Quote from: toknormal on February 15, 2014, 01:30:10 PM

Quote from: AnonyMint on February 15, 2014, 11:42:44 AM

That is not necessarily true. If the network propagation delay and validation time can be guaranteed to be fast enough, the block time can be lowered to what ever value the values allow for

The blockchain's unsuitability for point-of-sale is not under debate. It is not a POS system. It's bank.

Why do you think the cryptocurrency exchanges don't do realtime blockchain transactions for their trades ? It's not just a question of speed (although no exchange would ever be able to work with trades which ran at 'blockchain' speed) it's a question of functionality.

Day to day trades and transactions need to happen one step removed from the banking system - whether it's fiat or crypto - and then be 'committed' to the associated bank accounts / blockchain accounts once completed. There is no blockchin transaction speed or functionality that could ever match what payment processors provide and even if it did, the way that the blockchain operates is far too inflexible for use at point of sale. It's great as a 'bank' but point of sale operations are simply not the same animal as bank transfers.

There are so many examples which spring to mind if you've ever worked in a retail operation. Here's another one of the top of my head - a hardware retailer takes an order from a known customer with an account. The order needs to be modified because some items weren't in stock and some were. The retailer calls the customer to see if they would accept a substitute product with a minimal price difference. The customer agrees but wants the retailer to complete the order, reverse the old and charge the new amount to their account.

So now the **retailer** has to do the charging. This type of stuff goes on ALL THE TIME in retailing and can only done using accounts (ok, it may be a cryptocurrency account but its not going to be a blockchain transaction because the retailer would then need access to the customer's blockchain address and could run off with coins untraceably).

There are millions of examples like this that demonstrate that blockchain will never get anywhere near retailing without payment processors. That isn't a bad thing - it's a good thing - I'm just saying, we should be realistic in our expectations of how cryptocurrencies will develop and who needs to be convinced abut their viability as a store of value. Payment processors are pivotal in this whole game.

Without them, cryptos are going nowhere.

Why can't the retailer send a real-time message to the customer with the bill to be paid and the customer clicks a button on their smartphone to pay it if the wallet is on the phone?

The new technologies change the ball game.

Quote from: franky1 on February 15, 2014, 06:31:21 PM

the retailers currently use bitpay/coinbase. where you send coins to an address a retailer gives you, which bitpay/coinbase gave them..

in the near future what will happen is that you will put a pocketmoney amount into a bitpay/coinbase account and simply tell the cashier to debit your account for the total. this way the coins are verified (as they have been preconfirmed when u deposited) and is faster then the cashier getting a QR code, printing it, showing it to you and then you fiddling around with your phone to pay them.

this will be done simply by a nfc in your phone coded to you bitpay/coinbase account.

now imagine the speed of your bitcoins paying for your groceries..fully confirmed and no need to press a single button on your phone

Depositing money with third parties either means we need accounts at many third parties, or we need one third party to become dominant, so we are right back to VISA monopoly again.

Rather seems to me we only need better integration of wallets and the web browser for online commerce and as you say NFC for physical retail.

We lower the block period to under a minute (for a better designed altcoin) as I explained in my upthread posts.