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> Imagine if every time that I went to a store and paid a dollar for a pack of gum I also had to pay a fee associated. I agree that Bitcoin is unlikely to find

> Imagine if every time that I went to a store and paid a dollar for a pack of gum I also had to pay a fee associated. I agree that Bitcoin is unlikely to find utility as a usable currency, but this point rings extremely hollow, since buying a pack of gum with a credit card incurs a flat inquiry fee as well as a percentage of the sale, as does giving your friend $20. ATM transactions usually have fees associated as well. I agree with most of your other points, but there's a pretty wide gulf between trading beef for ipods and the maximal cash utility of cryptocurrencies, and there's space for a more transactional crypto with more reasonable fees and processing times to disrupt the 2.5% + $0.30 credit card industry.

Nursie 9y ago
>> since buying a pack of gum with a credit card I think the poster is talking about BTC as a currency there, not a payment method. When talking about it as a payment method, sure there are fees and processing times. But when just handing your friend $20, or buying gum with cash, not so much. Over here in Europe, FYI, most ATM transactions don't have fees (if you use one run by a bank anyway), and sending money to your friend by direct bank transfer is also free.
- bmelton 9y ago
  A fair point, and worthwhile clarification. Thank you.
- joncrocks 9y ago
  It's important to note that while you may not see a ATM fee, there is one inherent to running the network and machine. Typically the owner of the machine will charge the bank/network for the transaction. In the same way, when you transfer your money to your friend 'for free' using a direct bank transfer, it might be free to the user at the point of use, but it's being paid for somewhere, indirectly. When I pay for $20 of groceries with a credit/debit card, someone is paying a transaction fee somewhere. You don't see that as the end-user, although you may be aware of it. In a similar vein, consider that cash costs money to design, print, enforce anti-forgery, replace over time etc. All costs that have to be borne by the system that should be considered if you're going to compare 'giving your mate $20' vs. 'giving your mate some BTC'.
  - prepend 9y ago
    I think the issue may be that while a grocery store certainly has a payment processing fee to receive $20, they have fees on top of BitCoin. So BitCoin adds to these fees. And the existing fee is very small, between .25-5% for cash/cc while BitCoin is much higher. There are no fees for me to pay my friend. I don’t know if you remember the olden days when PayPal was mainly for paying your friend $20. It was slow and cost a lot so not very cool. There would be fees just to send your friend money. This was bad. While “giving your mate some BTC” is possible, the amount lost to fees is pretty lame.

Nursie 9y ago

>> since buying a pack of gum with a credit card I think the poster is talking about BTC as a currency there, not a payment method. When talking about it as a payment method, sure there are fees and processing times. But when just handing your friend $20, or buying gum with cash, not so much. Over here in Europe, FYI, most ATM transactions don't have fees (if you use one run by a bank anyway), and sending money to your friend by direct bank transfer is also free.

bmelton 9y ago
A fair point, and worthwhile clarification. Thank you.
joncrocks 9y ago
It's important to note that while you may not see a ATM fee, there is one inherent to running the network and machine. Typically the owner of the machine will charge the bank/network for the transaction. In the same way, when you transfer your money to your friend 'for free' using a direct bank transfer, it might be free to the user at the point of use, but it's being paid for somewhere, indirectly. When I pay for $20 of groceries with a credit/debit card, someone is paying a transaction fee somewhere. You don't see that as the end-user, although you may be aware of it. In a similar vein, consider that cash costs money to design, print, enforce anti-forgery, replace over time etc. All costs that have to be borne by the system that should be considered if you're going to compare 'giving your mate $20' vs. 'giving your mate some BTC'.
- prepend 9y ago
  I think the issue may be that while a grocery store certainly has a payment processing fee to receive $20, they have fees on top of BitCoin. So BitCoin adds to these fees. And the existing fee is very small, between .25-5% for cash/cc while BitCoin is much higher. There are no fees for me to pay my friend. I don’t know if you remember the olden days when PayPal was mainly for paying your friend $20. It was slow and cost a lot so not very cool. There would be fees just to send your friend money. This was bad. While “giving your mate some BTC” is possible, the amount lost to fees is pretty lame.