...Pie Hole. There. I said it without chuckling over the irony that I lost my bitcoin "virginity" at a place called "Pie Hole".

After spending hours researching the different mobile apps with their wallet/exchange features (for which I still need to create a research portfolio), we decided to go experience firsthand what it's like to actually spend cryptocurrency in a brick and mortar business.

"So how was your first time?!"
Honey, it was awkward, messy, and not very good -- but I remember walking down the street afterwards, hands jittering, thinking, I need to do that again!

A Hot Mess

As I stated in my first post, Pie Hole is the only real day-to-day place that accepts cryptocurrency payments in downtown Salt Lake City. Sure, there are surrounding marketing and law firms that accept it (of which there are 3). But Pie Hole is the only restaurant. And luckily for me, I was off work and starving for a good piece of pizza.

In preparation of this test, I exchanged some Steem for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) on Blocktrades. I decided on BCH because of the faster confirmation times and lower transaction fees. I didn't know which coins Pie Hole would accept, but I thought that if they didn't have BCH then I would just exchange it for BTC, LTC, DASH, or whatever options they use. But here was my first mistake: I sent my new BCH to my bitcoin.com wallet. I did it without thinking, which was totally my fault. But this decision is the genesis of my horrible experience from then onwards.

The moment I "lost" it

I walk into Pie Hole with my business partners/friends waiting for me. I told them I had my bitcoin cash ready to use, so we went up to the counter to order some pizza (again, I was starving). I look down and see they have glued two silver painted, credit-card sized, metal plates with the name of the cryptocurrency, the QR code, and the public address etched onto each of them. Pretty cool!

Turns out Pie Hole uses Bitcoin and Litecoin. My Bitcoin Cash was useless.
(side note: Pie Hole started accepting bitcoin maybe 5 years ago. I moved here 4 years ago and they were using it then.)

So we re-grouped, I launched my bitcoin.com wallet app on my iPhone, and ventured to the Send button. I have 10 wallets installed on my iPhone right now to test which ones would be best for a business to use. And so, I decided to send my BCH to my Jaxx wallet, then use the integrated ShapeShift to exchange it for Litecoin. I did not want to use bitcoin and pay the high transaction fees.

After loading up Jaxx and copying my BCH address, I switch back over to the bitcoin.com wallet and paste the address in the recipient field. Then I swiped the Send slider. And then I waited.

And waited.

And waited...

And just like my Hogwarts letter, it never came.

WTF!?! What just happened???

BCH from bitcoin.com wallet to Jaxx wallet

The moment I lost "it"

I waited a minute. 5 minutes. 10 minutes.

After 20 minutes, I still hadn't received the bch in my Jaxx wallet. What was going on?! I could see the transaction sent and was confirmed on the blockchain. But why didn't I receive it?

At first I thougt, maybe bitcoin.com wallets only allow for transfer of BCH between bitcoin.com wallets but BTC transfers can go to any wallet. This is certainly the case with other apps with alt coins that aren't fully supported but uses smart contracts to keep of "how much" bitcoin you set aside for an altcoin, but withdrawal and sending is only available on the core coin. However, if that were the case, it shouldn't have let me send it to any address. It would've given me an address non-compatibility error.

The only thing I could think of, was that I did not add "bitcoincash: " before the public address. Or maybe the address I pasted was a legacy address and not the new BCH format, so it thought I was sending it to a bitcoin account. I'm not sure. I'll be asking the Reddit community for understanding on this issue, but if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the comments below!

Anyway, after this embarrassing kerfuffle, I decided to use ShapeShift within the bitcoin.com app to exchange my BCH to BTC. Even though I hated the thought of higher confirm times and tx fees, I still needed to experience what it would be like for an average cryptocurrency user to buy pizza in real life. So, I exchanged the BCH for $20 worth of BTC and then waited.

I knew this process would take longer because it first had to be received/confirmed on the BCH blockchain (correct me if I'm wrong), and then ShapeShift would have to create another transaction from their BTC reserves to send to my bitcoin.com wallet address. And that transaction would need to be sent and confirmed before I got it.

Turns out the whole exchange process took exactly 40 minutes. By this time, we had completed our business discussion and left the restaurant because we had other things to do. I was half a block away when I got the notification that my BTC wallet received the exchange. I told the guys and Chris and I went back to test it out.

BCH to ShapeShift to BTC wallet

Lessons Learned

As stated at the beginning of this reminiscence of a voyeur, Pie Hole has metal plates with etched public addresses for BTC and LTC. So, with my freshly minted bitcoin in hand, I scanned the QR code for BTC and sent $6.50. However, I must note, that during this process I got the same error when trying to send BCH: "Cannot recognize currency". This doesn't mean that bitcoin.com won't send it to the address -- it will, as my Jaxx kerfuffle case-in-point -- but my assumption is that the bitcoin.com wallet is search for the "b****: " prefix in order to distinguish between the two chains and/or legacy addresses.

So, in conclusion, what should have been a minute process turned into an hour because of my ignorance of 1) the coins used at the Pie Hole and 2) how to properly send coins from the bitcoin.com wallet. But like I said, even though "my first time" was a disaster, I can't wait to do it again!

You could say... that I'm experienced now ;)

Ben is a self-proclaimed techie and avid blockchain promoter who has a serious Napoleon complex. Which is probably why he blogs.

Leave your comments and questions below... and I might get to them... if you give my troll under the bridge some crypto wink wink

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