Topic: Would you spend BTC daily in brick and mortar stores? (Read 2855 times)

I believe the future of cryptocurrency will mirror the current situation with ecurrency in Kenya.

Most people under the age of 40 in Kenya are using mpesa. Mpesa is sent via phone between family members & friends, it is used to pay the electric bill using small console located in most households. Many employers use it to pay employees. Taxi drivers accept it. There is bill to force bus drivers & passengers to use it.

I was with my youngest wife and she asked to get a coke. I pointed out that neither one of us brought any money. She said "hakuna matata" which basically means "no problem", stopped at the next store with a mpesa sign, went in for a couple minutes, then came out with 500 shillings (about $6.25).

There are mpesa signs everywhere. About 2 for every block per main street. There are definitely more mpesa signs than ATM machines. Exchanging mpesa for fiat is quick and easy.

If you met a stranger and he had a cellphone, you just need his phone number to send him mpesa. A regular phone works with mpesa. To send bitcoins, you really need an Android, and I would guess that only about 1 in 3 young Kenyans have an Android phone.

The point being, I don't expect Bitcoin to replace fiat. Cryptos may force governments to stop inflating fiat so much though and that would be a good thing.

BTW, I do expect Bitcoin to quickly replace Mpesa in Kenya. Mpesa is centralized, so the government is able to tax it and they keep raising the rates. Kenyans need something better.

You should add "Occasionally" to your poll to make the results more accurate.

The question was 'Would you spend BTC daily in brick and mortar stores", not "Would you spend BTC daily in brick and mortar stores in an alternate universe where most fiat currencies have disappeared".


But I pay the same price regardless of what payment method I use, so the rational choice is to pay by credit card, and get:
a) an interest free loan
b) increased consumer protection
c) cash back

If (in the alternate universe) paying by BTC meant paying less, it might be worth doing. But paying by cash or debit card now doesn't mean paying less, so I don't see why it would.

You could be paid in BTC or Gold if most fiat disappear and the merchants pay huge fees to use debit and credit card systems, so you pay them indirectly when you buy

Nowhere I shop charges different fees depending on whether I use cash, debit or credit card.
So I see no reason to think that a Bitcoin payment would be cheaper than those.
I can use my debit and credit cards anywhere in the world, and being in BTC would only be useful if I was being paid in BTC. Otherwise I have to encur exchange fees to go from fiat->BTC, just as I would from fiat1->fiat2. No advantage there.

It offers you lower fees and it could work anywhere in the world with the same currency BTC

A currency that doesn't lose its value over time and a currency that is not manipulated

First of all, they would use it for online services, not restaurant (unless delivery).

No, because it offers me no benefit over the existing combination of cash, debit card and credit card.

Be sure to acknowledge sample bias when you report the results of this poll.

Hey, there is a new place in here in Madison Wisconsin that takes BTC. It's called Bandung restaurant and the food is really good. They also have a bar, and there was some crazy band playing traditional Asian instruments. Best of all the prices are low. My wife and I ate for $35. I had my weapon on, so that price is without alcoholic drinks.  But we will certainly be back!
Here is their FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/bandungindonesianrestaurant

When you pay with your android phone it isn't very complicated, it is even more simple than paying with a plastic card and you don't have to wait for any confirmation when you are paying for a beer because double spending is not that easy to do so the merchant takes the risk

You just need the right bitcoin payment methods available. Someone needs to make a card that works just like a credit/debit card, that you can just swipe through normal card readers, and will transfer BTC from your account to the merchant's account. Of course it'd have to wait for the blockchain confirmations, but if the card was widespread, there would be an implicit assumption by both sides that the confirmations would happen, and there would not be any actual need to wait for them to happen for both parties to consider the transaction concluded.

If you were rationally self-interested, you would convert your cash to bitcoin before spending.  In an uptrending market you would do it upon receipt.  In a downtrending market you would do it immediately before spend.

I have all of my wealth in bitcoin-related interests.  I keep a couple of coins on my phone at all times, for spending.


It seems obvious to me that, because I hold a substantial amount of bitcoin, therefore it is very strongly in my personal interest to use bitcoin for as many purchases as possible.  The alternative is to use fiat, which only diminishes the value of my bitcoin.  Why would any holder of bitcoin think otherwise?

  Can you expand on this a bit?  Is it just reduced value?  Or the chance the have to pay taxes?

No. A brick and mortar store are not the best way to spend my BTC

Not so much for me, anytime soon I think.  For the following reasons:

1) I have a hard time spending bitcoin on most 'normal' things I buy. To me bitcoin is much more precious than funny money fiat so I have the tendency to save the bitcoin and spend the cash.

2) Purchasing stuff online with bitcoin is very convenient for me but I haven't set up any sort of phone wallet or anything so cash would be easier for me to use for smaller purchases.

Why not? If payment with btc will be acceptable i would to use that everywhere.
I hope i future Bitcoin will be more famous and known.

I would, and I try to.

Going out to a local restaurant tonight and paying in bitcoin.

As BTC becomes more widely accepted though, in theory we should see a lot more nodes popping up... maybe even larger retail stores as well as service providers (stuff like bips and bitpay putting ones up regionally), you'd most likely get other nodes seeing the transaction a lot faster... especially if there are any good breakthroughs in ASICS (more processing power, less energy use) in the near future.