Topic: We should care less about offline stores/restaurants accepting bitcoin - page 2. (Read 2797 times)

Mobile usually involves a server.  The blockchain is shared (checkout webcoin.ch)  and the wallet is on a server.  Access to the Internet to pay; yes that's an issue but the same issue exists for credit cards.  They don't do the manual credit card impressions much at stores when the access from the card reader goes down.

well, it sends and receives okay, doesn't do any mining though

Well sounds like it's not a full fledged client, that is able to fully participate in the network activity. Still, makes sense to use the lite version on the mobile phones, it's probably also the only way.
However, the rest of my points still stand.

I think we should care a lot about offline stores/restaurants accepting Bitcoin. I wouldn't call them offline though because they are connected to the Internet, the right word is physical.

Seems the OP doesn't know anything regarding the current state of mobile payments. The security concern has merit, but it's no less secure than your physical wallet. This means that as a rule don't have more coins in the digital wallet than you can afford to lose, which is a rule people should follow for their physical wallets as well.

In the future I think the security of mobile wallets will be better, but for now it's a good idea to limit the risk by smart usage. The mobile wallets and the numerous possibilities, lately shown by the Bit-Pay mobile payment system for example (which enables instantaneous transactions), are some of the most promising and important things for Bitcoin.

So to summarize, the physical stores/restaurants are very important. They will also bring credibility to Bitcoin, which is good.

have you personally tried one? i use an awesome bitcoin client on android and it doesn't use a 500mb block chain. it's perfectly fine using it's own ~16mb version.

That's right, payb.tc

Also, let me clarify about the use of bitcoin on mobile devices, the problems:
- Downloading the block chain. Now it's what, 500 megs? Do you download that with 3g and pay all charges? Also, just keeping a 500 meg file on your mobile device is not very good, they have limited memory which must also be used for other things. And in *near* future this file seems to be growing exponentially.0
- Processing power. First there is the checking of the whole block chain upon initialization of a new installation. Right now it takes hours even on a PC! imagine battery usage and time it would take on a phone! Also, even to run the client takes a lot of power, because it constantly checks transactions and blocks.
- Internet access all the time. Not everybody has free traffic on their phones, and bitcoin uses a lot. Also, not everybody is always in the coverage zone...
- How do you keep the wallet file secure on a phone? I mean, phones could even be stolen pretty easily. You would have to have another wallet on your phone, and transfer money to that in small amounts to minimize risks. Like I said, a PITA

Some of these problems could be battled with some technological advancements in the client, but only to a certain extent. I mean, the block chain size is going to be even a problem on PCs soon, and nobody really has any solution yet.
And none of the advancements have been implemented yet, not sure even if somebody works on them, let alone the mobile client problems.

Waiting for 1 confirmation is safe enough for the real world. If you're caught double spending, there's no way to pass it off as an accident, mistake or anything but premediated fraud, and it's so hard to pull off it's less risky to just shoplift. And aside from that you got MtGox codes and the Instawallet green address.


Modern (as in a few weeks old and newer) Bitcoin offline merchant solutions adjust prices automatically. There are people working on this - see bit-pay.com

As for cash, I hate coins. If people were decent enough to include sales tax in the price of the product and make all the prices end in multiples of .25 (even .49 and .99 are acceptable) it would be different, but most stores don't do that. That's reason enough to use Bitcoin for me.

no, i'm trying to eat my lunch without my bank balance dropping in value by way of reserve bank theft (quantitative easing).

the more people use bitcoin offline, and the less people use government money, the better.

no, he has this the right way around. he's saying we should care less, because we currently care too much.

he's saying "please lower your level of caring about offline stores".

The expression is "we shouldn't care less". As in we already care as little as possible and hence should not be able to care even less. I don't know why people get this backwards.

As for your post, well, Bitcoin can and will be used wherever people want to use it.
I don't see any reason to limit it. With the right mobile front end it can work just as well as online. Why not? It sounds totally workable to me. Your idea of what Bitcoin is meant to be is just, well,  limited when it need not be.

While it is maybe "feels cool" when an offline restaurant chain, or a gas station or some other store starts accepting bitcoins, I think we should not forget that bitcoin is an *online* currency. I even think of it as "liberty reserve, but much better".

Basically, there are these reasons:
1. Bitcoin is not meant to be used offline, in stores, not even so much on mobile devices (which would work, but not as good as on PCs). It *is* however, a great and unique online currency, with some great qualities, like speed, low transaction fees, anonymity (sort of). This is what it should be used as. And instead of putting our time on trying to make it something it's not, and trying to get offline retailers to use it, we should spend more time on promoting it online, where it is at its best. Are there any stores that use Liberty Reserve offline? No, because it wasn't meant for that!

2. Using bitcoin in offline locations is very problematic technically. If you go to buy lunch, they don't want to wait for 10 minutes until your transaction confirms. They don't either want to check the market price all the time and adjust their prices, which, as opposed to online shops can be printed on papers and boards. Do you reprint them all the time then?
Most of "normal" shops don't have secure enough setups anyway, and wallet stealings and such things would be a great problem if you could pay by bitcoin in every restaurant.
The only thing we will achieve by accepting bitcoins offline is people starting to believe that bitcoin is slow, unsecure and plain pain in the ass. Which it is, when used offline!

3. There is no inherent *reason* to use bitcoin offline. Are you trying to achieve anonymity when paying for your lunch? Pay with cash, much easier. Transaction fees? Pay with cash. Or maybe are you trying to eat lunch in a restaurant that's on the other side of the globe? Well then you've got bigger problems
So while by promoting bitcoin online we are actually making the world better and simpler, by promoting it in offline stores, we are just doing so because "bitcoin is cool".

So I say, stick to online businesses, and put all the effort into promoting it there! Like discounts for bitcoin payments, bitcoins for charity, and such and such!