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If you live in a tech hub there are plenty of restaurants etc that will take crypto. There are dentists and doctors that take it now.

Fnoord 9y ago
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.
- berkes 9y ago
  > I haven't seen any place in Amsterdam Area 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.
  - Fnoord 9y ago
    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." [1] https://www.ad.nl/economie/thuisbezorgd-nl-is-voorzichtig-met-bitcoins-en-loopt-miljoenen-mis~a9b9b20c/ https://www.ad.nl/economie/thuisbezorgd-nl-is-voorzichtig-me...
    - berkes 9y ago
      > 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.
      - Fnoord 9y ago
        > 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.
  - keymone 9y ago
    his definition of success for bitcoin seems to be only if it supersedes USD in usage.

Fnoord 9y ago

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.

berkes 9y ago
> I haven't seen any place in Amsterdam Area 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.
- Fnoord 9y ago
  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." [1] https://www.ad.nl/economie/thuisbezorgd-nl-is-voorzichtig-met-bitcoins-en-loopt-miljoenen-mis~a9b9b20c/ https://www.ad.nl/economie/thuisbezorgd-nl-is-voorzichtig-me...
  - berkes 9y ago
    > 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.
    - Fnoord 9y ago
      > 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.
- keymone 9y ago
  his definition of success for bitcoin seems to be only if it supersedes USD in usage.