My Experience using Bitcoin for a Real Purchase

johnarb · Jul 10, 2017

It used to be many posts on a daily basis calling for a bursting of the tulip mania bubble called bitcoin.

Bitcoin movement has been relatively quiet, $2500/bitcoin +- 100 the past couple of weeks.

I decided to spend $225 worth of bitcoin on Whole Foods gift card at gyft . com to see how long it would take for the process as I know Bitcoin blockchain is slow, sometimes a block takes over an hour before it gets mined.

Apparently, it's instant, literally 1 second after I clicked send on my bitcoin wallet to the bitpay-provided address (bitpay is the payment processor for gyft, it looks like) and it cost less than .1 btc, wow, that is just crazy to anyone who's held bitcoin for a while.

Used it twice at WF process was so easy, showed the bar code to the cashier and scanned it, no drama, faster than a CC since there's no signature required. I'm down to about $20 credit left so I guess I'll be loading up soon. These prices are great!

SoesWasBetter · Jul 10, 2017

.1 bitcoin, so it cost you $250 to process .

no reason for it not to be instant, so why the amazement?

johnarb · Jul 10, 2017

SoesWasBetter said:
.1 bitcoin, so it cost you $250 to process .

no reason for it not to be instant, so why the amazement?

I think you misunderstood. I meant less than .1 bitcoin cost for $225 is insane!!! Not that it cost me $250. The exact transaction was 0.089509 bitcoin (bitcoin was higher than $2500 at the time).

I was trying to suggest it should not have been instant as other transactions I make with bitcoin (not through a bitcoin payment processor, but through a peer-to-peer market https://selly.gg/, usually waits until 2 bitcoin confirmations, which can amount to more than an hour at times). These are not common knowledge to folks outside of crypto, so apologies for the confusion. Bitpay being a big payment processor probably doesn't care and instantly approves the transaction, hence, getting instant giftcard. I imagine they want to do this for their customers as if you're shopping at Whole Foods you don't want to be staying in the store over an hour to pay. Clear?

zdreg · Jul 10, 2017

johnarb said:
I think you misunderstood. I meant less than .1 bitcoin cost for $225 is insane!!! Not that it cost me $250. The exact transaction was 0.089509 bitcoin

incredible. it says a lot about american education. $2500 x.089509 =$223.77
however, your description and circumstances of the transaction was interesting.

johnarb · Jul 10, 2017

zdreg said:
incredible. it says a lot about american education. $2500 x.089509 =$223.77
however, your description and circumstances of the transaction was interesting.

Why are we referencing "american education"? It appears I'm not clear and English is not my native language so I suppose the message is not coming across. Yes, that amount of bitcoin equals the $225 based on the exchange rate at the time and gyft doesn't charge any other fees. What was getting me so excited was the exchange rate as it's really a shock. Here we go, confusion again. I still have a burger king $10 from gyft that cost me from what I remember about .1 bitcoin. Yes, when I first got into bitcoin, I bought a burger king and a domino's pizza when bitcoin was around $95-$100. The domino's gc was easily used (online order, delivery). The burger king was not, I showed it once at the cashier in a BK restaurant and the person didn't know how to apply it, that's why I still have it. The exchange rate now is very high, I'm just trying to share that excitement, but I'm not able to convey it.

The other message is too complex for most people here. It has to do with double-spend and race conditions. When a person sends bitcoin, it gets announced on the bitcoin network, bitpay sensed it, approved the transaction, but if I was a bad actor, I could have sent the same amount to another merchant (or to a friend, or to a bitcoin address that belongs to me). At some point, only one of these transactions will be confirmed and mined and recorded on the blockchain. This is why most merchants wait until 1 or 2 confirmations. Six confirmations is the safest. Bitpay is huge, and double-spend is very easy to detect as most pending transactions are still in mempool until confirmed. If bitpay sensed a double-spend, I'm sure they have a mechanism to alert gyft, invalidate the giftcard, and when I have the cashier scan it, it will not work.

zdreg · Jul 10, 2017

johnarb said:
Why are we referencing "american education"? It appears I'm not clear and English is not my native language so I suppose the message is not coming across. Yes, that amount of bitcoin equals the $225 based on the exchange rate at the time and gyft doesn't charge any other fees. What was getting me so excited was the exchange rate as it's really a shock. Here we go, confusion again. I still have a burger king $10 from gyft that cost me from what I remember about .1 bitcoin. Yes, when I first got into bitcoin, I bought a burger king and a domino's pizza when bitcoin was around $95-$100. The domino's gc was easily used (online order, delivery). The burger king was not, I showed it once at the cashier in a BK restaurant and the person didn't know how to apply it, that's why I still have it. The exchange rate now is very high, I'm just trying to share that excitement, but I'm not able to convey it.

The other message is too complex for most people here. It has to do with double-spend and race conditions. When a person sends bitcoin, it gets announced on the bitcoin network, bitpay sensed it, approved the transaction, but if I was a bad actor, I could have sent the same amount to another merchant (or to a friend, or to a bitcoin address that belongs to me). At some point, only one of these transactions will be confirmed and mined and recorded on the blockchain. This is why most merchants wait until 1 or 2 confirmations. Six confirmations is the safest. Bitpay is huge, and double-spend is very easy to detect as most pending transactions are still in mempool until confirmed. If bitpay sensed a double-spend, I'm sure they have a mechanism to alert gyft, invalidate the giftcard, and when I have the cashier scan it, it will not work.

thanks for the clarification.

lindq · Jul 10, 2017

johnarb said:
Why are we referencing "american education"? It appears I'm not clear and English is not my native language so I suppose the message is not coming across. Yes, that amount of bitcoin equals the $225 based on the exchange rate at the time and gyft doesn't charge any other fees. What was getting me so excited was the exchange rate as it's really a shock. Here we go, confusion again. I still have a burger king $10 from gyft that cost me from what I remember about .1 bitcoin. Yes, when I first got into bitcoin, I bought a burger king and a domino's pizza when bitcoin was around $95-$100. The domino's gc was easily used (online order, delivery). The burger king was not, I showed it once at the cashier in a BK restaurant and the person didn't know how to apply it, that's why I still have it. The exchange rate now is very high, I'm just trying to share that excitement, but I'm not able to convey it.

The other message is too complex for most people here. It has to do with double-spend and race conditions. When a person sends bitcoin, it gets announced on the bitcoin network, bitpay sensed it, approved the transaction, but if I was a bad actor, I could have sent the same amount to another merchant (or to a friend, or to a bitcoin address that belongs to me). At some point, only one of these transactions will be confirmed and mined and recorded on the blockchain. This is why most merchants wait until 1 or 2 confirmations. Six confirmations is the safest. Bitpay is huge, and double-spend is very easy to detect as most pending transactions are still in mempool until confirmed. If bitpay sensed a double-spend, I'm sure they have a mechanism to alert gyft, invalidate the giftcard, and when I have the cashier scan it, it will not work.

Okay. And I can open my wallet and give somebody a Visa card. Whereas it took you about 1,000 words to explain your bitcoin transaction.

What am I missing here?

johnarb · Jul 10, 2017

lindq said:
Okay. And I can open my wallet and give somebody a Visa card. Whereas it took you about 1,000 words to explain your bitcoin transaction.

What am I missing here?

Nothing to see for you. Too hard to understand. Visa has complexities in the background that you don't care to know. I'm not a normal bitcoin user as I understand the background processing. Ignorance is nice and you're proud of it.

wrbtrader · Jul 12, 2017

johnarb said:
It used to be many posts on a daily basis calling for a bursting of the tulip mania bubble called bitcoin.

Bitcoin movement has been relatively quiet, $2500/bitcoin +- 100 the past couple of weeks.

I decided to spend $225 worth of bitcoin on Whole Foods gift card at gyft . com to see how long it would take for the process as I know Bitcoin blockchain is slow, sometimes a block takes over an hour before it gets mined.

Apparently, it's instant, literally 1 second after I clicked send on my bitcoin wallet to the bitpay-provided address (bitpay is the payment processor for gyft, it looks like) and it cost less than .1 btc, wow, that is just crazy to anyone who's held bitcoin for a while.

Used it twice at WF process was so easy, showed the bar code to the cashier and scanned it, no drama, faster than a CC since there's no signature required. I'm down to about $20 credit left so I guess I'll be loading up soon. These prices are great!

Looks like a difference of opinion @
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ance-among-retailers-is-low-and-getting-lower

Overnight · Jul 12, 2017

Good grief, you crypto guys are having a time of it, aren't you? Want to buy a fast-food burger and you get ageda. I bought some today (no lie, I really did) with cash, and the transaction worked fine.