> Transactions don't scale: they're are expensive, and not instant
blockchain has limited scalability, second layer doesn't. also blockchain transactions were never supposed to be instant. in fact nothing is instant, check this thing called physics.
> practically no ways to spend Bitcoins in the physical world
there are plenty
> electricity costs of mining are not sustainable by mankind
bitcoin is not even a blip in total world energy spending and less than that in total world energy production.
also if you check the dictionary for word sustainable:
> able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.
miners are profitable at current difficulty at current price of bitcoin. if price goes down - less efficient miners will go out of business and difficulty will decrease until balance is achieved.
First of all, perhaps you want to use proper capitalization in your posts. It adds to the readability of your post.
> blockchain has limited scalability, second layer doesn't. also blockchain transactions were never supposed to be instant.
Of course it wasn't supposed to be instant. That's why its a shit system to use as currency just like gold bars are a shit currency cause one has to drag them from the mine to the bank to the store. This Bitcoin thing was meant to be a currency, right?
I guess you're talking about Lightning Network though which Bitcoin evangelists appear to market as the Second Coming of Christ. Well, it isn't active yet, and it isn't part of Bitcoin ie. it isn't "Bitcoin". So... I was right.
> there are plenty
Not really. Many have been removed lately. There were Bitcoin debit cards. Well, they got revoked. Steam? Doesn't accept Bitcoins anymore due to high transaction costs. And those are just a few examples.
> in fact nothing is instant, check this thing called physics.
That's odd. I just put money on my debit card from my bank and it took like a minute. And I consider that slow! If I buy something from a store, which I did today, its instant enough that I can put my bank card in my wallet and move on. That's why I call it instant. The fact it isn't instant, is true, but it is nowhere near the latency of Bitcoin. And Bitcoin's latency is nowhere near my bank to debit card transaction. My statements regarding slow (and expensive) transactions were true.
> bitcoin is not even a blip in total world energy spending and less than that in total world energy production.
Yes, when it consumes more energy than my entire country, it is. Plus, when it is thin air we're discussing, it is.
> also if you check the dictionary for word sustainable:
How about you look up the word in your dictionary, called environment?
> bitcoin is sustainable by design.
Circulus in probando.
Wake me up when I can pay BTC at the same places where I can pay with EUR. I'll even do a concession! Wake me up when a United States resident can pay BTC at the same places they can pay with USD.
Transaction speed is a function of timestamping mechanism of the consensus protocol. If that’s the only measure you decide whether the currency is shit - fair, don’t use it.
FWIW cross-bank transfers aren’t instant too, shall I give you my credentials so you could promptly dispense of all the worthless shit money you have?
Lightning network is active on mainnet, not sure what exactly batted that information from reaching you.
Revokation of debit cards had nothing to do with bitcoin and there are plenty of companies that still offer them.
That some merchants choose to drop support because low value transactions aren’t economical is unfortunate but also temporary.
> when it consumes more energy than my entire country, it is
Nope, still not a blip. So yourself a favor and spend more than 5 seconds to inform yourself on the topic.
> How about you look up the word in your dictionary, called environment?
You’re conflating energy use with energy source, nobody is burning oil to mine bitcoins - those guys are out of business.
> wake me up when
That explains everything - instead of informing yourself on the topic you just went to sleep. Bitcoin debit cards mostly cover those requirements btw.
> If that’s the only measure you decide whether the currency is shit - fair, don’t use it.
Reductio ad absurdum. I mentioned several reasons.
> Lightning network is active on mainnet, not sure what exactly batted that information from reaching you.
Why are Bitcoin transactions still slow?
> Revokation of debit cards had nothing to do with bitcoin and there are plenty of companies that still offer them.
Of course it is related to Bitcoin. Please link 5 of these currently valid Bitcoin debit card products. If they're so rampantly available, surely you can link 5 easily?
> That some merchants choose to drop support because low value transactions aren’t economical is unfortunate but also temporary.
Yeah, life is temporary as well rolleyes. This is a non-argument. You cannot tell when the problem is solved, and its a severe issue for adoption of Bitcoin.
> Nope, still not a blip. So yourself a favor and spend more than 5 seconds to inform yourself on the topic.
Yet, it is, and I can't be bothered to spend time to reply to the rest of your ad hominem.
> You’re conflating energy use with energy source, nobody is burning oil to mine bitcoins - those guys are out of business.
I didn't mention oil (ever heard of Co2?). I mentioned that power source has impact on the environment because that is reality 101. If I have 100 buckets of sustainable water, and I piss in 90 of them, then the rest of the world only got 10 buckets of sustainable water left for general consumption. Which is a loss of sustainable energy. So using unnecessarily vast amounts of energy is a loss for the environment. Of course this isn't in the interest of miners or Bitcoin evangelist like yourself.
> That explains everything
That explains nothing, its just one of your ad hominem fallacies which tells the reader something about you, not me.
Dear reader, please don't fall for the Bitcoin scam. Read the above link instead, and notice the parallels with the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency mania. Specifically, the parallel with ICO and early adopters of cryptocurrencies.
"Of course it wasn't supposed to be instant. That's why its a shit system to use as currency"
no you didn't.
> Why are Bitcoin transactions still slow?
that blanket statement is false and again illustrates how little you know about bitcoin. bitcoin transactions confirm within 10 minutes provided adequate fees. the lower fee you choose to pay the more you will have to wait until confirmation. speed is function of fees.
if you intended to ask "why aren't all transactions on lightning and therefore instant?" then it's because lightning is still in very early stages and is only starting to get adoption.
> Of course it is related to Bitcoin
it was related to one visa card issuer (wavecrest) that decided to discontinue support without any explanation. debit card providers that didn't rely on wavecrest are doing fine (and those that did - are moving to new issuers).
quick google shows a whole bunch: cryptopay.me, bitpay, spectrocoin, xapo, www.shiftpayments.com. there's 5 for you.
> Yeah, life is temporary as well rolleyes. This is a non-argument. You cannot tell when the problem is solved, and its a severe issue for adoption of Bitcoin.
this is possibly a non argument for you as a person who knows very little about the space.
everybody is aware that issue exists and makes a lot of low value transactions on chain economically not viable, that is exactly why lightning was developed.
> I can't be bothered to spend time to reply to the rest of your ad hominem.
you sure can't be bothered to educate yourself on the topic. as it seems you're from netherlands, your country's total energy consumption in 2012 was 82 Mtoe, total world energy consumption was 9000 Mtoe and world energy production was 13300 Mtoe. as i said - not even a blip, just find some courage to admit you were wrong. alternatively you could of course start arguing that 0.9% is totally a blip, in which case i'm at least happy to leave you better informed.
> If I have 100 buckets of sustainable water, and I piss in 90 of them, then the rest of the world only got 10 buckets of sustainable water left for general consumption
it's called a free market. if it is economically viable for mining companies to spend energy at their location for the price at that location - not much you can do about it.
> So using unnecessarily vast amounts of energy is a loss for the environment
it's only unnecessary by your definition and understanding of bitcoin.
> Dear reader, please don't fall for the Bitcoin scam. Read the above link instead, and notice the parallels with the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency mania. Specifically, the parallel with ICO and early adopters of cryptocurrencies.
yeah, i totally agree about most altcoins and ICOs. the rest is just you being angry and extrapolating more than you should.
Yes, I did, see the various posts I made. Posts you supposedly read, and responded to. You even addressed the multiple premises yourself! You're even addressing various of them in this very post!
> if you intended to ask
That wasn't my intention to ask, it is precisely what I asked. Read it back. Your answer to slow transaction premise was: "this is the solution to the problem" so I say "but it isn't available" to which you say "well it isn't widely available yet" rolleyes. How about you start being practical for a change?
> quick google shows a whole bunch: cryptopay.me, bitpay, spectrocoin, xapo, www.shiftpayments.com. there's 5 for you.
BitPay was on hold, doesn't inspire confidence. Plus:
"Sorry about that! The BitPay Card is not available for order in your area yet. We're working to bring it to more countries soon. If you’d like, we can notify you when it becomes available in your area."
"Why We're Updating the Minimum BitPay Payment Amount to $100
22 DECEMBER 2017 PRODUCT
UPDATE, 12/23/17: We continue to monitor bitcoin network conditions, but we have re-enabled BitPay merchant invoices and BitPay card bitcoin-to-dollar loads for $5 or above. BitPay Card orders are also once again available."
Sounds like "working as intended"..
I checked Xapo as well, seems like its a virtual card only.
> everybody is aware that issue exists [...]
Ah, that one. Well, that's odd, I just asked my 5 year old about it and she had no idea what I was talking about.
Wake me up when you can do small transactions. It is kinda important being able to perform small transactions with a currency. You know, I can go to the store right now and auth with a PIN and here's what that costs me: 0,00 EUR. I can even auth with a NFC card, if I enabled that and am OK with that and all.
> it's called a free market
Red herring.
> if it is economically viable for mining companies to spend energy at their location for the price at that location - not much you can do about it.
Yeah, there is: not supporting cryptocurrency where mining is lucrative or not supporting cryptocurrency. You can opt to not support cryptocurrency by simply not joining the MLM/pyramid scheme. Actually, if you got savings, you're probably better off investing in safe stocks such as AAPL (~48% profit last year) or GOOGL (~36% profit last year). The likelihood of these two companies going belly up is very low. You can also spread further, or in multiple markets.
> it's only unnecessary by your definition and understanding of bitcoin.
My definition of the irrelevance of Bitcoin as well as.
> Your answer to slow transaction premise was: "this is the solution to the problem" so I say "but it isn't available" to which you say "well it isn't widely available yet" rolleyes
TIL a solution that doesn't yet have enough adoption is totally not a solution. go FUD somewhere else dude.
> more debit card FUD
you asked for 5 examples, i gave you 5 examples. go FUD somewhere else.
> I just asked my 5 year old about it and she had no idea what I was talking about.
yep, sounds like you're out of arguments. as i said - you should educate and stop embarrassing yourself.
> Wake me up when you can do small transactions
you should have woke up a while ago and started informing yourself on the subject before pretending to be an expert
World-wide? Can you state 10 of these tech hubs where Bitcoin is widespread?
I haven't seen any place in Amsterdam Area (where I live, throughout Europe considered a tech hub) accepting Bitcoin. When I was in Berlin, saw zero Bitcoin as well. C-Base didn't accept it either. They did accept this currency called EUR, though.
Bitcoin's slow transaction speed wouldn't be an issue for something like dentist/doctor. Those have your PII including your SSN (or well, the Dutch equiv here), and you got physical contact with them. The payment here even goes via insurance company. Have never heard of any Dutch insurance company accepting Bitcoin though.
You haven't looked very hard, than. This is a "black swan" thing, by the way. So here's why you are entirely wrong:
* thuisbezorgd.nl accepts Bitcoin. Has done that for years. You can order from any snackbar, febo, pizza-joint, sushi-bar and pay with Bitcoin. Literally thousands of places in Amsterdam.
* mollie.com has offered a bitcoin-payment option for all their merchants to enable for years. Many webshops in the netherlands have enabled this (I use at least three on a monthly basis) who will then accept bitcoin.
* At least two lodging/guesthouses in Amsterdam accept BTC to sleep there.
* At least 8 coffee-shops (the ones selling actual coffee) and restaurants accept it.
* A cinema (Filmhuis Cavia), a barber, a grocery-shop, a vegan restaurant, a lawyer (Plasman) and probaly many more.
So, there you are: you were wrong: You can spend your BTC just fine in the fysical world. Even in the city you live in.
Oh I did look very hard. Thuisbezorgd.nl supports Bitcoin, that's not specific to Amsterdam Area though since it is nation-wide, and its a middleman not a local shop. So it isn't an argument for Amsterdam Area being a techhub for Bitcoin. Thuisbezorgd supporting Bitcoin payment is probably the flagship of Bitcoin support in The Netherlands and a solid example because it is basically the Dutch version of Uber Eats, and has a very strong market penetration in that field. Kudos for bringing it up.
Mollie, OTOH, is just a niche.
Now, let us discuss the amount of Thuisbezorgd transactions paid by means of Bitcoin. Paraphrasing their own words: "far less than 1%, and it hasn't increased over time" [1] (Nov 2017). They also convert the Bitcoin to EUR right away. That tells us something about the adoption of Bitcoin in the general public when your best example is this one. The elephant in the room is that paying with Bitcoin isn't feasible in this example due to the high transaction costs, and slow transaction speed.
Apart from Thuisbezorgd all of these examples are just that, exceptions and niches. They don't paint a Bitcoin paradise where one can spend their Bitcoins. If I take public transport, I gotta pay with EUR. If I pay for my OV Chipkaart (NFC) then I gotta put the money on the card via... EUR. There's no alternative to that. If I then go to IKEA and buy a bank, I gotta pay with EUR. If I then ask PostNL to deliver it, I gotta pay with, you guessed it, EUR. And if we'd go for a quickie at my fav fast food restaurant, Maoz, well they don't accept Bitcoins either.
Thuisbezorgd supports it (though I have no idea on the effect on delivery time, and transaction costs must be very high relative to the food. For one pizza that wouldn't be feasible) the rest is practically irrelevant.
Take this for example:
> At least two lodging/guesthouses in Amsterdam accept BTC to sleep there.
Two, woah! Blimey the free market provides us two options! Which ones? Wake me up when its market penetration is above 50%. Same can be said about your 8 (!!!) coffee-shops/restaurants. Look, it is a given that with so many stores (thousands) in such a small area, a few shops are going to adopt it. There were also shops who committed to the tulip mania back in the days, there are people in Amsterdam who work in MLM scheme, there are criminals as well, there's illegal prostitution, and there's Scientologists as well. That doesn't mean its a tech hub who adopted Bitcoin, doesn't mean the entire city is criminal, doesn't mean the entire city is full with illegal prostitution, nor that the entire city believes in Xenu.
A Bitcoin techhub or paradise would be a place where you can live your daily life by means of merely Bitcoins. We're not even remotely close to that in Amsterdam. I don't think it will ever happen. Although its in the interest of the Bitcoin facade to believe that, yes, Bitcoin can be easily used in the real world right now because you want to be able to cash out when the bubble busts (or right before that) your options are in practice severely limited. You cannot even remotely compare it to a strong currency like USD or EUR. Fuck me man, 8 cafetaria/restaurants to pick from in Amsterdam is seen as a techhub? A Pyrrhic victory, that's what that is.
> You can spend your BTC just fine in the fysical world.
Only at a very miniscule amount of stores. I wouldn't call this Amsterdam place "a techhub who adopted Bitcoin."
> Two, woah! Blimey the free market provides us two options!
You said there were "no options to pay in the phisical world".
I proved you wrong, because there are. Just one option would have proved you wrong, yet in reality there are far more than one. In Amsterdam alone.
And so your arguments start to move. Now it suddenly needs "a large adoption" and not a "niche" (mollie, btw is one of the largest, if not the largest PSP in the netherlands). And they shift from "no-where where I can pay" to "you can pay, but very few people actually do so".
You could also just admit that you were wrong because you were not aware that there is an actual community out there, even in your hometown, who accepts Bitcoin, pays with it and as such makes it an actual payment system. You could admit that you were not aware of this, but that now you are, you know that Bitcoin is used; just not in the way you envision it, or not by the people and companies that you would like to.
Also note that many people (I'm not aware that you did this!) mention that bitcoin is both a failure because no-one ever pays with it, yet also mention that it is a failure because the confirmation times are high and fees are growing; which is a direct effect of too much people using it.
> You said there were "no options to pay in the phisical world".
No, I said I didn't notice them in the physical world (and I still haven't, fwiw). Never seen any physical store say "we accept Bitcoin", never. I was clearly talking about my anecdata which is still, from my perspective, valid.
That has a different meaning than what you make out of it. I never wrote about the online world. You gave as example Thuisbezorgd; that's not the physical world. That's not a brick & mortar store. They're a virtual middleman service.
I avoid them btw, because I can get cheaper deals by cutting them out as middleman and giving a higher tip to the hard working delivery boy instead.
> (mollie, btw is one of the largest, if not the largest PSP in the netherlands)
Really, never heard of. I guess iDEAL and PayPal just went out of business. Good luck competing with iDEAL, btw.
> You could also just admit that you were wrong because you were not aware that there is an actual community out there, even in your hometown, who accepts Bitcoin, pays with it and as such makes it an actual payment system.
The existence of something doesn't describe its state or, in this case, adoption level. The adoption level (or market penetration) is very important in the subject of payment systems, but you prefer to ignore it and spout red herrings like this instead to pursue your character assasination agenda.
> You could admit that you were not aware of this, but that now you are, you know that Bitcoin is used; just not in the way you envision it, or not by the people and companies that you would like to.
I was aware Thuisbezorgd accepted Bitcoin. I was also aware that it wasn't being used much, as I quoted. That article was no news to me. The question whether its used or not is important in the discussion as put forth above. Is it used a lot? No, not really (far less than 1%). The question about transaction costs/time was also still up in the air. I guess you don't know the answer to that either.
> Also note that many people (I'm not aware that you did this!) mention that bitcoin is both a failure because no-one ever pays with it, yet also mention that it is a failure because the confirmation times are high and fees are growing; which is a direct effect of too much people using it.
My orig. point was it doesn't scale.
As for what you wrote here the fact transactions happen doesn't mean people are paying with Bitcoins in the physical world. It might as well be a bunch of astroturfers (the way Reddit came to existence), or a bunch of people buying drugs (the way Silkroad ran). You don't know.
But we do have a statement like the one from Thuisbezorgd.
Now I'd like to see a statement from a serious computer manufacturer like Apple or reseller like Media Markt or Bol.com stating they accept Bitcoin (all I read is businesses like Steam quitting accepting Bitcoin as payment method instead). Things like that are a sign of widespread adoption. What isn't a sign of widespread adoption: 8 bloody restaurants/pubs in the capital city (!!) accepting Bitcoin. That's a sign of a tiny, irrelevant niche.
PS: Oh, and with regards to the bubble, we didn't discuss Tether.
They do the iDeal, Sofort, Creditcards, Bitcoin And so on, for some of the largest ecommerce platforms in the netherlands, as well as the majority of the small ecommerce shops. They are a PSP, which is very much a middleman, which is why you may not have heard of them.
Albert Heyn, Deliveroo, Douwe Egberts are just a few of the larger Dutch brands that use Mollie.
Note that not evey merchant using mollie will have Bitcoin enabled, I'm not sure if e.g. ah.nl has the bitcoin option enabled, but I haven't checked them either.
I'm leavin this discussion here. You come across as someone who has some axe to grind with Bitcoin. Which makes you appear angry, frustrated and shifty. There are places where you can spend your bitcoin. In Amsterdam. A lot. I've spent mine in some. There are places where you can spent your Bitcoin in my hometown, I've spent them there. I've seen stickers on doors, in both Amsterdam and Arnhem (And Barcelona, Berlin, Antwerp, Ghent). My wife and I were selling her stuff on several markets in Amsterdam (and festivals such as Lowlands), my wife has a "bitcoin accepted here" sign. You may not have seen it, but it was there. I know, because I was there. And you know what? People buy stuff with bitcoin from her. Very few, true, but they do.
But as soon as I point this out, it suddenly does not count as places to spend your bitcoin in the physical world because you haven't seen them yourselves, or because you decide that the volume processed there is too low. I'm out.
> They do the iDeal, Sofort, Creditcards, Bitcoin And so on, for some of the largest ecommerce platforms in the netherlands, as well as the majority of the small ecommerce shops. They are a PSP, which is very much a middleman, which is why you may not have heard of them.
Their entry on Wikipedia got deleted. That's how relevant they are. They're a BV with <= 50 people. MKB.
iDEAL/Currence is a PSP as well.
How important has Bitcoin been for Mollie? Do you have any data on the absolute or relative amount of Bitcoin transactions?
> Note that not evey merchant using mollie will have Bitcoin enabled, I'm not sure if e.g. ah.nl has the bitcoin option enabled, but I haven't checked them either.
??? Hello? Have you ever ordered on ah.nl??? I order there practically every week. You pay either in store if you pick it up, or you gotta pay by PIN if they deliver. You CANNOT pay online. Do you get that? They got barely time to deliver the groceries in your house. Do you think they'd be cool to wait till the Bitcoin transaction was finalised? Who are you kidding?!?!?!
> You come across as someone who has some axe to grind with Bitcoin.
Of course I do, its akin to MLM. I already burned my hands on that. Why would I want other people to get burned by scammers?
> or because you decide that the volume processed there is too low
You never refuted the volume being important premise. You had the opportunity to do this in your previous 2 posts but you neglected that by coming up with more niche examples which simply don't prove the existence of a Bitcoin techhub as you put forth in your earlier post. I know there are niche examples, and I know you're well aware of them. Here, have a cookie. What I'm interested in is figuring out how important Bitcoin is for the Amsterdam Area. From what I can tell by the data I have we have:
* Adoption (market penetration). Terrible. Only a few niche cases.
* Volume. Terrible. One data point from Thuisbezorgd, one data point from yourself.
And this isn't rocket science its reflected by the lack of large online stores accepting Bitcoin. Its reflected by the high transaction fees, and slow transaction speed. You say that's a sign of Bitcoin being used for legit transactions in the physical world. Where's the proof for that? Nothing we observe points to that. Might as well be bots to ensure people cannot and do not cash out their Bitcoins. All you've proven is that there are quite some niches which reluctantly accept Bitcoin, and very few data on volume. The rest is all red herring & ad hominem.
It has not.
* Transactions don't scale: they're are expensive, and not instant.
* There are practically no ways to spend Bitcoins in the physical world.
* The electricity costs of mining are not sustainable by mankind. Although some people in China want you to believe otherwise.