The only thing with the above is whilst credit cards may take that long to confirm I think the CC companies guarantee the transaction don't they?
Fuck, no! If only that were true.. No, credit cards are a frigging disaster for merchants and shops. Even up to 6 months after a transaction, it can be charged back and the merchant or shop owner
always loses the money.
So in effect when you're paying for your coffee, as far as you're concerned the transaction is immediate.
Nope. When paying with credit card, the only thing "immediate" is the CC company saying "we just processed a payment, you'll probably end up receiving the money within a few days, but we can't tell for sure it won't be reversed until 6 months from now".
Where as if paying with BTC the company selling the coffee would have to bear the cost of an unconfirmed transaction going bad (just an example with the coffee of course).
Nope. This cost is effectively ZERO. Seriously, try it. Try and pay for a cup of coffee with Bitcoin, and then make the transaction "go bad".
If this was even remotely feasible to pull off (and I'm not talking some crazy theoretical scenario, but an actual real life situation, e.g. involving cups of coffee) nobody would be accepting Bitcoin, especially not in shops or other zero-confirmation situations. But guess what - they all are. And since the beginning of Bitcoin, this has resulted in exactly zero problems.
Like they'd see the transaction quite quickly but it might not do a single confirmation for sometime after.
Maybe this clarifies things:
Transaction time (the time it takes to process a payment)
Bitcoin: 1-2 sec
Credit card: 3-5 sec
Money arrival time (the time at which the merchant actually receives the money and can spend it)
Bitcoin: 1-2 sec
Credit card: several business days
Confirmation time (the time at which the merchant can be sure the payment won't be reversed)
Bitcoin: 10 minutes
Credit card: 6+ months
So, what was the problem with Bitcoin, again?