Quote from: Peter R on February 15, 2014, 11:23:20 PM

Quote from: Sheldor333 on February 15, 2014, 10:54:48 PM

If we can't compete with credit cards then we'll be in trouble, at least in replacing fiat in physical shops, and I do think it is important that it happens if bitcoin is to become one coin.

I've found bitcoin to be faster than credit/debit card, and I've personally made over 50 bitcoin purchases. Anyone with bitcoins can confirm this for themselves right now by going to Gyft.com and purchasing an Amazon gift card. The BitPay receipt will say "PAID" and the gift card will be credited to your account and ready to spend nearly instantly. It is pretty slick.

If you are near Vancouver, come and test out bitcoin PoS at one of the many brick-and-mortar venues shown on coinmap!

Quote from: Sheldor333 on February 15, 2014, 10:54:48 PM

Yeah I never understood how confirmation can be so slow when bitcoin has so much mining power. I mean it simply isn't logical if that power isn't used to make transactions faster.

Transaction propagation times and acceptance by the nodes' mem-pools have nothing to do with mining power. Transactions typically propagate extremely quickly and, from my experience, faster than credit card transactions.

Transaction propagation times are independent of network difficulty, which is dynamically adjusted so that block confirmation times target 10 minutes. But we don't even want really fast block confirmation times, due to orphaning risk and other network organization problems.

buying from gyft uses 0 confirmation time? How can they afford that risk? Or does it depend on the purchase amount?

EDIT: I just read another thread and found this post "I know bitpay already does instant transactions with merchants (I'm sure there's a limit on the transaction value) and if double spending were to occur they cover the cost so merchants have nothing to worry about. I'm not 100% sure but I believe coinbase has started offering the same thing. They simply account for occasional losses in their business model. "

Well that is still not good enough in my book as you have to rely to a thrid party to make zero confirmations with no risk. That is like increasing the centralization of bitcoin.

I say not good enough because their are going to be alternate crypto-currencies that won't require this to have near instant transactions.