Could paying with bitcoin soon be a common thing for purchasers?
In news out this morning, it was revealed that Square won a patent for a cryptocurrency payment network.
The news release can be found here:
The patent says that Square now has a payment network that would better allow for merchants to accept payments in any currency they wish, which includes cryptocurrency.
Some specifics:
The US Patent and Trademark Office approved Square's application to create a system that would allow for merchants to accept cryptocurrency alongside any other form of payment they choose.
They would be able to receive the payment in any currency of their choice if they do not want to hold cryptocurrency due to volatility.
Which seemed to be one of the biggest hurdles preventing wider adoption, well that and the speed of transactions.
Some of the wording from the patent:
"The disclosed technology addresses the need in the art for a payment service capable of accepting a greater diversity of currencies…including virtual currencies including cryptocurrencies (bitcoin, ether, etc.)…than a traditional payment system in a transaction between a customer and a merchant, and specifically for a payment service to solve or ameliorate problems germane to transactions with such currencies. Specifically, the payment service described herein can facilitate real-time (or substantially real-time) transactions, allowing a customer to pay in any currency of their choice, while the merchant can receive payment in a currency of their choice.”
(Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/squares-cash-app-adds-option-buy-and-sell-bitcoin/)
Why is this significant?
Square would not be the first to convert cryptocurrency into fiat for merchants, Bitpay has been doing something similar for some time now.
However, Square has a much greater market penetration and significantly more resources to get their system widely adopted.
Also, they plan on eliminating transaction latency.
Meaning, they plan on removing the biggest or second biggest issue merchants have with using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a payment option.
How are they going to do that might ask?
This is from the release:
"The payment service will accomplish this by maintaining a private blockchain that records transactions from Square-managed wallets in real-time, allowing the POS system to identify the changed balances before the transactions are written to the public blockchain. According to the patent, this does not completely eliminate the risk of double spend attacks, but it transfers that risk from the merchant to the payment service."
That is YUGE!
It looks like most, or all, of the risk would be transferred back to the payment processing company, which is very similar to how credit cards function.
No worry about volatility and no worry about transaction speed?!
Yes please!
Something like that could really catch on if it were marketed and pushed by Square.
Greater adoption could well be on its way.
Stay informed my friends.
Image Source:
https://news.bitcoin.com/coinbase-flexible-merchants-pricing/
Follow me: @jrcornel
very good start i believe that after some year bitcoin will be adopted every where and there will be regulation for it
That is the hope of many on here.
probably.
I hope some other coin will replace bitcoin before that happens.
I am no expert so maybe this is a stupid thing to say but I would prefer a different coin with less of a transaction fee (not sure if this is possible).
If it's not bitcoin, though the transaction fees can come down with updated tech, I hope it is steem. Otherwise I am going to need to be diversifying a bit.
If you decide to diversify, look into EOS and bitshares.
I personaly have high hopes for those 2, though I am just an amateur when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
Ah, so you are a Dan Larimer believer? He's developed some very good projects.
Dan larimer believer? In my head that guy is a modern day rockstar.
I try to keep up with everything he does, but he is way to smart for me, since there are a lot of things I dont really get, but ofcourse that is on me.
I do get where he is going (not how is going there), and every time he talks about one of his projects I feel like how I felt when I first heard about cryptocurrencies and steemit (very excited and can't wait to learn more about it).
He is a single man who can change the world with his revolutionary ideas.
I wish he would still be active on steemit so I could exchange opinions with him, but I think that is too much to ask since he got a lot on his plate with all of his projects.
I am also a fan of EOS and BTS and am currently playing one of the first games running on the EOS blockchain (EOS knights), this is a simple game where you kill goblins and sell the loot for EOS in your wallet.
you can use this EOS you earned from the loot to buy better gear and make EOS even faster, it is very adicting and loads of fun (although there are some improvements that need to be made in the near future).
Given the chance I would build him his own church and start a cult following.
I doubt it.Btc has enormous marketing..no one is close.
It's called a network effect
Precisely, that's what I believe will end up happening. Just use a Crypto that is user friendly and scale to begin with. No need for a any middle man unless converting back into fiat. Facebook, Square, Signal, Venmo, Twitter need to all have native Crypto wallets integrations built right into the account. They could just easily make a partnership with a multi-currency wallet. Some of these universal wallets have stable tokens right inside. You can have a DEX that instantly converts to stable USD coin for nearly free. Merchant can make a decision wether or not to make a bank withdraw or leave some in Crypto to pay employees. You can even do percent's. Merchant can choose how much Stable coin or Crypto they want. Example, 20% BTC, 20% ETH, 10% Dash, 50% Stablecoin.
Wow you put a lot of thought into it.
I think a pegged currency could be the answer because they are always same price with little to no fees (0.01% most of the time)
Yes, I believe that is already starting to happen. I am sure Coinbase will add something like Stable Coin Maker Dai direct USD pair in future. It's decentralized, so you can prove the reserves are there unlike Theter. Just having the ability to buy a decentralized Stable Coin to bet in predictions markets like Augur would be a game changer. Stable coins are going to gigantic in use. I think the biggest coin by market cap will be a stable coin built on top of public blockchain. Two very important projects are the Dai and a project Circle is doing for stable coin.
It would make trading a lot easier if they did that, sounds great.
I'll have to check DAI and project Circle out soon.
Funny you mention tether, I dont know why but I just have no faith in tether, It smells fishy but I dont know why.
Tether requires trust that the dollars are actually there. Other decentralized coins like Dai requires 0 trust like Bitcoin since you can mathematically prove the collateral.
Ok that's crazy, why would people even buy tether.
I smell a boycot (or a girlcot for the SJWs among you >.<)
This is great as Square and its products focus on small and medium sized businesses that make up a big percentage of the amount of payments made on a daily basis which could truly impact adoption by offering the option. As they continue to develop the ecosystem for Crypto payments, it will be interesting to see if their cash app is good enough to get more people buying cryptocurrencies to use at merchants or not. Many wallets and front end crypto applications continue to be challenging from a security and setup perspective which has made adoption a challenge.
Correct. Having that risk passed on the payment processing company is a very big deal. Almost makes it a no-brainer for merchants to accept crypto now. Very little risk in doing so.
Wow! Very exciting. Could this be the cause of the recent bull? Following.
I don't think it is, but I think it will help further the bullish narrative. Especially if Square builds it and then also if merchants start using it.
REALLY NICE, I NEED THAT
Good news for us. The steady growth in the crypto space is exactly what we need.
Slow and steady often wins the race.
it would be really nice to go to a shop and buy my stuff with bitcoin, although I suspect when this does come to pass will line up with further developments in Lightning (both for dealing with transaction fees and confirmation times)
Yes I could see that as well. Though it sounds like this payment company won't even need better technology.
It would be perfect solution if it would support CryptoNight coins that already have shorter times between adding a transaction to memory pool and getting that transaction added to new block.
I work for crypto payment processing company that plans to get rid of target time between blocks and let it fluctuate freely based on number of transactions not yet added to a block. This also means difficulty target also becomes meaningless and ASIC resistant algorithms become pointless as there is no benefit for using more hashing power than required to mine a block using mining pool.
Solo mining would not work with such system for long as the system would eventually run out of transactions in memory pool and that would cause the daemon to reject all new blocks until there is more transactions to add.
Interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Any good news is great news right now. After taking a hammering across the board it's good to see a few positive moves coming down the line.
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I hear you on that!
Thanks @jrcornel for sharing this. This really could be "Yuge". Look forward to seeing how this all pans out for Square. Potentially very exciting :)
It's gonna be so great. It's gonna be so big. It's gonna be YUGE!
This is going to be a game changer at the Renaissance fair! Seriously though this is exactly the sort of news we need to see about bitcoin. Maybe Visa will follow suit?
Perhaps. They don't like bitcoin but they like making money even more. Better to embrace the future than fight it.
I don't think Visa gives a shit what currency you use as long as they get their cut of every transaction.
Nicely put.
@jrcornel I am not surprised to know that because I am sure this is not far in few years you will see this a real truth.
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Hi Dude,
thanks for your post. I ❤️ adoption news!
Let's hope Squares patent will have success.
🍀 🍀 🍀
Upvote and Resteem 4 U!
Best wishes
@rich.art.deluxe
I'm pretty new to how all of this works, but isn't one of the main strengths of Steem the fast transactions? Could Square or other companies choose to enable payments with Steem too at some point?
Sure, and there would be less risk for them as things settle much faster. Steem needs a major marketing campaign and it needs it yesterday. No one really knows what it can do.
Yeah, it seems a lot more stable than some of the others.
This is a step towards the obsolescence of merchant processors. As they try to survive in the bitcoinizing environment by such innovations, they contribute to the transition to Bitcoin model economics, which at a point will circumvent traditional middle men/rentier business. That's how I'm welcoming this news.
That is a good point. Perhaps they see that coming as well. In their view they make some money while they can before the crypto technology is there.
That's quite possibly the case. Either way, transforming their business model is only a medium term solution. They will have to develop a new product and change their business fundamentally.
@jrcornel, you are interesting to read!
Excellent news, for the handling of the international market, according to the organizations that already handle the cryptocurrencies.
That's gonna be huge if it gets accepted everywhere but still the transaction speed is a thing to worry about
Do people really want to pay with crypto currency? It makes sense in underdevelopment countries or when you can't use fiat like in venezuela because of hyperinflation. But if you live in a developed country and bought bitcoin as a digital store of wealth, why spend the money and not keep it invested when price over long term only goes up? That's the problem of deflation, people don't want to spend anymore. I think for bitcoin to really break trough as a payment system fiat needs to fail hard.
People won't want to spend crypto until it is as easy as using dollars, or easier. Which may not be for some time yet. Massive inflation in major currencies will probably help speed that along.
Yes.
Also, depends on what you mean by 'genaral', ; Asia, Europe, Africa, or earth, Mars, Globally or Universe.