Topic: How can the consumer save money? - page 2. (Read 2985 times)

Those discounts are promotions. They are for publicity and to get people to use bitcoin on the sites. They are not permanent discounts which come about from accepting bitcoin. The merchant will save about 3% from card fees but the customer will pay that to buy the btc.

I just want to see a solution for this problem. I know it wouldn't exist if we were all using bitcoin but to get there we need to remove volatility and to remove volatility we need to more adoption. Catch 22.

I am not saying that bitcoin wont have any value. It will be a store of value like gold is. It will be better to hold bitcoin over fiat for the future because of inflation.

International transfers, some black market stuff and a store of value seems to be where BTC will be in the future. It wont be very common unless there are real incentives. And right now no one has provided any. So BTC is Gold 2.0 and not a common currency.

Well, Bitcoin needs to go mobile and it needs to dominate in mobile ASAP. Transactions under $100 should be instant (no confirmation needed) and we need more places to pay.

I highly doubt someone is going to attempt a double spend to buy dinner or a new pair of shoes at retail, and the easy way around this is to simply

1) Ask for ID when you pay like a CC

2) Just take a photo/video of the person

3) Wait for 1 confirmation (10mins)

But if Bitcoin doesnt dominate in mobile, it wont have a chance going forward as people use paper currency less and less.

I recently purchased a VPN service using Bitcoin and they gave me a very nice discount that would have more than covered any costs associated with procuring the BTC.

Imagine if Amazon starts accepting Bitcoin and offers a mere 10% discount 

And how many companies will be able to make use of arbitrage before the gap is closed?

I am not a fud spreader or a troll - look at my other posts in other threads. I am just genuinely concerned about this. It would be nice to hear solutions from you guys but this is not helping. I hope this problem isn't a white elephant that kills bitcoin.

Is there any other member here who can tell me a decent reason why the average consumer will adopt bitcoin? Imagine if all the infrastructure is in place and all the merchants accept bitcoin - why then will the consumer adopt it if there is no incentive?

Yes, I forgot about using arbitrage to add additional savings... wow, so many ways to save with BTC with a little know how.

lets say a laptop on dells website is $400 (expectant discount = total price $360)

easy enough
BTC-e price is 1btc=$375
laptop=0.96btc

so dell show a QR code for 0.96btc quoting that its valued at btc-e's exchange price.
customer is happy as btc-e is a valid exchange that many people sheep follow, so a customer see's it as a deal.
...
transaction is done,
...
dell then sell the 0.96btc not to btc-e, but to vircurex at their price of $420
dell receives $403

now wasn't that easy..and everyone is happy.

your never going to learn and you are continuously pushing for phase three. your obsessed with phase three. you are probably watering at the mouth of the potential profits you can make at phase three..

well i wont spoon feed you any more hints or tips. ill just leave you to cry and wait in the corner until your beloved phase three approaches. .. but it aint yet, so either think about phase 1 and 2 and be part of bitcoins growth, or go away live your life and come back at phase three.

2-5% discount  can be obtained directly with merchants or with Gyft.

More can be found within bitcoins volatility :



 And no I don't expect the average person to care much about a few % discount:

I hate to tell you, but your average consumer isn't going to go through hoops of buying things through Gyft and elsewhere just to purchase items. Most people like convenience and are willing to pay to extra 2-3% for it.

Also why would a merchant ever offer discounts of 10%+ using Bitcoin? They're losing 2-5% tops using Credit Cards, and contrary to public opinion in this forum, chargebacks only account for a tiny fraction of transactions merchants have annually, not enough to justify such a steep discount for using Bitcoin.

I'm all for Bitcoin discounts but lets be realistic about what a merchant could really offer in terms of savings.

Why do you keep ignoring the many ways I save money with BTC as a consumer? I save on average of 3-10% with BTC all the time with the methods I discussed. Consumers are just unaware of this because people like you are spreading misinformation.

Smart guy you missed the point again! Now assume ALL these merchants adopted btc and all the infrastructure was in place, again where is the incentive for the customer?? Customer don't give a dam if every shop takes btc if there is no incentive!

bitcoins are changing hands EVERYDAY

Now most of the coins in the hands of the few, if this situation does not change, the popularity that the comprehensive popularization of bitcoin it is difficult to achieve.

stable?
that means measuring the bitcoin against FIAT..
ever watched the matrix
when bitcoin is ready and you open your mind you will realise... there is no fiat price.

part of the movement is to move to a Cost of Living index.. where for instance not one mention of a fiat price is shown upfront.

imagine bitcoin was measured at 1.5 weeks of cost of living.
knowing that no matter where you lived no matter what country you came from. right now bitcoin was worth 60 hours of minimum wage labour.

yes that means whether you live in california, alaska, belgium or the UK. everyones litestyle was on an equal footing.
take for instance, heres some valid statistics right now
Alaska    C.o.L per week $7.75 minimum wage x40hours=310
Arizona    C.o.L per week$7.90 minimum wage x40hours=316
Arkansas    C.o.L per week$6.25 minimum wage x40hours=250
California    C.o.L per week$9.00 minimum wage x40hours=360

right now someone in california only has to work 42 hours to buy a bitcoin
right now someone in arkansas only has to work 60 hours to buy a bitcoin

all because people are basing bitcoin on the price right now of $378

so scrap the price out of your mind, remove any notion of FIAT..

so lets say right now EVERYONE today has to work 60 hours to get 1btc (40 hour working week x 1.5)
and based on cost of living bread is 1% of C.o.L = 150 loaves of bread per btc ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD

so in the future you wont see
bitcoin: $XXXX

yo will see:
bitcoin 1.5xxx col

that way someone in the UK can work out that IF..IF they had fiat they could convert it to btc based on their minimum wage of £6.50x60
which is a better system than converting from dollar and then to pounds.

ill prove it.
basing bitcoins price on arkansas 60 hour col ($378)
converting $378 into pound the old fashioned way=£233.46 yes bitcoin due to the dollar price is 233.46 pounds (below uk minimum wage)
so if i in the UK working 60 hours and be paid at a dollar rate. i would be screwed.

but if everyone was paid in bitcoin at a c.o.l rate
UK £6.50x60 £390 today
yes id get £390 for my bitcoin. not £233.

so the dollar pricing is preventing innovation and preventing people wanting to be paid in bitcoins for a wage. as the conversion rates places like coinbase or bitpay use to give you pounds or euros (for international employee's) means we get screwed.

so forget the dollar price.. its meaningless. innovation will move away from pricing things in fiat from bitcoin and it will be a simple c.o.l which anyone in any country can convert from based on their own native col values.

I believe that circle is actually only available to US users.

Circle does not charge these fees, it is your credit card company as a "purchase" on circle is actually a cash advance on circle in order to buy a cash like product (bitcoin).

If you were to use your bank account then you could avoid these fees.

correct, ACH/wire transfer funds to circle, its the best option.
the only people credit carding to circle are most probably the ones that wait a week for their bank statements and then cry "chargeback" to their providers. why else use a credit card.


and now to make  cafucafucafu happy.
i now declare we are in phase three.. tel all your friends we have skipped stage 2 completely and as from tomorrow these store will over 30% off
walmart
starbuck
mcdonalds
KFC
7-11
target
macy's
subway
burger king

..................
....................
.....................
oh crap sorry folks i know we spent alot of funds on advertising and talked all you average joes into buying bitcoin.. but now you have bitcoin im afraid to tell you that these merchants have not yet adopted bitcoin.... sorry our admin officer known as cafucafucafu will sort out all of your frustrations as it was his plan to skip stage 2. he will explain it all to you.

When the bitcoin price I stable, goods and products are directly priced as bitcoin. The bitcoin can be treated as investment or trading currency of daily lives spending. It is still a long way to go.

Well you certainly did make a comment about coinbase before.... now you are admitting to making up facts?


WTF do your bank fees have to do with circle! You said that circle charges 3% , now are claiming that your bank is charging it. Newsflash.... there are many different banks with different fee structures!

Perhaps you are referring about the Interchange fee that is a minimum of 2% with Visa /Mastercard?

What does that have to do with circle? This is the reason why people want to use Bitcoin and stop using credit cards. Just because you don't always see the merchant processing fees they do effect you with at minimum raising prices on goods and services you buy.

If you ACH'd the payment that would probably eliminate the fee charged by a cc.... that is what people do with coinbase and yes, if you are in the US you can ACH to circle and the banks don't charge fees.

So perhaps you should say " Damn, I hate my bank, they are charging me fees for every fucking transaction, or they hide the fees they charge me by charging the business I deal with 3-5% which makes everything I buy more expensive."

Why are you fretting about 3% anyways? Bitcoin has grown in value far more than that over the years regardless. You are missing the point if you need to constantly jump in and out of Fiat.

again your thinking of the bitcoin price by even mentioning volatility..

please clear your mind of the price completely. do not worry about the price tomorrow. the price next week or next month.. completely clear your mind of all that worry.

merchants do not actually care one bit about volatility.. as merchants if you did not realise when they type in $10 into a coinbase/bitpay API. are given a QR code, customers pay it and the merchant gets $10 in their bank account. to a merchant it does not matter if bitcoin is $1000 each or $300 each..
that is the mindset of phases 1-2.

the price my friend, is going to continue to rise and fall many times. so dont worry about volatility..

i professionally dont even look at the price. its meaningless, not due to the amount of coins i have still netting me a nice income at whatever price. but because the point of bitcoin is not about measuring bitcoin against FIAT. i personally measure bitcoin against how many loavesof bread i can buy without fiat converting.. last year 1btc got me roughly 50 loaves, now i can get atleast 200 loaves of bread.

but at this point in time we should be pushing for investment, and merchant adoption. basically increase the usability of it.

as you also keep harping on about discounts.. why mention discounts if customer cant even use bitcoin in the 7-11 in the first place.. we need to get places like walmart and 7-11 onboard first. (phase 2) before walmart/7-11 decides to offer discounts because payment processing is cheaper and they are getting free publicity from bitcoin.

the whole "user adoption" for everyday joe bloggs is not the point we are at. so be patient. have a cup of coffee and realise that bitcoin is not a fully grown up currency it is still a toddler, yes its volatile, having temper tantrums as toddlers do but its still crawling around and learning to walk. not yet ready to run.

your mindset is stuck on a very narrow vein of what bitcoins potential is, a vein pumping money around. bitcoin is far bigger, it has muscles it needs to flex and needs to show more movements of these muscles and not only the movements of money through its veins.

im not sure i can make it any clearer. but you seem to think that bitcoin is a 100metre sprint and you want to be the one running home back to your comfort zone.

bitcoin my friend is a triathlon.

I just went to circle.com and tried it myself. They charge 3% fees. Go try it yourself. What they mean is that they dont add additional fees to what the card company does. TRY IT!

I am not from the USA so I cant comment on coinbase.