).  It would be faster, easier, and more reliable for the customer to simply get up and walk out of the restaurant without paying than it is to try and successfully pull off this 0 confirmation fraud.
sr. member
Activity: 364
Merit: 250
April 23, 2014, 08:36:19 AM
#39
There are some restaurants around the world that accepts Bitcoins already, especially in South Korea  Smiley
legendary
Activity: 1330
Merit: 1000
dafar consulting
April 23, 2014, 07:57:09 AM
#38
If I owned a restaurant,

The customer would pay when they order. It will get a confirmation by the time food is ready.

Then they can leave a tip at the end of the meal.

You don't need confimations for accepting Bitcoin for food and drink.

In over three years now we had a few thousand Bitcoin payments which were all accepted once broadcasted to the net with zero confirmations and we did not have one single double spend.

I know this might change but so far don't worry about confirmations in this kind of business. Someone wanting to cheat in a restaurant is much more likely to just leave without asking for the bill than to actually try to double spend Bitcoins.

Joe

Thanks, I was a little iffy about the confirmations. Basically.. if you required even 1 confirmation you need to wait 10 minutes right? If you require 0 confirmations, the merchant gets his money instantly, right? But what is the risk? Can someone send a "fake" bitcoin and get away with it?
sr. member
Activity: 359
Merit: 250
April 23, 2014, 07:55:36 AM
#37
There's an easy solution for handling confirmation times.

You make them pay after they order.


No, that is a bad solution for something which is no problem.

At least where I live it is absolutely unusual for people to have to pay before they eat and then pay every single drink being brought to that table afterwards. That is not only absolutely un-oractical it also makes the customer very unwelcome.

I repeat: nothing is as easy as accepting Bitcoin in a restaurant. Everybody who has some device with an internet connection can literally start doing so the very second they decide to.

Want to convince some restaurant or bar owner to accept Bitcoin for your bill?

Ask the to call up www.easywallet.org in their webbrowser.
Scan the code.
Send the money.
While you start explaining the page to them briefly the money turns up in front of their eyes.

Experiencing that ease of use and speed will convince most people to look into Bitcoin a bit deeper.

Joe



full member
Activity: 122
Merit: 100
April 23, 2014, 07:54:56 AM
#36
Quote
There is no point in pricing your goods and services in XBT as people want to be able to compare the prices in EUR / USD and also you are required by law to have your pricing in the legal tender of the jurisdiction you are in.

I pretty much assume, he meant additional to the local currency price.
Which is, like i said, something like you should do in a digital way except printing new card daily/weekly ...whatever.
sr. member
Activity: 359
Merit: 250
April 23, 2014, 07:47:30 AM
#35
You can start by giving me your menu with prices listed in BTC.

I'm not going to go through the trouble of paying with BTC only for you to receive fiat from some third party.


There is no point in pricing your goods and services in XBT as people want to be able to compare the prices in EUR / USD and also you are required by law to have your pricing in the legal tender of the jurisdiction you are in.

You can type the EUR / USD price into about every wallet and have real time price conversion.

What do you mean with "trouble of paying with BTC"?

If you had ever made a Bitcoin payment you would know that there is no trouble. It is simply scanning a QR and then clicking "send".

Joe

full member
Activity: 122
Merit: 100
April 22, 2014, 01:15:19 PM
#34
I have been involved i a project, a long time ago, where they wanted to have digital menu cards on Tablet Computers.
As i said, a long time ago, where the market wasn't ready for stuff like this.
The Tablets too expensive, too heavy and bulky and so on...

Now with an ordinary, slim 7" 99$ WiFi connected Android-Tablet you could display your Menucard like a "local" Website,
with realtime BTC prices. And for example, if every unit is adressed to a Tablenumber, also show the bill including the option to pay with BTC as it shows a QR.
legendary
Activity: 3066
Merit: 1147
The revolution will be monetized!
April 22, 2014, 12:57:30 PM
#33
So how do u handle 0 confirmation tx's
The places I have eaten never wait for confirmation. It does require some trust on their part, but so does a check or even a cash. The cash may be found to be counterfeit later on. It is worth trusting in these cases because faking it would be a bigger hassle than just paying the bill.
member
Activity: 100
Merit: 10
April 22, 2014, 12:54:02 PM
#32
There's an easy solution for handling confirmation times.

You make them pay after they order.
By the time their food is ready, there'll already be 1 confirmation and 2 or 3 when they leave.
If something happen you can just ask them to pay again, and their wallet will also show that the transaction failed if things do happen.
full member
Activity: 392
Merit: 116
Worlds Simplest Cryptocurrency Wallet
April 22, 2014, 11:52:46 AM
#31
You can start by giving me your menu with prices listed in BTC.

I'm not going to go through the trouble of paying with BTC only for you to receive fiat from some third party.

And no, I'll not send the payment from your device so don't even try it...
newbie
Activity: 6
Merit: 0
April 22, 2014, 11:31:46 AM
#30
Good ideas here.
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