4 ms·

>seconds At PoS systems in the US, it's typical to have to wait 30+ seconds for chip cards to go through. I'm guessing that this has more to do with the PoS sy

>seconds At PoS systems in the US, it's typical to have to wait 30+ seconds for chip cards to go through. I'm guessing that this has more to do with the PoS system / slow internet connection for the store / slow network on the back-end card network, but cryptocurrencies would need to be sub-minute to be ~acceptable for in-person retail transactions. Until that is solved, until cryptocoins are more than speculative securities where the value is only the current market price on a handful of exchanges, and until you can use them to realistically buy and sell things instead of using cash or a credit card, I don't consider them a "real" currency (by my own definition). I DO hope that it gets there some day, but I don't see that happening for at least another 5 years, likely with quite a few people who put a significant amount of money into it getting burned quite badly.

bootlooped 9y ago
I have absolutely never had to wait 30+ seconds for a credit card transaction that used the chip, so I don't agree with your assessment of that amount of time being typical. Generally, for me, I think it takes about 3-5 seconds from the time I confirm the dollar amount to the time the confirmation comes back.
dlubarov 9y ago
30s isn't really typical; the average is in the ballpark of 10s. When I worked at Square we got our average down to 4.2s [1]. Modern Verifone terminals seem pretty quick as well. Long term, "instant" contactless will probably become the norm (though it's taking hold very slowly in the US). [1] https://squareup.com/townsquare/weve-chipped-away-at-emv-transaction-speed-and-were-not-done https://squareup.com/townsquare/weve-chipped-away-at-emv-tra...
deleted 9y ago
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coolspot 9y ago
Such time is possible if terminal is using dial up and establishes connection only when transaction started. Seen it couple times.
grey-area 9y ago
Sure, this varies. If your POS system uses dialup, it can take tens of seconds, if it uses wifi it will be just a few seconds. If it uses contactless it can be sub-second. But in principle it can be as fast as the network and one trusted node. The fundamental problem with bitcoin is that it is decentralised and trustless, and those two properties preclude fast transactions at a global scale - for that you need a federated system with trust between nodes. If you remove those properties, you're no longer using anything resembling bitcoin, and why not use a system with proper validated parties in the first place?
prepend 9y ago
But even with BitCoin you can submit the transaction and see it unconfirmed on multiple nodes within 5-30s. It may not be confirmed for hours, but it’s certaibly actionable and trustworthy enough for merchants. The bigger problem is having full blocks forever so it never gets processed.

bootlooped 9y ago

I have absolutely never had to wait 30+ seconds for a credit card transaction that used the chip, so I don't agree with your assessment of that amount of time being typical. Generally, for me, I think it takes about 3-5 seconds from the time I confirm the dollar amount to the time the confirmation comes back.

dlubarov 9y ago

30s isn't really typical; the average is in the ballpark of 10s. When I worked at Square we got our average down to 4.2s [1]. Modern Verifone terminals seem pretty quick as well. Long term, "instant" contactless will probably become the norm (though it's taking hold very slowly in the US). [1] https://squareup.com/townsquare/weve-chipped-away-at-emv-transaction-speed-and-were-not-done https://squareup.com/townsquare/weve-chipped-away-at-emv-tra...

deleted 9y ago

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coolspot 9y ago

Such time is possible if terminal is using dial up and establishes connection only when transaction started. Seen it couple times.

grey-area 9y ago

Sure, this varies. If your POS system uses dialup, it can take tens of seconds, if it uses wifi it will be just a few seconds. If it uses contactless it can be sub-second. But in principle it can be as fast as the network and one trusted node. The fundamental problem with bitcoin is that it is decentralised and trustless, and those two properties preclude fast transactions at a global scale - for that you need a federated system with trust between nodes. If you remove those properties, you're no longer using anything resembling bitcoin, and why not use a system with proper validated parties in the first place?

prepend 9y ago

But even with BitCoin you can submit the transaction and see it unconfirmed on multiple nodes within 5-30s. It may not be confirmed for hours, but it’s certaibly actionable and trustworthy enough for merchants. The bigger problem is having full blocks forever so it never gets processed.